modtops

creativity = perspective

2008-07-08T22:50:00.001+02:00

Lately, Ive been following the RISD blog by the new president, John Maeda.

excellent post: http://our.risd.edu/2008/07/08/but-is-it-art/

'Fresh Air' follow-up 2

2007-01-24T23:08:00.000+01:00

And some more I remember hearing from before 2006 :

JOHNNY CASH

DAVID BOWIE

MAURICE SENDAK

'Fresh Air' follow-up

2007-01-24T22:29:00.000+01:00

To follw-up on the last post, here are some great 'Fresh Air' interviews from 2006:

Thom Yorke

Ricky Gervais

Inside Walt Disney

A History of the End of the World

The Architect: Karl Rove

Tom Petty

Talking Right

Pee Wee's Playhouse

Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power

Willie Nelson

Leonard Cohen

Nick Hornby

Robert Smigel's TV Funhouse

Who Controls the Internet?

Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors

Rescuing Dogs

producer of The Daily Show

Belle and Sebastian

Niel Young

Hustle & Flow

Grizzly Man

'Fresh Air' Interviews

2007-01-24T22:22:00.000+01:00

Having just listened to a fantastic interview with the film maker Guillermo del Toro on NPR's Fresh Air, I thought it would be a good idea if I post the good shows I hear. I am something of a talk radio junky--I am usually listening to some sort of streaming radio talk show/music/news. Terry Gross, the host, is by far the best interviewer I have heard. She asks great questions; she is relaxing to listen to, and I can only assume talk to (based on how guests are responding to her questions.) I just get the sense that she knows exactly how to conduct a good interview. One thing I've noticed is that she will never let a guest ask her a question: she simply ignores the question and moves on with the interview without interrupting the flow of the show. Listen to Words that Work from this month and you'll know what I mean. As another example of this, there was an interview with Jeff Goldblum where he was constantly trying to become the interviewer, and she just wouldn't have it. Another classic is Bill O'rielly's interview where he simply hung up and left the show (Lou Reed did it as well but I can't find that one in the archive).

So, I will start to create links to some of these interviews, and other shows I hear through the web. I hope you have time to listen to some of them... Here are some great shows from this month: Clint Eastwood , Sacha Baron Cohan, Leonard Cohan.

Enjoy.

Chicago + Texas

2007-01-16T20:15:00.000+01:00

Chicago from the Hancock Bldg.

Texas Christmas Lights.

A Texas Dance Hall.

Spooky.

Young Game Fan

2007-01-16T19:29:00.000+01:00

This was taken at a restaurant in Texas; it was surrounded by regular children's drawings of people, pets, rainbows, etc. He's obviously a big video game fan to be thinking of all his favorite systems while eating out with his family at a restaurant. Truly amazing.

LINK: how the wii works

2007-01-16T18:56:00.000+01:00

A friend sent this article on the Wii and how it works. Not sure if you are interested in that, but I think it is neat. The Wii is amazing.

Countdown to Halloween!

2006-10-08T15:22:00.000+02:00

My roomates and friends downstairs are currently prepairing for this year's Halloween Party. Here is the invite:

2006-10-08T15:14:00.000+02:00

Incredible Machines

Some of the best kinetic machines I have ever seen..

Super Mario Bro. Skills

2006-10-08T14:57:00.000+02:00


A video taking advantage of the numerous glitches and secrets of Super Mario Bros.

LINK: 2dayblog

2006-07-27T12:04:00.000+02:00

http://www.2dayblog.com/blog/ is a great blog about Technology. Check out the "ROBOTS" Link.

LINK: structured procrastination

2006-07-20T23:04:00.000+02:00

http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/light.php

There are some really nice essays here.

ARTICLE: ode to amateurism

2006-07-19T22:48:00.000+02:00

An Exhibition About Drawing Conjures a Time When Amateurs Roamed the Earth

This is an interesting article on the NY Times website about amateurism as related to drawing. Many people drew in "a time when amateurs roamed the earth." Before Cameras, how else could one capture a setting, or point in time, that one wishes to remember? It is too easy to worry, in this time, about producing something that is sub-par. And it often stops oneself from producing work altogether, which is of course the worst thing of all. In my experience, I believe there is too much pressure today to make oneself into a specialist. It is important to let go of that... there is always some big specialists shadow to step under. And with regards to any creative act--let us be humbled by the journey, rather than proud of the result.

Watch out Tokyo...

2006-07-19T21:01:00.000+02:00

Hey, Thats one I worked on!

