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R. Crumb predicted Facebook over 40 years ago
05.02.2012
05:54 am
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The past says hello to the future.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.02.2012
05:54 am
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‘All Hail The Beat’: a short history of the Roland Tr-808
04.25.2012
06:46 pm
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Don’t you love it when those murky, endless swamps of internet spam throw up something that you really enjoy? I’m sure it’s all a co-incidence, as it’s unlikely that Google knows from the number of times I have typed the numbers “808” that I’m a bit obsessed with that machine, is it?

All Hail The Beat is a three minute film by author and journalist Nelson George that’s a great introduction to (and summary of) the history of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. It’s also a neat little follow up to the Bang The Box mix I posted earlier today, which features lots and lots (and lots and lots) of banging’ 808s.

Roland’s Tr-808 Rhythm Composer was first produced in 1980, and has gone on to become one of the most influential machines in modern music. Its sonorous booms and claps are heard everywhere from Afrika Bambaataa and Egyptian Lover to Beck, Lil Wayne, Aphex Twin, Missy Elliot, Talking Heads, Marvin Gaye, Rihanna and far beyond. It’s all over hip-hop, electro, R&B, house and techno, and is the basis of underground dance genres like crunk, booty bass and New Orleans bounce. Kanye West named an album after it and even Madonna can be heard warbling about the wildness of its drum sounds on her latest single (whose production, funnilly enough, featured no actual 808s.)

Nelson George, whose face you’ll recognise from many other music documentaries, here speaks to veterans like Arthur Baker and Juan Atkins about the machine. He sums All Hail The Beat, and the 808, up thusly:

The Roland TR-808 drum machine inspires musicians around the world, even though the device hasn’t been made since 1984 — and most of its avid users have never actually seen one.

Oh how I long to get a real one of these some day…
 

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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04.25.2012
06:46 pm
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Albert Hoffman took his first LSD trip 69 years ago today
04.16.2012
05:47 pm
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Sixty-nine years ago today, Albert Hoffman, the Swiss scientist who discovered LSD, took his first trip.

After some time, with my eyes closed, I began to enjoy this wonderful play of colors and forms, which it really was a pleasure to observe. Then I went to sleep and the next day I was fine. I felt quite fresh, like a newborn.

Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom. I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.” Albert Hoffman.

Connie Littlefield’s engaging documentary Hoffman’s Potion features interviews with many pioneering cosmonauts including Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Stanislav Grof and Ralph Metzner. It is a reminder that LSD is a compound that needs to be rescued from the dustbin of history and further researched.

Having had the good fortune of taking Sandoz pharmaceutical acid when it was still legal, I can testify to its deeply spiritual and life-changing properties. Truly a wonder drug that deserves to be respected not rejected.

I think that the possibility to have psychedelic experience is inborn. These psychedelics - very similar compounds are in our brain; of all the compounds which you find in the plant kingdom only the psychedelics are so closely related chemically to these brain factors, which we already have. We speak about the paradise of childhood. When I had this vision and beautiful experience as a child, this is no wonder, because we have these compounds already in our brain.” Albert Hoffman

Take the trip:
 

 
Thank you Mirgun

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.16.2012
05:47 pm
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‘Circuit Earth’: Rarely seen documentary with Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders and Alan Watts
04.14.2012
04:27 pm
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Filmed in Philadelphia during the first Earth Day in April of 1970, Circuit Earth is a fascinating glimpse at the roots of the ecology movement and a sad reminder of how little things have changed when it comes to humanity’s relationship to our planet in the 42 years since the film was made. The environmental crisis continues and is getting worse as we continue to not learn from our mistakes.

Circuit Earth The idea behind “Circuit Earth” was to draw connections between concern for the environment and spiritual impoverishment manifested by war, overpopulation, mindless consumption, and drug addiction. This “underground” documentary raised issues that are now in the mainstream, including the impact of warfare, climate change, and population growth on the environment. It focused on concerns that are as true today as they were then, such as the dependence on fossil fuels, which is at the core of the energy debate today. Circuit Earth anticipated the need for a holistic and global approach to the environment that requires an informed citizenry as well as knowledge-based political leadership. This film underscores the global nature of technology and the environment, and the complex interaction of natural and human systems.

