#2: One eyepatch good, two eyepatches very bad.

#1: Too much Rum make you forget rule #2

Kjære krimvenn!
Jeg sitter i disse dager fordypet i skrivingen av neste års kriminalroman om lensmann Ole Vik. Handlingen tar til på Korsneset syd for Bergen, men vil forflytte seg til andre deler av Norge etter hvert som krimdramaet skrider frem, og selvfølgelig til mitt fiktive paradis, Fjellberghavn. En del av handlingen vil også finne sted i utlandet. Boken vil omhandle mennesker med ulik sosial bakgrunn, alder og yrke, noe som gir meg en herlig frihet i valg av skjebner. Dermed åpner det seg en unik mulighet for deg som leser: Kunne du tenke deg å bli drept i denne boken?

Med en snedig begrunnelse, en spennende historie eller en artig fortelling om deg selv, kan du bli skrevet inn i evigheten, bli berømt og få en flott nekrolog lenge før du selv dør. Det er ikke mange forunt!

De fleste boklesere ønsker å lese om spennende mennesker og deres skjebner. Din skjebne i boken er å bli drept. Kanskje skjer dette nettopp på grunn av en av dine helt spesielle sider? Skisser gjerne hva som er spesielt ved deg i svarskjemaet nedenfor.

My English translation (and do feel free to correct me, and make a better translation!)

Dear friend and crime lover!
These days I’m writing next year’s crime novel about police officer Ole Vik. The novel takes place at Korsneset south of Bergen [Norway's second biggest city], but I want to move parts of the plot to other parts of Norway as the drama thickens, and of course to my fictitious paradise, Fjellberghavn. Parts of the book will also take part abroad. The book will have people with different social backgrounds, ages and professions, something that give a wonderful freedom when picking destinies. Which opens an unique opportunity for you as a reader: Would you like to get killed in this book?

With a good reason, an exiting or fun story about yourself, you can be written into history, get famous and get a great necrology a long time before you die. Not something that happens to lots of people!

Most readers wish to read about exiting people and their faith. Your destiny in the book is to get killed. Maybe you’re killed because of one of your special behaviours? Tell me what’s special about yourself in the form below.

How about that? The winner will be killed in the book, and some runnerups will get book prices. He as already gotten over 200 entries, so be sure to enter before 1. May.

I’m not sure if you have to be Norwegian? I would guess so, even though the rules doesn’t say anything about it.

I just thought this was a wonderful way to get interesting content for a book. And what a great way to market your future book. Brilliant.

how I keep in touch with (some of) my friends?,
originally uploaded by geirarne.

Brilliant table by Geir Arne. How would your chart look? Put up 10 of your friends, and check them off for e-mail, phone, sms etc.

Post a link to brilliantdays.com or one of my articles on your blog/site. And put the link to your site in the comments below. I’ll pick out two next week. Hint: One of them will be for best post…

Update

Click through to the comments to see the details on the invites!

Update: E-mail

It’s no use to just put your name in a comment. Or just your name and your e-mail address. You will not get any Joost invites that way. One thing you will get, is spam. Spambots crawl websites looking for e-mail addresses, and if you put them in the open here, you will get more spam.

The rules for this little competition is simple: Put a link to this site on your blog or site. And I’ll pick some winners when I have more invites. At the moment, I don’t have any invites.

Nevermind! Go bananas! Just pust your name and e-mail here if you want an invite. I don’t have any, but others may have.

Just remember: If you post your e-mail here, you will get spam. Not from me, but from the spambots crawling the net.

And if you do have some extra invites, please post about it here too!

Update 3: More invites!

Just got some more invites, so the competition is on again. It works like this: Link to brilliantdays.com from your site or blog, and I’ll pas you a Joost invite. The four first will get an invite.

It’s also ok to ask others for an invite in the comments below, but I’m only giving away invites to people linking to brilliantdays.com.

Invites bonanza

Just about everyone who asked for an invite now has got one. And I still have A LOT left. So keep asking, and I’ll do my best mailing them for you. I guess Joost goes out of beta pretty soon, but it’s still cool to have it NOW.

