July 10, 2008 by Trent Adams
Matt’s dancing videos have been a viral meme for a few years, but in case you never stumbled across them, now’s your chance to jump on board. The latest video is truly inspirational. It’s incredible how powerful something as simple as a goofy dance can be to bridge cultural divides. What an amazing world it would be if we could simply dance together.
Check out Matt’s blog for the full story (and links to buy the soundtrack).
February 13, 2008 by Trent Adams
If you find yourself walking along Newark Avenue and First Street in Jersey City, NJ, look around. In one of the barren fenced corners you’ll see an interesting installation of guerrilla art. They are glass spheres made by wiring the necks of discarded bottles together in series, each about 2 to 3 feet in diameter.
OK, that’s intriguing enough… but I got some of the back story when talking to Peter Wasinger, the artist responsible. He apparently got the idea for the installation as he walks past the space to and from work each day. Using bottles from a local bar, he then wired the spheres together in his studio and installed them at night (well, actually 4am).
During the installation, he said that passersby made some interesting comments. A group of men walked by and said, “You go Pappi! This is SO New York”. In response, Wasinger replied, “It is now Jersey City too.” They then said “Keep it going, Pappi. You rock!”
You can check out more photos of the installation in my Flickr stream. He’s already working on other installations, and trying to figure out how to light them up. While that’s in progress, you can check out some of his other artwork available on his Cafe Press site.
Keep it going, Pappi.
UPDATE: 2/15/2008 - I just heard from Peter Wasinger (the artist) that the installation was removed by the Jersey City Parking Authority. Bummer setback.
October 31, 2007 by Trent Adams
It might come as a surprise to the folk around the office… but I’m not actually what I’d consider to be a video gamer. Even though I like to jam on San Francisco Rush 2049 with the crew at the end of the day (ya’ gotta’ love the mindless drive around and blow things up game play on a giant plasma screen), that’s the sum total of my current interest in gaming. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t pick up a controller when I get home.
That being said, I do periodically become enamored with a particular game and have a brief affair with the pastime. It started when I loaded the floppies (before personal computers had hard drives, and data was stored on 5.25″ plastic disks in square sheaths that actually bent) of Zork. That game is what got me into programming… I just had to write my own text-based adventures. Many hours in college playing Prince of Persia exposed me to the fluid character animation driven by motion-capturing (encouraging my initial career as CGI designer for TV).
After that, I fell in love with Myst, prompting me to buy my first CD-ROM drive (when they were optional). Then, it was Tomb Raider for which I had to buy a PlayStation. Next, I had to upgrade to a PS2 when Sly Cooper came out (which enabled me to rekindle my affair with the new Prince of Persia: Sands of Time).
Those are the only games I’ve ever spent enough time with to actually complete. I have purchased a few other games, but not many. And none of the the others struck the same chord (or captured as many lost hours of enraptured entertainment).
And now… it’s Heavenly Sword that has my jaw hitting the floor as I drool for a new PS3:
I saw this advertised on TV, and was intrigued. With my CGI background, I get how trailers like this (along with most in-game cut scenes) are made. I’m generally disappointed when the render engine of the platform can’t recreate the same level of detail. So I was literally shocked into stunned disbelief when I saw a running version of the game at Best Buy. The video above is a recording of the exact sequence I was playing in the store. It was awe-inspiringly gorgeous. The background atmospherics, character interaction and overall animation rendering was… unbelievably believable.
The question, of course, is this affair worth $500? If you toss the Blu-Ray DVD player in as a bonus, it gets closer to being reasonable… but then I’d have to upgrade my TV, DVR, and cable service just to keep up with the boost from analog to HD (because I’m sure I’d be sad to see the rest of my visual media consumption diet pale in comparison). Add it up, and this $60 game could be the tipping point that sucks $5k out of my pocket (plus increased monthly cable bills).
BTW - This post started out as an intro for me to lay out a discussion I had with some CTOs at last night’s Boston Technology Leadership Council (about a render-driven TV series). But I’m sure no one’s read this far… if you’re still with me, though, check out the other video clips of the Heavenly Sword at Game Spot. And let me know if you get it… I’ll bring the snacks.
March 6, 2007 by Trent Adams
I turned up an interesting video clip while researching the behavior of spiders the other day. I was pleasantly surprised by it, depsite the fact it wasn’t precisely the type of content I was hunting.
This got me thinking about pleasure and surprise. It seems that the two concepts are joined in that pleasure is often derived from surprise. Good jokes, for example, seem to be based on the fact that the punch line is unexpected. On the other end of pleasure, horror movies (primarily of the twitch-flick) also capitalize on pleasing the surprised audience. Then there’s the increased enjoyment of a book or movie about which you had no prior expectations (as opposed to one that’s hyped to the gills and fails to hit the mark… but you would have enjoyed had you found it yourself).
Many marketing campaigns also seem to use the surprise/pleasure combo to grab the interest of customers. A number of TV ads draw the viewer into a story, while the advertised product is only revealed at the end. This balance must be carefully managed, though, to hit the right mode without spoiling the feeling of it’s customers discovering the product themselves (feeling like they’re in on the joke). Since active discovery seems to run counter to genuine surprise, the marketer needs to carefully seed their message with all the pieces while encouraging the consumer to (easily) complete the puzzle. The trick is setting the expectations to preserve the pleasure of surprise, while not making it so difficult as to confuse the audience (like so many ads that leave the viewer wondering what product was on offer).
If this post was a fable, perhaps the moral would be: “Never underestimate the pleasure of surprise… but beware its cousin: confusion.” Then again, perhaps the surprise of this post is that it’s totally devoid of any deeper meaning beyond my random thoughts. Let the audience be the judge.
