Here is a rock version by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as used in a home made Christmas Light Show in Allen Texas:
Here is a traditional English version:
And here is a traditional Ukrainian version:
Other versions:
Here is a simple proof that thoughts are traveling at the speed of 2000 miles/hour or 3233 km/hour.
So, yesterday evening at about 11pm we've been wondering with Jorge about the making of Time-Freeze effect of Heroes, for which the Stargate Films actually won the 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series:
At 1:53am, without me asking or communicating to him in any way our conversation with Jorge, my lil brother, who is in Kyiv, Ukraine, sends me this awesome reel about special effects done at Stargate Studios:
While watching this video, I obviously saw the first one among related videos :-)
Now the distance between College Station, TX and Kyiv, Ukraine is approximately 6000 miles or 9700 kilometers and it took around 3 hours for my thoughts to travel from me to my brother, which makes the speed of thoughts be around 2000 miles/hour or 3233 km/hour.
Q.E.D.
An Uruguayan producer who uploaded a short film to YouTube has been offered a £18.5m contract to make a Hollywood movie.
Fede Alvarez's short film, Ataque de Pánico, featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.
It is 4 mins 48 seconds long and was made on a budget of less than £200 but has notched up more than 1.5m hits on YouTube in less than a month.
Alvarez said: "I uploaded Panic Attack! on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios. It was amazing, we were all shocked."
"If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it," he added.
Source: Ananova: From YouTube to Hollywood
See also: Aparato Post and Murdoc Films
Quest Crew is surely The Best Dancing Crew in America. Haven't seen anything this good in a while!
Thanks to Veena for sharing!
Can't read Chinese or Japanese or even tell one from the other for the matter, but this video is pretty touching. All I know is that the director is Sou Ootsuki, and you should all go visit his website!
Someone has figured out a really clever way to prevent kids from watching videos they aren’t supposed to :-) You've really got to watch it till the end ;-)
Discovered by brother as usual except that he was lazy to post it here himself :-)
Прослухав три рази, - кандидат шо нада! :-)
Самі класні приколи як завжди братчик підкидає :)
A breathtaking story by Capucine. Starring baby monkeys lost in frightening trees, a witch, crocodiles, a tiger, a "popotamus" and a lion, and even a "tremendously very bad mammoth". There are also magic powers and an orange ring, but sometimes, "something goes amiss"... Bring your popcorn and enjoy the show :-)
Check Miss Capucine's channel on Vimeo for continuation of the story ;-)
P.S. Thanks to Vahideh for sharing this awesome piece with me!
One prominent rock critic called them "a bastard mutt that immigration service dumped upon rock'n'roll". They've been banned from CB/GB, Mercury Lounge, Fez and Bowery Ballroom immediately after first performances for being too over the mothefucking top, while their first concert in HUTZ's native Kiev, received by Ukrainian press as "UKRAINIAN NIGHTMARE ACCOMPLISHES AMERICAN DREAM". Please welcome:
Юля не лізла в президенти на минулих виборах, але робила дуже правильні замітки що подобається народу, а що ні. Треба сказати що цей серіал вийшов не гірше знаменитого "Операция ПроФФесор" з минулих виборів, але відчувається професіоналізм і купа баксів :-)
Here is yet another amazing research done at Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory. They've created a high-speed robot hand that can perform impressive acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation. The original paper was presented at ICRA 2009. The video shows the manipulator dribbling a ping-pong ball, spinning a pen, throwing a ball, tying knots, grasping a grain of rice with tweezers, and tossing / re-grasping a cellphone!
Kudos to Victor Reshetnikov for sharing this awesomeness. He'd like to send greetings to everyone who've been bored enough to read this post and watch the video ;-)
A friend of mine shared an awesome video of a 4 year-old Jonah's drum cover of Michael Jackson's Beat It. Unfortunately they had to shut off video embedding for legal reasons as the videos are of a child, and the music covered is owned by respective artists. Regardless of the formalities however, it definitely worth following the link and watching! Jonah has his own web-site www.JonahRocks.com and can be followed on YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.
Kids probably get some innate ability to drum as it turned there are quite a lot of other kid and baby drummers on YouTube:
Julian Pavone is 2 years old in this video, but already recruits for his band:
Another 2 years old Zaiven is playing his first show at Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret in Denver, Colorado!
Levi Eshleman is a 3 year old drummer that was featured on "Be A Drumhead" DVD:
Igor Falecki is a 4 year old in these videos. Aged 7 now he is touring the world with concerts.
