Jay Dee - Rest in Peace

The day before yesterday, on Feb 10, Jay Dee (a/k/a J Dilla, born James Yancey), one of the most brilliant HipHop producers unfortunately passed away because of kidney complications, three days after his 32nd birthday. He has created an exclusive style of beat making including ingeniously drawling drums. A couple of days ago he released his new album Donuts on Stones Throw Records. May he rest in peace.

(Okayplayer.com offers several possibilities of remembrance and 3030 radio has a tribute live stream of Jay Dee tracks)

56th Berlin International Film Festival - Block Party

Nice: yesterday the 56th Berlin International Film Festival (a/k/a Berlinale) started. Although I do know next to nothing about most of the freaky cineastic movies they'll show, there is one flic I really wanna see:
Dave Chappelle's Block Party directed by Michel Gondry.
Michel Gondry has been a director of music-related videos (Bjork, Massive Attack etc.), before he shot the cinema oeuvre Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, starring Jim Carrey and definitely located in upper regions of my "StillToWatch" Chart.
Anyways, the story is that David Chappelle threw (i.e. financed) the optimal party slash concert, since he had received big money for his TV show. The place and line-up was kept secret, and the tickets were free. It must've been a real happening since America's Finest performed: Common, Mos Def, The Roots, Jill Scott, Dead Prez, Kool G. Rap, just to name a few.
I am gonna watch it and tell you how it was.

MIT World Open Material Part II

There is even more great MIT material available online, which I forgot to mention in the last post: a lot of recent and high quality lecture streams can be found at http://mitworld.mit.edu/. Very fascinating: Nicolas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, introduces his ambitious "OneLaptopPerChild" project. More information on this idea can be found at: http://laptop.media.mit.edu/.

Stanford on iTunes

After thisweekinscience podcasts, the teaching company audio lectures, and MIT's open course ware program, Stanford University went iTunes: "University-related audio content", that is, loads of faculty and guest lectures (e.g. philosopher Dan Dennett on intelligent design), interviews, book reviews, discussions, and even music can be downloaded via iTunes. If you got too much time, or a long way to work...

FCB: FamiCom Band

Actually, I am not quite sure what's up with these guys, but as far as I can tell, they are friggin' funny. Since I cannot read Japanese, I don't know enough, but they seem to replay classic video games with live band and some weirdo actors. Check out their video section, and as some special recommendations: Punch-out and elevator action (at least this one I used to play back in the days).

Phone Prank Deluxe (a link by Steven)

Hilarious:
Y'all (should) know Bart's telephone pranks with Moe the bartender.
Two guys from London did a supersized version of these pranks at Heathrow and Gatwick airport, pretending to be chauffeurs looking for lost passengers. Wow - loads of time and energy for two minutes of laughter...

Dangerous Question

Wow. Time's flyin'...

Anyways: EDGE, a foundation to foster work at disciplinary borders, offers some sort of internet journal every couple of weeks. In the current issue it features a fascinating article: Dozens of interesting people (mainly scientists) were asked "What is your dangerous idea?". Very interesting ideas, e.g. about the self-awareness of the internet by Terry Sejnowski and many other mind-boogling thoughts by stunning characters. Check it out.