Author: Chad Ossman

Some bad news for Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood: seems hours of footage shot in low-light on hi-def digital cameras (a la Collateral and Miami Vice) had to be scrapped [no longer online: scifipulse.net/Dr_Who/Torchwood_HIDef.html] when the Panasonic cameras didn’t perform as advertised. I’m hardly an expert, but don’t you thnk they would have realized sooner the footage was unusable? (spotted on Outpost Gallifrey)

The Criterion Collection will release a Janus Films boxed set in October, with a book and no less than fifty dvds.

Settle some bar bets with Hey, It’s That Guy. Hey, it’s that Googly-Eyed Guy! Hey, it’s That Guy From Most Michael Mann Movies! Hey, it’s That Maybe-Clone-Maybe-Not-Clone Guy from Lost! Hey, it’s That Guy From V and 10 million other movies! This site could double as a Law & Order supporting players roster. (guest submission from It’s That Girl Andrea)

Helvetica, the movie! Tracing the 50-year history of the ubiquitous, evergreen typeface, and probably without being able to help it, of graphic design itself. Coming to a festival near you in early 2007. (spotted on Design Observer)

Breaking news: “Sexy music triggers teen sex.” How about just being a teenager triggers teen sex.

Those expecting Apple would release an iPhone-wireless-movie-store-tablet-computer-orgasmatron at today’s WWDC conference were probably disappointed when they instead only announced techie things that matter to “D” for developers:

• Mac Pro, now with extra oomph. Apple claims it’s not only $850 less than the previous model PowerMac, but $950 less than the equivalent Dell. Macintouch received theirs less than 24 hours after odering, but alas, it was dead on arrival. Ouch.
• XServe. Not my territory, so no comment.
• Mac Os X Leopard, with Time Machine (not that Macs ever die – snort! – but just in case), Spaces (Um, maybe. I’d have to try it.), Mail (I can say already that I’ll be using the To-Do feature all the time, but damn the thing is still fugly), and iChat (at last, animated buddy icons! – don’t laugh, I’ve designed dozens at my job).

Sleeeeeeep, my kitty, sleeeeeep…

15″ Powerbook G4 go BOOM. At least two of my family & friends own one of these. (spotted on Engadget and Cult of Mac)

Warner Music is going to sell albums on DVD with surround-sound mixes, videos, etc.? Great, fine, and old news. Yawn. But adding iTunes Music Store tracks to it is an interesting waste of space… it’s your legal right to be able to rip an album you own to a computer, so why would want pre-ripped files with DRM? Oh right, the labels want that, not you.

Exxon/Mobile reports record profits of $10.36 billion for the last quarter, the highest yet not just for themselves but possibly for any company ever. You almost have to laugh.

Wikipedia’s entry on Doctor Who‘s Sarah Jane Smith clears something up. The good news: there are now apparently two additional Doctor Who spinoff series in production (to accompany next year’s Torchwood). The bad: what I had thought was a Sarah Jane & K-9 show is actually two: the independently-produced K-9 Adventures, and Sarah Jane Investigates from the BBC and writer/producer Russell T. Davies. Either show may not feature both characters, which is quite a disappointment, as it would have been more than the sum of its parts.

Alleged Mac OS X Leopard screenshots & feature set (spotted on Macintouch). If these are anything other than phake Photoshop phantasies, here are the highlights for me:

• Dashboard widgets will finally be available actually outside of the “Negative Zone.” Now they might actually be useful!
• Mail 3.0? Let’s hope they give it a complete and total interfacelift (so to speak).

I’ve been hearing about Quicksilver for ages, but never tried it because I didn’t really understand what it was. But I’m playing with it now and understand why… it’s a kind of blank slate that does nothing and yet everything. For any Mac users who might stumble upon this blog, I say try it right now (hey, it’s free, and skim this for a few ideas on how to use it). I suppose one way to describe it is what Spotlight could have and should have been.

Starry Night in Lego. (spotted on Kottke.org)

Darth Vader as Doctor Evil: Zip it! Zipit! Zip! (guest submission from Frau Andrea)

Outpost Gallifey reports on an upcoming Doctor Who spinoff, Sarah Jane Investigates, written by Russell T. Davies himself. Is this a different show than the K-9 show in development?

But first we have Torchwood.

The Hoff is King! Of! The! Internet! (guest submission from The Halk)

Look out, the boss is coming! Make any site safe for work with Workfriendly.net (spotted on Kottke.org)

Hi Iconfactory, welcome back! You look so pretty and so Web 2.0-y! Loads of new stuff, including possibly the first useful desktop widget ever (I’m not a fan of widgets) and a huge new suite of free awesome robot icons.

Turns out Peter Jackson had a few feet of leftover film he actually didn’t use, so now we have the King Kong Extended Edition, with 13 additional minutes, due in November.

Another must-buy DVD: Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier, featuring both the 1979 and 2001 cuts, on August 15.

