Alright, for 99% of readers, this will be useless. But Stanford U's artificial intelligence lab has released a 'live trace' tool that is way better than... uhhh Adobe Illustrator's LiveTrace? Basically if you have a rastor image you need to be vectorized, it will do a trick. And its free. POW! Vector Magic
Next time you are bored in class (or sorry, I mean work, as every sane person would find worthwhile employment after graduation, and not turn around immediately thinking 'That was alright, let's go again!') you can build a pinhole camera! From paper! Da Vinci has nothing on you, so go on and feel a bit superior.
Although, Da Vinci didn't have Acrobat to print out the direction either. And I should reallllly check my facts to make sure the man wasn't snapping shots in the Renaissance (he did invent the flying bicycle) but it is two-thirty in the morning here. I'm pretty sure about Acrobat though.
For Hollie, our resident photographess (hey if I don't get a job this time, guess what you are getting for you birthday next year...?!)
Hey Jane, remember that time you made that impulsive purchase (one of many) on all those rolls of vintage fabric, and never really did anything with them?
Well, for only $3.99 more, you can take it all and turn it into a wonderful 2008 wall calender, thanks to Patricia Zapata and her downloadable template at A Little Hut. You've got everything you need - printer, paper, fabric. Heck, I'll even lend you the four bucks because I love this thing so damn much.
HELLO SHOP OF MY DREAMS.
Seriously, this is the best idea I've seen in a while. Unique Eyewear of Texas not only sell amazing vintage frames, but since they work out of an optometrist clinic they will also fit your newly purchased vintage frames with your prescription lenses. I have had a pair of vintage glasses for almost a year now, sitting idly in my jewelry box because I have been too lazy to go and get some lenses. SO I KNOW HOW AMAZING THIS STORE REALLY IS.
Seriously, heaven. I am such a glasses nerd.
In terms of beverage consumption, my eyes have been opened. How could I ever drink grape pop with anything, but strawz?
I never knew life had meaning, until now.
(via Swiss Miss)
I am a sucker for earrings that are almost boring. This pair would go with pretty much any outfit, any occasion, but by a lucky combination of material/subject they make you look. The slightly funky cousin of the gold hoop.
A confession: a good source of inspiration for this type of jewelery is the ADAs of Law and Order (especially that chick from SVU).
Bonus: Buttercup Days are artisans & Canadians!
Fashion magazines are the silent killer. Sure a gal can buy a lot of shoes, fonts, lipsticks, books, DVDs and complain about the financial repercussions of her addiction, but its the glossies that finally get you.*
Why this horror story build up? Well to explain my excitement of stumbling upon Papier Doll... an online fix to the fashion mag fetish. While there is nothing like the real thing, 'pd' doesn't skimp on features, reviews and interviews. Its free, lovely and has a daily component to supplement its seasonal articles. 
The tipping point that pushed pd into LIAL posting position is pd's sister, Thriftychick — a blog which hands out sales, coupons and promotions like there is no tomorrow.
* unless you are Jessica who hates magazines, after she OD'd as a child.
It can only be fair to predict that LIAL's visitors like to peruse the internets. But what happens when you're regular sites dry up? It's the weekend, and your favourite bloggers are enjoying their non-cyber lives (and to hell with non-cyber lives!).
I have a solution. StumbleUpon is a tool-bar add-on (Firefox or IE), which allows a user to hand-pick categories of interest (from politics to humour, design to history, even fashion) from a list. Once you've selected your "topics of interest," you click the new Stumble button, and it sends you to random sites within the parameters you've dictated. It's systematic anti-searching, and I love it a lot.
Oh, and it's wicked free.
Free Rice combines the best of both worlds: charity and online games. Learn words, test your vocab and help donate grain to impoverished countries.
So even if you are avoiding work at the office, you are still being productive in the grand scheme of things (take that, facebook).
In fact, we should give you a medal.
(via DO)
I guess I've consumed enough bangers and mash for, a few days ago, I was awarded with the British fashionista's secret: ASOS (as seen on screen). It took a lot of white wine but I got it! Basically? Webshop which copies outfits from the red carpet/Starbucks espresso lines and sells them to the (British) public.
