StreamMy online stream composed of my del.icio.us, vi.sualize.us, hypem, vimeo, twitter, github, scoop.it feeds
A Dangerous Method
This was a bit of a disappointment – A Dangerous Method is a Cronenberg movie after all, but i feel like he touched upon a interesting subject and instead of going deeper into it, he decided to make a partially …
All in the Mind: Are You Conscious?
All in the Mind is 10 years old, and produced a couple of retrospective podcasts on research and discoveries covered over the last 10 years. Here’s a great one: All in the Mind 10th Anniversary Special 2: Are You Conscious? …
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
I’ve been listening to Stuff to Blow Your Mind continuously while walking. Catching up on their old podcasts too. And there are so many of them! Recent favorites (MP3 links) If a tree falls in a forest, does it make …
Melancholia
Depressive people stay calm at the onsite of an approaching disaster because they already expect bad things to happen. This is what inspired Lars van Trier to write and direct Melancholia and is beautifully portrayed when at the end Justine …
DISPLACE (v 1.0)
I attended an experimental session inside DISPLACE (v 1.0), a Performative Sensory Environment developed by LabXmodal and the Concordia Sensoria Research Team (CONSERT) here at Concordia University in Montreal. In groups of six – sometimes together, sometimes alone, sometimes alone …
The line between life and not-life
Martin Hanczyc of the Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT) in Denmark, shows off protocells – simple chemical blobs that display life-like behavior – in his TED talk. The protocells move around, feed on energy, dance with each other, merge, …
This in Timeouts
Setting a timeout on a class method that relies on another class method, causes errors as the callback function loses the reference to this. The solution: hand on the initial this as parameter to the callback. { empty: function() { …
Martha Marcy May Marlene
I am back from the movies, and i am still puzzled and captivated by Martha Marcy May Marlene. Mostly due the ambiguous abrupt ending that leaves you on the edge of your seat. Amazing work by first time director Sean …
json_en/decode in PHP4
A fix to use json_encode() and json_decode() on servers only running PHP4 can be found and downloaded at Using json_encode() and json_decode() in PHP4.
SimpleDateFormat
Fri Oct 28 2011 > 20111028 DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat(“E MMM d yyyy”); Date day = df.parse(“Fri Oct 28 2011″); SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat(“yyyyMMdd”); String newFormat = format.format(day);
Sound falling off tapes …
On Radiolab’s new show on Loops William Basinski talks about the discovery and beauty of his Disintegration Loops.
Loveland by Charles Stankievech
Charles Stankievech LOVELAND (video still), 2009–2011 Video installation Soundtrack by Tim Hecker Yesterday I ran through the Quebec Triennial at the MAC in Montreal, and was pretty much only intrigued by this video installation by Charles Stankievech. You encounter a …
Standard Gerber Files
.GBL – Gerber Bottom Layer .GTL – Gerber Top Layer .GBS – Gerber Bottom Solder Resist .GTS – Gerber Top Solder Resist .GBO – Gerber Bottom Overlay .GTO – Gerber Top Overlay .GBP – Gerber Bottom Paste .GTP – Gerber …
@transform_reset 1
After frustrating for a while why my jitter.noise just doesn’t look proper when send to render on a videoplane, i finally stumbled over the solution: transform_reset! [jit.gl.videoplane z @transform_reset 1]
Crick on trained brains
Francis Crick talks about our (brain’s) ability to grasp and understand the idea of consciousness in The Astonishing Hypothesis – The Scientific Search for the Soul: “Our brains have evolved and developed so that we can deal fluently wit many …
On the multistability in consciousness
James Kent talks about his new Book Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason. On the multistability in consciousness: “The brain does not want to exist in multiple states at once, by nature it transitions from one state …
WP_MEMORY_LIMIT
If adding define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’256M’); in /wp-config.php doesn’t help, edit the limit in /wp-includes/default-constants.php instead: if ( !defined(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’) ) { if( is_multisite() ) { define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’); } else { define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’256M’); } } No more Fatal error: Allowed memory size of …
David Eagleman talks Incognito
On this Nature Podcast neuroscientist David Eagleman talks about his new book on the secret, subconscious, lives of the brain. About rethinking criminal behaviour and punishment and time as a construct of the mind.
The paradox of the observer in Bit-format
The observer is observing, and asking questions and making statements that must ultimately be expressed in discrete bits. John Archibald Wheeler: “What we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions. [...] All things physical …
path / thispatcher
How to output the file-path of your current Max/MSP file: [loadbang] | (path) | [thispatcher] | C:/Users/eva/…
Subaqueous Spring
A series of events celebrating the seasonal shift from darkness to light at the historic Bain St-Michel in Montreal. Florian Grond: Material Probes and Laura Emelianoff: Catalyst phase II – exploring the sonic space of water with melting ice, boiling …
NOVA – How Does The Brain Work?
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is everywhere (even on The Big Bang Theory) and usually very entertaining to watch. He presents the NOVA scienceNOW episode How Does The Brain Work?. The documentary focuses on perception and attention in relation to magic …
Audio Spatialization
I went to a few presentations at the Workshop on variable acoustics in large spaces for music at CIRMMT – Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, McGill University, Montreal – today and heard about highly equipped research/performance/recording …
Paul Root Wolpe: It’s time to question bio-engineering
Great overview by bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe on recent bio-engineering experiments, from hybrid pets to mice that grow human ears in his TED talk. The living eel brain inside the robot-car was actually already done in 2001!
Jane Eyre
Beautiful adaptation of Jane Eyre. There have been many before, but this one seems to get it just right. Grand and intimate, epic and sensitive, dreamy and realistic.
Limitless
Limitless (2011) takes an interesting idea and completely ruins it. It’s about a pill that amplifies your focus and attention capabilities to a max and gives you unlimited access to every possible memory. Which in combination makes you very clever …
Mesmerism and the Armonica
With the introduction of the ‘Baquet’, Mesmer’s treatment procedures became increasingly like theater: Mesmer would appear wearing a cloak decorated with alchemical symbols and then play the glass harmonica (an instrument that produced an eerie, ethereal sound). Large mirrors were …
Kevin Kelly: Invention and Discovery Are the Same
“To find something is the same as making it. To make something is the same as finding it. We tend to think that natural forms are discovered while artificial forms are invented, but when stripped to its essentials the path …
David Brooks: The social animal
Great TED talk by New York Times columnist David Brooks titled The Social Animal. He talks about how our society is based on reason, while our emotions are mostly smarter than our reasoning. How you should have a couple of …