Freakin' Funny Dave Chappelle Clip

Check out Dave Chappelle's great persiflage on Tupac Shakur's postmortem hype.

Modern Times -- Digital Times

Every day, digital data can be stored on smaller and smaller media.
Some day, one will be able to carry around one's life in audiovisual data on a storage medium no larger than a stamp.

A friend of mine digitized an old VHS tape I had into 40 gigs of movie files. Now it fits on my mobile harddisk -- which is bigger and twice as heavy as the VHS tape... When exactly does future start?

Tatsuya Ishida is just brilliant...

Check out today's ingenious sinfest strip:

Putting Things Together II -- The Roots

As I wrote, I consider Gnarls Barkley's 'crazy' tune one of the hottest tracks of this summer.
On one of the most original blogs on the web, the news section of the Okayplayer website, they mentioned this live recording of the Roots performing 'crazy' feat. Cee-Lo. Which brings me to the thing I wanted to mention in the first place: The Roots are about to drop their new album next Tuesday.
Their/Questlove's level of sophistication can be guessed by looking at the last three album titles, all inspired by intricate topics in science:

1. Phrenology (2002): The idea in the 19th century that one can determine complex personality traits of a person by measuring the shape of his/her skull. The funny part about Phrenology is that although its stupidity has been recognized, recent neuroimaging techniques have induced a more modern version of Phrenology: During the 1990s many scientists prematurely ascribed brain functions to anatomical regions that showed red and yellow blobs of activity under certain experimental conditions (for aficionados: cf. Kosik KS (2003) Beyond phrenology, at last. NatureRevNeurosci).
2. Tipping point (2004): The term from sociology that "refers to that dramatic moment when something unique becomes common", which -- at a high level of abstraction -- has been and can be applied in many other fields (e.g., economics, psychology)
   
3. Game Theory (August 29, 2006): The scientific field in between mathematics and economics that tries to capture situations in which one or more players try to maximize their returns, often involving uncertainty ("whether I will like the new album?") and assuming rationality ("I will buy it anyways..."). Interestingly, game theoretical considerations have also been used in neuroscientific contexts.
   

Hence, it's up to you to interpret this sequence of titles, or to predict the next one for 2008. Is it going to be Paradigm Shift or Embodied Cognition? We'll see...

Most senseless post ever...

Today I found a 50 EUR bill on the floor in front of the trainstation. Nice, ey?!

Four Your Information

I just wanted to let you know that I now completely dipped into the world of the internet, and my personality is going to merge with the world wide web by using the following services:

1. del.icio.us -- save, classify/tag and share your bookmarks online. Perfect if you are working on several computers. Plus there is a nice Firefox extension for it
   
2. basecamp -- a web-based tool that lets you manage and track projects. There is a free version for a limited number of participants.
3. jajah.com -- web-activated telephony (in contrast to VoIP services like Skype), free calls (max. 1h/day) between existing telephone numbers that are both registered as jajah users.
   
4. google cal -- schedule your dates online and loose yet another great part of your privacy to google. Still a handy service with iCal compatibility and nice features, e.g. share your calendars with others. Here you can find the calendar notifier plugin for Firefox, and a German manual of how to install it (which is not too complicated, though). There also seems to be evidence that google is planning to add a ToDo feature to the calendar which would be a useful extension.
   

New Urban Music Blog

There is a nice music blog by a German guy called Matthias which covers topics in the NuJazz, Electro, Broken Beat sphere. There are nice reviews, tour dates, and other information.
The blog is called New Urban Music Blog, short NUMBlog, and it's so hi-quality that I will add it to my permalinks on the right side. The most recent post, for example, contains a link to the official download of Mark De Clive-Lowe's nice first album "Six Degrees".

Awesome Treadmill Choreography (a link by Chris)

It somehow felt like the amateur videos that can be found on the Chromeo website (cf. this post) when I watched this ingenious dance for a couple of treadmills and four weird guys. Especially the ice-skating-like movements are gorgeous...

Google Maps Flight Sim (a link by Fric)

Now that's a really cool application using google maps. It's an example of the Web2.0 trend of mashing-up, recycling, sampling, etc. - however you might call it.
As you might easily find out, the guy who is responsible for this is called Marc Caswell-Daniels, a British designer and developer.

By the way, the space bar let's you shoot at stuff...

Sleep 'n' Eat

In my eyes, the decision about whether sleeping or eating is the nicer activity is confounded by the fact that a bed is a much more likable object than a table.

But what about eating in bed?...

Worldwide Eurocentric

When you're reading this, you have been captured...

As long as this blog doesn't have 25.000 hits per day, I can use the service offered by ClustrMaps for free: Showing the geographical distribution of readers. As I already know from google analytics the few readers of this blog are mainly from Western Europe and Northern America, but some hits are also from more exotic countries, such as e.g. South Africa...

Let's wait and see.

Montréal and NYC Photoblog

I rediscovered a nice website (you always meet twice in life): a beautiful Montreal-based photoblog by a guy named Julien Romagnac. He does experiments with different types of technique and equipment and mainly focuses on urban environments or landscapes and cityscapes.
Most of the pictures are really gorgeous (some even a little bit tacky) and he knows how to capture very special moments. Check for example his "Independence day"-style photo of the Montreal olympic stadium or his series of the Daniel McAllister: number one and number two.

---

And through a link on this website I came to know this other photoblog called cornershots.com. A guy called Jimmie Yoo takes fancy long-time exposure pictures of corners and other urban realities in NYC -- using the not too bad Canon EOS 5D digital SLR cam.

Ask questions, demand answers... Loose Change

Boom...
Tonight after coming home from work, I faintly remembered having read about an internet documentary called "Loose Change". I just wanted to skip through it to get an idea... and it totally blew my mind.
I mean, I have read and heard about the theories behind 9/11. I've discussed them as well as the event itself for hours and hours. Nevertheless, this well-made documentary honestly adds some new dimensions.
I do know that there is an intrinsic level of suspiciousness one should have against (or for) conspiracy theories. However, this documentary is special. It has an unagitated and concise style, covering a lot of details in a very well-sourced way. Watch it.

Even if 99% of it might turn out to be purely coincidental...
Ask questions, demand answers.