Chassol live in Berlin (video)

Inspired by hearing Chassol on Gilles Peterson this week, I found this entertaining and soulful video.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Anil Seth's latest entry in his new blog NeuroBanter (convering all things on neuroscience and consciousness) referred me to the 2011 BBC documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace". This "tour de force" of a documentary, portrays the development of men's faith in machines, its entanglement with historico-political events over the past 100 years, and the recurring disappointment of this faith.

Part 1 deals with the financial sector, touching on the New Economy, Alan Greenspan, and Ayn Rand, among others.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace 1.

Part 2 presents the idea of nature as an ecological system that balances itself, the idea's effects on the world, and its rebuttal.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace 2.

Part 3 then explores the origins of the view that humans are machines controlled by genes.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace 3.

Yasiin Gaye - Amerigo Gazaway Mashup (via tsw)

Just in time, that is, shortly before the 30th anniversary of Marvin Gaye's untimely death, a guy called Amerigo Gazaway released the superb mash-up album Yasiin Gaye: The Departure (Side One), in which the genius of Marvin Gaye gets fused with the one of Mos Def a/k/a Yasiin Bey. It can not only be streamed but also downloaded!

Gershon Kingsley - Popcorn

Space and time lapse movies, 1977 and 2013

What "The Powers of Ten" were for space, this recent video by Philipp Dettmer is for time: a helpful visualization of how nothing is absolute and everything can only be grasped (if at all) in relation to something else. Isn't that the appropriate level of resolution for the upcoming end-of-year review?

For completeness and because of dead links, here's the original "Powers of Ten" (TM) from 1977:

Metaverse - tranquil immersion using Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift is the most advanced virtual-reality headset available. It offers stereoscopic (3D) viewing while tracking your head movements, thus facilitating immersion into the presented virtual realities. For that effect, people overcome their physical realities and "dive into" apparent or virtual ones.

There are plenty of videos where people (and their vestibular systems) are shocked by the realism of the presented content - most often a roller coaster ride.

However, there are less action-packed videos, impressively demonstrating the fusion of physical and virtual reality. For example by this guy, presenting and commenting his immersion into a 1984 Tetris block production office.

He also modeled his bedroom and demonstrates the switch between virtual and physical reality.

What's more, a company called eye mirror, produces devices that let you capture your videos in 360 degrees - using standard cameras. For presentation, you can either use their viewer (well worth checking out on their website) or present them on the Oculus Rift afterwards (via engadget and Felix).

The Metaverse is getting closer!

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Addendum 8.12.2013: Here's the link to the eye mirror kickstarter page.

Documentary: What is Cognitive Science?

Great and entertaining 80-minute documentary by students of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück, neatly summarizing the historical and conceptual foundations of Cognitive Science.

Featuring Achim Stephan (Philosophy of Mind and Cognition), Peter König (Neurobiopsychology), Peter Bosch (Linguistics), Oliver Vornberger (Computer Science), Sven Walter (Philosophy), Kai-Uwe Kühnberger (Artificial Intelligence), Thomas Gruber (Psychology), Joachim Hertzberg (Knowledge-based Systems), Gordon Pipa (Neuroinformatics), Nikola Kompa (Philosophy of Language), Gunther Heidemann (Computer Vision), Claus Rollinger (Artificial Intelligence)

Creature Comforts - Brazilian Lion/Puma

(Channel 4, 1989, by Nick Park; via ChrisK)

Baden Powell - Canto De Ossanha

Los Cerveceros de Quilmes (via Vince)

Check out this great documentary "Los Cerveceros de Quilmes - die Bierbrauer aus Quilmes" directed by Andreas Geipel (Spanish with German subtitles). In 31 minutes it beautifully captures the passion for football - and particularly the "fanatic football folklore" as celebrated by the fans of Quilmes in Argentina.

The sound of one hand clapping (Norman Palm - Easy)

Normal Palm's "Easy" gets to the heart of long-distance - and particularly intercontinental - relationships.

Some of his next live shows:
01-03-2012: Berlin, Germany, Schokoladen
21-05-2012: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Nova Festival
24-05-2012: Sāo Paolo, Brazil, Nova Festival
29-06-2012: Berlin, Germany, Magnet Club

Unline: Organize your inbox and simplify the internet

A little collection of tips or tools to master email and internet by organizing your inbox and simplifying your general internet usage:

• Leo Babauta on Simplify the Internet and his empty gmail hack


• Evernote Clearly, a chrome plugin to clean up your online reading


• Tech Therapy - Episode 102: Academics Struggle With Managing E-Mail (audio)

Slavoj Žižek on Ecology as a Religion

As provoking and radical as ever: Slovene philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek on Ecology in an excerpt from the pop-philosophical documentary Examined Life (2008). Following the movie's subtitle "philosophy is in the streets", Žižek's agitation takes place in the midst of a North American dump.

