BOOKMARKS for 2012-07-27
- The Orb reimagine ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry: The Orb have produced a new version of the 1990 classic, featuring fresh vocals from the inimitable Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. The reworking replaces the analogue burble of old with acoustic guitars and languid dub-chamber percussion. The Upsetter contributes some freewheeling toasting, most of which sounds like a weatherman having a breakdown.
- AWAKENINGS: AN ANDROID DESIGN PROCESS: doubleTwist Alarm has been an overwhelmingly successful project. It has received universal acclaim, from Google executives to design publications and many Android and gadget websites. Yet, the first question on anyone’s lips was always the same: “Why an alarm clock? Why would you take a swing at something so trivial and small, something so elementary to any cellphone made since the 1980s?”
- Human urine causes high levels of caffeine in Pacific coastal waters: A new study from Portland State University has found elevated levels of caffeine at several sites in Pacific waters, off the coast of Oregon. The researchers speculate that, while wastewater treatment plants are effective at removing caffeine, sewer overflows are still flushing the contaminants out to sea. IS THAT EVEN NEWSWORTHY? COME TO THE SEWERS UNDER MY PLACE BEFORE WE HAVE A DEADLINE AND YOU COULD STAY AWAKE OFF ME FOR A MONTH
- Things You Didn't Know About the Internet (Deep Web): No comment. The Deep Web has always been a fascination and this just came at the right time for a good story brainstorming.
♪ MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE - Burn Like Brilliant Trash
One of the best underdog industrial rock tracks I've heard in a long time. Yes, they are THE Machines of Loving Grace off The Crow soundtrack and yes, they had tracks way better.
FREE DOWNLOAD: Haujobb - Let's Drop Bombs EP (bandcamp)
HAUJOBB just released their latest IDM/electro donationware EP Let's Drop Bombs on Bandcamp. Since their ascent with acclaimed albums like Solutions for a Small Planet or Vertical Theory, their comeback album last year, New World March, was an obvious letdown to oldschool fans - less hypnotic, less rhythmic, more mellow and downtempo and definitely out of sync with the grit-teeth emotional rollercoaster we so came to know. (Still, key tracks like Let's Drop Bombs, Dead Market or Membrane keep the album afloat.) EPs apparently come with better selections of tracks - similarly to the Nomenklatür remix on the previous release (Dead Market EP) -, this one comes with Crossfire (Amnistia Modification), an extended version of LDB and a Horrorist remix for Membrane - enough for a few listenings and quite worthy of support. ROCK!
REVIEW: burnt like brilliant trash (J. G. Barnes - Thieves)
Thieves is exemplary. And problematic. A cyberpunk short film focusing on an interrogation gone completely amok, it's both great for its writing/background story and how J.G. Barnes and his crew tries to deliver the best out of a $300 budget and a crew of amateurs. At the same time - its obvious shortcomings are needlessly emphasized by its promo campaign and its unintelligible intensity. Still, as I said, good writing. Verdict? 4/10.
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REVIEW: god's zoo gone punk (Ebbëto - Analog)
God twitches. Facial muscles and hand-eye coordination goes out the window. The first woman really was created from the first man. Behavioural conditioning probably inspired by Aphex Twin, a grin never completely primordial, nor balancing on the edge of cocaine-induced grit teeth mania. Sleeping. Perchance to dream. God might have been an intergalactic surgeon with faulty implants. If his hands went faulty, what of his brain? Welcome to Ebbëto's Analog, an arthouse experimental sci-fi short coming from Brazil. Verdict? 10/10.
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BOOKMARKS for 2012-07-18 (jones' addiction)
- The Top Thirteen Occult Detectives in Comics:See, Agnes was an occult detective. In service to the Queen and, really, anyone else with the right connections. It’s an honorable, if thankless, occupation. It’s also one of my favorite topics to read about. Luckily, there’s a great deal of crossover in comics. Let’s do up a list, shall we?
- Soviet synthesizer bridged occultism and electronic music: This isn't a new Dorkbot or Maker Faire oddity. It's a nearly forgotten Russian synthesizer designed by Evgeny Murzin in 1938. The synth was named after and dedicated to the Russian experimental composer and occultist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (1872–1915). The name might not mean much to you, but it illuminates a long running connection between electronic music and the occult.
