Having missed out on most of the Coachella webcast (though Radiohead was still mandatory viewing), one thing in particular that had the interwebs abuzz is the holographic performance of the late, great 2pac as seen in this video:

The almost futurama-esq ethical humor of this aside, this was a really impressive feat of technology that had me well impressed (and pulling out the 90’s rap again); but yet the whole ‘hologram’ aspect of it still didn’t seem right.

Well, Ars Technica has a good article on the performance and technology here, and yep, it’s still not quite full form hologram technology, but a big step in both rendering technology and hardware material; but best of all, it’s still using an technique from the 19th Century called Pepper’s ghost.

So here’s how it works: the audience needs to be able to see into the main room, but not in an adjacent hidden room. In the case of the Tupac “hologram,” that’s the main stage where a real-life Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre were sharing the limelight. However, hidden on stage is a piece of glass, where the images can be reflected from and pushed into a target area that makes it seem like a single room. However, off to the side, behind the glass, there’s a hidden room that has the original object being projected.  [ ars technica article ]

Other high profile uses of this technique in the past include certain ‘visual effects’ on Lord of the Rings, a plot device in The Illusionist and most notably, a digital Japanese pop star named Hatsune Miku, who, during the course of looking up what her name was again, I just found out she’s the singer of Nyan cat. Awesome.

I just love that application of old ideas with new technology, and the technology used here is pretty damn good, especially for bringing an (allegedly) dead guy back from the grave to give a live performance to thousands of fans. How will this affect future entertainment performances and what nots? No idea, but it is still definitely still some time away before I can live out that Leia hologram reenactment dream (and then fantasy afterwards).

UPDATE: thanks internet!

And finally, though turn your sound down at the end of it…

This time bring you three mildly disturbing (but in many ways brilliant) short films.

I actually can’t stop listening to this tonight. Chap-hop. Like a sir.

In keeping with the ‘oh hey, I can keep within a theme’ theme of these posts, here’s three animated shorts of varying styles and storytelling methods (but chosen mostly because they’re animated).

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore

Blue Whale by sivan kidron

The Chase by Philippe Gamer

The Faroe Islands are an island group consisting of 18 major islands about 655 kilometres (407 mi) off the coast of Northern Europe, between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, about halfway between Iceland and Norway, the closest neighbours being the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland.

[ wiki ] [ article: The Fairy Tale World of Faroe Islands ]

Really well done too.

Part of this weekend is dedicated to clearing out and organising the nightmare datascape that is my computer/hard drives/bookmarks; some of these are for my own personal references, but a lot it seems were intended for posting here. So much so actually, I can roughly theme together some of these things. So, until I run out, or find a more interesting way to post these, here are some stop-motion shorts of late…

Luminaris by Juan Pablo Zaramella

(Notes On) Biology by Ornana films

Guacamole by PES

What better way to spend a day off work, than hungover and catching up on the entire Game of Throne series from start to the lastest damnit-how-long-until-the-next-one episode?

Finally, I can now appreciate the massive appeal of this series and of the entire country’s massive data spike when season 2 premiered on Tuesday; it’s like a high production medieval  soap opera, but thank the fuck christ the characters have got some great dimension on them and the motivating themes are well fleshed out.

Anyhow, I don’t really have much to really say on the show, but figure I should maintain some kind of regularity to posting on here. It’s been a 12 hour blur of good storytelling today; one that’s at least made me want to bust out the old fantasy novels for the first time in a long time.

Oh, but of all the things, after six months of it in my bookmarks, I am finally be able to spoiler free-ly check out Arrested Westeros, the Arrested Development/Game of Thrones mashup tumblr.