Geek Entertainment TV has posted their coverage of San Francisco Santacon 2008.
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Geek Entertainment TV Goes To San Francisco Santacon 2008
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Recently we received a curious package at our PO Box from “The Other Mother”. Inside was a note and a handmade button box. The gift is a promotion for “Coraline”, a new animated film based on the 2002 horror novella by Neil Gaiman, directed by Henry Selick through the animation studio LAIKA and staring Dakota Fanning.
Last month 50 even more elaborate Coraline button boxes were sent to bloggers.
Here’s the trailer for Coraline, which is scheduled for release on February 6th, 2009.
See Previously: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, New Animated Film by Henry Selick & Laika
photos by Scott Beale
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The Other Mother Sent Us A Coraline Button Box
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Every year my favorite holiday event of the season is the “Burritos, Beer & Cheer” Holiday Party and fundraiser for St. Martin de Porres House of Hospitality hosted by legendary underground comics and books publisher & distributor Last Gasp.
Visiting the Last Gasp offices and warehouse in San Francisco is always a wonderful treat. The place is lined with circus sideshow banners and the museum room, where Last Gasp founder Ron Turner can be found hold court, is chock full of amazing artifacts and original artwork. Of course it’s a great place to shoot photos.
Photo Gallery: Last Gasp Holiday Party 2008
See Previously:
- Burritos, Beer & Cheer 2007, The Annual Last Gasp Holiday Party
- Last Gasp Holiday Party 2005
This is a blog post from Laughing Squid For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.
Last Gasp Holiday Party 2008, Burritos, Beer & Cheer
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The Periodic Table of Awesomements by The Dapperstache lists all the elements of awesome. My favorite awesomement? That would be #60 of course.
Thanks to David R. for the tip!
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The Periodic Table of Awesomements by The Dapperstache
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guest post by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)
It’s no secret that Boeing’s Dreamlifter is ugly, but who knew that it’s also allergic to snow?
The Dreamlifters are a fleet of four Boeing 747s that have been modified to shuttle large Boeing 787 components to and from various assembly plants all over the globe. Apparently, however, the Dreamlifter’s bulbous frame is highly weather-sensitive, so when Seattle got hit with snow last weekend, Big Ugly was re-routed to San Francisco to take shelter.
Of course, the quintessential Dreamlifter photo is this Photoshopped image, which perfectly encapsulates just how ungainly the aircraft really is:
photos: Dreamlifter at San Francisco International Airport by photo101. Oscar Meyer Dreamlifter by an unknown Photoshop genius.
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Flying Hot Dog Visits San Francisco Airport
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TCHO is a unique chocolate company located at Pier 17 in San Francisco (the only chocolate factory in San Francisco) that creates high quality dark chocolate. Their chocolate is based on The Flavor Wheel consisting of 6 flavors, Chocolatey, Citrus, Nutty, Fruity and coming soon, Earthy and Floral.
TCHO is a new kind of chocolate company for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts.
TCHO is where technology meets chocolate; where Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco food culture.
TCHO is obsessively good dark chocolate.
TCHO is direct, transparent connection between the farmers and the consumers, from the pod to the palate, from high concept to sensual experience.
TCHO is an innovative method for you to discover the chocolate you like best.
TCHO has been operating in start up mode since their launch in 2005 and they just recently come out of beta, releasing TCHO 1.0. The company was founded by Timothy Childs and Karl Bittong, with Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto as the CEO.
TCHO chocolate can be purchased online and last month they opened a factory store at their Pier 17 location in San Francisco. It’s a great place to stop by for last minute gifts of chocolate. They have plans to expand the store to include a cafe.
Last Friday, TCHO had a Beta Store Launch party at their headquarters. I took a tour of their facilities, including the lab and factory, which when fully operation will be capable of producing 4000 metric tons of chocolate per year.
Here are my photos from the TCHO party and factory/lab tour.
Back in July, Xeni Jardin and David Pescovitz visited TCHO, producing a three part series for Boing Boing TV: Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3
In Make Magazine Volume 14, David Pescovitz wrote an article on TCHO: “Timothy and the Chocolate Factory”
photos by Scott Beale
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TCHO Chocolate Comes Out of Beta, Opens Factory Store
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WHAT I AM SEEING recently stopped by the The Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia, Plug1 has a great write-up and photos from their visit.
Curator and owner, Gary Doss has been collecting Pez dispensers for almost 15 years. The space was originally a computer retail and repair business. He set up his personal Pez collection as a distraction for the customers. Over time, word spread and the computers had to go to make room for the rapidly growing collection of mechanical candy dispensers.
Last November Irina Slutsky, along with special guest Justine Ezarik, did a GETV report from the Pez Museum.
See Previously:
- Tcritic Presents The Prez Dispenser T-Shirt by Eric Rewitzer
- Modified Pez Dispensers by ATYPYK
photo by WHAT I AM SEEING
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The Pez Museum in Burlingame, CA
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Windows only: BitTorrent super-host The Pirate Bay claims its ViO conversion tool reduces nearly any video's size by 20 percent and converts it for mobile devices faster than anything else. Let's see about that.
Why the speed and quality test? Simply because ViO, with all the nuance of the typical Pirate Bay communication, claims this on its home page:
converts virtually any web video format file into a file that’s 100% compatible with your portable media device, compressing it up to 20% of its original size without any reduction in image quality. ViO converts your media faster than any tool on the market today.
I decided to try out ViO on converting a DiVx-formatted episode of Mad Men ("The Benefactor" from season two, in case you're a fan) for my iPod touch. I'd previously been using the free version of Freez iPod Converter, which, while somewhat wonky and rough, got the job done faster and at acceptable quality faster than anything else I'd tried. I used Robin Keir's timer to clock the conversion speed.
So! Here's the results of plugging in a 350MB, 45-minute AVI file into Freez and letting fly with the default settings (which converts to MP4):
Conversion time: 7 minutes, 10 seconds
Finished size: 251 MB
Quality: Good, easily watch-able, only the same quirks as were present in the original.
Screenshot:
I then ran ViO through the same process, plugging in the AVI file and asking it to convert to an MP4 for the iPhone (same video screen as iPod touch):
Conversion time: 7 minutes, 7 seconds
Finished size: 54.7 MB
Quality: Lots of pixel "ghosting" (blocky pieces left behind when scene jumps), general muddiness to multi-color scenes. Like a YouTube video that nobody selected "High Quality" or "HD" for.
Screenshot:
I then realized that ViO's "Advanced Options," tucked away by default, let you change pretty much anything and everything about the finished product, including a target file size.
So I set ViO to re-encode that video to a 251MB MP4 file, and it instantly upped the video bitrate and other features. Here's the results of that second pass:
Conversion time: 7 minutes 10 seconds
Finished size: 181MB
Quality: Noticeably better than the first run, with no detectable ghosting. A small bit of jerky-ness when characters are moving quickly or scenes jump-cut (especially in well-lit situations), but watch-able.
Screenshot:
So there you have it. ViO did—despite my wishes, even—make a smaller video file than Freez in the same amount of time, reducing its final size by about 30 percent with only a small amount of detectable difference. Given its more polished, somewhat easier-to-grasp interface and the huge range of devices it can convert for—HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Apple, and many more devices are covered—it's definitely worth checking out.
ViO Video MobileConverter is a free download for Windows systems only. Make sure to watch for the toolbar option if you don't want a browser add-on; it's checked for installation by default.