Yhancik Magazine

Largo Treuil

2008-08-23T15:54:00Z

La bédé réaliste (de dessin réaliste, j'entends), déjà, la plupart du temps ça m'emmerde. Si, de surcroît, ça se prend pour du thriller américain, ça n'arrange RRRien.

J'ai donc toujours eu toutes les raisons de pas aimer Largo Winch ;)

Alors évidemment, quand j'ai vu ça, ahah :

D'abord, les jurons, ça s'écrit en "nom", comme "nom de dieu".
Ensuite, qui jure tout haut "nom d'une bite" ?

Mais le cerisier sur le gâteau :p c'est quand même la typographique du journal.

Je crois que n'importe qui prenant la peine de réfléchir 5 secondes réalisera que les journaux ne centrent jamais les titres des articles. En poussant la réflexion un peu plus loin, on comprendra que tout dans la mise en page des journaux est une question de place, on essaye de mettre le plus de contenu sur une page (tout en conservant une certaine lisibilité).
Et que donc c'est parfaitement insensé de laisser autant d'espaces blancs ETTTTT de mettre un point d'interrogation à la ligne.

Bon, et ça n'est qu'un exemple ;)

On pourrait aussi parler de cet exemple fabuleux d'hétéromachisme :

L'album sort en novembre, et va se vendre, comme les précédents, à la pelle
*soupiiiiir*

Des flims sur le cyclimse

2008-08-23T12:57:57Z

C'est fabuleux, y'a un fou qui a listé les films qui ont été charcutés pour faire La Classe Américaine
http://laclasse.zoy.org/flims.html

En réalité, il cherche même à refaire toute La Classe Américaine, en qualité DVD.. un fou je vous disais ;)

Enfin en attendant c'est amusant de voir les VO des films, grâce à Youtube notre ami :

Il pleut comme vache qui pisse

La bonne auberge

Mais c’est pas une raison pour plus vous laver les joues

Mais c’est le sympathique Dave que voilà

C’est trop bien de se déguiser

J’ai jamais pu encadrer Michel Legrand

ET LE CAPITAINE FLIRT !

enfin, entre autres...

Exhibition

2008-08-22T11:17:52Z

NETMARES NETDREAMS v.3
Instigated by Kari Altmann and Mark Brown

AUGUST 22 - SEPTEMBER 19

Current Space,
30 S. Calvert St., Baltimore MD 21202

OPENING AUGUST 22nd - 7-9pm, afterparty until 11:45 pm

http://netmaresnetdreams.net/
http://rhizome.org/editorial/news/?timestamp=20080815

from the gallery website :

Through a combination of online platforms, the international participants in this show have pulled together their own creations, found material, screen grabs, and more that can somehow be described as a "Netmare" or "Netdream".

What started out as a collaborative blog, eventually grew to other platforms (like Vimeo and Flickr) where it became an addiction to tag uploaded material at one end or another of the continuum between these two polar titles. In some cases things were tagged at both ends, in an ambiguous middle ground, or in a dimension beyond the reach of the spectrum itself.

As the amount of material grew, so did the definition for each term and the realization that it gave internet users relief to be able to classify the experiences they're inundated with online as "scary" or "lustworthy", both of which imply a level of intimacy and intimidation. Since post-structuralism the binary hierarchy has continued to be challenged, but in an online culture it can provide a highly accessible control among the struggle between technolust and technophobia, a duality reinforced by the media itself. Netmares/Netdreams aims to celebrate this continuum, mock it, test it, and ultimately transcend it.

While some participants have submitted their own artwork that already deals with these ideas, others are using it as a chance to exhibit detritus from their own net experiences.

The resulting array of cross-platform portals exposes uncanny valleys, peaks, plateaus, and crater holes.

Participants include:
Kari Altmann, Mark Brown, Petra Cortright, Harm Van den Dorpel, Ben Fino-Radin, Martijn Hendrik, Daniel Keller & Nik Kosmas (AIDS-3D), Guthrie Lonergan, Sara Manara, Pascual Sisto, James Whipple, Damon Zucconi, and more.

...including yours truly
thanks to blackmoth

Liveplace

2008-08-17T14:33:22Z

This has to be one of the strangest tech demo I've ever seen.

Actually the whole thing smells pretty fishy.
The idea is to have server-side rendering. The 3D scene is calculated on a server that streams the result to your PC (like a video), instead of having the whole thing processed on your machine. Which already sounds like a weird idea.
Not to mention that parts of the video look almost similar to an old CG video, and that the different scenes of the whole video (I only posted a part of it, here) look pretty inconsistant together (general quality, polycount, textures, not the mention the aspect ratio).

