WOW 
Wednesday, 29. October 2008
Pearls of the Caribbean - Trinidad
Today I show you the clip from the next day of our cruise: Trinidad.Part 1: Arrival at Port of Spain, March 10th 2008, 8am.
Part 2 (start around 05:14): Visited the Asa Wright Nature Centre, located in the Arima Valley deep in the Trinidad rain forest, famous for its amazing diversity in animal and plant species.
Part 3 (start around 08:56): Visited the Caroni Bird Sanctuary. Not only for bird-lovers!
Enjoy!
Note: It's a 13 min HD video and a pretty large file (300MB+), it takes awhile to load! If the player stops, this could be because the server is overloaded, your Internet connection is slow, and/or overall Internet is slow. You may need to pause it and let the video load a bit more before watching it straight through.
Upcoming Video: Tobago
Previous Video: Aruba
Saturday, 25. October 2008
Pearls of the Caribbean - Aruba & Start of the Cruise
Maybe - as a regular reader of my blog - you remember: My husband Roland and I were on a cruise through the Caribbean in March 2008. Within 14 days, we visited 11 stunning islands with historical towns, colorful people and spectacular nature. And hopefully, you saw the photo album, includes 229 photos with short descriptions.Then, in August, I promised to bring up the Video Travelogue to "The Pearls of the Caribbean". Now - finally - I have finished editing all the videos, altogether 12 clips!
I am pleased to share with you our travel experiences - enjoy!
Note: It's a 11 min HD video and a pretty large file (300MB+), it takes awhile to load! If the player stops, this could be because the server is overloaded, your Internet connection is slow, and/or overall Internet is slow. You may need to pause it and let the video load a bit more before watching it straight through.
Part 1 - The Intro: The route from the voyage
In the evening of March 7th, we arrived in Oranjestad.
The first thing was boarding the ship MS "Delphin" (German for "Dolphin"). It's a ship more or less unknown outside the German-speaking countries, but a most lovely, small ship indeed. Carrying 450 passengers and a crew of 200.
Part 2 (start around 03:00): Saturday, March 8th. A tour around Aruba, before the ship was leaving on its journey. Just photos, because we forgot the video camera ... uh!
Part 3 (start around 06:06): Yepeee! At 7pm our cruise ship leaved the dock!
Now we were on the way to Trinidad. March 8th was a full day at sea to relax and explore the ship and all of the many options it offers. Soon we found our way around the floating village ...
Upcoming Video: Trinidad
Fractal Experience
Fractals discover the true beauty, which stays behind matemathical formulas and computer algorithms. Although the are very similar to objects from the real world, they are 100% digitally generated and every single pixel here is a result of a computer calculation.
But it is more than an artistic affectation; it's a door to the fractal universe, a good starting point to discover what lies beyond your imagination. It's a fun, but it's also a challenge, so take a deep breath and dive in ...
Fractal Experience includes 1042 pictures, located in 18 galleries.
Soul Core
Soul Core is a futuristic point and click puzzle adventure where you build a clone in a laboratory. Good luck!Need help? Here is the Soul Core Walkthrough.
Swan Lake
This is the Waltz from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake suite, rendered through my music visualiser. This is an entirely generative/audio reactive animation, i.e. no keyframing or manual input or editing. Programmed using the Processing language.Created by Glenn Marshall.
WOW - this CGI Fantasia is absolutely breathtaking!
Processing?
"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain".
COOOOOL: Processing 1.0
Cesar Fernandez WildNature Photography
Young Hippos
From the grandeur of the unspoiled landscape
to the smallest details in texture, patterns and colors,
earth is an infinite gallery of fragile, priceless
art’s masterpieces.
Have you see them?
They are out there… all around us!
Open your eyes and let your imagination run Wild
let the colors of dawn lighten your senses,
let the magic of Nature conquer your spirit.
Spectacular galleries:
Cesar Fernandez WildNature Photography
37 galleries and 796 images online.
A Lesser flamingo resting in the shallow waters of lake Magadi
creating a perfect reflection of itself.
Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania.
Eye Make Up Lessons, Tutorials & How To's
Lauren Luke - aka panacea81 - has become a sensation on YouTube simply by uploading makeup tutorial videos. They are great for getting inspiration and Lauren loves to experiment with colour. If you fancy copying the latest celebrity look then these videos show you how, e.g. she has lessons devoted to recreating the eyes of Avril Lavigne, Kylie Minogue, Rhianna, Leona Lewis, and many other stars.Lauren offers not only celebrity looks, also experiments with the latest colors, responds to readers’ special requests, and more.
