Featuring Alley Boy, Swank and the best motherfucking cameo by Tina Fey!

In this video, astrophysics graduate Alex Parker has taken the orbital information about the Kepler-11 system and, by corresponding a musical note with each planets’ transit, has created a beautifully unique sonata.

…The pitch (note) is determined by the planet’s distance from its star (closer=higher), and they are drawn from a minor 11 chord. The volume is determined by the size of the planet (larger=louder).

The near-4:5 mean-motion resonance of the innermost two planets is audible as the notes “beat” against each other.

A triple-transit (three planets crossing the face of the star at once) in August 2010 is also audible. This event is what is illustrated in the artist’s impression of the system used in cover photo.

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• Planned TV retelling of Peter Pan based on the Lost Boys 10 years later
• Video: Mock Dora the Explorer Movie Trailer
• Finnish mathematician constructs “world hardest sudoku puzzle” (confirmed to be a goddamnmotherfuckingsonnofabitch)

So a few days ago, an NPR intern wrote this blog entry on being part of a generation ‘raised digitally’ and how as a music lover at the age of 21, she owns over 11,000 songs but can admit to only ever paying for 15 CDs.

This in turn has lead to a shit storm of comments from all sides through forum debates, blog posts and most prominently, this 3,800-word open letter response by academic/musician David Lowrey who argues his perception of a ‘lost morality’ that lies at the heart of internet piracy today. It’s a very eloquent piece that raises some profound notions on how today’s artists are being effected and well recommended worth a read.

Of course, this popular rebuttal had then lead to even more comments, tweets, write ups, re-responses and a interesting introspective post by musician Jonathan Coultan whose music career owes its own foundations to that of the early sharing culture of the internet. The argument over internet piracy is certainly nothing new, but what’s interesting here is that the cases on either side make for a much stronger representation of the ‘who’ that are involved in this issue; as opposed to the usual rhetoric of on is ‘file-sharing pirate’ and the other a ‘monolithic music corporation’.

Whichever sphere of thinking you consider yourself in, this is an issue that’s getting progressively heated with each iteration and… okay, so maybe online reactions to passionated internet writers is hardly a step up from the excessive lengths taken to get a file-sharing website founder arrested; but going from the gross misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to the creation of extremely unreasonable and impractical laws like SOPA and PIPA, social media has greatly simplified our online culture’s process of sharing (which is a good thing), but it appears that simplification has blurred enough of the ethical (not legal) distinction of what’s okay to share and what is really having an adverse effect on the livelyhood of the artists themselves.

Music and edit by POGO

• Prometheus, Viewed as a Roleplaying Game (contains spoilers; but seriously good fun read)
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• ‘I Just Want to Feel Everything’: Hiding Out With Fiona Apple, Musical Hermit
• Anatomy of CGI: A Scene from “Tangled”
• 20 Things Fantasy Characters Should Do More Often
• Germany’s Ambitious Energy Plan (here’s hoping it works)
• Most Internet trolls are probably trolls in real life, too
• Photos: Behind the scenes of The Empire Strikes Back

• Backstage gossip from touring Guns N Roses roadies
• The Necronomicon-Thin Crust pizza (I like to call it a Necronominom)
• How a Boiled squid inseminated a woman’s mouth
• Stoya on the difference between a prostitute and a porn actress
• Yanis Varoufakis on becoming Valve’s economist-in-residence for their virtual economies
• Why smart people can be so dumb
• Is Creativity Sexy? The Evolutionary Advantages of Artistic Thinking
• Singularity University Rule #1: The best way to predict the future is to invent it
• Lifehacker’s guide on how to tie your running shoes
• New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza on reporting and how Twitter has fostered a crisis in political journalism
• These are the books that will make you totally undateable
  

  “Eat Pray Love. Elizabeth Gilbert isn’t a bad person, but if this book is your choice, you are.”

• Interesting discussion on How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
  

  “Non-reading is not just the absence of reading. It is a genuine activity, one that consists of adopting a stance in relation to the immense tide of books that protects you from drowning. On that basis, it deserves to be defended and even taught.”

• A visual summary of Michael Fassbender’s role in Prometheus
• Oh Christ, I thought I could avoid posting a “call me maybe” cover thing, but this MC Chris version with bath salts zombies is catchy.
• Also, Star Wars subtitled with existential philosophy

And for your funny late show segment of the day, here’s 30 Rock’s nice guy Jack McBrayer and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog visiting the Weiner Circle, Chicago’s infamously hostile hot dog stand.

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• Why popular music isn’t always the best
• Photos: Students Home Party, 1960s, New York
• We encouraged people to learn to program and just look at what happened

These full length renditions are incredibly well done. First up is OK Computer…

And then Kid A…