As always, big ups to my friend Findlay on finding this clip of a Copenhagen flash mob in action; and in super-classy, no frills style at that.

I love flash mobs. When done right, they can generate nothing but joy for people, be it as a participant or unwitting observer. As Fin had commented, flash mobs should be “…a surprise not sprung on one unsuspecting individual, but a treat for everyone to enjoy.” Hell, even the ones that are done a bit wrong still have a positive effect.

Probably my favourite aspect of them is how the internet has been so instrumental in bringing together these large groups of otherwise strangers to do something in real life that is both out-of-place and wonderful at the same time.

If you’ve not seen it yet, you should probably check out this TED talk by Charlie Todd, creator of Improve Everywhere and one of the first to popularise the concept of flash mobs (the joyful ones).

Edit: Just clicked on that flash mob: it’s like they took this earlier awesome concept and made it more awesome as a flash mob. Nice.

One silver lining of being so sick and confined like a leper, has been the opportunity to finally clear up the encroached chaos that is the room I’ve been living in; that and listening to some fine new music.

One fella in particular has had a lot of replay in the last few days is Hanni el Khatib, an LA based singer/songwriter whose influences include (but aren’t limited to) the blues, garage rock, punk and doo-wop; and his debut album Will the Guns Come Out has this great raw edge sound that’s reminiscent of The Black Keys and The White Stripes. Hell, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys will be producing his second album, so that’s got to count for something.

Been a fun filled week of flu, but that has been happily offset by some new music that’s simply not getting off my playlists.

XXYYXX is the name of 16 year old (!) producer, Marcel Everett and his music is fantastic; like the ebodied sound of a cocktail mixed one part joy, one part melancholy and two parts beauty. That, or I’m thinking about cocktails too much, but do check out the lad’s stuff.

I’m not even sure what you call this process of… er, using non-music based objects to create tunes; I’m sure there’s a term for it and I’m not thinking right today, but whatevers. It’s cool.

First off is the original DOOM video game theme played on eight floppy drives:

Old favourite one of Radiohead’s Nude on an array of old computer components:

And finally, I couldn’t figure out which video from these guy’s channel to choose from, but eventually settled on In the Hall of the Mountain King (though in retrospect, something mathematically Mozart would be wonderfully appropriate).

Either way, musical Tesla coils. Are. Awesome.

Having missed out on most of the Coachella webcast (though Radiohead was still mandatory viewing), one thing in particular that had the interwebs abuzz is the holographic performance of the late, great 2pac as seen in this video:

The almost futurama-esq ethical humor of this aside, this was a really impressive feat of technology that had me well impressed (and pulling out the 90’s rap again); but yet the whole ‘hologram’ aspect of it still didn’t seem right.

Well, Ars Technica has a good article on the performance and technology here, and yep, it’s still not quite full form hologram technology, but a big step in both rendering technology and hardware material; but best of all, it’s still using an technique from the 19th Century called Pepper’s ghost.

So here’s how it works: the audience needs to be able to see into the main room, but not in an adjacent hidden room. In the case of the Tupac “hologram,” that’s the main stage where a real-life Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre were sharing the limelight. However, hidden on stage is a piece of glass, where the images can be reflected from and pushed into a target area that makes it seem like a single room. However, off to the side, behind the glass, there’s a hidden room that has the original object being projected.  [ ars technica article ]

Other high profile uses of this technique in the past include certain ‘visual effects’ on Lord of the Rings, a plot device in The Illusionist and most notably, a digital Japanese pop star named Hatsune Miku, who, during the course of looking up what her name was again, I just found out she’s the singer of Nyan cat. Awesome.

I just love that application of old ideas with new technology, and the technology used here is pretty damn good, especially for bringing an (allegedly) dead guy back from the grave to give a live performance to thousands of fans. How will this affect future entertainment performances and what nots? No idea, but it is still definitely still some time away before I can live out that Leia hologram reenactment dream (and then fantasy afterwards).

UPDATE: thanks internet!

My ears are full of this…

“Ain’t Nothing Like You” on Letterman…

Am also approaching that ‘need to get a haircut’ point. Telling factor is after a shower my hair becomes this almost Beatles like bob cut. But anyways…

A pretty good list of what one man considers The 10 best long tracking shots ever filmed which I can wholeheartedly agree with.

An article and sample of Philip Glass’s new opera can be found here.

A rather bizarre article on a Vietnamese man dug up wife’s corpse ‘so he could hug her’.

For Empire’s 20th anniversary, they’ve gotten a whole slew of actors to recreate some of their more famous roles. It’s pretty neat-o and can be found here.

And then lastly some science articles…

Why we shouldn’t release all we know about the cosmos
A trio of astronomers have warned that, unless we use the information sparingly, we risk squandering a once-in-eternity opportunity. If the whole data set is released at once, as is planned, any new ideas that cosmologists come up with may have to remain untested because they will have no further data to test them with. [full article]

Death of rare giant star sheds light on cosmic past
An enormous explosion observed in 2007 was the death of one of the most massive stars known in the universe, new calculations suggest. Similar blasts may have polluted the early universe with heavy elements, altering its evolution. [full article]

Lord knows how many times I’ve rewatched/listened to this. An upcoming collaboration album with The Black Keys and a slew of hip-hop guest artists including Mos Def, Q-Tip and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Comes out end of this month and I so can’t wait.