Granted

It’s just a concept at this stage, but Clayton Miller’s 10/GUI project is getting people’s attention. It proposes a way multi-touch might work in the desktop scenario – detached from the screen, like a giant trackpad, or tablet.

It’s hard to see it working perfectly, or being as universally applicable as the trusty mouse, but there’s certainly some good ideas there, some I’m sure we’ll see one way or another in years to come.

XPLANE are well known for their clarity-causing diagrams and illustrations. It’s nice to see them branching out into motion graphics like this one for The Economist’s Media Convergence conference.

A slick short video about the origins of the universe. Funny that it’s called the big bang, when there’s no sound in space.

It still amazes me that some people spend so much time working out what happened all those billions of years ago – with the knowledge it may have little or no consequences to our everyday lives. I mean, I’m glad someone’s working on it – but I’m also glad it’s not me. Studying the human condition seems so much more appealing and practical. Don’t you agree?

Is there a lesson here for Wellington City Council’s proposed changes for Manner’s Mall? Watch the video half way down the page.

A well paced overview of evolution that responds to some of the most common misconceptions about it.

Just loved this so much I had to repost – thanks thingamabob for the link. Hadn’t heard of Miranda July until I saw this. She’s cool.

Over 5 years after it was initially launched, I’m happy to have a new version of Montage-a-google up for people to play with and enjoy. The new version has many of the features people have been asking for over the years:

• Saving montages – It’s now easy to download a jpg of any montage you create.
• Resizing – You can now make a montage as big as you like by simply resizing your browser window.
• Bookmarkable – You can now bookmark or send a direct link to a specific montage.
• Speed increases – I’ve been able to make many speed improvements with the port of the code to ActionScript3. Resizing and changing the tile size is now over 10x faster.
• UI improvements – Montage-a-google is now easier to use than ever.

I hope you enjoy playing with the new version of Montage-a-google. I look forward to your feedback.

Vimeo’s Auto Tuning video has been online for a couple of months now, but it’s still giving me joy. I thought it was worth sharing on the off chance someone’s missed it – although I suspect you need to be in the web-design scene to fully get it.

This is so well done. From now on whenever I hear someone talking about the credit crisis I’ll think of these diagrams. Also available in HD.

My friend Simon, being a poorly student but unfairly talented, decided to make Lorin and I a song for our wedding present. The song had to include specific words, phrases and concepts that we got to choose. Amazingly, he managed to pull it all together into this classic track called “Moon Buggy Honeymoon”. Listen to it by clicking the play button below.

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Lyrics:

Moon Buggy Honeymoon
Grant and Lorin’s Wedding Present Song

Hey there Lozza and G, freshly married and busting with glee
I suggest one thing for your honeymoon, why not hoon with a buggy on the moon?
Relax about rock cavities; you can jump real far in moon gravity
Forget about flying saucers, your buggy has space mortars
When aliens spot you zipping along, they pause and they say:
“Our cruisers can’t repel firepower of that magnitude”
So sit back and enjoy the ride, and by the way,
Congratulations guys!

Bloody good effort Lozza and G
You’ve got yourself all married
Quite a clever move by you guys
Cause now you’ve got a friendship that the police will recognise

Congratulations
From here on in the church will bless your romancing
And even though this is written beforehand
I’m pretty sure the party’s gonna be awesome
But now it’s time for moon buggy adventuring

Moon buggy time go on get in
Time to take one for a spin
Guess who’s your driving instructor?
It’s Yoda, Jedi Master!
So yo Yoda, what have you got in store on the honeymoon moon cruise today?
“Things you will see, other places”
That’s sounds awesome, let’s cruise!
“Patience!”
But we’re ready to go…and you know what happened to Anakan when you held him back

Lunar navigation in your moon buggy
Starlight constellations make it easy to see
Women are from Eastbourne and men are from Timaru
We’re all in this together when we’re cruising on the moon

There’s no coverage for your iPhone
But Willis came along so you will never be alone
On the moon he’s no ordinary pet
He’s a galactic cosmic space cat!
But now it’s time for moon buggy adventuring

Yo Yoda, how about a solo on that space organ!

But now it’s time for popcorn and ice-cream

Yoda would just like to say one more thing
He said he’s checked his user interface, and that marmite is better than vegemite because it’s got more force in it
And he also said there is no one ring to rule them all…but then he winked.