Same procedure as every year: I have just finished uploading a new house mix into the mixes section! As you might know, once per year I try to build a mix, that contains those tracks that I found the most interesting during the course of the year. Of course, the resulting mixes might be a tiny bit odd when it comes to style consistency, but I personally like listening to all my favorites in a row and I thought why not share those with you. This time I called it “In The Sand House” because it has a certain house vibe that I remember from beach parties several decades ago. As usual the mix starts with a soft intro track into the sunset and grows more powerful up until the second half. Then it turns more underground towards the end, where it concludes with a typical sunrise track.
Google made multiple layers of neural networks analyze images and emphasize what they “think” they found in the pictures. The result is really impressive even though some of the pictures they were fed contained nothing but white noise to begin with. One could argue if that’s how AI dreams are made… well, and maybe even our own?
I came across this road safety ad about a year ago and apparently wanted to post it here but forgot. Now I found it in my drafts and watched it again. I still think the idea is brilliant, since it gets the message across very effectively without the shocking blood and gore – so let’s finally put it up here!
After 2 years (!) of abstinence I finally found the time to release a new progressive house mix today containing a lot of tracks that i have been listening to while programming these days. This one is very much on the progressive side of house and techno with even a little bit of trance. Just one hour long but packed with energy and hopefully joy for you to listen. Head over to the Music section and download it right away. Feel free to leave comments, questions and feedback! All tracks can be purchased from Beatport. There is also a playlist available if you are interested (giving credit where credit is due). Oh and the picture is as usual from one of my trips, this time: Madagascar. Enjoy!
Normally I avoid posting advertisements, but this time I believe I have to. A video ad for Honda Civic called “The Other Side”. At first I thought I am watching a normal clip for yet another car I won’t buy, but you can hold down the “R” key any time to switch to the other side… and suddenly you are being told a rather interesting story: this guy at night turns out to live a second life… very well done!
I buy and maintain a Windows PC just to be able to play games. I would be a lot happier, if I could stick to Linux on all my machines and spend the money on games instead of a second set of hardware. Steam for Linux is slowly growing but AAA titles are still not being ported by EA, bethesda and the likes. While an emulated version is generally performing quite poorly (if at all), the request for making a full port of your favorite games like Skyrim or Battlefield 3 is still being ignored.
Gone but not forgotten: When I finished playing Dreamfall I was stunned by the epic open ending that left me hanging with millions of questions and I was really looking forward to the sequel of this very fine adventure game. But it never came. So over the years (it must have been 6 by now) I forgot the game even existed. Until I came across the Kickstarter: The core team of The Longest Journey is back together and planning to pick up the story where they left of. And swoosh: my anxiety is back as well.
During the first games, the dialogues are a bit exhausting at times, but it’s very much worth to chill out and play the first two episodes (or at least the second one, as the technology of the first one got quite ancient by now). Not a big fan of spoilers so I’ll just give you this: The technology driven world as we see it is just one half of what is out there. There is a parallel world of magic and both have been kept in balance for centuries. In the first part the balance starts to crumble and you play a girl who might be important to prevent that from happening. I won’t spoil anything from the second episode, except that you play yet another even sweeter girl.
You move through an epic and very atmospheric adventure with breathtaking scenery and a fantastic conspiracy story holding all of that together. At the end of part two you just want to know how it all plays together. So hurry up to finish the first parts if you haven’t done so already and get onto the kickstarter…
Watch the clip in which director Ragnar Tørnquist and his crew explain what the sequel will be about:
P.S.: They are building it in Unity3D – which by coincidence I just started to look into myself (more on that in one of my later posts maybe). Would love to pledge and in return have a look at their source!
Just stumbled over a game called Proteus while checking out some news on Steam – a fantastic looking and sounding exploration experience from the indie game scene. Can’t seem to find the “buy” option although it’s supposed to be released today. But I found some interesting “Let’s Play” on Youtube giving a little bit of a feel what it is (spoiler alert). Must say, I am curious and will definitely check it out. If you are into games also because you feel they are a piece of art and more than just objectives to solve or competitions to beat, you might want to do the same… If you constantly feel the need to blow shit up, please move along!
Just stunning: How far this animals came in just one second and how the head does not seem to move at all. This is an amazing piece of video. Brilliant on the depth of field too. And at the end is a glimpse on some making-of footage.
