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Video Smorgasbord
Aug29

Video Smorgasbord

And now for a selection of videos I’ve been watching recently, partly to show the sorts of things that interest me, mostly to put something on the site since it’s been bloody ages and I really have no excuse other than bone-idleness. Insert annual “I really must post more often” statement of intent here. First up is my favourite episode from season two of The Katering Show, the only food-based series you ever need to see on the internet. Hosted by Australian comedians Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, a food intolerant and intolerable foodie respectively, this episode – The Cook and The Kates – sees the pair channel their inner Maggie Beer (Australian chef/presenter/something) to appeal to a wider audience and attain an inner calm missing in their lives. I look like laundry. Yes, I feel like a wealthy ghost. Watch to find out why there are so many lemons. The second video is one for fans of The Prisoner who want to know where the inspiration came from. The answer is that it came from an episode of Danger Man called Colony Three. The ending of this episode is really quite dark. Finally, a bit of music that I discovered as the album version formed the background audio to a tutorial on painting weapons for steampunk (I’m going to a fancy dress later this year and I need all the help I can get). This video, though, is a live performance of the track This City Means No Love by J.Viewz featuring vocals by Noa Lembersky. It’s just such a great song performed and sung so well, and a real...

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Hans Poelzig Architecture
Jul02

Hans Poelzig Architecture

Via Graphicene: Hans Poelzig (30 April 1869 – 14 June 1936) was a German architect, painter and set designer. One of the finest examples of German Architectural Expressionism. As an architect and theoretician, Poelzig was particularly interested in developing a language specific for factory buildings : “the true monumental task of contemporary architecture”, in a period when Germany was developing as a major industrialised...

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Penny Mordaunt, Suella Fernandes On Brexit
Jun29

Penny Mordaunt, Suella Fernandes On Brexit

Spotted on the Portsmouth News website and saved for posterity in case the article should ever be edited or withdrawn, local MPs for Portsmouth North and Fareham respectively, Penny Mordaunt and Suella Fernandes, appear to have finally come clean about their reasons to support Britian leaving the EU (Brexit) and their disdain for anyone stupid enough to have voted for them. I salute the naivety of those who backed us. I am heartened that people still believe any old crap we come out with if it reinforces their prejudices. Suella Fernandes Whatever side of the argument we were on my future career promises to be Chief Defence Wizard in the Cult of Bojo – Hail Bojo! – must be honoured. Penny Mordaunt If true then these quotes from Hampshire MPs are...

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NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts
May18

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts

Found via the Space Girl page on Facebook is the NIAC 2016 Phase I and Phase II Selections, featuring – as you might have worked out from post title – NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts, its programme to fund work on revolutionary aeronautics and space concepts. Some of the concepts include Brane Craft – “an ultra-light dynamic membrane spacecraft, with 3-axis attitude determination and control plus navigation, that can significantly change both its shape and orbit” – and Tensegrity Approaches to In-Space Construction of a 1g Growable Habitat – “[an] economically feasible approach to building habitats that can grow, spin, and [be manufactured] in space” – among many others. A lot of good stuff and interesting ideas for the science and possibly science fiction fan...

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Lillian F. Schwartz Movies
May08

Lillian F. Schwartz Movies

Some extraordinary videos, mostly from the 1970s, showcasing innovative computer animations or filming techniques in artworks produced by Lillian F. Schwartz. From Lillian.com: Lillian Schwartz, resident artist and consultant at Bell Laboratories (New Jersey), 1969-2002. During the 70s and 80s Schwartz developed a catalogue of visionary techniques for the use of the computer system by artists. Her formal explorations in abstract animation involved the marriage of film, computers and music in collaboration with such luminaries as computer musicians Jean-Claude Risset, Max Mathews, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Milton Babbit, and Richard Moore. Many more of Lillian’s films can be found...

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Attention K-Mart Shoppers
Jan28

Attention K-Mart Shoppers

Found via Open Culture is a collection of tape cassettes (digitised by Mark Davis) sent to K-Mart stores in the late 1980s and early 1990s to play over the shop speaker system; muzak and store announcements that you can close your eyes to and transport yourself back in time (and, in my case, to a culture only glimpsed on TV and in the movies.) The collection of K-Mart tapes can be found at the Internet Archive here:...

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