RTDL2

Official: World's Most Beautiful Baby Born To Lovely Couple

2009-05-15T09:25:00.002+01:00

Well I would say that wouldn't I.

Our first child was born yesterday morning.

For almost no more detail and a sneaky preview follow the link to Emily Hope on our Baby Steps site.

Apple store in Brighton

2009-04-30T09:29:00.003+01:00

For those who love the Apple, they seem to be opening a store in Brighton.

They've been recruiting for several weeks in the press, and now boards have gone up in the mall.

As you can see from the pic.

Interestingly, the company has been mostly utilising grandiose retail outlets - this is quite a small store, though I'm sure it's sufficient to serve Brighton et al.

Nitro Circus on MTV

2009-04-14T22:17:00.004+01:00

MTV has recently started showing Nitro Circus on Sunday nights in the UK. I caught this by chance and am hooked. It's like Jackass but more focused on jumps and stunts and less on vomiting and public humiliation. The group of regulars is lead by Moto X and freestyle rider Travis Pastrana and includes other Moto racers, mountain bikers, bmx riders and base jumpers.

Each week sees a collection of insane stunts ranging from racing kids big-wheel trikes downhill to sky-diving without a parachute to loop the loop slip'n'slides through the woods to driving a trophy truck across the desert at 170mph to base jumping from Las Vegas hotels to attempting to back flip a monster truck.

It looks like the whole lot is available online at the Nitro Circus Vimeo channel. I'm currently resisting the urge to watch more online and just letting 'traditional T.V.' drip feed it to me.

To find out whether it's something you might like then check out the clip below which appears to be the whole of the first show.

Nitro Circus ep. 1 - Welcome to Pastranaland from Nitro Circus on Vimeo.

WIRED UK Edition

2009-04-11T19:04:00.003+01:00

U.S. technology magazine WIRED has recently launched a U.K. specific edition. There was a short-lived U.K. WIRED a few years back but this is a new start.
I've read and enjoyed WIRED for a good few years now and it's one of the few magazines I subscribe to. As an overseas subscriber of the U.S. edition I received an early opportunity to subscribe to the U.K. edition but decided not to until seeing the first issue and checking out the level of 'overlap'. I picked up the launch issue recently and gave it a quick scan to see how much I recognised. Straight off the bat there were two major multi page articles that I've read before as well as a couple of double page spreads and some other bits and pieces. One of the large articles was on the formula that broke the banking system and had been in the U.S. edition in the last couple of months. The other a brilliant year-old piece on a deep sea salvage team (that has since been optioned for a movie adaptation). It's a mild, though thoroughly understandable, annoyance that an amount of content will be duplicated between the two editions. If the first U.K. issue is any measure the quality and quantity of unique material is sufficient for me to continue with my overseas subscription and with the current U.K. offer of only £24 for twelve issues I am most likely to take up a U.K. sub too.

An introduction to Java

2009-04-10T15:47:00.001+01:00

I'm going to be doing an intro to Object Orientated programming and Java on a new blog, which I suspect will simply become an extension of RTDL2.

I'm hoping one or more of you will find this of interest.

Another Tech Blog

It's good to crank call Jaitu

2009-04-09T19:46:00.001+01:00

With this:

Bring on the trumpets!

Dexter

2009-04-09T19:28:00.004+01:00

Currently watching series 3 of Dexter, as we speak.

It's an amazing series (again) without much press over here. Go grab it from your favourite source asap.

However, every episode I find it slightly creepy that I find myself agreeing with some of his sentiments, especially those regarding the human condition in general - and certain qualities/ideas he has regarding solitude....

(For those not in the know, he's a serial killer)

Re: Stacks

2009-04-08T13:07:00.004+01:00

And just in case you were wondering about Bon Iver, check out this highlight 'Re: Stacks' from the recent debut album 'For Emma Forever Ago'.

If you don't love this, there's something inherently wrong with you. Inside. Wrong.

