Sortroom.net

Susan Burnstine, one of my most inspirational and admired photographers over on Flickr, has linked to the Toycamera auction that includes copies of her work. A great way to help people and get a copy of some work that normally isn’t even for sale. I want to make one of these cameras, but just as much, I want to own some of their work. Everyone else should too; it’s amazing stuff full of emotion and strength and the money goes to a great cause.
The image shown right is by Leon Taylor and is called Boat.

Toycamera Auction benefiting victims of Hurricane Katrina

Popularity: unranked [?]

In a summary piece of analyst opinions, MarketWatch has found a widespread interest in the iPod nano because of its perfect styling, technologically leading design and excellent pricing [that's my personal analysis], with share target prices raised from around the $50 area to just a few dollars below $60, with an average of around $57.
Apple, currently at $49.75 was below $35 in June. They’ve seen a 2.2% gain on the day, but what’s changed in the last couple of months to make investors so much more sure that Apple is worth almost twice what they were May/June?

I think one of the fundamental changes has been not of Apple’s doing but of the rest of the market. PlaysForSure, Microsoft’s effort to head off the iPod’s proprietary format, looked like it could have been a threat a year ago. Now, it’s not much more than a commercial sideshow. Sure the players sold by Microsft partners still take up space on the shelves, but they don’t have the market penetration or recognition that the iPod line does. As competing manufacturers fall by the wayside, Apple’s dominance of the music download industry is secured. They’re in new markets that they weren’t last year, with Japan’s new iTunes store showing a perfect example, and their designs for new players are getting better and better because they continually either improve on former products or enter new markets, as both the Shuffle and the nano have done.
Competing players by Creative and Sony, the largest opposition to Apple in the international market, haven’t come up with any groundbreaking decives. Sony’s latest effort, the Bean, is more likely to directly impact Apple than the Creative designs, still largely hard-drive based. The Bean, though ergonomically more suited to the human hand, doesn’t have the readily instinctive use that the iPods produce. It’s clear how an iPod works, just by looking at it, while the Bean typifies the ‘tortured user interface’ that Jobs spoke of when first launching the Shuffle against competitors’ Flash mp3 players. Because of this weakness, when handled instore or seen in the hand of a friend, the Bean will never have quite the impact that a Shuffle or nano will do. The iPod nano could readily become Apple’s best ever selling product.

The one cloud on the horizon for Apple’s digital music ambitions is the threat of changes from record companies across the world. With the iTunes Music Store becoming ever more successful, though only just breaking even on song sales, the companies have been complaining that Apple subsidizes the sale of its high profit margin players through inexpensive music sales and that the record companies are the ones feeling the hit. By making music low priced, those who produce the music get a lower return per song than they would were the price to increase. The record companies claim that Apple is deliberately suppressing the price of tracks to ensure people buy iPods which give them a much more healthy return.
The threats of removal of artists from the store and of demands for a spread of prices could be very real and damaging to the Apple business, but at the same time they could be far less serious than they currently appear. One must remember that Madonna has just released all of her back catalogue to the ITMS, so there can’t be all that much hostility out there if the Queen of Pop Capitalism is prepared to muck in with the rest of the crowd.
The Rokr was a disappointment because of its general lack of features, but the Rokr won’t determine the future fortunes of Apple Computer: increased innovation in their laptop line and a speedy transition to Intel chips will. Oh, and of course the iPod: that thing just never goes away.

Marketwatch.com: New products drive Apple to record high

Popularity: unranked [?]

Glenn Feron is a genius in his artistry of manipulating what we see and creating completely new images from tired and weary looking ones. His work is, as one could guess, largely photos of women. He is the man that takes the cellulite away, boosts the lips and de-frizzes hair better than any department store products could ever dream to. Below is a collection of his best manipulations, looking at stars such as Alicia Keys, Ashanti and Beyonce Knowles.

These aren’t women that really need retouching, but because of the perceived need to display copious amounts of flesh and constantly look flawless, the magazines and record companies look to men like Feron to improve their stars. It’s smoothing out skin, tucking in stomachs, removing body hair and boosing breast size. Head to the galleries index or the samples listed below for a taste of the best of the before-and-after treatment. After the jump Serena Williams is shown in a shot for ‘Black Men’ magazine. The shot is interesting because, when you put your mouse over it you can see what the shot looked like before it was digitally altered to improve the figure.

Glenn Feron.com
via Queerty
» Read the rest of this entry «

Popularity: 100% [?]

And yes, I know that the Rokr and iPod nano were both released today but I’m going to hold off judgement until I can read even more about them. Though really, I just want to see some video of the announcement shows. I’m such a Mac nerd, it’s embarrassing.

NY TImes Circuits
Macrumors.com
Apple.com

Popularity: unranked [?]

lyrics and lyrics and the lyrics to the song ‘Crush’

Sometimes I follow you
I Look through your window
and I watch you sigh
You’re getting off real soon
I should ask your name
Maybe get your number
We could go out sometime
It’s all in my mind

I need some excuse just to come talk to you
Be my five minute friend
You know I’ve got time to spend

I hope you don’t mind
That I’ve come to see you
and It’s no mistake that you see my face
I know I’d do best to forget about us
‘Cause there is no us
I forget: It’s just a crush

‘Cause there’s someone else
He knows your name, yeah
and He’s got your number
Maybe he’s just a crush
Maybe he’s so unkind
And he’s never on time
He Doesn’t know your such a find
There goes my mind

I need some excuse just to come talk to you
Be my five minute friend
You know I’ve got time to spend
» Read the rest of this entry «

Popularity: 3% [?]

