Nils Haack / Opticalvalve.com

And another year passed by

Verdammt! Schon wieder ist ein Jahr rum und hier hat sich nichts getan. Die Dev-Version der neuen Site liegt auch schon seit 1,5 Jahren rum und wirkt nicht mehr richtig frisch...

Immerhin hab' ich mich entschlossen hier auf deutsch weiter zu machen - mit 'ner eigenen Englisch-Kategorie für einzelne Posts. Naja, hier wird sich dann aber so bald wohl nichts ändern. Ich rechne noch mit mindesten 3-6 Monaten bis hier endlich was passiert.

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Hello again

Busy busy busy ... I just notices... uhm... my last post is actually quite old. You know... busy and stuff todo... Aha - I hear you think.

But behold! I have been busy recreating the site, hope to be able to show it to you soon. Additionally, I am working on a very interesting thing at the moment. I'm bursting not to tell you.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I have not forgotten about this site.

Edit: damn... I still have this old design running... hope to update it soon... nothing new here to see

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Zembly - A place for creating social applications

I stumbled over an article about this new service at semantic-web.at. Zembly is a service where you can easily create your own social applications. You do not need any editor or file transfer software, hosting environment or anything else - except for a browser and an online connection.

Knowing some (X)HTML, CSS and Javascript won't hurt when using zembly, but it is fairly easy to create some basic service, widget, facebook or meebo application. I signed up for some experiments, but didn't find much time for more extended play arounds. But really, with a few clicks you quickly get to a usable custom little social application. Neat.

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XHTML valid Youtube/Vimeo Embed Code

There you go. You spent so much time walking through your code, finding little bits here and there - to correct your XHTML so it validates nicely. However, with using the standard Youtube or Vimeo embed code you might get problems with validation.

For Youtube Videos there is a small generator in the links below. For Vimeo videos you'll find a short description. The first is more of a copy paste action for the quick video insert (shall you be lazy), the second just describes what to do to get XHTML valid source code from the original Vimeo code.

For Youtube (Generator): http://www.tools4noobs.com/online_tools/youtube_xhtml/
For Vimeo (Description): http://ken-blog.krugler.org/2008/06/14/converting-vimeo-embedded-html-to-xhtml/

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The Art of Creating Creatures

First I had this video as an extension for another article on kinetic sculptures, but it is definitely worth an own article. The video below is about Theo Jansen. You might have seen his famous Strandbeest in a BMW spot some time ago.

Really facinating. If I got it right, he even made a heavy metal construction of it which seemed incredibly easy to move. True, quite odd to picture the image of passenger vehicles with a dozend legs underneath... but hey, if it's comfortable, efiicient and fun to ride.

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Semiconductor Films

Ouu-Yeah... what a psychodelic piece of video art is this. Semiconductor is making movies which reveal our physical world in flux. It is definitely worthwhile checking out their website (see article page), that's for sure. Enjoy the videos below. 

Magnetic Movie

Article continues after the break...

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Choe U Ram Mechanical art

I got to know Chue U Ram with an article I stumbled across over at one of my favourite blogs engadget.com about some wicked piece of machinery (check out their video). In fact, these are kinetic sculptures. See below for a sample of his art:

U-Ram Choe's work engages a fanciful dialog of aesthetics and machinery, and explores themes of biological transformation, flight, and movement. In his recent work, large-scale metal and plastic automata materialize with such a delicacy and weightlessness that it seems to take on the shape and silhouette of an organic life form. Motors, heat and light sensitive materials add to the intricacy of Choe's kinetic sculptures (extract from Wikipedia Entry here).

As Usual, you find more links on the article page.

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Isan - Amber Button

Ay... another one difficult to sort in. Minimalistic meets experimental. Strong synthesizer style with this choppy flavour. The whole disc invites you for an hour of rest in the hamock, just dreaming. My personal favourite: Amber Button

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Braziliant Thought

I can hardly say what category this track would belong to, but "Braziliant Thought" from Dr Who Dat? is a chilled instrumental (ok... a little vocal is in it) downtempo electronica track with hip hop, latin and jazzy elements.

A good background one for the friday evening sitting on the balcony or during a drowny long distance flight situation. Probably not a must have, but definitly in my temporary favourites.I don't know the rest of the album, but this track is worth a look. For a listening sample, check out the links below.

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Dirtdegree - Tom Trago

Another delicate recommendation by Pandora. The single track Dirtdegree by Tom Trago from the Hip Hop compliation "Witness Future Vintage Vol. 2" comes along as a smooth dirty rolling beat with some high frequency accents. It's rather monotone but a great travel companion.

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