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Democracy

Democracy is a player that lets you download and watch free high quality programs and music videos.

"There's an opportunity to build a new, open mass medium of online television. We're developing the Democracy internet TV platform so that watching internet video channels will be as easy as watching TV and broadcasting a channel will be open to everyone. Unlike traditional TV, everyone will have a voice."

So go get it already.

Labels: software, video

Posted by istoica at 3:17 PM 0 comments  

Hidden City: Tropolism Photo Contest

"The theme of the contest is uncovering the Hidden City, your Hidden City, the one you see every day. It may be in plain sight of everyone else, but it is your eye that finds the extraordinariness in a particular street corner, a unique stair, a crazy intersection, a visually arresting approach, or a particular tree in the city. The photographs can be of a beautiful (and perhaps unpublished) park, or as simple as the sun hitting a particular building at a particular time of day. Please include a caption, or a Flickr annotation, about what makes it extraordinary to you. The entries should have one thing in common: they demonstrate, to you, the pleasure of living in the city."

The categories are:
Best Hidden Place
Best Density
Best Natural/Urban Overlap
Best Unofficial Landmark
Best Building

Add your photos to the Flickr group to enter.
Read the details here.
Link from Cool Hunting.

Labels: photography

Posted by istoica at 2:01 PM 0 comments  

Toronto Area Photobloggers 2

On Sunday February 26th 2006, as part of TAP 2, we will be speaking alongside other GTA photobloggers at the Apple Store in Yorkdale.

The event looks to be a really fun and includes the following speakers:

Irina Souiki - Still Memory.ca
Taku Kumabe - U&I Magazine/media.smaku.com
Payam Rajabi - Colourblind.ca
Sam Javanrouh - Daily Dose of Imagery
Us - istoica.com
Shahin Edalati - Foto Project

We welcome everyone who has the interest to check it out.

Thanks to Himy Syed for letting us get involved.

Posted by istoica at 11:50 PM 3 comments  

hasselh off!

We know what you are thinking, and yes that is David Hasselhoff and yes he is wearing a fur parka and yes he is pretending to eat a giant prop fish and yes he is in front of an overtly fake background and yes he is pretending to surf and yes it is the funniest thing ever. ever. until we find something better. next week.

Labels: funny, video

Posted by istoica at 1:11 AM 0 comments  

10 Songs that are good for Saturday...er, Monday February 13th, 2006

We are a little late on this one, sorry if your Saturday had no good music in it.



1. Artist: Q and Not U
Song: Fever Sleeves



2. Artist: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Song: Maps



3. Artist: The Dandy Warhols
Song: Heroine is so passe



4. Artist: The Cure
Song: Lovecats



5. Artist: Air
Song: The word Hurricane



6. Artist: Blonde Redhead
Song: Equally Damaged



7. Artist: The Gloria Record
Song: Ozona and Sonora



8. Artist: The Detroit Cobras
Song: Hey Sailor



9. Artist: Piebald
Song: Grace Kelly with Wings



10. Artist: Rilo Kiley
Song: The Execution of All Things

Labels: lists, music

Posted by istoica at 1:11 AM 1 comments  

Let Us Sing for You.... maybe not.

Have you ever wanted to send someone a song, but you wanted to employ a database of famous musicians to sing it for you? Well, now you can. Let Them Sing it for You let's you write down whatever your heart desires, package it into a hodge podge of spliced together sound bites, then send it to someone you love... or hate. Check out our ditty HERE

Labels: software

Posted by istoica at 12:45 AM 0 comments  

Four Things...

Rannie tagged us...so here goes!

Four Jobs We've had:
(since we're young'ens we're going to pool our experiences and come up with 4 between the two of us...)
1. ica: i think i babysat, like once- it wasn't fun for me or the kids.
2. Being students...does that count?
3. Dairy Queen: we both worked there- isto never perfected the swirl on the top of the cones. we quit on the same day.
4. Current job: Design and Development

Four movies we could watch over and over:
1. I am Cuba
2. Rize
3. Run Lola Run
4. Chungking Express


Four places we've lived:
1. Kitchener/Etobicoke (separate)
2. Burlington (at the same time)
3. Beaches (together)
4. Downtown Toronto (together)

Four T.V shows we love:
(we only watch T.V when it comes out on DVD....so that limits our options...)
1. 24!!
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Penn and Teller
4. Family Guy

Four places we've vacationed:
1. Vancouver
2. Florida
3. Amsterdam
4. Paris

Four of our Favorite Dishes:
1. Roti from Gandhi Cuisine
2. General Tao's Chicken
3. Spring Roll food (everything.)
4. Sushi! Dragon C Maki from Sky Sushi.

