Category: posts

Swanky.org archives

Swanky inspired illustration

It’s possible that we may see work from the old Swanky and Swankarmy crew — the old archives have been found. From a tweet by Dustin Vannatter:

I found a series of 20+ CDs that contain a fs dump of all Oh, Hello projects inc Scribble.nu and Swanky.org .. going to try to restore it.

Swanky was one of the first design communities on the internet in the late nineties. They were heavily inspired by the work of David Carson; a lot of grunge and distorted typography. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it was an influence on a huge number of designers. Scribble was a journal site, a sort of precursor to weblogs.

I found the scene in 1998 when it was beginning to implode. Still, Swanky was one of the reasons I started getting interested design. It also led to my discovery of typography and the creation of a bunch of crappy typefaces, before realizing that it took a lot of effort to make a good one. I was never a member of Swanky, but ended up forming Suffocate.org with a number of ex-members. We had themed issues and a number of side-projects — including the Conform Project, which was similar to Layer Tennis. Most of my Suffocate work is lost, but I found some of the early Conform series in an old archive, and posted them a few years back.

I’d love to see the old Swanky stuff, brings back a lot of memories. As for Scribble, I don’t know if the world needs my high-school ramblings, but it could be an interesting historical archive.

Feeling old at a gig

Two Door Cinema Club and Tokyo Police Club in concert

On Sunday night, I went to see Two Door Cinema Club and Tokyo Police Club play a gig at Club Soda. Yeah, there’s a promoter somewhere who’s far too impressed with getting so many “clubs” on to one poster. I thoroughly enjoyed Two Door Cinema Club, they were much better live than on their album (it’s a tad over-produced). Tokyo Police Club was up and down, the songs off A Lesson in Crime rocked, but the rest of the set was blah and the banter with the crowd was a nonstarter.

The highlight of the show was the encore — the two bands joined forces on stage to belt out The Strokes’ Last Night. The song was uptempo and high energy, it was awesome. Part of the way through, I stopped rockin’ out to take a look around. I was surrounded by people in their late-teens or early twenties. The kids were not alright. The lack of energy in the crowd made me realize that most were probably nine or ten years old when the song came out. It made me feel old. So, I slunk off to consume some prune juice and donepezil.

NASA and bad science movies

There’s a list of movies making the rounds that claims to be the best and worst films as judged by experts from NASA. However, I wasn’t able to find an original source at the company. The list was first published in an article by John Harlow at the Sunday Times. The article is behind their paywall, so I had to pony up £1 for access. Apparently the list comes from a private meeting at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Here’s a copy:

Worst sci-fi movies*

  1. 2012 (2009)
  2. The Core (2003)
  3. Armageddon (1998)
  4. Volcano (1997)
  5. Chain Reaction (1996)
  6. The 6th Day (2000)
  7. What the #$*! Do We Know? (2004)

Most realistic films*

  1. Gattaca (1997)
  2. Contact (1997)
  3. Metropolis (1927)
  4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
  5. Woman in the Moon (1929)
  6. The Thing from Another World (1951)
  7. Jurassic Park (1993)

*As named by Nasa and the Science & Entertainment Exchange

The lists strike me as kind of bizarre, they don’t seem exhaustive by any means — you could come up with a lot of changes to either one. Harlow doesn’t mention the parties involved at the private meeting, but he does attribute the list to the Science & Entertainment Exchange. From the SEE website:

The Science & Entertainment Exchange is a program of the National Academy of Sciences that provides entertainment industry professionals with access to top scientists and engineers to help bring the reality of cutting-edge science to creative and engaging storylines.

Ahh, that makes sense. So, there was a meeting between NASA and SEE, in which they discussed movies with bad science. Makes me wonder if those movies were just the ones they happened to talk about rather than some sort of definitive list. It wouldn’t be the first time that Harlow was accused of making shit up. Regardless, NASA definitely doesn’t like 2012, they have a page dedicated to debunking it. Also, be sure to check out SEE’s blog for commentary on the science found in movies.

The lists have been posted on a lot of news websites, but there’s little evidence of any reporting — the articles tend to regurgitate the same information. For many of them, it just seems like a good excuse for a puff-piece with a bunch of Hollywood photos and movie clips.

While searching on the NASA site for an original source, I came across this deliciously old-school listing of space movies from the organization. That takes me back to an earlier web.

