Sites Unseen 40

Nothing seems to be happening. So I’ll go straight to the links, but before that, take a look at the picture with this Sites Unseen. It’s my photography. Do you like? (It’s the Mohammedpur area)

Maddox hates blogs
[doiop.com/clog]
“If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide.” What follows is a beautiful list of these words and why they deserve extermination. “Lately I've been hearing a lot of stupid people parroting stupid buzz words. There are too many to list all of them here, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to try. I propose that we all agree, here and now, to strike these words and phrases from our collective for the betterment of humanity, and the improvement of my blood pressure. Thank you.

Blog: The word "blog" is literally shorthand for "boring;" a vulgar, overused word … It's an abbreviation used by journalism drop outs to give legitimacy to their shallow opinions and amateur photography that seems to be permanently stuck in first draft hell… It's an unspoken rule that every blog must use the same layout as every other blog: long, slender columns of annoyingly condensed text, thousands of links to other blogs, plugs for shitty political books, and more links to yet more blogs…

If the thousands of mid-sentence links don't annoy you, the long slender columns of text will. Most of the screen on a blog is blank for an imaginary populace of readers still using 640x480 resolution. I didn't buy a 19" monitor to have 50% of its screen realestate pissed away on firing white pixels… They don't print books on receipt paper for a reason.”

Darfur Drawn:
The conflict of Darfur through Children’s eyes
[doiop.com/darfur]
On mission along the border of Chad and Darfur, Human Rights Watch researchers gave children notebooks and crayons to keep them occupied while they spoke with the children’s parents. Without any instruction or guidance, the children drew scenes from their experiences of the war in Darfur: the attacks by the Janjaweed, the bombings by Sudanese government forces, the shootings, the burning of entire villages, and the flight to Chad.

Serious eye candy
[doiop.com/eyecandy]
The Princeton Art Of Science competition Online Exhibition: an amazing gallery of science photos presented as art.

vfxblog
[vfxblog.com]
Pushing blogs on people isn't as easy as it used to be. There are just so many of them. In Sites Unseen, I try to weed out the unworthy and bring you some of my favourites -- like this gem dedicated to special effects in feature films. vfxblog has found its niche, and covers it exceedingly well. Fans interested in knowing how an effect goes from blue screen to big screen will find articles and interviews on all the tricks of the trade. vfxblog even has space devoted to effects you're not supposed to notice. So much for "it's all done with mirrors" theory.

Really Slick Screensavers
[reallyslick.com]
Really Slick Screensavers is a collection of beautiful free screensavers. These OpenGL savers require a fast machine with a modern graphics card to run smoothly, but the CPU cycles are worth it. Really Slick Screensavers are appropriately-named and fun to watch. (Download and extract the files contained in the zip to C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\ on Windows XP)

PGR3 Photo-realistic screenshot is real
[doiop.com/realPGR3]
You know you have a good game on your hands when you can’t convince the public that a screen shot isn’t actually just a photograph. Last week, Bizarre Creations posted a screenshot of Project Gotham Racing 3 of a street scene. The image was so realistic that many dismissed it as a fake. Today, the company released the wire frame of the same image, and another photo realistic in-game screen shot and wire frame.

And these pictures don’t have the final in-game effects and lighting added yet. [From Kotaku.com]

Game Of The Year!
[doiop.com/herbie]
Note: not so much a game as a movie review.
Further note: not so much a movie as it is Herbie: Fully Loaded.

Bono’s Third World Products, Inc
[doiop.com/bono]
The world [doiop.com/world] is a mess [doiop.com/mess]. You probably have your own deity to pray to in hopes they’ll fix it, but we both sort of know this is really a waste of time. What the world needs is the healing power of Bono. And to know how much Bono rules, you’ve got to go to the Best page in the Universe [doiop.com/11worst].

Prince of Persia 3 shots
[doiop.com/POP3]
Some beautiful screenshots of the upcoming Prince of Persia 3 fresh off Kotaku.