Horror Movies You Probably Have Not Seen. Yet

"Every once in a while, one gets asked to do something totally out of the ordinary, and comes up with something completely original. This piece of work, be it art, literature, music, etc., transcends greatness and goes down in the canon of all things wondrous and life changing. This, however, can be somewhat frightening. Having your life changed for whatever reason isn’t always appreciated. So, in deference to all those solid citizens out there who don’t need anything life changing, and seeing I write about movies, AND it is Halloween, I’m doing a scary movie list." read list in it's entirety

Candy Fears are Mere Halloween Phantoms

Each year, police and medical centers across the country follow another ritual, X-raying candy to check for razors, needles, or other objects that might have been placed there to hurt or kill innocent children. Special events are held that offer kids 'a safe Halloween,' suggesting that there are real lurking dangers far worse than spooky costumes.

Yet year after year, few if any sinister foreign objects are found. This scary tale is essentially an urban legend." read article in it's entirety

also... Why Do We Carve Pumpkins at Halloween?

Idiot Comics

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Robert from Idiot Comics has been a friend of a EH for a while now and occasionally I like to point out how brilliant his work is.

Wow of the Week: Renova Black "The World's Sexiest Paper"

website

According to the site it's "Fashionable, Sensual, Sophisticated, Fun, Unique!" and it cost $7.50 for one roll. This has nothing to do with evolution or does it?

Sign This Petition!

"Microsoft plans to lock you in with their new closed OOXML file format, like they did since the creation of Word."

"That is why we need your assistance in the war on standards. Document standards are the real oil of the 21st century. The vendor understands that and fights fiercely to undermine the lead role of the ISO 26300 OpenDocument standard as the next generation standard to replace its binary Office formats. If ISO standardization of OOXML fails national governments will ask the vendor to fully support OpenDocument in Microsoft Office. They are prepared to do. If OOXML becomes a second ISO standard the vendor will use its market dominance and standard control to undermine competition for at least another 10-15 years." website

Let's see:


Sign the petition

also...Download the completely free and true open standard, open-source office suite: Open Office.org

The Business of Death

"In the United States death is an 11 billion dollar a year industry"

Lets see:


also... "Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind. Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by." webpage (RCM)

Thanks Drawn!

Synesthesia

Earlier today, I came across an odd program called Audiopaint, now in its iteration for 2007. Audiopaint is a spectral synthesizer, and for those of you who don't know what that is, a spectral synthesizer takes an digital image and translates it into sound.

It works a little something like this: each pixel in the digital picture has two data values (the coordinates of its position in the digital image). The Y value of the coordinate determines what pitch the pixel will produce, and the X value correlates to when the note is played (the X axis is a time line, similar to they way a sequencer works, it scrolls from left to right playing a pixel's pitch as it is hit). Furthermore, a spectral synthesizer uses additive synthesis as many notes are played simultaneously by individual oscillators. This is just a brief look at how a spectral synth works, the applet javoice has a very detailed description of how a spectral synth works and even lets you translate sound into an image.

Anyways, Audiopaint 2007 is a brilliant synth that responds not only to pixel coordinates but also color data (by default, level of red controlls how loud the left channel is, and green the right, this seems a little backwards, I always associate red with right...), making it ideal for all types of images. It accepts a variety of filetypes, but its coolest feature is the fact that it uses granular synthesis (sample based oscillators) to create the sound based on the image. This means that you can feed the program a snippet of your voice, and see how it is then used to generate a texture based on the image you provide. There are a few other audio paramaters you can tweak, such as how fast the X axis timeline is scrolled across (determined by user defined length of sample output). This means you can create a long, rich texture of sound without having to timewarp the sample.

The Audiopaint 2007 page is right here. The page provides a link to a database of images taken by the hubble telescope for you to play around with which is very cool. I think this is a very useful tool for any sound designer that can't be passed up.

Here is an example of something I've made with the program. I took this image:



and translated it into this sound with Audiopaint: click here for mp3.

Modern Man's 1st Single Off New Album Now Available Online!

