Life as an Artificial Lifeform

Alber Hofman the Inventor of LSD has died yesterday at the age of 102. Doing some studies on him in the past I can just say that if we would have more intelligent beeings on this planet like him we would be a happy civilization. Sadly he is now gone from this world and could not achieve his goal - to make LSD a medical psychological drug - instead of a street drug. He has written so much, from his account of the first time he (and therefore a human being in general) took LSD to various books about the psychology of humans.
In an interview 10 years ago he goes reflective of the way things stand with LSD and other psychic enhancing drugs - again in a very logical intelligent thoughtful manner.

CG: It appears that young people are once again becoming interested in psychedelics and MDMA. We also have this new phenomenon of the rave, where young people take substances like MDMA and dance all night. What is your view on why these young people seek out such experiences? How can we respond to what they are doing?

AH: What I would say would most certainly be: Open your eyes! The doors of perception must be opened. That means these young people must learn by their own experience, to see the world as it was before human beings were on this planet. That is the real problem today, that people live in towns and cities, where everything is dead. This material world, made by humans, is a dead world, and will disappear and die. I would tell the young people to go out into the countryside, go to the meadow, go to the garden, go to the woods. This is a world of nature to which we belong, absolutely. It is the circle of life, of which we are an integral part. Open your eyes, and see the browns and greens of the earth, and the light which is the essence of nature. The young need to become aware of this circle of life, and realize that it is possible to experience the beauty and deep meaning which is at the core of our relation to nature.

Read the full interview here.

Posted by fALk at 8:39 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

George Soros has published a book about the current financial crisis and explains in a lengthy interview what we all face in the coming year. Its a must read but everyone who has money or property at stake - because soon enough you won´t have any. He says how deep the general population is affected depends on how the government - especially the US government - acknowledges the grave danger.

Woodruff: So how long will this last?

Soros: Well, it depends on when the authorities wake up, because you need to reduce the number of foreclosures. You need to keep as many people as possible in their houses so that they don't come onto the market. You need to arrest the decline in house prices, but you also need to prevent human suffering and social disruption because it's going to be very, very severe. Certain communities are already hurting and it's going to get a lot worse. So action will have to be taken, but I don't think it's going to happen during this administration.

Woodruff: You write, "We are at the end of an era." When this current credit crisis ends, will the US still be, no doubt about it, the world superpower when it comes to the economy?

Soros: Not at all. This is now in question. And you now have entered a period of really considerable uncertainty and turmoil because of the general flight from currencies, which manifests itself in the commodities bubble that has developed. The price of gold hasn't yet gone as high as it might. So what comes out of this turmoil is very open to question. I think that you will have to somehow reconstruct the global financial architecture because you have recognized that, in effect, the economic weight has changed considerably among the different countries. China has become much more important and also India, and so on. What kind of system will evolve from this is, I think, a very open question.

Well for more indepth info read the interview at NYBooks.com

People tend to accuse me of only seeing the negative news - well I can not see any positive ones about financial markets or oil or our nature - so if you find any send them along and I post them - I am not a doom advocate I just say what I see and I only say it when I am sure that I have checked all logical options and I see a society in turmoil - a society that is rapidly changing without much of its population noticing it and I fear that the enduring culture shock afterwards might lead to more destruction which I do not advocate - I think humans a certainly capable of living peacefully in synch with their planet and I think we are smarter then the sum would seem - its just an information deficit - confronting people with real facts - not opinions - is going a long way towards a more beautiful living all around. So I actually welcome change if it can be used to make things better for ALL humans and nature - I just don´t see it happening when everyone is closing their eyes and heading straight to the jump only realizing too late that there is a parachute that could have enabled us a safe landing...

Posted by fALk at 8:17 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From Fireflies, To Squid to Mushrooms to a whole part of the ocean that glows only on one day, to freaky glowing string hanging down the ceeling - all these are self glowing creatures that - without power - light up their environment to fend of prey, attract prey, attract mates or have some unknown purpose - have a look at them over at Curious Expeditions and lots of more amazin photos and videos of living things that just light up.

