Friday 29 February 2008

Declare Independence - BJORK

Last Autumn, I was alerted to some awesome footage of Bjork performing here in Scotland.

I (and indeed the many thousand of fans present) were very attracted to "Declare Independence". This went down a bomb with Scots in the crowd - outdoor light show was stunning...



Above is studios version with a Mr Jewels Holland - I hope you like.

Yagshemash.

Sunday 24 February 2008

The Fast Show - Jazz Club (Piles Husain)



For those unfamiliar with "The Fast Show" (BBC), check out the wiki.

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We then poop in with "Chanel 9 Neus"

Saturday 16 February 2008

Hot Sauce so Hot - it almost requires a permit

Dave's Instant Insanity Sauce



I went with the "temporary insanity" product being new to this untried (by these taste buds at least) bottles of "hot sauce" as musically discussed yonks ago by Thomas Dolby et al.


Hat tip to Greg Laden and this posting.

Now, I like my spices and sauces like the next person.

Judging from Greg's posting, this range is off the Richter Scale in hotness terms. Hold on with both Oven Gloves, Mask and Fan.

Dave's Gourmet Inc. is where you can find, read and consider purchasing various products from this range (pdf).

Is this simply a shameless plug by Greg ? :-

"I believe that the hottest hot sauce you can get without a permit is Dave's Instant Insanity Sauce. It is also one of the best tasting.

That is an unsolicited product endorsement. If you think differently, fine, but you have not tried it so don't be so sure!!!"


This I don't doubt but Mr Tabasco Inc., you have a new guy in town.....

Friday 15 February 2008

"Torn" by Johan Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia

"Torn" is a rather fab (in my view) pop classic sung by Natalie Imbruglia. Very well produced.

A couple of years ago, I spotted a neat mime actor doing a brilliant parody. I now know his name to be Johan Lippowitz.


Kudos to Johan and Natalie for doing this:-

Thursday 14 February 2008

Raleigh Blogs Town Hall Live this Friday at 12:15 - video snacking

Twitter ye not......

Raleigh Blogs Town Hall Live, mync, wncn, nbc17

"On Friday, February 15 at 12:15 WNCN NBC 17 will host’s its first live stream video snacking event. Video snacking is known when media companies provide viewers with an online show during lunch time. NBC 17 first live stream video snacking meetup will focus on blogging in and about Raleigh.

Myself along with a few other station community bloggers will be hosting the event. We’re sending out press information and I’m asking all my Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill friends to tune in to watch and participate. This is a big deal to myself and for the station NBC17 to live stream an event with local bloggers and it’s my first project working here."


It's free, so come along and have a virtual pizza with Wayne Sutton and his crew....

CNN fires blogger for blogging - WTF

Thanks to a comment left by a blogger over at the JoVE blog, I came across some blogs about the subject matter.

CNN fired American Morning producer Chez Pazienza yesterday.

So what's the background ? At the moment, not much - this only happened yesterday after all. Whilst we only have Chez's side of the story, judging from the blogosphere, Chez got the heave for not seeking permission from CNN before posting blog entries.

So, "CURRENTLY out of a job" Chez err blogged about what happened. It will be interesting to read more from Chez about this and judging from the huge amount of comments received on that posting, he has a lot of support.

From what I can gather, Chez's blog is nothing to do with CNN and/or his (ex) job with them.

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Update - drip drip and drip.

Tuesday 12 February 2008

Mull of Kintrye - Paul McCartney and Wings

Fell in love with this when I was about nine.

"Several years later" - I get to see (and be able to upload) VIDEO...

TV version



or the official video




Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea
My desire is always to be here
Oh Mull of Kintyre

Far have I travelled and much have I seen
Dark distant mountains with valleys of green
Past painted deserts, the sun sets on fire
As he carries me home to the Mull of Kintyre

Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea
My desire is always to be here
Oh Mull of Kintyre

Sweep through the heather like deer in the glen
Carry me back to the days I knew then
Nights when we sang like a heavenly choir
Of the life and the times of the Mull of Kintyre

Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea
My desire is always to be here
Oh Mull of Kintyre

Smiles in the sunshine and tears in the rain
Still take me back where my mem'ries remain
Flickering embers grow higher and high'r
As they carry me back to the Mull of Kintyre

Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea
My desire is always to be here
Oh Mull of Kintyre

Mull of Kintyre...

