Jonathan Millán, “The girlfriend experience”.

• Scott Indrisek, Steven Soderbergh’s Girlfriend Experience | Anthem
• Scott Feinberg, EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Sasha Grey, porn superstar and lead in new Soderbergh film, as you’ve never seen her before | The Envelope | LA Times

A mí también me gustó.

Lullatone, little songs about raindrops. Lullatone es Shawn James Seymour con: Yoshimi Tomida (voz), Keichi Sugimoto (guitarra), Ryan Taylor Stearman (ukelele y co-producción), Nicholas Cox (viola), Yusuke Asano (ukelele). Diseño por e*rock. Audio Dregs Recordings, Darla Records, PLOP

Raindrop Melody Maker me aliena cuando más lo necesito porque es un verdadero alivio estar fuera de sí. Lullatone me encanta y este disco es perfecto.

Un día de lluvia improvisé el nuevo aspecto de mi blog. Lo he construido sobre Fifty Fifth Street de Tammy Hart, un tema para WordPress que no es más que un bonito lienzo para todo aquel que quiera pintar su propia apariencia a base de pinceladas y no brochazos.

Hoy ha llovido más que nunca.

Sam Loman, Underskin (detalle)

Aviso: No voy a hablar del gran Harry Beck.

Transit Maps of the World: The World’s First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth es uno de mis libros favoritos. Un libro tan bonito es imposible que no lo haya escrito alguien tan apasionado. Mark Ovenden (Flickr!) es un bicho raro alucinado por la cartografía que lee mapas de carreteras en lugar de cómics y que ocupa su tiempo libre viajando en metro, haciendo garabatos de extensiones imposibles o imaginando nuevos sistemas de transporte público.

This book celebrates the diversity of rail-based transit systems in urban enviroments by collecting together for the first time their cartographic evolution. These include remarkable and innovative design practice conveying complex information in accessible form. Intended for the widest possible audience, this book makes no attempt to resolve any controversy as to what makes a true subway, underground, or metro. Rather than accepting the narrower definitions of the railway enthusiast or industry specialist, the book deliberately includes systems that have chosen to market themselves as urban-transit networks. This book simply indulges in the joy of the graphic design employed to show the traveler how to get from station A to station B.Mike Ashworth (Design and Heritage Manager, London Underground)

En la tienda online del LT Museum se puede adquirir el cautivador y esquemático panorama de la ciudades incluidas en el libro concebido por el propio Mark Ovenden pero amablemente presentado por Alan Foale, el diseñador encargado de mantener y actualizar el actual mapa del metro de Londres. En la misma tienda también se puede adquirir el que puede ser sin duda el póster favorito de Dua aunque la profunda fascinación que siente por la ciudad de sus sueños le haga preferir este otro.

Seven’s Heaven, THE LOST RAINFOREST. Exercise in graphic simplification of a famous figure, in this case Miffy by Dick Bruna.

He estado perdido en una desaparecida selva. Lo siento.

Peter Gelderloos (Support Peter Gelderloos!), Veganism is a consumer activity. The Anarchist Library (2008).

Alex Renton, Will turning vegetarian save the planet?. Word of Mouth blog (24/2/10).

Detesto las generalizaciones precipitadas y la represión agria que aspira a persuadir a través de la amonestación. Con esas premisas escribe Peter Gelderloos, el apuesto marido de Sa. Difícil de creer, su artículo Veganism is a consumer activity es una lectura muy recomendable,

Hylton Warburton, Beware The Four Fingered Viking 2

Hylton Warburton, Beware The Four Fingered Viking

¡Atención! Nordic Quack. Sweden’s bizarre tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve. Es un artículo de Jeremy Stahl para Slate publicado el 22/12/9.

Tack så mycket, Alma!

Squall-Lowliet, Kefka Monument to Nonexistance

The final battle against Kefka draws strong symbolism from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, an epic poem in which Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The first tier in the battle is represented by a demon, and in the Divine Comedy the first tier is Hell where Satan is entrapped up to his waist. The second tier of the battle contains beasts, people and machinery, which collectively represent Purgatory, the second tier in the Divine Comedy. The third tier is inspired by Michelangelo’s Pietà, a sculpture of Jesus’ body lying in Mary’s lap after he is crucified. This represents the third tier in the Divine Comedy, Heaven, with Rest and Lady in the positions of Jesus and Mary in the Pietà. The final tier in the Divine Comedy is when Dante comes face-to-face with God, who explains to him the meaning of life. This is reflected in Kefka, who has become the God of Magic and tells the Returners that life is meaningless.

