Multimedia Designer and Architect- Muti Randolph

It's often difficult to tell what you're looking at when you see this person's work. He works with lighting, architecture and projected imagery to create very strange spaces.

Battles - Tonto (from the album Mirrored)

Late night music... Battles - Tonto...
I hadn't realized how much I missed gritty avant garde rock with split second timing until I first heard this album last year... I know that a new band is doing something right when their sound completely eludes a pigeonhole... because I'm not doing them justice with my description... I was amazed by this video... Just listen and maybe you can do better...

Drinks With Christopher Hitchens

I found this conversation entirely entertaining.

Thomas Kinkade arrested for DUI

Bankruptcy, fraud and now a DUI...?? The "Painter of Light" has fallen to new lows. Will his adoring baptist teetotaler fans ever forgive him? I certainly hope not... In fact, they themselves shouldn't be forgiven for purchasing his badly painted nostalgic yearning for a warm, glowing past that never was...

But then again, if you look at his vomit inducing faith based website, he WAS a really good salesman... Even if it was snake oil...
Here is his arrest photo:

From the Orange County Register:

Thomas Kinkade, the self-described "Painter of Light," was arrested Friday night outside of Carmel on suspicion of drunk driving.
According to police reports and the Monterey Herald, Kinkade, 52, was stopped by a sheriff's deputy shortly after 9 p.m. because his 2006 Mercedes-Benz didn't have a front license plate. The deputy detected the smell of alcohol, and requested the assistance of a California Highway Patrol officer.
The CHP officer arrived and gave Kinkade a field sobriety test, CHP spokesman Robert Lehman said. During the test, Kinkade, a Carmel resident, "displayed signs of impairment to the officer," Lehman said.
Kinkade was arrested, then taken to Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, where his blood was taken to determine his blood alcohol content. He was booked into Monterey County Jail and released Saturday after posting bail.

Obesity linked to brain shrinkage and dementia

I follow the blog called Neurophilosophy, which usually updates with a new article every week. The sparse posting is well worth the wait because the articles are always incredibly enlightening, well researched and written so that a novice such as myself can easily understand them. The author describes themself as a "molecular and developmental neurobiologist turned science writer".

I found this week's post particularly interesting. The entire article can be found here:

THE dangers of obesity are very well known. Being overweight is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, the two leading causes of death in the Western world. Gout is more common in overweight people, with the risk of developing the condition increasing in parallel with body weight. Obese people are twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as those who are not overweight, and being overweight is also associated with several types of cancer. The list goes on...

Less well known is the effect of obesity on the brain. In the past few years, however, it has emerged that being overweight in middle age is linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's Disease and other forms of dementia. Two new studies strengthen this association: the first, just published in the Annals of Neurology, shows that abdominal fat is linked to reduced brain volume in otherwise healthy middle-aged adults. The second, published last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this reduction is associated with a common variant of an obesity-related gene.

FU * BP

Guerrilla protest art at its best... Two graffiti artists transform a tunnel entrance in Atlanta into a billboard for a not-so-subtle message about their views on BP's handling of the oil spill...

Bigfoot Sighting in North Carolina

Bigfoot sightings have always been lots of fun for me. As a kid, the bigfoot myth captivated my imagination far more than UFO's or the Lochness Monster. I think it was mainly because I spent lots of time walking through the woods at my granparents' farm in rural Oklahoma.
The guy who spotted him is the most amusing thing about the video.

Tim Peeler of Cleveland County, North Carolina called police after encountering Bigfoot outside his mountain home. Apparently, this particular Bigfoot was 10-feet-tall, had "beautiful (blonde) hair," and six fingers on each hand. Peeler told the Charlotte Observer that he "rough-talked him" and scared him off.

Interactive swarm software

Most of the text from this interactive application is it Japanese, so I have no idea what it is saying. I do know that it is amazingly hypnotic to watch. I've taken quite a few screenshots of it and I'll bet that at least a few of these random compositions will make their way into my paintings...

forked from: 重力マウス（ちょっぴり軽量化してみた） - wonderfl build flash online

Catholic Church fixer tells of his role in covering up clerical sex abuse

Why on earth is this not getting more press coverage? This man is speaking from the inside of the catholic church about his role, quite actually his job, of systematically covering up the abuse of young children. His former job is what is known as a "fixer".
From the Freethinker:

Describing himself as a “company man” – a “soldier” who had to protect the institution of the Church above all else – the Minnesota monk said he would be parachuted into a parish in the aftermath of allegations of sexual abuse. His job was to right the situation. And quickly, he became adept at making scandals go away.

 Audio of the interview is available here.

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I'd Known When I Was 18

I thought this was a really thought provoking interview worth sharing. I found myself at least a few times thinking, "Yeah, that's some advice I should be listening to even now."
STEPHEN FRY: WHAT I WISH I'D KNOWN WHEN I WAS 18 from Peter Samuelson on Vimeo.

1908 - Émile Cohl: Fantasmagorie

From Wikipedia:

Cohl made "Fantasmagorie" from February to May or June 1908. This is considered the first fully animated film ever made. It was made up of 700 drawings, each of which was double-exposed, leading to a running time of almost two minutes. Despite the short running time, the piece was packed with material devised in a "stream of consciousness" style. It borrowed from Blackton in using a "chalk-line effect" (filming black lines on white paper, then reversing the negative to make it look like white chalk on a black chalkboard), having the main character drawn by the artist's hand on camera, and the main characters of a clown and a gentleman (this taken from Blackton's "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces"). The film, in all of its wild transformations, is a direct tribute to the by-then forgotten Incoherent movement. The title is a reference to the "fantasmograph", a mid-Nineteenth Century variant of the magic lantern that projected ghostly images that floated across the walls.

Titan: Nasa scientists discover evidence 'that alien life exists on Saturn's moon'

Scientists have speculated that extra-terrestrial organisms might consume methane the way most life here on earth consumes oxygen or carbon dioxide. This might be the first evidence of that... If it turns out to be true, it will have gigantic implications into the range of possibilities for life in the universe and would imply that life is far more common than we once thought.

From the Telegraph.co.uk :

Researchers at the space agency believe they have discovered vital clues that appeared to indicate that primitive aliens could be living on the planet.

Data from Nasa's Cassini probe has analysed the complex chemistry on the surface of Titan, which experts say is the only moon around the planet to have a dense atmosphere. They have discovered that life forms have been breathing in the planet’s atmosphere and also feeding on its surface’s fuel.

WIRE: Heartbeat (1979)

Wire was every bit as seminal to punk rock as the Sex Pistols, although not nearly as well publicized. Bands as wide ranging as Minor Threat, Fisherspooner and REM have covered their songs. This particular song was covered by Big Black, although the Wire version will always be my favorite. It begins with a whisper and builds energy to the verge of aggression, but then just at the point you are expecting more, it pulls back into a whisper.