- A TRIBUTE TO ZDZISLAW BEKSINSKI' CD: A tribute to one of the darkest painters of the 20th Century, released on the 2 year anniversary of his death in 2005. As his paintings were never titled, all tracks are unnamed as well. Special, exclusive, Dark Ambient tracks, inspired by the Polish artist from: Asmorod, Contemplatron, Desiderii Marginis, Gustaf Hildebrand, His Divine Grace, Hybryds, Inade, Job Karma, Kratong, Necrophorus, Svartsinn and Zenial.
- What may be the world’s first cybernetic hate crime unfolds in French McDonald’s: Steve Mann, the "father of wearable computing," has been physically assaulted while visiting a McDonalds in Paris, France. The Canadian university professor was at the restaurant with his family when three different McDonalds employees took exception to his "Digital Eye Glass" device and attempted to forcibly remove it from his head. Mann was then physically removed from the store by the employees, along with having his support documentation destroyed.
SFW SUPPORT THE CAUSE: black is not the new black, japanese sexpunk is the new black
Above, that's the work of controversional hentai artist and Urotsukidōji creator Toshio Maeda and this, this is planetdamage.com telling you to go support adult indie literary sexpunk zine FULL METAL ORGASM.
Sexpunk is the geometrical focus point in the triangle of cyberpunk futurismo, gonzo brainspit and adult filth. Carrier waves and viral vehicles are mostly Japanese (glowjob-infested Tron porn remakes do not even come close, although Bizarro literature does have a strong flavour in how current sexpunk really is) and most of the stuff I find in this scene come via Brent Millis, editor of the fanzine Full Metal Orgasm and writer of actually intriguing and great materials like BUKKAKE BRAWL (find more on him at junkdna.tumblr.com and also at amazon.com) and also an editor behind Kizuna, a a mixed-genre anthology of short fiction created to help orphans in the disaster-devastated areas of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima.
So, Brent has already launched his first issue of FMO and he's now campaigning for funds for the second issue - the IndieGoGo campaign site is here, at least go and read what he has to say about it before deciding to spill some well-earned new yens his way. ROCK!
SUPPORT THE CAUSE: LEVIATHAN FOR PRESIDENT!
My long-time friend Sylwia just gave me a heads up on a new Hitachi-related creative competition called Driven Creativity Competition and just by the description of it I could name at least two dozen regular readers who would go on an actual creative spree, so stay wired and heed the words of wisdom below.
Just before you would go work on your own submission, do spare a few minutes of your time and give a vote to Thery's Leviathan, the track above. Not that I would do an endorsement like this regularly, but Thery kicks some symphonic shredding ass, so spread/vote him up NOW! (vote here!)
Entry is free and the competition is for both pros and amateurs across Europe*.
Have your creative drive rewarded with a high-performance G-Technology storage system or €5,000 towards your next project.The categories of the competition are: Short Film, Animation, GoPro Active, Photography and Music.
*The G-Technology Driven Creativity Competition 2012 is only open to residents of United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Russia who are 18 years of age and older. Entry is free and you can enter only ONE submission in photography, film or music. Only work created in 2011 or 2012 is eligible. Entries close 24th September 2012, with the category winners announced on the g-technology.eu website.
BOOKMARKS for 2012-07-08
- Alan Moore hates films based on his comics so he's making his own: Moore is working on a new, indie short film series dubbed Show Pieces, and he's teamed up with photographer Mitch Jenkins to make it happen. Considering how vehemently he has opposed films based on his comics, it's definitely interesting to see him branching out into the medium.
- Gateway of the Mind: In 1983, a team of deeply pious scientists conducted a radical experiment in an undisclosed facility. The scientists had theorized that a human without access to any senses or ways to perceive stimuli would be able to perceive the presence of God.
- What Happened to Cyberpunk?: Cyberpunk, in the popular consciousness, conjures a glut of dissociated images: Blade Runner’s slummy urban landscape, hackers in sunglasses, Japanese cyborgs, grubby tech, digital intoxication, Keanu Reeves as Johnny Mnemonic. But it began as an insanely niche subculture within science fiction, one which articulated young writerly distaste for the historically utopian optimism of the medium and, in turn, provided an aesthetic reference point for burgeoning hacker culture, before metastasizing into a full-on cultural trend.