Thanks to Ulli for sharing the link that inspired this post.
P.S. Turns out kids are good not only in drumming: see the talents Ukraine's got ;-)
An interesting research paper from Georgia Institute of Technology introduces methods for augmenting aerial visualizations of Earth (from tools such as Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth) with dynamic information obtained from videos. The goal is to make Augmented Earth Maps that visualize the live broadcast of dynamic sceneries within a city. They propose to analyze videos of pedestrians and cars, under differing conditions and then augment Aerial Earth Maps with live and dynamic information.
See also:
Official Music Video of Cinnamon Chasers' "Luv Deluxe" from their album "A Million Miles From Home". Filming style is borrowed from The Prodigy's "Smack my bitch up", but the screenplay is very interesting, while the music is surely awesome!
Modus Records / Koch Entertainment (US)
Directed by: Saman Keshavarz
Produced by: Francis Pollara
Assoc. Producer: Nate Eggert
This hilarious sketch by Jeff Dunham has had more than 90 million views on YouTube since 2007! Awesome! -=8-)
В Чебоксарах поклали новий асфальт.
На перший погляд може здатися, що в новому асфальті для пішоходів нічого доброго нема. Але якщо добре придивитися, то на 33-ій секунді відео можна помітити, що дідок знайшов в цьому велику користь - він просто вирішив тряхнути стариною, і потанцювати брейк-данс перед своєю бойовою подругою! :)
In this hilarious sketch, national marriage expert Mark Gungor explores the differences between men and women or what he calls, "The Laws of Relational Physics". Enjoy ;-)
Thanks to Zhanna for sharing!
Society for the Performing Arts, bringing the world's best to Houston, presents Virsky Ukrainian National Dance Company for one night only on Friday, Oct. 2, 2009 at 8 p.m. in Jones Hall. Houston is just one stop on the Company's 65-city U.S. tour this fall!
The Ukrainian culture and customs have evolved for thousands of years. Founded by ballet master Pavlo Virsky and led by Artistic Director and National Artist of Ukraine Myroslav Vantukh, Virsky Ukrainian National Dance Company celebrates that lengthy history through vibrant choreography and colorful costumes in a stage performance portraying the rich traditions of its homeland. The performance will begin with a greeting dance complete with bread and salt on an embroidered towel, the symbol of the sincerity and kindness of the Ukrainian people, and will end with the "Hopak" featuring numerous solo performances with intricate choreographic formations.
The history of the ensemble goes back to 1937 when Virsky and Mykola Bolotov brought together a group of folk dancers. Virsky's first efforts at founding a folk dance company were rewarded in 1940, when his group was recognized as Ukraine's Song and Dance Company; today it carries his name. He was trained as a ballet dancer and performed as a soloist with a number of theaters in the old Soviet Union, where he also staged classical ballets such as Marius Pepita's Swan Lake, Don Quixote and Raymonda. However, he was fascinated by folk dancing, which he believed portrayed a people's culture and soul. As a choreographer, Virsky created a number of the dances still performed by the ensemble. It was under his guidance that the ensemble matured into a highly professional dance company of 79 members whose art has won the hearts of countless reviewers and the general public.
Vantukh, Virsky's disciple and great expert in folk traditions and ethnography, has led the ensemble since 1980. His primary objective and continuing creative quest is the careful preservation and development of folk choreographic art. First class performances and expressiveness of the dancers, exquisite moves, the bright palette of costumes, the wealth of tunes and completeness of the choreographic plot are among characteristic features of the ensemble's repertoire.
See also:
Samsung found an interesting way to promote their new SOUL mobile phones...
Thanks to my lil brother for sharing this with me
A series of flash-mobs from around the world paying tribute to Michael Jackson, started by the Swedish streetdance company Bounce...
In Stockholm, more than 300 dancers met at 15.30, got informed and then learned the choreography in 30 min. Less then 1 hour later they performed it.
In Bucharest, around 200 people gathered to bring an homage to the unique Michael Jackson on his birthday, the 29th of August.
Other cities around the world followed the call: Mexico City, Paris, Amsterdam, Seattle and many many others. Kudos to Karym for sharing this with me!
A video of difficult biking tricks, where Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill jumps onto spiked fences and leaps over rooftops, has had more than 2.5m YouTube hits in a week. At one point in the video MacAskill jumps onto a wall on his bike and then attempts to ride along a spiky fence. Another trick that has impressed his viewers is when he rides up a tree trunk and does a back flip, a trick known as a 100 per cent flare...
