A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff.
When these adventurous adrenaline junkies first started using the flying squirrel suits in base jumping, it was to see how far away from the cliff they could get. But then things got “boring” and now the idea is to get as close to the edges without actually touching.
[Flying Suit – Extreme Base Jumping – YouTube]
Greenpeace has launched a tongue-in-cheek website touting the tourism potential of the Alberta oil sands. The Greenpeace-produced site, travellingalberta.com, has an address similar to Alberta’s official tourism page, travelalberta.com, and is the conservation group’s response to the province’s $25-million campaign to improve the environmental image of Alberta’s energy industry.
[Explore Alberta – YouTube]
Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation Cindy Ady was not impressed with the website.
“I’m a bit disappointed mostly on behalf of those who work so hard in this industry, but I also would say it’s not an accurate representation of this province.”
Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, at a 2005 TED Talk speaks about the economics of car seats. The data led him to ask the morally difficult question: Are children’s car seats worth the time and expense it takes to use them?
Hit play or watch Steven Levitt on child car seats at TED.com.
Those of you that enjoyed the colour changing card trick, may also enjoy this psychological card trick.
[Psychological Card Trick – YouTube]
Here’s some video footage of me going over Lundbreck Falls on my last kayaking trip taken by my friend Janson.
Also, check out Janson’s enthusiastic report on the trip.
Last September, four of the world’s most famous sceptics, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens gathered together for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion on religion, belief, and scepticism.
I wasn’t going to go anyway, but Coldplay has cancelled the Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary shows of their Viva La Vida tour. I know it has disappointed a couple of my friends. Sorry Canada, but Coldplay just doesn’t love you enough to make it to the boring middle parts of your country.
In other Coldplay news, the band Creaky Boards has posted a YouTube video accusing the lead singer of Coldplay, Chris Martin, of plagiarizing their song, “The Songs I Didn’t Write” when he wrote “Viva la Vida”.
The idea that a band as big as Coldplay would stoop to copying someone else’s melody seems unrealistic, nevertheless, this video seems pretty damning for Chris Martin. I’d be interested to hear Coldplay’s side of the story.
Update: Creaky Boards frontman Andrew Hoepfner has retracted his allegations of plagiarism.
Well, it appears that Chris was actually recording in London during my October show and Coldplay demoed Viva La Vida in March 2007, before I taught my band “Songs” in June 2007. What’s most likely is that both Chris and I were inspired by The Legend of Zelda’s “Fairy Theme”, causing us to write similiar songs in 2006. What a coincidince! I guess Nintendo’s the big winner. But isn’t it weird how in 2008, an independent artist can make something in their bedroom that receives almost as much attention as EMI’s biggest marketing push of the year?
My conclusion? At first when I read headlines about his retraction, I figured it was a pay-off, but now I think it’s probably just a coincidence.
Theresa Andersson plays all the instruments and does vocal looping on the fly as she sings “Na Na Na” in her kitchen.
Theresa recently recorded her newest album in her kitchen. The record was produced by Swedish singer-songwriter/producer Tobias Froberg (Peter Moren’s upcoming solo album) and mixed by Linus Larsson (Peter Bjorn and John, Mercury Rev.) Theresa played all the instruments on the album except for a duet with legendary New Orleans producer and composer Allen Toussaint (The Meters, Dr. John, The Band, Elvis Costello) and a duet with Norwegian singer Ane Brun.
If you’ve got an hour to spend, this Google Tech Talk by David Weinberger is worth a listen. In it he explains how the breakdown of categorization designed for physical objects when applied to digital or abstract objects (such as thoughts) can be overcome through new kinds of categorization—ie. tagging.