Four Sites we visit daily
1. Flickr
2. Netvibes
3. Del.icio.us
4. Gmail

Four places we would rather be right now:
1. any beach anywhere
2. Vancouver hanging out with elliot who just turned 1
3. Hong Kong taking pictures with D'Arcy
4. Las Vegas

We hereby tag the following people:
1. Todd
2. Valerie
3. Lex!
4. Jenn

Labels: istoica, lists

Posted by istoica at 11:24 PM 6 comments  

uBrowser be cool browser

uBrowser is a simple Web Browser that illustrates one way of embedding the Mozilla® Gecko rendering engine into a standalone application using LibXUL. In this case, the contents of the page is grabbed as it's being rendered and displayed as a texture on some geometry using OpenGL™. You are able to interact with the page (mostly) normally and visit (almost) any site that works correctly with Firefox® 1.5.

uBrowser allows you to manipulate your internet browsing in realtime 3d space. It's not what you would call useful, but it sure is visually pleasing. The above picture utilizes the cube feature of uBrowser. A site will stay fully functional as you mess around with the 3d attributes, although some things such as quicktime movies don't seem to want to play.

Labels: software

Posted by istoica at 9:02 PM 0 comments  

Those were the days...

Maopost.com showcases some really interesting Social Realist prints. There is a surreal quality breathed through these images, perhaps it is our historical glasses, perhaps it is the blatant myth/ideology.

Posted by istoica at 1:50 AM 0 comments  

Bunchball.... so let's play okay

Bunchball is a social gaming site that allows you to throw up flash based games onto blogs and just about everywhere. So, game on.

Labels: videogames, web2.0

Posted by istoica at 1:18 AM 1 comments  

10 songs that are good for February 4th, 2006.

1. Artist: M83
Song: "Slowly"















2. Artist: The Strokes
Song: "The Other Side"















3. Artist: The Streets
Song: "Fit But you Know It"















4. Artist: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Song: "Is This Love?"















5. Artist: The Unicorns
Song: "Sea Ghost"
















6. Artist: Secret Mommy
Song: " An Apple a Day Keeps the Mac Voice Away"















7. Artist: The Octopus Project
Song: "Music is Happyness"















8. Artist: Royal City
Song: "Is This It" (cover)















9. Artist: Isolee
Song: "Schrapnell"















10. Artist: Deerhoof
Song: "Panda Panda Panda"

Labels: lists, music

Posted by istoica at 4:24 PM 0 comments  

Ray Caesar: crazy amazing disturbing

Ray Caesar's work is on display at the Gibsone Jessop Gallery in the Distillery District until February 14th. The mood of his work is similar to Mark Ryden's paintings- but what is really intriguing about Ray Caesar is his process. He works completely in digital media. His images are wholly constructed in a 3D modeling program. They are stunning and intricate to say the least....go see for yourself.

Posted by istoica at 3:49 PM 0 comments  

The Obakemono Project

In Japanese, O is a prefix denoting respect, and bakemono literally means a changed thing - something perverted and altered and moved beyond its natural state - a monster.

The Obakemono Project is a great visualization of the many mmonsters that inhabit Japanese folklore. It is a site to behold, we love the descriptions.

Posted by istoica at 4:05 PM 0 comments  

Photoblogging Toronto: A Public Lecture by Sam Javanrouh

An open event in at the University of Toronto in Hart House on February 1st, 2006. Sam Javanrouh, of Top Left Pixel, will speak about photoblogging in Toronto. Starts at 7:30pm.

See you there...

Labels: event

Posted by istoica at 2:48 PM 0 comments  

This guy is making me crazy.

Latte Art is a mouthwatering set on flickr. tonx, the photographer works at Victrola, A coffee shop in Seattle and frequently uploads images of the beautifully poured drinks....don't look if its 3am and the only place you can get coffee is 7 eleven.
image by tonx.

Posted by istoica at 2:55 AM 0 comments