The phenomena of sampled music, mashups and other audio fruits of the digital revolution are explored in Paul D. Miller’s “Sound Unbound.” Boasting a forward by Boing Boing guru Cory Doctorow and essays by talents such as Chuck D, Jonathan Lethem, Brian Eno, and Vijay Iyer, Miller — also known as DJ Spooky — has put together a book that captures the zeitgeist of the age in music.
Plus, you get an audio CD with tracks from such diverse sources as Sonic Youth, William Burroughs, and Philip Glass.
“Sound Unbound” is s must-read for digital music enthusiasts and people who just want to understand this phenomenon better.
Read the table of contents and sample chapters here, and purchase here or through the book’s website.
Categories: Internet · Mashup · media · music · web 2.0
Tagged: music
Australia’s Herald Sun reports on the case of a 17-year-old admitted to a psychiatric hospital for what the article refers to as “climate change delusion.” Specifically, the teen stopped drinking water because he “developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies.”
Are movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Day After Tomorrow” unnecessarily stirring paranoia and apocalyptic terrors in some people? Or is it just a case of an individual with a previous history of depression finding a “trigger” for further mental difficulties?
Of course, this all leads to the debate as to whether our planet is truly in danger from global warming or not, and this is the type of story that climate change skeptics might like to pounce on and use for their own purposes. But, as time goes on, might there be those who become unhealthily obsessed by tales of environmental collapse, the way people have been obsessed with tales of Y2K, Biblical revelations, and the threat of nuclear war?
Obligatory:
Categories: environment · science
Tagged: climate change, environment, science, weird
Frozen embryos produce better babies than fresh ones, according to data presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona.
Yes, just like when you freeze that homemade tomato sauce for “next-day” freshness.
The study found that frozen embryos that were thawed and placed in the mother’s womb had higher birth weights and less incidences of abnormalities. There were also less cases of multiple births — which of course leads to fewer complications.
A possible reason for the superior nature of these frozen embryos? It might not be the process of freezing itself but the fact that only the most healthy embryos are chosen for and survive the implantation process.
Some notable people who started life as frozen embryos:
Categories: science
Tagged: science
