Forever Geek |
- The Sound of Tau
- Even the Box Art for Batman: Arkham City is Awesome
- 12 Homemade Life-Size Transformers
- AutoWed. Importance of marriage reduced to some spare money and machine
- Cosmic Jollies, Feeding The Hunger
| Posted: 30 Jun 2011 04:30 AM PDT  What Tau Sounds Like If that title sounds or looks familiar, then it is probably because we had a similar post earlier this year, courtesy of Robin. Around the time we celebrated Pi Day (I am assuming you guys ate your fair share of pie in March), musician Michael John Blake released his interpretation of what pi sounds like musically. Now we all have heard or read the side of Michael Hartl, the brains behind the Tau Manifesto. Just the other day, people subscribing to the superiority of the constant tau celebrated Tau Day. In spite of the fact that I hold Pi Day in high regard, as I said in my post, I just can’t help but like the idea of celebrating Tau Day with two pies (τ=2π)! Anyhow, Michael John Blake has done it again. Using his initial piece of work, The Sound of Pi, as a basis, he has created new music – his idea of what tau sounds like. “What Tau Sounds Like” – or the sound of tau – has been making the rounds, and its creation is based on the first 126 digits of the constant. (That’s 6.28… instead of 3.14, yes?) The “rules” are the same – you get a quick orientation at the start of the video. Blake assigns notes to the numbers and plays those notes (with some musical tweaking, of course) at 125.6 beats per minute. And just like with the previous video, he also uses various instruments to create the final piece of work for the sound of tau. The result? Something very pleasant to listen to. Watch the video below and let me know what you think. I am not sure, but I think I like the sound of tau more than the sound of pi – musically, that is. The sucky thing is that I can’t remember the sound of pi much and the original video has been taken down by YouTube due to a copyright complaint raised by Lars Erickson. Blake sheds some light on this in another video. (You can find tons of offshoot videos on the sound of pi on YouTube, though.) What do you think about the sound of tau? If you like this music, you can purchase it for $0.99. What I am wondering about right now is which constant Blake leans toward.
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| Even the Box Art for Batman: Arkham City is Awesome Posted: 29 Jun 2011 09:09 PM PDT
Do you even need me to describe this? Look at that art, man. It speaks for itself.
Get a good, long look. (The other two cover versions are below.) This is the box art you’ll be looking for on October 18th, when Batman: Arkham City finally hits store shelves. I just love the look of this whole marketing campaign. What do you want in your Batman? You want tough-as-nails, genius married to brute strength and infinite reserves of fearlessness. And this image conveys all of that brilliantly. The little detail of blood on Batman’s knuckles is just perfect. This is a Batman who’s about to get real on some bad guys. What with the incredible gameplay footage and screenshots we’ve seen so far, this game has got so much going for it… it’s going to have to do something really drastic in order to fail. Does anybody know who’s creating these black-and-white promotional images for Batman: Arkham City? I have no idea if it was someone on staff at Rocksteady Studios or maybe some hip ad agency. I can’t find any official credit for the images anywhere. DC Comics attributes this comic book cover, done in the same style, to the game’s visual designer, Carlos D’Anda. But more than one cover was made available for that comic book, so it’s inconclusive. If anyone knows who the artist responsible is, please let us know in the Comments!
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| 12 Homemade Life-Size Transformers Posted: 29 Jun 2011 03:02 PM PDT In honor of Transformers: Dark of the Moon opening this week, I present to you 12 life-sized Transformers sculptures and statues. Every one is made to scale (aka, they’re huge) or close to scale, and they’re all made by fans. Prepare to be amazed.
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Commissioned to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Pittsburg, the “city of bridges,” this giant robot sculpture is made from parts of bridges, by artist Glenn Kaino. [Image source.] Bendy Bus Prime
I’m a little reluctant to include this one, as it almost looks like a good Photoshop job. But everything I could find said that “Bendy Bus Prime” is the real deal. It’s made from over 100 bus parts, from England’s famous red buses that bend in the middle, and it’s been dubbed “the very first British Transformer.” [Image source.] Bumblebee (Cartoon Version)
Tom Rhoads of Lemoore, California created this 18-foot-tall replica in his front yard, using parts of a real VW Bug. Before you laugh at its cartoony nature, remember that this is serious nostalgia for a whole generation of fans. Without old school Transformers like this, there’d be no Michael Bay movies. More pictures at the link. [Image source.] Citroen C2 “X2″
Three friends from Nanjing, China spent $8,000 American dollars to turn a Citroen C2 into a Transformer that they’ve named “X2.” This is just the first of many Chinese creations you’ll see on this list… The Chinese really love their Transformers! [Image source.] Cleveland Transformers
A family in Cleveland, Ohio displayed these impressive homemade statues on their front lawn for Halloween. [Image source.] Guan Yu
Guan Yu was a historic general from China’s Three Kingdoms period, who’s become a pop culture icon and hero in modern times. This statue is made to resemble him and his signature bladed staff, from an old Jie Fang model truck. It stands 30 feet tall and weighs 4 tons. [Image source.] Megatron Tank
Another Chinese fan build, this one a life-sized recreation of Megatron in his Revenge of the Fallen “alien tank” form. If this guy rides your bumper… let him pass. [Image source.] Optimus Prime
I’ve shown you this one before (along with another even bigger one that Noemi pointed out from Shenyang City), but it’s entirely worthy of inclusion here because of it’s awesome location placement: it’s right in front of the infamous “Bird’s Nest” arena from the ’08 Olympics. It’s made from recycled car parts. [Image source.] Optimus Prime Ice Sculpture
Couldn’t find any details about this one, such as where it was located, but it’s one darn impressive ice sculpture. Tons of detail in this thing. See more photos at the link. [Image source.] Scrap Metal Original
A Chinese original made out of scrap metal from other cars. The builder uses it — and a few others he’s built — as a promotional tool for his scrap metal business. [Image source.] Studio Re-Creation
Art shop “Studio Re-Creation” takes your favorite personal belongings and re-shapes them into something even more special. This one is a human-sized robot statue made from one of the sculptors’ first car, a Lada Samara Diva. [Image source.] VW Passat
One more Chinese creation, a robot sculpture on display, made from a VW Passat. Looks pretty nifty, but where’s its head? [Image source.]