Millions of people have viewed these videos ... you should too!
Her YouTube channel has over 55,000 subscribers
and her most popular video has had over 1.4 million views.
The BBC did also a short piece on her:
Save Your Sensible
Well, this is an interesting marketing technique. Austrailian juice company Spring Valley has a website on which you can "re-locate your Sensible". It explains that all humans have Sensibles (little creature thingies that are by our sides), and that a lot of people are losing them. After typing in your name, they give you a custom sensible to poke, slap, throw, or feed.It's time to save your sensible, really, he need's you!
Save Your Sensible is amusing and clever enough to make it worth your click.
SkullTroniX
You may enjoy this video of a creepy animatronic talking skull, ideal for a high-tech haunted house at Halloween!My name is Jerry Jewell. I designed the SkullTroniX hardware and my cohort in crime is Mike Fox who provides the voices and animation.
A little history: I've been running a haunt for many years and over 10 years ago it was converted from a home haunt to a non-profit teen leadership program called Scary U. While working on Scary U we developed some effective but mechanically crude talking skulls for our own use.
Well, the skull was a great success and after 18 months of constant development and tens of thousands of development dollars I progressed from the first version to what is now known as Rev 3 ...
Skulltronix's new Ghost Bust can bring a innocent looking marble bust to life in ghostly fashion. The effect looks real, scary real!
The secret is a 3D projection system, one that maps a video performance of an actor in make-up to a bust prop designed with a special surface for displaying the projection in 3D. The final trick is the performance itself, as both facial expressions and voice capture nuances animated puppets can't.
Happy haunting!
Patrick the Pumpkin Patch Prince
Make sure you are having fun. That is what paper craft is all about?Take your time.
Have extra craft knife blades handy. It is always best to cut with a sharp blade.
Cut rounded parts with scissors and straight parts with craft knife.
When scoring be careful not to score to deep and cut all the way through the model.
Download, Construction & Tutorial: Patrick the Pumpkin Patch Prince
See also all the other paper craft toys ...
Saturday, 18. October 2008
Galapagos
7 minutes of underwater Galapagos shot September 2008 by Darek Sepiolo, inspired by Hans Zimmer's music.Hans Zimmer is one of my favorite composer amd the music goes great. The last two minutes are absolutely amazing - love the turtle, dolphins, penguins, and the whale shark at the end is EPIC!
XM Wild Ride
XM Wild Ride is a clever trip with tons of cool animation in combination with great soundtracks and funny characters.Follow the adventures of a group of animals taking a road trips through a landscape. You navigate the site by using the arrows keys to steer their car from an over the shoulder perspective. You can change lanes to avoid traffic on the road or take an exit off the highway to get to the site content.
This interactive and fun time microsite of 'XM satellite radio' is made by Firstborn Multimedia. It brings their advertising style to life in a way their commercials never did.
Enjoy!
Mountain Photography
Pala Reflection , Dolomites, Italy
The earth is a big place with lots of variety, but in my opinion it doesn't get much better than relaxing next to an alpine lake, surrounded by towering mountains and wide views. One goal of my photography is to record and communicate some of those moments of paradise in nature. Also more generally, I want to show the purity, grandeur and uniqueness of mountains and perhaps inspire people to appreciate and respect the remaining wilderness for themselves.
Mountain Photography by Jack Brauer
Plitvice Waterfalls, Plitvicka Jezera, Croatia
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book
Watch Neil Gaiman read The Graveyard Book on a 9-city video tour. At each stop on the tour, Neil read one chapter from the book. The tour ended on October 9th. Now you are able to watch the autor read his entire book, for free, and not only for young readers:Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book Video Tour
About the book:
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy - an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.
Keeping our Planet Intact - Dr. Martin Vosseler
I met Martin Vosseler in New York after he walked from Los Angeles to Boston in 7 1/2 months to mobilize the people about solar energy. A former doctor in Switzerland he felt the duty to inspire others and stopped his academic career. A year ago he crossed the Atlantic with a solar boat together with 4 other active scientists and adventurers. He proved that with the energy a hairdryer or a iron needs, you can run a whole boat with two electric motors, the whole technical and kitchen equipment - only with the energy of the available sun-light. After our interview he went back to Europe, but not by plane but on board of a freightliner from Miami to Italy. He said, he prefers not to use the airplane, if not absolutely necessary. In his interview he reveals all about his economical and spiritual approach to live.A short film by Swiss videographer Kedar.