Update: I received an email from Marty Perreault, the Director of The Science & Entertainment Exchange, stating that they had nothing to do with the list:

I read your article “NASA and bad science movies” posted on January 3rd. You incorrectly attribute the list of films to the Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Neither the Exchange nor the NAS was involved in creating such a list.

I reproduced the list from The Sunday Times, in which they attributed the list to SEE. I took a screenshot, here’s the relevant portion of the article.

The Australian is carrying an article by John Harlow, in which he credits Donald Yeomans for statements about the absurdity of 2012. Perhaps Yeomans was the source of the original list, or maybe the meeting was so private the only attendee was Harlow’s imagination.

Update 2: I sent an email to Donald Yeomans, the manager of the Near-Earth Object Program, who was quoted in John Harlow’s piece about 2012 for The Australian.

From Yeomans’ email response (original text):

There is no list and there was no meeting to put together such a list. NASA would never put together a list of “worst sci-fi films.” We are not movie critics.

He stated that he was interviewed by a British journalist, but was subject to misquotes and manufactured quotes. Yeomans also says that there was a meeting at JPL related to how Hollywood and NASA could help each other. The movie 2012 was discussed at the meeting, but he has not seen it. He also linked to a video that tries to dispel general internet paranoia about 2012. Yeomans was also quoted in the original article at The Sunday Times.

There you go — bad reporting to begin with and equally poor journalism from news outlets regurgitating the story without looking for original sources.

On Heathrow this week

Just inside section D at Heathrow Terminal 3

Heathrow was a mess last week. I got stuck in it. I got lucky.

I was teaching mathematics in Hertford, covering someone on sick leave. Was due to finish at the end of December. I returned to Canada for a couple weeks in August, and chose the 20th of December as a return date for the flight back. I finished work on the 17th, figured I’d have a day or two to pack, and then a cheap Monday flight back to Canada. That was my logic when I booked the ticket in July.

The end of term approaches. During the last week of school, I decide to book a hotel near the airport for the day before the flight. I was thinking it might make things a little bit easier. I used Priceline for the first time, and ended up with a really good deal on a room at the Heathrow Hilton, attached to Terminal 4.

Come Saturday, we had the most snow that we had all year in Hertford. I probably wouldn’t have ventured out, but I had bankers to piss off. They don’t like it when you sit there sorting loose change while they want to close early. I don’t like it when I visit the branch on Monday to discuss transferring funds back to Canada, have them tell me to come back on the weekend and when I do, to tell me it takes 3-5 to create a bank draft. I’ll go with electronic transfer when the pound rebounds.

I hit up twitter with a slightly ominous post:

Ugh, lots of snow in the UK. Flight to Canada on Monday, hopefully there won’t be any issues. Don’t have my hopes up though.

Haha. Everything seemed so simple then.

I managed to compress everything into two suitcases and make it to the hotel the next day. I enjoyed my large bed, the gym and the pool. I ate incredibly over-priced hotel restaurant food. I checked the internet, and found my flight had been pushed back about four hours. I slept.

With unexpected time in the morning, I hit up the gym again. I figured that it might help me get some sleep on the plane. I returned to my room to shower. There was no hot water and little point in complaining, man up. Afterwards, I opted for the incredibly over-priced hotel breakfast rather than “finding something” when I got to Heathrow. It was a wise decision.

I had trouble getting from T4 to T3, the Heathrow Express had trains stuck in the tunnel. I bit the bullet, topped off my Oyster and took the Underground across the airport. I arrived just in time to spend an hour attempting to get into the terminal. It was ridiculous, no one had any idea what was going on. Eventually, I got in. The photo above was pretty much what it looked like in the check-in area. Normally I don’t talk to people at the airport, but a few hours hours of mutual agony will turn anyone into a stalwart friend. After a few hours of watching other flights get cancelled, we rejoiced with the news that we could check our bags.

The flight got pushed back multiple times, eventually to the next day, although it wasn’t posted on the big boards at the airport. Yea internet!

Shared misery meant meeting lots of people in the same situation. Amongst others, I talked to professors, a software engineer, an Australian secret service agent, a med-student and a shiatsu masseuse. Almost everything in the airport closed in the evening. The duty-free shop stayed open late, and offered free drinks while they were closing. It was the leftovers from their sample process. The bar was limited to various whiskeys, Bailey’s and an assortment of soft drinks. I took some Glenmorangie and didn’t complain.

