The Hunger Games: Full Trailer

First full trailer for the upcoming film, The Hunger Games. The visual look of this film is quite intriguing and presents a vision of the future that reminds me of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and William Golding.

Some of my favorite stills below.

Metronomy: Everything Goes My Way

My anthem for the week. Their latest album The English Riviera is a gem of indie electropop music.

Stella's First Year

Celebrated my daughter's first birthday this past weekend. Above is a montage of moments and highlights from the past 12 months.

Music Track: The Perpetual Self or "What Would Saul Alinsky Do" by Sufjan Stevens.

Sexual Camouflage

My good friend from UH, Brian Gossett, recently asked me to be a guest mix on his blog. Anyone who knows me would have heard these songs quite a bit over the last few months or so. The original title was going to be "The Vernal Equinox" but March was quite a busy month and the equinox came and went. The current title came to me while watching an episode of Nova on cuttlefish. Enjoy.

Download the mix here.

Intel Visual Life: The Sartorialist

Great behind the scene look of Scott Schumann, The Sartorialist, and his insights into the process that goes behind his blog and photographic approach to style.

Wenger EvoWood 10

While normally I'm partial to Victorinox Spartan, the Wenger EvoWood series is an interesting take on the Evolution series created by Wenger in 2005. With a new emphasis on sustainability these pocketknives are constructed from top quality walnut that would normally be considered waste material from other production processes.

For my money the EvoWood 10 has all the basics you would need for day to day life almost identical to the EvoWood 11 but it swaps out the Phillips for a corkscrew.

County Fair Field Notes Notebooks for All 50 US States

For Field Notes collectors. A special limited-edition complete set of 50 individual notebooks, one from each state, packaged in a custom box along with a 6 pack of Field Notes Clic Pens. Only 200 sets are available at $99 each. A great gift for kids, for recording your travels or just learning about the U.S.A.

$9.95 for three, $99 for all 50 at Field Notes

Yourstru.ly Presents: The Morning Benders "Stitches"

If you haven't had a chance to check out The Morning Benders, I highly recommend giving their first two albums a listen.

Bathys Bomb Timer

Been following this project over at Bathys for six months now and am very excited with how it's been turning out. For those of you not familiar with the Bomb Timer, it is inspired by the WWII era console mounted clocks made by Hamilton Watch Company that were used to time bomb runs. They were installed in the turrets of bombers and the hacking movements allowed bombardiers to track the elapsed time between the bomb release and detonation. After WWII many air crewman took these timepieces with them and in many cases crafted straps to transform them into wristwatches.

The updated Bomb Timer seems to be a scaled up and more robust (316L Steel Case) version of Hamilton's original and features an ETA 6947 movement and water resistance of 100 meters. Some versions will feature PVD coating.

Price: $1800 - 2000

Below are photos of the original watches. They are rapidly becoming hard to find on the secondary market.

Michael Gillette: 007 Commemorative Book Covers

For the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth, Penguin UK commissioned artist Michael Gillette to create new covers for a set of centenary edition James Bond hardbacks. I'm still waiting for these to surface up in the US but you can order them from the UK here.

Dazzle Camouflage Battleships

Stumbled upon this little gem of naval camouflage while reading about U-boats in WWI. When the Allied fleet came under constant submarine attacks Dazzle Camouflage was developed early during WWI by Norman Wilkinson when it was found that traditional camouflage failed to conceal ships in all weather conditions. Since at the time most ships were spotted with optical rangefinders, through which the viewer artillery and torpedoes can be targeted, the primary objectives of Dazzle was to visually disrupt and confuse the viewer as to the size, heading and speed of the ship. By using bold clashing patterns that intersected the lines of the ship it became hard to determine what type of ship you were looking at, how fast it was going and even if it was heading towards or away from you.

Because the widespread adoption Dazzle Camouflage also coincided with adoption of convoy grouping tactics there is some debate as to how effective the painting scheme ultimately was as a single variable, with that said it was a huge morale booster for the crews of the ship and also for the civilian population at the time in port and dock cities.

During WWII, with the invention of radar and dive bombers Dazzle became less effective but was still utilized to a certain extent against submarines that still relied on rangefinders.

The images below are from RISD's fleet archives of Dazzle paint schemes, you can view more of the collection here.

Alice for the iPad

She & Him: Volume Two

Perfect spring album that's on heavy rotation on my playlist. Retro pop duo She & Him release their second album and it doesn't disappoint. Catchy adorable happy-sounding sad songs. Download the album from amazon for $4.99 while the deal lasts.

Tron Legacy Trailer

That I've waited 85% of my life for a sequel would give one pause. Hopefully this movie and the soundtrack by Daft Punk makes up for it.

Check out the awesome trailers here.