nuzzaci - an online journal

This video installation presents the abstraction and re-organization of the top 25 grossing films of all time (as of March 2001, worldwide box office, not adjusted for inflation). Every frame of each film is subjected to a custom process that determines a grid of four colors most representative of that frame. These simplified versions are re-synched with their unaltered soundtrack and arranged by sales rank left-to-right and top-to-bottom, yielding the animated grid and accompanying chaotic audio.

Very nice, by Jason Salavon.

The top 25 grossing films of all time (as of March 2001, worldwide box office, not adjusted for inflation):

1. Titanic
2. Phantom Menace
3. Jurassic Park
4. Independence Day
5. Star Wars
6. The Lion King
7. E.T.
8. Forrest Gump
9. The Sixth Sense
10. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
11. Men in Black
12. Armageddon
13. The Empire Strikes Back
14. Home Alone
15. Mission Impossible II
16. Ghost
17. Terminator 2
18. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
19. Twister
20. Toy Story 2
21. Saving Private Ryan
22. Aladdin
23. Jaws
24. Return of the Jedi
25. The Matrix

I just feel I have to send out quick warning to everyone about the poor quality of the movie World Trade Center. Unless you are doing research for an article on bad movies, I success you stay away from this film.

It’s embarrassing.

Thanks to Tom Coates at Plasticbag.org, I don’t need to write a review on the movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’. His post on the matter, There’s something (crappy) about Borat…, covers everything I have to say.

Thanks Tom

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a documentary about one of the biggest and most complex bankruptcy cases and business scandals in American history, where Enron Corporation dives from the seventh largest US company to bankruptcy in less than a year.

If you ask me, the whole story is a bit like the dot-com bubble but with out the . and the com.

As far as I can recall, the movie was OK - I wasn’t overly overwhelmed with surprises and aaaaahha moments. The reason why I’m writing this post is not because I liked the movie, it’s because of a thing they mentioned in the movie that has found a safe place in my brain and memory.

As the movie were explaining how the traders at Enron lost sens of reality and morals, the movie made parallels and mentioned the Milgram Experiment.

From wikipedia:

The Milgram experiment was a famous scientific experiment of social psychology, intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant’s personal conscience.

The experimenter (E) orders the subject (S) to give what the subject believes are painful electric shocks to another subject (A), who is actually an actor. Many participants continued to give shocks despite pleas for mercy from the actor, as long as the experimenter kept on ordering them to do so.

The interesting fact is not that people do generally obey the authority. Without that ‘feature’ we would probably not have the society we have today.
No, the interesting part was how the experiment was executed (what people were told, and who told them what and what they actually ended up doing), and how many % of the participants that were prepared to betray their personal belief, ethic and morals, and for what.

The experiment was first described in 1963 by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, and later discussed in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.

Read more about the Milgram Experiment on wikipedia.org

A few days ago I saw the documentary ‘WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price’. A bit scary. Even though it was interesting, I wouldn’t go further than saying that it was OK.

Parts of this documentary of the Wal-Mart story are so fucked, that you actually start questioning how angled and local some parts of the stories are, like - can it all actually be true, and if - does it actually pan out over all their US stores. Either/or - Wal-Mart definitely don’t seem to bring much joy to the world.

It’s nothing new that the bush administration, or even american politics, or even just politics and politicians in general, have been accused of using fear as their favourite weapon of choice. Painting up a false reality and a oversized threat, and then glorifying themselves as the savior with the solution.

But how far back does this kind of ‘politics of fear’ stretch?

Last week (or so) I read a review in Guardian Unlimited newspaper on the book ‘The Myth of Evil’ by Phillip Cole. The review was very shot, but it touched upon the subject ‘politics of fear’ and where the fear strategy comes from.

Does evil really exist? No, thinks Phillip Cole, but it is extremely useful as a political myth. His varied and interesting cultural study of the idea begins by tracing the literary development of Satan…

…interlude for witch-hunting and the less familiar epidemics of vampires in 18th-century central Europe…

… Cole ends with an evocative analysis of current politics about “the terrorist and the migrant” in the terms ha has built on while discussing witches and monsters. “what we have here is a mythology of the evil enemy, such that that enemy possesses the demonic, supernatural power needed to destroy our communities.” Cole doesn’t intend it as such, naturally, but it’s almost like an instructional manual for the Daily Mail.

