Hodge Podge

Remember Photofunia? You know that Russian site where you uplaod yor photo and the site does some magic in the background and integrates that photo into a scene? Well here is another one for you, WriteOnIt. Their selection of images is not as diverse as Photofunia, but they do have a couple of other options that make it worth a peek – magazine covers and adding captions to some of there own photos.

Via io9:
Cartoonist Chris Gine has decided that he’ll draw three new robots (with… stuff) each week for a year, giving you a glimpse into just how much variety there is in the robot world. He is up to sixteen with 149 to go. Bots with Stuff. My favorite so far: #11, a robot with a really cool jetpack, but no friends to show it to. Although the very first one, a robot with a delicious groundhog is a close second.

Via Techdirt:
Sita Sings The Blues. Because the cost of obtaining the of copyrights on songs from the 1920’s, a weird mashup movie of that eras jazz vocals, the epic Indian tale of Ramayana and sumptuous animation couldn’t be released as a for profit movie, so instead, the filmmaker has decided to press 4,999 copies on DVD (just below a level to keep the royalty fees at the $50k she has already put up) and make promotional copies available for downloading from several web venues. These promotional copies are not subject to royalty fees or something. The filmmaker is going to rely on other ways of making money on the project instead of the whole find distributor Hollywood route, one of which is the “pay what you want” model by accepting donations. I’ve probably got a few details of this whole thing wrong, more info can be found on the filmmaker’s blog, Rogert Ebert’s blog and the films site. I’m downloading the torrent now and plan on kicking a few bucks Nina Paley’s way.