I think the creative sphere is still especially clueless about the internet. I figured nearly a decade later, we’d be past rewarding practices that cash in on tired buzzwords and armchair sociology, but, nope.

R.I.P., not really.

TorrentFreak has learned that behind the scenes the Pirate Bay operators are talking to other BitTorrent site owners to encourage them to follow suit and completely ditch torrents in the future…
“Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It’s the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date.”

Just an excuse to post their response to a legal threat from Linotype.

The first real folding bike, designed by Harry Bickerton
and manufactured from 1971-1991.

www.bickertonbicycles.co.uk

Tuesday July 14, 7PM
LACMA Bing Theater

Brought to you by tank.tv, the LACMA film program, The Young and Evil, guest-curated by the Tate Modern’s Stuart Comer, features works by filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger, Anna Halprin, Curt McDowell, and Barbara Rubin, and will be followed by an onstage conversation between Stuart Comer and artist William E. Jones.

NOTE: This program contains material of an adult nature, which may be inappropriate for some viewers. Discretion is advised.

On Friday, July 17, Outfest will host the contemporary program at REDCAT, originally commissioned and presented on www.tank.tv.

See www.outfest.org for more information.


Bing Theater | Tickets required:
$7 general admission,
$5 members, seniors 62+ and students with ID.

and again

make sure sound is on

by Helen Pidd

A man with three ears will appear at Edinburgh Napier University today to talk about his “extra” ear, which has been surgically implanted on to his forearm.

Australian performance artist Stelios Arcadiou, known as Stelarc, had the third ear created from cells in a lab in 2006. At the Edinburgh Science International Festival today, Stelarc will discuss his plans to install transmitters in his new ear, so people listen to what it is hearing online. He also hopes to grow a soft earlobe using his own stem cells.

The ear is made of human cartilage. Stelarc, who is visiting professor at Brunel University School of Arts, took 10 years to find a surgeon willing to perform the operation. He uses medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality and the internet in his work.

via As-Found

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

The Unfinished Swan is a first-person painting game set in an entirely white or black world. Players can splatter paint to help them find their way through an unusual garden. The game is still in development and no release plans have been announced. Here is a in-game demo.

I love the grime-ish bass sound during the outside scene.

Fullerene, buckyballs, nanotubes…

by Rebecca Cole

Reporting from Washington — This year, the vegetables served at the White House will be as locally grown as possible — some right on the South Lawn.

After a campaign by gardeners and sustainable food activists, the first family has decided to dig up part of the White House grounds for a vegetable garden. In a ceremony today, First Lady Michelle Obama and local elementary students will break ground for the project.

It is part of the first lady’s promotion of healthful food for her daughters, Malia and Sasha, as well as for the nation. But like many parents, the Obamas have had mixed results: Michelle Obama recently said a version of “creamless” creamed spinach by White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford still was a bit too “green” for the kids.

More than 100,000 people have lobbied the president online to plant a garden on the White House lawn, according to Kitchen Gardeners International, a coalition of gardeners whose mission is to inspire and teach people to grow their own food. The group’s Eat the View campaign to plant “high-impact gardens in high-profile places” urged the first family to start an edible garden within the first 100 days of the Obama administration.

Launched in February 2008 and spearheaded by Roger Doiron, a gardener in Scarborough, Maine, the movement hoped to have the president’s family set the right example in terms of healthful eating — “gardening for the greater good,” as Doiron said.

“It begins at home,” Doiron said. “That’s where we start. And if we get a number of people together carrying out these small actions, it will speak volumes and add up.”

Since the early 1990s, food-activist pioneers such as Berkeley restaurateur Alice Waters and author Michael Pollan have lobbied for an “edible landscape” across the 16 acres of White House grounds.

Though the Clintons did have a small rooftop garden that grew vegetables and herbs and Laura Bush made sure organic foods were served in the residence, this is the first full-scale planting on the lawn in more than 60 years — since Eleanor Roosevelt had a victory garden during World War II.

“I’m just so gratified that this idea that seemed as right as rain from the beginning” has finally taken hold, said Waters, owner of the renowned Chez Panisse.

