hsm's multimedia lounge

Aviation Security Daily: Air Force One Vandalized by Taggers

2006-05-28T12:53:00.000+03:00

Wow! That's awasome, a graffiti group tagged Air Force one:
Aviation Security Daily: Air Force One Vandalized by Taggers.

How much is a gallon milk jug?

2006-03-11T18:07:00.000+02:00

It really depends...

Business 2.0! I just found a story. I can't stop laughing! :))

"I once tried to sell gallons of my own cum on the Internet. The old saying that if you get paid for something you love it just becomes a lot of work really is true. I can tell you exactly. 1 cumshot is about a half-teaspoon for me, and it took me 1536 shots to fill a gallon milk jug. I was doing this for 12 hours a day, and on average I could shoot about 18 times if I really tried. It took almost 3 months for me to fill the milk jug up. 85 days, actually. Finished up just after noon on the 85th day. Told you I was hardcore."

"Let's make things beta™", Google

2006-03-03T11:05:00.000+02:00

Blogger widget

2006-02-24T14:11:00.000+02:00

I'm writing this from Google's Blogger widget. Really useful stuff. Unfortunately, there are no support for system spellcheck and no image uploading. I hope, they will improve it soon.

Geekbench Preview 2

2006-02-24T12:05:00.000+02:00

I just downloaded Geekbench Preview 2 and ran it on my PowerMac G5 2x2.5 GHz. Looks like it's faster then MacBook Pro Intel Core Duo 2.0GHz. I'm a little bit amazed.

Below are results of benchmark:


Geekbench Information
  Version:               Geekbench Preview 2 (r73)
  Compiler:              GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5250)

System Information
  OS:                    Version 10.4.5 (Build 8H14)
  Model:                 PowerMac7,3
  Motherboard:           PowerMac7,3
  CPU:                   PowerPC G5 (970)
  CPU ID:                18, 100
  CPU Count (Physical):  2
  CPU Count (Logical):   2
  CPU Frequency:         2500 MHz
  Bus Frequency:         1250 MHz
  Memory:                2560 MB

CPU Integer Performance
           Emulate 6502   192  (1 thread,  342.7 megahertz)
           Emulate 6502   346  (4 threads, 632.6 megahertz)
               Blowfish   170  (1 thread,  235.1 megabytes/sec)
               Blowfish   289  (4 threads, 439.5 megabytes/sec)
         bzip2 Compress   159  (1 thread,  28.52 megabytes/sec)
         bzip2 Compress   274  (4 threads, 51.04 megabytes/sec)
       bzip2 Decompress   172  (1 thread,  71.85 megabytes/sec)
       bzip2 Decompress   303  (4 threads, 128.3 megabytes/sec)

CPU Floating Point Performance
             Mandelbrot   162  (1 thread,  1.09 gigaflops)
             Mandelbrot   289  (4 threads, 2.024 gigaflops)

Memory Performance
                Latency   247  (1 thread,  42.29 nanoseconds/load)
        Read Sequential   254  (1 thread,  1.85 gigabytes/sec)
       Write Sequential   187  (1 thread,  1.077 gigabytes/sec)
        Stdlib Allocate   139  (1 thread,  108.6 kiloallocs/sec)
        Stdlib Allocate   142  (4 threads, 112.1 kiloallocs/sec)
           Stdlib Write   143  (1 thread,  2.249 gigabytes/sec)
            Stdlib Copy   141  (1 thread,  1.058 gigabytes/sec)

Stream Performance
            Stream Copy   140  (1 thread,  1.919 gigabytes/sec)
           Stream Scale   140  (1 thread,  1.913 gigabytes/sec)
             Stream Add   146  (1 thread,  2.015 gigabytes/sec)
           Stream Triad   129  (1 thread,  1.82 gigabytes/sec)

TV Design Museum

2006-02-22T20:43:00.000+02:00

In June 2005 we are going to create some outstanding redesign for one of our main TV Channels.
And I was looking for good TV Design samples. Usually it's really hard to find something like this. You need to look at hundreds different places, combining everything from small fragments. So you may imagine how happy was I to find "TV ARK - The Television Museum". Branding of large amount of TV Channels collected in one place. And it goes deep in history as well.

PS: Don't forget to check the great BCC One & Two designs there.

