Over on Boing Boing they are running a week of posts celebrating the life and work of Robert Anton Wilson. RAW is one of my favourite writers and thinkers. For some reason I don’t tend to reference him much on here – something I should rectify, but he’s one of those people who really broadened my mind and challenges my preconceptions, and has been highly influential to me. This clip below sums up the kinds of thing that Bob weaved together (Quantum Mechanics, belief systems, “the map is not the territory”, naive realism, religion, Zen Buddhism, the I Ching, skepticism and more…)
Only last week I was talking about how I feel when I see footage of Earth from space. This video from the International Space Station is truly remarkable.
Fellow Dundalk man Dougie has a great blog at Brand New Retro where he is scanning and posting some old school fan-zines. So far we have been treated to such delights as “Too Late” and its follow up, the one-issue wonder “Jump“, which among its content was this amazing “In and Out” list (click for larger).
What a wonderful portal into the mind set of the 1984 Dundalk youths mind. This was a time when Channel 4 was ‘in’ and not the cesspit of property porn and human freak shows it is now. Amazingly, “video jukeboxes” were OUT in 1984 (This torpedoes my long held belief that I invented them one summer before I saw them appear in pubs and clubs around the town) I’m glad to see that getting into Oriel Park for free at half-time was out then, as it is now, but I have to question the claim that saying “Any crack” is out. That’ll never go out. Unless, and this was Dundalk in the 80s we should remember, it was referring to literally enquiring about the availability of crack cocaine.
I really look forward to the other gems Dougie can unearth.
Came across this interesting site via @eoghanmccabe on Twitter.
Do Nothing For 2 Minutes invites you to do just that. It times you to see if you can just sit there and enjoy the sounds of waves for 120 seconds. And that’s it! I really like it, such a simple, well executed idea. As I said on Twitter, it could be a nice first taste of the world of meditation for some people, or at the least it could be used a nice daily time-out from the sea of windows and blinking apps. Interestingly, its from the guy who a few years ago did that Million Dollar Homepage idea.
I really must write a blog post about my meditation practice soon….
These past few days have seen easily the most snow I’ve seen in my life. Which isn’t saying much, as I haven’t seen much, but still. It was alot of snow. Here are some entirely unrelated things and links i’ve picked up the past few days.
Kevin Bacon is the world’s biggest Kevin Bacon fan:
Kube put me on to this, the work of Sean Dunne, a documentary film maker. On his vimeo you can watch his shorts. I highly recommend all of them. I love these kind of things; very beautifully shot, but simple portraits of interesting characters.
In a similar vein, I discovered the work of Skatistan, a charity that runs a skate-park in Kabul, Afghanistan. They made a wonderful short film to promote their cause. It worked so much, I’m making a family member donate my Christmas present cash to them. Cause, you know, I’m just so bloody brilliant, yah?
If you use a Mac and read lots of blogs, then I highly recommend Reeder for Mac, easily the best RSS reader i’ve use yet. And I’ve used three!
You’ve disappeared up an evolutionary blind alley and we’ll manage very well without you.
If you want to drag out your habit against the trend until your lungs shrivel up and go black and your tongue falls out then that’s fine with me. It’s a free country, people are allowed to kill themselves any way they like. Suicide has been legal in Britain since 1961.
The daily torment that is my desire for an iPad vs my desire not to spend money continues unabated. This video demoing Flipboard, a new app that creates a digital magazine out of the stuff your friends link to, looks mega, but does not help my predicament. It’s a tough life.
By the way, that Flipboard video features Adam Lisagor, who is featured in a great interview here. Adam also contributes to my new favourite podcast – You Look Nice Today. Which you should listen to. Today.
Finally, if you are reading this blog there is a high chance you played text adventures as a kid. Don’t lie. “Get Lamp” is a documentary about them. Looks interesting.
He was found by the bins of a Burger King restaurant, with no clothes, no memories, nothing. Six years on, Benjaman Kyle is no nearer to answering the question that haunts him: who am I?
Well, folks. Brian Cowen, Prime Minister of Ireland and leader of the right-of-center Fianna Fail party, chose (c). He earns €228,000 a year and tops the ranks of the best paid leaders in Europe. The Irish parliament closes Friday, Cowen will take some time at his mobile home in Aillebrack Caravan Park in the west of Ireland in August and parliament will reconvene on September 29th.