But we don't care about that.
I wanted to share this with you because I like the aesthetic : crude camera movements, crude lightning, bad focus, washed out colours.
Isn't that the 3D equivalent of the polaroid aesthetic ?

It makes the whole thing very strange, if not creepy.

This was probably partly accidental - I suspect they've used a digital camera to film a lcd screen or a projection, thus the colours/focus issues - but it's still, in my eyes, pretty interesting and inspiring.

I like to appreciate that kind of "accident" as if it was deliberate. Forget it's a tech demo, take it as a piece of video art (even if it's definitely not).
Those scenes with lonely, motionless, short haired guys, watching nowhere, unaware of the camera's presence, are kind of unsettling.
Clones, taken by unnatural uncontrollable spasms, in a church-like building? What kind of universe is that?

I definitely like it ;)

Bodice million theocracy

2008-08-16T10:34:27Z

Last week, this wonderful spam got through Google's filters
(when a legitimate mail from a computer shop about an order *I* made got stuck in it, grmlb).

patron bodice tape remiss honk
by Stacy Goldstein

abbey honda swell? formatting, honda secondary.
remiss eel army suffolk gouge bruit, floppy
honk eel chin army wilsonian.

bodice million theocracy

floppy suffolk richardson? kinshasha, theocracy entourage.
honda bookbind simulcast bruit olson fritz, laboratory
abbey million crunch secondary chin.

amity malagasy lacunae

ohmmeter distributive gouge? distributive, precipitable amity.

formatting army.

William S. Burroughs would be proud :p

Drunkxels

2008-08-15T09:49:20Z

By the maker of Off-Road Velociraptor Safari and the upcoming Jetpack Brontosaurus, here is a test for Minotaur China Shop

"A test of a physically-driven character. Yeah, walking is a little quirky at the moment..."

Which proves that :

- you don't have to call your games "Legions of War IV - Throne of Duty : Nemesis", oh no you don't !
- you can't go wrong with physically-driven characters (or actually, you do, but that's why we like it)

[via the ever excellent RockPaperShotgun]

graceJones.textureTransform();

2008-08-13T23:05:58Z

via womanonfire, and as she said : "whoh" !

I'm not tooo convinced about the music, though... It's not bad, but it's not amazing either (I mean, not as much as the video :p). But still interesting.
It sounds a bit Tricky, doesn't it ? I mean the guy, not the adjective.

The Knife - Silent Shout

Because : CREEPY FACES!!!

Mel B. (yes "scary spice") - Word Up !

Isn't it ?
And good use of 3D, which is for once used for its own aesthetic, and not to fake something else.
Did you catch the *cough* so subtle sexual references ?

Le dicton du jour

2008-08-12T09:17:08Z

"S'il pleut à la Saint-Clarisse,
c'est comme vache qui pisse"

Ceci dit, faute d'être lyrique, c'est pas faux.

Schockoladespielzeugkombinationseier

2008-08-11T15:20:15Z

Obviously, the adults who survived to the Kinder eggs hecatomb have decided to finally put an end to this atrocity.

The children's committee of the German parliament, which is responsible for introducing legislation, fears children might mistake the toys contained in the eggs for food and swallow them.

(...)

"Children can't differentiate between toys and nutritional items," said Miriam Gruss, a member of the committee. "It is a sad fact, but that means that Kinder Surprise eggs have to go."

While I agree that Kinder eggs aren't exactly the brightest idea ever (and seriously, that chocolate is worthless), it was fun, and never killed anybody. Well, it probably did, but then people will kill/hurt themselves with anything.
Kernel fruits are as dangerous then, ban them ! (although you could argue they're generally more healthy)

So what, are today's kids that stupid? Well, not more than they used to be.
Now, the parents.. they get me worried sometimes...

[guardian.co.uk, via MetaFilter]

Music

2008-08-10T23:22:57Z

Can is one of those bands that is pretty often named, largely regarded as important, seminal, etc.
I - quite stupidly, actually - tend to be over cautious with those bands, and prefer to discover stuff following my own curiosity instead of some "authority". For the same reasons, I couldn't listen to Hail to the Thief for some months, because before I had actually heard anything from the album, everyone had already talked way too much about it.
I need to "fall in love" with my music, and I guess I run away from what could look like a prearranged marriage.

Anyway, Can... Well some day, I finally had a look (uh, a listen ?) at them, and if I can't say I'm a huge fan (yet), I found some interesting stuff.

So I know I'm 40 years late, but I thought about sharing this with you

<- the music

Actually, I was reading someone's comment linking (and at the same time unlinking.. uh.. don't ask) Portishead's Third to Can. And I was thinking "Well, yes, there's something between Silence and Mushroom (posted above)" "I like that Mushroom track, I should share it". So here it is.

