Michel Vuijlsteke's weblog

48fps: how we accidentally invented Impressionist filmmaking | The Verge Forums
Watching Journey, it's clear that widespread adoption of High Frame Rate filmmaking would cause even greater issues. This isn't simply a matter of relearning how to do wardrobe, how to build a set, and how to light a scene. Acting is an entirely different matter here. Martin Freeman is one heck of a funny actor. We see him bumbling and confused, twisting his head back and forth comedically. We know that he's funny, and we know the joke — somehow, however, the frame rate disrupts his timing. It all takes a bit too long, and the sharp impact is gone.

Pick Your Battles « I am Zef
I know it’s exciting to plan for a system that’s ready for Google-like traffic — but seriously, focus on something people want first. You will have to go through multiple refactors of your infrastructure. There’s not a chance in the world you will get it right the first time, so don’t assume you will.

The Mind of a Chef | Watch Online | PBS Video
From ramen to rotting bananas, Copenhagen to Kansas City, and pork buns to golf clubs, PBS’s new series The Mind of a Chef combines travel, cooking, history, science, and humor into an unforgettable journey. Executive producer and narrator Anthony Bourdain takes viewers inside the mind of noted Korean-American chef and restaurateur David Chang.

DominionStrategy Wiki
The Dominion Strategy Wiki was launched in October 2012 as a resource of knowledge and strategy about the card game Dominion. As part of Dominion Strategy, it was started by members of the Dominion Strategy Forum as a space where Dominion information can be developed in an open environment. We currently have 346 articles on a variety of Dominion-related topics.

News – Enhance the gameplay in your edition of Baldur’s Gate from GOG.com – GOG.com
Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II remain cult classics not only among D&D fans, but cRPG gamers in general. With countless hours of gameplay, captivating stories, colorful characters, and many memorable locations they're one of the most intense and extensive role-playing experiences you can get while sitting in front of your PC. But to say that they didn't age at all might be a bit of a stretch. That's why some people would go a great distance modding and upgrading both those titles to combine them into one, seamless, visually updated game–an enhanced edition, if you will.

No-Hook Nation: Why Is It So Hard to Find a Place to Hang Our Stuff? – Karen Loew – The Atlantic
When planning rooms, designers often overlook or choose to omit the simple amenity that would keep coats, purses, and laptop bags from ending up on the floor. Why?

Gamasutra – Features – 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond
This paper explains the design architecture, implementation, and some of the lessons learned creating the multiplayer (networking) code for the Age of Empires 1 & 2 games; and discusses the current and future networking approaches used by Ensemble Studios in its game engines.

Brian Phillips on Olympic rhythmic gymnastics – Grantland
There is, in the contrast between the poise and seriousness of the athletes and the princessy kitsch of the setting, something really kind of dark and wonderful. Just imagine it: devoting your life, mercilessly and with absolute commitment, to the task of dancing with little twirly clubs to a synth-folk soundtrack while wearing a spangled bathing suit designed to look like ladybug wings. Imagine doing that as well as it can humanly be done, being the person who embodies that accomplishment. I'm not making fun of anyone; I find it strangely noble.

Ask H&FJ: Four Ways to Mix Fonts
Is there a way to know what fonts will work together? Building a palette is an intuitive process, but expanding a typographic duet to three, four, or even five voices can be daunting. Here are four tips for navigating the typographic ocean, all built around H&FJ's Highly Scientific First Principle of Combining Fonts: keep one thing consistent, and let one thing vary.

In Which We Step Inside Your Closet – Home – This Recording
Things You Might Read on a Fashion Blog – Haha I’m texting on my iPhone in all of these photos, such a dork – I wore this to brunch on Saturday morning, we ate pancakes, I never want to eat anything else omg

Hidden Epidemic: Tapeworms Living Inside People’s Brains | Infectious Diseases | DISCOVER Magazine
Parasitic worms leave millions of victims paralyzed, epileptic, or worse. So why isn’t anyone mobilizing to eradicate them?

I’ve been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. : gaming
I've been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be. Naturally I play other games and have a life, but I often return to this game when I'm not doing anything and carry on. The results are as follows.

Fantastic Sources for Free Soundtrack Music — Life Scoop
Back in the pre-digital days of video creation, directors without the cash to commission original soundtracks to their films had to rely on library music. The folks who put together these massive libraries owned all the rights to the music outright, so it was easy to license recordings for creators to use in their films, TV, and radio pieces. A TV director would flip through his network's sound library records, pick the track, and then pay for the license. (In recent years, some outré 1960s and 1970s library music has become very collectible amongst a certain breed of vintage vinyl addicts.) Physical sound libraries, and their associated licensing fees, are still around, albeit in entirely digital form.

IE 10′s ‘Do-Not-Track’ default dies quick death | Ars Technica
IE 10 with DNT turned on lived for six days before getting its death sentence.

The Devil and John Holmes (by Mike Sager, Los Angeles Times, May 1989)
John Holmes was a porn star. Eddie Nash was a drug lord. Their association ended in one of the most brutal mass murders in the history of Los Angeles.

Marokkaans/Arabisch koken met Amber – Weblog – 50plusser.nl Weblog
Overheerlijke Marokkaanse en andere Arabische gerechten met daarnaast lekkere recepten uit verschillende keukens

Style in The Wire on Vimeo
This video essay explores the style in the television series The Wire.

Potions And Pitfalls: My Year In Roguelikes | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
It’s been a fantastic year for Roguelikes, with continued development of the stalwarts and plenty of releases that have toyed with the formula, sometimes reshaping it until it’s almost unrecognisable.

What North Korea Really Looks Like – Global – The Atlantic Wire
An Associated Press story that ran Wednesday morning told the tale of a North Korean press bus that took a wrong turn into a part of Pyongyang usually shielded from reporters. Woops!

Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source
After decades spent battling gender discrimination and inequality in the workplace, the feminist movement underwent a high-level shake-up last month, when 53-year-old management consultant Peter "Buck" McGowan took over as new chief of the worldwide initiative for women's rights.

Improv Everywhere – Spinning Beach Ball of Death – YouTube
It's rare that two obnoxious phenomena completely jump the shark at the same time.

Striptekenaar Jean Giraud/Moebius overleden – De Standaard
Met de dood van de Franse stripmaker Jean Giraud, die ook publiceerde als Moebius, verliest Europa een van zijn invloedrijkste auteurs.

U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers on E-Book Pricing – WSJ.com
The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

Stephen Wolfram Blog : The Personal Analytics of My Life
JALOERS.
"One day I’m sure everyone will routinely collect all sorts of data about themselves. But because I’ve been interested in data for a very long time, I started doing this long ago. I actually assumed lots of other people were doing it too, but apparently they were not. And so now I have what is probably one of the world’s largest collections of personal data. "

How I Helped Destroy Star Wars Galaxies » Medium Difficulty
I couldn’t even bring myself to fight back. I just stood there. I was one of the few true Dark Jedi Masters, and I let him kill me. That very act illustrated perfectly what SOE did wrong. Those of us who had faithfully put in the hours and weeks and months required to earn those lightsabers were spit on and betrayed by the very architects of the game we loved.