Filmed over the period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby, this video features probably the best collection of street/street trials riding ever seen. There's some huge riding, but also some of the most technically difficult and imaginative lines you will ever see. Without a doubt, this video pushes the envelope of what is perceived as possible on a trials bike.
Source: Telegraph: New YouTube street biking star gets 2.5m hits in a week plus thanks to Jacob for sharing it with me!
An amazing idea of using an oscilloscope to display something that won:
- third place in assembly 2007 shortfilm compo
- most original entry at assembly 2007
- most original concept, breakthrough performance and best animation at scene.org
The oscilloscope is in X/Y-mode, with right channel connected to X and left to Y input. Z (brightness) input is not used. Most soundcards (and other players) seem to have a lowpass filter at about half of the samplerate, making some effects here look quite strange. The soundcard used in this video just didn't have proper filters so it happens to be suitable for these effects.
Try it on your oscilloscope: .flac | .wav
See also: Youscope author's web-page
SixthSense (also known as WUW: Wear Ur World) is yet another amazing technology that augments the physical world around us with digital 
information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. The idea has been conceived by Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab and has already won an astonishing amount of awards as well as amazing attention through press coverage. In simple words, the Sixth Sense is a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cellphone, which acts as the computer and your connection to the Cloud - all the information stored on the web.
Information is often confined to paper or computer screens. SixthSense (also known as WUW: Wear Ur World) frees data from these confines and releases it into the world, seamlessly integrating information and reality. With the miniaturization of computing devices we are always connected to the digital world, but there is no link between our interactions with these digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. SixthSense bridges this gap by augmenting the physical world with digital information. It brings intangible information into the tangible world. Using a projector and camera worn as a pendant around the neck, SixthSense sees what you see and visually augments surfaces or objects with which you interact. It projects information onto any surface or object, and allows users to interact with the information through natural hand gestures, arm movements, or with the object itself. SixthSense makes the entire world your computer.
Cudos to Josh Chan for sharing this with me!
This hilarious sketch from the Belgian comedy show M!LF (Man! Liberation Front) has had more than 4.5 million views on YouTube and became a huge viral internet success. The Shii is an interactive game console witch features games like Steamy Iron II, Kitchen Queens, Shave Invaders, Extreme Knitting IV and Suckend Life...
Thanks to Anna for sharing this masterpiece with me :-)
Yellow Bird is a really far-fetched name for such an awesome technology, but you'll certainly get it once you see their knowhow. Meanwhile, just imaging Google Street View in video - that's what yellowBird® is!Yellow birds don't have wings but they fly to make you experience a 3D reality
See also:
Great research presented a couple of days ago at SIGGRAPH'2009. Two researchers from the University of Tokyo created a tactile device capable of producing stress fields in 3D space. Combined with 3D stereoscopic displays, this device provides high-fidelity tactile feedback for the interaction with 3D visual objects.
See also:
Simply AMAZING idea! Layar allows you to see what is around you by displaying realtime digital information on top of reality through the camera of your of your mobile phone.
See also:
I've always thought of film colorization as a visual effect that would be too costly to do on movies besides proving the point it is possible. I changed my mind recently when I saw the two probably most famous soviet black-and-white movies colorized.
The first one is "Seventeen Moments of Spring" (by Tatyana Lioznova, 1973)
and the second one is "Only Old Men Are Going to Battle" (by Leonid Bykov, 1973)
This last one shows a bit of the original movie at the beginning to give you a feel of the effect.
See also:
My verdict - the video is fake, but I wonder what were they advertising :-)
P.S. My favorite is the grand-pa tossing carrots into his cart -=8-)
Have you decided for yourself at least whether we've been to the Moon? Then check this out:
Here is also Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin describes landing on the Moon with the aid of the Google Moon application:
“Morpho Towers--Two Standing Spirals” is an installation that consists of two ferrofluid sculptures that moves synthetically to music. The two spiral towers stand on a large plate that hold ferrofluid. When the music starts, the magnetic field around the tower is strengthened. Spikes of ferrofluid are born from the bottom plate and move up, trembling and rotating around the edge of the iron spiral ...
Sources:
Ukraine's Got Talent again - this time not as young, but surely as amazing!
«The show was prepared for the 9th of May, in honor of the opening of the memorial "Krasnaya Gorka" in Evpatoria, where 12.5 thousand residents were executed during WWII.»
