4 Turntables and a Stratocaster Dragged Behind a Pickup Truck
Awesome Christian Marclay youtube video, thanks to the Walker blog.
One Phone Number Is All You Need
Grand Central is a new service that supplys one phone number in your area code that forwards calls to up to 3 devices for free.
Intro stolen from Loren Feldman.
Hairy Monsters
Tom Gauld is one of my favorite cartoonists. You might say he is a dark version of Gary Larson. His comics usually are about cavemen, robots, epic battles or space travel.
He has a new short book, Hunter and Painter, out in North America on Buenaventura Press. Tom's website is cabanonpress.com.
Get Out the Soldering Iron
Here is a Podcast that really begs for a Videocast. Still it is a good listen. SXSW Keynote with Limor Fried and Phil Torrone covering open source, hacking and the DIY technology movement
Phil Torrone is a senior editor of Make Magazine. Limor Fried is the creator of a number of awesome gadgets, including the Wave Bubble (pictured above) which jams cell phones, wi-fi, gps, ect.., and the x0x0x (a really Roland 303 clone with MIDI).
You have heard of open source software, but these folks are evangelizing open source hardware.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Information Overload
If you think there is a lot of information on the internet now, we've barely started. The NY Times has an article on how little of the world's vast library collections have been digitized.
Are You In Need of a New Career?
Clown College comes to the internet.
This is on GodTube which I thought was a joke until I actually visited it. Unbelievable. Part 2 is here.
All of this was brought to my attention by my buddy Mike. You can visit him at thatswhatyouget.net
Jeff Wall at MOMA
MOMA's Jeff Wall exhibit has been written up in the NY Times here, and here, and also on Alec Soth's blog (multiple times). I have only seen one of his photographs in person but MOMA's website for the exhibition is a great example of how to display art on the internet.
Along with Alec Soth, Wall is what I call a highly posed photographer. He will work with his subject for long hours and even days before he will move on. Unlike Soth, Wall presents his work on a grand scale that would be fit for the large exhibition rooms of the Louvre. The size of these photos comes to life when they are lit from behind by fluorescent lights and mounted in modern stainless steel boxes.
The Walker Art Center owns one of his photos, Morning Cleaning, Mies Van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona (1999). I saw it in 2000 and it blew me away. The way it was presented really brought it to life.
Why Do We Hoard?
The NY Times examines personal storage in America.
When I was a kid my parents had 3 refrigerators, 1 huge top opening freezer chest, and 2 garages full of stuff. Ever since my brother and sister and I moved out our bedrooms have become storage rooms. One of our bedrooms is stacked to the ceiling with stuff. I'm not sure why they need all this since they don't even live in the house during the summer. They just cannot bring themselves to get rid of things.
In the late 60's early 70's parents use to sponsor filipino nurses who would come to this country to work for the Mayo Clinic. I remember one of them visiting our house and when she got a look at our freezer she asked, "Why do you hoard food?". We had no answer.
Maybe it was the cold war. We had enough food to last 6 months. Even if we lost power and had to throw out everything in the fridge and freezer there was always can goods, beer and soda.
Now as I look around my house I see that I am falling into their same traps. I have computers that haven't been used in 10 years, books that will never be read again, records that I don't have a turntable for, and cloths that I would never ever fit in again.
Some one help me! I have turned into my parents.
The Terrorist Artist
The Walker's Off Center Blog writes about artist Steve Kurtz who is mistaken as a terrorist. You've got to love the paranoia of the times we live in. The documentary is scary.
On May 11, Steve Kurtz phoned 911 to report his wife of 20 years was unresponsive. When paramedics came to his house, one of them noticed that Kurtz had laboratory equipment, which he used in his art exhibits. The paramedics reported this to police and the FBI sealed off his house.
Are We Winning the War? Not That War.
Dale Dougherty over at O'Reilly Radar asks the question, "Are We Winning The War On Spam?"
In my view it was lost a long time ago, and we fought the wrong enemy. We should be going after people with insecure Microsoft PCs. These are the computers running the botnets that flood our infrastructure with spam. Microsoft and its users should be held responsible.
Some of the people in the O'Reilly article want a new version of email or all new rules. This would be very expensive. I think ISPs should be able to shut down all clients who are spewing out spam.