amazing discussion on how cellular automata influenced two of the most groundbreaking artists of our time, and more - with the artists themselves.
essentially 'cellular automata' is a mathematical study of computation - how simple rules set for a mass of items create a more complex result. not all that dissimilar from what is often called 'emergence theory' or the rise of the appearance of cohesive intelligence from minute particles.
sounds very deep but i have a perfect example - ants.
yep, each ant has a specific role in the hive but their rules are not more complicated than "find food and come back and tell us where it is" and "go bring the food back to the queen".
from those two simple rules a fascinating society is built up around the following of thousands, if not millions of automata following those simple rules.
both brian eno (think 'ambient music' and the ground breaking album 'music for airports') and will wright (think 'sims', 'sims 2') took the ideas in different ways. brian works with creating music outside of the idea of notes and scales and traditional harmony and will wright uses c.a. to create some of the most fascinating videogames of the last decade.
join them for a talk.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
neil gaiman talk
found a great website called fora.tv from a link off slashdot.org pointing to wallstreet journal online.
at least these folks, gaiman included seem to realize that this might be a fun thing to do and they offer an embedded video option. thank you for recognizing me as a fan and an enthusiast and not treating me as if i was someone with nefarious intentions.
i hate that. ruins the whole mood.
anyways. haven't seen it but if you check the links on the fora player you'll notice they also give one the options to download the mp3, and two flavours of the mp4 as well as a pdf of the transcript.
for a site with the motto 'the world is thinking' it's nice to know that someone finally has their head properly situated about their body in relation to the whole internet video thing.
them and the bbc. for instance - bbc signed a deal recently with youtube (as opposed to viacom which decided to use a lawsuit as a negotiating tactic) and in regards to questionable clips states:
"the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand”. from here.
i always did like them blokes. real heads on their shoulders them.
anyways - here's mr. neil. enjoy.
at least these folks, gaiman included seem to realize that this might be a fun thing to do and they offer an embedded video option. thank you for recognizing me as a fan and an enthusiast and not treating me as if i was someone with nefarious intentions.
i hate that. ruins the whole mood.
anyways. haven't seen it but if you check the links on the fora player you'll notice they also give one the options to download the mp3, and two flavours of the mp4 as well as a pdf of the transcript.
for a site with the motto 'the world is thinking' it's nice to know that someone finally has their head properly situated about their body in relation to the whole internet video thing.
them and the bbc. for instance - bbc signed a deal recently with youtube (as opposed to viacom which decided to use a lawsuit as a negotiating tactic) and in regards to questionable clips states:
"the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand”. from here.
i always did like them blokes. real heads on their shoulders them.
anyways - here's mr. neil. enjoy.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
how i geek out
mm....sometimes when i'm in a really good mood, like today - i kind of geek out.
here is how:
i discovered several new artists:
malicious, reppin' montreal - the ill mtl and you should check out 'heavy mtl' off his playlist
dead celebrity status - not sure where they're from but the videos for 'we fall we fall' and 'turn the lights out' are pretty sick
sweatshop union - holding down the left coast. check out the video for 'broken record'
and there are a couple of videos from dresden dolls.
dresden dolls vs. panic! at the disco
backstabber by dresden dolls
you'll notice that i'm not embedding videos at the moment.
it all has to do with the fact that myspace is currently, apparently beefing with a whole bunch of folks, to and including youtube.
and well, youtube is getting sued so it's kind of hard to figure out and i don't really like thinking too hard about it.
all of the above artists have links to either myspace videos or youtube videos which is great. i'm a child of the 80's and while i like a good song to listen to on my mp3 player - a well made video is better. sorry to be like that, but it's the truth.
and no, a 'well made video' doesn't have to be worth millions of dollars. check out the funny videos that amanda plummer did or the 'china invitation' of from malicious. those, really are worth their weight in gold to me as a fan because, well it didn't go through any sort of number crunching machine to 'target it to the right demographic'.
on the whole myspace thing - beefing with youtube isn't necessarily the best thing.
most of the 'target demo' seems to have abandoned myspace for facebook anyways.
i remain 'social networking neutral' and use whatever i feel like using at the moment. for now, finding new music is related to trolling the pages of the myspace pages of the artists that i do like and checking out their 'friends' to see what new music i could find.
i mean, if it wasn't for the internet i doubt that i would know 70% of the music i know.
and for the record, i despise p2p networks.
i have a friend who is a struggling musician and think of him when i see someone bragging on how they found this or that on whatever the flavour is version of p2p network.
on the flipside - myspace, facebook, youtube etc are doing a nice job of eviscerating the wall between the fan and the artist and hopefully (as chuck d opined would happen way back in 1999) cut out a good portion of the middle man.
or at least trade the a&m men from the sole monopolists left to apple for a while.
and then again - many artists are tired of the old regime - they know they're getting ripped off as courtney love does the math in a napster era salon.com article.
