Happy new year! It always comes around so quickly. I can't believe it's January again, but there it is. This is the first year in a while that we haven't gone somewhere hot for this miserable month, so I'm interested to see how I cope with sleepless nights combined with what can be overwhelming Scandinavian bleakness. I'm sure all will be well, however. There's plenty to do, plenty to watch, and plenty to see. There's also plenty of baby poo to clean up. OK, enough random mutterings.
If you, like me, like the idea of smoking a cigar but have no idea what to do with one, then this is for you.
If you've not see the deep, dark fears comics yet, you should click here.
These are apparently the best face swaps of 2014. I'd agree. Bond/M is still my favourite.
Take a note from Carl Sagan
My dad says I always post about space, so this, dad, is just for you.
Watch Earth roll by through the perspective of ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst in this six-minute timelapse video from space. Combining 12 500 images taken by Alexander during his six-month Blue Dot mission on the International Space Station this Ultra High Definition video shows the best our beautiful planet has to offer.
If you're a Chrome user, check out The Next Web's 10 useful extensions for 2015. They've very good, both in a useful way and a not so useful way, like this web history analyser. I'm not going to tell you which website I've spent the most time on today, this week, this month or ever.
OK, that's it. It's the weekend and I have brunch plans!
This week went incredibly quickly and nothing really amazing happened. To me, at least. All kinds of crap happened out there in the world. Don't get me started on America and their trigger happy cops. Our baby hasn't appeared yet, which is, quite understandably I think, all that I'm waiting for right now, so while I wait, you can look at this week's selection of crap from the internet. Lots of videos this week for some reason. Watch them. Do it.
Let's revisit space to start with. Face it; you can never have enough. This is extremely beautiful, and quite thought provoking.
For more information and stills gallery, please turn to: www.erikwernquist.com/wanderers (Just in case my website runs slow, here is a link to an imgur album version of the gallery: http://imgur.com/a/Ur5dP) ----- UPDATE: I don't know what to say, except thank you! And thank you again! For this fantastic and absolutely overwhelming response to this little film. Please excuse me for not being able to reply to you all in person, but I assure you that I read every word you write, and what you say warms my heart. Making this film has been a work of passion, and it is such an invaluable reward to see that it is received with the same kind love, energy and optimism that was put into it. I know I speak for Caj, Cristian, Mikael, Hanna and everyone involved. This flood of optimism and appreciation right here will forever be a reminder to me, that the world is full of people who share hopes and dreams of a grand future for humanity - be it on this world or on others. Also; I have promised to make the video downloadable, and that will happen shortly. I just need to make a few updates to the end credits before I do that. So, please hang on. ----- Wanderers is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available. Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds - and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there. CREDITS: VISUALS - Erik Wernquist - erik@erikwernquist.com MUSIC - Cristian Sandquist - cristiansandquist@mac.com WORDS AND VOICE - Carl Sagan COLOR GRADE - Caj Müller/Beckholmen Film - caj@beckholmenfilm.se LIVE ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY - Mikael Hall/Vidiotism - mikael@vidiotism.com LIVE ACTION PERFORMANCE - Anna Nerman, Camilla Hammarström, Hanna Mellin VOCALIST - Nina Fylkegård - nina@ladystardust.se THANK YOU - Johan Persson, Calle Herdenberg, Micke Lindgren, Satrio J. Studt, Tomas Axelsson, Christian Lundqvist, Micke Lindell, Sigfrid Söderberg, Fredrik Strage, Johan Antoni, Henrik Johansson, Michael Uvnäs, Hanna Mellin THIS FILM WAS MADE WITH USE OF PHOTOS AND TEXTURES FROM: NASA/JPL, NASA/CICLOPS, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, ESA, John Van Vliet, Björn Jonsson (and many others, of which I unfortunately do not know the names)
Here's some more space. Well, typography and space. It's a great post about typography in Alien, a movie with a tagline so perfectly terrifying that it still gives me the shivers, 28 years after I first read it.
Now let's look at brains! How strange to see one like this instead of the usual grey, solidified lump we get to see. I must admit I was shocked to see it so...gloopy.
