Hustler of Culture

Feel Good Film Festival Ticket Giveaway!

Hey Hustlers,

What do you feel good about? Leave a comment and you'll be entered to win one pair (two tickets) of All Access Sunflower passes to the Feel Good Film Festival in Los Angeles. The program will honor comedian Jonathan Winters and will be hosted by the always entertaining and funny Rainn Wilson!

About the Feel Good Film Festival:

The Feel Good Film Festival is a non-profit film showcase encouraging the development, production, and distribution of short or feature length films with happy endings, that make audiences laugh, and that capture the beauty of our world. Live-action or animation, comedies or romantic comedies, fiction or non-fiction and films with happy endings are submitted to the Feel Good Film Festival. The winning projects will be entertaining, optimistic, humorous, or heartwarming and leave the audience feeling good.

The festival runs from August 22 - 24, 2008, so if you want to be sure to go, buy your tickets now! Otherwise, drop us a line to enter the contest. Comments/entries must be submitted by Friday at 12:00 p.m. PST. Good luck to you all!

Sigma

August 1, 2008 - 1:34 p.m. - Venice, CA

Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)

Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo

A wonderful Radiohead remix by James Houston, a student/affiliate of The Glasgow School of Art and a member of the 1030 Collective, a "Glasgow based collection of confused young individuals who are hoping to one day make money by drawing stuff or making stuff." 21 years old (according to his MySpace page) and making some damn fine work. For more, check out James' scrapbook here. Looking forward to seeing what's more to come of this crew.

LA - Claw Money Case Collection Event (04.22.08)

3D Glasses

April 16, 2008 - 12:49 p.m. - Burbank, CA

A pair of anaglyph and polarized glasses used for viewing today's new 3D content.

WTF Apple?!

March 8, 2008 - 12:25 a.m. - Austin, TX

While working on my PowerBook G4 laptop, I noticed smoke and sparks out of the corner of my eye. Et voila, my power adapter was on "fire"! I immediately unplugged the cord from my laptop and panicked for a minute. This is the second power adapter I've gone through, but the first one to actually burn up. WTF APPLE?! I leave my laptop plugged in all the time. What if i had not been "home" in my hotel room?!

Hello?!

I personally subscribe to the mobile phone culture of Japan over China, but you know, we've all been guilty of this at least once.

Guitar Hero Portable Turntable Controller

My friend Aaron, who worked with my husband Silvio on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater back in the day created this ingenious portable turntable scratch pad for playing Guitar Hero. It's fun to watch him play this way! I'm loving all the hacks. Check out Aaron's Scratch Blaster! Hey developers, how about some Wizards of the Wheels of Steel (where beat matching actually matters) next?!

Eye Spy 2007

A year in pictures! Almost a photo a day by Hustler of Culture and Silvio.

RELATED: Eye Spy 2006 here.

Happy Holidays! Brought to you by Commodore 64

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays Using the Wii Remote

Hello Nintendo HR? Yes, I'd like to introduce you to Johnny Chung Lee, a Ph.D. Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon University. Hire this guy, stat! He'll make something good, even better. According to Johnny, "using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space." And if that doesn't impress you, check out Johnny's other cool endeavors, this guy really knows how to think out of the box!

Burbank Holiday Party

December 17, 2007 - 7:32 p.m. - Burbank, CA

3ality/EMV celebrated the end of the year with a screening of U2 3D, the first live-action 3D concert movie. 3ality's been working on this passion project for quite some time so it was a rush to enjoy the final film with the people who made it. U2 3D rocks and the 3D is spectacular -- it's unlike anything seen before! I'm thrilled to work with so many talented heads. The film premieres at Sundance and will be released on January 23, 2008, so keep an eye (or two) out!

Wii Play

December 10, 2007 - 10:39 p.m. - Santa Monica, CA,

Roboticist, artist, tinkerer, producer, and sculptor all loving the Wii.

i-Sobot

November 30, 2007 - 2:31 p.m. PST - Venice, CA

After spending a minute or two researching robots for kids, I was directed to the i-Sobot (and the Pleo). Tod told me he had one so I made him bring it to lunch. This awesome humanoid robot is super cool. It can bust a move, do push ups, and hit all sorts of other poses. It'll even perform a song and dance. After more intense poking, I'll admit, the i-Sobot's not really meant for little kids... more like big kids with lots of disposable income. Biddy, biddy, biddy... I want one!

Crazy for Robots Playing Music.

I was not a fan of the Gnarls Barkley song, "Crazy" until I heard these robots play it. Outrageous! I love the off key notes and the quirky use of a cracker box as an instrument! Brilliant! Thank Ranjit Bhatnagar over at Moon Milk Labs for this ingenuity! Not to be outdone, here's Lev the robot's version of Patsy Cline's classic of the same name:

PSFK Conference LA Recap.

September 18, 2007 - 1:04 p.m. - Los Angeles, CA

Shepard was one of several highlights from the PSFK Conference held in Los Angeles today. Highlights from his panel "Art & Beautiful Mistakes" included admitting his limited knowledge of art prior to skateboarding existing as "cheesy seascapes," and while discussing production, he made the poignant statement that "if your budget is low, make your design fit your budget."

The PSFK Conference included panels on Los Angeles living, the future of content, the history of the suicide girls, what's next for technology and entertainment, and much, much more. Learn more about PSFK here.

Thanks Piers for the invite!

WIRED NextFest 2007: Jeff Han Demo

Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel demos his advanced multi-touch system at WIRED NextFest 2007 (note: the crazy laughter on the footage is not mine, it belonged to a mom who was enjoying her son's excitement):

Dear Jeff, please hurry up and finish this. Peter Greenaway needs an interface upgrade to keep it real as moving image/music conductor of the new millennium.

RELATED: Play With Me. Touch Me Please. & Microsoft's Surface.

Wired Nextfest 2007 Recap.

September 15, 2007 - 4:59 p.m. - Los Angeles, CA

We spent a full day wandering through fog screens, smart wine racks, and dancing robots at Wired NextFest 2007. It was good to see and support our friends and to explore next gen toys together! I highly recommend dragging families out together for NextFest as there's something for everyone. Technology today is truly entertaining and engaging. There's lots to poke, see, do and hem and haw over. Make sure to get plenty of rest before you go though because you're going to be pretty kaput from the sensory overload!

RELATED: Chocolate + Memories = LoveM

Boy O' boyd.

September 7, 2007 - 2:33 p.m. - Santa Monica, CA

It is a wonder danah ever sleeps. This woman is everywhere, making headlines, and researching tomorrow's future and social media. We grabbed a bite to eat with Carly and Gilad and discussed the iPhone debacle, BM art, Malcolm Gladwell, TED, the fashion mafia, A Small World, the Los Angeles art community and well, the other usual topics of interest. danah recently joked that her kitty Marbellio had more friends in Venice than she does. I can only hope that danah'll be in town more often in the near future so that we can share more afternoons like this together!

Gadgeteers.

July 27, 2007 - 1:31 p.m. - Venice, CA

danah and Julian tooling around with today's choicest toys.