Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Old School B-Boying & Grandmaster Mele Mel

Just to continue some older posts:
On the one hand there have been some posts on B-Boying, such as the one on the crazy styles of Elsewhere or on a pop-locking competition in Paris.

On the other hand some Old-School discussion and media, such as the Newcleus video two months ago.

Furthermore, you know I am a fan of music (that sounds like) from the end of the 70s / beginning of the 80s, such as DJ Mehdi or Chromeo.

Now, there is this German guy who has a weird Old-School fan page, but who also has a mad collection of old HipHop videos, some of which he put up on youtube.
Among others Breakmachine with Streetdance (compare to DJ Mehdi's "I am somebody")

Another highlight is this interview with crazy "Muscle" Grandmaster Mele Mel, who, by the way, just started another embarrassing come back (two years ago Boris and I went to a rather disappointing concert by the Furious Five in Montreal-- ever since, I think they should retire...)

Monday, January 29, 2007

Television is Revolving -- Simplicity Sells

Just as the introduction of German Rap Music paralleled the one of its American predecessor (Die Fantastischen Vier ten years after the Sugarhill Gang), the online development of audio-visual media repeats the course of audio files:

First music files became easily downloadable, then podcasts revolutionized the radio in disposing it of the inappropriate dependence on a certain time of consumption, and allowing everybody (with internet access) to make their own broadcast.

Also due to increasing bandwidth, shortly after, the same has been happening with movies and TV broadcasts. In itself nothing new-- youtube, google video and myspace have been known for a while. Now, however, a crucial point has been reached: every single day there are breaking news on new IP.TV stations, apple launched apple TV, google bought youtube, and, whether the spreading videos on google TV are a hoax or not, google is--rather sooner than later--gonna hop on the internet TV train.

A propos: Watch brilliant David Pogue making a point for simplicity, and thus for apple, at the TED conference, provided by google video.


Saturday, January 27, 2007

Tags and Archive--Feel Free to Browse

I finally managed to tag all posts in a more or less exhaustive manner.
I am sorry if some RSS feed readers got confused (mine did).
Feel free to browse the archive via the tag column on the right (ordered by frequency)!

By the way, Mo just posted his interesting newest developments on his well-formed-data blog on tagging and tag dynamics.

Gilles Peterson Tourdates again & 4hero

T minus 5 till Gilles Peterson is coming to town (Feb 1st). He's gonna bring Ben Westbeech and he will celebrate the Brownswood Recordings inauguration party in Le Bus Palladium.
I will tell you next week about it, but nevertheless, readers don't miss his gigs in
Tokyo, April 5th (source: myspace) 20th and 21st (source: brownswoodrecordings) and in
Edinburgh, April 28th (source: brownswoodrecordings).

T minus 2, in turn, till 4hero will drop their long-awaited new album Play with the changes. After the nice podcast #4 on gillespetersonworldwide.com, as well as his great output in 2006, I even added Marc Mac, one half of 4hero, to the list of 'Musicians Worth Knowing'.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Brain, Language, Broca, Wernicke, and Norman Geschwind

One video synthesizing it all:
My area of interest-- Brain and Language
A perfect (but of course: simplified) version of the topic of my "mémoire"-- particular impairments in understanding sentences with a certain grammatical structure in English Broca's aphasics (presented by Norman Geschwind himself)
An explanation of the seminal discoveries by Paul Broca in Paris and by the German neurologist Karl Wernicke a couple of years later.
Put it all together in a seven minute video with the characteristic voice of a 70's documentary movie... Watch it!




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Plus: A very recent German video (3sat nano, 16.01.2007) on the general topic of brain and language, including ten seconds showing my former Berlin laboratory (the kid, Lucie, wearing a red glowing EEG cap).

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Moog (2004) Trailer -- Human-Computer Interface

How come that when you have to work you discover the most amazing things to distract you? Is it Murphy's Law? Is it cause your hormones are changed and things easily appear to be fascinating?
Anyways:
I stumbled upon the movie trailer of a documentary on the greatest synthesizer of all times, the Moog. The movie came out in 2004, and Dr. Robert Arthur Moog, the ingenious inventor of the Moog synthesizer unfortunately died a year after-- one more reason to watch the movie...
I especially enjoyed when Bob Moog in the trailer enthusiastically signifies the metaphysical human-computer interaction between the musician's mind and the moog circuit board: "not physical contact, not sumthin' like they have it under their arm... but" and the following gesture is just gorgeous. Check it out-- great guy, great synthesizer.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

iPhone Spoof (a link by ink)

Alright, gotta post that one cause it fits nicely with some of the last posts:
A spoof ad for the Apple iPhone. Great stuff!