Find the difference

2006-02-20T17:34:00.000+02:00

A small puzzle for today. Let's compare the branding of two TV channels: TET and Einstein:

Infiniti Interactive Mirrors

2006-02-17T18:05:00.000+02:00

Nikolai Cornell, media designer from LA, recently completed a few interactive installations for the Detroit Auto Show. One of them is Infiniti Interactive Mirrors.

The installation consists of three 8’ high by 3.5 ’ wide panes of mirrored glass placed side by side, each displaying rear-projected content from a high-lumen projector. Sensors embedded in the structure above each pane register when a user reaches out to a “hot spot,” allowing users to navigate the projected content without ever needing to touch the “screen” or press a “button.” An additional sensor recognizes when a user approaches and automatically activates the mirror to welcome the visitor.

I just thought that this installation is very close by spirit to Joseph Kosinski's work for Nike "Les Jumelles".

CINEBENCH 9.5

2006-02-17T13:25:00.000+02:00

I downloaded CINEBENCH 9.5 (it's universal now). And just made the benchmarking for my PowerMac.

Here are my results:

CINEBENCH 9.5
****************************************************

Tester           : hsm

Processor        : Dual G5 2.5 GHz
MHz              : 2.5 GHz
Number of CPUs   : 2
Operating System : Mac OS X 10.4.5

Graphics Card    : NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL 256Mb
Resolution       : 1920x1200
Color Depth      : 32 bits

****************************************************

Rendering (Single   CPU): 385 CB-CPU 
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 689 CB-CPU 

Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.79

Shading (CINEMA 4D)                : 371 CB-GFX 
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 1081 CB-GFX 
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 1821 CB-GFX 

OpenGL Speedup: 4.91

****************************************************

Office illustration

2006-02-02T20:20:00.000+02:00

I took some photos of our office and tried to create something interesting for our future website. Unfortunately the composition in photography is something far from me. I could figure it out only after creating of illustration from one.

Strong passwords

2006-01-26T21:56:00.000+02:00

There are a lot of special password related software products recently. They help you generate passwords, replace passwords with graphics, etc.

I'm using special "CIA methodic" (as I was told) for about five years.

Take a look at this password:

Mwfu,mtrb:Wwtnthg.

It has all features of strong password:
1. It's senseless for others.
2. Nobody else can remember it. Even if they will look at it for a minute.
3. In dump of IP traffic it's hard to locate it as password. It looks like trash.
4. It's very long for brute-force attack.
5. It has lower- and upper-case letters, as well as punctuation.
6. It will be very easy for you to generate and remember it, because it's just a first letters of every word in the following peace of art:

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go."
-- Hamlet (III, iii, 100-103)

Shakespeare forever! :)

xuha.org

2006-01-18T13:32:00.000+02:00

It took 2 years for my wife and couple of hours for me to flash new version of her website. It was really hard for her to persuade me :)

I used PageFlip for it. That's why it was developed so quickly.

49 million names

2005-12-21T21:48:00.000+02:00

Nathan Shedroff wrote a lot about ways of organizing things in his “Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory of Design”. He even gave a very good example of them in Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC. I read it about a couple years ago and it amazed me.

Now I need to implement it in real life. Our agency won a 3 nominations tender for Ukrainian House redesign. And the concept of redesign has a special LED multimedia column inside the building.

The idea of the column is to show somehow all 49 000 000 Ukrainians on it. And I need to define the organization of all the names and their animation on the multimedia column. It looks like impossible. But it’s an interesting challenge.

Winona Ryder

2005-12-17T11:22:00.000+02:00

I took a look at Winona Ryder's page at imdb.com. Not very good movies in her recent filmography from my point of view. Looks like she needs a new manager.

Adobe Version Cue and InCopy

2005-12-15T23:37:00.000+02:00

I studied today two Adobe products: Version Cue and InCopy.

First is the server for handling file versions. Good for small workgroups.
Second is the solution for more productive collaborative editorial workflows on the publishings.

Version Cue is really good thing. However I couldn't start CS version on my PowerMac G5. I started it on our dualcore mac and my powerbook. The main question now is how can we install WebDAV on our FreeBSD server and work with it using our Adobe products.

InCopy was not so impressive for me. Since, editorial workflow is totally new for me, I found a lot of things little bit over-complicated here. However it did its work. Together with Version Cue - it could be very interesting solution.