Satan. Witches. Vampires. Terrorist.

I haven’t read the book - just the review. But it truly seems to be an interesting read.

The choice of leading image to this post is simply because the review brought back memories of the brilliant film ‘Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail’, and the scene where they want to burn a witch.

So, logically…, If… she.. weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood. And therefore? A witch! A witch!

Ohh! Ohh! Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Ahh! Ahh…

Whether evil is a myth or not, or if i will buy and read Phillip Coles book - I don’t know - but I will definitely see The Quest for the Holy Grail again ;)

The 44 links posted below are not actually all from today. They stretch all the way back to beginning of august.

• The DarkHat: Britney Spears Is Scary
  It is not that scary… just makes you wonder when she will start making the same kind of toasts as Elvis and ultimatly reach the same end screen.
• BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple admits excessive iPod hours
  “Apple Computer has said a report of labour conditions at its iPod plant in China found workers did more than 60 hours a week a third of the time.”
• Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection - UT Library Online
  If you ever need a map, these guys have got just about everything.
• My Project Puppet.com Chewbacca!
  He looks a bit weird. But if your planing to make a softtoy Chubacca…
• The Art of Adam Betts
  The guy who designed the Adium icon.
• Apple - Trailers - Borat - Trailer G
  This movie is going to be so great. Not many trailers gets me to laugh out loud.
• Getting Back To The Business Brickyard. . . Bookshelf // Dig Tank
  “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” about marketing and it’s books.
• Internet Soul Portraits
  Screenshots of large site with there text tripped off.
• Marian Bantjes
  Very nice typography skills going on here!
• Starts to play on radio right now
  A very nice interactive piece that show’s you what starts to play on radio right now (in america).
• Jason Kottke, August, 2006 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging
  An interview with Jason Kottke - a full time blogger. I don’t read his blog, but I find the whole “famous blog symptom” interesting. And the choice of accepting ad’s…
• TIME.com: 50 Coolest Websites
  Please define ‘Cool’.
• Not strictly commercial - Los Angeles Times
  “I had a guy come up to me, in my face, saying, ‘You think you’re so cool? You’re not cool’ and I’m saying to him, ‘Dude, it’s a commercial.’ ” Interview with the Apple commercial dude (also know from the TV series Ed).
• Creating graphs, Part 2 | Bartelme Design
  Illustrator tips and tricks.
• RSS Reading Preferences, Part 2 | Bartelme Design
  Feeds and behavior… now that’s the kind of blog post I’d like to see! Someone who spends some time to create content. Not just echoing the internet.
• China bans foreign cartoons from prime-time TV - Yahoo! News
  “Beginning Sept. 1, regulators have barred foreign cartoons from TV from 5 to 8 p.m. in an effort to protect China’s struggling animation studios”
• Is it friday?
  on of those really useful websites.
• Today’s Blog Music / The Hype Machine - discover, listen and buy music discussed on the best mp3 blogs
  An aggregator who search blogs for mp3’s.
• Fernando Leal {Illustration+Animation}
  Some really nice stuff going on here.
• Call Me Fishmeal.: Memes that need to die.
  “WWDC is a developer conference. Aimed at developers. Who develop software. Those of us who are developers are freaking amazed at all the great stuff that’s in Leopard.”
• 37signals: An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design
  “… there are literally billions of possible pixel combinations for each page we make.”
• Balancing Point In Reverse - BREAK.com
  This a pretty awesome movie made entirely in reverse. This must have taken forever to make but I think it turned out really well. It reminds me of that scene in the classic Val Kilmer movie Top Secret.
• Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas, original design by Stamen, press any key to s
  Draw. Click to change color. Very nice. A good way to make art ;) (I really like it and it reminds me of my friend Vinh Kha).
• LiveSurface Layered Image Library
  Introducing the Shift LiveSurface Layered Image Library: high-resolution Photoshop image templates with pre-masked surfaces.
• Quick change
  Honestly, even though the Hoff is in the judging panel - this is good!
• A war on terror simulation.
  “This is not a game. You can’t win and you can’t lose. This is a simulation. It has no edning. It has already begun. The rules are deadly simple. You can shot. Or not. This is a simple model you can use to explore some aspects of the war on terror.”
• Weighing a Switch to a Mac - New York Times
  “Ten years ago, if you were a Windows user, the idea of switching to a Macintosh might not have seemed enticing. An abundance of new Windows software was arriving on store shelves, while the selection available to Mac users seemed to be falling behind…”
• How About an E-mail On That? - Yahoo! News
  “Cell phone users spend lots of time talking into their devices, but they generally communicate with very few people. Just how few? Would you believe four?”
• LOVELINES : From Love to Hate, in Words and Pictures
  Basiclly the same as wefeelfine.org, but this time it’s about love (and done in flash instead of java). I prefer wefeelfine.org,
• Newsvine - Exposing Sony’s Corporate Shills
  This bookmark is saved for later use.
• Blogging the conflict in Lebanon
  The music industry got slapped in the face my Mr Mp3. Will journalism and magazines be slapped in the face by Mr Blogg?
• YMCK Official Web Site
  This made me think about Magnus Lowing. A 8bit NES sound keyboard.
• Interview with Jakob Nielsen [Usability and Information Architecture]
• The GoogleMaps flight sim
  Really nice.
• Macworld UK - Google nabs MySpace search deal
  To be honest I wouldn’t be to worried if I was Yahoo.
• Helvetica
  A movie about a famous typeface.
• Urbancounterfeiters
  Urban Outfitters plagarism, copying, and otherwise ripping-off. found on http://k10k.net/newspost.aspx?id=13898
• Daring Fireball: Highly Selective
  About anchored and unanchored lists in Apple OS X UI. I have no opinion on this one.
• CNN.com - Eskimo village destroyed by fire - Aug 5, 2006
  …. but but but but… were are the igloos?
• YouTube - OK Go - Here It Goes Again
  Since I bookmarked this one, and today (16 days), this video has done a lot of internet travel. The simple explanation for that is - it’s fucking great. (good song too).
• BBC NEWS | Technology | How the web went world wide
  One key date is 6 August 1991
• – madeyouthink –
• The World’s Most Photorealistic Vector Art
• What Web 2.0 means to 500 random Basecamp customers - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Of my last three cinema visits, 2/3 were “blockbusterius”. With titles as ‘Superman Returns’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ you can’t expect anything else then a similar rubberish feeling you get after have listen to a 120bpm hit song produced by Max Martin (or similar). But still… even though my expectations were low - I’m very very disappointed of them both. They were not good.

