Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Hombre Sencillo

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A dog day afternoon in Melbourne...

What I'm curious about is the performance part of the piece. But it's pretty far from my neck of the woods, so I'll just have to rely on hearsay...

Bennett Miller’s Dachshund U.N. is both a large scale architectural installation and a performance work that examines the role of the United Nations as a risk management organisation.

A scale replica of a former U.N. office in Geneva, Switzerland, will be constructed by Miller in the Melbourne Museum plaza, where it will remain for the duration of the 2010 Next Wave Festival. Each Saturday afternoon, this structure will play host to a meeting of the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights, wherein all 47 of the national delegates are live dachshunds, or ‘sausage dogs’.

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@'NextWave'

Mona Says:

But as it is about a mere 10 km's from 'Exile' Towers, I shall check it out and bring you a first hand report!

Hank Jones RIP

The New York Times reports that jazz pianist Hank Jones died yesterday in the Bronx. He was 91.

Jones grew up outside Detroit with his two younger brothers, fellow future jazz greats Thad and Elvin. As the Times reports, in 1944, Jones moved to New York to play with singer/trumpeter Hot Lips Page. In the decades that followed, Jones worked with many great jazz figures, including Billy Eckstine, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Charlie Haden, and Charlie Parker. He served as Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist for several years, and was on staff at CBS from the late 50s to the mid-70s.

Jones posed in the famous 1958 photo "A Great Day in Harlem" and accompanied Marilyn Monroe when she infamously sang "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy in 1962.

@'Pitchfork' 

Far all coffee junkies out there...

Good news: it seems reports of the long-term benefits of coffee abuse are not overrated! (Although, when considering who funded the research, one could feel tempted by a healthy amount of skepticism...)

(Click to enlarge)

Although caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive drug worldwide, its potential beneficial effect for maintenance of proper brain functioning has only recently begun to be adequately appreciated. Substantial evidence from epidemiological studies and fundamental research in animal models suggests that caffeine may be protective against the cognitive decline seen in dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD). A special supplement to the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, "Therapeutic Opportunities for Caffeine in Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases," sheds new light on this topic and presents key findings. 

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@'ScienceBlogs'

'Impossible motion' trick wins Illusion Contest

A gravity-defying illusion has won the 2010 Best Illusion of the Year Contest, held yesterday in Naples, Florida.

The visual trick involves a 3D construction of four slopes that appear to extend downwards away from a common centre (see video). When wooden balls are placed on the slopes, however, they bizarrely roll upwards as if a magnet is pulling them.

But the "Impossible Motion" illusion, created by Kokichi Sugihara of the Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences in Kawasaki, Japan, is soon dispelled when it's viewed from a different perspective – each slope is actually sloping downwards towards a common centre.

We're fooled because we make the assumption that each supporting column of the object is vertical, and that the longest column in the centre is the highest. But in reality, the columns and slopes are angled to create the illusion.

@'New Scientist'

Double HA! (For Stacey!)

This was after a news report about a procedure to enhance the G-Spot. It cost $1200 per procedure and lasts 4-6 months. This was the response of the newscaster. Classic live comedy!!!

Happy Birthday Dennis Hopper!

HA!

Havana Cultura Remixed Podcast with Gilles Peterson

It was two years ago that Gilles visited Cuba for the first time on a reconnaissance mission to check out the new generation of Havana-based artists. Suitably impressed, he was back within the year for a 5-day session at the legendary Egrem Studios with Roberto Fonseca and his superb band. Revelling in his role as executive producer, it was a hot, sweaty, intense session but a fruitful one nonetheless.

We released those tracks on an album entitled 'Gilles Peterson presents Havana Cultura: New Cuba Sound', and with GP living as much in the electronic/dance scene as in the jazz world, the decision to commission remixes of these session tracks was an easy one. Consolidating the numerous parts was by no means as straightforward, nor indeed was settling on our preferred remixers to coax the spirit of the Egrem session into the club. In the end, we settled on a squad of big-hitting producers that we trusted to do justice to the original jams: the likes of Louie Vega, MJ Cole, 4hero, Carl Cox, Rainer Trüby, Gotan Project’s Philippe Cohen Solal, Seiji, Michel Cleis and Mocky. All veterans of the Worldwide underground and all equipped with the skills and experience to flip Havana Cultura onto a another level. And of course, in order to maximise the Cuban flavour, we cut DJ Wichy and Doble Filo loose on their favourites from the album, with awesome results.

CD02 in the Havana Cultura Remixed package boasts a bonus DJ mix courtesy of Gilles himself that neatly weaves together the disparate threads that make up a typical Peterson DJ set.