Xbox G5

2005-12-13T16:35:00.000+02:00

While Apple moves to Intel, Microsoft gets the same problem with shortage of IBM G5 processors as Apple a long time ago. That's the funniest news I read today. Below, Steve Ballmer showing how many G5 processors they do not have:

Quartz Composer

2005-12-13T10:13:00.000+02:00

Just after getting MacOS X Tiger, I found a Quartz Composer in Developer's Applications. It is very interesting multimedia tool based on OpenGL, Core Image and Core Video. While MacOS X provides libraries for any application to work with these technologies - Quartz Composer is more like demo tool to show the abilities. But very powerful one. It uses visual programming interface to allow program any composition with a mouse - just drag blocks from library and link them.

Using this tool you can create really amazing things: 3d, particles, screensavers with RSS feeds, slideshows, video&audio broadcasting, interactivity, etc. Small file size. There are only instructions what to do. Source can be played on any Tiger in QuickTime.

You can get almost the same results as with Apple Motion, but without paying $299! Take a look at Zugakousaku samples.

But there is always some "but":

No timeline. You can imitate it with triggers, but it's not something to make you more creative.
As for possibilities demonstration tool - Quartz Composer gives you more then you can imagine. But still there are always some limitations, bugs, etc. in it. So you can get better results just programming and using the same libraries. Visual programming is a programming anyway.
There are some VJ tools made on Quartz Composer. But they are not perfect and even harder to use. I wish there will be VJ tool with timeline. But we already have Apple Motion.

Anyway, it's amazing tool. Worth of trying.

"Adult Games" brand

2005-12-12T13:00:00.000+02:00

About two months ago I got a task for creating a brand style for an Event Agency called "Adult Games". The problem was that I had a very strong link between "Adult Games" company name and vulgarity only in my mind. There also were problems with other associations. And the challenge was to find other associations strong enough to destroy this sexual link.

We made a special questionnaire for them to define the emotional components of the brand. Here are the results:

Temperature: Hot
Intensity: Hurricane
Acceleration: Yes
Light: Bright
Freshness: Yes
Season: Summer

And the keywords they choose to describe the brand:

1. Friendly, Vibrant.
2. Moving, Professional.
3. Vital, Welcoming, Fresh, Energetic, Aggressive.

And here is the result of the work:

Adobe + Macromedia = Adobe

2005-12-09T11:33:00.000+02:00

It was clear that after acquisition Macromedia brand will be replaced with Adobe one.
But still it's sad to see it in action.

Eurovision Basic Image

2005-12-08T12:25:00.000+02:00

We were comparing basic images of ESC2005 and ESC2006 yesterday. After discussions we agreed that our image is more conceptual. Let's compare.

Athens 2006:
The 2006 design is a combination of different elements. ERT, the Greek host broadcaster, is combining the unique history of Greece – represented by the Phaistos Disc (a well-known ancient artifact) – with a wave motif that represents the cyclical sound waves of music. The outcome is a multi-coloured, rounded look and feel.

The different shapes and forms will begin to form a pentagram with its lines made up of five colours. Each colour represents a different element of Greece.
Gold represents the golden sandy beaches; green stands for the country’s beautiful natural heritage with its picturesque villages; white represents the brightness of the Greek sunshine; red is for the passion for life and hospitable spirit of the Greek people; and blue represents the sea – a central part of Mediterranean culture.

The party-like atmosphere of Eurovision is represented by the slogan:
‘Feel the rhythm!’

Kyiv 2005:
Once in a year the vibrant fiery light of fern flower blooms.
Once in a year the unity of the European communities culminates in a song extravaganza.
Once in a year there’s a chance to win the Eurovision award – to find a wonderful fiery bloom of your own.
As the legend goes, the fern flower florescence is of extraordinary beauty.
Once in a year at midnight the flower opens and burns like fire, shimmering with all the colours of a rainbow.
The one who finds the flower is blessed with wisdom and happiness, and receives a gift of prescience, allowing him to comfort people.
A brand new world opens for him...

Serene mobile from B&O

2005-12-07T11:27:00.000+02:00

About two years ago I was thinking about the bad usability of most mobile phones. It's very unnatural position for a big finger to press small buttons on the bottom. And solutions seems simple for me - just turn usual phone upside-down - screen will appear at the bottom and buttons on the top. Most of the remote controls have all their buttons on the top and a free space (just like for display) at the bottom.

Today I saw Selena mobile phone from Bang&Olufsen. It does even more: you can rotate and use it any way you want - usual or upside-down. There are many other unusual solutions in the phone. And it is difficult to say how usable the software in it or the navigation wheel. But physically this phone is more native for fingers.

