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Theres not a hugeeee amount here, but for a quick anime fix, pay a visit to Sputnik 7.

I always keep a copy of RealPlayer 8.0 for Linux on hand for the good sites [obFlash warning] that offer "both" kinds of streaming - Real (Country) *and* Windows Media Player (Western).

I have no self-respect.

Michael Gondry speaking about his video for white stripes in an interview with RES ....

"I really like the basic-ness of the music - one voice, one guitar, and one drum. I like this concept, and I thought it was very close to the primary color of the Lego blocks." On the video's creation: "We shot a very basic video of the band [in London], we edited it and then we had a program that pixelized the video, roughly the size of the Lego blocks and then we printed each frame [25 frames per second] on paper. Then we had an animation team building up Lego blocks to match each frame. Then we reshot each of those frames on a film camera. We didn't have enough Legos to do more than five frames at a time, so after five frames were shot [the Legos] were demolished to build the next five frames."
The imagery is kinetic and jubilant. Audio levels thump, people swim, a walk sign says "go!", and the candy cane-colored White Stripes jam out.
To acquire this job, Gondry didn't write a treatment. According to Meg, "One day he came to a restaurant and he had Jack's head in Lego." Jack: "You couldn't argue with that. When someone brings a Lego sculpture of your head to dinner and says this is what the video's going to be, you pretty much say, 'That's it, go ahead.' " (credit)
"I've seen 'Star Wars' build-ups and huge model displays, but this is the most intense creation that I've ever seen done in Lego, and definitely the most creative and original," said Roger Cameron, a senior designer at Lego. "It definitely has that retro feel, because they used just the basic colors and pieces from 30 years ago. They didn't even use green or orange." (credit)
The video has won many, mostly technical, awards, including an MVPA Award, and 3 MTV Video Music Awards. Jack and Meg accepted the MTV Breakthrough Video award on Michel's behalf.
"Girl" is available in America on a companion DVD issued with new copies of White Blood Cells. You can also find a Quicktime copy on #2 of a 2-CD single set released by Third Man/XL Recordings (UK).
Excellent copies of this video are at sputnik7.com. 'boards mag has a MOV here.

his other works can be found here [try not to kill it]

Unfortunate as this is, I have noticed on numerous occasions the Mozilla process growing and growing and growing in size. Where's the memory cleanup? When you shut the program down, of course. But if you're like me, and have Quick Launch enabled, Mozilla doesn't get shut down very often, and this leave a rather large (128MB+) hole in my memory. I think something can be done to reduce the amount of memory Mozilla uses, like wipes at regular intervals...but there's not.
As long as I'm responding, I was rather discouraged by the lack of several features I was hoping would show up by 1.0, including the ability to have all new windows open as tabs (I'm not talking using the MMB to click on links, I'm talking about anything that opens a window, period.) Also, though certainly not the development team's fault, WMP still has some major compatibility issues (namely, not working a lot of the time). Finally, there are some sites that, for whatever reason, just don't load in Mozilla. The sites probably just need a good old-fashioned webvangelism, but I would at least hope that there would be a "bug workarounds" section in the Preferences for things like this.
And don't give me that "It'll be in the 1.0.1 branch" crap. 1.0 is supposed to be a well-rounded release, and, while it is excellent (and is better than any other browser out there, mind you) it still falls short of my expectations (especially after the years and years and years of slaving over it).

Sputnik7

Of course, it's free, so it's not exactly like the video rental store, but it is streaming on demand. I'm sure they aren't the only ones.

Personally, I don't consider a 5MB shockwave file a page at all, rather it is an obstacle placed between myself and what I seek, much like the wristband weilding bouncer at the front door of a nightclub. I'm sick of all the shockwave/flash crap that I have to wade through. It generally serves no useful purpose other than to stroke the ego of some web designer who convinced some misguided marketeer that a fifteen second animation intro will give more "sticky eyeballs". Here is an example of that taken to a ludicrous extreme, where usability and accesability are sacrificed on the alter of coolness to "enhance" content of dubious value. Read the manifesto to see what I'm talking about.

Embedded audio falls in the same category. It's all vanity, and anyone who expects me to pay for that can kiss my ass.

