Sunday, July 31, 2005

Temporary Mail Addresses

Did you know there are services to obtain a temporary email address? This could be useful for example when you want to register for something and need to receive an email in order to unlock the account, but you don't want to provide your real email address for whatever reason.

The service I usually use is mytrashmail. You don't have to sign up or something. Just specify an arbitrary XXX@mytrashmail.com and if an email gets in, the account is created. Then you just catch the mail on mytrashmail.com and after some hours the account gets deleted.

There are also some other services as mailexpire.com or spamhole.com but in my opinion mytrashmail.com is the best one.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Nate Harrison - TB-303

The original link to the nhkstudio website is working again, you can watch the documentary on the 'Amen Break' again.

Some of you probably checked out the other projects and installations of Nate Harrison already. Despite the fact that (almost) all of them are very interesting, I want to emphasize another one - his ingenious observation of the classical Roland Bass sequencer TB-303 along the timeline of music: Bassline Baseline, a twenty-something-minute Quicktime movie. At least as great as the 'Amen Break' story.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Nate Harrison - Amen Break

Nate Harrison, an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California, presents a gorgeous project documenting the career of 6 seconds of music, the infamous 'Amen Break'. In the 17-minute documentary (Quicktime movie), Nate Harrison argues that, how and why the drumloop (originally played by 'The Winstons') entered the "collective audio unconscious".

Along the (fascinating) road, the narrator discusses the topics of sampling, copyrights, and the evolution of different types of music.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005: Unfortunately, the link seems to be down (because of bandwidth reasons). You can also download the quicktime movie at this alternative yousendit link. Information on N. Harrison's projects can still be found at http://nkhstudio.com/.

Friday, July 22, 2005

M. Lyer and M. Bach

Today I finally mastered the Mueller-Lyer Illusion. It took me a couple of years, but now I don't fall for it anymore - and thus contradict the research on vision of decades.

If you want to become a pro on optical illusions, check out Michael Bach's website, the most comprehensive and most fun archive on these phenonema. Michael Bach is a professor from Freiburg, Germany, and he seems to be a fun(ky) guy.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Enki Bilal - Immortal (ad vitam)

A couple of days ago, I watched the movie Immortal (ad vitam). An apocalyptic SciFi flic, which was jointly produced by France, Italy and the UK in 2004, and didn't make a big fuzz when it came out. For understandable reasons.
The Internet Movie DataBase (imdb) has it that 'Immortal (ad vitam)' "[w]as one of several films around the world that were the first to use an entirely 'digital backlot' (i.e. the actors were all shot in front of blue- and green-screens with all the backgrounds added in post-production...)". The hook is, however, that it was a European production without the monstrous budget Hollywood productions (such as 'Sin City') usually have.
Although the (satisfactory) plot was based on the comics by Enki Bilal, who at the same time directed the movie, the particular style and mood of his comic designs couldn't be transferred.
I wonder how he could allow for such unstylish animations in his movie, in which human actors and actresses (e.g. the German actor Thomas Kretschmann as Nikopol) perform next to completely (but unsophisticatedly) animated characters.
The only solution I could imagine would be that either the budget wasn't big enough, or the technology not sufficiently advanced. He should've shot the movie in ten years.

Upshot: Check out Enki Bilal's comic work but rather wait for a remake of 'Immortal (ad vitam)' in 2015.

Monday, July 18, 2005

fi5e and max asare

The United States of America, East Coast and West Coast, New York City and Los Angeles, fi5e and max asare, a 27 year-old student and a 25 year-old architect. Together they present their extraordinary work on ni9e.com, combining technology and esthetics in theory and art.

Among their many fantastic projects, I'd like to mention two: the USPS spoofing project, and the 'Explicit Content Only' project, where they extracted all the dirty words outta the most famous LP by N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitude), 'Straight Outta Compton'.

Friday, July 15, 2005

This Week in Science Podcast

Mo, a buddy of mine, recommended a special Podcast, i.e. an acoustic broadcast (something like the future version of radio) which one can subscribe to and (automatically) download on a regular basis - usually as .mp3 file.

This certain podcast is based on a Californian radio show (at the University of California, Davis) called 'This Week In Science'. For 1 hour each week it deals with news in science and technology. Its sympathetic hosts are Kirsten Sanford and Justin Jackson.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Jake Dobkin is Bluejake

I'd like to introduce my favourite photoblog - run by Jacob "Bluejake" Dobkin, a "28 year-old amateur photographer living in New York City". Every day he uploads at least four pictures, mainly from NYC. At the moment he is travelling France, and some of his buddy photographers are helping out.
He also got the most brilliant shots of Christo's 'The Gates' project I am aware of. I'll pay tribute to his work by permanently linking Bluejake. It is worth a visit every single day.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Tatsuya Ishida's Sinfest

For some time now I've been reading Tatsuya Ishida's Sinfest (you gotta scroll down a little bit). The daily comic strips are stand-alone but in sequence they also yield little stories - about almost everything that matters in life: the good and the bad, God and the Devil, nookie (a word I learned there) and love. The cast: Slick, Monique, Criminy, Squigley, Seymour, Pooch&Parcival, God and the Devil, Ezekiel&Ariel, and The Dragon. My highlight of last month, June 2005.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Jason Koxvold's MyView

Bubble Squeak - His view of the world: "Tourist" Jason Koxvold, San Francisco, CA, USA, with his "travelogue of photography, video, and wistfully snide commentary". Georgeous impressions from Italy, Norway, Britain, Cuba, Thailand and Chicago.

Contribute My Mite.

Since I am already exchanging links and thoughts with buddies over the internet almost daily, I just decided that I could also contribute my mite in a more broadcasting manner.