- Bike cross country in your basement with Google Streetview: Biking cross-country is a worthwhile pursuit, but then you’ll have to deal with terrible drivers, rain, bugs, and heat. [Jeff Adkins] over at lowendmac has a neat solution to exploring the country via bicycle without ever leaving the safety and air conditioning of your basement.
(Links sent by @sajtoshu and @honeymooncroon - dunno the source for the goggled monochrome crow lady of ROCK)
FRIDAY FILMS: Analog and Seed
Back in the business from the world's second hottest capital. Look grateful. I'm writing this post during the 2-hour time window when my brainmeat actually delivers production. What I have for you now is films - full-length and trailer-phase -, sent to me by readers of ROCK!
ANALOG tells the tale of a machine traveling in deep-space which has as a primary function the preservation of a living organism: a man. Strange events with biblical analogies begin to occur, disturbing the machine and making it rethink it’s priorities. (more on analog's vimeo page)
I wrote about Analog last March when its trailer was released on QuietEarth - now Ebbeto, mastermind behind Analog dropped me a mail and sent me the link to this wonderful monochrome monogatari - expect longer review when the brain is not overheated - YOU ROCK!
SEED (2012) Teaser Trailer from Tyson Wade Johnston on Vimeo.
Set in the year 2071, where technology has brought mankind to the brink of colonization on a planet named Gaia, one man takes on an isolated mission and discovers unearthly horrors that could bring an end to life on this planet. (more on seed's vimeo page)
This was one sent over by Jeremy Stanz - short's by the same Tyson Wade Johnston who did Exist last year. Looks intriguing and there's certainly a chance of any spacefaring colonizer meeting him/herself in any hostile environment, hope it doesn't come to that point. Or I hope it does! (Thx, Jeremy!)
TRAILER: RZA screenwrites, directs and fights through THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS
Ever dreamed about a real Wu-Tang infused martial arts flic? RZA's latest book The Tao of Wu and his samuraiity in the latest season of Californication somehow gave away the inclination and now it's finally here with a red band trailer - THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS featuring not just the Master RZA but also Russell Crowe, Jamie Chung, Lucy Liu, Dave Bautista and a lot more... dying to finally see this on screen! Synopsis goes like this: In feudal China, a blacksmith who makes weapons for a small village is put in the position where he must defend himself and his fellow villagers.
the damage diary: 2012 so far
Six months passed since the last retrospective post and I'm doing my best to avoid the red alert heatwaves of Hungarian summer in innumerable kinds of shadows both in- and outside the country borders - sort of an ideal time to claw up the brief list of 2012 so far. Includes Scoville attacks, more coffee, more pictures and lots about... frequencies.
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TRAILER: The Prototype
Nothing to do with the game. Nothing too interesting after Robocop and Universal Soldier, either. (Still, it'd be great to see the flaws and finesses of a man-machine interface.)
JAPAN: Ghost in the Shell goes live with Daedalus network surveillance system
Ghost in the Shell hit the screens 17 years ago and apart from showing much of the Mirrorshades tropes in a hip Japanese anime, it didn't have much of a novelty crash. Thermoptic camouflage, artificial limbs, neural interface links, network surveillance - we all had that from Bethke to Gibson, Shirley and Maddox. What was new, though - thanks much to the GitS manga, especially its second etape, Man-Machine Interface, hitting the gaijin crowd in 2003 - was the oceanic representation of the matrix and how it relates to a living, organic biomass of data.
Until I finish the post that I've been planning for some time about how the representation of the matrix evolved, here's the latest software the Japanese security industry threw at us: Daedalus (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet and Livenet Unified Security). Check out what Diginfo has to say on Daedalus/Nicter and if you're interested in the progress, check out how Nicter looked like back in 2010.
Daedalus renders attacks on networks visible in real time. The sphere in the center represents the Internet, and the circles moving around it represent networks under observation. The state of an attack is shown using 3D graphics, and can be viewed from any perspective. (more at diginfo.tv)
TRAILER: total recall (official trailer)
Remake or not, this babe is still a stunner. At least for those 150 seconds. (Thumbs up for Columbia: they won't touch the storyline one single bit so all we have to not worry about is the action sequences and the gritty future visuals. Which we have aplenty. (thx Riplakoidase for sending this my way!)