In the rare circumstances where I might go to a page specifically for such content, that page would have it's own economic model and subsequent payment structure. Sputnik7 is one of those rare sites. Their animations add to the site without getting in the way. I would have no problem paying for their content, provided it was reasonable; say $.10 for a song or short film, maybe $1.00 for a full length anime, but I'm sure as hell not going to pay for their animated menus. I like not having to drive to the video store, but not enough that I'm willing to pay more for it. The same goes for FTP.

Downloading trial software is something else again. I wouldn't buy a car from a dealer who charged me to test drive, and the same goes for software vendors. Same for the guy buying the t-shirt. Any merchant who charges you for the privilege of browsing their wares is too full of themselves and needs to go out of business.

As for the per-diem idea, I think it's a lot more sound than per-page, But it's essentially a subscription model. Why pay $.10 per day when $3.00 per month is so much easier, and at that point why do it per month when you could just pay $36 per year and not have to worry about all these stupid micropayments? The "problems" you point out I don't see as problems, it's simply an analog to real world subscriptions. If I subscribe to a magazine and all I read are the little half page blurbs at the front while I'm sitting on the can, I pay the same as the professor who makes 200 photocopies of the 10 page main article for class discussion or the dentist who puts it out in his waiting room for who knows how many people to read. If I don't like it, too bad for me.

Web sites need to have their own payment models based on what they do, just as magazines and movie theaters have different payment models based on what they do.

That said, I don't like the per-page idea at all. Too much opportunity for abuse. There's probably a site out there that it makes sense for, but only if there really isn't any other way, and I can't think of a situation where that would be true.

Nice videos, but the story at the end of the fourth one was rather inconclusive. Will there be animated videos for every song on the album, I wonder?

Are the animated figures supposed to be representative of the members of Daft Punk? Sort of like the security guards are Sly and Robbie in Superthruster? (Anyone know what animators did that video?)

Neat videos...I hope they make more of them so I can see what happens next. :)

Actually, though the web server seems to be getting hit pretty hard, and the JavaScript screwed up in Mozilla and Konqueror (I had to use Opera to use the site), I just watched the movie with nary a hitch once I found the actual address for the RealPlayer stream.

I have not seen Orguss, but I have watched Orguss 02, which I assume is the second Orguss series and thought it wasn't too too bad. You can actually view Orguss 02 on the web. It is dubbed, but I still found it fun to watch. You can find Orguss 02, as well as some other short series or single episodes that have all been released by Manga Entertainment in North America at this site ( http://www.sputnik7.com/vod/anime/index.jsp ). Sure, all the anime that is there is dubbed, and you must be able to play Real media files or Microsoft .asf's, but the fact that it seems to be legit through a partnership between Sputnik7 Manga Entertainment or the like makes it pretty cool in my opinion. Free anime can't be an entirely bad idea :)

Try Sputnik7, it's an incredible site built using JSPs.

Only one label AFAIK has come out publicly in favor of Napster. Palm is a label started two or three years ago by former Island Records head Chris Blackwell - the visionary responsible for bringing us Bob Marley, U2, Traffic, Tom Waits, Cat Stevens, The Cranberries, Tricky, and projects like Manga, Rykodisc, and Sputnik7. At PlugIn last week, Hank Barry (Napster CEO) and Blackwell announced Palm's wholehearted support of peer-to-peer sharing of music. Blackwell has been maintaining the Bob Marley estate since the late 70's, and claims that, after staying level for nearly 20 years, sales of Marley music began climbing 2-3 years ago. Wisely, he said he wasn't sure if there was a direct correlation, though it seemed to him that the mp3 sharing phenomenon (both pre- and post-napster) was hardly hurting sales. Then they went a step further. Blackwell placed the newest single from artist Elwood (personally, not a fan...) on sputnik7. Napster featured the single "Sundown" as the first label-endorsed peer-to-peer share EVER!

X(which looks very cool) is going to be put out on DVD by Manga Video soon. Basicly the story involves a bunch of psychics who will can decide the future of the earth. Reason I mention X a)its beautiful animation, B)it's out in theaters, c)it's soon to be released on DVD, and d)Sputnik 7 offers some good free anime and the trailer over broadband.

ken

the best part? you can buy the dvd! i know the guys who do the manga dvd's, and let me say that they know what 5.1 can really do. they remaster everything. i saw perfect blue in the theater's and the audio was laughable. the dvd, though, rocks!

ken