Featuring Allen Ginsberg, Sen. Ed Muskie, the Broadway cast of Hair, Jerry Rubin, Alan Watts, Redbone and Ed Sanders of the Fugs.

Circuit Earth was shown in 1971 and at a few conferences, but was never in distribution and has not been released on video.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.14.2012
04:27 pm
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Animals Inside Out: New exhibition featuring animals without skin
04.04.2012
04:32 pm
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From the folks who brought you Bodies: The Exhibition, comes a new grotesquely beautiful attraction called Animals Inside Out. It’s currently showing at the National History Museum of London with over 100 plasticized animal specimens.

What is plastination, you ask?

Plastination is a revolutionary method of preservation invented by Dr Gunther von Hagens in 1977. It involves extracting all water and fatty tissues from the specimen and replacing them with polymers in a vacuum. The plastination process stops the decay of dead bodies and prepares specimens for scientific and medical education. It is an odourless form of preservation and lasts a long time.

This gets a “yay” and “yuck” from me all at the same time.
 

 

 

 
Via Daily What

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.04.2012
04:32 pm
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Documentary about Alexander Shulgin: Stepfather of MDMA
03.28.2012
04:03 pm
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Étienne Sauret’s documentary Dirty Pictures is warm-hearted and appropriately shambolic look at the life of Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, the man who discovered the psychedelic effects of MDMA and a variety of other home-brewed synthetic compounds that alter, expand and raise consciousness.

A former Dow Chemical drug developer who early on saw the light (a mescaline trip), Shulgin moved on to independent research in the mid-1960s. With his wife Ann, he developed and tested hundreds of psychoactive drugs, mostly analogues of phenethylamines (which include MDMA and mescaline) and tryptamines like DMT and psilocibyn.

“I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability.” A. Shulgin.

Shulgin’s books PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) and TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved) combine autobiography and research into essential reading for anyone who is interested in the science and history of psychedelics and the life of a spiritual revolutionary who has fearlessly led the fight to wrest consciousness from the brain police.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.28.2012
04:03 pm
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Tesla coils playing ‘Sweet Home Alabama’
03.22.2012
05:57 pm
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Rock and roll electrotherapy.

From Open Culture:
 

You can create music with Tesla coils if you know how to modulate their “break rate” with MIDI data and a control unit. Case in point. Here we have two solid state musical Tesla coils, using a combined 24KW of power, to play a version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1974 classic “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Sweet Ohm Alabama.
 

 
Via Open Culture

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.22.2012
05:57 pm
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Clean Machine: The Bathmobile
03.20.2012
01:34 pm
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The original Bathmobile - a motorized bath tub constructed by 3 students in 1960.
 

 
With thanks to Tom Law
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.20.2012
01:34 pm
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Police use acne lights to get out of a spot of bother?
03.12.2012
06:04 pm
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Young troublesome teenagers may soon find themselves in a spot of bother, when Cardiff Police introduce pink beautician’s lights to disperse their unwanted presence. The “acne lights” will highlight any spots, boils, pimples, and blotches, which it is hoped will lead to much hilarity and so disperse the gangs. The police response comes after 18 ASBOs (Anti-Social Behavior Orders) were issued over the last 6 weeks. Acne lights have been previously used in Nottinghamshire. The Cardiff police are also considering other deterrents, including high-pitched mosquito alarms, and classical music.

I wonder what’s to stop these pesky kids from smashing the lights or nicking the speakers?
 

 
With thanks to Tom Law
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.12.2012
06:04 pm
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‘Camouflage’: The first ever real-time home computer generated pop video
03.11.2012
09:25 pm
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The world’s first computer generated pop promo? Possibly. “Camoulflage” was a single released by the late Chris Sievey (a.k.a Frank Sidebottom) in 1983, on his Random Records label. Sievey had started programing on his Sinclair ZX81 Home Computer, and included on the B-side of his single, the data (in audio format) for 3 programs to run on the Sinclair ZX81. All of the programs were written by Sievey himself, but most intrestingly, one of the programs was an animated video for the song “Camouflage”. Now, more than thirty years later, here is “the first ever real-time home computer generated pop video.”

For more details on the making of the promo, check soundhog09 notes here.
 

 
With thanks to Tom Law
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.11.2012
09:25 pm
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