Music | Radiohead - House of Cards

I've never been a fan of Radiohead; their music wasn't really memorable for me, so they've remained below my radar...until now.

Their most recent album, In Rainbows, actually made history of sorts when it first became available as a digital download, with consumers deciding to pay whatever price they saw fit for it.

But the album wasn't what made me sit up and notice--it was the video made for one track, House of Cards. No cameras were used; instead, the singers were captured using lasers and structured light. The 3D images were captured using the Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR technologies, where as many as 64 lasers rotating and shooting 900 times per minute in a 360 degree radius produced all the exterior scenes.



The result is somewhat eerie to look at, as the grainy and grid-like images somewhat resemble the ultrasound scans that you see in hospital monitors, or the shapes created by those novelty Pin Art toys. Some of the video images also have a wispy, ethereal quality, particularly when they start to unravel, like being gradually blown by the wind.

One other thing about this awesome video: the data used to create it has been publicly made available at Google Code, where anyone can download it, manipulate the data and create their own visualizations, then upload it for everyone to see.

LEGO | Star Wars Death Star

After making the humongous Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon awhile back, what could LEGO possibly do as an encore? How about the Death Star then? Available now in North America is the LEGO Star Wars Death Star, a diorama-type construction set which will let diehard geeks fans of both Star Wars or LEGO recreate various movie scenes set in that orbiting battle station.



The set features the Imperial conference chamber, a TIE Advanced hangar bay with a moving launch rack (plus a TIE Fighter, of course), the Emperor's throne room, a droid maintenance room, and the infamous detention block with trash compactor room. There's also the Death Star control room, some rotating turbolaser turrets, the tractor beam controls, and the uber-powerful Superlaser (actually a handful of translucent green plastic pieces).


Best of all, the set includes a huge assortment of minifigures and droids--24 in all. Almost everyone that's important in Episodes IV-VI of the movies is here: Luke Skywalker (in several outfits no less), Princess Leia, Han Solo, R2-D2, C-3P0, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, Stormtroopers, and the evil Emperor Palpatine himself.


Measuring 16" tall and 16-1/2" wide, the Death Star contains 3,803 pieces, which I think makes it the second biggest LEGO set ever (the Millennium Falcon had over 5,000 pieces). It's priced at $399.99, which translates to around P18,923. Ouch.

Storm Clouds Over The Horizon

It's time once again to rant how I really hate the rainy season in this country. I've occasionally mentioned in my posts here about the shitty weather we have, which is alternating hot/humid or wet/windy, with nothing good in between.

We're now approaching mid-September, which means we're in neck-deep within the typhoon season, with frequent storms hitting us every month or so, including one that actually passed by over Metro Manila. It's been raining almost everyday now, usually in the afternoon, with sudden, heavy downpours that don't appear to stop until the streets are flooded like crazy.


The photo above was taken last Thursday, September 11, sometime around 4:00pm in the afternoon; I was going down from the MRT station near GMA-7, saw the ominous dark clouds drifting over the horizon, and took a picture. Those rainclouds are typical of what we see daily now, and I wish they'd just go away.

Gizmos | PSP-3000

Sony announced the PSP-3000, an upgraded version of their current PSP-2001 series, also known as the PSP Slim.

This third version of the PSP will be released on October 16, 2008 in Japan, with three colors: Piano Black, Pearl White, and Mystic Silver.


The PSP-3000 will have a brighter screen, leading others to dub it the "PSP Brite", and also has several additions, like a built-in microphone located beside the volume buttons, and a PlayStation logo branded on the former Home button. The microphone isn't for games; it's for Skype users...how exciting. *yawn*

It also has some slight cosmetic changes: the edges are more streamlined, with wider bevels, and the UMD door on the back side now sports a smaller metal ring.


Some additional features include video output to non-High Definition TVs (translation: old composite TVs), and the ability to use a DualShock 3 controller. Yeah right, as if plugging it to a TV isn't already ridiculous; imagine this thing plugged to a TV with a DualShock controller--go buy a PS3 instead and get it over with.

All these enhancements don't really address the major problems plaguing the PSP right now: the sucky battery life and the dwindling number of new game releases. Sony seems to have put its foot in its mouth about the PSP Brite's battery life; they intially announced that the brighter screen will drain the battery by about 20-30 minutes more, but now they're saying that battery life is just the same as the PSP Slim. Ooookaay...now bring out more new games.