Sunday, 1 May 2011
Death Zone (Graphic)
The clip presented here is excerpted from 'Death Zone,' a chilling video collected and shared by members of the “kill team” of U.S. soldiers who murdered civilians in Afghanistan and mutilated the corpses. Shot through thermal imaging, the grainy footage shows two Afghans suspected of planting an IED being blown up by an airstrike. While the deaths may have resulted from a legitimate combat engagement, the video itself represents a clear violation of Army standards. Scenes of the attack have been edited into a 15-minute music video, complete with a rock soundtrack and a title card. This clip from the video picks up shortly before the airstrike begins, accompanied by the song “En Vie” by Apocalyptica, a cello rock band from Helsinki. The video ends with grisly still images of the casualties, followed by closing credits. It was passed from soldier to soldier on thumb drives and hard drives, the gruesome video filed alongside clips of TV shows, UFC fights and films such as Iron Man 2.
@'Rolling Stone'
Modcast #72: Toro y Moi
Apparently he made this in bed, just for you. Dude is smooth.
Hailing from South Carolina, Chazwick Bundick as he's known to his family, is a multi-instrumentalist and quite prolific musician. He's released a stack of EPs and two full-length albums. His debut long player, Causers of This came out early last year and he followed that up with the fantastic Underneath the Pine earlier this year.
We've been listening to his records on repeat and we're thrilled he's taken put together the Modcast this week. It's a mellow ride but one worth getting on.
He's about to head across Europe for a bunch of shows in May, all the details are over here.
Track-list:
A First Class Dub - King Tubby
Come Live With Me - Dorothy Ashby
Part Version 8 - Piero Piccioni
Pealed Tomato - Chorafas
It's Choade My Dear - Connan Mockasin
Mariangela e la Seduzione - Ennio Morricone
Show Me To The Window- Robert Lester Folsom
Chi Mi Cerchera - Enrico Simonetti with Goblin
Was It All In Vain - Bixio Frizzi Tempura
Rainbow Ride - Kathy McCord
O Sabia - Les Wanted
Clay Horses - Julian Lynch
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Handwriting Is a 21st-Century Skill
Is preserving and reviving cursive handwriting retro sentimentality or neo-Luddism? No, it's good teaching and good neuroscience. (I see this as one whose own notes would be the ultimate test of character recognition software.) The New York Times doesn't go far enough on this. The close connections between hand and brain, whether in music or in writing, have strong support in research, as summarized here:
The real challenge is developing 21st-century teaching methods for cursive. In her excellent Handwriting in America, Tamara Thornton showed how regimented 19th-century instruction could be. It could literally be a pain in the neck. Yet the growing paperwork empire desperately needed commonly recognizable documents. When I wrote the chapter on typewriter and computer keyboards in Our Own Devices, I found evidence that the real attraction of the earliest typewriters was not so much speed as uniformity in large organizations. Magazines, with dozens or hundreds of contributors, started to insist on typewritten copy by the 1890s to speed composition. That's why for decades there were so few typewriter fonts.
In the 19th century, handwriting was a fetish, excessively drilled in the schools. Now it's equally dismissed. We are truly "Immoderation Nation." Instead of dismissing cursive reflexively, administrators should take advantage of many innovative cursive programs (like this) that can bring the benefits of this skill to new (and older) generations.
Edward Tenner @'the Atlantic'
Neurologist Frank Wilson, author of The Hand: How its Use Shapes the Brain, Language and Human Culture, says, "Although the repetitive drills that accompany handwwriting lessons seem outdated, such physical instruction will help students to succeed. He says these activities stimulate brain activity, lead to increased language fluency, and aid in the development of important knowledge." He describes in detail the pivotal role of hand movements, in particular the development of thinking and language capacities, and in "developing deep feelings of confidence and interest in the world-all-together, the essential prerequistes for the emergence of the capable and caring individual."Handwriting has also been surprisingly relevant technologically. What has Steve Jobs always cited as a formative experience? A course in calligraphy at Reed College. Many of the most popular fonts for Mac and PC alike were created by designers with calligraphic training. Many people hate the soft keyboards of many smartphones and all tablets; using a stylus quickly and legibly can be the best alternative, especially when voice recording isn't possible.
The real challenge is developing 21st-century teaching methods for cursive. In her excellent Handwriting in America, Tamara Thornton showed how regimented 19th-century instruction could be. It could literally be a pain in the neck. Yet the growing paperwork empire desperately needed commonly recognizable documents. When I wrote the chapter on typewriter and computer keyboards in Our Own Devices, I found evidence that the real attraction of the earliest typewriters was not so much speed as uniformity in large organizations. Magazines, with dozens or hundreds of contributors, started to insist on typewritten copy by the 1890s to speed composition. That's why for decades there were so few typewriter fonts.
In the 19th century, handwriting was a fetish, excessively drilled in the schools. Now it's equally dismissed. We are truly "Immoderation Nation." Instead of dismissing cursive reflexively, administrators should take advantage of many innovative cursive programs (like this) that can bring the benefits of this skill to new (and older) generations.
Edward Tenner @'the Atlantic'
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