Culture Category Archive
Futures
I didn't want this to be the first post in a while but what the heck... I've been thinking a lot about the nature of time again recently. Especially the future. Gibson's quote, "The future is already here - it...
Revisiting an old curse
A supposed chinese curse goes "may you live in interesting times." First of all, we need to update this to "may you live in an interesting time and place," as surely there are always "interesting" things going on somewhere....
intense
I'm at a loss for words to describe this. Johnny Depp on promo tour in Japan is audience to ... well... this. Watch for the girls playing the synths. Incredible. Part 1 and Part 2 (Youtube disabled embedding) via Ado....
There's something in the air
Digitalism - Pogo It's been quite of a while since i could experience your brightness Now you've got a brighter smile and i think i'm going to like it Talking 'bout the better things, you know how to maximize...
Claire de lune
Clair de lune from musanim on Vimeo Gorgeous. More pieces here. From the Music Animation Machine, which isn't a machine at all. ;) This fits perfectly with a thought I had last week about time: how the past is...
We want your soul
We want your soul video by Adam Freeland Show us Your Habits, Your Facts, Your Fears Give us your address, your shoe size, your years your digits, your plans, your number, your eyes your skedule, your desktop, your details, your...
Kyoto Jazz Massive
Shuya Okino of Kyoto Jazz Massive is playing Montreal tomorrow night: Shuya Okino of Kyoto Jazz Massive fame as he embarks on a North American tour supporting his latest United Legends EP. This stop in montreal is going down at...
Pecha Kucha Night Montréal
James and I are putting on Pecha Kucha Night Montreal at the S.A.T. on June 14th. Doors open at 7:30 and attendance is free....
"It's all about taste"
New friend Patrick went on a fantastic tear about how fascinating Karl Lagerfeld is after I showed him The Sartorialist and we scrolled over his picture. The above video was a 2 minute promotional made to announce Lagerfeld's line...
Just a band
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' "thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries." (1:54 in)...
fluokids
fluokids, kinda interesting DJ crew in france, seems to be made up of some funloving kids. However, what I find the most interesting, is their awesome logo: Made by Arthur Röing, a swedish teenager. He says: Submission for graphic design...
Sartorialist
Found The Sartorialist a few months back (via Mike I think?) and am really *really* enjoying his candid snaps of pure style. As the two above are an example of. Let your environment inspire you. Jump into the flow....
No way
Tomorrow at 3pm I am meeting someone who was instrumental in introducing the Shibuya Kei style of music to North America in the 1990's. If it hadn't been for this, I would never have heard of Pizzicato 5 and my...
L'habit ne fait pas le moine
It's not the clothes, it's how you wear them. Not [WHAT]: [HOW][WHO][WHEN][WHERE] Style is: adapting to the context. Fashion is: making that adaptation. As every river has a source and ends in an estuary, every quality individual manifestation of style...
Esthetic urban decay by design
The view above is common in Tokyo: rough, old and weathered giant stone block walls. Images of ninja scrambling along them... er I digress. Walking back to Shibuya from Harajuku a few weeks back, I noticed this wall: Obviously,...
Surreal
New friend Verena is in Beijing this week and she posted this picture she took while driving my Tiananmen Square. I find the image of Mao mesmerizing. Not becase it's Mao (it means nothing to me for I have...
Bangla
If you ever need the Bangla keyboard mappings and some fonts for Mac OS X, Apple conveniently links to them. Be prepared though... It's like being there!!! ;) Oops, you'll need some fonts with that. Thank you come again. Why...
Tamago dance party
Bounce AND learn how to make tamago! arrigato TamJpn....
What's that movie?!
Help me out here... Mid 80's, I think the main actor was a WWF wrestler (first guess was Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, but IMDB doesn't list any movies for him). Something about aliens already here, controlling society on earth via...
ç”°ä¸ - quarter half - 1/4 1/2 - ricefield center
When I saw this, I thought "quarter half". In japanese, it reads ta-naka. It is a family name. (I actually have a friend who's family name is Tanaka.) The kanji characters mean: ç”° -> rice field ä¸ -> center, middle,...
Otaku?
