MetaFilter posts tagged with Digital

How much wood would a wood clock clock?

freshwater_pr0n — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:08:59 -0800

A digital clock made of wood and operated by 70 workers for one continuous 24-hour period. "Even though the workers are trying hard to construct every single minute, they are constantly on the verge of failing."

Arcangel and the future of digi/net art

0bvious — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:44:50 -0800

Corey Arcangel is perhaps the internet's most infamous hack, masher-upper, digi/net artist. His work stands for a growing culture of artists who run wildly through animated GIF landscapes populated with corrupted data-compressed bunny rabbits and tinny, MIDI renditions of Savage Garden ballads. As the Lisson Gallery, London, opens its archives to Arcangel's curatorial eye, could digi/net art be set to infect the real, fleshy world, like a rampant Conficker Worm? Has YouTube become the truest reflection of our anthropological selves? Are we destined to roam the int3erw£bs like the mythic beasts of yore, hoping, in time, that digi art can free us from the confines of this fleshy void? [...previously]

"The Plague of Free."

joetrip — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:17:38 -0800

Doug Rushkoff throws down the gauntlet in his “Radical Abundance” speech at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference. Some highlights of the speech: “The only real possible competition to Google and their economy of faux openness would be peer-to-peer exchange.” “As a result of all this freedom the abundance of genuine creative output is declining. We are actually getting the scarce market place demanded by our currency legacy system. The same way the early Renaissance got a scarcity by killing off half the people with the plague.” Some Alternatives: 1: The development of a digital culture that actually respects the labor of individuals. 2: The creation of new modes of currency based in abundance rather than scarcity.

Digital Artist's Handbook and FLOSS and Art

yegga — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:41:29 -0800

Digital Artist's Handbook and FLOSS and Art

Creative Destruction-Hollywood Division

joetrip — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:39:27 -0800

Will the future of cinema be live or remixed? "There is a level of panic in Hollywood I haven’t seen for a while." So begins USC Professor Jon Taplin, also a producer of films by Martin Scorsese. Taplin speaks about Francis Ford Coppola's recent interview where the director states that "I think the cinema is going to live off into something more related to a live performance in which the filmmaker is there, like the conductor of an opera used to be." Taplin bemoans "the dearth of imagination in Hollywood", while the comments section lights up with various prognostications.

New Medical imaging technique

vvurdsmyth — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:32:15 -0800

Digital camera sensor used to make direct digital holograms of blood cells

Cambridge in Color

archagon — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:38:06 -0800

An excellent resource on every aspect of digital photography, from sensor technology to general techniques to Photoshop tweaking. Previously mentioned here, but the site has expanded a lot since 2005.

One man's trash is another man's gold

Christ, what an asshole — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:48:03 -0800

FRONTLINE: Ghana - Digital Dumping Ground On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the biggest fallouts? Identity Theft.

Digital Transgressions

Mael Oui — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:16:46 -0800

It doesn't seem as if the digital transition has been the resounding success we were told it would be. The FCC has admitted that they're confounded by some of the problems that have arisen across the country. With frustrated tv viewers mobbing the FCC hotlines (and major metropolises like Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore amongst the largest numbers reporting ongoing problems), some have yet to experience the mind-blowing crystal clear pictures and sound promised in those ubiquitous DTV commercials. While many local stations have claimed to have completed smooth transitions, viewers continue to have problems picking up reception all over the country. From not setting up supposedly intuitive converter boxes correctly to not having sufficient antennas, many people are still left in the dark. Sure, some of these problems can be easily fixed through troubleshooting with an expert, but it's possible that some reception issues won't be easily remedied. For people who have neither the money nor the technological know-how, solutions are sometimes elusive. "For Charlene Davis, the switch to digital TV has been worse than terrible. "Hell. Hell. It's something we don't understand," the 88-year-old Davis said." The FCC hotline has extended its 24/7 services and is still running in overdrive. "I am pleased with the way our FCC team responded to the technical challenges that arose throughout the course of the day [June 12, 2009]," acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said in a statement. "But our job is far from over. This transition is not a one-day affair. We have known about re-scanning and reception issues for some time and have been doing our best to get the word out. We will continue to work with every consumer who needs assistance in making this important and necessary transition." If you're still having a problem hooking up your 'oh so easy' digital converter boxes or getting any channels (yes, even after you rescan over and over again and try multiple models of new antennas), call 1-888-CALL-FCC for troubleshooting advice. Know that you're not alone, and hopefully we'll all be enjoying our 'free' tv soon. Besides successfully hooking up the remaining televisions, a few questions remain about our digital future. 1) How will local stations perform in the digital age? and 2) Since many people (myself included) rushed out to spend big bucks to replace old sets that worked fine, will an e-waste crisis be our next concern? If you're already nostalgic for the good old days of.. five days ago.. when analog reigned supreme, here are some odes to analog: those dependable old sets (and more) and even the lovable rabbit ears that brought living history, laughter, and tears into our homes for over sixty glorious years.