New band - Midlake

2009-04-08T13:01:00.005+01:00

I quite often come across new music that I fall in love with pretty quickly.

Bon Iver's debut last year is an example of an album that immediately propels itself into my top 5 of all time, which is no small mean feat.

However, this is a post about a beautiful album, that I discovered via some related music listings on Amazon (probably). It's not as immediately striking as Bon Iver, but they seem to have much less press over here in Blighty. Midlake is their name.

'Bandits' from the brilliantly titled album 'Trials of Van Occupanther' is what caught my ear to begin with...

Dr. Stephen Arthur Allen (euphonium) playing Napoli.

2009-03-27T22:03:00.003Z

This isn't the sort of thing I normally post, then again what is?
When I was younger (so much younger than today) I used to play brass a bit. I played bugle, cornet in a silver band and was learning to play trombone. At the time I enjoyed playing quite a lot but didn't like having to do things at prescribed times (I still don't). As a result I would enjoy band practice but never wanted to go. Ultimately I had an orthodontic brace fitted which meant I couldn't play and when it was removed I never picked up a brass instrument again.

The point of that almost pointless nostalgia is that there are other members of my family who stuck with the whole musical discipline thing. The clip below is of my Cousin Stephen. I'll be honest, I'm not someone who keeps up with my family anywhere near as well as I probably should and after my sister sent me the link to the clip I had to use Google to find out a bit more about what Steve is doing now.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)

2009-03-16T08:15:00.002Z

I should probably spend a little time posting something more consequential or at least personal on here. Or I should take the time to update BabySteps with our scan photos or a recording of the heartbeat. Or just stick a quick post on Playing.Catch-Up to bring it up to date with CoD:WaW, PoP, The Maw, Peggle, GoW2 and whatever else I played since the last post. Or put some new designs on the RTDL2 Shop and update the shop blog.
Instead though I'm just going to post a synopsis of the Star Wars trilogy as told by someone who has only seen bits and pieces of the movies.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

SCINTILLATION

2009-02-17T18:26:00.002Z

SCINTILLATION, by Xavier Chassaing, is described as "... an experimental film made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques." SCINTILLATION is a simple yet beautiful short film. I particularly like the final shots where lights seem to chase themselves around the detail of some plasterwork. it reminds me of colour cycling animation in Deluxe Paint when I used to play with the Commodore Amiga.

The music in the clip is provided by Fedaden and clearly borrows from Jacques Loussier's jazz arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Air on the G String before heading swiftly off in a more experimental direction.

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

Animal Sounds

2009-02-13T12:43:00.002Z

Here's a short animation set to an amusing little song, by "The State", that I originally ran across in an audio only form on LonelySandwich but that my net access policy at work wouldn't allow to listen to but would allow me to watch this version, with pictures, of.

WARNING: Contains one use of a bad word, that begins with 'F', towards the end.

Direct link to the clip here.

Vocoders : Electro-Harmonix Voice Box Demo

2009-02-12T18:53:00.004Z

A short video to demo the Voice Box multi-functional vocal synth processor. The main function seems to be as a vocoder or 'talk box' that takes one input, usually someones voice, and tunes it to match a second input.
WARNING: This features a very catchy tune that'll have you singing "you got someone on your side" under your breath for the rest of the day.

And I never mentioned Frampton.

Oh okay then. Probably the most famous use of a 'Talk Box' vocoder:

You Look Nice Today : The Noises Rest

2009-02-10T18:54:00.003Z

An amusing look at the role of the foley artist from You Look Nice Today.

"The Noises Rest" from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

If you find this even *remotely* funny then I highly recommend you check out the archive of podcasts from YLNT

David After Dentist

2009-02-06T23:59:00.002Z

Measurement Lab : Test Your Internet Connection

2009-02-05T08:18:00.002Z

www.measurementlab.net is described as "an open platform for researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools."
Currently three tools are available for testing your internet connection and diagnosing problems that may be affecting it.

