Cibo Matto – “Sugar Water”

Just remembered this music video directed by Michel Gondry, which relates to the Interactive DVD project we’re about to start in the second year. One video runs in reverse, the other moves forward – but the two stories still relate to each other, and the focus of the screens switches in the middle of the video. It’s a brilliant idea marvellously executed.

Actors Neeeded!

Volunteer Actors and Actresses aged 18 to 80 wanted for a forthcoming short film in the East Kent area.

Parts include both speaking and non speaking, as well as background extras. Brother and Sister actors (18-28) ideal for lead roles, but all will be considered.

The film is a conspiracy thriller.

Everyone that takes part will get a copy of the film and will be credited for taking part.

If interested or if you know anyone who might be please contact us with your details and a photo for further information.

cd.russell1@virgin.net

marcusroberts37@hotmail.com

Adam Curtis documentaries; a must see

Not sure how many of you saw the new documentary by Adam Curtis on BBC2, Sunday night The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams… but it was as stunning good as his previous work. The documentary continues next Sunday and the following Sunday.

Hopefully the documentary will be online somewhere soon but in the meantime to see some of Curtis’ previous work see archive.org for:

Century of the Self
and
The Power of Nightmares

Strongly recommend The Power of Nightmares.

g.tec launches ready-to-go brain computer interface kit

“We know what you’re thinking [1], how come no-one has made any of the various brain interface technologies out there into a commercial product? Well, your dream last night [2] took a step closer to becoming reality with the announcement of the “ready-to-go” g.BCIsys Brain-Computer interface kit by the German company g.tec. Out of the box, the BCIsys can play simple games and comes with a P300 spelling device which, with a little training, can read your thoughts and place single letters on a screen. Ok, so you’re not exactly going to want to throw away your QWERTY just yet, as the P300 can take as many as 20 “flashes” to correctly read the word that you’re thinking; nor should the weight conscious be concerned that Wii Sports will be moving back to the sofa just yet, as the only included game is Pong. Also, this system isn’t exactly what you’d call a commercial release (lets just say that g.tec’s distribution partners aren’t the “one click purchase” type). In fact, we can’t find any information about how much the kit costs, or even whether simpletons like us would be allowed to get their hands on one. Little steps, little steps.

1] No, we didn’t place one of the brain interface kits onto your head whilst you were sleeping: it’s just a turn of phrase …

[2] … honest!“

Click here for post
Click here for more information

Re-Imaging History

Here’s something covering what Marcus has mentioned on a few occasions recently – the manipulation of photographs through history. The first is an infamous example of the Soviet Union’s propaganda department under Stalin’s rule removing people from images, showing at least four people cut out of a picture, but there are plenty more examples. What’s especially interesting is the amount of work and detail the Soviet Union put into their photo manipulation, whereas some of the other examples, especially “Smudged Away“, are pretty awful examples of manipulation.

It also shows us that many people have few qualms when it comes to manipulating the truth in order to further dramatise events if it means more attention and greater draw/sales – but then again, that has to be obvious to anyone who has ever seen an image of a suspected paedophile in a newspaper. It never fails to amaze me that criminals have never had a good, high quality image of them ever taken in their life.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredphotos54/

Future of the London Underground

An interesting visualisation of the future of the London Underground.

Opensource software sources

Some sites to find opensource software:

OSX only
http://www.opensourcemac.org/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/
http://www.nothickmanuals.info/doku.php/opensourcemac

Windows only
http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
http://www.myopensource.org/

Cross platform
http://freshmeat.net/
http://sourceforge.net/
http://www.webi.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages

OpenOffice.org

 

About
To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format. OpenOffice.org is a free Office suite like Microsoft Office which has features to create documents such as: Text documents, spreadsheets, slide shows etc… Allowing users to be able to create those type of documents without having to pay for software.

Source Code
A page on the OpenOffice.org site allows the user to download the source code, as well as an add-on to OpenOffice.org it’s self for users to create add-ons. Click here for the page to get the files for the most stable version of OpenOffice.org.

Price
OpenOffice.org is a free download.

License
OpenOffice.org uses the LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License).

The product has the affect of rapid development to help create more of a community to help compete with the more dominate product i.e. Microsoft Office. OpenOffice.org is attempting to be an alternative to the expensive applications.

OSCar – The first open source car

The idea of the worlds first open source car was thought up by Markus Merz, he wanted a way to apply the Internet to the automobile industry in a really new and creative way. His idea was to get car designers to collaborate via the net, sharing and creating ideas to create an all new car. Connecting the creative input of millions of car enthusiasts to one global development web could lead to a superior product, the car for the new millennium, the vehicle the established car manufacturers had never managed to develop.

Markus launched the OSCar project by writing a manifesto that attempted to structure and define the basic goals and principles of the project. This vision described the OSCar project as a development process without boundaries and limitations. In a recent speech to shareholders, a high-level manager at DaimlerChrysler made a standing offer to support the OSCar project. Without mentioning OSCar or its founder directly, this DaimlerChrysler executive pointed out that his company would “support an open source car project in any way possible” (full article at http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~sjournal/articles_02/os_car_project.pdf)

Ideas could be posted in forums and discussed in chat rooms on a site set up specifically for OSCar. Contribution to this project is free, allowing everyone to access the site and share their ideas. 

 

Open Source DJ

http://ccmixter.org/

ccMixter community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.

Remixers If you’re into sampling, remixing and mash-ups grab the sample packs and a cappellas for download and you can upload your version back into ccMixter, for others to enjoy and re-sample. All legal.

Podcasters, directors and music lovers If you’re into music, browse this site to hear some of the great remixes people have built from sampling music on this site, all licensed for use under Creative Commons license.