Digital Killed the Radio Star

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:32:09 -0800

"This Friday, June 12, TV stations nationwide will cease broadcasting analog signals and switch to digital-only broadcasts. That’s fine with me. I have a digital television, and I have cable anyway, so it won’t affect me. At least that’s what I thought. Only recently did I realize that one of my favorite ways to enjoy television will go away. Starting Friday, I can no longer get TV on the radio."

That's no Moon. Or a McDonald's. WTF?

loquacious — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:54:31 -0800

At the mostly abandoned Moffett Field in an abandoned McDonald's, digital archeologists attempt to restore, recover and archive abandoned high resolution imagery and data from previous manned Moon missions, using an abandoned Ampex 2" tape drive found in a chicken coop - the last working machine in the world, restored by the last man alive capable of rebuilding the heads. This is likely only part of their weird story.

A Whirling Phantasmagoria

netbros — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:42:36 -0800

Elphenden — elphen things from Sergei Tretiakov, 1967-2003. In between there were big cities, isolated islands, cannabis, oceans, pain and love...

World Digital Library

djgh — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:34:13 -0800

The World Digital Library is set to open on the 21st of April, but appears to be operating as of now. Coral Cache

Digital Art / Culture / Technology

netbros — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:14:06 -0800

Vague Terrain is a web based digital arts publication that showcases the creative practice of a variety of artists, musicians and scholars. Vague Terrain 13: citySCENE is their freshly launched project on urban representation that catalogs how cartography, infrastructure and locative media shape perception in the contemporary city. An example is Joyce Walks, a Google maps mashup which remaps routes from James Joyce's Ulysses to any city in the world, generating walking maps. [via mefi projects] Previous issues of Vague Terrain include Device Art, in which artists and craftspeople create machines as artworks, Curediting, the idea of curating on the Internet within the context of a community-based narrative of everyday life, Digital Dub examining the dubbing subculture, Rise of the VJ and the growing practice of audiovisual performance as a contemporary form of media-based art, and Process, six interviews with artists that generate a discussion about the tools and techniques of contemporary creative practice.

Dude, I never made it to this screen before!

Miko — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:19:34 -0800

The niftiest thing at Coin Op World? The mp3 files of Classic Arcade Sounds. "We recorded our video game experiences from 1982 until 1988 in a variety of locations on the east coast. Most of the recordings come from Ithaca, NY, Albany, NY and Ocean City, MD. Other locations include Lancaster, PA, Falmouth, MA, Rehoboth Beach, DE and Key West, FL. Luckily I stored all fourteen audio tapes in a safe place and rediscovered them when I moved the rest of my stuff out of my parents house in 1997. In the last several years I digitized these nostalgic recordings to preserve and share them."

Though I wish he didn't call it "dreamism..."

Caduceus — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:50:42 -0800

Vitaly S Alexius, a Siberian born artist living in Canada, creates some gorgeous digital and traditional art, mostly with a sci-fi or fantasy, vaguely post-apocalyptic theme. He is also a remarkable photographer.

Wiring the Castle

Miko — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:09:16 -0800

Circuits are flipping on in the nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago, 31 "digerati" -- like Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, and George Oates -- dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference "Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age". Dan Cohen of the Center for History and New Media provides a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by watching the keynotes, paging through the Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on Twitter, listen to its podcasts, watch its YouTube channel, visit the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, Hope diamond, Negro Leagues baseball, or coelocanth.