Posted by fALk at 8:01 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If we try and go inside ourselfs we are apperantly capable of making beautiful and usefull creations that inspire - like this Airfloating Jelly Fish.

Posted by fALk at 7:36 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After reading articles after articles that spell more doom to the financial markets of the world - like a very sudden price drop for property inside London (this is the town where just a year ago someone tried to sell a three square meter room for 200.000 pounds) there is bigger trouble looming yet and it comes from another very familiar side - Big Oil.
I have been very clear that all the evidence that I could read over the last few years points to the fact that we basically have reached peak oil by now - no later then 2015. And all those experts outside the oil industry who have been predicting that seemed to be right. Yesterday a friend came in to tell me that diesel oil has risen 5 cent during the day (!) at the pump here in germany and today a New York Times article further elaborates on the fact that "normally" high oil prices slow down consumption and rise production automatically - with all the dictators wanting to cash in on the high prices - yet this time there seems to be no end in sight because - even so the american market has slowed down the markets in China and India have sucked up that deficit and

Analysts at Barclays Capital said last week that non-OPEC supplies were “seemingly dead in the water.” Goldman Sachs raised similar concerns last month, saying that growth in non-OPEC supplies “can no longer be taken for granted.”

Thats two very established banks and financial instituts saying that we have reached peak oil you can twist these words as you want but they basically mean we have reached the top of the bell - like curve where there is no rise in production and actually from here on down the road production will slowly start get less and less - no matter how big oil fields you will discover now - they will only prolong the flat tip of the curve but won´t be enough to get those prices down nor will they be enough to meet rising demand in Asia.

The outlook for oil supplies “signals a period of unprecedented scarcity,” an analyst at CIBC World Markets, Jeff Rubin, said last week.

Oil prices might reach more than $200 by 2012, he said, a level that would probably mean $7-a-gallon gasoline in the United States.

(when I was in the states 1994 the gallon of gasoline was at 84 cents)

Some regions are simply running out of reserves. Norway’s production has slumped by 25 percent since its peak in 2001. In Britain, oil production has plummeted 43 percent in eight years. The North Sea is now considered a dying oil basin. Alaska’s giant field at Prudhoe Bay has declined 65 percent since its peak 20 years ago.

Thats peak oil as predicted over and over again - dismissed by the oil giants. The not so funny thing is that even now people are not recognizing the grave danger we face - instead of using the last oil to get us into a solar, wind powered world we are still driving around those SUVs to show how dumb we are. At this point the collective wisdom of the world population should set in together with our survival instinct and search for a FAST possible solution out of this mess - yet it seems we just push on the gas pedal so that the crash into that fast approaching wall is going to be even harder and more fatal then if we would gently start to break.

The solution at the moment could be oil rationing - just to get the problem into peoples and companies heads as brutally as possible so that the collective hive can start embracing a solution - of there are already many out there. Unless this happens the fast sports car we are all sitting in is accelerating and accelerating and has less and less chance to get this crash diverted.

A combination of falling production and rising domestic consumption could wipe out Mexico’s exports within five years, including the 1.5 million barrels it sends to the United States each day.

Further clouding the picture, Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, signaled last week that it might have trouble increasing its production.

The International Energy Agency estimates that current investments will be insufficient to replace declining oil production, let alone increase overall output. The energy agency said it would take $5.4 trillion by 2030 to increase global output, a level of investment that is unlikely to be met. It said a crisis “involving an abrupt run-up in prices” could not be ruled out before 2015.

(all comments from the linked NYT article)

Posted by fALk at 6:59 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is something the mac community might have been looking for for a long time without realising the need - a quicktime component that solves most codec woes and put your personal Quicktime Installation into the "I can play ALL codecs" category without VLC or other 3rd party apps that are fine but never good enough for some reason...

Download it here.

Its piss easy to install, no restart required, you get a very nice pref pane where you can update the component when you feel like its necessary or have it done automatically for you and it just generally works great and feels very integrated and doesn´t lag the quicktime app with difficult files.

