So, I had bubble tea for the first time yesterday.
I got the straight up basic kind: Black tea with milk and sugar and little gummy tapioca balls. The straw is huge so you can suck up the little slimy balls. It was a very odd experience. I'm not quite sure I liked it. Though, I do want to try out some of the other options. Next up: Green tea with strawberry flavor and coconut balls!
So, last weekend was quite life-altering. To make a long story short, I am currently in the process of buying my dream house. It's in the woods, near my friends and family, right between Newark and Philadelphia, in a wonderful community, it has a hot tub, fireplaces, a roof deck, a patio, no grass to mow, hardwood floors (and ceilings!), it has plenty of room, a brand new kitchen, I will have my own studio space, and Team Techno will be together again! We are so very excited about it, but right now I am in the midst of a sea of paperwork, real estate agents, loan officers and lawyers. Wish me luck!
I just discovered two movies coming out soon that I am very excited about:
NAQOYQATSI (trailer) - The third movie in the powerful trilogy that also includes Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. Score by Phillip Glass.
Spirited Away (trailer) - A movie by Hayao Miyazaki, the man who brought Princess Mononoke into the world. Apparently, this is the all time highest grossing film ever in Japan.
Rushkoff muses on the increase in media coverage of kidnappings while kidnappings are actually down this year and have been going down for the last few years.
BBC News has put up a feature on sustainable development and the state of the world today: Disposable Planet? It's very nicely done, and loaded with images, graphs, and statistics.
Personalised 'brain music' helps sleep
A team at the University of Toronto has created music which matches a person's brain waves.When that particular piece of music is played, people's anxiety levels seem to fall, and they are able to relax and sleep.
To create the music, researchers study the specific rhythmic and tonal patterns which create a meditative condition in an individual.
Index magazine has put up their complete interview archives, including interviews with: Aphex Twin, Autechre, Bjork, DJ Spooky, fischerspooner, Brian Eno, Kool Keith, Naomi Klein, Mad Professor, Momus, Mum, Will Oldham, Prince Paul, Brian Wilson, and Howard Zinn. Plus a ton more. The interview with Aphex Twin is probably the most honest, down-to-earth interview with him I have ever read.
Here's another video of the new Sony robot. The way it moves is so creepy. It looks like it's doing martial arts. Which I guess makes sense, since it's all about balance.
Theo Jansen is an artist who creates wind-powered animal-like skeletal sculptures that walk. He calls them strandbeest. Amazing.
Apparently, he uses evolutionary design techniques in building these things.
FRONTLINE/World explores the impact of television on a remote Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas. After centuries of self-imposed isolation, Bhutan legalized TV in 1999 -- the last country in the world to do so.
A World Out of Touch With Itself: Where the Violence Comes From by Rabbi Michael Lerner (Editor, TIKKUN Magazine)
I was going to write something up on how I feel about the prospect of a war against Iraq, when I found these two articles:
Toppling Saddam Hussein: Troubling, Unanswered Questions
and
Praise be to the benevolent cold front! Relief at last!
Check it out. The Mall 2012.215 remixes compilation (which I have a track on) is on the CJSF radio charts, currently at #47! (Alongside artists such as Luke Vibert, Prefuse 73, Peace Orchestra, DJ Spooky, Marumari, Mum, and Merzbow.)
Much of my music is back online. So far I've put up everything from year 2000 on. I've also revamped the design a bit.
In an Ancient Game, Computing's Future
Programming other board games has been a relative snap. Even chess has succumbed to the power of the processor. Five years ago, a chess-playing computer called Deep Blue not only beat but thoroughly humbled Garry Kasparov, the world champion at the time. That is because chess, while highly complex, can be reduced to a matter of brute force computation.Go is different. Deceptively easy to learn, either for a computer or a human, it is a game of such depth and complexity that it can take years for a person to become a strong player. To date, no computer has been able to achieve a skill level beyond that of the casual player.
Sony Ericsson Campaign Uses Actors To Push Camera-Phone in Real Life
In a campaign set to start Thursday, the U.S. arm of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. will take "guerrilla" marketing to a new level. Its goal: to get consumers to pay attention to the new T68i, a mobile phone that can double as a digital camera.Beware the fake people.In one initiative, dubbed Fake Tourist, 60 trained actors and actresses will haunt tourist attractions such as the Empire State Building in New York and the Space Needle in Seattle. Working in teams of two or three and behaving as if they were actual tourists, the actors and actresses will ask unsuspecting passersby to take their pictures.