AND ... TUBULAR BELLS - Great end to the week as today I watched Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells being performed by two Australian Musicians Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts. Along with 22 musical instruments these two Australians performed the entirety of the 1973 prog rock classic live - it's 20+ years since I last listened to this but I certainly never expected to see this complex instrumental work performed live but amazing watching them swapping instruments, swapping pedals and of course banging a set of tubular bells. One of the main things was simulating the sounds of the original instruments and central to this was their use of the Roland SH 201 pictured below. I only hope that they have been booked to tour this overseas so other can see this.
TWEET YOUR THESIS - I was also taken this week with the #tweetyourthesis hash tag on Twitter and rose to the challenge, along with many others, of condensing our theses (that sounds really wrong) into 124 characters mine went something like - C19th Pacific photographers primarly came to do something other than take photos - problems past analysis without context.
ICANN RELEASE NEW DOMAIN NAMES - This Read Write Web article on the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) nearly slipped by but is well worth the read given what happened in the heady early years of the release of the first run of domain names. This week ICANN opened up its new registry for generic Top Level Domains and ... it will have a profound affect on how people find and consume information on the Web. A top level domain is a core part of how the Internet organizes and parses the names of websites. The most common, of course, is .com, but other TLDs are .net, .org and country domains like .CO or .UK. ICANN's new gTLDs will allow companies, governments and other organizations to register unique strings. For instance, are we about to enter the era of .pepsi? However the $185,000 price tag might hold back the gold rush. See Article
FINGER PAINTING LANDSCAPES - What next - ahh I liked this guy who I think may be a New York artist but he produces the the equivalent of the wolf mountain/sunset stag landscape painting on glass - and in 3 minutes with his fingers rather than brushes - have a look at ow.ly/8rBcw
CODE ACADEMY - I also signed up for with the Code Academy who are offering a free online course to learn how to code for anyone who wants to do it. Really great idea - so sign up for free online lessons to learn programming code. sign up here
BLENDED LEARNING PILOT - The White Paper: Lessons Learned from a Blended Learning Pilot, which brings together online learning and traditional brick and mortar classrooms. This was written by Brian Greenberg, Leonard Medlock and Darri Stephens for educators, funders, policy makers, and the general public interested in how technology will transform schools. The paper focuses on the insights and lessons learned from the Khan Academy pilot in Oakland, CA.
UK NATIONAL ARCHIVE TO DIGITISE 165 YRS OF BRITISH TELECOM HISTORY - Coventry University in collaboration with British Telecom (BT) Heritage and The National Archive, have been awarded funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to catalogue, digitise and develop a searchable online archive of almost half a million photographs, images, documents and correspondence assembled by BT over 165 years. Examples of interesting documents in the archive include: details of the introduction of the telephone at Balmoral Castle, Buckingham Palace, and Windsor Castle in 1910-11; early videoconferencing and viewphones from 1960’s and the queen making the first automatic long distance telephone call from Bristol to Edinburgh in 1958. read more
3D HUMAN BODY AND 3D OPEN SOURCE VIEWER - Google Body was built by Google engineers in their “20% time” was retired along with Google Labs last year and now the software underlying Google Body has been made open source. Zygote Media Group, which provided the imagery for Google Body, has used this open source code to build Zygote Body (zygotebody.com). Zygote Body offers the same navigation, layering, and instant search as Google Body. Like Google Body, Zygote Body can be used in browsers that support WebGL, like Chrome and Firefox, without needing to install additional software. read more
PLAY OUTDOORS - this was a nice promotion from U.S. National Parks who offered free admission to their parks for the weekend this weekend!
SHACKLETON'S 100 YR OLD WHISKEY RECREATED - not sure why they did this but apparently Scottish Scientists with plenty of time on their hands have re-created Shackleton Hundred-Year-Old Whisky bit.ly/xFtc8V
BRAIN ROT - HIP HOP HISTORY IN A COMIC STRIP - fantastic first installment of the history of hip hop done in a comic strip family tree by Ed Piskor (part 1) read it
QR CODES ON CARDBOARD TO RAISE MONEY FOR CHARITY This nice idea was covered in an article by Paul Sawyer - QR codes on cardboard? Leeds-based creative agency Propaganda helped homeless charity Simon on the Streets this Christmas by launching a QR code campaign to help raise funds for those sleeping rough on the streets of Yorkshire in the UK. Rather than sending Christmas gifts to its clients, the agency laid out QR codes printed on cardboard and positioned them amongst blankets and belongings, to replicate the outdoor dwellings of homeless people. read article
TURNING A BRICK WALL INTO A WIND SCULPTURE - nice idea - The Randall Museum commissioned Charles Sowers to transform its brick facade using wind activated read article
TOP 100 GENEALOGY WEBSITES - fantastic resource from GenealogyInTime a list of the top 100 Most Popular Genealogy Websites. Link here
PRINT YOUR MINE CRAFT DESIGNS IN 3D - new Service from Mineways will print your Mine Craft designs as 3D sculptures using their 3D printers. see examples
MUSIC VIDEO PICK OF THE WEEK - WILCO MAVIS STAPLES & NICK LOWE - impromptu cover of "The Weight" in the dressing room. video here
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