or as kinnie starr talked about when i flat out asked her why she put embedded youtube videos on her page - perhaps it's a combination of pragmatism and philosophy for some.
as for me - i see a paris hilton album and i want to run out and give money to folks like shad k (who's iq is so high you fly to it) or juanna molina (who's simply the most unique artist since i first heard bjork) or baba brinkman, who went and invented his own genre, and 'blind faith' is a song that gives me hope as an asipring novelist.
here is how:
i discovered several new artists:
malicious, reppin' montreal - the ill mtl and you should check out 'heavy mtl' off his playlist
dead celebrity status - not sure where they're from but the videos for 'we fall we fall' and 'turn the lights out' are pretty sick
sweatshop union - holding down the left coast. check out the video for 'broken record'
and there are a couple of videos from dresden dolls.
dresden dolls vs. panic! at the disco
backstabber by dresden dolls
you'll notice that i'm not embedding videos at the moment.
it all has to do with the fact that myspace is currently, apparently beefing with a whole bunch of folks, to and including youtube.
and well, youtube is getting sued so it's kind of hard to figure out and i don't really like thinking too hard about it.
all of the above artists have links to either myspace videos or youtube videos which is great. i'm a child of the 80's and while i like a good song to listen to on my mp3 player - a well made video is better. sorry to be like that, but it's the truth.
and no, a 'well made video' doesn't have to be worth millions of dollars. check out the funny videos that amanda plummer did or the 'china invitation' of from malicious. those, really are worth their weight in gold to me as a fan because, well it didn't go through any sort of number crunching machine to 'target it to the right demographic'.
on the whole myspace thing - beefing with youtube isn't necessarily the best thing.
most of the 'target demo' seems to have abandoned myspace for facebook anyways.
i remain 'social networking neutral' and use whatever i feel like using at the moment. for now, finding new music is related to trolling the pages of the myspace pages of the artists that i do like and checking out their 'friends' to see what new music i could find.
i mean, if it wasn't for the internet i doubt that i would know 70% of the music i know.
and for the record, i despise p2p networks.
i have a friend who is a struggling musician and think of him when i see someone bragging on how they found this or that on whatever the flavour is version of p2p network.
on the flipside - myspace, facebook, youtube etc are doing a nice job of eviscerating the wall between the fan and the artist and hopefully (as chuck d opined would happen way back in 1999) cut out a good portion of the middle man.
or at least trade the a&m men from the sole monopolists left to apple for a while.
and then again - many artists are tired of the old regime - they know they're getting ripped off as courtney love does the math in a napster era salon.com article.
or as kinnie starr talked about when i flat out asked her why she put embedded youtube videos on her page - perhaps it's a combination of pragmatism and philosophy for some.
as for me - i see a paris hilton album and i want to run out and give money to folks like shad k (who's iq is so high you fly to it) or juanna molina (who's simply the most unique artist since i first heard bjork) or baba brinkman, who went and invented his own genre, and 'blind faith' is a song that gives me hope as an asipring novelist.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
intellidating
what a goofy title for something quite fascinating.
i think that with an era of the internet and things like 'speed dating' which is quite popular here in ill-dot something that is popping up in ny (as an import from Britain i might add) might be making it's way up here soon.
intellidating is essentially making things like debates, museums, lecture series and the like more 'sexy' and more of a way for people who hate paris hilton, don't know or care what the latest 'it thing' is and have mixed feelings about the nebulous world of 'internet dating'.
personally, i would be all for this idea. it's time that those of us with more than a few brain cells find better ways to meet than soaking them in liquid poisons and call that 'socializing'.
i said i would be all for the idea except that i am happily off the market for good. soon and very soon (as the old hymn goes) i'm getting married and am quite glad that in the very near future i'm going to take vows to spend the rest of my life with the woman i love and can't live without.
so, for the rest of you - best of luck and if you can write complex sentences with sub clauses and find a book more interesting than doing shooters at your local pub - you might want to see if you can put something like that together here in ill-dot. those of us who have already found our special someones will wish you the best from the sidelines.
i think that with an era of the internet and things like 'speed dating' which is quite popular here in ill-dot something that is popping up in ny (as an import from Britain i might add) might be making it's way up here soon.
intellidating is essentially making things like debates, museums, lecture series and the like more 'sexy' and more of a way for people who hate paris hilton, don't know or care what the latest 'it thing' is and have mixed feelings about the nebulous world of 'internet dating'.
personally, i would be all for this idea. it's time that those of us with more than a few brain cells find better ways to meet than soaking them in liquid poisons and call that 'socializing'.
i said i would be all for the idea except that i am happily off the market for good. soon and very soon (as the old hymn goes) i'm getting married and am quite glad that in the very near future i'm going to take vows to spend the rest of my life with the woman i love and can't live without.
so, for the rest of you - best of luck and if you can write complex sentences with sub clauses and find a book more interesting than doing shooters at your local pub - you might want to see if you can put something like that together here in ill-dot. those of us who have already found our special someones will wish you the best from the sidelines.
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