So, the length of the review will mirror my gratitude.

Superman Returns
They could at least have shown ‘The super hero of all time’ some respect. Made me wish he never left (or came back).

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
The title of this movie should include: episode 2 of 3.

• A List Apart: Articles: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web
  Very nicely written and very true. Read this if you write.
• LOST-Theories.com
  I’m personally not a big fan. But I know a lot of you guys are.
• Cars: Hitting the Mother Road — Part 1
  A very good and long article about Pixars upcoming movie Cars. I haven’t read all of it yet - but I will (and it’s part 1!! <- brilliant!)
• The Motive Web Design Glossary
  above the fold, breadcrumb, cookie, deep-linking, e-commerce, favicon.ico…. basically internet’s very own A to Z. Bookmark it. You will find it useful.

• Box Office Mojo > All Time Box Office > Opening Weekends
  The da vinci code brought in alot of money this weekend. But to be honest - thought it would do better (but i hoped it didn’t (know on wood)).
• Russian climbing - Google Video
  jump, jump, jump around (very impressive).
• Comcastic
  saw this a while back, but it’s a amazing peice of work. the pupets in the ‘on demand’ section is just… worldclass.
• Jobsintown.de - Advertising/Design Goodness
  very very smart and well executed advertising.
• Thanks. No.
  this might come in handy… and I find it quite funny.
• YouTube - Fast OS Switching on MacBook
  thought this was a bit futher away into the future. switching OS’s the way you switch users.