Steady Clappin'

Old people should be banned from the internet.

This was all over the tech blogs the other day, but it’s still worth clappin’. Antonio DeRosa came up with this concept of a device that uses a hypothetical iPhone 5 as the base of a modular camera system with interchangeable lenses. All the processing would be done on the iPhone’s side, while the sensor and lens would be included in the attachment. The UI of DSLRs is horrendous and something like this would be a wonderful way to fix it. The material girl in me says I needs this.

More pictures right chea.

Path was an app that I downloaded almost a year ago and used for a hot minute. I enjoyed it because it was simple and pretty. However, it suffered from the fact that nobody I knew really used it. Who needs another social network? It eventually grew stale and I switched to Instagram. However, with the launch of Path 2.0, I’ve been sucked back in. (Tractor beam). The UI is gorgeous. It’s miles ahead of Instagram in that regard. There are all kind of little animations and touches that make the app a joy to use.

Instagram has become this bloated spammy thing, not because of the developers or designers, but because of its users. It’s essentially Myspace. Path (hopefully) keeps from that happening by limiting your following ability to only 150 users, up from the original idea of 50. There are filters, just like every other photo-sharing app out there, but it isn’t dedicated to that the way Instagram seems to be. You can comment, geo-tag, check in—all that jibba jabba nerds need—right from Path.

Path is about the simple sharing of your day to people you know. I just hope enough people I know start using it.

I want to make a music video for this song that is nothing but a super slow motion clip of a cute baby turtle trying to right itself. It’ll win all kinds of awards.

Yuck // Rubber

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Well that settles it. I’m getting an owl.

“Oh gawd, I can smell his face.”

I watched Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love last night. While not without its faults, it was beautiful. The film starts with an elaborate 20 minute scene of a dinner party being prepared for the fabulously wealthy Recchi family. Every shot is framed so it is as if you are seeing all of this through the eyes of the house and environment. Two people will have an interaction, and then the camera will linger for just a second too long after they’ve left the frame, accentuating this feeling. This is the introduction we get to Emma Recchi, played by Tilda Swinton. She is Russian-born, married into an Italian family living in Milan. She isn’t unhappy, but not fulfilled either. She is caught in this world. So begins her journey towards freedom.

The movie is about the old and new; about following tradition or your heart. From the opening scene onward, you start to see these cracks and breaks in the old—a grand daughter gifting her dying grandfather a photograph instead of a painting; a son wanting to start his own restaurant, using radical invented recipes, against his father’s wishes of continuing the family’s; a daughter leaving a boy for a girl; the family business being sold to foreign investors. You start to notice the changes in Emma as well, as she meets her son’s friend and becomes infatuated. Her make-up, her demeanor, her attitude towards the help—it all starts to loosen. The whole movie builds this idea slowly, piece by piece, until this frantic, sweeping, sudden climax.

I Am Love doesn’t get it all right, though. There are times where Guadagnino is a little heavy of hand with the symbolism (a dove finding its freedom out of a church window comes to mind). But I am more than willing to forgive these little details. The cinematography, the setting, the colors, the acting, even the title and credits—it’s all gorgeous. It makes you think about what it means to follow your heart, and the consequences of doing so; the tragedy and fulfillment of chasing your most primal urges and feelings.

A Steadyclappin heads up: Tilda Swinton gets naked. So prepare your eyeballs for that.

If Future Islands isn’t your favorite band, you’re a total boner loafer. Such a great show.