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30 June, 2009

Bizarre facts about future of our civilization

Future
Are you up for some heavy stuff? Like You all know I'm a huge geek by heart, and that includes hours and hours of wiki-reading late at night every few days when I feel like it. Last night I was all into futurism and was reading about these wicked ideas about not so distant future. The pace that we live in is unbelievable, and was never nearly as fast.

Dramatic changes in the rate of economic growth have occurred in the past because of some technological advancement. Based on population growth, the economy doubled every 250,000 years from the Paleolithic era until the Neolithic Revolution. The new agricultural economy began to double every 900 years, a remarkable increase. In the current era, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, the world’s economic output doubles every fifteen years, sixty times faster than in the agricultural era. If the rise of superhuman intelligences causes a similar revolution, one would expect the economy to double at least quarterly and possibly on a weekly basis.
Future
Most theoretics think a so called "Technological singularity" will take place in a few decades. What is it?

... if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. The first such improvements might be small, but as the machine became more intelligent it would become better at becoming more intelligent, which could lead to an exponential and quite sudden growth in intelligence.
Future
Mmmmm. Even better, this is going to happen in our lifetime, futurists agree, most of them setting the date somewhere between 2030 and 2045. Read the whole article if You find this even slightly interesting, there is much more unbelievable ideas and concepts, like for example post scarcity, which is an inevitable future of our civilization and economy, where everything will be practically free, and there will be no human labor necessary at all.
Future
I don't know how very weird is the fact that I honestly find stuff like that interesting, but I do, and considering that idea of technological singularity is often used in popular culture (Matrix, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica ...), I'm not the only one.
I am excited about the future, I just hope we all live to see it, and not nuke ourselves before our society can progress to higher levels.
Future

28 June, 2009

Song Of The Week \ 20

This must be the best dub I've ever heard, I am in love with the elegance of this track, I mean it's so cleverly made, that i can't call it anything else except elegant! It is based around bass and the very subtle sound of a woman breathing, and singing "ooh" is so cleverly incorporated in the track. Very minimalistic, with every sound exactly at its place to make the song as beautiful as it can be. Not to even mention the sound game starting about four minutes in. Turn on the bass, and dive in!

Battant - Kevin (1989) (Andrew Weatherall Stadium Dub) Battant - Kill the DJ Présente... The Vinyl Collection - Kevin (1989) [Andrew Weatherall Stadium Dub]
London, UK \ Kill The DJ \ No Wiki This Time
Arthur
Dub at it's best, minimalistic with every sound in the right place.

26 June, 2009

Sideways

Sideways
I finally found another amazing movie, that matches the awesomeness of the holy American Beauty, Brokeback Mountain, Juno and the likes. I mentioned it's soundtrack in a quick recap post when bringing this blog back to life. The movie itself is just very mature and entertaining, simple, without any stupid Hollywood crap. The story is developing slowly, with lots of beautiful cinematography, and delicate dialogues, that you can slowly absorb. Anyone generally agreeing with my movie taste - see it.

25 June, 2009

Not into comedy really, but ...

Alan
Me and my housemate watched TV in the kitchen, when a show called Chatty Man came up on Channel 4. It was the first ever episode of Alan Carr's new show, and it was FUNNY! I don't wanna sound like a snob, but I find a big majority of comedy to be just just plain stupid and not funny at all, so I was so much more surprised to enjoy Chatty Man that much. Alan is such a sweet, flamboyant character, and for the first time in my life I am a fan of a comedian. He is 33, openly gay, and known for his deliberately camp demeanour and self-deprecating humor. Here are a few cute taster clips, but unfortunately BBC and Channel 4 disabled the embedding functionality, so I'm linking ....

Follow these links, I think it's worth it:

20 June, 2009

Song Of The Week \ 19

Crystal Castles are the freshest thing I've heard in a very very long time, and I fell in love with them completely. The whole album is something else. It can be quite violent and sometimes without any melodic form, and the sounds are so innovative, that it sounds like it's from 2030. It's like a nintendo on steroids mixed with screaming lesbians and cheerleader chants, and the overall feeling of the album is amazing. You can't have it as background music, it is way to intense and intrusive. This is my favorite song, but it is a hard call, because I love about half of the album and I like the other half. It screams YOUTH! ENERGY! FUTURISM!

Crystal Castles - Courtship Dating Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (Bonus Track Version) - Courtship Dating
Toronto, Canada \ Last Gang Records \ Wiki
Arthur
8 bit syths, in a way you heaven't heard before.

19 June, 2009

Catching Up

I don't have a better explanation for my long absence, except that I didn't feel like blogging, and for some reason distanced myself from my creative internet activities, and rather resort to consuming web activities. I have more home-time lately, and consequently spend considerably more time online, and I really started to miss blogging.

So to quickly catch up with what I've been impressed with during this time of absence, let me present you with some (mostly very geeky) photos:


Boston Big Dig is a gorgeous example of what difference a thought-out city planning and urbanism can do:
BigDig

Black Eyed Peas and their "Boom Boom Pow" is a huge hit, and I got infected with the video and sound. Getting over it by now though.
Fergie

Fool's Day prank, which I fell for and thought it's amazing. World's first flying hotel! (shamed)
Hotelicopter

Very enjoyable movie, I love it, but even more so it's soundtrack, which is very different to what I usually listen to - it might become my gateway album to modern jazz and such.
Sideways

How can I post anything after such long time, without including some skyscraper. Well I can't! The spectacular, unbelievably tall Burj Dubai is about to be overshadowed by another mammoth project in the same city. It's called Nakheel Harbour Tower, and it's gonna be !!1400!! meters tall - almost 4x WTC or 2x Burj Dubai.
Dubai

The Stanford torus is a proposed design for a space habitat capable of housing up to 140,000 permanent residents. Build it in my lifetime please.
SpaceHabitat

Apparently the next big thing in home design - Office Pod, home office-cubicle for the garden. SO cute I want one.
OfficePod

I joined Star Trek Mania, the movie is a very cool, fresh and a successful reset of the franchise. Don't even get me started on Chris Pine ...
StarTrek

Okay, this is weird, but I have a thing for elegant traffic solutions like this. It's the most elegant highway junction I've ever seen. Situated in Bergen, Norway.
Bregen

Saint Etienne don't have one song, that I could particularly expose, but their greatest hits album as a whole is as nice as a road trip across Spain at summer with friends, in a convertible.
SaintEtienne

Speaking of Spain - this is one of only handful real IMAX cinemas in the world, and the architecture is stunning! Located in Valencia, Spain, the Hemispheric is a part of the "City of the Arts and the Sciences".
IMAX

The new model of Boeing's biggest airliner 747 "Jumbo Jet" is the biggest yet. I just love its design, it looks much prettier than "fatter" european Airbus A380.
Boeing

So much for now, more to come soon. Thank you for visiting again.

12 June, 2009

The best video I've seen in a long time

Behold, everyone! It's the great Joan As Police Woman with "Start Of My Heart".