Monday, June 14, 2010

Another Quick Fix of Flicks, 14 June 2010

1. "Philip Zimbardo on 'The Secret Powers of Time'"
  <http://blog.3rdeyeview.co.uk/biz/2010/05/28/the-secret-powers-of-time/>
"Time is the most important resource you have. This video is a great
 example of how your perspective of time can change you. Professor
 Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect
 our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a
 person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world."

2. "PIXELS"
  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxX_bVluflo>
"New York invasion by 8-bits creatures!  PIXELS is Patrick Jean's
 latest short film, shot on location in New York."  If you're a fan of
 video games from the 80s and 90s, you'll get a kick out of this.

3. "The Shortest Possible Game of Monopoly: 21 Seconds"
  <http://scatter.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/the-shortest-possible-game-
     of-monopoly-21-seconds/>
"If everything went just the right way, with just the right sequence of
 rolls, Chance and Community Chest cards, and so on, what is the quick-
 est way one player could go bankrupt? After working on the problem for
 a while, we boiled it down to a 4-turn (2 per player), 9 roll
 (including doubles) game."

4. "I Am Sitting In A Video Room 1000"
  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qKz5YW5J-U>
"An homage to the great Alvin Lucier, this piece explores the 'photocopy
 effect', where upon repeated copies the object begin to accumulate the
 idiosyncrasies of the medium doing the copying."  In this case, a video
 is uploaded to YouTube where it is encoded, then downloaded back to a
 computer.  This cycle is repeated 1000 times.  There are also many
 intermediate versions showing various levels of degradation.

5. "A little iPad magic"
  <http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/31/a-little-ipad-magic/>
A magician incorporates an iPad into his tricks.  Bits of this have been
played on TV.  This is the full clip.

6. "Working Lego Printer"
  <http://www.thomas-fitzgerald.net/2010/06/04/working-lego-printer/>
A clever bit of work, using Lego to make a functioning computer printer.
Tip: turn the volume down.

7. "LittleDog Robot"
  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUQsRPJ1dYw>
An interesting video showing the latest advances in robotic technology.
If you're interested, there are more videos posted on YouTube by the
team that developed the robot.

8. "Watch amazing 2-minute Star Wars trilogy ... with LEGOs!"
  <http://scifiwire.com/2010/05/watch-amazing-2-minute-st.php>
The title says it all.