I've been seeing a lot of examples of this faux-miniaturization technique lately. Full-size scenes are processed with a tilt-shift effect, making them appear to be miniatures of the real thing. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Smashing Magazine has put together a list of 50 of these, and there are some real good ones on the list.
I had to finish up some work last night from home, and when I needed a break I fired up Fireworks and gave tilt-shifting a try, miniaturizing my alma mater. I've called it "Model University". I'm not sure that I fully have the hang of it, but it was fun to make. I'll probably try this out a few more times, until I get bored and move on to something else…
Bits, the technology blog of the N.Y. Times, reports that H211 LLC, a "company controlled by Google’s top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added a new plane to its well-equipped fleet: a fighter jet, or more precisely a Dornier Alpha Jet."
The article says that they will load it up with instruments for NASA missions, but I'm not buying it. Now that they've entered the cell phone industry with Android, the next untapped market for Google is the heads-up display for fighter pilots. Just think of the possibilities. A pilot types in "Iran nuclear facility" and then clicks on "I'm feeling lucky." 0.08 seconds later Google maps delivers a map of Achmadinajad's back yard. That sounds extremely useful to me.
Junichiro Shirogawa flies gracefully through the winter air as the Japanese National Sumo Ski Jumping team began practices yesterday in preparation for the 2009 International Sumo Games. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.
We use Windows Live Messenger around the office to keep in touch throughout the day. As you would expect, Microsoft supports the program by placing ads in it, ads like the one below:
"Appearance: attractive"? If you're looking for the "love of your life", would you pick anything other than attractive? What were the other choices? Great Personality? A Little Homely? Kind of like Bob Barker, but with a unibrow? Seriously.
I'll spare you the Hitler Youth comparisons, but it is important to note that ACORN required all of these youngsters to register to vote before they could join the Choir for Change.
After listening to these little cherubs' chorus about what Barry will do once he's Emperor, I had to wonder why he thinks he needs to "change it… and rearrange it"? Because America just sucks, that's why. Incidentally, I think the "rearrange it" line means that he supports Biden's plan to use the government to take money you have earned away from you to give it to someone else who didn't earn it. Kind of like stealing, only not at all different.
This Bloomberg article has six paragraphs of detailed analysis of oil prices and speculation on future prices before ending with this little bit of information:
"The oil survey has correctly predicted the direction of futures 49 percent of the time since its start in April 2004."
They've been right less than half the time over the past 4 years? Even meteorologists can do better than that. I think it might be time to try the dart board or coin-flipping model for commodity price prediction.
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