I might be late with this one, but it’s still fantastic news. The Canadian National Film Board is getting some of their films online. I don’t know their reputation outside of Canada, but in it they’re particularly known for their work in the fields of animation and documentary.

Pictured is Pas de Deux, by Norman McLaren (Who I coincidentally mentioned this morning). Other notables include Walking by Ryan Larkin, The Log Driver’s Waltz, and my childhood favourite, the very goofy The Big Snit.

Via Matt Forsythe, who worked on the site, and who does nice drawings.

Fez’s Phil Fish on the Indie Games Industry

His comments on the “boiling ocean of shit” that is the mainstream games industry, given at the recent Interfaces Montréal summit. The designer of Indie-game Fez compares the cookie-cutter first-person shooters with great lower-fi fare like Rez, Katamari Damacy, and Ico. Via JiPé.

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6 Retarded Gas Saving Schemes

This is more for comedy than anything else. It’s amazing to see what people are actually trying to sell, and the lies they are willing to spout in order to do so.

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Seven Things You Need to Know About Ed Tufte

Anyone not familiar with Tufte’s work, and need a quick introduction, can read this to start. If you are interested in design you need to read his books, period.

I missed this video when it first came out, but recently found it (( Thanks Patricia! )) and thought it would be worth posting since sometimes the amazing things done by Francophones don’t make it to the eyes of English readers. It’s a music video made entirely by knitting, for the band Tricot Machine (Knitting Machine in English, I believe). I like its simple aesthetic more than Michel Gondry’s video for Steriogram’s Walky Talk Man, the only other contemporary music video made from knitting I can think of.

The video was directed by Simon Laganière, and knit by Lysanne Latulippe of Majolie Knitwear.

For a more classical knitting animation, Russian Master Nikolai Serebryakov’s Ball of Wool is also a must see.

In the late 80’s and early 90’s, there was a great show called secret life of machines. The BBC program spent a half-hour each week taking a look at the inner workings of a different everyday device, covering things from the car to the vacuum cleaner. The show was delivered with a trademark quirkiness, and often involved the hosts Tim and Rex re-creating homemade versions of various items, or carrying out experiments using household objects.

The show stands up remarkably well, even 15 years later. The Lightbulb episode, in particular, is a very good primer on electric (and I suppose non-electric) lighting technologies. Of particular interest to me was the bit explaining much of the energy-efficient lighting technologies, like Fluorescent lamps and sodium lights used in streetlamps. In particular, the host Tim Hunkin makes a very good demonstration of why the light quality of bulbs differ at the 19:55 mark (I can’t link right to that point, unfortunately, but it’s definitely worth a look). Below is a still, where he shows a breakdown of the spectrum of a compact fluorescent bulb using a type of prism, showing it to be banded and segmented rather than fluid.

Compact fluorescent bulbs have of course improved a lot in the last 15 or so years. They’re getting close to being indistinguishable from conventional bulbs, and they end up saving a lot of money over time. Still, this episode does a lot to explain exactly how they work, and why they’re important.

Google Video also has many more episodes on a wide variety of topics. All are worth taking a look.

My friends Lily, Sylvan and G recently completed this great Christmas music video. I know it’s a little late for Christmas stuff, but it’s really quite fantastic.