Highlights:

There is no nature: Nature is not a balanced totality which then we humans disturb - nature is a big series of unimaginable catastrophes [and] we profit from that. (3:45)

...

Ecology will slowly turn into the new opium of the masses [...] Ecology is more and more taking over this role of a conservative ideology. (5:11)

...

We need more alienation from our life world [...] we should become more artificial. (8:57)

...

To recreate--if not build--an aesthetic dimension in things like this, in trash itself - that's the true love of the world.
Because what is love? Love is not idealization. Every true lover knows that: If you really love a woman or a man, that you don't idealize him or her.
Love means that you accept a person with all its failures, stupidities, ugly points and nonetheless the person is absolute for you, everything that makes life worth living [...] You see perfection in imperfection itself - and that's how we should learn to love the world. True ecologists love all this [points to the pile of trash]. (9:37)

Criolo live in Berlin 2012 (via Ley)

Kleber Gomes a/k/a Criolo, rapper and soul singer from São Paulo has lots of great tracks but Subirusdoistiozin is certainly a highlight. Check out the video and, if you're in the area, his live gig on November 17, 2012, in Berlin (at Gretchen in Kreuzberg).

German Beer Worldwide

Hilarious historic ad for German beer traveling around the world (via Ley): Germany - Rio de Janeiro - New York City - Paris

The Streets of Berlin Speak Up

"Berlin spricht... für sich". Extremely well-done audio-visual rap remix streetart narrative Berlin tribute by East Cross Projects who already produced a similar videos over the past months and years.

Meta-mixtape: A Mix of Mixes on the Net

Here's a meta-mixtape: a compilation of my recommended music mixes on the internet:

• unfortunately only infrequently but guaranteed quality: ichi.one's Homecookin' mixes (NB: just released great mix #65 'Insomnia')
• a huge selection of diverse mixes with daily updates and good search options: samurai.fm
• hopefully with a higher release frequency during winter: Dirk Rumpff's Berlin-based Offtrack radio show.
• weekly classic now on BBC Radio 6 Music: Gilles Peterson - T.S.F.K.A.W.W. ("the show formerly known as Worldwide") show
• the traditional Soulsearching show by Michael Ruetten out of Frankfurt which appears about monthly and has been going on for years, almost decades.
• for an almost weekly dose of house and elecronica: compost black label sessions
• for less regularly released mixes by individuals and to round off the meta-mixtape: Dom Duchamp's great Adtrax series, covering a wide range of music styles, and Jazzanova's Alex Barck putting some of his diverse sets on Soundcloud.

Germany for Brazilians and Brazil for Germans

Looking at the great German-Brazilian exchange of comic artists which is beautifully documented on the Osmose blog of the organizing Goethe-Institut reveals that Germany through the eyes of a Brazilian comic artist means Bikes and Brazil in the perception of a German comic artist means Fruits.

All three Brazilian artists in Germany, Amaral in Hamburg, Paula Mastroberti in Berlin and João Montanaro in Munich chose Germans on bikes as a Leitmotif (for example, here, here and here) . Conversely, all three German artists in Brazil, Aisha Franz in Salvador, Birgit Weyhe in São Paulo and Mawil in Porto Alegre repeatedly get inspired by the fresh fruits of Brazil (for example here, here and here).

Kandel's Principles of Neural Science Fifth Edition

Boris just made me realize that - finally, finally, finally - Eric Kandel's bible of the neurosciences, the fifth edition of "Principles of Neural Science" will be published, soon.

After 8 years of the publication date counter and several grumpy posts I can put my mind and brain and soul at ease and "relax, eat, drink, be merry." (Lucas 12:19)

Mawil Goes Brazil

Wonderful comic artist Mawil recently left Berlin and is currently traveling Brazil. After some time in the north-east he seems to have a month-long residency at the Goethe Institut in Porto Alegre at the moment before attending for example the comic fair Gibicon in Curitiba at the end of the month.

His brilliant impressions and beautiful sketches can be found at http://blog.goethe.de/osmose/.

--- Update 13.10.12: The Osmose Blog is bigger than I thought and it includes sketches from 3 Brazilian comic artists in Germany and 3 German ones in Brazil. Hence, Mawil might not have visited Salvador (yet) and the drawing I uploaded was by Aisha Franz.