From the about page:

Perian aims to provide a single package for all your playback needs. It is a collection of QuickTime components incorporating several libraries:
• libavcodec, from the ffmpeg project, along with code from the old FFusion component:
• MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2
• DivX
• 3ivx
• H.264
• Flash Video
• Flash Screen Video
• VP6
• H263I
• VP3
• HuffYUV
• ffvhuff
• MPEG-1 & 2 Video
• Fraps (up to v4)
• Windows Media Audio v1 & v2
• Flash ADPCM
• Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska)
• MPEG Layer I and II audio
• DTS Coherent Acoustics audio
• Snow wavelet video
• libavformat, from the ffmpeg project. along with AVIImporter.component:
• AVI file format
• FLV file format
• libmatroska, along with matroska-qt.component:
• MKV file format
• Subtitles:
• SSA file format
• SRT file format
• liba52, via A52Codec:
• AC3 audio

Posted by fALk at 11:52 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Clay Shirky just said that the death of Soap Operas/Sitcoms on TV is freeing up 2.000 wikipedia worth of contribution time... Soap Operas are of course just as on thing of the epic battle between the distraction media vs. the contribution media. I still found the original comment (boingboing.net) a bit "lush" so I looked at a talk from him and its a very refreshing organized view on things that I deep down understand but couldn´t communicate. Here are some Quotes from the talk:

- "Social Lag"
- "Social Capability has not transformed society at anything like the rate as other applications have launched "
- "Groups are natively conservative"

- "It is curiously the moment when Technology becomes boring that the social effects become interesting"

The 4 step ladder of which a participatory internet society is going through...
"1. Sharing, 2.Conversation, 3.Collaboration, 4.Collective Action"

We seems to be past 1. 2. and 3. and apparently approaching number 4 fast. Now with 2.000 wikipedias worth of time freed up the possibilities of collective action that transforms us into a new kind of culture - a free open source culture perhaps - are imminent? This guy thinks so. Listen to his catchy fast worded speech on the Harvard - Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Posted by fALk at 8:00 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How crazy can you build a house? Well much more crazy then I ever thought. PointAndClickHome has a gallery of houses that look like they should not work. The tree house on top of a 50 meter tree is probably the scariest but the fertilizer bunker pictured here defies everything you thought you knew about statics.

Look at the rest here

Posted by fALk at 7:10 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sommerartige Atmosphäre. Mit zusammengekniffenen Aufen sitzen wir barfuß vor unseren Aufnahmemodulen, haben uns zahlreicher Netlabels mit Dub-Veröffentlichungen bedient und liefern dieses Dubmixtape auch als B-Seite ohne unsere Stimmen. Wenn Sun-Ra mit Algen spielt gibt es Enrgie aus der Waschmaschiene. Hauptthema Free Music kurz und knackig am Geschehen der letzte Woche dargelegt.

Wie immer am besten den podcast subscriben (iTunes -> Erweitert -> Podcast abbonieren -> link reinkopieren)

http://www.prototypen.com/radio/index.xml

oder durch den iTunes Music Store abbonieren (muss man nur auf Link drücken und dann im Musik Store auf abbonieren gehen)

Radio Prototypen im iTunes Music Store

oder direkt speichern unter

Als Enhanced Podcast im AAC Format:
http://www.prototypen.com/radio/rP21_ProtoJekte2008.m4a

Oder als normales MP3:
http://www.prototypen.com/radio/rP21_ProtoJekte2008.mp3

Mit B Seite: Dem Frühlings Free Dub Tape:
http://www.prototypen.com/radio/freedubtape.mp3

Links des podcast im Enhanced Teil des MPG4 ausserdem im Lyrics Teil und hier:

Free Culture News

Free Water + Free Energy im Waschmaschinenformat
Free Energy: Artikel über Solar Thermie
Free Energy: Ernergie aus Algen Die Firmen
Free Energy: Ernergie aus Algen Das Auto
Free Energy: Energie aus Algen Wie macht man das? (PDF)
Nicht so Free Food: Mais Mais und nochmals Mais
No Waste: Cradle to Cradle

Links für 109

Geiles 1bit multittouch interface zum music machen
Ehrensenf Internet TV
Zattoo
Sun Rah - Eine Dokumentation