I realize that creating clothes that replicate celebrity wear is not a real original idea. BUT ASOS is a little different from its Hollywood cousins. Why? Well, being British it provides the outfits of lovely random UK celebs (Alexa Chung? Fearne Cotton?), other non-celeb clothes from the major/minor brands and the famous 'clearance bin' where you can find frocks for a tenner! Outside the masochistic hell of Primark, some of these prices cannot be found in sterling, not even in the mecca Topshop.
This is just one more step in my conversion to internet shopper/hermit... soon I won't even leave the house at all, and throw little parties for me and my new clothes, eerily giggling in the moonlight (sorry, Halloween left overs.) (via Ebany! Thanks Ebany!)
I figure its been awhile for some cheap entertainment here at LIAL. And to prove we are not just a bunch of pretty, gorgeous, flawless faces I will share with you some TED talks lectures.
TED is a huge, annual ideas conference. Conceived by an information designer (like me!) they aim to get brilliant people into rooms and then let them puke out their idea guts. For the betterment of the world, defeat of evil etc. Also: creative people tend to be funny.
Don't believe in the awesomeness? Well remember that Microsoft Computer Table? PAH! I saw the first demonstration years ago by Jeff Han, grad student. I also recommend the John Maeda lecture on 'Simplicity.' On the advice of a mentor, Maeda jumped from the big brain world of MIT to go to art school. He is now one of the biggest brains in both worlds (and still a nice dude). And finally below, Sir Ken Robinson. The latest lecture to be passed around creative blogs, "How Schools Kill Creativity" has been labeled a 'must see'.
So that you, the LIAL viewer is not left out:
I cannot tell you how, well, awesome it is that TED has opened their doors to the masses and let us view their past blockbuster talks for free. So I just want to say: thank you!
They also sort their talks by 'funny', 'inspiring', 'longwinded', and 'unconvincing.'
I love free stuff (who doesn't?) and I love the Wii. Put them together and what do you get?
Answer: A great offer from Nintendo.
This is for you, Jane.
(And anyone else who is bored to tears at work today.)
I'm not big on little downloaded gagets, widgets, addons, plugins and what have you. I know lots of undergrad CompSci are working super-overtime to create a little icon that allows me to add a Colbert Report toolbar to Excel but honestly, that is just excessive.
However, while going through the motions with a new Firefox update I found something interesting. Promising. Practical. I introduce: FoxyTunes. Ever jamming along with some British indie rock, surfing gossip sites, when your friend msns the new viral video? Well no more shuffling through endless open programs to find iTunes and mute that bitch! FoxyTunes adds a discrete play bar to your (firefox) browser window (so discreet I missed it first time round and thought 'this is crap'... its in my status bar btw) giving ultimate control of your own preferred media player while you surf.
And, for some reason, it interacts with blogger. While I logged in to write up this handly little addition, blogger added a little button to the edit toolbar so that I can automatically post what I am 'currently listening to' (see below). Sort of impractical for LIAL, but any personal bloggers out there may appreciate the feature. Especially when proving to the internet how cool you are.
----------------
Now playing: Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers
via FoxyTunes
Fonts are tricky beasts, as most fancy dancy ones are impractical. But skull fonts? FREE skull fonts? Come ON! It is perfect for the ransom notes of hipster kidnapper who tires of the oh, so cliché of cut-out letters. Have you ever tried to kern that shit?
For my peeps still renting tiny, ridiculously expensive apartments, and not buying homes...
Awesome?
As a law abiding internet citizen I would never stream episodes of the American television shows I miss while living in London. Oh no, me? Never.
So when I reveal 'Smashing Telly' and say it is 'free' television, I really mean it. Free, legal television that is so shiny and pine fresh that all of God's little angels, archangels, kittens, cherubs, infants and baby otters (holding hands) may snuggle down and watch completely guilt-free/without putting their adorable souls in peril.
