Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is a long awaited collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno.
Play the entire album using the above widget. Share the album by sharing the widget: click Embed/Share.
Debates on the internet tend towards flame wars; however, “if you can’t demonstrate that your opponent is trying to counter your argument by attacking you, you can’t demonstrate that he is resorting to ad hominem.”
“Those who are quick to squeal ‘ad hominem’ are often guilty of several other logical fallacies, including one of the worst of all: the fallacious belief that introducing an impressive-sounding Latin term somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument.”
A might be wrong, but B’s reply is not Ad Hominem:
- A: “All rodents are mammals, but a weasel isn’t a rodent, so it can’t be a mammal.”
- B: “You’re an asshole.”
Pirates of the Amazon Abandon Ship
Dutch students “release a Firefox extension that made it easy for people who were browsing books, music and movies on Amazon to download the same products free through the Pirate Bay, the illicit BitTorrent site.”
Amazon serves a take-down notice. Students comply.
Student defend their work as parody:
“[Amazon and the Pirate Bay] might look like opposites, but are actually quite similar in regards to the mainstream media content they provide. Our project demonstrated this practically. So it’s a parody of any kind of media consumerism, whether corporate or subcultural.”
The students weren’t hosting or providing pirated media. They were pointing the way. Will this eventually lead to world governments enacting legislation that limits certain types of linking on the net? Might it eventually be illegal for me or Google to link to the Pirate Bay?
Source: tnyt
– A sentence Michael Van Rooy, Aqua Books Writer in Residence, wrote this week while working on his third novel upstairs at 274 Garry.I drank the dead man’s scotch straight from the bottle.
An immortal jellyfish.
“The ability to reverse the life cycle is probably unique in the animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death.”
The inner workings of the LilyPond music notation system. You might have to be three-kinds-of-nerd* to get into this one. ;)
*Music, Typography, CompSci
A Process That Resonates
Processing is a free open-source programming language for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It was created with artists, designers and hobbyists in mind.
After seven years of alpha and beta testing version 1.0 of Processing was launched yesterday.
I first discovered Processing in late 2003 and started coding sketches in February of 2004. Since then I’ve logged countless hours geeking out with this wonderful tool. I published my early sketches online, but I think the last sketch I shared on StungEye was a crystal growth simulator back in October of 2007.
Lately when I want to do some experimental coding I pull out my Ruby Shoes, but I have started teaching some of my students how to write programs for their cellphones using the mobile version of Processing.
I also own an Arduino, the electronics-hacking version of Processing. Next week Andrew and I are going to use an Arduino to build a random number generator. Why? Well, for use as a consciousness field resonator to test the existents of the Noosphere, of course. :)
BTW, if you want to see what’s possible with Processing check out the work of Robert Hodgin or Glenn Marshall.
If you want to learn Processing you can get started by following the tutorials and the API reference. You can learn from and be inspired by other peoples code. I also recommend the book Learning Processing by Daniel Shiffman.
One Cuil, denoted by the Interrobang symbol (‽) is equal to One Level of Abstraction or Surreality away from the reality of a situation.
“1 Cuil: if you asked me for a hamburger, and I gave you a raccoon.”
“5 Cuils: You ask for a hamburger, I give you a hamburger. You raise it to your lips and take a bite. Your eye twitches involuntarily. Across the street a father of three falls down the stairs. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. I give you a hamburger. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. You cannot swallow. There are children at the top of the stairs. A pickle shifts uneasily under the bun. I give you a hamburger. You look at my face, and I am pleading with you. The children are crying now. You raise the hamburger to your lips, tears stream down your face as you take a bite. I give you a hamburger. You are on your knees. You plead with me to go across the street. I hear only children’s laughter. I give you a hamburger. You are screaming as you fall down the stairs. I am your child. You cannot see anything. You take a bite of the hamburger. The concrete rushes up to meet you. You awake with a start in your own bed. Your eye twitches involuntarily. I give you a hamburger. As you kill me, I do not make a sound. I give you a hamburger.”
“Why does all this copyright reform stuff matter, anyway? What’s at stake? Everything. […]
There’s a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture. […]
[I]f copying on the Internet were ended tomorrow, it would be the end of culture on the Internet too. “ -Cory Doctorow
— “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
— “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
Length of mix: 1:17:00
Available as 320 kbps MP3
On February 19th 1942 a fake Nazi invasion was staged in Winnipeg to rally support for the war effort and to promote the purchase of Victory bonds.
“In front of the Main library, all books relating to liberty, democracy, freedom […] were burned.
Reichmarks were given out as change, and were to replace the dollar. One group of Nazis burst into the cafeteria at Great-West Life. Employees were kicked out and some jailed, while the Nazis grabbed all the food.”
“Water fountains are becoming an endangered species on university campuses across Canada. That’s one of the findings of a national on-line survey, designed to document the commercial and corporate presence on Canadian campuses.”
“I believe that for people who love music, the desire to share it is innate and crucial for music itself. When we find a song we love, we beckon our friends over to the turntable, we loan them the CD, we turn up the car stereo, we put it on a mixtape. We do this because music makes us feel and we want someone else to feel it, too.”
Music Is Math — The hi-def version is recommended.
This video was generated by mathematically analyzing the music using the processing language.
Exit the Loop, but When?
There is a problem-solving strategy in computer science called recursion. It amounts to programming sets of instructions that are defined in terms of themselves (self-referential, meta).