DATA VISUALIZATION: Pizza delivery goes TRON
How do you turn your pizza delivery bike into a TRON light cycle? Simple: slap a GPS tracker on the back, run your delivery routes, then add the light ribbons in later. Do that with enough bicycles, and you get the beautiful view of nighttime delivery routes featured here. (more at io9.com)
BOOKMARKS for 2012-06-27
- Google Scientists find Evidence of Machine Learning: A neural network created by connecting 16,000 computer processors appears to support biologists' theories on how the human brain identifies objects. Hint: It's all about the cats.
- Russia wants its own DARPA: RIA Novosti reports on Putin’s plan for the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects in the Defense Industry, a Russian equivalent to DARPA.
- How to Give People the Feeling of Deja Vu: You've probably experienced the sensation of déjà vu — that eerie sense that you get when you know you have seen or done something before, even if you couldn't have. It's the closest we can come to experiencing a real-life time loop.
DAILYKAWAII: steampunk kato ebay auction
Check out Kato's eBay auctions. Image was Hiroshima-strength when we saw it first, still is. (more here)
TRAILER: Dredd
The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One- a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge -- a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of "Slo-Mo" experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed.
During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture- a 200 story vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) and her ruthless clan. When they capture one of the clan's inner circle, Ma-Ma overtakes the compound's control center and wages a dirty, vicious war against the Judges that proves she will stop at nothing to protect her empire. With the body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson must confront the odds and engage in the relentless battle for their survival. (This came in from a variety of sources, first transmission by Riplakoidase and if you're interested - the opening music is La Roux's In For the Kill (Skream remix), unfortunately turning completely into dubstep and not d'n'b AS. IT. SHOULD.)
planetdamagedotcom: five years of glittery hydra timezero ROCK
今全部が始まります.
And so it begins.(First post of planetdamage.com, 2007 Jun 19)
Budapest DEATH HEAT melt my bike mid-route and force-choked my brainmeat, so it's a considerably harder task to write anything about how PDcom grew to be five years old. It did! (Realized this two days later, though. Sentient hypertextual sigil child is understandably frustrated now.)
Stats and posts after the break.
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BOOKMARKS for 2012-06-20
- ‘Attack The Block’s Joe Cornish Lands ‘Snow Crash’ At Paramount: Joe Cornish, who has been offered a ton of projects since his alien invasion breakthrough film Attack The Block, has been set to write and direct the Neal Stephenson novel Snow Crash.
- Meditate On Bass Weight: Why Sunn O))) Are A Dance Act: The mighty Sunn O))) returned to London this week for a scorching show at Koko. Angus Finlayson was there, and felt striking parallels with the physically overwhelming rituals of dance music and sound system culture.
- It Evolved Into Birds: Ten Science-Fictional Thinkers On the Past and Future of Cyberpunk: "Yesterday I asked myself about the fate of cyberpunk; for today, I put the question to ten science-fictional thinkers, including a coterie of the genre’s parents: What happened to cyberpunk?" Replies: William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, Charlie Stross, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Pat Cadigan, John Shirley, Douglas Rushkoff, Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Bethke, Jack Womack.
- John Carmack is making a virtual reality headset, $500 kits available soon, video interview inside: Part one shows the first glimpse of the duct-tape-and-belt prototype, covers the latency of the human brain, and how making “an 8 year old PC game is still demanding on consoles”.
WTF: Creepy Alien test footage with Bolaj Badejo
You may remember that the titular xenomorph in Ridley Scott's 1979 classic Alien was sometimes depicted by a man in a suit. Here's test footage of 6'10" Nigerian actor Bolaji Badejo practicing his extraterrestrial motions. Even with a mock-up of the xenomorph's head alone — and Badejo running around in his underwear — these reels remain unsettling. (via io9)
MUSIC VIDEO: In Strict Confidence - Morpheus (Hecq remix)
Remember Hungarian pop culture oddities like BugZ and 14sec? Director and subculture freak Tamas Mesmer has just released his new music video for the Hecq remix of In Strict Confidence's Morpheus and he's got Angelspit's Violence MV coming up soon (go check out his MV for Angelspit's Toxic Girl if you want some new-world-wtf cyberpunk, the uncensored edition!)