Amazon taps into otaku culture. Or what's left of it anyways. from Metropolis (no permanent URI--"permalink". get a clue people!) Now that otaku are the new trendsetters, you’ll be sure to find what’s hot in Japanese subculture wherever they congregate....
Crunkin' fo' Jaysus
Someone at AP didn't do their research. Consider: Atlanta rappers take crunk to the pulpit "We represent harder than any other person," he said. "We are born-again, sanctified, delivered in Jesus' name. Some people have a problem with the way...
A consciousness
(get past the melodrama and the fact that it's an anime / "oh it's cheesy scifi" ;) Just as there are many parts needed to make a human a human there's a remarkable number of things needed to make an...
Vicious Interface
the above is a cheat sheet for the vi terminal-based text editor. it is evil in it's powerful complexity. amongst geek ideology wars, vi is often pitted again emacs. the emacs camp backronyms vi to mean "vicious interface" my...
When the money comes knocking, egotism answers.
Flickr patents "Interestingness". Media objects, such as images or soundtracks, may be ranked according to a new class of metrics known as "interestingness." These rankings may be based at least in part on the quantity of user-entered metadata concerning the...
The party's over...
Absolutely most see. "Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at ... all » school, the places oil centre stage as...
Everything part II
continuation of previous post They say there is opportunity in chaos. The chaos they speak of exists generally outside, and on the fringes of, "The System". Humanity, for better or worse, seeks always to order, structure, the chaos and...
Everything
(rambling alert!!!) Everything is a node. And every node can be, at once, part of many contexts, and can also, just by being, create many contexts. Every node has many properties. And contexts can add and modify properties of nodes....
Awww kick me in the lifestyle why dontcha
Crystal Method and LCD Soundsystem both produced 45 minute-ish tracks for Nike+; engineered specifically for jogging workouts, designed specifically for dumbasses like me. Ouan. Update Teh LCD Soundsystem track *sucks*. Oh and fuckyouverymuch, Apple "Fairplay". Update 2 Ok, ok,...
Well stated
Lucas Gonze puts into words what most iPod/iTunes users haven't quite become aware of yet: why you need more music from Wired -- The Day the Music Died: I thought at first I had misheard him. "... library of 90,000...
Create a culture of design
This is exactly what I hope to set up around me, for my eventual team, modulo all the emphasis on games/gaming: pasta and vinegar � Creating a culture of design research 1. Create a space that encourages design research: “the...
MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
Our basic research question is: How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before? Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated....
Aligmatically challenged
I just cursed someone AND invented a word all at once! Aligmatically challenged: someone who is incapable of lining stuff up. Makes me crazy. It's gotta flow dammit! I don't care how "rough outline" or "general idea" it is! hehehehe...
Breaking out of the Document
An email from Julian sent me into a whirl. If I wanted to publish scrapbook-like, and I mean really willy-nilly ad-hoc layouts... is it doable in web-standards today? I can build a CMS that takes care of navigation, blog-style, across...
Dance with me
This makes me love humanity. (New album from Nouvelle Vague. Yay! Music video is a scene from Goodard movie "Bande à part") Merci Karl!...
Citizendium
Very interesting: The Citizendium, a "citizens' compendium of everything," will be an experimental new wiki project that combines public participation with gentle expert guidance. It will begin life as a "progressive fork" of Wikipedia. But we expect it to take...
Speaking of shopping
This XMas video by Jer does a nice job of subtly and subconsciously communicating just how surreal consumer culture can be. Remember, only X shopping days till Christmas!...
Buy movies...
Ok here we go. Amazon just unveiled "Amazon Unbox", their movie and TV show purchasing & download store. Apple is rumored (damn near confirmed) to release their movie download service next week as well, however with fewer studios signed up...
Bingo
Ok Go do their crazy treadmill routine live on the MTV Video Music Awards. The first comment puts it... the way you could only expect i tto be put on the Internet... I believe that the narrowminded and obnoxious message...
"George Galloway Savages SKY NEWS"
(SKY is apparently the british equivalent of Fox News, both Rupert Murdoch properties. Rupert also owns MySpace now. Beware, the brainwash machine expanded by a couple million more brains... very narrow brains mind you... ;) Erasure of memory, loss...