I stayed in the departure lounge the entire night. Some people got kicked out early. I imagine the guards thought we were supposed to be out on a late rescheduled flight. They wanted to kick us out in the wee hours but realized it wasn’t worth the hassle of sending us through security again.

In the morning, the internet told us what gate our flight was supposed to leave from. Air Canada operated in true ninja fashion, they told no one of their flight status. I think it was so they could get customers onto later planes, rather than having randoms pestering them about any flight to North America. With all of the flight crew ready to go, we had to wait an extra hour for BAA security to show up and look at our passports. The bouncers moaned about cranky overtired passengers making fun of their pleas for us to move along so the plane wouldn’t be delayed any longer.

We finally made it airborne about twenty hours after scheduled departure. The toilets stopped working halfway across the Atlantic, so we had to divert to Newfoundland to have them fixed.

All-in-all, I made it back roughly on time, a lot of people weren’t so lucky. That said, the entire experience was a giant cluster-fuck of disorganization. No one had any clue what was going on. At the time, I said:

The communications infrastructure at Heathrow reminds of of playing broken telephone when I was a kid.

Purple monkey dishwasher. I’ll stand by that.

In the end, I was just happy that I didn’t receive one of these letters. Valued customer indeed. It would have taken me at least an extra week to leave the country.

All of the flights on the 18th and 19th were cancelled, and my equivalent flight on the 21st was cancelled too. I got lucky.

In hindsight, I should have taken more photos. It didn’t seem like a priority at the time. At various points I took to using twitter, it’s probably my most epic stream of tweets, but it isn’t terribly interesting. Nonetheless, I did want to archive the tweets, just in case a masochistic future-me wants to relive the past.

A better Big Lebowski kit

Two Lebowski Kits fight it out

I recently saw a link to The Big Lebowski Kit somewhere, clicked through and was expecting something entirely different. I was thinking it would be The Dude’s kit; everything that one needed to get their dude on. Nope, it’s just a bunch of useless crap… “Ooooh, a mousepad, a fake toe and a coffee cup!” We can do a little better than that.

The Dude’s Survival Kit

Here’s what I think should be in The Dude’s survival kit.

  • bottle of Smirnoff vodka
  • bottle of Kahlua
  • carton of cream
  • Old Fashioned glass
  • ice cubes
  • roach clip
  • rolling papers

We could probably include some sort of bowling paraphernalia: a ball, a shirt, something bowlingish. And we would need something to hold it all, possibly a battered suitcase or a bowling bag.

Original Marble and Granite Co.

OMG Van

The Original Marble & Granite Co. Ltd. is based out of Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. They don’t have a website and are probably not aware of the sheer internet greatness of their name.

The photo was taken with my crappy phone camera on the way home for work the other day.

Update: Actually, I think this might be their website.

Helveti.ca

Helveti.ca screenshot

I bought the domain Helveti.ca about four years ago, and had a weblog there for a few months. There was a mixup with hosting, the site was deleted and there was no backup. After languishing for awhile, I revived the site earlier this year and put up a tumblelog.

Obviously, the site is a homage to Helvetica, the ubiquitous typeface created by Max Miedinger & Eduard Hoffman. I try to avoid posting anything that just happens to use Helvetica. Opting instead for artwork, articles, videos, etc. that directly reference the typeface in one form or another.

Stop by and have a look around. Subscribe to the RSS feed or follow @helveticablog on Twitter to keep up to date.

8 Faces magazine

8 Faces in the wild

My copy of Elliot Jay Stocks’ new magazine, 8 Faces, just arrived in the post this morning. I was lucky enough to snag a copy during the short period before it sold out. Given the nature of the online typography community, I had a feeling the limited print run would be snapped up in short order. There is still a pdf available for purchase if you’re interested.

The magazine is devoted to typography, asking eight leading designers which typefaces they would use if they were limited to just eight for the rest of their lifetime. It features interviews with Erik Spiekermann, Jessica Hische, Ian Coyle, Jason Santa Maria, Jos Buivenga, Jon Tan and Bruce Willen & Nolen Strals. It also features an introduction by John Boardley and artwork by Able Parris (available for download).

I’ve had the pdf sitting around for a couple weeks, but have avoided reading it, because I wanted to see the magazine in print first. Can’t say that I’m disappointed for waiting, there’s been a lot of care and effort put into it. Elliot has written an article about his experiences with getting it published. The magazine is gorgeous and I’m looking forward to sitting down and reading the entire thing.