Kefka himself appears to the Returners as a purple angel with four angelic wings and two dark demonic wings. This appearance draws parallels to Lucifer, the fallen angel that became Satan. One of Kefka’s attacks is “Fallen One”, which was later re-translated as “Heartless Angel”, both of which draw back to the idea of Kefka as a fallen angel. His signature attack is “Forsaken”, which again hearkens to Lucifer and his rebellion against God. Kefka’s six wings could be taken as a reference to the Seraph, the highest choir of angels with six wings. The background of the battle is a field of golden clouds with beams of light shining through them, symbolizing Heaven.Final Fantasy Wiki, Kefka Palazzo

La última batalla empieza no sin que Kefka, convertido en el dios de la magia, manifieste su deseo de erradicar no solo cualquier tipo de vida sino la existencia en si misma. Creo yo que la imaginería de La Divina Commedia de Dante se queda corta; es obvia la fuerza de Paradise Lost de John Milton.

Life…dreams…hope…Where do they come from? And where do they go? Such meaningless things…I’ll destroy them all!Kefka, durante la batalla final

Why do people insist on creating things that will inevitably be destroyed? Why do people cling to life knowing that they must someday die? Knowing that none of it will have meant anything once they do?Kefka, sobre la futilidad de la existencia

Bonus!

• Final Fantasy VI Sprites. Total Final Fantasy VI sprites to date: 1,950
• 完成版】FF6 ハガレンOPEDパロ【手書き】. What the fuck!?

Cécile Bortoletti para LURVE (issue 1 – fall/winter 2009), Outlandish. Daul Kim con los diseños de Romain Kremer.

La extravagante LURVE existe para paliar la aversión a la repulsiva METAL. Pero más triste es la muerte de Daul Kim (김다울).

Jennifer Cox, Little Girls Know All the Secrets. Fragmento en Vimeo del corto “Little Girls Know all the Secrets” (2005)

Jennifer Cox, Little girls know all the secrets. Otro fragmento en Vimeo del corto “Little girls know all the secrets” (2005)

Children always seem to know what is important in life, everything for them is black and white, full of passion, it is either want or not want, it is live life to the fullest, it is a complete new way of viewing things, much purer and full of enthusiasm: things in their eyes always have a much more mysterious and complicated explanation than for us adults, this is why I always make sure that I am surrounded by children.

I took all of these photographs as a way of preserving their childhood for them; I also took them as a thank you for accepting me as one of them without ever questioning my intentions and because they have given me so much without even knowing it.Jennifer Cox, Childhood

maccdc, Coconut Octopus.1

maccdc, Coconut Octopus.2

The researchers noticed that the animals were frequently using their approximately 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) tentacles to carry coconut shells bigger than their roughly 3-inch-wide (8-centimeter-wide) bodies.

An octopus would dig up the two halves of a coconut shell, then use them as protective shielding when stopping in exposed areas or when resting in sediment.

This, on its own, astonished the team. Then they noticed that the octopuses, after using the coconut shells, would arrange them neatly below the centers of their bodies and “walk” around with the shells—awkwardly. Matt Kaplan para National Geographic News, “Bizarre” Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters

Por favor, prestad mucha atención a este vídeo. También lo podéis ver en BBC News (Rebecca Morelle, Octopus snatches coconut and runs), RTVE.es (América Valenzuela, Descubren pulpos que usan cocos como escudos contra los depredadores). Aún hay más. En este vídeo (un fragmento de las aventuras de Otto C. Honegger) el muy bandido corretea no con una sino con dos cáscaras, en un plis-plas se transforma en bolita y rueda feliz por el fondo del mar. Por si fuera poco, otro pulpo que coge carrerilla.

La conducta tan divertida de este pulpo (Amphioctopus marginatus) la descubrió por casualidad el biólogo Julian Finn del Museo Victoria en Melbourne y del departamento de Zoología de la Universidad La Trobe en Bundoora. La revista Current Biology ha publicado su estudio.

The use of tools has become a benchmark for cognitive sophistication. Originally regarded as a defining feature of our species, tool-use behaviours have subsequently been revealed in other primates and a growing spectrum of mammals and birds [1]. Among invertebrates, however, the acquisition of items that are deployed later has not previously been reported. We repeatedly observed soft-sediment dwelling octopuses carrying around coconut shell halves, assembling them as a shelter only when needed. Whilst being carried, the shells offer no protection and place a requirement on the carrier to use a novel and cumbersome form of locomotion — ‘stilt-walking’.Defensive tool use in a coconut-carrying octopus, Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 23, R1069-R1070, 15 December 2009

¡Más vídeos de cefalópodos increíbles!

• Octopus Eats Shark
• Octopus scaping through a 1 inch hole
• Alien-like Squid With “Elbows” Filmed at Drilling Site

Imp Pt (ampliar).