So
Mike Pinkerton, developer of Camino, who now works for Google and doesn't seem so enthused about it all, says: So did you ever notice how most people nowadays start new thoughts or interrupt discussions with "so"? I wonder how that...
To save Bethune
EastSouthWestNorth: Extraordinary Chinese Sayings, 1840-1999 - Part 1: When the Chinese Communist leaders found out that Dr. Bethune was ill, they ordered a full-scale effort to save him. Zhou Enlai issued a secret order to the party underground in...
Here they go again
"Ok Go" just raised the bar......
Location Portals
Michael finally went and got himself a "this is not personal!" weblog where he will talk about something that is central to everything he hopes and dreams about (in a non personal way! hehe). If you're interested in location based,...
Noise in the background of my head
Here is a "signature of the music I listen to", analysis of my iTunes playlist, based on 60 most listened tracks. Take a peek. Generated by the sparse yet full operational "iTunes Signature Maker" by Jason Freeman. Nicely done. Warning:...
Wa-hunh?
The big electronics chain in Canada is British Columbia based "FutureShop", now a division of (american electronics chain) "Best Buy". The FutureShop website has a promo section up, announcing the arrival of the new Nintendo "Wii" system. Clicking on "order...
A Million Ways to surf the viral wave
Wow. Just a bit over a year ago I pointed to this homemade musicvideo by this band, "Ok go!", wherein they perform a quite complex choreographed dance routine in one take in a backyard. It went sort of viral at...
Other long tails I'd like to see
I would love to see stats on requested engravings on Apple iPods. Surely there are all kinds of "customizations" that are requested over and over and over... I'd also like to see how unique a request of "Defective by design"...
Random 90's memory
As the Wikipedia entry says, Tom Cochran's song "Life is a Highway" was huuuuge back in '91. It's a good song, really. I'm glad for Mr. Cochrane as it's getting success again, even though the "country music boy band Rascal...
Certifiable
Quick! Someone make a t-shirt for these people. It should say: "Non-conformity is the new conformity" or "zealotry is sexy again!" ("I'm with stupid"'s already been done.) Pride is such a terribly dangerous thing. And too often people confuse pride...
Musical Nokia
I'm poking around Nokia trying to decide between an N70 or N80, but that's not the point. I called up the Nokia main portal page, then moved my attention over to something else for a moment, and in so doing...
10 years on
I just came across this interview with Joi done in 1995. Reading it I am struck by a few things: - 10 years ago Joi was roughly my age. - He saw very very clearly what was going on, on...
Layered
Some reporterOriginally uploaded by Mezito.I see at least 4 layers of reality in this photo. How about you?(There are many more of course, but not directly portrayed, or even portrayable, at least not easily/cheaply, yet...)...
Don't do evil
Oops, seems in their fervor, the community has forgotten to define *what is evil*. Last year Google hired the bipartisan lobbying firm Podesta Mattoon, whose lobbyists include Daniel Mattoon, a Republican and longtime friend of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and...
Summing it up
My post on "it's not about you" the other day sparked a good thread of debate which culminated in Hugh staking some key points, and Karl responding very clearly and directly, and in my opinion, right on the money, so...
It's not about you
At least not the way you may be led to believe it is. With apologies to Stewart and Caterina, the whole Flickr team and all the folks involved in this "Web 2.0" stuff, who, for the most part, are truly...
Brandalism
from the excellent excellent Banksy "Wall and Piece" book: People abuse you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They...
David Suzuki
I've been meaning to write about David Suzuki for a long time, and haven't yet mainly because I have not done what I told myself I'd do first: actually get acquainted with "his stuff", knowing it would affect my life...
Orwell's "Notes on nationalism"
Don't have the time to expound on this seminal text more profoundly at the moment but wanted to point it out. First a salient quote: Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world...
Classic
I know you know how this feels. (thx Stevey. Everyone, go see Stevey, he blogs neat stuff! Like robot sharks with frikkin' lazers! And that guy who makes ski area maps!)...