Vehicle Wrapping

2009-02-05T07:30:00.004Z

Here's a video that's recently been posted by www.BlueLizardSigns.co.uk, Gatwick's premier sign and vehicle graphic specialist, showing them wrapping a vehicle. And I whinge if I have to wrap a birthday present

Warmth

2009-01-07T21:12:00.002Z

Last night we huddled together on the sofa under a duvet before deciding to get an early night and climbing under two duvets and a waffle blanket and basking in the cold glow of the bedroom telly.
Waking this morning the thermastat read ten degrees in the house. I tried to re-fire the boiler but, as I had already known, it failed.
I left work a little earlier than normal in order to get home with a few minutes of daylight to work in. Expecting to have to climb a ladder and thaw the external pipe a somewhat hopeful ignition attempt of the boiler was thankfully met with unexpected success. The heating has been on for five hours now and the temperature in the house has just reached a balmy eighteen degrees. I'm leaving the heating on all night tonight in the hope that come the morning we will still have hot water.

The Boiler Says NO.

2009-01-06T17:58:00.003Z

As the alarm went off at damn-it's-early o'clock this morning my pregnant wife got up and I stretched out across the bed to enjoy my twenty minutes of morning comfort while she showered. Moments later she called to me that there was no hot water. Even as I walked, bleary-eyed, to the boiler cupboard my senses were telling me it was colder than normal in the house. The recent cold snap has caused our boiler to throw a strop. The most likely reason is that the condensate pipe that runs out through the side of the house had frozen and the safety features on the boiler had shut it down. I attempted to reset it but the ignition sequence failed again.
So Nim and I washed using a pan of boiled water and got ready for work. As we were leaving the house an hour later I thought I'd give it one more go and the damn thing fired up.
I'd noticed that the system pressure gauge was also on the low side - another reason the boiler might protest. So when I walked into the disappointingly cold house tonight I went straight to it and worked through the refilling procedure to get the pressure back up. Sadly the boiler still would not ignite leaving me in little doubt that it is the condensate pipe. With temperatures forcast to stay in single figures for the rest of the week and the exterior pipe being in twenty four hour shadow things are not looking good for a quick thaw.

AKIRA - The American Re-Make

2008-12-08T08:20:00.003Z

Harry Partridge, an animator from Swindon, has been thinking about the classic anime AKIRA and how it would be different if had been made for an American audience.

Via: Laughing Squid/

More Tilt-Shift Time-Lapse

2008-12-03T21:04:00.003Z

Another superb piece of time-lapse photography using tilt-shift lenses. Keith Loutit has been to a monster truck show and shot some great footage of the enormous 'toy' cars in action.

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Google Hosts LIFE Photo Archive

2008-11-20T07:53:00.003Z

Google is hosting the photographic archive of LIFE Magazine. The collection includes photographs and etchings dating back as far as the 1750's. The archive is still being populated and once complete should hold in the region of 20 million images. It is fully searchable (naturally, this *is* Google) and each entry has it's own page with additional information. It's an enormous and diverse collection of images and most of them at reasonably high resolutions too.

Go take a look: http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Real World Guitar Hero On A Bike

2008-11-20T07:46:00.003Z

Okay the title may be a little misleading as there is no-one actually playing Guitar Hero in this clip. Instead you have a guy riding his bike along a route that has been marked out with the fret board arrangement for "Prisoner Of Society" by The Living End as you would see find it on Guitar Hero with the difficulty set to hard.
Along with the incidental details, like the occasional pyrotechnic, one easily missed but excellent detail is the LED strip across the handle bars that flash in the correct sequence and in time with the floor markings.

Originally seen on : laughingsquid.com

The Art Of Can Throwing

2008-11-13T21:11:00.004Z

This is one of those not-cool-but-cool clips that pop up regularly.
In it a bunch of French guys throw cans into bins. They must have done these many, many times in order to catch the attempts that worked. The thing I find entertaining about it is that they maintain the nonchalant "meant it" faces in every shot.