It's cool to see La Caixa, a major Catalunyan bank, sponsor something like The Game As Critic As Art conference.

I don't really play video games, but if i did, I would play some of these...---[dp]

Tempest for Eliza is a Program that uses your computer monitor to send out AM radio signals. You can then hear computer generated music in your radio.

For a while, now, I've been hearing about the Defense Department's plans to outfit a fighting vehicle with a pain ray, a sonic blaster, and a laser dazzler, too. I never figured they'd actually send the thing to Iraq, though. Project Sheriff, I assumed, would just be the military equivalent of a concept car -- a chance to see if some whiz-bang gear really worked together.

But the Pentagon may wind up deploying this straight-outta-sci-fi jalopy, after all. The Army just got the OK to spend $31.3 million on three deployable Project Sheriff vehicles, Inside Defense is reporting.

Right now, a "non-deployable Spiral 0 prototype" [Sheriff] is "undergoing environmental testing," according to the newsletter -- and waiting for one of the armed services to adopt the program as its own. That looks like it's happened, now. The "Spiral 1" Sheriff will equip either a Stryker fighting vehicle or a Cougar mine-fighter with the dazzler, the blaster, and the like. Oh, and it'll still have guns, too.

By combining the lethal and nonlethal technologies on a vehicle, [Marine Corps Col. Wade] Hall said a warfighter would be able to discriminate the noncombatants from insurgents by first employing the nonlethal capabilities and then progressing to the use of lethal force.

For example, if a convoy led by a Project Sheriff vehicle was moving through an urban area, a crowd may form to divert the convoy into an “ambush zone,” according to Hall.

If this were to happen, the first thing the crowd would hear is the Long Range Acoustic Device either telling the crowd to move or giving off a noise that would “bother their hearing.” Next, the Lazzer Dazzler would scan the crowd looking for a flicker from the scope of a possible sniper.

If the crowd was still in place, troops would employ the active denial technology [AKA the pain ray].

“If they try and deflect beams then we will kill them because we know what their intentions are,” Hall said. “Now I know what your intent is. I just told you to move, I just flashed some light in you that said ‘hey get away from me.’ I just put some effect on you that said ‘please move or its going to get worse’ and you continue to tell me that you have an ill intent for me and my fellow Marines. So now I will bring some lethal force to bear if it satisfies my [rules of engagement].”

In an April 7, 2005, memo, Army Brig. Gen. James Huggings, the chief of staff for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to approve funding for the “time critical” material release, fielding and sustainment of the “Full-Spectrum Effects Weapon Systems,” the technical name for Project Sheriff vehicles.

“This will allow operating forces to exploit the psychological dilemma of adversaries who are faced with advanced precision capabilities having multiple effects mechanism that are collectively more challenging to protect against,” Huggins wrote. “This will serve to transfer the difficulties of operational complexity to the enemy, helping to allow MNC-I forces to regain the initiative in fourth generation warfare.”

Huggins proposes the Army receive eight vehicles -- four for the 18th Military Police Brigade and four for the 42nd Military Police Brigade -- and the Marines receive six.

In an April 19, 2005, response to Huggins, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Castellaw, chief of staff for U.S. Central Command, said the request for 14 Project Sheriff vehicles was fully supported by CENTCOM.

it is also known that in WW I, sound was goingto be used to cause the bowels of the enemy to be relieved on the battelfield. Not yet deployed...---[dp]

Valdis Krebs' visualization of who buys what books from different political parties

ok, this is smart, cheap, fun and fast, the way i like it---[dp]

FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO THE WORLD: A GIFT OF SIX MILLION FREE SOFTWARE CDs By Frederick Noronha He became the first-ever Afronaut. But the debonair young South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth has also touched another high, by distributing for free six million CDs of Free Software. He has posted these software tools to enthusiasts across the globe, with the goal of planting new ideas of sharing and creating knowledge. Shuttleworth started young -- programming on the Free Software platform from the ages of 11 to 14. Then he took a gap, and resumed from the age of 19. The high-profile sale of his digital encription company, just before the dot-com bust, was the source of his wealth, which he is ploughing back for the further spread of Free/Libre and Open Source Software. Shuttleworth (32) made his name through IT entrepreneurism, and then attracted the headlines by joining a Russian space expedition. But, in recent years he made big news by promoting hisUbuntu distribution of the Free and Open Source s

dugg, but still great--[dp]

