Saturday, August 11, 2018

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves...

A long (pardon the pun) article about Brian Eno's musical and artistic accomplishments, from ambient to generative music to his work on chimes for the Clock of the Long Now.

Of the 40 things every Fort Worther must do, I've done 2 and a half.

10 reasons why you should visit Fort Worth.

Debussy played Debussy in 1913.

This may be a trick question. How do you know when to leave a baseball game? When it's over is apparently not the right answer. See the data that leads to the result that when the leading team is up by 5 runs it's safe to leave in the 3rd or 4th inning.

Some newer music to explore:

  • Between the Silence - a 3 CD album by Robert Fripp (guitar) and Leo Travis (sax, flute) of "Evocative Soundscapes and inventive improvs." Listen here, buy here.
  • Flood Expeditions - more "improvised excursions between piano and guitar" by Robert Rich and Markus Reuter. Listen and buy here.
  • Possibilities Vol. 1 by Tobias Reber - guitar and synth. Buy and listen here.
  • Don't forget 12k's summer sale - 40% off.
  • A 1-hour mix of Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie
I still have several of those large, fold-out maps from National Geographic. Now you can see 100 year's worth of fold-out maps on their website.

There's just something about this that appeals to me. Pablo Picasso, Still Life on a Square Table, 1922. source
I love Godzilla as much as the next guy but the trailer for King of the Monsters gives me a strong Pandora vibe which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Here's a PDF chock full of vintage NSA security posters.

David Sylvian and Holger Czukay's Plight and Premonition in 1988.

Gaudi on The Orb podcast (Soundcloud).

You can read about music as when Innerviews talked to the Security Project.

A self-proclaimed "extremely detailed" map of U.S. 2016 election results.
Funny people have higher IQs than their less funny peers.

How about 10 hours of ocean scenes?

Pull gasoline out of thin air.

How many diamonds did they find? One quadrillion (10**15) tons.

Speaking of numbers, learn their secrets at Number Gossip. 27 is the only number that is the sum of its digits times 3.

Here's one way to divide the USA into four equally populated regions. source
Great. Fort Worth is one hot spot where parents exempt their kids from immunizations.

They found a "lake" on Mars, but it's 12 miles across, 3 feet deep, and really salty.

Ray Bradbury's 12 tips for authors. #8 Write with joy, "writing is not a serious business."

I like Yes, but I find that I need to be in a special mood before listening to it. So maybe you're in the mood for Episode 36 of What Makes This Song Great with Roundabout.

Rather than reinforce boundaries between disciplines and the value-laden hierarchies that keep them in place, we need to accept that studies in "imagination" and "humanity" are no less vital to work and citizenship than those of "facts" and "machines." I was first introduced to C.P. Snow's book The Two Cultures in 1980 and here we are 38 years later reading The 'Two Cultures' Fallacy. Long article.

A webpage full of infographics and maps of the 1800s.
Seven basic design principles. #3 The UI is opinionated.

The editor at Cartoon Research is, like me, fascinated by the WWII Disney (mostly) animated film Victory Through Airpower. In this article he shows some of the film's promotional materials.

And while I'm wearing my Disney fanboi hat, here's one of my favorite bits of Disney film, the 15-minute  documentary 4 Artists Paint 1 Tree.

How we use our land. source
Physicists found (maybe) the odderon.

Do you want to know the 2018 roster of NFL officials?

I guess it makes sense that architects would be interesting in knowing how logs can be cut differently to create wood with different grains.

Benito's helps you understand Mexican menus.

...and know what another person sees.  ~Marcel Proust