Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens...

Let's begin, as always, with music news. And by that you should infer news about music I like and want to share.

If Amy Shore's serendipitous photograph of a bird passing in front of the recent solar eclipse doesn't win like a million awards I will lose the last shreds of hope I have for photography. source

Begin Music

Wagner Transformed is an ambient interpretation of the composer's operatic works by J. Peter Schwalm with help from a cast that includes Brian Eno. You can stream it for free but maybe you'll buy it too.

Is Soundcloud account user48736353001 really Aphex Twin?

Despite the uneven mix on this recording, I would've loved to have been in the audience for this 2010 performance by Allan Holdsworth, Terry Bozzio, Tony Levin, and Pat Mastelotto (HoBoLeMa?).

Watch this rare promo video for Robert Fripp's Exposure album.

How about a live set by Daniel Lanois from the studios of KCRW?

iapetus has made the album Touch Guitars Compilation 2015 freely available for download. But why not give them at least a couple of bucks if you enjoy the music?

More free music you ask? How about TOTEM, the first album from the duo Markus Reuter and Pat Mastelotto (aka TUNER)?

End Music

And now onward with the usual gibberish.

If an algorithm implemented in software can identify a genuine Jackson Pollock 93% of the time, how long before it can forge one that's indistinguishable from the real thing?

From the Idiot's Guide to Smart People, develop an appreciation for (or at least a way to fake understanding of) art by comparing it to farts.

Still trying to figure out what and where the space suit experience is.

For the first time, one of the Navy's Littoral Combat Ships has visited Japan. It was the USS Fort Worth.

Begin Film

Must watch video of the week: how Kurosawa mastered movement in his films.

Before Blade Runner was filmed its miniature models were made.

Interesting article about making two related movies at the same time: Alien 5 and Prometheus 2.

Watch a video shot during a flight of the only airworthy B-24J and read about a 90 year-old WWII veteran pilot who was reunited with his ride.

Take a ride with the Blue Angels.

Or watch Disneland being built (timelapse).

Or watch a live bald eagle webcam. When I was watching he had one and a half fishes in his nest. Or watch a live webcam of the sarcophagus being built over Chernobyl.

End Film

Would you like it if you software acted like this?

The world mapped by each country's most popular beer. Hooray Bud Light.

Wonder no more about 3-letter airport codes.

Begin Slow Descent Into Madness

Best news headline ever: Smelly poo forces plane to land.

Maybe it was just an airmail delivery by I Poop You.

Why was it a big deal for a Canadian collegiate basketball player to get permission to put his name on his jersey? Ask Guilherme Carbagiale Fuck.

Feelers is a creepy wormy alphabet.

Here's how you will waste the rest of your day: drum machine.

...and then at last cease to admire worthless things. ~Boethius