What I Learnt Today

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but you’d think someone would notice when a cheerleader goes missing.

At least Bambo the mascot is chivalrous

Animusic is music-driven animation. 

This is best illustrated by example. Thanks to Stefahn who showed me ‘Pipe Dreams’ today

Wayne Lytle is the producer of these amazingly detailed videos, each of which can take some months to create. He and partner Dave Crognale have developed software that enables the music to drive the animations – the ‘artists’ are created first, and then the music dictates what they play.

Animusic has released two DVD albums. You can watch low res versions of their 14 videos on YouTube.

Wayne and Dave also describe the creative process on the animusic youtube channel.

From now on I’m taking the stairs.

Especially if I’m Scottish.

Too much technology can be dangerous.

The lifts in the Hitchhiker’s Guide offices are called Happy Vertical People Transporters. As designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, they are meant to be sentient (enough to argue with) and have “defocused temporal perception.” The latter concept is meant to enable the lifts to see far enough into the future to arrive at a floor before a potential passenger realizes they wanted a lift, and thus remove all the tedious chatting and friend-making as per old-fashioned lifts. The ability to see even a little way into the future is apparently so depressing that they ultimately take to sulking in basements.

People, not technology, are the problem with these lifts. French people, in particular.

What do these baddies have in common?

They are all disciples of Rube Goldberg.

“Reuben Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor. He is best known for his cartoon depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. 

These devices are now known as Rube Goldberg machines.” (Wikipedia)

Each year since 1949 Purdue University have staged the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. This year the task was to water a plant in at least 20 steps. The machine featured in the video below ran into a problem during the contest and was disqualified, but (as is the nature of such things), worked immediately afterwards.

The young designers are waiting to hear if they are accepted by the Guinness Book of Records as the creators of the World’s Most Complicated Goldberg machine.

The machine traces out the history of the world from Big Bang to Apocalypse (and then waters a plant)

At full speed it is hard to follow:

Broken down into steps:

Matt went to a lot of trouble to propose to Ginny.

His arranged for his brother Charlie to take her to the movies as Matt was ‘working.’

And then………..

Full back story at mashable.com

What I Learnt On 18th May in other years

18th May 2020 There are decades where nothing happens …

18th May 2012 Why Rugby Has Backs