Sunday 10 February 2008

20 minutes or so on why I am 4 Barack - by Larry Lessig (Clinton v's Obama)

The current US political candidates debate (Clinton, Obama etc.) is only a partial area of interest to me/us here in Scotland.

I did however find this recent Prof Lawrence Lessig blog post/vid about H Clinton "v" B Obama rather interesting.

Saturday 9 February 2008

silobreaker

What is silobreaker ??

Well, "Silobreaker is an online search service for news and current events that delivers meaning and relevance beyond traditional search and aggregation engines. Its relational analysis and explanatory graphics provide users with unparalleled contextual insight into the news stories of the day." read on

For a more detailed overview and informative demo from silobreaker's CEO, see this video:-



Source, the silobreaker blog of course.

I've only scratched the surface of silobreaker but this is a "MUST GO AND CHECK OUT" news search engine.

Hat-tip (again) to Alan Cann.

Friday 8 February 2008

"Wake up Now" by Bluestorm

"Wake up Now" by Bluestorm



This is one of my favoutire recordings from the 90's.

For some background blurb, a better quality and downloadable (free) version, click here.





(Such experiments do not always work).

(to embed an MP3, I am currently required to attach a picture/video. The visual stuff is a hastily prepared random medley).

Thursday 7 February 2008

A Berkeley PhD Student on Open Access

"I vow that this is the last article that I will publish to which the public cannot get access"



"About me

My name is danah boyd and I'm a PhD student in the School of Information at Berkeley and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. I currently live in Venice, CA. Buzzwords in my world include: identity, context, social network sites, youth culture, social media, performance, Friendster, MySpace, Facebook. I use this blog to express random thoughts about whatever i'm thinking about."

She has a blog called "apophenia". Here is a link to "Best Of Apophenia"

Check out her blog post from yesterday about Open Access.

Monday 4 February 2008

Vid Exp. 8.2



I've been trying to embed one of my bands tracks into a blog for a few months.

At least on Blogger, it's almost impossible to upload MP3's. Last night though, I found a way round this as per above.

The "video" is irrelevant but this was the way round the problem.

This is a compressed version that cut's off about 1/2 way through. At least I know how to do this and hopefully, the quality will improve as I continue to experiment.

Sunday 3 February 2008

International Philosophy (on the soccer field)



Germany vs. Greece

And here are their line-ups:

Germany:
1 LEIBNIZ, 2 I.KANT, 3 HEGEL, 4 SCHOPENHAUER, 5 SCHELLING, 6 BECKENBAUER, 7 JASPERS, 8 SCHLEGEL, 9 WITTGENSTEIN, 10 NIETZSCHE, 11 HEIDEGGER

Greece:
1 PLATO, 2 EPIKTET, 3 ARISTOTELE, 4 SOPHOKLES, 5 EMPEDOKLES VON ACRAGA, 6 PLOTIN, 7 EPIKUR, 8 HERAKLIT, 9 DERAKLIT, 10 SOKRATES, 11 ARKIMEDES

(From, Via)

Saturday 2 February 2008

JING Experiment



Details to follow. Simply want to see if this works first.

Friday 1 February 2008

Not the Nine O'Clock News - Soccer Hooligans



"Off with the goolies" according to the these researchers.

Have fond memories of this sketch from years ago.....

3 guys, one camera, 4 days make history






Now, I remember playing "dead man falling" as a child. These three graphic designers recently had a lot of fun over four days on a shoestring budget.

The real action starts at 2.50, but you must watch from the beginning.

Great comment from this reviewer:-

Think of how close they are to Spielberg’s opening scene for Saving Private Ryan (minus some of the HQ sound effects, acting and close ups). In perspective that was; “Filmed in Ireland, the Omaha Beach scene cost $11 million and involved up to 1,000 extras”



Admittedly, after learning that this is a BBC production, this was probably not a low budget production. That said, when you consider that this was made in 4 days by 3 people, using one camera and a green bedspread, I found this stunningly impressive.

Bigger picture.

I noted that the BBC's Richard Hammond appears during the introduction.

This footage was used for a recent BBC "Timeline" episode called "Bloody Ohama". The hour long episode can be watched here although you may require to install the BBC iPlayer.

"BBC Two

Timewatch
Bloody Omaha
Duration: 60 minutes

History series. Researchers and historians are still arguing about why Omaha Beach was the hardest beach to capture in the D-day landings. Presented by Richard Hammond."



Hat tip to blogger 'Stupid Evil Bastard' for posting this blog.