Sites Unseen

POVCOMP 2004: Hall of Fame
[povcomp.com/hof/]
An often mind-boggling collection of digital images created with The Persistence of Vision Raytracer program. Images which have never felt the sting of actual film or light occasionally seem like real life traditional photographs… that is when the artists can be bothered to depict real life; the fantasy images are a whole story unto themselves.

Edward Burtynsky
[edwardburtynsky.com]
Photographs of Edward Burtynsky showcases breathtakingly beautiful landscapes of quarries or fire-orange rivers stained with nickel tailings. He calls his eerie, painterly images "reflecting pools of our times," and much of his work explores how industry transforms nature. The 16 collections featured in the site demonstrate Burtynsky's fascination with cut rock, recycling yards, and the oil and shipping industries. His "Three Gorges" collection presents desolate images from China, where 11 cities were recently destroyed in a six-month period to make way for a massive dam and reservoir. In Burtynsky's photos, beauty could very well be the mother of death.

Solipsistic.org
Solipsistic.org: a fantastic multimedia art site which, to steal a popular phrase, is “so Goth it shits bats.” The site seems not intentionally Goth however, not in the Hot Topic [hottopic.com] sense of “Goth”, Solipsistic is more like Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting, it comes by its dark tone featuring work with a squint-eyed look at the absurdity of human beings.

Xbox 360 Hands On
[doiop.com/on360]
Jason Dunn of Digital Media News and Views got some hands-on time with the Xbox 360 during a recent Windows Vista. He has some interesting X360 tidbits to share: In some countries the console will come with a smallish remote for DVD playback, navigation and power. The graphics for Ghost Recon 3 are “jaw dropping.” The Xbox 360 sports a 20GB hard drive.

Go check out the full article for all of Dunn’s impressions and more details about Media Center connectivity with the next-gen console.

Doom Movie Trailer
[doiop.com/DoomMovie]
I hate to say it, because I know I’m going to be so very disappointed, but Doom the movie is looking pretty damn good. Check out the trailer and prepare to watch what is probably the best minute and fifteen seconds of the movie. 6.7 MB

Gamespot’s been reviewing plastic sheets
[doiop.com/bitsOplastic]
Gamespot did something few dared to attempt: they reviewed little pieces of plastic. Someone cuts a piece of plastic into a square, says its a cellphone screen protector, and tries to get people to review it. I mean more power to you if you’re going to sell a piece of plastic, but what are they going to say? It’s clear? It’s sticky? Anyway, here is a round-up of PSP screen protectors… a round-up of plastic sheets.

Wicked Double-screen LCDs
[doiop.com/dualLCD]
Sharp is developing these cool LCDs monitors that has displays on both front and the back. Cool stuff.

New cool tiny cars
[doiop.com/tinycars]
There are some impressive tiny cars on display in this site. The cars probably aren’t real, but are pure eyecandy.

Some really beautiful sand sculptures
[doiop.com/sand]
I really feel sad about san sculptures. They take up so much effort to create and ends up looking so good, but doesn’t last long. Anyway, check these out. Eyecandy.

Google Globe Trotting
[googleglobetrotting.com]
Collection of Google Maps pictures. People explore the earth with Google Maps and post interesting pictures in this site. Definitely worth visiting.

Show me the DQ
[show-me-dq.com]
“DQ Issue 3” is a (still ongoing) collection of extremely cool sketches done with ballpoint by a range of artists bound into a Flash approximation of a paper notebook. Flip through and be deeply impressed— one sketch is more impressive than the next.

Fifty-word fictions
[fiftywordfiction.blogspot.com]
In blog style, the site publishes short (and we mean short) stories on everything from romantic heartbreak to familial revenge to more interesting topics. One such story: Falling had always been his biggest fear, but now that he was fifty stories up and rapidly dropping, it didn’t seem so bad. ‘I wonder if I turned the oven off?’ was his last thought and as it turns out, he hadn’t. He would have been glad to know this. (The End)