Science - Unfortunate sex lives of bananas

I don't really have much to say about this asides from the fact that it's pretty damn interesting (source).
So forget about the tawdry sex lives of fictional characters from your favorite TV shows for a moment and click on the link to get the inside scoop on bananas or, alternatively, you could split. At any rate, there's no need to go ban... Enough banana jokes. : j
Click here to read a well written articles about bananas! It's a good read, hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Infographic -Logical fallacies

I don't remember where I found this, but this is where it is from.

I find it interesting how clever or trained people know how to use these to manipulate conversations, whilst others fall into these unwittingly and actually weaken their position in a discussion because of them, but only if the people they addressing have critical and analytical minds.

I name no name and point no fingers, but amongst a human history of examples, a current example of a place rife with logical fallacy (and repeatedly, though ineffectively called out for it) would be a certain vulpine TV network. ; j

(for an easier to read version, click here)

Art - Mengyu "Jenny" Chen

So this neat artist/photographer/designer/all-around-creative person is getting around the net...
Her name is Mengyu "Jenny" Chen. Her website is here.

I first saw her work over on laughingsquid, and she's been cropping up all over the place for the following gifs:

 Which are all neat, but there's a lot more cool stuff on her website.

She's apparently a part of a project to save the last Polaroid production plant to keep instant photography alive. So they made ads for magazines that are to be realized on card-stock imitating the look and feel of actual Polaroids, here's one below.

Or you could check out her illustrations:

Or her photography, or crafts etc.
Basically, check out her website, you might enjoy it!

By the way. New mail link is on the top left.
Feel free to ignore or use it as you see fit. : j

Photography - Simulator

I found this neat little app via IZ Reloaded (source).
It essentially lets one experiment with camera settings and see what happens.
I would have loved to have had this back when I was first learning to take pictures, and when, of course, I had to buy film and have it developed to do so.

 At any rate, it's fun to play with, and even more so if you aren't used to having control over your shots.

-----

In other news, the format of this blog is going to be changing soon.
Basically, I'm going to turn comments off and add a email link for those who absolutely want to get back to me.

Thanks for reading.
In conclusion, here is a picture of a sleeping kitty:

Video - When Jacob met Tyler Gregory's guitar

Jacob is eight years old, seeing-impaired, autistic, and seems to dig the midnight special.
I don't want to over-think it, I just want to enjoy the goodness of the moment...

The musician's name is Tyler Gregory, you can visit his website here.
(found on reddit)

Video - Ads of awesomeness

One or two people have asked me where I come up with the stuff I post, which was why I was going to post a list of some of the places where I hang out online (ie check daily). But going through my daily ritual of combing through my list of sites, I found two neat ads that I figured I would share with y'all immediately. So I reckon the link post will occur some time in the future.

In a regular sleepy town somewhere in Belgium, Turner decided to do the following:

via geeks are sexy


Check out Casey Neistat's(the creator) youtube channel, he has some other neat vids!

Video - Hip to Potter

Trends have always piqued my curiosity. Why does one story that has all the elements of another become a mainstream hit whilst the another, potentially superior (at least in my mind), does not?
Yes, marketing, circumstance, timing, etc.
There is a different cocktail of reasons in each case.
I have always been interested to observe how major trends come and go, perhaps because I exist on the fringe it's easier for me to do so... It's certainly easier to observe them as an outsider than to try and chase them and conform to them as an insider.
Here's a look at the lighter side of that phenomenon.



Link to the youtube channel of its makers: The Get Go UCB

Science - NSF vizualization challenge

I was originally going to make this a picture post, but then I found a neat video that encapsulates what this is about. So lets start with that. For best effect, full screen the video (click on the little icon that looks like a frame on the bottom right of the vid). 



So what is this about? Straight for their website:
"Some of science's most powerful statements are not made in words. From the diagrams of DaVinci to Rosalind Franklin's X-rays, visualization of research has a long and literally illustrious history. To illustrate is to enlighten.