Space Invaders

2006-07-19T20:55:00.000+02:00

Enchanted Forest

2006-07-19T20:45:00.000+02:00

I came across these two horses while on a bike ride through the forest near my appartment.

2006-04-17T19:16:00.000+02:00

Picture of an old painting from the Statens museum in Copenhagen. Didn't get any of the info unfortunately. It's an old work where the artist painted at the base of a chrome cylinder. It is meant to be viewed on the reflection of the cylinder. Notice the portrait. Pretty amazing.

modtops man

2006-04-15T18:54:00.000+02:00

My Modtops Man is back! I'm working on a few simple animations now to get back into the medium. This one is for my cellphone (hence the walkman logo--it's one of the new walkman phones). This was done in Painter. Next up, Flash. btw, when it's in the phone the character looks like he is jumping about the menu.. time, date ect.

Smoke Stacks is Denmark

2006-04-02T19:08:00.000+02:00

In Denmark, the Smoke Stacks are painted Blue. How nice.

fun, fun furniture

2006-03-05T11:48:00.000+01:00

Modtops loves this style of furniture. It is inviting, fun, whimsical, and well-balanced.

night pics

2006-03-05T11:30:00.000+01:00

An interesting pic/self-portrait looking out of my window:

The Castle (KoldingHus) at night:

Night at the harbor:

Kolding Harbor

2006-02-21T23:19:00.000+01:00

I took some really nice shots of some oddities in Kolding Harbor last Saturday:

January 2006

2006-02-11T11:34:00.000+01:00

I've been to a lot of places in the past Month: Chicago, Texas, NYC, Munich, and France. Posted here are some good fun pics...

My 2nd cousin playing the mandolin against the Texas sunset.

From a Photo Booth in NYC. Creepy...

I Love Pac Man.

Valloire, France.

LINK: Japanese robots

2005-12-10T15:02:00.000+01:00

I came across this link while searching for images of robots:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/1203/toyota.htm

Check out the one on the bottom with the real mech-like bot.. Amazing. Not sure what's up with the crazy dancers and tripped out graphics though....

LINK: AD HUNT

2005-11-21T23:36:00.000+01:00

Cool Advertisments: AD HUNT

A few Euro Pics

2005-11-15T00:54:00.000+01:00

I'd Like to post a few pictures I took from a time before stating this blog:

I saw this upon first moving to Denmark. It's like the European Golf Cart. Great! Playful design. The Dog is a bonus, too. It is a giant toy, really.

A quaint scene from Odense, Denmark.

Charles De Gaul, Paris...Before it collapsed.

Looking down the walking street in Vejle, Denmark.

A window display for a local photo studio... I believe this exemplifies the difference between the US and Danish culture.

Halloween!!!

2005-10-30T21:13:00.000+01:00

Check out my Halloween costume this year. I had to be a character from Pac Man, as I have been playing it constantly lately (Can you beat 50,000pts?).

Something I've learned about design from costume-making: simplicity and craftmanship outweighs all else. In Collage, I remember looking through a good graphic designer's sketchbook. He basically was using a lot of bold colors and high conrast, and the content was very very subtle. The images, though minimalistic, were very inviting to the eye and quite fun to look at. I think is is very easy to get wrapped up by content or ideas; or we want to say too much. But I think good design does not have to say much at all--it just has to thought out and done carefull, so you don't see the process.. just the end result. If the grapic designer had any sort of process to produce the images in his sketchbook, he wasn't showing them to anybody.

Link: Maximilian Sch�nherr - Radio Projects 2003 and earlier

2005-09-11T14:26:00.000+02:00

Some great interviews here with people who work on powerfull programs such as Maya, Painter, Etc..

Subway Ad

2005-09-03T22:34:00.000+02:00

I was home on summer vacation in Chicago when I heard about a Subway advertisement that is a series of images which becomes animated as you go past. I saw it on the blue line between Clark and Lake (i think) and it is quite cool. The one I saw was for Target and it shows people jumping around in in pools and blowing bubbles etc.. all mixed up with animated graphics of the Target logo. I don't think these ads are made of of static images, though. I think they are made up of many animated images by using those picures that change depending on what angle you are looking at it from. Each of those pictures have a one or two second animation. I bet they produced a series of those to make the full ad.

Notes On: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"

2005-08-08T23:15:00.000+02:00

From, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", a story written from the viewpoint of a 15 year old autistic child, by Mark Hayddon. What's nice is how directly the narrator looks upon things and his interations with the world. A few intersting topics...

