The day is upon us, it's Halloween. This is my first real Halloween in New York City (I used to live here, but didn't really do it up that Halloween). I had no idea what I was doing until last night; my friends Karen and Patrick have sold me on walking in the annual New York Halloween Parade. It's a crazy mess of tens of thousands of people, costumes, floats, music and this year, us! My fiance and some other friends are all meeting up in an hour, then we get in the lineup, and the parade starts at 7.
Decided to go as Andy Warhol. Stopped off at Ricky's, a local wig/costume chain, and got a white wig, some black hair spray, some white mascara (for my eyebrows), and some black horn-rimmed glasses. At lunch a bought a striped turtleneck, and now I think the costume is complete. I'm working on wandering around and stammering a running loop of "wow", "fabulous", and "Bianca Jagger" to archive full-Factory perfection.
We just had a costume party here, and surprise! I got first runner up. Ah yeah, a 75 buck gift certie for a local spa. Hello Anal Bleaching!
I'm gonna take a load of pics tonight, and possibly resurrect my flickr page and dump 'em all in there in a day or so. Hope you are all on your way to a memorable Halloween. If you feel like it, let me know what you chose to dress up as and what you have planned in the comments...
Every year around Halloween, there's a new story on the classic Wilhelm scream sound effect. "I'll just fill my pipe...Aiiiyeeeaa!" So began the career of one of the most-used sound effects in movie history. Since appearing in 1953's The Charge At Feather River - Wilhelm gets an arrow through the leg after delivering his line - it's been in nearly 200 movies and TV shows, including all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, and has long been something of an inside joke to sound editors.
The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language...
The reactable hardware is based on a translucent, round multi-touch surface. A camera situated beneath the table, continuously analyzes the surface, tracking the player's finger tips and the nature, position and orientation of physical objects that are distributed on its surface. These objects represent the components of a classic modular synthesizer, the players interact by moving these objects, changing their distance, orientation and the relation to each other. These actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. A projector, also from underneath the table, draws dynamic animations on its surface, providing a visual feedback of the state, the activity and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer.
Bjork is collaborating with the Reactable team onstage on her current Volta tour. Here are some more demos of this wonderful creation.
Japanese media artist Toshio Iwai has created this awesome little 16x16 box, the "Tenori-on" that is some kind of tech-toy cross breed of musical instrument, digital sequencer, and a lite-brite. I love this thing. Apparently its not really available yet, although the Yamaha UK site says it's available for £599.00, which amounts to about $1200.00. ...Which can blow me. When it is available though, for a non-crazy price I'ma gonna be gettin' me one.
Here it is in action:
Site note: I know for some reason comments are all screwed up and not showing, but I have the crack team here at Media Temple™ on it and we should have it fixed "soon to very soon". Or ..."later to very later."
A system for controlling your character in Second Life using only the thoughts of the user has been developed by the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory. The user wears an electrode-equipped head piece that transfers signals from the brain's motor cortex, to an EEG machine, then to the movements of the in-game avatar. Basically, you think about moving your character's arm, and it moves. No keyboard, no controllers.
This is some amazing, ground breaking stuff right here. William Gibson, in his visionary Neuromancer imagined a future when we interacted in a virtual world of information, a merging of the current internet and virtual reality space. The user uses a headband of "trodes" that did just what this new device does - transfer thought to virtual action.
A device like this was inevitable, and the implications on the near and far future are astounding. In the short term, beside the obvious game play possibilities, the physically impaired can operate computers and characters in an entirely new way, and it can also can be used for wheelchairs and thought-controlled interfaces at work and at home. In the far future, as I have thought since I first read Neuromancer that Gibson was right and his vision of cyberspace will come to pass.
Easily the funniest sketch from Saturday Night Live in a really long time. Sadly, I can't embed it here for you, but they are showing over at Gawker for your enjoyment.
Sitting in a bar on 8th avenue. The streets are so wet they shine. Drinking a glass of some red wine whose name I don't remember. Been a while since we had rain here in New York, almost a month. I always perk up when it rains - always have. That was a big complaint about living in Los Angeles - too much frigging sunshine. I'm fond of saying, "too much of anything is a bad thing". In L.A. That meant months of unending flat, hot, uninteresting sunshine. Now, I never know what to expect.
Of course the unexpected sucks ass as well sometimes. As it started to rain today, out looking for apartments, I got caught under grapefruit-sized vengeance drops of rain and was soaked in a couple minutes. Like, completely wet-rat soaked.
That was hours ago, and now the air smells fresh, the streets act like a black mirror for the neon, and my mood has improved mightily. Hope you are all happy and having a fine Thursday night... I'm off to go ride the subway then walk home under my umbrella.
One of my favorite parts about The Panic Channel's tour back in Jan/Feb was getting to hang with Dilana. She killed it on Dave's "Rockstar" show, and I am a big fan of her talent, really just a one-of-a-kind voice. She and Magni were always busting out with acoustic sing-a-longs in their dressing room, and after shows we'd all hang out, drink, sing, and generally make with the awesomeness. She's back in L.A. but tonight if you are in NYC, head over to SnitchBar and catch her show, she's on a 9pm.
"The 25-foot fiberglass representation of the jackal-headed god was taken down the river on the back of a cargo ship to Trafalgar Square, where it will stand for three days before moving to various locations around the capital.Anubis' arrival is part of an effort to promote an exhibition of the treasures taken from the tomb of the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun. The show, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," opens Nov. 15 at London's O2, previously known as the Millennium Dome."
And God bless 'em. One of my favorites, The Radiohead, gave the finger to EMI Records and decided not to resign their contract in favor of releasing their new album(s) "In Rainbows" online in a revolutionary way: listeners (users?) can opt for paying for the "discbox" with 2 LPs, CDs, artwork etc. for the equivalent of $80.00. Or, and get this, you can pay for the digital download (available October 11th) and pay WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT. That's right Interwebbers, pay what you FEEL you should, as low as 1 pence and a small credit processing fee. It's truly a new day for music purchasing models, and well done to Radiohead for having the wonky-eyed foresight to pave the way into the future. If that road along the way gives a fat middle finger to the retards of the record industry, well then all the better.
Points off though, for building the shopping cart in English pounds only, and just giving users an online currency converter to do the work themselves to make it work in dollars, etc.. Come on, you do that for me, millionaires.
