Melbourne based Kiwi. Posts about tech, design, music, web, observations, pop-culture. The usual.
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When we first brought our rescue kittens home, I scoured the web looking for hints and tips for getting them socialised.
Generally speaking, the best time to socialise kittens is before they’re 10 weeks old – and much of the help you’ll find online describes this in detail. However, if you have young rescue kittens that are older than 10 weeks, it’s extremely difficult to find good advise on socialising them.
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Be still, my beating heart.
Preorders for the most beautiful Lego crossover of all time go live on 22nd September 2022, for an eye-watering AUD $369.00.
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DALL·E is an AI system that can create images and art from a written description using natural language.
It’s in limited access right now, but Twitter user @HvnsLstAngel recently posted a full thread of DALL·E injecting Kermit into the art styles of various TV, film and other media. The results are equal parts impressive, bewildering, hilarious and intriguing.
More DALL·E:
DALL·E 2 Explained (YouTube)
MKBHD tests DALL·E 2 (YouTube)
DALL-E 2 Creates Incredible Images—and Biased Ones You Don’t See (Wired)
#dalle on Twitter.
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Nick Robinson takes an entertaining look back at Driver: San Fransico – including a 3 minute diversion into paying for a game with a Subway giftcard, and discussion around the de-listing of the game.
You can sign the petition to bring some visibility to the desire to have it re-listed on digital storefronts here.
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While most train stations alert passengers with basic dings and dongs, metro riders in Japan are treated to uniquely crafted melodies. Minoru Mukaiya is the mastermind behind these jingles—he’s made around 200 distinct chimes for over 110 stations. For Minoru, there’s no greater joy than bringing a little bit of music to millions across Japan every day.
Great Big Story
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This game was unfortunately canceled, but not before the developer got Giant Ant on board to create this gorgeous trailer.
The problem is: all this information came from hobos, a group that took pride in their elusiveness and embellished storytelling. The truth is, there really isn’t any evidence that these signs were as widely used as the literature suggests.
Vox
Related #longread: Twilight Of The Hobos (Buzzfeed):
Minnesota Jim, meanwhile, seems a little confused by the proceedings. His victory seemed, at least in part, based on his age. At 83, he’s one of the few surviving bridgers — hoboes that rode on both steam- and diesel-powered trains during their time — and winning seemed to be a kind of lifetime achievement award. But he cautiously told the local paper that kids today shouldn’t ride the rails. “The trains show no mercy.”
Buzzfeed
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In February 2018, Nike dropped the Paul George X PlayStation crossover kicks.
And now at E3 2018 it seems a bunch of “Xbox spokespersons and key influencers” have been rocking custom Xbox Jordan 1’s.
Both look a bit better than the old Air Force One PlayStations, although some of these Nintendo Vans are pretty dope.
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Hiroshi Funabashi, A-Fun’s repairs supervisor, observes that the company’s clients describe their pets’ complaints in such terms as “aching joints.” Funabashi realized that they were not seeing a piece of electronic equipment, but a family member.
And [former Sony employee] Nobuyuki Norimatsu came to regard the broken AIBOs his company received as “organ donors.” Out of respect for the owners’ emotional connection to the “deceased” devices, Norimatsu and his colleagues decided to hold funerals.
Read: James Burch for NatGeo
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The Quest for the Next Billion Dollar Color:
Mas Subramanian, the biggest celebrity in the uncelebrated world of pigment research, glances at a cluster of widemouthed jars containing powders in every color of the rainbow, save one.
During his nine-year sojourn into the strange, finicky realm of color, Subramanian, a materials science professor at Oregon State University at Corvallis, has grown infatuated with a form of chemistry that he, like many of his peers, once considered decidedly low-tech. His renown derives from his accidental creation, in 2009, of a new pigment, a substance capable of imparting color onto another material. YInMn was the first blue pigment discovered in more than 200 years.
It isn’t only the exotic blueness that has excited the color industry, but also the other hues the pigment can generate. Subramanian soon realized that by adding copper, he could make a green. With iron, he got orange. Zinc and titanium, a muted purple.
Scanning these creations, scattered across his workbench like evidence of a Willy Wonka bender, he frowns. “We’ve made other colors,” he says. “But we haven’t found red.”
Listen to the story here.
More long reads here.