And its not shitty. These are real shows/documentaries aired on prime time television in the UK. For instance: I am currently watching a series about how most groundbreaking thinkers (mathematicians, physicists), are driven insane as they completely reinvent the natural laws of our world. Spoiler: they all suicide, hard. There is also a BBC Four doc on Pulp and British music evolution in the early nineties, cartoons from Soviet Russia, and a 'making of' Gervais' office.
See? Now you have something interesting to talk about at dinner parties than reality TV shows with fat kids.
Designer toys (literally, playthings, not like 'the iPhone' or 'solar telepathic calculators' or anything listed in a Wired article) seem to be all the rage lately. Lord knows why odd shaped creatures with funky fabrics give one creative cred, but there we are.
Unfortunately, these little dudes are often considered 'works of art' (really) with appropriate price tag, so they will feel at home when artistically arranged on the Eames chair.
So in honour to those of my posse who work for a living (especially those who are beginning or about to embark on their office careers this week) I present Readymerch: a cute collection of completely free/easy to construct hipster paper toys to decorate your desk. So even when you reach your 'disillusion' stage, you can take passive revenge on your employer by using office supplies to make an army of toys (and take part in any imaginary epic battles, i.e 'The Staple Massacre of Printer Cartridge-ville') and be paid to do it.
.jpg)
While we all spend imaginary cash on designer coats, I thought I'd deliver something you can get for free. I love school. Not like, 'I want to be a graduate student forever' school but the kind of school you had as a kid to the first year undergrad. In a single day of high school you could discuss a Shakespearean sonnet, light something on fire with potassium, speak another language and then deliver a monologue pretending to be accused of witchcraft, or a certain crazy vampire lady from Buffy.
I know that is 100% idealized but I can't help it, I miss just learning things about everything (not just researching minutiae which eats your brain during a masters degree) and then destroying everyone at Trivial Pursuit.
So hurrah for... iTunes? While not really cutting edge, you can download podcasts from universities all of the world, regarding anything by the leading people who know things. And while this nifty little nostalgic jaunt is totally ignoring the boring three hour blocks of droning professors, podcast superstars are generally the best lecturers in the world (in addition to being experts) so its edumatainment without paying Ivy League bling.
Check out Harvard's Computer Science 101 if you need to know what RAM stands for, Berkeley's 'bestseller' "Psych 156: Human Emotion", NY Times star Malcolm Gladwell's presentation to Microsoft researchers, etc. etc. etc. Look up subjects on itunes store or try websites such as Research Channel or World Lecture Hall to find things that tickle your fancy.
Also: no homework!
You know what I love? Space. In both the 'dark side of the moon' and square footage. Usually, on Loveitalot, we give lots of props to filling up the space in our apartments, but less attention to the kind that contains rocket ships.
So here is your opportunity to help scientists find out about space. Specifically how do we make a star/what makes stars/big bang or whatever. And wouldn't that be cool: to make your own star? You could name is and build a condo there.*
Which is why I heart Stardust@home. Basically scientists sent a probe out into the stars to collect star dust. These tiny particles they've collected are from the furthest samples scientists have ever collected. Problem is, they are tiny and stuck in sticky-star gel. There are thousands of gel samples to go through and to find the few tiny specs captured would take years... but if you add the internet...
So science is asking you (yes you!) to use the internet and help find/tag stardust samples! Any dust you find, you can name and everything.
Oooooh dust you may think. Hold on there, sparky! You may find the particle that proves the existence of aliens! Deliver information on how the Universe will END! You could change the course of human history. And mankind may MISS OUT on this discovery without your pair of peepers. Just head over to Stardust@home website, take the tutorial, train and then start examining images of the samples collected! All this without a B.Sc degree!
As you can see I am not a scientist but I can still help science!**
* there being on a rock near the star with a preferable orbit, atmosphere etc.
** Actually, no, no I cannot help science as I failed their spotting test (what can I say, science is hard).† This is serious biz, but you may have the touch. So try out and give a little msn/facebook/perez hilton time over to the greater good.
† Science is hard but worthwhile. Girls, get into science!
