DW Documentary posted a new documentary about the ongoing proliferation of tourists and rising property prices in Lisbon, Portugal. The documentary follows someone from the local council and shows the efforts undertaken by the city to save its old, long established shops and their shop owners who are at risk of being pushed out of the city.
A new article by Input Magazine gives a good example of green washing and why we need the right to repair our own devices. The article is about a “recycling mode” for Sonos devices that effectively bricks a device, and makes it impossible for it to enter the second-hand market. Read the short article here.
Kottke collected some videos on a technology used by Disney to create realistic three dimensional scenes. Well worth looking at the explainer and exmples videos here.
The basic idea is that instead of animating characters against a single static background, you can animate several layers of independently moving scenes painted on glass. In a 1957 film, Walt Disney himself explained how the camera worked:
Martha Claeys heeft een mooi essay geschreven op de Bij Nader Inzien blog over schaamte en schuldgevoelens wanneer we het vliegtuig nemen. Haar artikel geeft een goed overzicht over de filosofische problemen, maar ook het nut van deze gevoelens. Lees het volledige artikel hier.
The title of the following Vox video is a bit misleading. In fact, the video provides an excellent history on the creation of the fisheye lens and its use in music photography and videos. At the end of the video it even goes into a bit of semiotics, with the images allowing multiple or mediated interpretations for different people.
The following video of Vox explores the technique of rotoscoping, used by animators to create realistic motions: “Invented by Max Fleischer of Fleischer Studios (and echoed and practiced by many others), it involves taking filmed footage and using it as a traceable model for animation. The results are fluid and natural in a way animation had never been before.”
Fun article by Kerim Friedman on the semiotics of bubble tea in Taiwan.
An opinion piece in the New York Times by Professor of sociology Eric Klinenberg on the value of public libraries. As someone who loves libraries, I fully agree with his observations. Read his full piece at the NYT Sunday Review.
Drew Austin writes at Real Life magazine on the new Airpods. Didn’t quite know how they actually worked and make it possible to keep them on all the time. Definitely seeing increasing use everywhere I go, and he makes some great points on how this technology is shaping our social interactions:
Last Sunday I saw a great documentary in the “Tegenlicht” series from the Dutch VPRO television station. The title of this episode is “Mijn Bullshitbaan” and it gives an overview of the work of the anthropologist David Graeber on “bullshit jobs” through interview segments with him and examples from the experience of different people in the Netherlands. I could relate to quite a few things from my own professional career. Have a look at the full episode here.