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| AutoWed. Importance of marriage reduced to some spare money and machine Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:16 AM PDT
Marriage. The formal definition of the practice is, “Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship.” Sounds so special, and it most certainly is, to some. Unfortunately, nearly 50 percent of all marriages in America end in divorce, and a new, coin-based, method of getting married, Concept Shed's AutoWed Wedding Machine may result in those figures to rise even higher if the marriage method is made more official.
The AutoWed Wedding Machine, 2.5-meter-tall [8-foot], device mimics an actual wedding ceremony, producing a printed, but unofficial, marriage certificate for a dollar or U.K. pound. After inserting your money, entering the details of you and your “betrothed” using a steampunk-inspired keyboard, a robotic voice reads out your names. Once complete, the AutoWed dispenses a set of rings in plastic eggs, producing a “perfect” marriage. AutoWed inventor Sam Lanyon:
While purely for fun at this point, one can envision certain spots on the globe, Las Vegas for example, where AutoWed could be used as an actual method for getting married. The question is, would you opt to get married using AutoWed, or would you choose a more traditional marriage ceremony?
AutoWed Wedding Vending Machine by Concept Shed from Conceptshed on Vimeo.
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| Cosmic Jollies, Feeding The Hunger Posted: 29 Jun 2011 06:49 AM PDT  Thanos, in the iconic image of his redemption. I don’t know about you, but since the demise of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, I have really been missing some truly cosmic space opera. The Annihilators mini-series bridged that gap for a little while, but my space opera addiction is a hungry beast, and needs feeding. Regular readers will be aware that I am very much a fan of the Legion Of Super-Heroes as well, yet the current relaunch of the original pre-Crisis (or at least pre-Five Years Later) Legion is not filling the gap for me. Maybe I have been burnt too many times with endless reboots. I loved Five Years Later, although the fan base didn’t seem to agree with me. I liked the Reboot Legion, but they were abandoned. I never quite came to terms with the Threeboot. The current storyline in Legion Of Super-Heroes seems very cosmic, with worlds of wisdom and faith, etc etc. Yet the personalities of the Legionnaires are not shining through for me. Now I knew the pre-Crisis Legion inside and out and I’m struggling to feel the continuity, so Lord knows how new readers are coping. Maybe they are ignorant of the discrepancies? But the greatest discrepancies for me seem to be the lack of any depth in characterisation. Other than young Glorith (and we all know how that will turn out, eventually), I’m simply not feeling the love. Plus the writer Paul Levitz, who is well known as the Legion King, has disappointed me with his attempts to cope with Mon-El’s election as leader, along side his role as the new Green Lantern. How many Thirtieth Century Green Lantern’s is that now? (Reboots not withstanding of course.) The only thing that has quelled my thirst from the comic store recently has been Kirby – Genesis, about which I have already enthused at length. If you haven’t picked that up already, do it! Do it now! I’m missing the days of grand space opera that can be followed easily, and is not spread across fifteen different titles. Remember the promise that the Infinity Gauntlet possessed? Or course, by the third issue we discovered that promise would not be realised; but DnA’s recent work certainly filled that gap, with Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest and the War Of Kings, culminating in the Thanos Imperative, which was fantastic, but in my mind could have been bigger. Not in scope, certainly, but in content. This was one series that I wanted to see some crossovers for. Or maybe it should have been twelve issues. Speaking of Thanos, do you not just want to know what he is doing as the embodiment of Death in the Cancerverse? I’m in a quandary with this one. What makes the threat of Thanos such a big deal is that it is infrequent, but all encompassing when it arrives. Such a threat always needs to be handled with delicacy, after all, look at the Reign of the Doomsdays over in the Superman titles. After consistently offering a level of quality, the ‘Doomsdays’ feel manufactured and ill considered. The quality has vanished, in an instant, and the entire effort feels like a stopgap measure until we get to the DCnU. That would be fine, if they were single issue stories such as we saw in the early Eighties, but the Reign seems to drag on and on. However, I sit satiated currently, as I have found what I needed in fan fiction. Over on the Cosmic Powers fan fiction group (which I have no idea if new material is still being generated for it, but I don’t think so), there is a story called the Twilight War, a twenty-two-chapter epic by a writer called Warren Entros. It’s been up there for years, but I have only just got round to reading it, and I can thoroughly recommend it. This is what the Infinity Trilogy should have been. So, if you fancy some good old-fashioned Marvel Cosmic Space Opera and have had enough of the Flashpoint and Fear Itself, hop over to their site and get reading. You won’t regret it, and it’s fun.
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