Imp Pt (ampliar)

Presumir con capturas de pantalla es odioso pero es desde los primeros días de la línea de comandos un ritual demasiado frecuente muy bien implantado en el abierto carácter exhibicionista de los usuarios de GNU/Linux. Yo no voy a ser menos:

Imp Pt

CrunchBang Linux 9.04.01 (Lite Edition); Openbox 3.4 (1977 Openbox by Thayer Williams); Monospace 7; arora 0.10.1 (Andy Rementer, Desire (Techno Tuesday); moc 2.5.0 > HEALTH, GET COLOR (Lovepump United, 2009); VLC 0.9.9 > Telmo and Tula, Muesli con manzanas (Trademark & Copyright 2006: Anera Films, Motion Pictures); terminator 0.12 –command=cacafire (Package: caca-utils, libcaca); Thunar 1.0.0; Bluecurve Icon Theme; Lindsay Lohan Vanity Fair February 2006 (Photographed exclusively for V.F. by Mario Testino in Malibu, California, on September 21, 2005).

Good morning, Crono! (fondo de escritorio inspirado en Chrono Trigger por mí); Nitrogen 1.4 (Color name: #212121); tint2 0.7; fbxkb 0.6 (es,se).

(…)

Mi vida se entrega al Bushido. Persigo el instante que decide la vida o la muerte sin importarme el resultado. Desde hace años, me aventuro en Sid y me exijo sobrevivir. Pero sin dejar de ser fiel al código, cada vez frecuento menos los repositorios inseguros. Ahora empuño mi boken y corto el aire mientras contemplo como las estaciones transforman mi jardín minimalista. CrunchBang Linux (Lite) en mi ThinkPad T400 (with graphics integrated) ha apagado el inestable y descontrolado fuego soplando un ligero y racional viento. #! es una distro basada en Ubuntu, y la grasienta y obesa Ubuntu es una distro basada en Debian; main significa pulcros paquetes (deb) estables cada 6 meses, y universe significa frescos paquetes (deb) inestables y del repositorio experimental. Todavía mantengo viejas costumbres porque aún no he perdido ni el honor ni la lealtad; con un lápiz STAEDTLER triplus anoto en mi libreta ClaireFontaine® (Doceur de l’écriture) mis aplicaciones, librerías y configuraciones favoritas. Es un placer compartirlo:

• abiword efficient, featureful word processor with collaboration
• alsa-base ALSA driver configuration files
• alsa-utils ALSA utilities
• amule client for the eD2k and Kad networks, like eMule
• apt Advanced front-end for dpkg
• arora Arora is an open-source browser project that aims to build a cross-platform
• blender Very fast and versatile 3D modeller/renderer
• cowsay A configurable talking cow
• dillo small and fast browser
• evince Document (postscript, pdf) viewer
• exfalso audio tag editor for GTK+
• fbxkb X11 keyboard indicator and switcher
• inkscape vector-based drawing program
• elinks advanced text-mode WWW browser
• g++ The GNU C++ compiler
• gcc The GNU C compiler
• gftp X/GTK+ FTP client
• gimp The GNU Image Manipulation Program
• grub GRand Unified Bootloader
• htop interactive processes viewer
• irsii terminal based IRC client
• language-support-writing-ca Writing aids metapackage for Catalan; Valencian
• language-support-writing-en Writing aids metapackage for English
• language-support-writing-es Writing aids metapackage for Spanish; Castilian
• language-support-writing-sv Writing aids metapackage for Swedish
• leafpad GTK+ based simple text editor
• libcaca colour ASCII art library
• moc ncurses based console audio player
• mplayer The Ultimate Movie Player For Linux
• nitrogen wallpaper browser and changing utility for X
• openbox standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager
• postr upload photos to Flickr
• pyroom distractionless fullscreen text editor
• python An interactive high-level object-oriented language (default version)
• ruby An interpreter of object-oriented scripting language Ruby
• sane scanner graphical frontends
• soundconverter GNOME application to convert audio files into other formats
• sox Swiss army knife of sound processing
• synaptic Graphical package manager
• terminator Multiple GNOME terminals in one window
• thunar File Manager for Xfce
• tint2 lightweight taskbar
• transmission lightweight BitTorrent client
• ttf-liberation Free fonts with the same metrics as Times, Arial and Courier
• vim Vi IMproved – enhanced vi editor
• vifm a ncurses based file manager with vi like keybindings
• vlc multimedia player and streamer
• volwheel System tray volume control applet.
• wamerican American English dictionary words for /usr/share/dict
• wbritish British English dictionary words for /usr/share/dict
• wcatalan Catalan dictionary words for /usr/share/dict
• wspanish The Spanish dictionary words for /usr/share/dict
• wswedish Swedish dictionary words for /usr/share/dict
• x11-xkb-utils X11 XKB utilities
• xfonts-ay Audun Ytterdal’s ANSI-fonts with Scandinavian characters

Si os gusta Telmo y Tula tanto como a mí, os moriréis de hambre por saber la receta del Muesli con manzanas.

Lo que necesitas:

• dos boles
• una taza
• un exprimidor manual