Veranstaltungen Demnächst

Veranstaltungen demnächst: 10. Mai Made To Play mit Made to Play Compilation Tour

Hauptthema: Free Musik

Nerdcore zum offen Brief der Musikindustrie
Chicogordodelgado Chuzausen
Netmusik: Jamendo.de/com mit neuem Interface
Netlabels Sammellink: Netlabels.org

B - Seite
trackliste freedubtape

Titel Interpret Album Label

1. Dublin Monsieur Moutarde La Dérive des Condiments french-dub-released.org/
2. No compromise Zaruts Delicieusement toxique french-dub-released.org/
3. Burn Mi Dub Roots Ista Posse Music For Grassbar II fresh-poulp.net/releases/FPR019.htm
4. [did003]_dimomib_dubplate_dubplate dimomib deepindub.org/did003-dimomib-dubplate-lp/
5. Dub Culture Echo_TM Dub Culture [ABN006] afterbeat.org/
6. a train to roots (2:20pm) peak so quiet ep aquietbump.com
7. Chicogordodelgado Chuzausen [RFR012] Chuzausen - Happy Farm EP rumpfunk-records.de
8. Happy Farm Chuzausen [RFR012] Chuzausen - Happy Farm EP rumpfunk-records.de
9. Roots Rockers Dub Roots Ista Posse Music For Grassbar II fresh-poulp.net/releases/FPR019.htm
10. Tibetan monks playing fuzzy bass tablas The Orientalist 1000 Sounds Lotus jamendo.com/en/album/3306
11 9/8 FitiSound Fiti EP jamendo.com/en/album/18443
12 Resident Evil Laocoon Psydubelic jamendo.com/en/album/7280

Posted by fALk at 13:06 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I got the third invitation for a new "Web 3.0" applications "private" "beta". This one was for a service called twine and is basically a way to organize digital stuff - as wide as you want to describe stuff.
It has made me thinking why I am reluctant to spend more then 20 minutes with these services, why I don´t have a flickr account, why am not contributing to wikipedia and I have a conclusion that any of these companies should take to heart because I sincerely believe that I might not be the only one with this thought.
In a time where time seems to be the most important resource a person can posses I want to spend time so it benefits my future - and with that the future of the planet as well (because without it I wouldn´t have one). I love collective wisdom (as in wikipedia) I benefit greatly from it every day, but I have also been around the net long enough to know that spending hundreds of hours on forums, wikis etc. is a lost cause if this information you give out does not stay in your control. I don´t mean that I want to control the flow of this information, also I don´t want to control its death but I want to stay in control to keep it alive. I have been using the net in some form or another for about 13+ years now and I have seen a lot of the information I gave to it disappear forever into some unknown electric universe. Now companies are craving to organize not just my words but my pictures, videos, pfd documents - basically my knowledge - so that others can access it and find it easily - the so called web 3.0 or the semantic web. I applaud that thought as it will ultimately lead to a greater collective wisdom, but I also have shivers down my spine when I think that in the future I collect all my information on somebody elses machines. As I have just layed out companies on the web tend to diy sudden death, or swallowed up by corporation that have ill intends (yahoo->microsoft f.e. where delicious hosts tons of my precious links I collected over the years) or a change of leadership makes the wrong decisions, or they have a failed backup plan and all data is lost (just happened with a big internet provider in the US who lost mails from about a million mail accounts). Its just too much trust I would have to give out my most precious resource - time - to someone I don´t know, someone who could morph into someone else, someone who could become evil that I don´t want to be affiliated with. So I don´t think the solution for me is called twine or powerlabs or whatever - I think the solutions has to look different.
I want to have control over the longlevity of my information - yet I still like the idea of a collective organization of all knowledge in the world. So I see a decentralized structure of knowledge sharing as the better way forward. You know all that is needed is a standard that would put all the knowledge on my servers out in the open - to be freely harvested by semantic web engines. I can then keep my internal organizational structure, use tags or hierarchies or groups or whatever to let the outside world know what these documents mean and then the web 3.0 companies can just take this and put it in pretty easy to use interfaces and connect with information with other people. If one of those companies goes bust you still have not only the information but also the organization of this information and a different service can come along and use it all. Its sort of like the Open Social platform that tries to do exactly this with social networking (again I want to be in control to whom the time goes that I spend without a lock in and without a feeling that I loose everything).
So for Web 3.0 to really kick off you need something like an OpenSemantics framework that can be implemented into just about any information collecting tool out there (blogs, wikis, even forums). Something that helps you tag, organize, auto-organize your information and makes it available to others out there. It has to be an open source standard that is extendible to a lot of information carriage formats and probably it has to be pushed by something like the W3C to give it enough traction to gain any footing against these thousand of new "web 3.0" startups.
Until then I refuse to give out more time to any of these things no matter how many "private beta" invites they send me.