For those of you who don't know... I have a music project called Modern Man that I've been working on for about 4 years. The project started after my last band Prepackaged Products disbanded. Machine Room (MM's second album) will be released Spring 2008. The first single was uploaded at 12 midnight on October 23rd onto MM's Myspace profile and is available to purchase on the profile as well. Since CDs are irrelevant the album will only be distributed in digital form through Snocap.

4093 Modern Man fans can't be wrong. :)

Dalí's Hollywood Story

"'Dalí: Painting and Film' was organized by the Tate Modern in London, where it premiered this summer, but Los Angeles figures so prominently in the story it tells that its appearance at LACMA feels like something of a homecoming. It's a fascinating if not entirely persuasive exhibition whose portrayal of the artist's frustrated flirtation with the film industry is likely to find a sympathetic audience here.

Salvador Dalí's interest in cinema dated to nearly the beginning of his career: He published his first article on the subject in 1927, at age 23, and produced his first film, 'Un Chien Andalou' (with Luis Buñuel), two years later. Like many in the European avant-garde, he was enamored of Hollywood -- or aspects of it, anyway. He admired Buster Keaton, Walt Disney and Cecil B. De Mille; he adored Harpo Marx. When he first came to L.A. in 1937, he was already a celebrity himself, riding high on the tide of surrealist notoriety, and clearly identified with what he encountered." read article in it's entirety

Let's see:

Why Monks Are So Darn Happy

"The Dalai Lama was in town the other day. That's Ithaca, New York, a small town in the middle of nowhere.

His Holiness comes to Ithaca—it’s his second visit— because we have a Tibetan Buddhist monastery on one of the main streets downtown. It's an unassuming old house painted red and orange and decorated with a string of colorful prayer flags.

The citizens of Ithaca are also used to seeing monks in saffron robes walking around downtown. You notice these guys not so much because of the striking robes and shaved heads, but by their smiling, laughing faces.

And the Dalai Lama seems to be the happiest monk of all.

His lecture at Cornell University last week started with a big laugh and was all about happiness.

What's with these guys? Why are they so happy?" read article in it's entirety

Crime and Punishment: Why Do We Conform to Society?

"Whether you subscribe to the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule or some instinctive moral code, society functions largely because most of its denizens adhere to a set of norms that allow them to live together in relative tranquility.

But, why is it that we put a vast amount of social resources into keeping stealing, murdering and other unfair (not to mention violent and illegal) acts to a minimum? Seems it all comes down to the fact that most of us don't cotton to being punished by our peers." read article in it's entirety

The Tim and Eric Live Series

"The Best Live Talk Show On Super Deluxe!

The only excuse for not watching the live broadcasts of Tim And Eric Nite Live every Tuesday night at 10 p.m. EST on Super Deluxe is if you're too busy watching the archived episodes right here." website

Let's see:

Artist of the Week: Jacquelyn Jilek (aka Humgusgumgus or PapayaFingers)

livejournal

My favorites used to be on Deviant Art but she has taken them down :(

How Quantum Suicide Works

"A man sits down before a gun, which is pointed at his head. This is no ordinary gun; it's rigged to a machine that measures the spin of a quantum particle. Each time the trigger is pulled, the spin of the quantum particle -- or -- is measured. Depending on the measurement, the gun will either fire, or it won't. If the quantum particle is measured as spinning in a clockwise motion, the gun will fire. If the quark is spinning counterclockwise, the gun won't go off. There'll only be a click." read article in its entirety

Death Special: The Plan for Eternal Life

"I'M SITTING in a darkened hall listening to neuroscientist Anders Sandberg describe how to scan ultra-thin sections of brain. First, embed the brain in plastic, then use a camera combined with laser beam and diamond blade to capture images of the tissue as it is sliced.

The method is being developed (in mice, so far) to better understand the architecture of the brain. But Sandberg, who is based at the University of Oxford, has a rather more ambitious aim in mind. For him, this work is merely the first step towards uploading the contents of human brains - memories, emotions and all - onto a computer.