Douglas Hofstadter’s academic pursuits centre on the connection between recursion and consciousness. Hofstadter maintains that our brains are recursive in nature, our consciousness born amongst the strange loops of our thoughts about thinking.
A recursive definition of recursion: “If you already know what recursion is, just remember the answer. Otherwise, find someone who is standing closer to Douglas Hofstadter than you are; then ask him or her what recursion is.”
Linguist Noam Chomsky has theorized that there is no limit to the expressive nature of English (and other similarly structured languages) due to the recursive device of embedding sentences in sentences.
This is the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This post was inspired by a blog on beauty in computer science. My favourite recursively defined fractal is the Sierpiński triangle. I enjoy writing recursive algorithms.
Previously on Stung Eye: Recursion through definition.
Who Owns Ideas - Bill C61
The copyright amendment bill (C-61) tabled a few months ago “died on the table” when the 39th Canadian Parliament was dissolved prematurely for the upcoming election. Sadly, I’m sure it will be back in one form or another (especially if the Conservatives win a majority).
In the mean while, I’d encourage you to listen to the CBC Ideas episode entitled Who Owns Ideas. [podcast here]
Two New Wally Glutton Mixes
- You’re My Ghost - Indie-tude from 2007-2008ish
- Triangle Waves - Bass-Heavy Mini-Mix (with a dash of dirty)
You’re My Ghost
- Speck Mountain - Girl Out West
- Seachange - Glitterball
- Rilo Kiley - Asshole
- White Hinterland - Dreaming of the Plum Trees
- The Ginger Envelope - Drift
- Peter and the Wolf - Better Days
- Silje Nes - Dizzy Street
- Grey Reverend - The First Place
- Yelle - Tristess / Joie
- Constantines and Feist - Islands in the Stream
- John P. Strohm - Where is my Mind
- Birds Fled From Me - The Resisted
- Marco Polo - Nostalgia feat. Masta Ace
- The Black Ghosts - Tears from a Gun
- She & Him - Black Hole
- Cut Copy - Feel the Love
- New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour
- Reverie Sound Revue - Passes & Passports
- Kate Nash - Fluorescent Adolescent
Triangle Waves
- Atmosphere - Shoulda Know
- Judi Chicago - Chick Feel A
- Midfield General - Disco Sirens (MR GASPAR Remix)
- LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous (Soulwax Mix)
- Sebastine Tellier - Divine (Danger Mix)
- Mylo - Sweet Child of Mine
I’m not a pirate, I just grog a lot.
A global interest group dedicated to artificial life and evolutionary technology.
“As someone with a green thumb is skilled at gardening, someone with a grey thumb could be thought of as someone skilled with creating synthetic living processes.”
Also see:
- So you think you exist? - In defense of nolipsism.
- What Am I? - Virtual machines and the mind/body problem
- More…
Canadian Tories Continue to Cut Federal Arts Funding
Contributions cut this week by the conservative government:
- $300,000 cut from the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada, which archives and makes available for distribution film, television and musical recordings.
- $1.5 million cut from the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, which helps top up the budgets of independent films and triggers private investment.
- $2.5 million cut from the National Training Program in the Film and Video Sector.
Federal programs canceled this week by the conservative government:
- The ProMart program, an artists’ travel support fund. ($4.7 million)
- The Trade Routes program that supports film and music exports. ($9 million)
- The Stabilization Project and Capacity Building program, which provides financial and administrative support to art groups.
[source]
Tories cut funding for artists touring abroad. — CBC:
Ideology played a role in decision, spokesperson acknowledges.
Want a ‘culture of innovation’? Fund our artists. — Globe and Mail:
First we have Bill C-10, the bid to deny tax credits to what the Heritage Minister calls “indecent material.” Meanwhile, other art forms have been told they are insufficiently “mainstream” and their funding has been cut through the cancellation of Trade Routes and PromArt.
‘Left-wing’ writer denies applying for travel grant — Globe and Mail:
The cuts to arts programs hit on a favourite theme of the Tories - cutting spending that appears wasteful and elitist - to gain political advantage in some target markets.
Photos of my home town. Many of them were shot in HDR.
Best (and Worst) from the same photographer.
Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a two-volume theoretical work by the French authors Deleuze and Guattari. Its two volumes, published eight years apart, are Anti-Œdipus and A Thousand Plateaus.
Translators note from A Thousand Plateaus:
“This is a book that speaks of many things, of ticks and quilts and fuzzy sub- sets and noology and political economy. It is difficult to know how to approach it. What do you do with a book that dedicates an entire chapter to music and animal behavior—and then claims that it isn’t a chapter?”
Read them in PDF:
via wood s lot via Continental Philosophy.
An Inch of Rope
Stung Eye is born again. This is version 3, a lifestream.
This site is now continually (and automatically) generated as I interact with various web services.
- To share a link I tag it in my del.icio.us linkstream.
- To share a photo I tag it in my flickr photostream.
- To post a blog entry I use Tumblr.
- Comments are handled by Disqus which in turn provides a commentstream.
I feel so… aggregated.
The site runs on a custom platform that uses CodeIgniter and the Tumblr API. The code is based on a pre-release version of SweetCron. Currently the theme is a slightly tweaked version of the default Tumblr theme. This will change with time.
Various flavours of RSS feeds are available:
The version 2 Stung Eye Archives are still available. I have plans to integrate much of the old non-blog content (sounds, design, programs, words).
If you find any bugs, please let me know. Thank you kindly.