“Food is precious. It comes from the land,” she added. “And we have to take care of the land in order to nourish ourselves. It’s very hard to talk about food without talking about the garden.”

From a chilly corner of Maine, Doiron’s small plot of land yielded $2,100 worth of produce from 35 different crops last year. The message, he said, is that even in these difficult economic times, when families are struggling financially and psychologically, there are creative ways to put healthful food on the table.

“Even if families can start with something small this season, they’re going to come away feeling empowered,” Doiron said. “There are things that we can do, even though we feel like we are up against incredible odds.”

Waters said she was especially pleased that at the White House garden’s groundbreaking, Michelle Obama would be surrounded by children — an aspect near and dear to her heart.

As a founder of the Edible Schoolyard, a program in Berkeley and New Orleans to integrate organic gardens into schools, Waters wants all children to learn that vegetables and fruit come from the ground, not a store.

“If we make a beautiful place that children can walk through on tours of the White House, we can broadcast that message around the world,” Waters said. “It’s such a beautiful picture. It’s confirming and affirming their interest in the garden.”

via South Willard

The Box in Chinatown is hosting the first solo exhibition in Los Angeles of work by pioneering artist and filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek (1927-1984). The show includes a number of original collage works, as well as a recreation of his Movie Mural (1965) and Panels for the Walls of the World, Telephone/Fax Mural (1970). Not to be missed. On view March 14 - April 18, 2009.

More info here.

by Leslie Kaufman

PALM DESERT, Calif. — Rick Clark’s garage is loaded with fast toys for playing in the sun. He has a buggy for racing on sand dunes, two sleek power boats for pulling water skiers, and a new favorite: 48 solar panels that send his energy meter whirring backward.

Bronzed and deeply lined from decades of life in the desert sun, Mr. Clark is not one to worry about global warming. He suspects that if the planet’s climate is getting hotter, it is part of a natural cycle and will probably correct itself. “Experts have been wrong before,” he said.

But late last year, Mr. Clark decided to install a $62,000 solar power system because of a new municipal financing program that lent him the money and allows him to pay it back with interest over 20 years as part of his property taxes. In so doing, he joined the vanguard of a social experiment that is blossoming in California and a dozen other states.

The goal behind municipal financing is to eliminate perhaps the largest disincentive to installing solar power systems: the enormous initial cost. Although private financing is available through solar companies, homeowners often balk because they worry that they will not stay in the house long enough to have the investment — which runs about $48,000 for an average home and tens of thousands of dollars more for a larger home in a hot climate — pay off.

But cities like Palm Desert lobbied to change state laws so that solar power systems could be financed like gas lines or water lines, covered by a loan from the city and secured by property taxes. The advantage of this system over private borrowing is that any local homeowners are eligible (not just those with good credit), and the obligation to pay the loan attaches to the house and would pass to any future buyers.

The idea of public financing for home solar systems began two years ago in Berkeley. While it took months to untangle the legislative knots at the state level and get banks lined up to back the project, the concept took on a life of it own.

Cisco DeVries, who developed the program for Berkeley but has since moved on to a company that administers and finances similar programs for many towns, said: “I’ve never been part of something like this where the power of an idea has grabbed so many people so quickly. It is viral.”

In California, about a half-dozen cities including San Francisco and San Diego are already committed to their own solar programs. And outside of California, at least a half-dozen states, including Arizona, Texas and Virginia, have introduced bills to allow municipal financing. Colorado has already passed a version of the law, and the City of Boulder is on the verge of beginning a program.

Municipal financing comes on top of other government supports. California residents receive a straight rebate for about 20 percent of the cost of a solar power system. In addition, a federal income tax credit for 30 percent of the cost of installing solar panels was extended to participants in the municipal loan programs as part of the economic stimulus bill passed by Congress. And there are efforts to change the federal tax code further so that cities can borrow the money to lend tax free.

But public financing of solar power also has critics, who say government is essentially subsidizing and encouraging a form of energy production that would otherwise not be cost effective. Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute in Berkeley, who is concerned about the proliferation of the programs, said, “It would be better for local governments to do energy efficiency and skip the solar panels.

“If you count the full-interest cost without the tax subsidy, residential solar panels never pay for themselves,” he said. “We shouldn’t be making it a major public priority.”