This is the opening session of the ninth annual meeting of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA) in Chicago. Sandberg and his fellow transhumanists plan to bypass death by using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering and nanotechnology to radically accelerate human evolution, eventually merging people with machines to make us immortal. This may not be possible yet, the transhumanists reason, but as long as they live long enough - a few decades perhaps - the technology will surely catch up." read article in it's entirety

Let's see:

Recycling the Whole House

"IF the idiosyncratic, ’40s-era cottage Alice Keller bought in Shoreline, a small city just north of Seattle, had a style, it might be called classic teardown. The ceiling in one room was so low she couldn’t stand up under it. A downstairs bathroom was so narrow she had to wiggle sideways to get to the toilet. None of the windows matched.

The place was crying out for a wrecking ball, but Ms. Keller, a 63-year-old retired teacher of English as a second language, who has an environmentally aware conscience, didn’t want to scrap the building materials only to buy new ones. Instead of having her 1,300-square-foot house bulldozed, she hired Jon Alexander, a contractor who shared her environmentalism and was willing to dismantle the home shingle by beam, and build a replacement with the same two-by-fours.

The crew left the garage and a portion of the subfloor intact and broke the concrete driveway into chunks for a back patio. A gas water heater, fiberglass insulation and windows landed at the RE Store, a local nonprofit shop that sells used or excess construction materials. The drywall, shingles and extra concrete went to a recycling center." read article in it's entirety

The Benefits of 80 Million Years Without Sex

"Bdelloid rotifers are asexual organisms, meaning that they reproduce without males. Without sex, these animals lack many of the ways in which sexual animals adapt over generations to survive in their natural environment.

Although other asexual organisms are known, they are thought to become extinct after relatively short time periods because they are unable to adapt. Therefore, how bdelloid rotifers have survived for tens of millions of years has been a mystery to scientists.

Bdelloids typically live in freshwater pools. However, if deprived of water they enter a dehydrated state in which they can remain for many years, surviving almost complete water loss. They then revive, having suffered no ill effect, once water becomes available again.

The new research shows how Adineta ricciae, a species of bdelloid rotifer, has evolved without sex to cope with dry conditions. The research, led by Dr. Alan Tunnacliffe from the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, was published today in the journal Science." read article in it's entirety

New Evolve Happy Merchandise Now Available

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Earlier today, I finally added some new products (t-shirts, sweatshirts, postcards, mousepads, buttons, and mugs) to EH's Cafe Press page. I'm pretty happy with how everything came out... so please support independent art by purchasing these fine products.

Urban Foraging and Guerilla Gardening

"One trend that has really caught my interest lately (to the chagrin of certain hygiene-obsessed boyfriends) is urban foraging. No, I'm not talking about the Freegans, although I dig their aesthetic; more about that movement here). I'm talking about foraging for free fruits, vegetables, and other "wild food" around the city." read article in its entirety

Blood of Bin Laden

"Blood of Bin Laden is more than a means of satisfying America's post 9-11 bloodlust. It's a game that recreates the events of Operation Enduring Freedom allowing players to fight The War On Terror without leaving their desktops!" website

see also...Los Disneys

Researcher: Humans Will Wed Robots

"MAASTRICHT , Netherlands, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.

David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, 'Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners,' that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners." read article in it's entirety

also... Sex and Marriage with Robots by 2050

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

"The shark has landed. On Tuesday Damien Hirst’s killing-machine-in-a-box begins its three-year stay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It lies in wait on the second floor, close to a bank of south-facing windows, entombed in a steel-and-glass tank that suggests a collaboration between Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt. On sunny days the light should intensify the azure cast of the 4,360 gallons of formaldehyde. After dusk, when I saw it, the window reflects the tank back at you, doubling the piece into a shark gantlet.

How does it look? Weird. Usually 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,' as the sculpture is formally titled, is seen in like-minded company. A few of Mr. Hirst’s sliced-up cows and sheep would set the stage, or works by his fellow Young British Artist, or Y.B.A., shock jocks." read article in it's entirety

Meditation Really Does Reduce Stress

"NEED to chill out and pay attention too? Just five days of training in a Chinese meditation technique can help.

