skip to main content
December 31, 2011
Behold the gAtari 2600. An Australian musician performing under the pseudonym cTrix specializes in creating chiptunes using a combination of games consoles from 1977 - 1992, including a Commodore 64, Amiga 500, a clear-cased Gameboy, and an Atari 2600. The latter is possibly the most striking setup, incorporating the Atari (running custom-written sequencing software) into an oversized guitar body, with a fretboard packed with Boss stompboxes and a great pun as a name — gAtari.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:50 PM PST - 40 comments
16-bit color schemes, in a classic retro VGA interface! New soundtracks and voiceovers! No typing required!
Infamous Adventures resurrects and lovingly remakes Sierra Games from the 1980's:
Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge and
Kings Quest III. SQ2 was released yesterday after more than five years in production, and comes complete with a
cheesy trailer. Available for download for PC and Mac, but be forewarned, the game is a total memory hog, and uses up a whole meg of RAM.
posted by zarq at 9:08 PM PST - 12 comments
??? WHAT IS KUSOGE ??? From the Japanese for "shit",
kuso, and "game." They're relentlessly terrible video games that in some cases have attracted a following because of their awfulness. Here are some of the most commonly recognized examples:
[more inside]
posted by JHarris at 8:56 PM PST - 30 comments
One of the more famous suppressed films of recent years is Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, an early work by writer/director Todd Haynes (Safe, Velvet Goldmine, Far from Heaven). Filmed in 1987, the short film -- which relates the rise and fall of Karen Carpenter with a cast of Barbie dolls -- barely got a year's worth of festival time in 1989 before the twin iron boots of A&M Records and Richard Carpenter came down on Haynes.* [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 7:51 PM PST - 29 comments
Muppet Labs, where the future is being made today, is the site of scientific enquiry, technological breakthroughs, and sundry explosions on The Muppet Show. Headed by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, the lab premiered in episode 108 and lasted all five seasons. During the first season, Bunsen worked alone. Beginning in season two, the good doctor acquired an assistant-cum-guinea pig, the hapless Beaker. An annotated list of every single televised appearance of the Muppet Labs is after the fold!
[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 7:42 PM PST - 30 comments
We've all seen variations on the personal time-lapse video --
a snapshot every day for six years, or a look at
a young girl's first decade. But nobody's done it quite like
Sam Klemke. For thirty-five years the
itinerant freelance cartoonist has documented his life in short year-end reviews, a funny, weary, eccentric, and hopeful record dating all the way back to 1977. Recently optioned for
documentary treatment by the
government of Australia, you can skim Sam's opus in reverse in the striking video
"35 Years Backwards Thru Time with Sam Klemke," an ever-evolving home movie montage that grows grainier and grainier as it tracks Sam
"from a paunchy middle aged white bearded self deprecating schluby old fart, to a svelt, full haired, clean shaven, self-important but clueless 20 year old."
posted by Rhaomi at 7:05 PM PST - 7 comments
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies:
Ron Paul’s candidacy is a mirror held up in front of the face of America’s Democratic Party and its progressive wing, and the image that is reflected is an ugly one; more to the point, it’s one they do not want to see because it so violently conflicts with their desired self-perception. [more inside]
posted by troll at 5:49 PM PST - 345 comments
It's New Years Eve (or already the first day of the new year,
depending on where you are), and you may be looking for something other than the radio to play for a countdown. Head backwards, then, to
cruise into the 80s with the Grateful Dead for the
closing of Winterland. Or join
the Janglers to
say goodby to 1993 and hello to 1994 at
Peabody's Downunder. You can check out
twelve hours of Essential Mixing and relive the transition from 2000 to 2001. Get closer to the present day with
some big band and swing into 2010 in style.
Say hello to 2011 with
B.A.G.S. (Bullman, Ashworth, Guggino, Sipe), spend
an hour and a half with
Blu Mar Ten or
six and a half hours with
Mr Scruff. And if you're looking for something new for tonight, try some mixes from
Redondo,
Montreal Funk Monkeys, and
a countdown minimix from DJ Raymix.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:19 PM PST - 21 comments
Minecraft was already pretty cool (previously:
1 2 3 4 5 6). Here's something that brings it closer to the real world: "With the
Mineways program you can select from a Minecraft world map and render it, or send it to a 3D printer or 3D printing service such as
Shapeways." Examples are within the link, and here are other
real-life examples using the Mineways program. Here's something equally (if not more-so) impressive, using a somewhat different technique:
an entire Minecraft village, rendered and printed in 3D on a
Zprinter 650.
[via reddit]
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:53 PM PST - 17 comments
EU copyright on Joyce works ends at midnight. From tomorrow, January 1st 2012, writings published during Joyce’s lifetime – Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake – are available for publication and quotation without reference or payment to the James Joyce estate.
posted by Fizz at 10:52 AM PST - 77 comments
Scotch and Wry, Scotland's greatest comedy. As the rest of the world celebrates New year's Eve and bringing in 2012, there's the little matter of Hogmanay. You might think it's just a fancy scottish word for the start of a three day party (which it is), but it's a special time of year. And for those of us who watched the new year come in on TV, it's the point of year where we all miss Rikki Fulton's Scotch and Wry - a TV ritual for over twenty years that has never been equalled.
[more inside]
posted by ewan at 7:11 AM PST - 6 comments