However, cities, which are charging 7 percent for the guaranteed loans, do not have the same financial risk as the consumers. And for cities like those in California that are required by state laws to reduce their carbon emissions, officials have to make calculations other than costs and are going ahead anyway.

No city is as far along as Palm Desert.

Instead of waiting to get financing through third parties as other cities have done, Palm Desert tapped into $7.5 million of its own reserves to run a pilot program. In what is widely seen as a measure of public demand, the program was almost immediately fully subscribed. Already, nearly 100 households have been approved for solar panels, and about half of those have already installed them and have a system up and running, according to Patrick Conlon, director of the city office of energy management.

From its arid climate to its conservative politics, Palm Desert could not be more different from Berkeley. But with 350 days of sun, the city is making a calculation that has nothing to do with saving the Earth.

“We live in a severe climate,” Mr. Conlon said. “To cool our buildings, we have to be energy gluttons. So renewable energy is important here as an economic choice. It’s bigger than politics.”

For Mr. Clark, that is certainly the case. His monthly energy bill for a 3,400-square-foot home and a guest house routinely surpassed $1,400 in summer months when the air conditioning ran all the time. Now his solar panels are producing more than enough energy in the daytime to power his home. The additional power is sent back to the grid and is credited on his utility bill against night and summer hours, when he might consume more power than he produces.

Mr. Clark estimates that at the rate he is going, his power bill will be at most $500 for this year. The savings will be great enough that, taking into account his investment, he will still save $3,000 a year or more.

The blue panels above his garage and his meter — which also tells him how much of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide he has avoided creating since the panels were installed (over 2,200 pounds) — have in fact had a kind of viral marketing effect in his upper-middle-class neighborhood. Homes here run well above $1 million, yet solar power was a rarity until the city program started.

“It can seem like a large and intimidating task,” said Valerie Van Winkle, a bank manager and a friend of Mr. Clark, who persuaded him and three other neighbors to take the solar plunge.

Ms. Van Winkle said the environmental cachet has also been fun. “I don’t even know anybody who voted for Obama,” she said.

Still she has become a proselytizer for solar power. “It just makes so much sense,” she said. “And, you know, I am happy it’s also good for the environment.”

Down the street, Debbie and Chris McNicol have a different take. Mr. McNicol used to be part of a professional drag racing crew and still races as a hobby on weekends. Their garage houses its own set of speed mobiles, including a 24-foot-long purple-and-yellow gas-guzzling dragster that goes up to 180 miles an hour. After installing solar panels, their first monthly energy bill dropped to $1.89.

Mr. McNicol is elated: “We can use the money we’ve saved to race new toys.”

image links to Lined & Unlined

This is one of my favorite movies and I know most of it by heart, but it looks like someone loves it even more than me!

If you wear vegan products, take note: My friend and ex-studiomate Rachel’s animal-friendly crop of men’s dress shoes got a mention in the latest issue of VMan. Honestly, the only person who has gotten a good-looking vegan shoe right. And I’ve looked around harder than anybody out there, I guarantee.

Classic footage of Cypress Hill production hero DJ Muggs hard at work on the SP1200 inside his home studio back in 1993. Notice the beautiful piles of scattered vinyl and racks of cassette tapes on the back wall.
Via CrateKings

This no-frills mobile phone by Motorola is created for emerging markets. It uses E-ink technology and retails for around $40 online. Think of it as the anti-iPhone.

“The “All Wave” philosophy, which loosely stated, is that everything should be an analog sound recording of someone playing or singing, rather than using a computer to generate or digitally manipulate sounds separated from the dimension of time in which they were performed.

In short, to record All Wave one must use no computers, no digital recording, no auto-tuning, or any other mainstays of contemporary production.A parallel drawn with the realist film movement (including Lars Von Trier’s Dogme 95 school) is not inappropriate.”

Excerpt by Steve Albini

From the then-exotic Tango to the lethal Mouldmaster and the pigs bladders of yore, a review of six essential makes of ball.

Thanks Jennifer

I want to join just to hang out in their clubhouse.

Life is incredible.
Google Maps is incredible.

Thanks Eric.