Previous studies have suggested that various forms of meditation can improve attention and reduce stress, but there have been few randomised controlled trials - the best way of testing a treatment's effectiveness.

So a team led by Yi-Yuan Tang of the Dalian University of Technology in north-east China teamed up with psychologist Michael Posner of the University of Oregon, Eugene, to put a meditative technique called integrated body-mind training (IBMT) to a controlled test. The team randomly assigned 80 students to 20 minutes per day of tuition, either in how to relax the body's muscle groups or in IBMT." read article in it's entirety

Funwari Milk-chan

"Each character has a distinct personality and background. Funwari Milk-chan (pictured above, center) is easygoing. Despite her dream of growing large, she remains small. She loves collagen, and napping is her favorite pastime. Can Milk-san (top left) is a celebrity entertainer, always aglitter. She has an American boyfriend and loves going to beauty salons. Ganguro Milk-chan (bottom left), despite being a gyaru with a pierced nipple, is mature and level-headed. She spends all her time practicing para-para dance, and she enjoys purikura. Peach Milk-chan (top right), a spider-hating fashionista who is scary when angry, is well-informed and into anything lowbrow. Milko-chan (bottom right) is still a baby — but a genius. She loves to invent things, and her pacifier apparently holds the secret to her smarts." read article in its entirety

Artist of the Week: Daria Tessler

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Human Ancestors Walked Upright, Study Claims

"The ancestors of humanity are often depicted as knuckle-draggers, making humans seem unusual in our family tree as 'upright apes.'

Controversial research now suggests the ancestors of humans and the other great apes might have actually walked upright too, making knuckle-walking chimpanzees and gorillas the exceptions and not the rule.

In other words, 'the other great apes we see now, such as chimps or gorillas or orangutans, might have descended from human-like ancestors,' researcher Aaron Filler, a Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist and medical director at Cedars-Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders in Los Angeles, told LiveScience." read article in it's entirety

In Radiohead Price Plan, Some See a Movement

"LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 — It was, more or less, an accident.

The chief advisers to Radiohead, the Grammy-winning British rock act behind platinum albums like 'OK Computer,' were lounging around, having a 'metaphysical' conversation about the value of music in the digital realm, when they struck upon the idea of simply releasing new music online and letting fans settle the matter themselves.

Initially, they viewed it as a way to let fans preview Radiohead’s music without the guidance — or filter — of radio programmers, music critics or other conventional tastemakers.

Instead, when Radiohead quietly divulged plans to let fans name their price for the digital download of its new album, 'In Rainbows,' it incited talk of a revolution in the music industry, which has found the digital marketplace to be far less of a cash cow than it once dreamed. Though Radiohead is in a position that can’t easily be replicated — it completed its long-term recording contract with the music giant EMI while retaining a big audience of obsessive fans — its move is being seen as a sign for aspiring 21st-century music stars." read article in it's entirety

Let's see:


also... Radiohead to embark on a world tour in 2008

Last weekend, I attended Luster (see pics here) and had a chance to listen to the new Radiohead album while we were driving to DC. The album has a pop electro feel (for lack of a better definition) and lucky for them that's the kind of music I enjoy at the moment. Radiohead are my favorite band and have enjoyed everything that's heard from them to date. This album is not as experimental as their earlier material but it still has the beautiful sonic thread that ties all of the albums together. And did I mention you can download the album from their website and choose what you pay for it! That's a pretty impressive development in pop music. Another tell tale sign that record labels and CDs are becoming extinct.

also... Thoughts about the dying record industry

Invention: Microsoft Mind Reader

"Not content with running your computer, Microsoft now wants to read your mind too.

The company says that it is hard to properly evaluate the way people interact with computers since questioning them at the time is distracting and asking questions later may not produce reliable answers. "Human beings are often poor reporters of their own actions," the company says.

