Anyone who knows me knows that I love both a good science show and the thoughts of Arthur C. Clarke with equal vigor. Therefore, this 1964 BBC program, Horizon, with an interview of Arthur C. Clarke is exceptional:
Was Arthur C. Clarke ever wrong? And, more importantly, was Arthur C. Clarke ever young? I swear he looked the EXACT same even when he died just a short while ago!
(io9)
I realize I’m probably setting myself up to be vastly, wildly disappointed but I’m super excited for The Event on NBC.
I must know: what are the peacock people planning on doing with this series? Will the writing and acting live up to the deliciously edited trailer? September 20th will tell us…9/8c.
If you aren’t watching Bravo’s Work of Art, I highly suggest that you start. The premise is described as such:
In each episode, contestants are faced with the challenge of creating unique pieces in a variety of mediums such as painting, sculpture, photography, collage and industrial design. The weekly assignments are exciting, original and will challenge the artists’ to push the limits of their technical skills and creative boundaries.
A slightly less flowery way of defining the show would be Project Runway for visual artists. And, by virtue of not being on Lifetime like Runway is now, the show benefits from the caliber of editing and production that PR used to have. If that wasn’t enough, it’s hosted by a woman named China Chow, a name that begs the be shouted, as the commentating gays at Tom & Lorenzo pointed out. (Personally, I think her name sounds like a dog food with Asian flair.)
Anyway, I caught a marathon of this what-I-thought-would-be-a-train-wreck-but-is-really-stupendous show over the 4th and have been hooked ever since. As Kate says, it’s a little like watching a room for of people like me. The artists are all methodical and, despite multiple neuroses, highly willing to help each other out and offer encouragement. Even the Tim Gunn stand in, Simon de Pury does a fantastic job offering mentorship and zippy little Swiss-flavored one liners.
After a four episode binge, I was jonesing for this past week’s installment. Arriving back from vacation on Thursday, I dove right in. And what awaited me was perfect. The artists were asked to travel the streets of New York in a fleet of Audis – Q5s and S4s – before arriving at the Audi Forum in Manhattan. *jealousy* They were then given half an hour to explore the dealership and come up with an idea that would translate the NY experience and time in the cars into an art work.
While the idea sounds sickeningly commercial, I will point out the BMW art cars as precedence. I will also say that the works this week are starting to exhibit the symptoms of overtaxing the creative process. That being said, my favorite contestant, Miles was able to again knock it out of the park. With the connections this show clearly has, it can only get better from here and I can’t wait to see where we go next week.
China Chow!
A few days ago, I posted briefly on a New York Times article talking about the remapping of our brains that occurs when we multitask heavily or even just use computers in general. Echoing this article’s view that more media = less focus is a piece by Nicholas Carr from the June issue of Wired (which I was reading on paper, thank you very much) which discusses the distracting nature of hypertext hyperactive content.
A 2007 scholarly review of hypertext experiments concluded that jumping between digital documents impedes understanding. And if links are bad for concentration and comprehension, it shouldn’t be surprising that more recent research suggests that links surrounded by images, videos, and advertisements could be even worse.
The takeaway seems to be that we are causing our brains to remake themselves in order to deal with a wide breadth of stuff – that never goes very deep. Bad, computers! Shame on you, technology! Or maybe not. Because in the exact same issue, Wired, asked two researchers of personal motivation, Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink, to discuss what is being termed (by Shirky) “the cognitive surplus.” Their argument goes a little something like this: with more options for putting our time to use than ever before, free time pursuits will become more varied, taking forms never seen before. Though not precisely related to the idea of focus, this statement did get me thinking:
When someone buys a TV, the number of consumers goes up by one, but the number of producers stays the same. When someone buys a computer or mobile phone, the number of consumers and producers both increase by one.
Whoa! And it’s true – I often find myself cursing the lack of hours in the day to get caught up on my favorite TV shows when I fill my evenings with blogging, online reading or freelance design. If it weren’t for these infernal computers stuffing my free time with their distractions, I could take part in the much more honorable 200 billion hours of television that I should be watching with my fellow Americans this year!
(As originally posted on my Instructional Technology work blog.)
Caught this tonight while reading up on the new iPhone and doing some freelance work. Absolutely stunning – completely stopped me in my tracks. Shouldn’t all tourism ads be this brilliant?
The Best of Daria: Reliving the Animated Teenage Angst Comedy (LA Weekly)
Unbelievably, I can remember nearly every episode of this, the last of MTV’s intelligent programming.
I’ve been watching my way through the History Channel series Ancient Aliens (which I didn’t realize had become a series, instead finding myself wondering why the special was on again and again) and I keep thinking to myself what I always think when we depict aliens in media: why would they look anything like us?!
Luckily, io9 steps up to the plate with an essay entitled “We’ll Only Find Extraterrestrial Life If We Know What We’re Looking For” that points out just how limiting it is to think that any sort of non-Earth entity would share much in common with life as we know it at all. We really need to stop depicting aliens exclusively as greys, bugs or slightly altered people (Star Trek, I’m looking at you.) Quoth the post:
This would be especially true of lifeforms that aren’t based on carbon or don’t use water as solvent, whose biochemistry would be nothing like ours. For these, we would have to fall back to the highest-order definition of life: an open system with negative entropy, emergent properties and ability to adapt and evolve, with an inner code which ensures that there will be strong continuity of form and function as the organism reproduces.
Check it out if your inner science fiction geek gets belligerent about this topic, too.
In case you missed it (or just totally forgot like I did,) I would like to take a moment to remind you that Tim Gunn will be wearing the Iron Man suit instead of his own in an upcoming comic series called Models, Inc.
It seems that Tim is going to be taking on the role of Charlie-figure for a band of models from across the Marvel universe. His first stop will be saving the day in Tony Stark’s suit when the bad guys crash a costume exhibition.
Most superheroes are fighting the same thing – good vs. evil – but who’s taking on crimes against fashion? Me!
Talk about making it work…
From Later…with Jools Holland
Was anyone else so hooked on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics that they actually watched the closing ceremonies “starring” Avril Lavigne? We were.
(Are you also getting a surprise Olympic Quatchi mascot in the mail soon? Maybe that’s just me.)
Well, if you found yourself tuned into NBC’s coverage last night, you may have noticed the incredible spangly awesomeness that was the “Welcome to Sochi” animation. This thing was a bitch to find on the interweb today, but since I was off sick, I had plenty of time to dig around without mercy.
Success:
And, if you are absolutely smitten with it and would like to see it in much higher resolution, go here and jump to the 4:56 mark (apologies for SilverLight.) To quote one blogger:
Just to make Canada’s sloppiness look bad, we got treated to Glorious Mother Russia coming out to annihilate all of our brains with a precise, choreographed, sensory-overloading preview of Sochi 2014.
Yes. Yes, we did. And I want to be treated again and again. Bring on Sochi!
(Thank you to Mahalo & NBC Olympics)
If you’re curious, the winning search string was “ice cosmonaut ballerina snowboard.” Always a good sign.