How many people would have heard of fractal geometry or the double helix or solar flares if they had been described solely in words? In a world where science literacy is dismayingly rare, illustrations provide the most immediate and influential connection between scientists and other citizens, and the best hope for nurturing popular interest. Indeed, they are now a necessity for public understanding of research developments.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the journal Science created the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge to celebrate that grand tradition--and to encourage its continued growth. The spirit of the competition is to communicate science, engineering and technology for education and journalistic purposes."

Their homepage is here.
Archive of winning entries dating back to 2003 is here.
Well worth having a look if you don't feel like watching the video or if you want more.

Of course, the concept itself is awesome, but one of the many things I really like about these, is the way they demonstrate that aesthetic beauty can be found beyond the scope of what is commonly accepted as such. Science is undoubtedly one of the many ways an observer can achieve a different appreciation of the world around us.
Oh, and I also dig how alien some of these shots seem.

Here are some of my favorites in no particular order (clicking on the captions brings up a popup telling you more about what the picture is):

Autofluorescence of Tick Nymph on a Mammalian Host
Credit: Marna E. Ericson, University of Minnesota

The Synapse Revealed
Credit: Graham Johnson, Graham Johnson Medical Media

Back to the Future
Credit: Mario De Stefano, Antonia Auletta and Carla Langella; Second University of Naples

Zoom into the Human Bloodstream
Credit: Linda Nye and the Exploratorium Visualization Laboratory, The Exploratorium

Photography - Snapping some shots during a midnight flight through asphalt skies

Here's something a little different from my usual PGPG posts. Last night I went out for a leisurely midnight flight through the city.
I took some pictures- clichéed clichées perhaps.
After a bit of encouragement from Khnoum, I figured I'd post some of them. They're in the order they were taken, so if anyone cared or knew Paris well enough, they could track my loop through Paris.

(click on any pic to enlarge)

Side view of the Opera Garnier

The Seine looking like an impressionist painting thanks to the mist

Quai Conti, maybe...

Bizarre storefront on the boulevard St Germain (no, I'm not saying what shop it is. ;))

Place de la Concorde

Passerelle Solferino, thank you google maps.

Outside the Jardins des Tuileries

A lion in the night on mane street. ; p
Mane street is just off of place Charles de Gaulle.

Boulevard Pereire

Porte Maillot

2h15mins and 16kms later it was time to hit the sack.

Video - Apocalypse later, surf now

I love the idea and the feeling in this video.
The idea that things of global magnitude can occur and be almost irrelevant on a personal scale.



There is something grandly self absorbed in saying "Screw you" to the end of the world.
"I was surfing yesterday, I'll surf today, and tomorrow I die with a smile".

Keef70's youtube channel.

Art - Two galleries from retronauts

I wasn't quite sure how to categorize this post, and I eventually settled on calling it art.
I recently stumbled onto a site called retronaut, which features thematic retro photo galleries.
Lots of interesting stuff there.

Here are some samples (click on the titles to get the whole enchilada) from two galleries I thought y'all might enjoy.


Cartoons Vs. Old masters

~~--~~

Alternate history by Matthew Buchholz (fullsize to read the caption, it makes the image)

If you like Matthew Buchholz, check out his etsy shop in which you can see many more of his creations (he has a cute picture in his etsy profile).

Video - Math humor

So I was watching this I said to myself "Hold on! That's Manny from Black books!"
I checked, and indeed it was Bill Bailey playing a caveman. ; j

From Ape Lad's photostream

Video - Yakfilms youtube channel (Dance videos)

Boing boinger Dean Putney posted a yakfilm video a few days ago, and that got me started...
Yakfilms is a youtube channel featuring urban dancing.

In their own words:
"YAK FILMS is an international production team whose work with urban dance began with the legendary TURF FEINZ crew from Oakland, CA, innovators of the TURF dancing style. Today the name YAK is synonymous with a unique style of street-based documentation of the global dance movement."