Instead, Microsoft wants to read the data straight from the user's brain as he or she works away. They plan to do this using electroencephalograms (EEGs) to record electrical signals within the brain. The trouble is that EEG data is filled with artefacts caused, for example, by blinking or involuntary actions, and this is hard to tease apart from the cognitive data that Microsoft would like to study." read article in it's entirety

Origin of Vision Discovered

"You are reading these words right now because 600 million years ago, an aquatic animal called a Hydra developed light-receptive genes—the origin of animal vision.

It wasn't exactly 20-20 vision back then though.

Hydras, a genus of freshwater animals that are kin to corals and jellyfish, measure only a few millimeters in diameter and have been around for hundreds of millions of years.

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara studied the genes associated with vision (called opsins) in these tiny creatures and found opsin proteins all over their bodies." read article in it's entirety

also... Eye Repair

Che's Legacy Looms Larger Than Ever

"LA HIGUERA, Bolivia — It was a long fight, but the Cubans have finally conquered this forlorn Andean hamlet, four decades after Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was executed in the adobe schoolhouse here.

Cuban physicians provide healthcare, Cuban educators oversee literacy classes, and the Cuban-donated library features Che-as-superhero comic books. A monumental bust of the beret-topped revolutionary who helped Fidel Castro seize power in Cuba dominates the central plaza." read article in it's entirety

also... A Revolutionary Icon, and Now, a Bikini

When Your Most Significant Other is a Computer

"It’s the relationship you spend more time on than any other. It has deepened even during the past few years. When things go wrong, you become enraged and tearful and attack inanimate objects—but you’re willing to spend hours making things right.

Obviously, we’re talking about your relationship with your personal computer.

Consider this: In a survey earlier this year, 64 percent of Americans say they spend more time with their computer than with their significant other. Meanwhile, 84 percent said they were more dependent on their computer than they were three years ago." read article in it's entirety

Are Chimpanzees Evolving in the Wild?

"If you were to put a sample of chimpanzee DNA next to a sample of human DNA -- and if you had any idea what you were looking at -- you would see that the samples are nearly identical. Chimps and humans share 96 percent of their DNA, and some new research suggests that chimps and humans may have split off from a common ancestor just 4 million years ago, which is a more recent estimate than the generally accepted timeframe of 5 to 7 million years. This would mean that it took about 4 million years for humans and chimpanzees to become completely separate species. The two are so close on the evolutionary ladder that observing chimps offers real glimpses into the way humans may have evolved. And a new, pretty major observation of chimp behavior may provide scientific evidence of a long-suspected theory about human evolution." read article in it's entirety

2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players

"DOYLESTOWN, PA.-The James A. Michener Art Museum presents 2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players, photographs by Brian Finke on view in the Fred Beans Gallery at the Museum’s Doylestown location November 4, 2007 through March 2, 2008. Showcasing the paradoxically diverse personalities that make up such uniform teams as football players and cheerleaders, Finke’s photographs take on issues of adolescence, sexuality and social behavior." read article in it's entirety

Valerie and I are going to try to attend this during the Thanksgiving holiday. Doylestown is next to her hometown, so hopefully we can view the exhibition while visiting her family.

Invisibility Made Easier

"Light passing from one ordinary material into another bends slightly--think of how a straight stick in water looks bent--but light passing into a metamaterial bends in the opposite direction. Metamaterials thus have what's called a negative index of refraction. A lens made from such a material wouldn't have to be curved. (It's the curvature of an ordinary lens that enables it to focus incoming light.) Metamaterials could also be used to route electromagnetic waves around an object, rendering it invisible." read article in its entirety

Space Invader @ Lazarides Gallery

"LONDON.-Space Invader’s new exhibition opened on 5 October at Lazarides Gallery will be his first London solo exhibition. Space invaders was a video phenomenon of the 1980s, heralding the birth of a new era in both technology and popular culture. 30 years on, French artist Space Invader has filled the streets with pixellated mosaic tiles of his work inspired by the original game, spreading them over the walls of more than 35 of the world’s biggest cities in the last ten years alone." read article in it's entirety

More Hollywood Studios Say ‘No Smoking’

"The biggest studios are usually like-minded when it comes to what is fit to portray on screen. But they have become divided lately in confronting one of the entertainment industry’s touchiest issues: smoking in movies that reach the young.