Radiohead are known to have claimed Can as one of their influences (and explicitly for There There).
Which reminds me, recently I (re)read on Wikipedia that :
"Yorke said "Pyramid Song" was heavily influenced by the Charles Mingus song "Freedom," and originally he had even included similar hand-claps."

Mingus has also been cited, several times, as a reference for other tracks of the Kid A/mnesiac era.

So I checked out that track :

I kind of see (hear) the connection with Pyramid Song ("ouuuuh ouuuh ouuh"). It's much more obvious (to me) for The National Anthem (for the second, more jazzy part).
But first of all, it actually reminds me of We Suck Young Blood, from Hail to the Thief.. doesn't it ? (clap).

Music is fun. I love music :D !

(And yes, surfmadpig, i still owe you a response to your Radiohead comment :p the thing is, you got me listening again to the whole discography and thinking... and uhm yes, i should write soon ;) )

In which P. Diddy escapes from a yacht full of penguins.

2008-08-09T16:01:54Z

But you have to look under the surface, fools !

Because, of course, it's not just about the penguin threat over leisure sailing (just the day you got your suit dry-cleaned, damnit!), Sean John Combs explains :

"When a young African-American male or a young Latino male sees this image, they see this elegant sophistication and they see I Am King next to it -- it hits their senses and they believe; that's what motivates me when I'm taking the pictures."

"we definitely do wear jeans that sag off our ass, we definitely like our music loud, but we're also very intelligent, very smart -- you know, as they say about Barack Obama, we're also very articulate. Yes, we speak well and we can also wear tuxedos. And we also smell good."

"I Am King" being the name of his new fragrance, that this piece of photography work (as well as this one) is supposed to promote (that's exactly what we needed in those troubled times, a Puffy perfume).

nymag.com & scented salamander

erm! well... I have doubts now... maybe there are no penguins in that pic, and I only dreamt them...
well... let's pretend, mkay ?
(and as someone aptly added, at least P. is dressed as one of them)

The Art of Electronic Failure

2008-08-09T12:48:08Z

So if you remember, on June 17th, Electronic Arts released the Spore Creature Creator, which is not only a fantastic digital toy, but a perfect teaser to get people who don't usually play videogames interested in Spore – the full game.
I thought it was the best way to promote a game. I didn't know that the worst also was round the corner.

Since Spore is a very social game (more in a Web2.0 than a MMORPG way), you need an account to play (or, to be precise, to use its "social" features).
As in many account systems, there's a validation. You first create your account, linked to an e-mail address, and you have to validate your account from a mail that is sent to you mail.
When I came back from France, I downloaded the Spore Creature Creator trial, created an account and played. There was no activation e-mail, but it was letting me use my account anyway… I thought that they were victims of their own success, and that it would come at some point.

The problem is that 2 days after the creation of my account, it was "locked" because I didn't validate it. I tried to get a validation mail resent (and tried again, unsuccessfully, all along that fiasco), but nothing happened. I browsed various forum, to find out that I wasn't the only one to have this issue. Some were suggesting to log in through EA.com instead of Spore.com, things like that, but nothing worked.

So I finally decided to contact Electronic Arts…

Day 1 :
I install the Spore Creature Creator, and register. I don't get any "validation mail", but don't bother.

Day 3 :
My account is disabled because I haven't activated it. I request a new activation mail from the website, several times, but nothing.
I waste some time trying to find a support place on EA's website, and a way to log in to it. I finally find a support form at EA.com, fill it in. When I [Send], I'm back to the support home page, without any feedback. A couple of minutes later, I retry, and there it tells me that my support request was sent, and I get an e-mail telling me
"Your question has been received. You should expect a response from us within 24 hours."
Ok…

Day 4, more than 24 hours later :
Since my first experience with EA.com support request form wasn't quite successful, and since I didn't get any answer, I try the Belgian EA support (that I'll call EA.be from now), than can be reached by e-mail. I get an e-mail notifying me that my request was received and will be processed "shortly".

Day 5 : EA.be mail (originally in French, poorly translated by me) :

Thanks for contacting us.
I just sent your information to the accounts department, to determine the problem with your account. You will be contacted again when we have news.
If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards.

EA.com mail :

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts accounts services.

In order to assist you with this issue, we will need some information. Please provide us the following information: -

- Order number:
- Full name used to place the order:
- Email address used to place the order:
- Last 4 digits of the Credit card used to place the order:
- Date of birth as listed on the account:
- Zip Code as listed on the account:

Once we have this information we will be able to look into your situation further.