Closing the comments

After 701 comments, I’m closing the comments on this post. I hope all of you have got invites. I certainly have sent about tons of them! Hope you enjoy Joost, and that we soon see some more quality content in there.

Lego iPhone,
originally uploaded by gilest.

Why wait until June? Make your own iPhone today.

Tynonym: Definition. So what is a tynonym? It’s a word that you get as a suggestion on your mobile phone when you spell a word with T9 on.

January 10th, 2007 “Ksimsarian” made a new entry in Wikipedia, about T9onym:

A T9onym is a word that shows up on mobile phones that have T9 text entry that is equivalent through T9 to other words. T9onyms appear by pressing number keys while in T9 mode. For example, Bus and Cup are T9onyms. Other examples are If and He, Book and Cook, Sophie and Roshi. T9onyms can usually be reviewed and selected by placing the cursor at the end of the word and pressing the * (star) key to select an alternate T9onym. T9onyms are slang for those words generated through T9, in general these are referred to as textonyms.

(History for the Wikipedia page here.)

Update

The T9onym page on Wikipedia has been deleted by The_Epopt. Oh, well. I don’t bother to ask why. Some Wikipedia people are really stubborn, and I really don’t care. If you have the time, ask him why. And feel free to comment her if you figure out why… Now back to the original article…

I’m just curious: Did anyone hear about T9onyms before it showed up on Wikipedia?

Jason Kottke writes about it today:

As books are decidedly uncool, you might wonder how this usage came about. Book is a T9onym of cool…both words require pressing 2665 on the keypad of a mobile phone but book comes up before cool in the T9 dictionary, leading to inadvertent uses of the former for the latter.

Hey, Jason. Didn’t you get my tip in November?

Update 1: Google research

Found a couple of links in Google when searching for T9onym, and yes, in in this messy post, quite a bit down, there’s this:

Hi Guys,
I wanted to know if there is word for ‘like-typed’ words on a mobile phone using T9.

For example, to type Cool you need to press 2665. This combination also gives you Book and Cook.

Also, certain combinations give you antonyms. For example, to type Reject, you need to press 735328. This also results in Select. Is there a word for this?

Can we call these words T9onyms?

Cheers,
Mayur

Great word: T9onym. It’s easier to say Tynonym, but I guess T9onym makes it easier for (at the least for the more nerdy) people to understand what it is. So I credit Mayur for the word.

Update 2: Coudal

On Coudal today:

Lovely coinage. T9onyms. Pronounced “tynonyms,” two words made by texting the same numbers on a cell phone pad. jc-today

(link to archived post and screenshot on Flickr)

Great idea: Write it T9onyms, pronounce it “tynonym”. Although English teachers will go bananas…

…a “power ring” that gives the user great control over the physical world as long as the wielder has sufficient willpower.

Great. So for 2007 I decide that you all start behaving. Ok? No more hitting each other in the head or taking things from each other. And start sharing stuff, ok?

You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern 70% Superman 65% The Flash 65% Iron Man 65% Hulk 60% Supergirl 56% Robin 55% Spider-Man 50% Catwoman 45% Wonder Woman 41% Batman 30%

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Update I’m in the “Green Lantern Club” with Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble (who really doesn’t like memes like this – I think that’s what he’s trying to say).

Then Matt Mullenweg wanted some advice on which dress his girlfriend should wear in an upcoming wedding:

(original Flickr posts here and here.) And the winner was the dress on the left. The jury is still out on Matt’s tie…

This is the new web: Communicating with others, and letting you decide. Just as Time Magazine have figured out too too:

In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.

The “help me decide” tag

What if we tag all posts like this “helpmedecide” – in one word and no spaces? Tag your posts for Technorati (tag: helpmedecide), your bookmarks for Del.icio.us (tag: helpmedecide) and your pictures for Flickr (tag: helpmedecide) (and similar services).

I’ve created a Flickr group for this. So if you want the world to help you decide, just take pictures of the different choices you have, and make a new thread in the Flickr group. Buying a house? A car? A dress? Can’t decide on the christmas presents? We’ll help you decide!