DxOMark-Sensor: Compare DSLR's Performance Six Ways to Sunday

spock — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:07:26 -0800

Objective measurements of RAW images are an essential basis for any analysis of digital cameras, but such measurements were neither possible nor available until now. DxO Labs has developed a new scale for digital camera image quality performance, called DxOMark Sensor, to serve as an additional tool to help photographers rank and compare digital cameras. This scale is based on three underlying metrics, Color Depth, Dynamic Range and Low-Light ISO, each one tied to a real-life photographic scenario: landscape, studio & portrait, and photojournalism & sport. (This application requires Flash™ as it uses FusionCharts.) Hours of fun sorting the data by the various metrics, including $$$. Note that Canon models may require some translation: 300D = EOS Digital Rebel = Kiss Digital (Japan) 350D = EOS Digital Rebel XT = Kiss Digital N 400D = EOS Digital Rebel XTi = Kiss Digital X 450D = EOS Digital Rebel XSi = Kiss Digital X2 1000D = EOS Digital Rebel XS = Kiss Digital F You may also find some errors. I appears that they have the Pentax K10D and the K20D identifications transposed, for example.

Screen Literacy

dhruva — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:22:30 -0800

People of the Screen : "Digital literacy’s advocates increasingly speak of replacing, rather than supplementing, print literacy. What is “reading” anyway, they ask, in a multimedia world like ours? We are increasingly distractible, impatient, and convenience-obsessed—and the paper book just can’t keep up. Shouldn’t we simply acknowledge that we are becoming people of the screen, not people of the book?"

End Times?

netbros — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:11:37 -0800

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May? New York Times stock performance over the past five years.

Museum of the Moving Image

netbros — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:33:31 -0800

Moving Image Source is devoted to the history of film, television, and digital media. It features original articles by leading critics, authors, and scholars; a calendar that highlights major retrospectives, festivals, and gallery exhibitions at venues around the world; and a regularly updated guide to online research resources. Currently featured articles include Nervous About Nixon? from David Schwartz, chief curator of the museum; The People's Director, a look at Chinese filmmaker Xie Jin; and Lessons in Darkness, extreme precipices and gray areas in the films of Barbet Schroeder.

I wear a rubber at all times; it's a necessity.

hypersloth — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:12:49 -0800

Jizz in my Pants is the newest (nsfpants) SNL Digital Short from The Lonely Island, featuring Justin Timberlake (ads, sorry) and Jamie Lynn Sigler. The Lonely Island first earned attention for things like Nintendo Cartoon Hour and Bing Bong Brothers, and have gained notoriety for things like Lazy Sunday and Dick in a Box. Previously, here, here, here, here..

reality jockey

nickyskye — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:45:20 -0800

RjDj "is a music application for the iPhone. It uses sensory input to generate and control the music you are listening to. RjDj is mainly listened to with headphones. Think of it as the next generation of walkman or mp3 player." l Michael Breidenbruecker initiated the project, now joined by a team of musical and technological thinkers and coders l "What it’s really about is a new approach to how to listen to music, how to develop musical tools, and how communities own and share that work." The application is difficult to describe and on paper it sounds sort of silly (see the video below for a convincing demonstration). Using the iPhone’s built in microphone, the application listens for ambient noise which it then modifies and infuses into an automatically generated dynamic soundtrack. You can download the full version for $2.99 here, or you can try out the free version (which only has one ’scene’). How to Create Scenes (And incidentally, you can work on scenes with a laptop even if you don’t own an iPhone.) Mentioned previously here and in AskMe.

Chairman Martin Unleashed and Unlicensed

kliuless — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:34:04 -0800

FCC paves way for free use of vacant airwaves -- white space -- available in February as TV spectrum is cleared up by digital conversion. Apparently another vote for change will take place November 4. The FCC btw also recently backed a free (ad-supported) nationwide wireless broadband plan in another hunk of spectrum to be auctioned off in 2009.

This thingy is a bitch!

shockingbluamp — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:59:03 -0800

Prepping for the Digital Conversion is Harder When You're a 99-Year-Old Grandmother. (SLYT)