Under pressure from an antismoking lobby unsatisfied by a promise that the industry’s trade group made in May to consider tobacco use as a factor in film ratings, the six largest studio owners have been patching together individual responses to those who want cigarettes out of films rated G, PG or PG-13.

Smoking opponents view the result as surprising progress toward a virtual ban on tobacco images in all but films with R or NC-17 ratings." read article in it's entirety

Will Artificial Intelligence Invade Second Life?

"In September 2007, a software company called Novamente, along with the Electric Sheep Company, a producer of add-ons for virtual worlds, announced plans to release artificial intelligences (AI) into virtual worlds like the ultra-popular 'Second Life.'

Novamente's 'intelligent virtual agents' would use online games and virtual worlds as a development zone, where they will grow, learn and develop by interacting with humans. The company said that it will start by creating virtual pets that become smarter as they interact with their (human-controlled) avatar owners. (An avatar is the character or virtual representation of a player in a virtual world.) More complex artificially controlled animals and avatars are expected to follow." read article in it's entirety

also... I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer and More Internet users getting a virtual life

Artist of the Week: Steven Hull

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BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) Used In Second Life

"While recent developments in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology have given humans the power to mentally control computers, nobody has used the technology in conjunction with the Second Life online virtual world — until now.

A research team led by professor Jun’ichi Ushiba of the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory has developed a BCI system that lets the user walk an avatar through the streets of Second Life while relying solely on the power of thought. To control the avatar on screen, the user simply thinks about moving various body parts — the avatar walks forward when the user thinks about moving his/her own feet, and it turns right and left when the user imagines moving his/her right and left arms." read article in its entirety

Let's see:

Building Blocks of Life Might Have Come From Blackholes

"Space dust is essential to the formation of planets, stars, galaxies and even life as we know it. The dust in our corner of the universe was piped out by dying stars that were once a lot like our sun. But, when the universe was less than a tenth of its present age of 13.7 billion years, sun-like stars hadn't been around long enough to die and make dust. So, what produced the precious substance back when the universe was just a toddler?" read article in its entirety

Radiohead's 'Rainbows': Is Free Release A Potential Pot of Gold?

"There's plenty about Radiohead's new album that's revolutionary. It just has nothing to do with the music. 'In Rainbows,' the British quintet's seventh album and the first in more than four years, delivers more highbrow, experimental art-rock that will do nothing to alter Radiohead's dual status as World's Most Revered Band and World's Most Unreasonably Revered Band.

This time around it's not as much about the music as it is about how people are getting the music." read article in it's entirety

also... Radiohead Sells Album on the Web, at Any Price (NPR)

Woman on Trial for Kissing Painting

"Sam Rindy left a lipstick smear on a $2 million painting by Cy Twombly. Now she's on trial. The prosecutor accused her of savagery. The painting's owner wants more than $2 million in compensation for the damage. Rindy says she thought her lipstick improved the white untitled painting." listen to NPR segment

also... Painting meets its femme fatale

I wasn't able to find the Cy Twombly painting that she kissed. If anyone has seen it online send me the link.

Animated Painting at San Diego Museum of Art

"SAN DIEGO, CA.- The San Diego Museum of Art is organizing a state-of-the-art exhibition which showcases the latest trend in animated art by contemporary artists. Running from October 13, 2007, to January 13, 2008, Animated Painting features 25 cinematic works by 14 international contemporary artists who adapt traditional painting and drawing methods to the concepts and technologies of animation. Animated Painting presents some of the most compelling artists working with these new hybrid strategies which have been increasingly used by contemporary artists over the last several years.