And feel free to post links to posts and pics in the comments. I’ll promise to vote!

I agree with msjenbee: “This thread is far better than any makeover show I’ve seen on TV.”

But what on earth is Andrew talking about? “See, I was going to say “You look Norwegian,” rather than German.”

Which made me think of a new word I’ve made up: Tynonym. I googled it and found only two hits, both of which I think is just spelling errors.

Tynonym: Definition

So what is a tynonym? It’s a word that you get as a suggestion on your mobile phone when you spell a word with T9 on.

As you may know, T9 is a system that most mobile phones use, that make it easier to type words faster. You don’t have to press “8-7-9-9-9-4-4-4-6-6-4″ to spell “typing”, but just “8-7-9-4-6-4″ and T9 figures out that it was “typing” you were going to write.

When I type “typing” with T9 on, I also get a second suggestion, the word “typhoi”. Which makes typhoi a tynonym for typing. Get it?

My built-in OS X dictionary doesn’t know typhoi, there’s no entry at Wikipedia, but Google has 3,200 hits and also suggests “typhoid”, which is a word I know. So T9 thinks I’m about to write typhoid but not pressed the final “d” yet.

Some other words and their tynonyms:

Dog. Tynonyms are fog, eng, doi, enhl, emi, foi and eni.
Cat. Tynonyms are act, bat, abu, cau, cav, acu and bau.
Mobile. One tynonym: Mobilf. ???
Web. Tynonyms are yea, wea, zea and zeb. Lots of odd words!
Sex. Tynoyms are sew, pew, rew and rey.
Apple. No tynonyms!
Microsoft. Ditto: No tynonyms.
Internet. Tynomyns are intermet (what is intermet??) and governet!

Obviously some of the tynonyms for the shorter words are only the first three letters of longer words. It’s also interesting to see whether a word is first in the list or not when you type it. Like “cat”, which was only second in the list, while “dog” were first. This will change from phone to phone and person to person as the T9 software (I think – does anyone know for sure?) notice if you choose a word further down the list all the time, and then move it up the list.

Your suggestions

Do you have some examples of funny tynonyms? Maybe tynonyms that mean the opposite of the word you’re trying to type? Post them in the comments below.

Finally: When I type “tynonym” on my phone, I get no suggestions. So tynonym doesn’t have a tynonym…

Cool stuff. And even if I haven’t shopped at them (yet), I immediately like a shop with a blog – called the Hideout – where customers can comment, a community (or forum if you like) and their IM nick in the footer of every page.

Thanks, Luke!

Brilliant webcomic from xkcd.

One picture every third day for 20 years is about 2 000 pictures. 66 seconds in NTSC, about 80 in PAL. I’m looking forward to see the first one…

Matt explains at Digg how he did it:

I plugged the digital camera (power) in to the wall socket, placed the camera on some books on the dresser, and then used to some other books (always the same ones) to square the bottom books / camera up with the dresser so that it was always in the same position…it was actually a two person job. Because you are right, we ended up bumping it (no matter how careful we were) and needing to take the camera down because sometimes we’d know folks would be coming over and might see the camera set up (we hadn’t told folks at this point) and either figure out Carlin was pregnant.

We basically dedicated the camera to sit there for this project. I used my old SLR to take normal photos and later on the digital video camera we bought could also take decent stills.

Eirik did something similiar some time ago, just with the view outside his window.

Update A Digg user tells that this has been done before – in the 1998 short movie “7 seconds to Sophie” watch on Atom films), and even used in the beginning of the movie Amélie. Still: This is Matt’s wife and HIS daughter growing in there. What a lovely memory to keep.

