The Drunken Recount of Superman’s Death and Resurrection

From nerdapproved.com:

If you’ve ever wanted to see a film version of death and resurrection of Superman as told by the 1992 DC Comic, this may be the closest you’ll ever get.

Max Landis, son of famed Animal House director John Landis, has created this live-action, drunken short film entitled “The Death and Return of Superman”, which mocks the concept of the story and stars Mandy Moore as Lois Lane, Elijah Wood as Hank Henshaw and Simon Pegg as John Landis (among other surprises).

This had me in tears. Tears! The cameos are awesome.

Head’s up on language and some NSFW-ish scenes.

via Nerd Approved

This is extremely nerdy, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t want to get some friends together and play this simulator.

From the website:

What is Artemis?

Artemis is a multiplayer, multi-computer networked game for Windows computers.

Artemis simulates a spaceship bridge by networking several computers together. One computer runs the simulation and the "main screen", while the others serve as workstations for the normal jobs a bridge officer might do, like Helm, Communication, Engineering, and Weapon Control.

Artemis is a social game where several players are together in one room ("bridge") , and while they all work together, one player plays the Captain, a person who sits in the middle, doesn’t have a workstation, and tells everyone what to do.

Artemis is a software game for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

My favorite bit from the FAQs:

Q: Why can’t my crew play over the internet, using some voice chat software?

A: I always wanted the players to be in one room together, just like a spaceship bridge. I want the captain to be able to push the helmsman aside and shout "Full power, DAMN you!!!" BUT, as a veteran game developer, I recognize that players play my game the way THEY like, not the way I like. V1.1 optimized the network code, and a server option that lets you adjust the network update speed, so Artemis plays across the internet just fine.

Artemis | Spaceship Bridge Simulator

via @pomorales

I fully support this.

Thanks for the link, Tom!

Here’s a great video showing the mirror and shutter mechanism in a Canon DSLR. The action begins 60 seconds in.

Keep in mind that the entire real-time duration of the mirror swinging up, the shutter coming down, the exposure, the shutter coming back up and the mirror swinging down is .213 seconds.

Great find, Tom!

My favorite camera store, B&H Photo Video, is one of the first businesses participating in having virtual tours of their stores via Google’s Street View technology.

If you look up B&H Photo Video on Google Maps, you can step inside.

via Wired.com

What’s the big deal with SOPA & PIPA, you ask?

Here’s the big deal.

Do something about it.

Ever since I was introduced to wine glasses and champagne flutes, I’ve always tried to make them sing a tone (maybe after a few drinks).

The Glass Duo takes this up a magnitude. I didn’t even realize this was a thing until I saw this on YouTube and saw the great swathes of related videos.

Awesome stuff.

So what kind of camera do you have? How fast can it shoot? 1/4000th of a second? 1/8000th of a second? Pshaw. What do you think of a camera that can shoot 1/1,000,000,000,000th of a second? That’s so fast that it can capture light traveling in slow motion!

MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom.

via MITnews

What an amazing feat of handcraftsmanship!

via BoingBoing