The Fake Leopard Screenshots were nothing, check out the fake iPhone commercials.

A new contender for Dorkiest Link Ever (must do a Dork Report Greatest Hits entry some day): $198.99 buys you a Lego recreation of the famous “1984” Apple TV ad directed by Ridley Scott. It’s got everything: iPods, Legos, movies… (guest submission from Dave)

Got a song stuck in your head, like “My Humps,” “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” or “Feel Good Inc.“? Exchange it for another with Maim That Tune. (guest submission from Queen Apologist Andrea)

Heath “Mumbles” Ledger is the Joker [no longer online: cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/01/film.ledger.reut]. Oh wow, whose idea was it to call it The Dark Knight? They obviously didn’t run that one by a comic book dork focus group. One of the most famous (and commercially successful) graphic novels ever is called The Dark Knight, and fans won’t accept anything less than a straight adaptation. Not to mention the fact that chunks of it were pillaged for the previous bat-movies anyway. (guest submission from Poison Ivy Andrea)

Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest winners on Phil Ryu’s Blog. There’s a world of difference between Photoshop fantasy and computer programming reality, but still, Apple should hire some of these big thinkers.

Oh no, again with the iPhone! (spotted on MacRumors)

Apple addicts tease because we love (no longer online: macspoofs.com). (guest submission from Dave)

Color photos of Russia, ca. 1909, much older than the color photos from the Great Depression. (guest submission from Dave)

Havn’t checkout out Blambot for a while, and was suprised at how many free (for non-commercial use) fonts they have, as well as useful speech balloon graphics. I used 10 Cent Comics and Blambot Casual (as well as Matt B from Chank, the best handwriting font I’ve ever used, and free free free!) on the American Splendor site (no longer online: americansplendormovie.com).

The wraps are off, and “the new IconFactory” debuts tomorrow.

Breck Eisner’s 1994 student film “Recon,” starring a cyberpunk Peter Gabriel. I’ve always wanted to see this… never occurred to me to check out YouTube.

Just to further illustrate that YouTube has everything, here’s video of “Rachel Blake’s” impassioned Hanso Foundation protest at the Comic-Con Lost panel.

Catching up on Neil Gaiman:

• A sample of the newly remastered Absolute Sandman, Volume One of which incidentally now has a cover and release date (November 1).
• Fragile Things, a new book and cd of short stories, coming on September 26.
• The cover and some art from his new comics series, Eternals (and more here). For dorks in the know, there’s a stunning bit of news at the bottom of the page… Marvel has agreed to (re?)publish Miracleman when the rights clear?! (of course, Gaiman’s been in court over that matter for at least a decade, so I’m not holding my breath)

With AOL.com (now free to the public, with tons of video), AIM Fight, the new AIM Pages, AOL is trying really hard to look cool in the face of massive impending layoffs.

Top 50 Movie Endings of All Time. The usual suspects are present and accounted for (Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Brazil, etc.) but kudos for including less obvious choices (and Dork Report favorites) like Before Sunset, Brazil, Rushmore, and Big Night. (spotted on Kottke.org)

Wow. Renaissance looks amazing. I have a friend who will lose his mind when we sees this.

Metallica (one of the last holdouts, following Madonna) finally puts itself up on iTunes (link no longer online).

Thousand-year-old medieval book of psalms (no longer online: cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/07/25/ireland.psalms.ap) discovered in an Irish bog, with this eerie twist:

“The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations’ attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.”

medieval book of psalms

The sky is falling in the movie biz: Disney lays off 600 and Warner Bros. 400.

A panel of “experts” pick the 50 Films to See Before You Die (no longer online) for Film4, coincidentally what Film4 has been able to license for broadcast. (guest submission from Andrea)

What are those crazy IconFactory kids up to? Day 1: read the riot act by the WC3. Day 2: installing a port-a-potty. Day 3: waving goodbye to archaic HTML and, um, something to do with Optimus Prime? I smell a redesign, at least…

After albums ranging from the critically acclaimed to the insanely popular, Moby’s latest, Hotel, was dull, dull, dull. But turns out the Little Idiot (no longer online: thelittleidiot.com) still has some fire in him yet, judging by his blog (the poor boy should take his iBook to the Soho Apple Store to get his SHIFT key fixed):

one of the big differences between liberal disdain for conservatives and conservative disdain for liberals is that liberal disdain for conservatives tends to be issue oriented and conservative disdain for liberals tends to be jingoistic. when liberals complain about conservatives it’s usually focussed on things that conservatives have done while in power. when conservatives complain about liberals it’s usually (based on listening to rush limbaugh and bill o’reilly, etc) focussed on jingoistic slogans (‘they hate life’, ‘they love saddam hussein’, etc) that have nothing to do with any of the serious issues with which we’re confronted.”

Moby

Wonderfully cheesy Snakes on a Plane Flash banners (no longer online: comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=15662).