Vhat ze heck ist zis?
I'm not sure what to make of this series of new Volkswagen GTI commercials: "de-pimping your auto." Part of me is laughing pretty hard, but another is cringing, especially at the racial/cultural stereotyping: ugly rigid "weirdo eccentric" german guy pulling...
"America's Online Censors"
Rebecca does an absolutely great job of summing up many of the issues and thoughts and results of the U.S. Congressional hearings held last week concerning U.S. technology companies and their roles in Internet censorship regimes around the world. We...
On the success of weblogs et al
The success of all these things such as weblogs, websyndication, etc, is directly attributable, I think, to one basic fact: weblogs are basic, rudimentary Content Management Systems. At risk of over-simplifying, I say that human intellect, human intelligence itself, in...
歲歲平安 Suìsuì píngãn
(Everlasting peace year after year) 恭喜发财 Kung hei fat choy to my chinese friends celebrating the new year; may it not be a dog. :) Sadly ironic, my sister's puppy somehow managed to asphyxiate itself with a plastic bag yesterday...
Accepting
"Have the courage to change what you cannot accept, the strength to accept what you cannot change, and the wisdom to know one from the other." I've long admired this proverb but it never quite sat well with me. I...
Obey
On a whim I poked around Flickr's obey, obeygiant and andrethegiant tag aggregators. Why I would do such a thing might be explained here. This evening it started with finding a Space Invader in the Flickr japan tag aggregator and...
"after building up a fan base on the internet"
Sheffield rock band the Arctic Monkeys have topped the UK singles charts with their debut track, after building up a fan base on the internet. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" trumped pop trio the Sugababes after...
Expression Under Repression
Rebecca and Ethan and a few other of the Global Voices Online team were WSIS in Tunisia this week and today gave a workshop presentation on "Expression Under Repression", despite technically having been canceled "by the authorities". Very exciting, awesome...
urban street w[e]ar
urban street w[e]ar: "Here's what they'll soon be wearing in the banlieues, les territoires abandonnés, of urban France. According to the manufacturers, the Sweat Anticon garment is "simple et élégant comme un sweat à capuche... Que vous soyez graffeur, moche,...
Human hands
In the process of clearing up a misunderstanding, Ethan points to a great article by one Justin Mason about cellphone repair stalls in the streets of India. Amongst other things, it speaks to how most people in a consumerist culture...
LibriVox
Friend Hugh started up a neat "sorta Project Gutenberg for audio books" called LibriVox. The project has gotten some good traction and attention - Hugh was invited to the recent Open Library launch shindig by Brewster Kahle - and he's...
BBC catalogue begins development
Biddulph and Hammersley are on the case. Screenshot 1 (Searching for "John Peel") and screenshot 2 ("John Peel's contributer page") I think I would have dropped everything to play on this project too. Sigh. ;) My favorite line in Biddulph's...
Googoomania
Some people... Walid Elias Kai, who has a doctorate in search engine marketing, and his wife Carol of Kalmar, Sweden, have named their son Oliver Google Kai...
1955, Glenn Gould remixes live, on piano
I came across an outtake track of Glenn Gould's historic 1955 Goldberg Variations recording session. On it you hear various studio chatter and joke cracking and mumbling and false starts and cursing. Near the end of the track, Gould springs...
My other new blahg!
Yahoo! SiteExplorer Michal: there's no escape. bopuc: .htaccess [1] robots.txt [2] Michal: sudo apachectl stop [3] bopuc: hehehe ACL [4] i don't want to stop talking, I want Them to stop listening ;) Michal: ha, yeah The popular misconception is...
Diabolical [PSP] marketing
Sony PSP advertising campaign in Malaysia. Clear bubble-wrap over the PSP's controlpad button icons (X, O, triangle, square). Diabolical for the following reasons:As everyone else is saying, who's never had fun popping bubble wrap? It is addictive. A marketers wetdream.Tactile...
Lord of War
Ok, first of all, it IS a Hollywood movie, which means it is replete and chock full of everything a Hollywood movie needs: clichés, one liners, understated deadpan melodrama; the works. Second, Nicholas Cage gives a great rendition of...