1. “My natural levels are 11 times higher as other people.”
2. “Someone put testosterone in the massage oil.”
3. “We couldn’t come because we had an accident with both motorcycles.”
4. “It was in my vitamins.”
5. “I didn’t know that grandma uses testosterone in her donuts.”
6. “I was jogging through the suburbs when some kids sprayed me with testosterone from a water gun.”
7. “A cat bit me and it must have had higher testosterone levels than legal.”
8. “I always get high testosterone levels after a hot day in the sun. Maybe I should have used suntan?”
9. “I watched Harry Potter with my kids at the movies some days ago, and the guy on the row in front of me smelled funny.”
10. “I visited Tchernobyl in my vacation. Very interesting place. Did you know that everyone had to move from there?”
11. “The butler did it.”
12. “This is unfair!! It’s the newspapers who did it! My doctor! WADA! My teammates! My trainer! My wife! My ex-lover!”
13. “I must have gotten it in that public toilet.”
14. “So you can’t smoke dope and play afterwards? Why is this called the “free world” then? Heh???!!??”
15. “It was God who did it.”
16. “I blame it on the boogie.”
17. “Doh.”
18. “My testosterone levels are high because my girl friend bought new underwear last week.”
19. “I got head-butted by a french, and after that my levels have been sky high.”
20. “My real name is Kent. Clark Kent.”

Add yours below.

…It has been an absolute pleasure to serve the visual effects community for the past 9 years. We are looking forward to continuing to support you and are especially looking forward to working with you again. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this new version of Shake.

Frank thinks – and so do I – that there will be a new version of Motion with all the goodies from Shake inside. Why?

Motion never became the product Apple hoped it to be. After Effects users kept using After Effects, as Motion didn’t have all the features After Effects have. As Frank says: “Motion was no match for After Effects.”

But with all the power of Shake inside, and the new power of Intel-based Macs, Motion would be a amazing tool for high-end graphics and compositing. It would also mean that the stuff that is inside of Shake today, in the future will be inside the Final Cut Pro Studio package. So you get software previously priced at $2500 included with the Final Cut Pro Studio, at the moment priced at $1100 at Amazon.com.

All this is of course speculation from my side, and Apple is known to surprise us.

They already have by annoucing “the death” of Shake, a magnificent piece of software, used for compositing on blockbusters as King Kong and the Lord of the rings series. And when Apple ditches great stuff, it’s almost always because there’s something even cooler coming.

For now, there’s Shake to be bought for $499, and I would think that all the trained Shake users, will have a huge head start when and if the new “Shaked Motion” comes out.

Here’s something fun made in Shake, by my good friend Norby.

(If you’re reading this in a newsreader, you may have to click through to the site to see it)

Update
According to Jason Kottke, Uschi Lang said “yes”:

At 4:30 am, he snuck out of bed without Uschi noticing it and headed back to the Apple Store. Based on the timing of the time-lapse video already posted on Apple’s site, James stood with the signs for about 15 minutes (5 minutes per sign) to ensure that they were visible in the video.

A few days later, James set up a “romantic trail of candles” leading up to his G5, showed Uschi the video — which she had not seen despite some coverage on the web — and she of course said “yes”.

He even showed her the video on his G5! What a wonderful story…!

A runaway trolley car is hurtling down a track. In its path are five people who will definitely be killed unless you, a bystander, flip a switch which will divert it on to another track, where it will kill one person. Should you flip the switch?

Do you?

BBC readers also have commented, and some posted their own dilemmas under:

It’s your birthday. Four of your friends together buy you one lottery ticket as a present. You win £5 million. Do you share the money with these friends, who only spent £0.25 each on your birthday present?

Reuben Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970) was a cofounder and first president of the National Cartoonists Society. He is one of the most famous cartoonists in history. He earned lasting fame for his “Rube Goldberg machines” – devices that are exceedingly complex and perform very simple tasks in a very indirect and convoluted way.

…

A Rube Goldberg machine or device is any exceedingly complex apparatus that performs a very simple task in a very indirect and convoluted way. Rube devised and drew several such pataphysical devices. The best examples of his machines have an anticipation factor. The fact that something so wacky is happening can only be topped by it happening in a suspenseful manner. A Rube Goldberg machine usually has at least ten steps.

So I learned something new today too. The Wikipedia article has lots of references to Rube Goldberg machines in movies and tv series: Wallace and Gromit, 4400, Final destination, Tom and Jerry, Looney tunes, Back to the future, Home alone, Delicatessen and The city of lost children.

