mouse and the billionaire

Friday the 9th of January, two-Thousand and eight // things of interest, things of note, things we like on our leaky boat

1.06.2009 GCe2


GCe2 // GestureSynth from Mouse & the Billionaire on Vimeo.

Hi everyone. I just thought I'd finally let you all see what I've been doing for the last few months. This is the GCe2 (Gestural Controller - Exploration 2). It makes music. It could do other things as well, but we'll have to wait and see about that.

There's a bunch more information here if you're interested.

Happy New Year, y'all.

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polish casablanca
Being that it is Friday and laundry day, I just spent the last hour or so taking care of business. By taking care of business I mean drinking coffee and browsing through the classic film posters at the Polish Poster Shop.

Polish versions of American films! Who knew these would be so breathtaking. The graphic design on some of these is just fantastic. L and I have been in the market for some new art in the house. This may be the answer. Give 'em a look y'all.

[via]

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2.11.2008 Stockbridge

stockbridge at christmas

We spent last weekend in beautiful Stockbridge, MA. We slept inside this Norman Rockwell painting. In the building on the far right, to be exact. The centuries-old Red Lion Inn, where we had some delicious breakfast, wonderful snow-covered times, and a fantastic old-fashioned at the old-fashioned bar.

We also visited the Norman Rockwell Museum where we discovered we liked Mr. Rockwell, as they constantly refer to him, a whole lot more than we expected.

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11.29.2007 Syczed!

Damien Hirst at the Lever House
Last night, we, the O'Briens, and Dumas were taking a nice stroll down Park Avenue and, we were stopped in our tracks by this Damien Hirst window installed at the Lever House.

We instantly thought of the Sycz/Guinta clan, and had to take a picture. We then proceeded to Burger Joint and ate from one of these guys' cousins. It was delicious.

Flickr user Mayotic has some better pictures on his flickr pool. Check them out and imagine hiring Hirst to redesign your kitchen.

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11.12.2007 Sleevage!

sleevage's array of album covers
Sleevage is my new favorite blog.

Every day or so a beautiful record cover is posted along with discussions on fonts, interviews with the designers, alternative comps, and more.

The artwork ranges from the 60's to current releases, though I'm hoping they start working their way back to the 50's as it progresses.

They are also currently looking for writers, and I know you all like to write about music, so why not give them a shout.

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10.16.2007

eames toilet
Link [Via]

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10.04.2007 Childhood

sad vader
The all-new and decidedly fantastic Boing Boing Gadgets posted this picture by Alex Brown a few days ago. They named it Sad Vader

You might have already seen this, buy I don't give a damn. I think it is gorgeous.

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9.11.2007 Ikea Hackers

We have spent the last few weeks fulfilling the American dream (a.k.a furnishing our new apartment cheaply with purchases from Ikea)

I have a love hate relationship with Ikea. I love some of their designs. I hate others. I love their food. I hate their customer service.

However, I may have found something to convince me.

Behold Ikea Hacker.

This is an amazing site, featuring just what you would assume: hacks of Ikea furniture. I have been trying to set up my music-making/technology-design-hacking workspace all week, so the work-station section has been particularly exciting. The image above is of a fantastic music-making control station that someone came up with. The site is seriously overflowing of amazing ideas. Luckily, organization is one topic covered.

I know what I'll be doing in my free time for the next month.

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I downloaded the Photoshop CS3 Beta a few days back and have been trying it out.

Let me just say, flat out fantastic. Great job Adobe; it looks beautiful. I was skeptical about losing the floating tool bars (I may be one of the only people in the world who actually liked them), but the new anchored dock tool bars are amazing. you can easily tab between all the old favorites, resulting in tons more screen real estate for designs.

I could keep going on and on about the great new changes, but I’ll try to save my reputation a bit and say this: If you use Photoshop, download the CS3 Beta and see what wonders the world will hold for you in the future. If you don’t use Photoshop, let’s pretend you never read this. How about we go talk about non-nerdy things..

Like beer.

And trains.

Bye.

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old books
From The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst:

- A book is a flexible mirror of the mind and the body. Its overall size and proportions, the color and the texture of the paper, the sound it makes as the pages turn, and the smell of the paper, adhesive and ink, all blend with the size and from and placement of the type to reveal a little about the world in which it was made. if the book appears to be only a paper machine, produced at their own convenience by other machines, only machines will want to read it.

Question: As we continue to move away from the book as the sole mean of entertainment, knowledge, and the written art-forms; and as we move further into the depths of computer interaction, how do we better convey that humanist element?

How do we make work for a machine-based platform that humans (not just machines) will want enjoy?

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