Kyivstar video-screensavers, part 2

2005-12-06T19:56:00.000+02:00

Today, I was cleaning the KyivStar screensaver. I wanted to make it as clear as possible, the way we did it for Eurovision Broadcast. Looks like the result is much better then the previous.

Apple Aperture

2005-12-06T10:18:00.000+02:00

There was an article in the ArsTechnica about Apple Aperture. Not very good product from the author's point of view. And I was a little disappointed. But in the same time I had some feeling that the author paid just a little attention to the main benefit of Aperture - reviewing and selecting - the way no other software can.

And then I read a comment on the Slashdot with two key sentences:

A pro photographer is paid for his "eye"/ability to capture an image that is so desirable, someone wants to pay for it.
Maybe the better article choice would have been to collect feedback from pros instead of assuming he "knows" all about it?

I totally agree with the commenter from Slashdot. Can't help waiting to get Aperture.

By the way, there are limitations to RAM amount for running Aperture. There is a trick to avoid them:

open the file info.plist (on the Aperture.app bundle)

<key>AELMinimumRAMSize</key>
<string>1000</string>
to
<key>AELMinimumRAMSize</key>
<string>700</string>

You can use your amount of RAM instead of 700 mentioned above.

Flash intro source

2005-12-05T11:15:00.000+02:00

I slightly changed intro just for fun and uploaded the Flash source.
intro.zip (12 KB).

Rejected Eurovision 2005 video transition

2005-12-03T21:13:00.000+02:00

Thinking about previous post, I found another interesting thing I made and it was also rejected. It was 2" recap video transition for Eurovision Song Contest 2005 in Kyiv. The transition should cover full screen at least for one frame, so one video could replace another seamlessly. Both Art-Director and I worked over it and found very interesting solution by chance. The transition created very strong wow-effect and we understood impossibility of recreation of the effect in any other video. It was rejected by Creative Director because of this fortuitousness - no idea in background and impossibility of reuse. So the lesson we got again and again: first think - then create ,)

Agency website Flash intro

2005-12-02T18:33:00.000+02:00

Today I worked over our agency website Flash intro. There are 500 rectangles filled in the given shape and appearing & fading from left to right. The idea looks interesting, but there is a lot of work in animation should be done. The motion is not perfect.
112 lines of AS code and 3KB SWF file.

Update: Our Creative Director currently rejected this intro. Because every realization needs an idea for background. The idea should bring something useful. Beautiful effect itself worth nothing. So I started thinking more globally now ,)

Billy's whishlist

2005-12-01T21:25:00.000+02:00

Very funny image came to my hands:

I think next two wishes are Apple and Google ;)

Periodical Publishing CMS Flash interface

2005-12-01T19:52:00.000+02:00

Today's picture is a part of Periodical Publishing CMS Flash interface.
It will allow editors and publishers work more productively on periodical editions such as magazines, newspapers, etc.

I always had a passion to interface design. But professional programming (taking into account every detail) could be a pain for me. When everything is clear and there is no logical problems - it's hard to make myself working over things which can be easily given to somebody else with detailed instructions. As an example - creation of Virtual Isometric Multi-User World - took 6 months of Flash coding for me.

Kyivstar video-screensavers

2005-11-30T22:26:00.000+02:00

I'll try to make this blog in format "A picture every day". This may help me working productively and keep preview of my works for future.

So, here are the first pictures - screenshots of screensavers for Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar.
These are just drafts to show overall idea of abstract screensavers for the company.

Made with Apple Motion 2.

Лавра

2005-04-10T20:53:00.000+03:00

Вчера Данька свалился кубарем с лестницы. Теперь ходит с забинтованой рукой - перелом ключицы. Привыкает к тому, что ему теперь месяц нельзя будет двигать рукой особо, хотя ему достаточно тяжело с этим смириться.

Сегодня гуляли в Лавре. Хорошее место. Вход для местных бесплатный - надо просто входить не через главный вход. Теперь постараемся делать это почаще. Хотел скинуть фотки, но Nokia фигово пофоткала. Всё-таки, пока не починю Canon - буду фоткать палмом.

Завтра новое рабочее место. Power Mac G5 2х2,5 GHz . CinemaDisplay 23". Здравствуй мак. Буду теперь с тобой сростаться в единое целое.

Hello, World!

2005-02-07T00:20:00.000+02:00

First time at blogger ;)