November 19, 2016
“The demons are scared of you. They’re running away from you.”
Doom Composer Mick Gordon: A Chat About Dissonance, Making Music Responsive, and How Doom 2016 Ended Up Getting a Metal Soundtrack. [PC Gamer] “Back when Bethesda and id Software were making announcements about the recently rebooted Doom [wiki], one of the hints that it might end up decent was confirmation that Mick Gordon was onboard to compose the soundtrack [YouTube]. His work on Wolfenstein: The New Order and Killer Instinct is cherished among those games’ playerbases, and the intensity of both owe a lot to his anarchic (but still impressively subtle, when it needs to be) approach to getting visuals and music swinging to the same beat. Based in Australia, Gordon’s been around for a while. He’s worked on two Need For Speed games, as well as Shift 2 Unleashed and ShootMania Storm, to name a few examples. Currently he’s working with Arkane Studios on its Prey reboot, which—as he relates below—will mark a departure from his recent, foot-to-the-floor audio rampages.” [Previously.]
The Art of The Colonel's Bequest
Today I present to you time-lapses of background art from a Sierra On-Line classic The Colonel's Bequest. Until the VGA era Sierra stored background art for their games in a vector format, which allows for it to be displayed step by step to essentially see how it was created by the artists. Please enjoy this gorgeous, dark, and detailed art set to the beautiful MT-32 music from the game.
The Little Gray Wolf Will Come
Inside the world of the greatest living animator and the masterpiece he knows he may never finish
Cinephiles of Moscow, your evening’s entertainment: Yuri Norstein, 74, white-bearded, small, stout, urbane, rumpled, and mischievous. Sitting in front of a pale gold curtain, with a bump on his nose the size of a pistachio shell. Considered by many to be a great, if tragically self-defeating, Russian artist. Considered by many to be the finest animator in the world.
Plane? I don't need no stinking Plane!
While there are many aces of the air enshrined in history, perhapps the oddest aerial victory came when 2d Lt. Owen Baggett shot down a Japanese Zero fighter with a pistol, while hanging from a parachute in mid air.
Who Will Command the Robot Armies?
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Surprise Motherfucker is a catchphrase associated with James Doakes (played by Erik King), a recurring character from the Showtime television drama series Dexter. Celebrated for its overly confrontational attitude, image macros of Doakes featuring the phrase have been since used on imageboards and forums in response to someone else’s comment.
Watch as Darius Benson pushes the envelope of the meme: Surprise motherfucker. [more inside]
Watch as Darius Benson pushes the envelope of the meme: Surprise motherfucker. [more inside]
The Lost Sky
On Friday, singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop released the lead single and video from her upcoming LP Memories Are Now: The Lost Sky [more inside]
The Art of Recording
Soundbreaking is an 8-part documentary series about the art of producing records, featuring both legendary and lesser-known producers like Quincy Jones, Linda Perry, Don Was, RZA, Brian Eno, Questlove, and of course George Martin. [more inside]
Sharon Jones, May 4, 1956 to November 18, 2016
Sharon Jones, the Grammy-nominated soul and funk singer With Dap-Kings, died following her "heroic battle against pancreatic cancer" at the age of 60.
Jones recorded six albums with the Dap-Kings, but it was her exhilarating live shows, which functioned as equal parts Baptist church revival, Saturday night juke joint and raucous 1970s Las Vegas revue, that showcased the singer's unparalleled energy. In venues filled with people half her age, Jones was the most dynamic person in the room, bolting onstage and commanding the crowd like her idol James Brown. It was homage without mimicry; respecting the soul and funk elders that defined the genres while displaying seemingly boundless vitality.Sharon Jones, previously. [more inside]
"The first thing that came to my mind was Psycho"
Australian luthier Stephen Gilchrist explains how he went about restoring Gibson F5 Mandolin #70281, the first such Gibson instrument to be signed by Lloyd Loar on June 1, 1922. [more inside]
Looking presidential
Amsterdam-based Turkish designer Guney Soykan charts the faces of world leaders. "He decided to bring together a visual record of the people chosen to run their countries – however democratically – over the past 50 years, creating a sort of time-lapse composite photo of one face made up of slivers of all the former leaders. The results vary, from the tiny splinters of men in Turkey's tumultuous political atmosphere to the creepy continuity of North Korea". (via)
US State Abbrevs.
A Gary Gulman comedy routine [YT] recommended by Patton Oswalt [FB] touches on the history of US state abbreviations [PDF], first defined in 1831 [Int. Arch.], occasionally [ibid.] revised [PDF], and finally reduced to two letters each soon after the introduction of Zone Improvement Plan codes [Flash/MP4].
Make it so, Number One.
NASA's long awaited paper, Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum, has passed peer review and been published in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)’s Journal of Propulsion and Power. The takeaway? They consistently measured 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt of thrust in a vacuum with no apparent reaction mass. Several potential sources of error were considered and examined. If the results are replicated and not the result of error our current understanding of physics would be shattered. [more inside]
The Deep Could Hide Monsters, But They Were Made By Man
Unfathomable: Sunken treasure, death-defying adventure, sibling rivalry: How Charles and John Deane Invented modern deep-sea diving and saved the British Empire [more inside]
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