Technology doesn’t only help humans move around in new ways: This project at CMU allows a goldfish to drive its tank around the room.
Now they’ve done the difficult bit, all they need to do is work out how to explain to the goldfish what exactly is going on. I fear that may still take a few million years…
This rather pretty sheep was wearing her new Christmas jewellery to breakfast.
This bold new installation at Wimpole Hall asks difficult — some would say provocative — questions about the role of traditional art forms in a modern world.
Echoing the delayed gratification of the wrapped Christmas gift, the artist seems to imply that the projection of the sculptor’s immediate intent onto the viewer’s consciousness is, in itself, best understood as an ephemeral dualism.
The exhibition runs throughout the winter, and there is no charge for admission.
For ‘Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy’ fans…
I noticed that we had an old touch-tone phone sitting on a shelf, and since it’s many years since we had a landline, I’ve been sitting here cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol before giving it away to a charity shop. I’m not doing a very good job.
Then a terrible thought suddenly struck me. For a brief moment, I have become a Telephone Sanitiser.
And probably a second-class one, at that.
Alan Bennett’s wonderful sketch ‘Take a Pew’ may resonate with fewer and fewer people as time goes on, but for those of us brought up on the sermons of the Anglican church, it’s still hilarious.
There are many different recordings of it out there, but none of them, I think, is quite as polished as the one I remember on an old comedy compilation album from the 80s. After extensive searching, it appears that this never made it online, and in fact, never made it beyond LPs and cassettes. I would have been happy to purchase a copy, but was unable to do so.
So, after finding a second-hand copy of the cassette from an online retailer, digging my old cassette desk out of the loft and giving it a good vacuum, and connecting it through a USB audio interface to my Macbook, I offer it here for your enjoyment.
(Download)
I love these nihilistic security questions from Soheil Rezayazdi…
Thanks to Rory C-J for the link.
Yesterday we attended a rehearsal of the famous Grantchester Bovine Acapella Trio.
Actually, they were trying to reach this particularly tasty tree which was growing just a bit too far out over the river.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is just superb. This video has (a) some ads that pop up that you’ll want to dismiss and (b) a microphone glitch early on so you’ll need to wait until he swaps mics. But trust me, it’s worth the effort.
Amazing what technology can do with music; what it could do, even back in 2008…
Aleksey Igudesman
Thanks to Adrian Higgs for the link.
I would like to propose a revision to the traditional blessing, which is a little more optimistic, but still covers all eventualities.
For what we are about to receive
We are most truly thankful.
May the Lord make us even more so.
(Above all, if we need it,
After we receive it.)
© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser
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