Posted by fALk at 9:02 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Wired hosts Björks Wanderlust Video with a Red/Green 3D effect. Its quite a psychadelic treat for those evenings where you need a trip to a different planet.

Get it here. (a Quicktime for a change)

Also in 2d and a making off on the same page...

Posted by fALk at 9:35 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are a million and one way of how to design a business card and there are equal as many ways to make sure nobody ever looks at it again. To dwarf that problem there is a website with a collection of the most creative cards out there - and some are really great and some are just silly. The consensus is that if you go the ultra creative route with your business card then it should have something to do with you business and not just something wild.... Good examples are the Kevin Mitnick (obviously) lock picker toolset and the park architects with their selfgrowing garden on the card....

See them all here

Posted by fALk at 9:23 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well I have this orphaned category called "personal spyware" for times when you need to do any counteract surveillance. Today I found something very worthy to put in this drawer again. Digital Cowboys Spy Camera Pen. Thats a pen with a camera (obviously). The pen is fully functioning as a pen too (duh) it also sports a build in USB connector to just transfer over those nasty videos of the guy that just sold you a contract that ripped you off. Good to show the kids to learn on how not to do business... ;) Oh and you can take the mini tiny camera module out of the pen and use it on its own (like put it on a helicopter and make cool arial videos as this is light enough to be fitted on those ultra cheap mini helis?

The translated (from Japanese) product page

Posted by fALk at 8:48 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The star in Vintage Gaming is the Atari 2600 machine (not to be mistaken by the other star with the 2600 in it - you know the secret sesam code to unlock all phreaks heavens). The games for it were packaged and someone got onto a flea market and snatched the console and some games in splendit condition and scanned the covers of these games and put them on the net. They are quite interesting and stylish... A nice round of Pixel Bondage anyone?

a whole lot more here

Posted by fALk at 22:38 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Wir haben alles gegeben - sogar zweimal aufgenommen - aber es sollte einfach nicht sein. rP 2.2 wird es nicht geben - wir machen Freitag/Samstag weiter mit 2.3 und dem Thema Free Music mit viel viel Musik. In der Hoffnung, daß Übercaster uns nicht nochmal einen Streich spielt und ich nicht die falschen Tasten drücke.

Posted by fALk at 22:35 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well you may say the poor american people are not for the war in Iraq they are all peacefull loving people and its just Bush and Co. that want to obliterate the planet for their own personal gains - well if you think like this you have just been proofed wrong. Hillary Clinton goes on message in an ad and in last minute interviews shortly before voters go their booth saying that "if Iran attacked Israel (even in defendence of the Palestinians) the US under her reign would obliterate them with nukes - something on the same lines as Mr. Bush and McCain and Rumsfeld and Cheney and and and...
Now this would have been a prime moment for the US electorate to get inside themself and figure out if that is such a good idea and decide that nuking a country is not good for the region of the middle east (outright full scale attack of all arabs against the US no matter of former loyalty), the world - an iminent split that could lead to a culture war with weapons all over the world and themself - as a recent study says that even a local small scall nuclear war with only 10 warheads would kill 80% of the ozone layer - means lots of americans with skin cancer.
Now in the wake of this the uneducated american electorate (yes I am elitist here) has chooses Billary Clinton overwhelmingly. For an outsider it seems there is no educated american electorate that is capable of thinking and big enough to convince their country that nuking another country is a bad idea.
Oh well... The american electorate has fallen to a new low point on my own very personal scale - I wish them hell.