Thank you,

Uh, what ? I was just asking about getting an activation mail for my account, and I haven't bought anything since it's a free demo of the Spore Creature Creator :p
So I repeat my explainations.

Day 6 : EA.com :

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

We have sent the validation email to your email address. Please check your email for the new message and follow the validation link provided

If there is anything else we may do to assist you please let us know.

Thank you,

Of course, there was no mail ;) So I tell them.

Day 7 : EA.com

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

Due to the nature of your issue, more time is required for investigation. I apologize for any prolonged delays this might cause, but please rest assured that we are trying to handle your issue in a timely manner. During this time, you may still update your incident with additional information that might help us resolve your issue without causing any additional delay. To update your incident click the link that says, “To view or update your question from our support site, click here."

We appreciate the opportunity to assist you and look forward to getting you back in the game!

Thank you,

Yay…

Day 10 : EA.com

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts Customer Support.

I have activated your account. Please log in to ensure you can access the site.

If you need additional assistance or have further questions please reply to this email or visit our self help knowledge base at http://support.ea.com

Thank you,

It works ! I still didn't get my activation mail (which is still stuck somewhere in EA's actitubes) but at least I can log in again ! Alleluia !

Day 11 : EA.com

You recently contacted Electronic Arts for support of your EA game. As part of our mission to provide the highest quality support possible, we seek your thoughts on your most recent experience with our Customer Support department. The survey takes just a few minutes to complete. Your responses will help us determine ways to improve the support we provide to you.

From time to time we may choose to call some of the survey participants to gather more information about their support experience. If you are interested in receiving a phone call from a quality review representative about your experience, please include your phone number and time zone in the comments section of the survey.
Click here to take this survey.

In retrospect I might have been too nice when I filled that in :p

Day 16 : EA.be is back !

Thank you for contacting us.
Your password has been reset and the issue should be solved. Please can you confirm that it's indeed the case.
If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards.

Good one. Somewhere in the mysteries of EA.be support, my request for an account activation (or please, at least a mail) became "please reset my password to a new one, but be sure to not tell me what". So I couldn't log in again.
I am getting a little… annoyed about the turn of the events, and I guess my feelings are perceptible in my reply.

Day 29 ! EA.be

Thank you for contacting us.
Your problem should now be solved. Please can you confirm that it's indeed the case.
If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards.

I really had hope, for a second. But of course nothing changed, which is a remarkable achievement in 13 days.

Day 33 : EA.be

Thank you for contacting us. Haven't you received an e-mail with your new password?
If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us again.
Kind regards.

That might be what I've told you 2 weeks ago. Actually, it's even what I told you more than a month ago.

Day 41 : I go to Spore.com for I don't remember what, and say "hey let's retry for the 9000th time that Resend activation mail form. I see some cosmetic changes on the page. Oh! Try. It works!

I immediately resent a mail to EA.be support telling them that it's now solved and that they please don't do anything else from now.

Result : the Spore Creature Creator Trial was released as a demo for the full Spore Creature Creator, which is itself a Spore teaser. There were possibilities to buy the SCC as a pre-order for Spore, which means that you bought the SCC for 10€, and when buying Spore, you'd pay 10€ less for it.
I considered that option, since I've always planned to buy Spore (for years, now).
Now we're only 1 month away from the release of Spore, so I won't bother with that, especially after that debacle (and reading the forums, paid users aren't really immune to it). And it almost sounds silly, if not reckless to give money to such a reliable company… really…
At least I can say that EA lived up to its reputation ;)

I'm kind of worried, though… if they're partly aiming at a casual audience with Spore, how many people have they lost in that trainwreck of a launch? I'm a horribly stubborn nerd, but what would the less stubborn less nerdy people think? They gave up, probably, and/or completely missed the "social" part of it. That's one big failed opportunity, EA Guys !

Penny Arcade on the "Diablo 3 controversy"..

2008-08-07T11:06:29Z

.. and, uh... Deviant Art :p

Also : http://agonast.deviantart.com/

Not to mention the answer of the Diablo 3 designer to photoshoped screenshots

Julian Oliver !!!

2008-08-01T22:26:50Z

levelHead v1.0, 3 cube speed-run (spoiler!) from Julian Oliver on Vimeo.

It works with a linux computer, a webcam and cubes that you could actually print yourself.

No LCD screen, no projector, no expensive hardware, the "rooms" you see are actually composed into the picture from your webcam

== genius. period.

More on http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/07/31/levelhead-in-action/
or actually on http://selectparks.net/~julian/levelhead/

~

On an unrelated news (except that I found this via RPS too), my word of the day is

meanderthal

People who wander around aimlessly and always seem to get in your way in stores and supermarkets, chatting on their cell phones and paying no attention to their surroundings.