In this teaching video, Suzanne Stensaas, Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, demonstrates the properties and anatomy of an unfixed brain. WARNING: The video contains graphic images, a human brain from a recent autopsy. Background noise is unrelated to this brain or the deceased.
Where there's brains, there's zombies. This is an excellent zombie short from 2013.
Stranded in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, a man sets in motion an unlikely plan to protect his precious daughter.
Here is what London would look like if we turned off all the lights. I find this so captivating. I long to spend time where there is zero light pollution. The closest I came was this summer, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We were listening to one of the park rangers give a short lecture about the canyon, when I just happened to look up and there, in all its wonderful glory, was the Milky Way. I didn't have my camera with me, and wasn't sure how I'd go about taking a photo even if I did (pretty sure there's more to it than wide angle lens and long exposure. Or is there?), so instead I just sat open mouthed, gazing upwards at the night sky. It was magical.
In a metropolis like London light pollution makes the night sky invisible. Only a few of the brightest stars and asterisms force their celestial light through the man made glow of the city. The night sky, one of the most beautiful of natural wonders is extinguished from view. Blackout City is an experimental timelapse film that makes the invisible, visible. It attempts to show what the night sky would look like If there were ever to be a total blackout in the South East of England on a clear, moonless, summers night. I started shooting this project back in August 2013 and have been slowly gathering footage when conditions were right. Although each shot in this film is a composite, all footage is real. The city shots were captured during the day and processed to look like night and the night sky shots were captured from dark locations around the South of England to ensure that the stars are astronomically correct for the latitude of London. I have also processed the astro shots to be more sympathetic to what the naked eye would see in terms of saturation and detail. The internet is saturated with well-processed images of the Milky Way that show phenomenal colour that are the result of fantastic low light DSLR technology. Don’t get me wrong I love these images, I am one of the people who endeavours to create them! But in reality the Milky Way does not look like this; so in order to make this film more believable I have chosen to process the shots this way. I first got the idea for the film when I read an article about a blackout in LA in 1994 where people called 911 reporting these strange clouds floating in the sky, those clouds where in fact the Milky Way. It made me think about how the lights from cities have made many of us lose our connection to the night sky. We live in a fast paced man-made world whereby it is all too easy for us to become disconnected from the natural world around us, isolated from what is actually real. There are many other aspects of the human condition that this film could touch upon which could make its’ intentions appear somewhat complicated, but is essence the film's agenda could not be more simple; to inspire people to get away from the city lights, go somewhere quiet on a star-filled night and simply look up. This project is purely non-profit but I would love the opportunity take the Blackout City idea to different metropolises across the globe as each city with it's specific latitude will reveal a different sky. If anyone thinks they can help to make this happen please connect with me through the links below: To see more of my work please visit: www.nicholasbuer.com For direct enquires please mail me at: contact@nicholasbuer.com You can connect/follow me on all the usual social media sites: facebook.com/nicholasbuerphotography instagram.com/nicholasbuer twitter.com/nicholasbuer 500px.com/nicholasbuer Main track is by The American Dollar ‘As We Float’ (Ambient) Licensed at: www.theamericandollar.info/licensing For motion control I used the Stage One Dolly System by Dynamic Perception www.dynamicperception.com © Nicholas Buer 2014
OK, final space related thing this week, that new Star Wars trailer.
Wes Anderson PRESENTS JJ Abrams PRESENTS Star Wars: The Force Awakens video by: jonah feingold check out some of my shorts: http://www.jonahfeingold.com twitter: https://twitter.com/jonahfoundgold song: Françoise Hardy - Le Temps de l'Amour thanks: jeremy mittleman may the force be with you
And now for something completely different.
Made by Matthijs Vlot. www.mattatjeoorlog.nl As seen at VPRO www.cinema.nl youtube version: youtu.be/MfIWsXZRaIs www.facebook.com/ant1mat3rie www.twitter.com/yomattie
Absolutely stunning. I'm fairly certain that if everyone got to go to space and see our planet from above, there wouldn't be any war, and the environment would be far, far better off. Invest 20 minutes in this.
"The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment."
Reminds me a lot of Neil DeGrasse Tyson and his most astounding fact. Just awesome. Nothing else.
Thanks to Chris.