The famous Honda ad (download) is an example of a Rube Goldberg machine.

And then you have this wonderful collection:

If you want to download it, use KeepVid, and paste this YouTube URL into KeepVid. There’s also a bookmarklet to directly download videos from most videosharing sites (Google video, YouTube, iFilm, MySpace, PutFile etc.)

There’s a video at Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. And one at Tusenfryd’s site.

Dagbladet took Justin Garvanovic from the European Coaster Club for a test ride. He says (my translation)…

The chaos in the beginning I’ve never seen before, and it was brilliant. A top five ride in Europe, and it may even go into the World top 10 when they have adjusted everything.

And I have a season card. Dum-di-dum-di-dum…

Photos

I have updated this with photos from Speedmonster. It’s built right at the entrance of the park, very visible from the nearby highway (the place where E18 and E6 are running together for a kilometer). It loops twice around the stairs that take you from the ticket counters into the park. The ride has two trains, so you are almost guaranteed to have screaming people pass right over you as the escalators take you up. Very cool.

Speedmonster starts off with a stunning acceleration: 0-90 km/h (0-55 mph) in only 2.2 seconds. Makes your hair dry…

It then goes into two loops, with twists and turns, right over the escalators.

On the way back to the starting point, it takes some more twists between the trees…

There have been huge lines everytime I’ve been there. Very popular, and worth a trip to Oslo if you like being tossed around!

The picture in Dagbladet shows Eirik’s nice living room, but I’m still a bit worried. I have to call him and tell him that there’s a man standing in his closet. According to Hollywood there’s only two options: Wife’s lover or axe murderer. Or maybe its the goatse man…

Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]: sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got crap to help, sry

Read the rest here. (MMORPG what? See MMORPG at Wikipedia).

,
Apple family, originally uploaded by niallkennedy.

From the comments on this picture:

If some of the 70s godawfulness I see coming back again is anything to judge by, it might be a good idea to invest in a cave and survival gear so you can retreat for a bit.

So true.

Also check out Walker, Brokeback Ranger on YouTube…

From the left, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Il, Marx & Engels and Stalin.

I wish someone could make a tool that did the same with the names in my OS X Adress book!

Update: Here are lots more…

Update Zach tells me that it’s Jeremy Keith that made the buzzword bingo, and there’s an interactive version at Jeremy’s site. Thanks, Zach!

The original idea probably comes from a Dilbert strip, this one. Which of course is a good excuse to mention that Scott Adams blog is much funnier that the cartoons he makes.

Taking off my pants on the subway has become a yearly event for me. It has all of the emotions associated with a real holiday: stress, excitement, joy, laughter.

Lots of Improve agents took the subway without pants, so many that the NY police arrested several. LOL. No humor, eh?

Pretty soon there were about 25 cops on the scene. All types of cops arrived, including plain clothes cops. One of them was wearing a Mets jacket. They all seemed to be irritated that they had “busted [their] asses” to get down there only to find eight people in their underwear.

All about it at Improv Everywhere, and lots of pics at Flickr, here and here.

Or…

Maybe it’s just me playing with this one…

Could be…

See all the others here. I was no. 32.

Oyvind guest star in South Park

Originally uploaded to Flickr Brandnewbrain.

With gems like

• The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Products Of The Future
• Top 10 Movie Sequels That Should Have Been Made
• Top 10 Ads Banned in America in 2005
• Top 10 weirdest USB drives
• The Top 10 Craziest Science Stuff you didn’t know
• 100 things we didn’t know this time last year

If you don’t know Wists, you might want to read why I think Wists is so cool.

In order to learn something, first you must have enough interest to activate whatever brain chemistry it takes to first concentrate on the subject and second to burn the rules into your long term memory. Apparently this is easy for people who believe that their gambling decisions have a strong influence on whether they win or lose. To me, every casino game except the slots looks like an annoying set of rules layered on top of what should be a simple process of taking your money and giving you nothing in return.

I’m not the biggest Dilbert fan, but Scott says some funny things on his blog. I belong to almost the same group as him: The ones who couldn’t bother to learn enough about poker and other gambling to actually have a chance to win something.

