In 1979, Philip Glass composed some music for Sesame Street; the music was used to back geometric animations showing how a simple circle could be subdivided and repeated to make more complex shapes and patterns (in much the same way that Glass's music uses patterns, repetition, and subtle alteration to create melody and complexity). It's hard to find the resulting work (entitled "Geometry of Circles") that was shown on Sesame Street three decades ago, though it has been re-aired a few times over the years... READ ON

The video below, by Arnaud Jourdain, is a time lapse animation showing five years' worth of graffiti at 5a Rue de Verneuil in Paris. By shooting thousands of high-resolution photos over a period of years, the filmmakers were able to reconstruct the graffiti process and even separate out layers of graffiti, creating an impressive 3D effect, seeming to fly through exploded layers. It's really neat. After the jump, check out the Google auto-translation in English (actually pretty decent) of the French... READ ON

Way back in 1977, the original Star Wars movie was released, and so began our battle against the Empire. Among many other amazing things, the film featured a computer-animated graphics sequence -- in which a 3D model of the Death Star is shown to pilots who are about to attack it. I remember as a kid seeing that computer graphics sequence and thinking, "Wow, computers in the future can do 3D!!!" Although it looks dated now, it was state-of-the-art at the time, and quite frankly it's better than some... READ ON

If you've been using the web in the last decade, you're likely aware of All your base are belong to us, a strange meme in which poorly translated video game dialogue led to a comedy wildfire that clogged email inboxes throughout 2001 and 2002. If you haven't seen the original, a somewhat abridged version is displayed at left. But now let's get nerdy: Wikipedia contains a correctly translated version of the game's dialogue. I've posted both the original text and the improved translation below. Now you... READ ON