The works on display show two predominant approaches in animation. While some artists are maintaining the practice of handmade images, which is immersed in styles of traditional drawing and painting or forms of conventional animation, other artists are working with live action sources that are either self-generated or taken from popular culture and then digitally recoded into a painterly style. " read article in it's entirety

Wow of the Week: 24K & Diamond Digital Camera

"A digital camera stylish enough to attract its own paparazzi. All the quality features of a high-quality aluminum Minox digital camera taken to the next level with 24K gold plating and ten 0.03 carat diamonds surrounding the lens. 10-Megapixel camera assures that every picture you take will be as striking as the elegant equipment that captured it. Arrives in elegant wooden box. Gold." webpage

I would love this for my birthday on the 24th... it's a steal at $2,400.00.

This Is Not a Bob Dylan Movie

"You could begin the story of Todd Haynes’s Dylan movie at the very beginning, about seven years ago, while Haynes was driving cross-country in his beat-up old Honda. But since Todd Haynes’s film about Dylan is as much about Todd Haynes as it is about Dylan (or maybe even more); and since Haynes is a filmmaker who, in midcareer at age 46, is doing his best to take the experimental into the multiplex; and, further, since those who don’t like the film are likely to consider it a kind of gorgeous indulgence, a bizarre experiment, the temptation is to skip the ordinary narrative introduction and begin at the end, or very near the end, in this case in the last few days of filming, on the outskirts of Montreal, where, way in the back of a dark and cavernous and disused factory, there was a white glowing light, like something in a dream. We begin then with an image — an image that is all about, believe it or not, the relationship between Haynes and his film, between Dylan and Haynes, between the artist and the subject he is trying to portray." read article in it's entirety

Let's see:


also... Cate Blanchett's Golden Touch

The VanityRing

"While in earlier times richness and importance were equal to the amount of money or jewels someone possessed, in a post information society it's the attention you get from the worlds people, that counts. Being in people's mind means being important, whether they think about you in a positive way our not doesn't matter. And what people have in their mind is what they read in the media. In the future this will mean, what they read/see on the net. Every content creator that copies and pastes your name will rise the value of your virtual mirrored importance. And there is a hard mechanical algorithm on the net, that extremely objectively measures your appearance, it's called Google and has already passed the "line of no return" (Bruce Sterling). In most job interviews the personnel manager will already use this machine to check your importance and have a look at the first answers this mirror tells about you. Your mirror identity strikes back on your chances in the real world." website

3D Avatars Soon To Be Wanderlusts

"IBM and Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, think it’s time to free the avatars.
At the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo at San Jose, Calif., the two companies are announcing plans to develop open standards that will allow avatars to roam from one virtual community to the next. The goal is let a person create a digital alter-ego that can travel to many virtual worlds, keeping the same name, look and even digital currency.

The companies speak of “a truly interoperable 3D Internet.” Think of it as passports for avatars. So that pink-headed cutie you made for Second Life can also take up residence in There.com, The Lounge, Virtual Laguna Beach and Entropia, for example." read article in its entirety

Can Sunshine Provide All U.S. Electricity?

"In the often cloudless American Southwest, the sun pours more than eight kilowatt-hours* per square meter of its energy onto the landscape. Vast parabolic mirrors in the heart of California's Mojave Desert concentrate this solar energy to heat special oil to around 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). This hot oil transfers its heat to water, vaporizing it, and then that steam turns a turbine to produce electricity. All told, nine such mirror fields, known as concentrating solar power plants, supply 350 megawatts of electricity yearly.

In the face of mounting concern about climate change, alternatives to coal and natural gas combustion such as these never seemed more attractive. And with the bounty of the sun waiting to be captured near fast-growing major centers of electricity consumption—Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix, among others—interest in such solar thermal technology is on the rise. The first such plant to be built in decades started providing 64 megawatts of electricity to the neon lights of Vegas this summer." read article in it's entirety

Mycoplasma

"Controversial celebrity US scientist Craig Venter has announced he is on the verge of creating the first ever artificial life form which he hails as a potential remedy to illness and global warming.

The chromosome which Venter and his team has created is known as Mycoplasma laboratorium and, in the final step of the process, will be transplanted into a living cell where it should "take control," effectively becoming a new life form.

'We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before,' Venter said.