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Addendum 17/01/2006: You can see that the iPhone hype is huge by simply looking at the number of spoofs. Here's a very sophisticated one: The iSmudginator that simulates the iPhone's wear and tear by fingerprints and scratches-- now with cleaning cloth component.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Exam Period and Science

Sorry, I am in exam period this week.
Nevertheless, I'll quickly upload this pearl I found on phdcomics.com a couple of months ago (I posted about it earlier).

Friday, January 12, 2007

Pinky & Brain Brain Song - Neuroanatomy

"Come, Pinky, we must prepare for tomorrow night"
"Gee, Brain, what are we doing tomorrow night?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky-- try to take over the world!"

Maybe some day I'll post a comment on the power of neuroscience plus an opinion on the impact of scientific results on society. Some day...

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Steve Jobs Macworld Keynote - Apple iPhone

I know it might look like product placement, but I enjoyed watching Steve Jobs's Macworld Keynote and the fun he had playing with the new iPhone. I am almost sure you will enjoy it, too.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

New Tickle Me Elmo (a link by Janna)

In case you need some good laugh for the new year (I sure do), go and get the brand new Tickle me Elmo. Its way of getting up reminded me of something I had seen some time ago: Therefore, I hypothesize that the new Tickle me Elmo is the Sony QRIO (originally SDR-4X) in disguise.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Welcome in Leopard Vista 2007 + Mac Spoof

A happy and fruitful new year to everybody.

Just some small thingy I stumbled upon:
Comparative advertisement PC vs. Mac
Very funny clips rubbing salt into PC's wounds.

I have always been a PC guy and I will have to buy a new laptop soon (i.e., in 2007). Therefore, I am looking forward to both Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard.

à propos: check out David Pogue's great NY Times videocast on this topic in which he reviews Vista and proves that it's not a simple OS X rip-off.

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Addendum 06 01 2007: Also check out the great Mac spoof spots by truenuff.com that make fun of the above mentioned Mac ads. I especially like this one dealing with the new black Macbook.
Plus there is another one by some other guys that's also pretty funny, all adding fuel to the PC-Mac rivalry. Maybe it's because now with Vista coming up they are approaching each other, and they have to claim their stakes.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Ideas on the Future of Media, Computing, and the Internet

During the last few days we've been discussing all the world and his brother with Philipp-- falling back a couple of times on issues like the future of media, computing, and the internet.
The major points we spotted are:
  1. Static computing doesn't have a future, as it only harms spinal columns. Therefore, devices have to be portable and dynamic with smart ways of controlling and feedback. The new Nintendo Wii seems to tackle the controller question. Something like portable retinal projection instead of static screens would take care of the visual feedback shortcoming.
  2. Vinyl--8-track/CD/MC/MD--MP3: the trend in music storage media is obvious: constant quality on storage media that are getting smaller and smaller. So what's smaller than a digitalized MP3 on--say--an SD memory card? - Only no personal memory needs at all, i.e. a central storage space via constant high-speed internet access with handy platforms to share music. The same holds true, of course, for audiovisual media...
  3. What's the future of print media like journals, newspapers, and books? How is the internet changing them? One possibility would be personalized newspapers to print at home, or, even better, to download on your ePaper. I am eagerly awaiting the introduction of digital paper that is lightweighted, doesn't need batteries, cares about your eyes, and would optimally even be flexible and robust. This invention would not only save the lives of billions of trees, but would also decrease the chaos on my desk... So I was happy to read about the $100 million grant for Plastic Logic, the company that seems to be on the right track. You can check out the promising videos on youtube: Video 1, Video 2. --In your face $80 inkjet cartridge...
Let's hope that either the Consumer Electronics Show CES or the Macworld next week will bring us closer to the future. After all we're already in 2007!