I had a lot of fun watching these videos... I hope you will too!
PS Their top5 dance vids for 2011 (just click on the next button on the bottom to skip the commentary vid and get to the dancing) is very much worth checking out, really tempted to gush about each one! : j




Stripey shirt's alternations from slow to fast are are thing of beauty!

Art - Learning to love you more

I've recently come across this website called "Learning to love you more".
To best describe it, I'll cut paste from their intro:

"Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Yuri Ono designed and managed the web site."

The project took place from 2002 to 2009 so, unfortunately, it's too late for us to officially take part. It's still very interesting to see/hear/listen to what others did, and to observe how people from different backgrounds articulate a guiding directive in different or in similar ways... 
At any rate I hope you'll have as much fun exploring the website as I did.

Here are just some some of my favourites...

Assignment #32  
Draw a scene from a movie that made you cry:

"The final sequence in Requiem for a Dream that is entirely about devastation and degradation."
Natalie T.
Oakland, California USA

"From Fight Club, You met me at a very strange time in my life."
Chiara
GERMANY

Assignment #4
Start a lecture series.

In Touch a picnic lecture series on absorbing art through the skin

 

 "In Touch"
Ric Royer 

Assignment #42

List five events from 1984.

-Being in Los Angeles  for the Olympics but only seeing the torch.
-Being upset that Reagan won again.
-Hearing Punk Rock For the first time.
-Checking out Doonesbury Anthologies from the Fletcher Branch Library in Little Rock and photocopying the books at my mother's receptionist job.
-Cooking for my family the first time.

McCloud Zicmuse
Olympia, Washington USA

Assignment #63 Make an encouraging banner.

Julia J.
Charleston, South Carolina USA

In large friendly letters? (THGTTG FTW) ; j

Assignment #16 Make a paper replica of your bed

Anne Farrell
Perth, AUSTRALIA

And on that note I bid you all goodnight. : j

Photography - Three way photo safari Vol. III

For this edition of the safari a newcomer joined Khnoum (click here for Khnoum's blog) and me: meet Khnoum's friend Jürgen, who runs a photography business in Germany.
Our themes were Isolation, Magic, and Startling.
If you'd like, you're welcome to guess who took which shots. We each took one shot for each theme.


Isolation:

4 layers of isolation

...In the crowd

Downtown Paris 6pm

Startling:

Shh!!

Reach out and touch

Reaching 4 startling

 Magic:

Music shop magic

Praying for magic

Escher's haunted cat
(if you stare long enough, the ghost appears.. So try not to stare!)
PS it turns out the specter only appears if you enlarge the image and then stare at it. So you should all be safe! : j

Video - The adventures of Todd Bieber

I was reading through Boing Boing this morning when I happened upon a heartening video posted by Mark Frauenfelder (a boingboing regular)... It was about a seditious NYC criminal named Todd Bieber who defied the law and created beauty where naught but waste and refuse had lain.

Ok, perhaps that's over-dramatising a bit, he is a filmmaker and humanity adventurer who planted flowers and vegetables...

Here's the skinny on that tale (which happens to tangentially tie-into my next post):
Part 1


Part 2



This story made me smile and set out to do my research (aka poke around the net) before posting about it... And discovered that it wasn't Todd's first adventure of this sort!

If you're like me and you missed the tale of the lost film that came to an end in March, watch the saga unfold through these 3 videos:

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Good stuff! Right up there with shipping bobcats instead of chairs on ebay. : j
To find out more about Todd bieber here are the the usual links:

Todd's Tumblr
Todd's Twitter
Youtube channel
Bieber's blog (defunct)

Music video - Double bill: Coco Rosie / Florence + The Machine

Been going through some changes lately. Today I've stumbled onto two bands that I find quite interesting... and that spark some ambivalent feelings in me.
I can say for sure that I like these two tracks... Or perhaps it's the way they reflect how I'm feeling at the moment... It would seem I'm not so sure after all. : j

At any rate perhaps you might like them, so here they are!