Posted by fALk at 8:03 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It ain´t easy to understand the underlaying dynamics of the financial sector of a capitalistic system these days because they defy any of their own set rules. I am in no way a financial expert (except that I watch tons of stock market TV when I was a younger person because after school there was nothing else on back in the days). But I had a recent conversation with a friend studying that stuff and I can read articles. And no I am won´t quote any doomsday conspiracy theory leftist websites - I will quote the financial times germany... Because two headlines grabbed my attention and together with some logic I come to a conclusion that is not to argue against so easely I think.

"Finanzsystem stand kurz vor dem Kollaps" (Financial System was almost collapsing)

"Extreme Kursausschläge sind möglich" (Extreme Stockprice changes possible)

The first article cites the head of the Credit Suisse swiss bank that the the collaps of bear stearns almost brought down the whole system but then goes on to relevate that in saying that "Banks are more carefull" "They don´t give out credits easily any more". In a side sentence they mention that this will probably "bring the economy to a halt".
THe second article tells us nicely and in detail that "the worst is not over" and that big banks might make huge losses in the coming quarters.
Contradiction? Anyone? So we almost had a collapse but it was averted and things look more rosy now but the next quarter is hell?
Also why if the banks do not give out loans "so easely" is it that I got THREE adverts in the snail mail post today telling me I can get credits up to "50.000 Euro" without showing them my income - me a person that has no money and nothing to back up a 50.000 Euro loan - heck they even give you a 2.000 loan with a mail in form? Well credits is the only way a bank can reap in huge amounts of money so not giving out credits any more is saying that killing the most profitable business is not what we should do anymore and rather concentrate on business that makes us a loss.
Now pair that that capitalism is growth - without growth there is no capitalism and if there is no abundance of money floating around capitalism ceases to exist in its current form - no there are multiple people that have predicted that there can be no endless growth because there are no endless resources (human or raw materials) in the world and those prediction/calculations where that we would hit this point somewhere between 2005 and 2015 - spot on I would say.
Now with all those self contradicting articles in the financial sector saying "oh its bad but it CAN ONLY GET BETTER" and then the next quarter you have it worse you have to wonder why all major stock indexes in the world are RISING when a bank announces the biggest loss of its existence - especially when this bank is the biggest bank of the USA which is still the biggest trade market in the world?
Its like collectively trying to hide the fact that the rosy times are over and painting the building fresh on the front while the back is falling apart. Interesting times indeed.

Posted by fALk at 11:17 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was wanting to wait for our podcast tomorrow to speak about the issue of the total collapse of the soundbite media but since it makes such a huge splash today I will comment already and make it more clear tomorrow.
Yesterday was another "primary debate" in the US - meaning the two remaining candidates from the democratic party Barrack Obama and Hillarry Clinton sparred it out with words on TV. It was the 20th debate of the election season (no I am not kidding). I have been following closely whats going on because I was just waiting for this moment to happen (all along and I expected it much earlier). Normally the primary season should be over by now but since Hillary Clinton is loosing by all means even so she was the clear front runner before this all started it gets dragged out and Clinton is throwing the mud around ( I have been watching closely and as said before I could care less who is winning - so Obama is probably the better choice for the whole world in the end seeing the real Clinton) Anyway not get dragged into the issue of who will win the nomination - that is not the reason for this blog post - the real reason is that in the debate last night the ABC news network overdid what turns people off network television and the big media in general - it tried hard to produce sound bites and controversy over absolutely nothing but left out real politics in the meantime - the debate was light entertainment for the right wing. This wouldn´t be interesting in itself but the media has overplayed the 10 second soundbite that say nothing about a candidate for the last weeks or so so to keep the race close and higher their ratings - and quite obviously it has been to much even for the average tv watching couch potato. The outrage is HUGE and comes from all sides - left wing right wing bloggers and even some big media journalist. The talk of the day is that people feel personally offended for beeing treated like they are totally dumb.