Update: A friend of mine (HUGE Dilbert-fan I must add) read this. So I have to explain a bit better what “I’m not the biggest Dilbert fan” means. So: Sometimes I fall off the chair reading Dilbert, more often I just smile, and sometimes it’s not too funny. Or as my friend says: “You’re not smart enough to understand it.” Sure.

Update 2: The discussion about this continued with someone else, and I spent some time reading the latest posts on Scott’s blog. He hits the nail on the head most of the time, and this one from the December 24 is brilliant:

I’m a busy fellow. My normal day is 100% scheduled, including weekends. Christmas requires an additional 20% of my time for about a month, which I manage by eliminating sleep, exercise, recreation and physical intimacy. In return, I get presents that sit in a huge pile for weeks while I wonder where to store them.

LOL. I’m falling off the chair. Scott is now in the “top10″ folder in NetNewsWire.

Go read the December 24 post. If you miss the punchline, read the comments.

I tried a few different pictures, and I look like Hugh Grant, Alec Baldwin, Bill Clinton, Matthew Perry, Gary Cooper og Cristiano Ronaldo. LOL.

But then again, I’m living with someone looking like Rita Hayworth, Kirsten Dunst, Avril Lavigne, J. K. Rawling and Greta Garbo.

What a couple, heh?

Post your results in the comments!

Their latest stunt is the “Suicide Jumper”, where their agent Whines playes Will the jumper. He climbs up one of the tall buildings in New York. And attracts crowds, policemen and firemen.

“Suidice Jumper”. Some other great missions: “Look up more”, “Even better than the real thing” and “The MP3 experiment 2.0″.

Update: Improv everywhere goes global.

To qualify for the Fictional 15, we insisted that members be both fictional (in the sense that we excluded mythological and folkloric figures) and characters (meaning they are part of a narrative story or series of stories). Great wealth was required to be one of the primary attributes of the characters on this list–in other words, we looked for characters that were known, within their universes, for being rich.

Santa wins (big surprise):

Analysts expect impact on toy and candy production to be minimal. Claus’ ultimate motivations for annual gift-giving orgy remain unclear. Speculated to be tormented by infinite wealth; embarks on annual around-the-world trip in a futile attempt to give it away.

LOL. Also on the list: Willy Wonka, Lara Croft and Lucius Malfoy.

Wired Tech Trend

Originally uploaded to Flickr rich115.

Update: Picked up by Boingboing too.

This is awesome. I think it justifies the whole thing, and I’m only four minutes into it. The first appearance of Palpatine in TPM and AOTC is ON THE SAME FRAME. And at the same time in ROTJ, Vader is telling Moff Jerjerrod that the Emperor is coming.

Obtain a dumpster. Paint it black, weld all the covers shut except one which can be bolted closed from the inside. Hitch it to the back of your wife’s mini van. Gather 12 friends and bolt yourselves inside and let your wife pull it around for several weeks while she does the errands.

Paint all the windows on your car black. Drive around town at high speeds with your wife standing up in the sunroof shouting course and speed directions to you.

More here.

Party tip: Put up your Mac with a camera and Photo Booth running, next to the stereo or bar. Choose one of the more wacky effects. People will fall over laughing. It’s hilarious.

Update:: An alternative for Photo Booth is the shareware WebcamTweaker.

“Only” $1,015…

Too bad it doesn’t DO anything. It would be nice if it was fed a fish everytime someone loaded the page (so if Boingboing adopted one, it would be really fat!). Or that it dived into the water and did stuff. Now it just stands there. Cute though!

Amazing collection of cassette pictures. From about 30-10 b.i. (before iPod).

The group, known as the Nizari Ismailis, was a Shia order who believed in the notion of the hazir imam and was organized as a secret underground political order, which infiltrated areas under the control of Seljuk Turks. In 1090 the sect captured a castle called Alamut in the mountains of Northern Iran. This sect was said to carry out assassinations of the enemies of the order, or Muslim rulers they believed to be impious.