I would have been here ten minutes earlier if I hadn't been stuck behind that meanderthal.

A demonstration of VHS generation loss

2008-07-30T19:44:50Z

Remember when I was talking about the VHS aesthetic & unoptimization ?
Here's what I randomly found while looking for William Basinski :

Video signals decay rapidly when copied repeatedly on domestic VHS video recorders. This video demonstrates the results, showing the degredation of the signal up to 11 generations. William Basinski did this with audio signals in an ambient epic called "The Disintegration Loops", however; the music in this video is written by me (using similar analogue mag-tape techniques to Basinski).

And another example, by someone else

The death and corruption of ideas. VHS video art. The use of generation loss was an important factor in this film. I did not use any computer effects. Every repeat is a loss in generation.

wordleFM

2008-07-29T21:18:20Z

My last.fm overall artists chart as a Wordle, thanks to mastergiraffe and, of course, wordle.net

Found, among tons of other awesome tools on http://www.last.fm/group/Stats

Pika pikaaa pikapikapikapika

2008-07-29T13:20:51Z

and then it turns into a Pikachu Teenage Riot

(wait until 2:12)

and ends with Hellpikaraiser

[via Pink Tentacle]

A joke gone too far (where no man has gone before)

2008-07-27T18:34:50Z

via Waxy.org, of course - via negatendo's del.icio.us

Ding ding ding ding ding dango

2008-07-25T18:40:12Z

Today I tried to make dangos.

Don't be fooled by it's sweet colourful yummy rounded appearance, cos it wasn't yet a huge success.

Basically I wanted to know if I could make dangos with.. that rice flour you can "easily" find here, which is called "crème de riz" (rice cream) instead of "farine de riz" (uh, rice flour).

Obviously, yes, you can.. because it's close from the ones I buy at the chinese bakery (well they're Tāngyuáns there, but basically it's the same), just not quite that yet.

I think I need to put more water, because the dough here is too heavy/dense, when it should be lighter, gummier and almost translucent.

But the raisins filling worked rather well.. it's not red bean paste, but again for westernised Japanese food, I think it's a good replacement ;)

Second attempt soon :p

How can you not love the 00s ?

2008-07-22T16:39:13Z

Seriously ?

"In Radiohead's new video for "House of Cards", no cameras or lights were used. Instead, 3D plotting technologies collected information about the shapes and relative distances of objects. The video was created entirely with visualizations of that data."

The data and the software used to visualize them are available here : http://code.google.com/p/radiohead/downloads/list
You're invited to share your own experiments on http://www.youtube.com/group/houseofcards.

How can you not love the 80s ?

2008-07-22T12:28:27Z

Seriously ?

(this last one is via womanonfire, thank you :D)

Old news, but

2008-07-19T20:28:31Z

"After countless months of effort, and then starting over and spending countless more months of effort, we are proud to announce deviantART Version 6, aka "Sleek!" This is truly the best version we've ever released, and we're very proud of it. Read on to see how we've improved the site you know and love, and just what these improvements mean to you."

Is it me or every DA release is always "the best" and "they're very proud of it" ? :p

(although, I have to say, they finally brought back a feature that was ridiculously removed in what.. 2003, 2004 ? A devWatch with pictures !)

And now, for something completely different

2008-07-19T15:01:04Z

OH MY GOD

2008-07-19T12:51:17Z

So this is the 21st century, finally :o

Our crappy #1 ISP in Belgium finally upgraded the monthly transfert volume (that you can use until you're capped at ISDN speed just to ~~teach you that using the internet is baaad~~ piss you off) from 12GB to ZOMGZ 25GB !

Which means that I can now use 768MB daily, instead of 400MB.

Here I come, Youtube, web radios, net labels, video chat in MSN, online gaming and Bittorrent* !

Gawd, I think they even upped the transfert rate :o

But the price is still the same ridiculous 41,75€/month (which is like.. what ? 10€ more than many better services in France).

* Legal ones, OF COURSE :p

Aside from that, everything in Belgium is TOTALLY FINE.

Wakawakawaka

2008-07-11T23:13:54Z

What do I see above my Gmail ?

"ESPN.com - Pacman appears before grand jury in Las Vegas - 2 hours ago"

Like... LOLWUT ?

Mhh.. ok, it's not the *real* Pacman : http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3483202

Suspended NFL player Adam "Pacman" Jones appeared before a grand jury investigating a Las Vegas strip club shooting that left a man paralyzed and two others wounded.

Sounds like a nice guy, eh ?