On prime numbers:

"Prime numbers are what is left when you take all of the patterns away.... Prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

On time and space:

"...time is not like space.... when you put something down somewhere, like a protractor or a buiscuit, you can have a map in your head to tell you where you have left it, but even if you don't have a map it will still be there because a map is a representation of things that actually exist so you can find the protractor or buscuit again.... time is only the relationship between the way different things change, like the earth going around the sun and atoms vibrating and clocks ticking and day and night and waking up and going to sleep, and it is like west or nor-nor-east which wont exist when the earth stops existing and falls into the sun because it is only a relationship between the North Pole and the South Pole and everywhere else.... and it isn't a fixed relationship...but relative to how fast you are going based on a specific point.

...time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what time is, exactly. And so if you get lost in time it is like being lost in the desert, except that you can't see the desert because it is not a thing. "

Paris

2005-06-20T21:59:00.000+02:00

I recently went on a weekend trip to Paris with two friends from work. Here are a couple of pictures. The first, of course is of the famous architecture of the pompidou museum, where all the pipes and structure ,normally hidden, are totally exposed to the outside.

And here is a panoramic of the city from the top of those stairs:

And some cool sculptures from Notre Dame:

I didn't take too many pictures unfortunately. We were there for a concert and spent most of the remaining time shopping and basically absorbing what we don't get too much of in Denmark--like English book stores, comic book shops, diverse food, shops, people etc....

Link: A Daily Dose of Architecture

2005-06-20T07:57:00.000+02:00

A Daily Dose of Architecture: concise musings from a Chicago based architect.

stuff is good?

2005-04-09T08:18:00.000+02:00

A great quote I just read from High Fidelity by Nick Hornby:"You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, no locations or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then? I've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge."This idea helps to answer some questions that I have been pondering lately, mostly about the question of "stuff" and things going on. It's easy for someone (like me) to feel guilty about what little stuff I actually have. But the stuff we have and use and look at is important, as long as you can distinguish it from the useless stuff that you're ready to throw away. If you can afford some stuff, then get it because it leads to things that lead to other things that take you somewhere where where you would have never thought to have been before getting the stuff--and that, I believe, is a good thing. "Things going on" is more important than "stuff," but stuff helps you have things to go on with.

Link: X-Pod World

2005-03-05T05:26:00.000+01:00

I must post a link to X-Pod World. Take your LEGO with you. See what is possible.

Fun link: playing god

2005-02-24T15:39:00.000+01:00

Here's a link I got from a German coworker -click here-...Construct a city. The controls are pretty easy...try it out. It's actually really fun. It's surprising how much you can make with a limited palette. Here are some that I just made... the second is the town where I live.

Link: Grand Illusions

2005-02-23T21:30:00.000+01:00

I got this link from a friend at work todayGrand Illusions. It is very modtops. I suggest you actually download the .pdf and construct the thing. The video is good, but it is nice to actual experience the visual transformation. Magical.

There is another guy from the UK who makes these kind of things in the same style, but they are more like kinetic devices. His name is Peter something. I will look for it. My Aunt gave me some cool stuff of his a few years ago including an amazing "wave machine" and a barking dog--all built from simple instructions printed on cardstock.

I haven't explored the homesite yet Grand Illusions but it looks like there is tons of neat stuff there.

Hello :)

2005-02-17T00:00:00.000+01:00

Hello out there. Today I am twenty-five. If I live to be 100, that means my life is already 1/4 finished. Often, when I try to perceive any length of time, I think about something we had in HighSchool gym class called the "twelve minute run" where we run as many laps as we can in twelve min--an enduring task, although, thinking about the twelve min was always more painful than actually running it. There was a big digital clock on the wall that counted up to twelve min, of which I would check often during the run and try to keep a steady pace. Three min was easy; Six min was "already half way through"; Nine min was "I've come this far.. Might as well keep it up to the finish". The perception of time varied quite a bit between the quadrants and it was always a surprise to get to the 11 min mark and reflect upon where you've been... And how different it felt at the two min mark. Thinking about the run always felt different than actually running it, and that is like life. It's good to think about where you are going and where you have been, but the true source of all perception is best realized during the act of living--during the run (Sadly for this analogy, the run always went quicker than you thought it would take).

So, now I am at the three min mark. I have realized that I am living in two worlds: the world of theory and the world of action. I must live more in the world of action and take the theory part with me on the run.

I have taken in a lot these years, and now I am ready to give some, or at least communicate a little about what I appreciate in life, to record a little bit about where I am going and where I have been--and I think this blog will help in that communication.