Jerry Blossom's Finest

Two great vox videos on black culture

top: a more general one on Afrofuturism, a cultural leitmotiv that imagines a positive future for colored people, thus delivering a constructive critique to problems of race. 

bottom: a neat 101 of rhymes in raps - with a quick tour through “the best rhymers of all time”. From Kurtis Blow via Notorious BIG and Mos Def to MF Doom. 

Hot off the press! Check out Josa Peit’s great “Constellation” EP. 

After lending her voice to Nostalgia 77 and Dexter, she now released her solo debut full of soulful, spheric soundscapes.

Anil Seth's latest entry in his new blog NeuroBanter (convering all things on neuroscience and consciousness) referred me to the 2011 BBC documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace". This "tour de force" of a documentary, portrays the development of men's faith in machines, its entanglement with historico-political events over the past 100 years, and the recurring disappointment of this faith.

Part 1 deals with the financial sector, touching on the New Economy, Alan Greenspan, and Ayn Rand, among others.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace 1.

Part 2 presents the idea of nature as an ecological system that balances itself, the idea's effects on the world, and its rebuttal.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace 2.

Part 3 then explores the origins of the view that humans are machines controlled by genes.

What "The Powers of Ten" were for space, this recent video by Philipp Dettmer is for time: a helpful visualization of how nothing is absolute and everything can only be grasped (if at all) in relation to something else. Isn't that the appropriate level of resolution for the upcoming end-of-year review?

Oculus Rift is the most advanced virtual-reality headset available. It offers stereoscopic (3D) viewing while tracking your head movements, thus facilitating immersion into the presented virtual realities. For that effect, people overcome their physical realities and "dive into" apparent or virtual ones.

There are plenty of videos where people (and their vestibular systems) are shocked by the realism of the presented content - most often a roller coaster ride.

However, there are less action-packed videos, impressively demonstrating the fusion of physical and virtual reality. For example by this guy, presenting and commenting his immersion into a 1984 Tetris block production office.

He also modeled his bedroom and demonstrates the switch between virtual and physical reality.

What's more, a company called eye mirror, produces devices that let you capture your videos in 360 degrees - using standard cameras. For presentation, you can either use their viewer (well worth checking out on their website) or present them on the Oculus Rift afterwards (via engadget and Felix).

The Metaverse is getting closer!

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Great and entertaining 80-minute documentary by students of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück, neatly summarizing the historical and conceptual foundations of Cognitive Science.

Normal Palm's "Easy" gets to the heart of long-distance - and particularly intercontinental - relationships.