Thats the framing. With big media in general decline this event could end the pop culture of the 90s and early 2000s and take down all of big media in one go. Its a significant event that when a huge electorate swallows the blue pill in one evening. There is huge consensus that this was a historical milestone for alternative media to rise to the top for people powered media for media fact checking and for big media to loose its grip on the big swath of the people who have been left behind the information age - at least in the US of A (hey and since trends do come over here to europe with a 5 year delay expect the same thing to happen here too very soon :) I am eager to see how this plays out in the coming days but I think a lot of media moguls will scratch their heads at why their ratings are dropping into the bottomless hell of nonexistence. I truly believe there is nothing these tv network newspaper networks and radio networks can do to turn this around now because they would have to change their whole corporate culture and even if they would start doing that now it would just seem false for those that have been lied to those that have feel they lost half their lifes by being dumbed with britney spears and co. This is a true revolution unfolding in front of us and it will be like the banking crisis - hidden for a couple more month/years but then the graveness of the situation will come to light and people powered media - as chaotic as it is today - will be the only information tool left. The only true Free Press and it balances itself....

Posted by fALk at 15:59 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The great company RED just announced the dream camcorder for each and every indy filmproducer in the low budget market. The RED Scarlet model expected to ship in early 2009 will retail for less then $3000 and will have a 100 frames per second 2/3 capable chip in it. That doesn´t give you the depth of field of a RED:One(4k 35 mm sensor) or even the newly announced RED: Epic (5k probably bigger then 35mm sensor) but is still better then the 1/3rd chip offered by pro-sumer HDV cameras. Its on paar with the next best thing - the HD-CAM Panasonic ($8000) or similar double the price HDV sony camcorders. It will sport image output in RED RAW format - thats a 7:1 at 3k from my calculation (9:1 at 4k) or 1:2 at 1k or fully uncompressed at PAL res (you would want to shoot in 3k and then downscale for postproduction in the format you need to output and work with that) . hmmmm no more shitty bluegreenscreens because of compression artefacts around the edges. 100 frames per second is plenty for normal use and more then anything available at the moment in a price range that is comparable.
This together with the EPIC will change the filmmaking world - it turns it upside down. Add in some of the vfx advancements (especially render times due to multi core computers) of late and tthe production budget shrinks manifold not even to mention that there is zero zip reason to shoot on analog film anymore (except for the dynamic range but with a good camera man and good lightning its a non issue).
I can not say how excited I am about the Scarlet personally (somehow in an almost affordable price range) and the epic on the grand scale. This will upper the quality level of all films and is generally good on so many levels its hard to list them all.

RED Scarlet
RED Epic

And RED isn´t stopping with just cameras they also announced a storage solution possibly based on blue ray and hd for on set back up of data.

RED Ray

* an artificial lifeform jumping up and down *

UPDATE: A couple of corrections and additions. The frame rate is actually 120fps and 180fps burst mode (whatever that means - probably at lower resolution), the freaking thing has Wifi control - means probably that you can remote control the sucker via a laptop from far away (time lapse! MoControl! stopTrick anims!) and when calculate into MegaPixel we are talking about a 14 Megapixel Camera! Thats right for $3000 you not only get a kickass superior camcorder but also a kick ass surprior PhotoCamera - that captures in 120fps what others capture at maximum of 10fps! Sport photography just lost all its appeal!

Posted by fALk at 23:06 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ein Samstag im April im Frühling lässt sich am besten im Garten übertreiben, daher auch die anfängliche Entspanntheit, welche nach Sonnenschwund in Bibbern umschwang. Anrufe, Hunde und Nachbarn inklusive, erläutern wir unsere Vorhaben in diesem Jahr und darüber hinaus. Gema war gestern, wir bekommen vermutlich aufs Maul wegen eines analogen Rock Songs. Phonetische Streicheleinheiten vom kfmw und Supernachvornemusik von Disrupt (Jahtari) bedienen Audiophile Interessen mit Links aus der urbanen Olympia schliessen wir ab. Man möge uns jede Woche solch Zeit und Raum bereithalten.

