March 14, 2008
Overthinking a platter of Beethoven
An analysis of 376 recorded performances of Beethoven's Eroica (Symphony #3), broken down by such variables as the age of the conductor, length of the recording, and tempo variations. [more inside]
Oratory, Politics, and Video
If one can look past the Obama/Political filter, here is a fascinating series of debates between two masters of the ancient art of oratory. The setting: The 2004 Illinois senate race. The participants: Barak Obama and Alan Keyes, (who are about as different as politicians get in the US). The arguments: various subjects of national interest such as the war in Iraq, the 'axis of evil' and world diplomacy', gun control, legislative experience, and abortion, trade, poverty and globalism. [more inside]
The Cowboy Junkies revist their most popular album
Back in 1987, the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies recorded The Trinity Session (which featured their one big hit, Sweet Jane), ). To celebrate the album's 20th anniversary they brought a few fellow musicians to the church where the album was originally recorded to see what 20 years experience would do to the same set of songs. Here's a video from the session, with Natalie Merchant on backing vocals. [more inside]
Somewhere, Richard Feynman is smiling.
Swinging from pendulums and facing down wrecking balls, MIT professor Walter Lewin shows students the zany beauty of science.
Just what it says...Map My Run
This is very beautiful, and yet very untrue.
Dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do
Was today's Champion's League draw a set-up?
A-one and a-two and a-chicka booma chick!
Bert and Ernie perform "A Divine Proclamation for Finishing the Present Existence" by Last Days of Humanity. Turn your speakers down if you're at the office. [Single link, YouTube.]
So raise your glass high for tomorrow we die
For the fourth single off their second album, My Chemical Romance shot a World War II mini-movie^ that was turned into the video for The Ghost of You. Fast-forward to MCR's third album and a fan-made animated storybook video that continues the story from The Ghost of You video, incorporating the plot from the concept album Welcome to the Black Parade^, and set to the song Mama. Fans are sometimes pretty awesome.
asleep at light speed
I See Dead People's Books
I See Dead People's Books (wiki) is an impromptu project by LibraryThing members to catalog the libraries of famous dead people, from Tupac Shakur to Ernest Hemingway to John Adams. Many more in the works, anyone is able to create a dead library with all the attendant features of LT.
Visualize this...
Dozens of the web's best visualization tools. Neat choices include TuneGlue's music map using data from Amazon and last.fm, Packetgarden's weird world grown from your websurfing habits, Akamai's real-time network visualization, the many widgets of last.fm, the hypnotic maps of the mood of blogs from We Feel Fine, the beautiful galleries of Visual Complexity, and a neat list of tools for drawing diagrams. [some prev]
They're judging your hardbone.
Lost! On an island!
While watching LOST, did you ever think, "Boy, what this show needs is an 80's-style theme song?" If so, you're in luck.
pee in this!
Federal Court rules Drug-Free Workplace Laws are unconstitutional. A federal appeals court ruled Thursday a city can't require all job applicants to be tested for narcotics and must instead show why drug use in a particular job would be dangerous. Decision here (warning PDF)
Brok en Pip e l ine
An unprecedented five consecutive years of stagnant funding for the National Institutes of Health is putting America at risk - a few prominent research institutions get together to voice their concern over flat funding of the National Institutes of Health over the past 5 years, in their report The Broken Pipeline (pdf). Bloggers comment [1, 2, 3].
"An execution is an execution."
Mecca's Executioner. A 2006 interview with Abdullah Bin Said al-Bishi, a man who wields his sword as one of Saudi Arabia's official executioners. (11:30 minute .wvx Windows Media file or written transcripts.)
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