Students from the University of Arts in Berlin have developed a concept piece for projecting moving images and video from a box affixed to the side of a subway carriage. By putting a digital projector, some mirrors and a laptop into a box, and then affixing said box to the side of the carriage through suction cups, the students have managed to create a piece of art that moves with the viewer. The projection only starts when the subway train is moving, so the images of fish and questions of Quo Vadis? (Where do we go from here)

What’s interesting is how the projection changes as the subway walls change, shifting, enlarging and then decreasing in size once more. Despite the animated images projected being bright and clear, the nature of the walls projected onto make the images fuzzy, but indistinct in a way that makes the project all the more appealing. While modern subways are all bright lights and security cameras that see all, this is interesting because its lack of clarity. You can’t be sure of what’s going to come next, what is just literally around the corner.
‘Parasite’ Quicktime movie

University of Arts Digital School:

The tunnels of a subway-system bear something mystic—most people usually have never made a step inside any of those tunnels. Confusing the routine of your train-travelling-journey, your habits and perception Parallel Worlds—making use of Parasite—allows you a glimpse into a different world full of surrealist imagery.

via Towleroad
via Signal vs Noise

Popularity: unranked [?]

‘Juliet’ releases her much anticipated album in the next couple weeks, while the reviews are building. If the first single, Avalon, the collection of high powered expertise (produced by Stuart Price, aka Jacques Lu Cont [Madonna], arranged by Guy Sigsworth [Frou Frou] and engineered by Mark Stent [Massive Attack, No Doubt, U2]), and the combined weight of the positive feedback are anything to go by, Random Order is an album to keep on heavy rotation.

From Juliet sounds.com:

Set against a backdrop of scintillating dance-inflected rock beats, Random Order induces a tidal wave of emotional vistas where Juliet’s brooding vocals seduce and entice listeners with a potent cocktail of penetrating sensuality and undeniable bravado. Composed spontaneously over an inspired 2 week writing spree in New York and London, the album is a kinetic hybrid of melodic electronic, dance, pop and rock referencing 1980’s post-punk / new wave with sleek and, deceptively simple, modern musical innovation that is both nostalgic and contemporary.

Previously having fronted the pop band 1 Plus 1, Juliet was ‘unhappy’ with the image and style of their band. “I never wanted to be a face or a product. When I realized that I was about to be another manufactured pop tart, I shaved my head, started screaming in black instead of bouncing in pink, and Mannequin was born. [The music label] Elektra had no idea what to do with us and let us go”. She travelled around clubs and performance halls over the course of two years and then reconnecting with 1 Plus 1 former A&R man, signed on to Virgin Records for her first solo album. Due August 30th, Random Order counts 12 tracks.

Billboard.com: Juliet Bringing ‘Order’ to Debut CD

Sean Piccoli in South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Juliet (Richardson), a 25-year-old Philadelphia native based in London, moves past her Shirley Manson moment quickly enough. Random Order gets rolling, and by the second track, Avalon, it’s clear we’re in the presence of a formidable talent. Random Order puts Juliet in the company of other DJ/MC hybrids — LCD Soundsystem (New Jersey native James Murphy) and M.I.A. (British Sri Lankan Maya Arulpragasm) — making smart, sexy dance music that doesn’t expire outside the club.

From BradfordShellhammer.com:

Madonna has a tough act to follow

Popularity: 1% [?]

The San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center is starting a program this month with a $150,000 city grant that will help newcomers to the city find housing and work and foster a social network [in reaction to the perceived unwelcoming nature of the SF gay community]. That isolation can lead to depression, which itself can lead to substance use and abuse and risky sexual behavior.

A young man from a state like Kansas may feel safe having unprotected sex with people of the same age and reserving condoms for encounters with older men, because it seemed safe to do that elsewhere.

“That’s a harm reduction strategy, but there’s a higher risk in San Francisco than in Kansas,” says Jason Riggs, spokesman for the Stop AIDS Project. Nearly a quarter of all gay men in San Francisco are HIV positive, according to city and federal statistics. “Risk assessments and studies indicate that living in San Francisco less than one year is a predictor of high risk (for HIV).”

San Francisco Chronicle: Gay men find it’s not easy being new in town
Programs address problems inherent in relocating to S.F.

Popularity: unranked [?]

So I have these 2 friends.
Friend A is pretty cute and always bitches to me about not having a BF.
Friend X is not so cute and always pulling these pretty hot guys.
I didn’t understand until one day The friend X told me that he was HIV+. Then I thought to myself, “How can a not so cute HIV+ guy get all these hot guys to sleep with him?”

This site is so disgusting, is so out there, is so rude and offensive, that it’s kind of funny. It’s not supposed to be and I don’t condone any of what he writes, but since the whole world always tries to be politically correct, sometimes it’s fun to have a private giggle at something that we all know and recognise is so wrong. If you think the post I linked to is wrong, whatever you do, don’t look at his later one on drunk driving. I feel ill now after reading that. Some people go too far!

The Punk-Code

Popularity: unranked [?]