Wie immer am besten den podcast subscriben (iTunes -> Erweitert -> Podcast abbonieren -> link reinkopieren)

http://www.prototypen.com/radio/index.xml

oder durch den iTunes Music Store abbonieren (muss man nur auf Link drücken und dann im Musik Store auf abbonieren gehen)

Radio Prototypen im iTunes Music Store

oder direkt speichern unter

http://www.prototypen.com/radio/rP21_ProtoJekte2008.m4a

Links des podcast im Enhanced Teil des MPG4 ausserdem im Lyrics Teil und hier:

Länge: 1h16m38s

Musik Heute

Hintergrund Musik: Kraftfuttermischwerk: NETAUDIO-MIXTAPE VI / KAFFEEHAUSMUSIK
Jahtari

Free Culture Links & News

Lots A Robots

Exoskeloton

Free Energy
SolarBallons

Hauptthema: Protojekte 2008

Lauter Festival
http://www.effeff.tv/
Uebercaster
Prototypen.com Webseite
drupal

Links für 10

Magnetic Ink Processing Video
chain surfing
parkour
adbusting: schöne werbung gegen leitungswassermonopole
Kommando Tito von Hardenberg: Polylux-Fake
tom cruise google überstztes diy video

Posted by fALk at 20:46 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In einem Live-Konzeptionierungspodcast legen wir die Karten auf den Tisch, die denkbar ungünstige Uhrzeit wird ignoriert. Diesmal mit Studiogast Hotten, unser Architekt mit Liebe zum Modul , welchen wir überreden konnten unser noch-nicht fertiges Konzept während der Aufnahme mit uns durchzugehen. Ein Experiment welches einerseits eine gewisse Laienhaftigkeit nach sich zieht, anderseits aber auch unsere Authentizität beweist. Es geht nicht um den perfekten Podcast sondern um die Verbreitung der Inhalte, bei einem IST-Stand welcher sich sehen hören lassen kann wollen alle Aspekte bedacht werden. Die Musik im Hinter- und Vordergrund kommt direkt aus dem Kraftfuttermischwerk und das nicht zum ersten mal. Modulares sustainable prefab freeliving mit Lerncharakter für Nachbarn.

Wie immer am besten den podcast subscriben (iTunes -> Erweitert -> Podcast abbonieren -> link reinkopieren)

http://www.prototypen.com/radio/index.xml

oder durch den iTunes Music Store abbonieren (muss man nur auf Link drücken und dann im Musik Store auf abbonieren gehen)

Radio Prototypen im iTunes Music Store

oder direkt speichern unter

http://www.prototypen.com/radio/r20_ProtoTainerBelizeModul.m4a

Links des podcast im Enhanced Teil des MPG4 ausserdem im Lyrics Teil und hier:

Länge: 1h08m36s

Musik Heute
NetMixtape KFMW Netaudio-Mixtape II

Free Culture Links

Free Living 

Zero Emission Prefab house
Grüne Gebäude

Medien, Kunst und Organisationen

Free Culture Auf der Re:Publika
Jason Lane Kunst aus Schrott

Hauptthema ProtoTainer BelizeModul

PDF zum BelizeModul
Belize
Windschief MoGreens Bro in Belize
ISS Modulbauweise
Amaranth
Terra Preta
Cassava
Maya Peoples: Yucatecs, Mopans, Kekchi
Garifuna

Links für 10

hobnox AudioTool (Acid Musik Im Browser machen)
Barcode Beats
International Dance Party DJ/Party Roboter

Veranstaltungen

Lauter Festival für Kinderrechte 28.6.2008
Super Reggae im Affen 19.04.08

Posted by fALk at 13:38 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is one of the best articles about the role of the media in society that I have read in a long long time. Its meta topic is about games and the perception of videogamers in society but it digs very very deep into why there is a dissatisfaction and outright fear persistent in 30+ year old people concerning videogames and it comes to a very very intelligent conclusion.

"The media perpetuates it, but it doesn't cause it. ... The media just picks up on it and presents the same message with as much negativity as it can possibly find, because we are a negative-driven culture. We don't do things because they are right thing to do; we do things because we don't want the wrong things to happen." I think on that a long time.

Me too think on that long time...

Read the whole article at the escapist magazin

Posted by fALk at 12:04 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)