Tuesday 30 October 2007

Tuesday 23 October 2007

MindHabits - Stress Relief Game

MindHabits - Stress Relief Game: We drew on research showing that certain people have attentional biases toward socially threatening information, so they automatically focus on any sign of rejection or criticism from others, which in turn perpetuates their sensitivity to rejection and heightened tendency to experience social stress.
Here's a friendly bit of mind-hacking for your self-amusement: "This patent pending technology is the result of a decade of research by scientists at McGill University, one of the world???s top medical research centers. The software ??? based on the emerging science of social intelligence ??? helps you practice the mind habit of focusing on positive social feedback, which in turn reduces stress levels"

Sunday 21 October 2007

A New Marriage of Brain and Computer

A New Marriage of Brain and Computer - Google Tech Talks September, 21 2007.

ABSTRACT: Brain and computer were wed mid-twentieth century by the McCulloch-Pitts model neuron and Hodgkin-Huxley equations for digital firing in biological neurons. Since then, brain neurons, synapses, firings and networks have been considered analogous to electronic switches, states and circuits in classical computers. But despite extraordinary advances and bold predictions, consciousness seems ever more elusive.

Friday 19 October 2007

Nuclear Smoke and Mirrors

Nuclear Smoke and Mirrors: "Harper, EAC’s Wayne Henuset and AECL’s mandarins won’t want the public to connect the dots too quickly. Harper’s minority government might not weather a heated controversy over Canada importing nuclear wastes while having a huge unsolved nuclear waste problem of its own ... If it became widely known there was a hidden agenda about an international nuclear waste dump in Canada, then all the hype about clean nuclear energy providing economic development might begin to fall on deaf ears. Besides, the ACR-1000 reactor is only a design on paper and hasn’t been reality tested. Without the $200 million granted to AECL from the Harper government for design work, adding to the $17 billion dollars of subsidies since 1952, there’d be no chance at all of this project ever seeing the light of day."
If you still think the AECL and OPG are all above board on what they're selling us for their Deep Geological Suppository, follow this link. Come to think of it, for example the Organic Cooled Reactor in Manitoba, the Candu Boiling Light Water Reactor in Quebec, the Slowpoke Energy System, the Candu-3, the Candu-9, and the Maple Reactor at Chalk River, has the AECL ever been right (or even profitable) about anything they've done?

Thursday 18 October 2007

YouTube - A Vision of Students Today

A Vision of Students Today: a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.
nobody wanted to believe "Why Johnny and Janey can't read (and why Mr/Mrs Smith can't teach", and even more didn't want to even read it, or hear about it. Now here's a video done by the kids themselves, not surprisingly, arriving at precisely the same point. Notice the absence of smiles, and the preponderance of anachronistic futilities like the $100 textbook.

Monday 15 October 2007

YouTube - To Hear Your Banjo Play

YouTube - To Hear Your Banjo Play
When you tell folks how, should the future ever discover what we sold out on them, they'd never forgive us, you get stares of disbelief. "What ever could you mean?" they say, unable to fathom a world without CD players and iPods.

"Infernal machines," John Philip Sousa called them. Prepackaged Pop for Now People, "The soundtrack of over-consumption," said Matthew Herbert.

Well, here's a glimpse of the last shadows of that earlier world, the 1947 Alan Lomax films out of the field recordings made before radio forever changed these voices. You can't tell me you would rather walk around with 'beans' in your ears.

Friday 12 October 2007

YouTube - Nublu

YouTube - Nublu 07 part1: A Nublu documentary movie in two parts. Butch Morris take on the Nublu Orchestra, the Nublu sound, scene and bands of 2007. Produced by Nublu records. Filmed and edited by me, Chantal Ughi. Butch Morris interview conducted by Chantal Ughi and Howard Monath.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F6WHaEj5FI&hl=en&fs=1]
I want a "I'm with Butch" T-Shirt. Sheer genius, he's taken an old useless industrial space and re-ignited the local musical culture into a roaring flame of creative energy. Absolutely brilliant.

NuBlu, Shibusa, Guelph getting $4million to study the social consequences of improvisational music ... there's somethin' happenin' here ...

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Marshall Allen Interview in Japan

Marshall Allen Interview in Japan/performance Video by SUN RA ARKESTRA Under Direction Of MARSHALL ALLENMarshall Allen Interview in Japan/performance
"What you can do best, Sun Ra says 'no, I don't want that' ... that's not in the spirit of the music, of the creation. That was kinda difficult for me to understand, that everything I know, I don't want to do that."

YouTube - Shibusa Shirazu Orchestra - LIVE DVD - in Hamburg

YouTube - Shibusa Shirazu Orchestra - LIVE DVD - in Hamburg
And now, for something, completely different.

This is just one show of many tucked into youtube -- where else would you put a band like Shibusa Shirazu? Make sure your seat is in an upright position and your table is securely fastened, then follow the thumbnails in the sidebar for more.

Status

Gary is wondering where all the Jameson's went. No, wait, he thinks maybe he remembers...

Tuesday 9 October 2007

Status

Gary is wondering where all the Jameson's went. No, wait, he thinks maybe he remembers...

Monday 8 October 2007

Zone Fighter feat. Godzilla (1973) - zoptrix

Vuze HD Network - Zone Fighter feat. Godzilla (1973)

To download the full version visit vuze.com
Gigan, Ghidora, Zone Figher (aka Ultraman aka Tilyan) and Godzilla -- peaceful family of aliens, pushed out by land developers, move in next door, just wanting to get along with us Earthlings, do their yardwork, take out the garbage, catch the game on Saturday ... but when those Evil Aliens track them down and get a gander at real estate values on their beautiful new 3rd-planet home ...