I think it shows quite a sense of humour to make a game out of the theft of one of the most famous pictures in art history. And a case that isn’t solved – the picture has not been found yet. There are of course people who don’t like this, but I give the Munch museum and the Munch family a big thumbs up!

The game can be bought from the creators, Aschehoug.

Update: The game is no longer sold at the museum, but is available online and at bookstores.

Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

And 9 more reasons.

Hey, he’s even bunny and Alex Kidd!

(In English: Heffalump)

This superhero does SO need to meet David…

what could have been

Originally uploaded to Flickr ChrisDodo.

Superglue! hahahaha (see prevoius post)

In an ideal world… Nanotalby

Originally uploaded to Flickr blackbeltjones.

…isn’t a crappy iTunes phone AND a sleek iPod nano. We want a sleek iTunes nano phone.

pluto

Originally uploaded to Flickr Brandnewbrain.

For several years my name will be flying through space on a CD on a NASA spacecraft. I like the idea.

Cool enough. But the CIA didn’t like the idea! Read more Cupertino.de.

Minus points to Seth for not telling which bank this was.

http://apple.com/dangermouse

Originally uploaded to Flickr a superhero by night.

Flickr user “a superhero by night” thinks Apple marketing got it a bit wrong this time (for once I must add). So he improves the new Mighty Mouse web page.

Those Pesky Ninja’s!

Originally uploaded to Flickr Michael Heilemann.

LOL. Seth Godin would love this.

Update Seth does love it. See Seth’s blog

As you can see: Michael Helleman is more famous than HC Andersen. Lars von Trier beats Niels Bohr. Viggo Mortensen beats Søren Kierkegaard. And Brigitte Nielsen beats Karen Blixen. Ah, the joys of pagerank.

Number two: Success in the 80s
Both had tremendous success in the 80s. Duran Duran released their first single “Planet earth” in 1981, and made their last performance for years at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, July 13, 1985. They sold over 70 millons records and had a 18 Billboard hot 100 hits in the US.

Their biggest hits were:

• Girls on film
• Hungry like the wolf
• Save a prayer
• Rio
• Is there something I should know?
• Union of the snake
• New moon on monday
• The reflex
• A view to a kill

The first Star Wars movie is the most successful movie at the cinamas worldwide from the 70s and the 80s. It has made whopping $800,000,000! George Lucas made the smartest move so far in the movie history by getting the rights for merchandise. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB): “George Lucas insisted that he have merchandising rights to the film. Studio executives, seeing little if any profit from such merchandise, gave him the rights for free. Star Wars related merchandise has since generated many millions of dollars in sales, allowing Lucas to make movies completely independent of the studio system he decried. Merchandising rights are now a major part of any film contract.”

The Star Wars movies are:

• “Star Wars: A new hope” (episode 4) IMDB | Starwars.com | Amazon US
• “The empire strikes back” (episode 5) IMDB | Starwars.com | Amazon US
• “Return of the Jedi” (episode 6) IMDB | Starwars.com | Amazon US
• “The Phantom menance” (episode 1) IMDB | Starwars.com | Amazon US
• “Attack of the clones” (episode 2) IMDB | Starwars.com | Amazon US
• “Revenge of the Sith” (episode 3) IMDB | Starwars.com

Number three: Gained weight
Both have gained weight. Lead singer Simon Le Bon is not the slim, sexy guy he was in the 80s. Of course he isn’t. The man is almost 48, but tries hard to still be 25. He calles himself “the sexiest singer in the world” when presenting the band members at the end of the concert. Not. But he has a charm and an appeal that still is there, even though in a more “Harry” way. He tried two spins on stage, and didn’t try number three, as he was close to falling on the second.

The first Star Wars movie were made with small models and layers of celluloid. In the battle scenes you see a couple of space ships at the time, or maybe 15-20 if they’re far away. The whole movie has “only” about 200 FX shots. And there’s even a potato and shoe used as asteroids. The movie costed about $18,000,000 to make.