The tracks featured here are:

1. Roforofo Fight (Louie Vega Remix)
2. Chekere Son (Alex Patchwork Remix)
3. Rezando (Michel Cleis Remix)
4. La Revolucion del Cuerpo (Skinner's Owiney Sigoma Mix)
5. Afrodisia (Rainer Trueby Remix)
6. Lagrimas de Soledad (No Existen Palabras) (d'Wala Riddimix)
7. Think Twice (4hero Remix feat. Danay & Carina)

The album 'Gilles Peterson presents Havana Cultura: Remixed' is released on 7th June 2010 via Brownswood Recordings. Watch out for two very special 12"s too:

EP1 featuring:
Rezando (Michel Cleis Extended Remix)
Chekere Son (Seiji Rerub)
La Revolucion del Cuerpo (Skinner's Owiney Sigoma Mix)

EP2 featuring:
Roforofo Fight - The Louie Vega Mixes
Louie Vega's EOL Mix
Louie Vega Remix
Louie Vega Remix Instrumental
Bonus Beats

www.brownswoodrecordings.com
www.havana-cultura.com

Released by: Brownswood Recordings
Release/catalogue number: BWOOD053CD
Release date: Jun 7, 2010

  

"If anyone here is in marketing or advertising - kill yourself!"

Get well soon...

The Royal College of Psychiatrists is selling a brand new range of 'Get well soon' cards designed specifically for people who are unwell with mental ill health. These cards have been designed in collaboration with service users, carers, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. 

The cards come in two striking and colourful designs. Inside the greeting reads:

"Thinking of you at this time. Hope things improve soon."

Research shows that people who are unwell with mental problems receive far fewer cards or messages of support than people with physical health problems, but a College survey shows that 8 out 10 service users say that receiving a 'Get well' card would improve their recovery.

@'The Royal College of Psychiatrists'

The Pirate Bay Goes Down Following Legal Pressure

The Pirate Bay is suffering some temporary downtime as their bandwidth provider has stopped passing through traffic. A week ago, Hollywood got an injunction to effectively shut down the Pirate Bay by threatening its provider with huge fines. The Pirate Bay team is currently working on a solution.

A few days ago we exclusively revealed that several major Hollywood movie studios had obtained a preliminary injunction against CyberBunker operator CB3ROB Ltd. & Co. KG from the Regional Court of Hamburg.
The injunction, which was granted without an oral hearing, stated that CB3ROB and Managing Director Sven Olaf Kamphuis were now prohibited from connecting The Pirate Bay website and its servers to the Internet.
yesterday Kamphuis officially confirmed receiving the injunction and has decided to stop routing The Pirate Bay’s traffic until his lawyers have carefully read and reviewed the legal documents. This decision has resulted in downtime for the world’s largest BitTorrent site.
A Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak that they are not planning to wait for a decision from the Cyberbunker team, and that they’ve already set the backup process in motion which will bring the site back online. The Pirate Bay’s servers are untouched and getting the site up and running only requires the routing to go through another provider.
It may take several hours before this process has been completed and before all ISPs see the new AS-path. TorrentFreak was assured, however, that things will return to normal as soon as possible.
Ever since The Pirate Bay’s servers were raided back in 2006, the operators of the site have taken extreme measures to ensure that there are proper backup mechanisms in place and that the locations of the servers are well concealed. Where the servers are actually located remains a mystery.

The Pirate Bay / CyberBunker / MPA Injunction In Full

@'TorrentFreak' 
Also
The jurisdiction of the German courts over CB3ROB's servers is also questionable. Although Kamphuis's company is based in Berlin, it is very much linked to the Cyberbunker server operation which is actually based in the Netherlands. Although the Hamburg court can fine and try to imprison Kamphuis, it is likely the Bay is actually physically hosted in the Netherlands, out of the reach of any German judges if they decided to order servers be seized.
Even if the Dutch courts were willing to make such orders, any legal action involving the Cyberbunker set up would be complicated, mainly because the owner of the former NATO bunker in which the firm's servers are stored has declared the site an independent state not under Dutch jurisdiction, I think on the basis that the Netherlands never formally repatriated the site after it stopped being used by NATO.
Cyberbunker's owner Herman Johan Xennt says he is King of the site, while the aforementioned Kamphuis is listed as the 'country's' Minister Of Foreign Affairs & Telecommunications. While the independence of the site is a bit of a fantasy, it would mean any legal action against the server firm through the Dutch courts would touch on constitutional as well as copyright issues. And given Cyberbunker's staff-list-come-government also includes a Minister Of Warfare, it might be that any attempt to raid the server site could turn violent.
All of which is familiar territory for those who have been following the Bay story closely. In 2007, the then top team at the Bay looked into buying Sealand, the former military platform off the British coast of unclear constitutional status, with the idea of basing the piracy service there, putting it outside the jurisdiction of any courts.
@'CMU'

HA!

(Thanx HowardE!)

Smoking # 67 (Sonic Youth)

@'Animated Albums'