This was pasted around a few years ago, but it’s always refreshing to watch (although the narrator’s voice is pretty stale):

Know your music history!

If you’re gonna have a hit,
You gotta make it fit —
So they cut it down to 3:05.

• The Entertainer by Billy Joel
  I give you the new most viewed video of all time (as of 3.6.2008) on Youtube:
  
  Cansei de Ser Sexy sure knows what Lithe is talking about re: Hemingway and Britney Spears.

So after a year of being an art director at Schematic, my Flash muscles have gotten out of shape. Before Schematic, I used to juggle many hats – HTML, design, Actionscripting and animation. Now I work with people who are dedicated to these specific tasks, so that I can focus on my task of designing an art directing.
WIth that said, I’m working on some freelance projects as well as a side project at work (kind of like my own ‘20 percent project‘) that requires I get back into Flash and start programming again. (Not because someone told me to, but because I want to. My father is an engineer so I know I have some of his geek genes coursing through me).
Back in the day I used to use Laco’s tween class for scripted motion in Flash. Then that evolved into Fuse Kit.
My friend Quigga has told me to drop Fuse and use TweenLite. Put simply – it’s lean and mean. Check out the speed test and you be the judge.
I also started using another Greenstock class for preloading assets, the PreloadAssetManager class.
Hello again Flash, here I come!

Swissmiss has post on THEBLOG WEEMADE, a blog dedicated to showcasing kids artwork.
Meh.
It’s missing something….
…maybe it’s missing some Maddox flavor: I am better than your kids, parts 1 & 2.
This image has some serious explaining to do:

I would seriously be crapping my pants if I had a big-busted, Viking-looking teacher that looked like that. Check out those HEELS!!!!!

When Picasso was quoted in saying, “good artists copy, great artists steal” – the folks at Meizu took the ‘copy’ part and ran with it (found via Engadget):

As someone who has been working as a professional interactive designer for over 8 years, I can’t count how many times I’ve been inspired by other people’s work. Without getting into a whole discussion on ‘what is originality’, all artists (architects, painters, sculptors, designers – clothing, product, environment, interactive, web) are influenced by everything they see, hear and touch. No one exists in a vacuum.
Picasso didn’t copy African masks in his Demoiselles d’Avignon – he stole them. Stealing for Picasso – and all other great artists – involves a sophisticated level of mutating the original ‘stolen goods’ and creating something new with them.
Paul Simon also stole from African music on his amazing album Graceland. You can hear the references, but the music is entirely his.
Other artists ‘steal’ things in more subtle ways that aren’t immediately visible – in the form of geometric shapes and proportions and physics theories (where would we be without simulated friction in interactive design?)
Meizu is copying the iPhone.
I can’t imagine doing what Meizu did and being comfortable with it. If they were doing it purely as a ‘phase 1’ before evolving their own designs, that would be fine. But they’re not.
The sad part about this is that the interface Apple created for the iPhone is just one of many amazing solutions that is possible. Apple has not created the only possible interface for a touchscreen smart phone.
If people would do more stealing than copying, they would know this.
In the end, it’s just sad, because Meizu is missing a great opportunity to create something new and fresh.

I Really Hope Microsoft Has More Than This – If Microsoft wants to even think about competing with Google* – they’re going to have to figure out a new business strategy.
I’ll be truly surprised and impressed if Microsoft does.
*Yes, I said Microsoft has to compete with Google, not Google has to compete with Microsoft, because Google has changed the rules of the game by offering a Sharepoint and Office alternative that is free AND online.
Microsoft has to play on Google’s turf and time is running out.
Game on!

Adobe Pushes DRM for Flash (via) – Ahhhhh damn. Here we go again with the DRM.
MacBook Air stock selling out almost daily? – I really want to keep hearing these reports of the Air being a ‘flop’. The naysayers really can’t conceive of a person that is so digital that they don’t require a DVD drive or an (wired) ethernet connection.
FastCompany.tv – Ummmm. Ok. well, this site is kinda grey ain’t it? It also feels very stagnant, like there’s not a lot of activity going on here.
…and why must I be welcomed with Scoble’s fat gob?
I hope they keep iterating until they get it right.

Buckethead and Claypool tear it up so much in this clip that I didn’t notice all the nasty hippies:

Ferrari Enzo, originally uploaded by finlayedridge.

There’s a reason you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Ferrari with a nose cover or bra, as they’re commonly called.
As useful as a bra is to protect a car’s front end from oncoming debris, it also does something inversely damaging – It masks the beautiful craft and design of the car.
The same goes for all this crap people use to protect their iPhones.
Take it off people! Unless you’re going rock climbing, your iPhone doesn’t need all that protection. It’s not the delicate flower you think it is. It can handle everyday use. I know mine can.
Putting a bra on an iPhone is the equivalent of when I was a kid and my mom made me put on a friggin’ winter coat on top of my awesome Chewbacca costume.

A few weekends ago, I was wandering around my old neighborhood in the East Village, shooting photos. When I got to Thompkins Square Park, I was curious to see if there was still a free wifi hotspot in it.
I’m not sure I found the park’s hotspot, but I did find a bunch of others.
I love the personalization people give their networks these days. It’s like another family member.

Jory has a funny post over at Analogue about how Microsoft is going to share some of its secrets.
So, what secrets …exactly …is Microsoft going to share with us?
Maybe the secret of how to release an operating system patch for Vista that actually causes more problems than fixes old ones?
Also on that note, I need to know the secret of getting vendors to offer downgrade programs from Vista to XP.
Or maybe Gates can explain to us the art of a botched hostile takeover of Yahoo. At this point, I think he should be more focused on stepping down this July than helping Ballmer botch Microsoft anymore.
I’d also like to hear all the secrets of the wonderful Zune.
Microsoft loves to announce things that aren’t done yet. They did this last year when they announced their enormous Surface table. I got an idea! In an age of increasingly portable electronics and mobile applications, let’s launch a big touchscreen table. Yeah! Now they’re announcing that they’re going to share secrets. Just do it.
Notice how this behavior contrasts with that of Apple. Apple has no problem letting us know that they have a lot of secrets and they have no intention of sharing them until they take the shape of a finished product. Hell, they kept teams separated within the iPhone project to ensure secrecy.
Microsoft, please keep it like a secret. I don’t want to know.

*entry title taken from one of my favorite albums by Built to Spill.

Tip: Prevent iPhoto from opening when you plug in your iPhone – Wow. Thank you 37Signals, this has been driving me crazy as well. I haven’t tried this yet, but I hope it works. Unlike my Canon Rebel, I actually like to keep my photos on my iPhone to share and show people (I also liked keeping photos on my Treo before it too).

Blogs can kill brands – I’m not sure blogs can kill brands, but the the good ones most certainly have a lot of influence. I understand why Eric Karjaluoto gave it that title, it’s much more effective than Blogs Have A Lot of Influence Over Brands.

Hey InDesign! I need you to take your CMYK ass and go over and talk to your RGB step-cousin Flash, and get some of his tools.
Specifically, the ones that space evenly vertically and horizontally.