09.19.09 | # | Start the conversation
Northlander.org is the online persona of Dan Bowling, a web developer living in Missoula, MT.
09.19.09 | # | Start the conversation
Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.
09.07.09 | # | Start the conversation
Have you ever tried to imagine the immense size of the universe? Not an easy task is it. This video helps.
09.06.09 | # | Start the conversation
Back when I was in college, we used to have huge debates on movie nights about whether to watch the movie on the widescreen of fullscreen side. Often, I was the only one who wanted widescreen.
After watching this short video, I feel very vindicated.
08.30.09 | # | Start the conversation
James May from Top Gear U.K. takes an emotional ride to the edge of space in a U2 spyplane.
08.17.09 | # | Start the conversation
What you always wanted to know about cat ladies, including, how they get all their cats.
07.28.09 | # | Start the conversation
This weekend Traci and I made a huge R2D2 cake. Check out the photos:
And the making of video:
The Making of an R2D2 Cake from Dan Bowling on Vimeo.
07.27.09 | # | Start the conversation
This is a must watch. Waiting for the HD is well worth it, and be sure to full screen.
Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.
07.25.09 | # | Start the conversation
After getting cable for the first time since 1992, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have a 30 second commercial skip button on the Motorola remote. After some internet searching, I found these instructions:
1) Press the “Cable” button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2) Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice.
3) Type in the code 994. The “Cable” button will blink twice
4) Press (do not hold) the “Setup” button
5) Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip)
6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip
I replaced the mute button, since I never run into a need to mute it (I just hit pause instead, since I have a DVR.)
06.06.09 | # | Start the conversation
Totally worth an HD download…
Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman.
05.26.09 | # | Start the conversation
This is amazing HD video of a wave in super slow motion. Gotta love the BBC.
05.09.09 | # | Start the conversation
You have to watch this… Great high speed video shots.
I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.
04.20.09 | # | Start the conversation
Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, “We don’t serve your type.”
Via @tomfite
04.19.09 | # | Start the conversation
Now this is what I call advertising. After the auto maker Audi ran a national billboard campaign featuring the text “Your move, BMW” a local BMW dealer came up with the perfect counter ad: “Checkmate”

Via SvN.
If you like that sort of thing, the comments on the SvN post lead me to some more interesting examples (which may or may not be real.)
Not as good as the one I posted before, but still interesting.
04.15.09 | # | Start the conversation
It really is amazing what we can’t see. Todays Astronomy Picture Of the Day takes a 40 hour, wide field, exposure to show what the night sky would look like if we could see what was really there. This isn’t your normal astro-photo and is worth a look.
04.11.09 | # | Start the conversation
Ars wrote a recent article called Rep “Hollywood” Berman calls for new IP law—using dodgy data. It’s an interesting read. I’ve pulled out a few of my favorite quotes for your enjoyment.
From Robert Pittman, cofounder of MTV:
“Stealing music is not killing music,” said Pittman. “When I talk to people in the music business, most of them will admit that the problem is they’re selling songs and not albums. I mean, you do the math… I realized that as an industry we’d kind of been smoking crack.”
And my personal favorite:
[...] director Steven Soderbergh, who is currently the vice president of the Directors Guild of America, wants us to become more like France. “Litigation is slow and the Internet is fast, so it doesn’t make sense to ask the government to be our police,” he said. “What we would like is to be deputized to solve our own problems, to be granted the kind of pull-down and inspection abilities being proposed in France so we can act swiftly and fairly on our own behalf.”
04.08.09 | # | Start the conversation
I’m not quite sure why so many companies undergo rebranding initiatives. Walmart did one recently that made no sense to me, and Tropicana just decided to rebrand as well. In fact, it appears that Tropicana’s rebranding directly caused a 20% reduction in sales. It’s not hard to tell why when you compare the old and the new packages. More on the AdAge article about this blunder.
Branding is expensive. Changing an existing brand is even more expensive. Going from a good brand to what can only be described as “generic” is sheer insanity. Idiots.
EDIT: Zeldman makes a good case too about how this is proof design matters.
04.05.09 | # | Start the conversation