Favorites from spacewrench
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Moon Hooch
NPR's Bob Boilen (host of All Songs Considered): "People ask me all the time to name my favorite Tiny Desk Concert. It's my desk and I've seen almost all of the nearly 400 concerts up close. So you'd think this would be easy. Moon Hooch have made it a lot easier." (video)
"Everyone On Wall Street Is A Dick."
The two-day Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) graduate showcase at NYU was a madhouse, with some 100 projects on view, ranging from groundbreaking innovations to timely trinkets. But the most talked about project by far was Peiqi Su's "Penis Wall" - an array of 81 robotic phalli that rise and fall in response to the stock market. Official Vimeo account for the project - Thesis presentation - in depth How-it-was-made production blog. (Slightly NSFW if your work doesn't like white, plastic, abstract dicks.)
The Quest for Randomness
Can you ever be reasonably sure that something is random, in the same sense you can be reasonably sure something is not random (for example, because it consists of endless nines)? Even if a sequence looked random, how could you ever rule out the possibility that it had a hidden deterministic pattern? And what exactly do we mean by “random,” anyway?
A Rather Extraordinary Piano Recital
La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano [2 3 4 5] is unlike anything you've heard before or will ever hear again. The notes are different from what you're used to, but what Young uses them for is... well. (If you don't have five hours to spend on a piano recital, may I suggest giving the first 4-5 minutes of disc three a go? It starts off briskly, builds to a scintillating pattern after a minute, and then, just before the three minute mark, the piano begins to roar.)
When I stop listening, I have a hard time believing I just heard it.
Katra Turana is the most delightfully baffling band I know. Sometimes they sound like a calypso band gone mad. Sometimes they sound like a tornado slamming into a string quartet. Sometimes they're catchy and heartwarming. Sometimes they're sparse and sinister. Or they're annoying in grandiose ways. And sometimes they blossom into something that's vulnerable, lush, and devastatingly beautiful. I know next to nothing about them. They confound me. I hope you find them as wondrous and as special as I do.
iPhone Recording Options
I have a need to record phone conversations that occur on an iPhone. What are my options?
The Dreams Of Big Data
Does Big Data Mean The Demise Of The Expert - And Intuition? - "Data-driven decisions are poised to augment or overrule human judgment."
What Is Big Data?
50% of students are below average, right?
What approaches might be effective for motivating an underachieving U.S. high school student?
Orbital, 23 years after Chime
They were a couple of blokes from a small city in in England who started out messing around with instruments. Paul played the guitar and drums, and Phil the saxophone, but both were interested in electronic music by the likes of Kraftwerk. Phil also liked hip-hop, and Paul got into acid house in the late 1980s. One afternoon, Paul slapped together a happy little song based on a sample from a now-forgotten instrumental cover version of some pop hit, and called the little ditty Chime. Even before it was pressed on vinyl, DJs were asking for it, and Orbital was born.
Catnip: Egress to Oblivion? [Classroom Drug Educational Film]
"There are approximately 250 species of catnip and this figure doesn't include hybrids. But all of these substances have one thing in common. The active ingredient, nepetalactone cycloalkane." (slyt)
Life After Death
"The best way I can describe our predicament to someone outside our culture
is to call up the sensation of orgasm. You lose control of your destiny, and you are grateful for the loss. Time dissolves. Nothing that came before matters. You lose all sense of consequences and would sacrifice anything to safeguard the moment.
Then, just seconds later, the blighted past and an uncertain future rush back in to drown you."
Michael Harris writes in Walrus Magazine about coming of age in the long shadow of the AIDS epidemic. via utne.
Occupy George
Occupy George
is an attempt to convey the current wealth distribution of the United States by using dollar bills as a medium. But is it legal?
Every one a little lawyer.
“Watching the video I thought that it was wise of Major League Baseball to combine this sort of sentimental moment with mass speculative litigation. It kept brand values strong. I felt strangely grateful that I could have a moment to remember that afternoon. Surprised by the evidence of both copyright violation and father-daughter affection.” —Paul Ford, “Nanolaw with Daughter”
Alice's Restaurant
This song
is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant; that's just the name of the song, and that's why I call the song Alice's
Restaurant.
RESOLUTE!
It is the central, most eyecatching feature of the modern Oval Office. But for over a year, abandoned by a captain said to be harsh and venereal, it drifted slowly, its huge frame creaking, locked in ice, in the land of endless night.
Ievan Polkka
The Ievan Polkka ("Eva's Polka"), as sung by the Finnish quartet Loituma (lyrics). Suddenly, in a flash (previously) of brilliance, youtube is inundated with lots and lots of remixes. Most contain Bleach girl Orihime Inoue spinning a leek (now lovingly known as Leek Girl). Others teach you how to dance, play piano, and, of course, sing. But don't forget Rick!
What should I do with my life?
"If I make enough money now, I can quit and do what I really love later." "If I just think hard enough, I'll finally figure out what I want to do with my life." "I know people in this career path lose their souls, but I'll be different." "What if I try a new career, and it turns out I don't like it?" Po Bronson tackles some of the thoughts that keep people from pursuing a career they would really love. The article (one-page version) is based on his New York Times bestseller, What Should I Do With My Life? The writing is several years old, but the question seems to spring eternal.
Heavens to Murgatroid
Heavens Above!
This is a pretty neat website for anybody interested in astronomy. Give it your location (City names work, even my white bread red-neck plains town did) and it'll give you star maps, fly by times and viewing instructions for satellites and so on.
Of course, the frames are probably made from Chinese toothpaste...
A selection of eyeglasses for $8. (That's including your lens prescription.) Or if that's not to your liking, there's $39.
Nomic is a game where modifying the game is the game.
Nomic, as introduced by inventor Peter Suber (homepage): a game of self-modification—every move is an attempt to alter the rules governing how the game is played. Further from wikipedia. [A great deal more within.]
nanohub rulz ok!
nanoHUB
is an information goldmine, aimed primarily at scientists and engineers engaged under the broad umbrella of nanotechnology research, funded by the NSF, and based at Purdue University. Start with a series of nano tutorial lessons at the undergraduate or graduate level. Move on to seminars from top researchers on a variety of topics, or try some self-paced learning modules. Then run (real, useful) simulations in your browser. [some stuff requires free registration]
How low can you go?
Project Nekton
— Take Mt. Everest, add a mile to the top, and turn it upside down. That's how far oceanic explorers Jacques Piccard and USN Lt. Donald Walsh descended on January 23, 1960 into the Pacific's Challenger Deep, the lowest spot in Earth's oceans. Their submersible, the second-generation bathyscape Trieste, was designed by Swiss balloonist Auguste Piccard (Jacques' father) and built in Italy. This underwater balloon was buoyed by 70 tons of gasoline, ballasted by nine tons of steel shot, and dangled a cramped, six-foot diameter, 14 ton observation gondola underneath it [more Trieste photos here]. It took Piccard and Walsh nearly five hours to touch bottom 35,800 feet down in the Mariana Trench. Their unique voyage still stands 46 years later: no one has gone back—except by ROV—and more people have landed on the Moon.
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