Archive for October, 2008

Cuz This Is Thriller…

So, this ninja here performs Thriller acapella - all of it, instruments, background noises, everything - himself, in these 64 audio/video tracks shown. Pretty great if you ask me, even tho this dude can’t really sing.

This reminded me of the video we featured of the prisoners dancing to Thriller…also priceless. Happy Halloween, my ninjas.

.:Thriller as a 64-Voice Acapella -> via College Humor

Ninja Homes: Pott Architects’ House W

‘A house just like a holiday’

Located in Berlin, House W was designed by MNPa€™s ADLS 08.10.2007, Pott Architects, for a young family of four seeking a flexible home that would evolve with their family over time. The objective was a house ‘that would function like a living thing and would have a place for all the bits and pieces that make up everyday life…a friendly house, with special places for feeling at peace and secure’.

Alright - all that’s well and good, but let’s focus on the most interesting aspects of the house: it’s exterior, and it’s relationship to the site/ground plane. The vertical bands of windows give an interesting striping to the exterior, while their going from floor to roof creates a real sense of openness in the house - and brings in a ton of natural light.

In terms of the overall massing, the house looks as if it’s crawling over some kind ditch - maybe it has something to do with trying to create a house that ‘would function like a living thing’? You seem to enter by moving down the staircase shown above, moving inside below grade. There is then a staircase [shown below] that brings you through a hole in the underside of the creature that is the house - and into the open family/public spaces.

Strangeness aside - I think the house is pretty siiick. Its individual and distinct while being successful in providing the family with everything they wanted and needed in a home. And Pott definitely achieved their goal of creating a house that stands out in these ‘times of standard-pattern pre-assembled housing units’.

.:images, info + quotes via Pott Architects->

.::Check out our previous a€Ninja Homesa€ features->

take the Mindapples 2-minute test

If eating five fruit and veg a day is good for your body, then what’s the equivalent for your mind? Mindapples wants to find the five most popular activities that people do to keep themselves mentally well. This is an innovative campaign to promote awareness of mental health amongst the general public - even those who self-identify as a€oesanea€A - by asking a simple question: "What 5 things do you do regularly that help you feel more mentally healthy?"

Building off the 5-a-day campaign, Mindapples aims to be the biggest global survey "by the people, for the people" ever undertaken in mental health. It will put the concept of daily mental wellness firmly into the public consciousness, and encourage everyone to think about the impact their activities have on the state of their minds. Whether you dance around the house naked, or chase birds - Mindapples wants to know about it.

It’s not everyday someone asks you what you do to stay sane!

.:Via -> i-genius

Ninjas on Twitter

MyNinjaPlease (@MyNinjaPlease.com), is now on twitter. As is AMNP (@ArchitectureMNP) : Check in frequently for network updates on our twitterable posts..
.:Via -> AMNP

Cafe Mestizo presents : Trio al Sur

Technology helps restore Raphael masterpiece

After 10 years of painstaking study and restoration that tested both cutting edge technology and human patience, one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance is returning to the public.

Raphael’s "Madonna of the Goldfinch" is a survivor.

The 107 cm by 77 cm (42 inches by 30 inches) oil-on-wood, showing the Madonna with two children caressing a goldfinch, has outlived everything from the collapse of a house in 1547 that shattered it to the ravages of time and the mistakes of past interventions.

The result of the restoration is stunning. Centuries of brown film and grime are gone. The Madonna’s cheeks are pink. Her robes are deep red and blue and one can almost hear the cascade of a stream in the background Tuscan countryside.

"This patient gave us the most shivers and the most sleepless nights," said Marco Ciatti, head of the department of paintings at Florence’s Opificio Delle Pietre Dure, one of Italy’s most prestigious state-run art restoration labs.

"We spent two whole years studying it before deciding whether to go ahead because with the damage it suffered in the past — which was clearly visible in the x-rays — a restoration attempt could go wrong," he said.

X-rays, CAT scans, reflective infra-red photography, lasers, men and women in white coats, microscopes, latex gloves — it sounds like the stuff of hospitals and in many ways it is.

But the Opificio is no ER. It has everything but the pressures of time. It is a place of slow healing.

"In the past we decided not to restore something because the risks of damaging or altering the original were too great," said Ciatti, 53. "We see ourselves as a doctor who treats the patient as a whole rather than concentrating on a specific illness."

Raphael, who lived from 1483 to 1520, painted the panel in about 1506 as a gift for the marriage of Lorenzo Nasi, a rich wool merchant.

.:Read more -> sciam

Astronaut Remi Gaillard

Wilkerson Arrested on Stuffing Cash

Microsoft Ads Made on a Mac

This is old news, but still hilarious: the audio and video of the recent "I’m A PC" ads that Microsoft put out in response to Apple’s [getting tired] commercials with John Hodgman was DONE ON A MAC. Awesome.

After dumping its $10 million contract with Jerry Seinfeld after just three ads (only two of which even aired) Microsoft has created new ad copy where regular people and a few celebrities say, a€oeIa€™m a PC!a€A One problem with the campaigna€™s credibility: the ad work was created using Macs.

Flickr user LuisDS found that metadata on the creative copy of the a€oestereotyped PC usera€A and other photos appearing on Microsofta€™s a€oeIa€™m a PCa€A website revealed that they were produced using Macs running Adobe Creative Suite 3. One might expect that Microsoft would use Windows PCs running its own Microsoft Expression Studio software, which as the company advertises, a€oetakes your creative possibilities to a new level.a€A

Apparently, neither Windows PCs nor Expression Studio are up to the task of taking on Apple and destroying its globe enshrouding a€oeGet a Maca€A campaign. The image of John Hodgman as a troubled PC struggling with Vista-related problems has pushed Microsoft to defend itself with a $300 million campaign to take control of the a€oeconversation about Windows,a€A using Macs as needed to get the message produced.

.:Microsofta€™s a€Ia€™m a PCa€™ Ads Created On Macs -> via