In “Revenge of the Sith” (episode 3) you see like 2 000 space ships outside Akakin and Padme’s penthouse everytime you see a window (which is about all the time). And in the battle scenes there are literally thousands of elements whoosing around, making your head spin almost as nice as Simon Le Bon does. The movie has about 2 200 FX shots and costed $115,000,000 to make.

Number four: The 80s were the best
Both have a history of albums/movies ranging from the 70s to this day. But most fans and critics would rate the albums made in the 80s highest, and the two Star Wars from the 80s highest. On the IMDB top 250 list, the first two Star Wars movies are rated 8.7 out of 10, at 8th and 10th place. “Return of the Jedi” is number 127 with 8.1 out of 10. Episodes 1, 2 and 3 are not on the list.

The new Duran Duran album Astronaut has got some nice reviews, but nothing similiar to the reviews and sales of the golden 80s.

Number five: Both feature a wookiee
Chewbacca and Andy Taylor. Say no more.

Next is an ad for T-mobile. If only everbody talking and walking were this clever. I see people walking around talking in their mobiles every day, completely isolated from the world, and paying no attention to things happening around them. People listening to their iPods are in general much more aware of their surroundings than people on their mobiles.

It seems like men do net help much around the house in Great Britain? See the cool ad from McCoys Specials.

The Smirnoff Ice is hilarious. LOL. Worlds biggest refrigerator!

I think some people may find the Skoda ad a bit offensive. I think it’s a great idea. But I would still buy a Prius…

The last one is Miller beer.

If you see any brilliant ads, use the comments under!

But it never made it to the official arrangements at the festival, due to criticism in the Gay and Lesbian community. On the net it’s a different story: A huge success, with over 80 000 downloads and over 500 GB in downloads during this weekend.

Idea

The idea comes from advertising agency Kitchen in Oslo, which also have clients like McDonalds in Norway.

Technical details

The movie itself is made by Toxic design studio in Oslo. It is animated by talented 3D manager Rune Spaans, who made an animatic in 3ds Max first. 20-25 pics were put together with “temp” music, and discussed with Kitchen to see if the story and cut was right.

Version 1 of the animatic is here, and version 2 here.

Rune then had to download way too many pictures of sperm and Colonoscopy for research. At work! LOL.

He then made an advanced test in 3ds Max, which didn’t work out the way he wanted it too. Switching to Maya didn’t work out either. Back to 3ds Max again, this time with a simpler setup, which worked.

The passes were done with RPManager in 3ds Max, 16 bit greyscale.It was rendered in Brazil and composited in Digital Fusion. An almost finished version of the animation is here.

With several thousand sperms in some pictures, some of the frames took over five hours to render. The sperms have a glasslike surface that mimics jellyfish. The whole thing took over a week to render on Toxic’s render farm.

Music

The music is made by Verdens sterkeste mann (The World’s strongest man). Brilliant name for a company.

Rune has even made a director’s cut of the movie. I won’t tell you what the yellow thing is…

There’s also a technical explanation about the production here – in Norwegian.

Controversy

The movie got lots of criticism in the Gay and Lesbian community in Oslo. Many people thinks it encourages people to have sex without a condom. And thereby undermining the work with HIV and AIDS information. Other critics don’t like the fact the the Lesbians are forgotten in the ad. Which in turn made Europride turn down the movie, and not include it in the festival.

Read more about the controversy in Gay and Lesbian paper Blikk

“[Journalist]: – And the name Leah Isadora…?

[Märtha]: Ari took the initiative to it because he always has been fascinated by the dancer Isadora Duncans life and tragic death. He has traveled a lot in the Middle East, and the Leah name has its origins there. I have to admit that I always have been a big Star Wars-fan, and princess Leia has always been the most beautiful in the world.”

Illustration by Eirik Solheim at Eirikso.com

Isadora Duncan died when her scarf was caught in the wheel of friend’s car. Read about her at Wikipedia. Read more about Märtha at the site of the Royal house of Norway.

This is the little Leia Isadora:

Photo: (Dad) Ari Behn, Kongehuset.no

Princess Leia has her own databank entry at Starwars.com. Did you know that she is only 1.5 meters tall?