video « todbot blog

Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise

This is one of the greatest bits of youtubery I’ve ever seen, and I generally dislike auto-tuned stuff. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was one of the most important things to happen to me as a child. This video & song gives me the shivvers. And makes me miss Sagan all the more.

I love the song’s chorus created from cut up Sagan quotes:

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

(via jwz)

Smart garments (I’m on TV! for 3 frames)

My friend Syuzi Pakhchyan had a nice long segment on Make:TV this week. She visited the todbot lab to have the laser cutter cut the designs for the switches in her garment. There’s a 1-second shot where the camera pans over the lab and to the cutter. For about 2 frames, you can see me. Wooho, my Hollywood career has begun.

You can see the post about this episode of Make:TV, or watch it here:

Better Video on OS X: NicePlayer & Perian

nice and happy

I watch movies on my Mac. I’ve been ripping my DVDs to DivX or h.264 to my hard drive simply because it’s easier to double-click a file than hunt around for a particular configuration of atoms. I used to use VLC for any files that Quicktime Player couldn’t play, but I’ve recently come across a better solution.

niceplayer50 NicePlayer — “Quite simply, the nicest media player for Mac.”