The young artist Xenia Simonoff is only 24 years old and is one of only 4 people in the world involved in this form of art...
See also:
Xenia's YouTube channel
KP: Ксения Симонова: «Если выиграю миллион – потрачу его на благотворительность!»
P.S. There is something divine about this masterpiece: yesterday I was showing it to my friends, right after which we left. As soon as I got into the car and started it, there was "Nothing else matters" playing on the radio - the last part from the music accompaniment in the sand animation...
P.P.S. She actually became the winner of "Ukraine's Got Talent"!
Karina Rudnytska and Yuriy Kuzynskyy are 6 and 7 year old raising stars that became world-famous overnight after their incredible performance at "Ukraine's Got Talent"...
An interview with the stars, their parents, teachers as well as their subsequent performance on the show:
P.S. Translation of the dialogs into English will appear here soon.
Finally a good take on what a real Human Interface (HI) should look like ;-)
Thanks to my brother for sharing!
Alexander Rybak representing Norway with his own song "Fairytale" won the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest
Lyrics by Herb Sutter
I've tried Pascal, time after time
I've done my COBOL but committed no crime
C pointer mistakes, I've made a few
I've had my share of Lisp and Haskel and Scheme but I still haven't a Clu
(and on and on and on and on)
We are the champions, O Bjarne!
And we'll keep compiling till the end
You've made us champions, we are the champions
No time for Java 'cause we are the champions
Of the world!
I've taken my macros, and my function calls
I've enjoyed speed and performance and everything that goes with C, I love them all
But C's been no bed of roses, and Ada's no pleasure cruise
I want abstraction and optimization both, so I ain't gonna use...
(and on and on and on and on)
Nature is quite amazing...
Which reminded me of another amazing wild nature video about animals' team work...
This is a really funny take on Bill Gates' Facebook Page ;-) Click on the image to enlarge and be sure to read everything including ads :-)
A round of applause to the author and my kum Illyich for sharing this with me :-)
Barack Obama and Sarah Palin dance Salsa :-)
Thanks to Elena Kuznetsova for sharing this awesome photo :-)
Red Bull Crashed Ice smashed into Quebec for the city's third edition of the fastest sport on skates! Finland's Artu Pihlainen took home the top prize while 85,000 fans lined the course - and undoubtedly snapped over 85,000 pictures - of a jaw drop course that wowed spectators and thrilled/punished the athletes...
P.S. Kudos to Valentin David for sharing this awesome bit with me!
My personal favorites:
Dear God,
I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that ok? --Neil
Dear God,
I think the stapler is one of your greatest invention. --Ruth M
Dear God,
We read Thomas Edison made light, but in Sun. school they said you did it. So I bet he stoled your idea. --Sincerely Donna
Dear God,
Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother. --Larry
These guys are awesome: they will kill Bill and Forrest Gump in one minute :-)
Thanks to my roomie for sharing these masterbits!
A team of visualization geeks took to the hills of Wales armed to the teeth with sheep, LEDs and a camera, to create a huge amazing LED display. Of sorts...
Flight attendant David Holmes wants you to "sit back, relax, and have a good time."
Here is also an interview with David Holmes aired on CNN:
See also:
WSJ: Southwest’s Rapping Flight Attendant on Freestyle and Flying to Vegas
This song definitely made my day today... Amazing!
Well, if you liked it too, here is a small remix on it:
The song is a soundtrack from the movie "Takshak" composed by A. R. Rahman.
An amazing idea of turning boring buildings into live creatures came into minds of people form http://www.easyweb.fr/...
Yep, that's how buildings of the future are going to look like!
This guy is freaking hilarious but absolutely right - we are such a spoiled generation :-)
P.S. OMG, I just made a publication in my personal news media, how cool is that?! -=8-)
Amazing masterpiece of art, sport and hobby!
Guess who has this team dedicated their work to?
And the new world record in highest domino climb ...
This is a pretty horny but absolutely funny viral ad created by Superfad for Durex :-)
NOTE: This is NOT OFFICE SAFE, so don't watch it at work, especially when you have loudspeakers ;-)
And to make it even funnier here are some scenes that were cut off by the censorship :-)
Outtake 1
Outtake 2
Outtake 3
See also: Superfad Finds New Durex Viral Project Stimulating
A hilarious Christmas masterpiece from Peter Serafinowicz and BBC about the smallest computer in the world :-)