Florence+The Machine: What the water gave me


CocoRosie: Fairy paradise (music starts 1m50s in)



Florence+The Machine
Their website (with news, a music player, shop)
Facebook
Myspace (with music)

CocoRosie
They don't seem to have home pages at the moment (down I'm guessing)
Facebook
Myspace (with music)
Very good fansite (with info, music,the works)

Music video - Axis of Awesome performing on red nose day

This made me smirk quietly to myself at six in the morning after waking up from weird dreams about bloggers who have exited the stage. 



Their website.
Their myspace with their tour dates and some of their music.

Text - We are become pals (Joey Comeau and Jess Fink)

There are a number things I enjoy on internet and sharing those is what this blog is all about.
Curiously, one of the one's I indulge in on a daily basis (webcomics!) hasn't gotten much coverage here.
Well this post isn't about webcomics either...

Today I'd like to share a series of short fiction written by Joey Comeau and illustrated by Jess Fink.

Ok, so why the windup about webcomics? Well, I first discovered Joey Comeau through "a softer world", a series he is creating in conjunction with Emily Horne. A softer world uses captions and pictures to create single standing episodes, three frames and a handful of lines to tell a story, stories that pack a punch. They are at times tragic, bitter, sweet, funny, random, and everything in between or any combination of the previous and many other things.
Well, recently, I found out that Joey Comeau was working with Jess Fink (who does just the right illustrations for these texts) on a series of short stories aptly named "We are become pals" featuring the (mis?)adventures of two teenage girls called Helen and Jane (pictured below). I feel as if I should put up an excerpt, but the chapter/stories are so short there wouldn't be much point. Lets just say I strongly recommend these stories to anyone who likes reading and Calvin & Hobbes.
The first part of "We are become pals" can be found here.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! : j


Joey Comeau:
    Livejournal
    His books (some available for reading online)
    Twitter

Jess Fink:
    Her website with links to her blog, comics, art gallery, and more.

Music - Free beats (NYC)

I've been to New York city twice... I can't claim to know it to any extent at all, and yet, through media and through stories, I have come to develop an idea of what I think NYC should be like.

My fantasy NYC is neither goon squadded and heavily policed, nor is it the post apocalyptic madhouse of drugs, sex, and punk of the seventies...
It's mixture of details from stories taking place in New York combined with details about their past that the New Yorkers I've met have shared with me.

As a result I'm only likely to ever see my fantasy NYC in fiction, but every now and then I hear things that make me wonder if it isn't actually out there, somewhere, under the grime and hustle-bustle of the Big Apple.

At any rate, this made me grin...

Music - Guitar strings gone mad (people playing with their iPhones) and Andy Nicolai

As the first youtube vid states, for those interested in what makes this effect possible, a conversation on reddit is ongoing.

In case you were thinking that the second video sounded nice (I certainly did), here's a full version of that song and another from the person.



And here's the other song of his I found scraping the net:

Video - "Splitscreen: a love story" JW Griffiths

This video has been buzzing in the web, and I can see why: it's sweet and its execution is flawless.

It won the 2011 Nokia Shorts competition, and get this: it was shot entirely on a Nokia N8 mobile phone!

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Music - Zoë Keating (cellist extraordinaire)

Before any palaver from me, click play here:

Sometimes music feels as if it is addressing me personally. It finds latent emotions within me and plays them, a form of resonance that sometimes makes beauty ache as I am swept away into the artist's soundscape.
Of course, most music can't do this for me, but I've just discovered somebody whose music does: Zoë Keating.

I won't go on about how she uses tech to sample herself and do multi track cello compositions, or about all the awards she has won, or all the big names she has played with. If you're interested, you can find out more about her through the links at the bottom of the post.

I will mention that she's had some up and downs with digital distribution and that the way she talks about music is lot like the way authors talk about writing...
Listening to her talk about music sounds very familiar indeed:




Listen and buy her music here.
Check out her blog here.
Zoë Keating on Wired about her creative process.
Follow her on twitter.

And anyone who eats okonomiyaki
as demonstrated by this twitpic of hers
gets extra coolness points!

Not that this lady needs extra coolness points!