No doubt---[dp]

can't hurt for those cocktail parties...--[dp]

. . . well, at least they do thanks to the magical powers of special effects in online videos. Last summer, we saw Spin (http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=828&Itemid=44), a short film in which a DJ had to weigh the power of life and death. Now, in a film that's less ambitious metaphysically but more so visually, a DJ appears to scratch vehicles traveling through a roundabout: Scratch n Spin (http://www.zippyvideos.com/3328389063290496/eb_proxfade_400_225_web/original) [Profade ad, via Cory at Boing Boing (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/video_a_dj_plays_a_s.html)] To all of this, I say: where are the digital DJs playing with the fabric of space and time? Where's the Ms. Pinky setup (http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=949&Itemid=44) used to vibrate and spin our neighboring galaxies? Er . . . then again, maybe I don't want to have the fabric of space and time warping in a giant Max/MSP patch the next time I drive through a roundabout.

giant dj like Woody Allen's Manhattan Stories! hell yeah! ---[dp]

Russia, we read has "plans to build a permanent base on the Moon within a decade and to start mining the planet for helium 3, a sought-after isotope, by 2020."

Some upcoming map and map-related exhibitions to tell you about: Silver Springs, Maryland: From a NOAA press release: "Artifacts representing nearly 200 years of science, service and stewardship by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its ancestor agencies will...

my how i'd like to go to bangkok to see this show...

Nam June Paik, the artist who made me like media art, passed away at his Miami home at 8:00pm EST on Sunday, January 29th, 2006.

loss of someone who refigured the way we experience the world---[dp]

Xeni Jardin:

Roughly 20 protesters from Students for a Free Tibet -- including a number of Tibetan nationals -- gathered in front of Google's headquarters last Wednesday to protest the company's launch of a government-filter-compliant search engine in China. Link, more images here. (Thanks, Telendro)

Paul Boutin has discovered that one way to thwart internet filters is too spel yur serch qweries inkorreckly. Link.

Over at News.com, Declan McCullagh reports that Google.cn not only omits politically sensitive material, but "goes further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes." Link

Link to Joy of Tech comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy. (Thanks, Robert)

Here's another comic by Metin Seven: Link.

Reader Comment: Simon says,

Someone on the IP list spotted that the blacklist is case sensitive. Link.

Reader comment: Suomy Anona says,

I saw Googlecompare posted on a blog forum. You enter a search term and it compares the english results to the chinese results then gives you the links that are in the Google.com results but not the Google.cn results. Some of the things blocked (or put miles down in the results) are quite interesting (including BoingBoing's "Photo: lesbian kiss in Tiananmen Square under guards, Mao"). Obviously it is affected both by ordereding of results and complete censorship, but it can check the first 300 chinese results: Link

ggogggoooglleeee---[dp]

Evan, rock the house and; Daniel Perlin, rock the house and... Up next is Daniel Perlin who has worked on a number of different programs in Eyebeam's Education Studio.

Daniel Perlin is interaction designer and artist based in New York. His work ranges from installation, to screen-based media, to objects. Installations include Mutations with Koolhaas, Kwinter, Fabricius and Virafon, an audio installation with Vito Acconci for a bus stop in Madrid Spain. His screen based work includes film sound for Junebug, Palindromes, Fog of War, and others. His interactive design work ranges from web based media (root.net) to physical computing, and includes projects such as modified every day objects and interactive, high maintenance plush dolls (needies.com). His work has been shown at the Chelsea Art Museum, NY, LMCC, Temporary Contemporary Gallery London, TN Probe, Tokyo, Guggenheim Film, Cannes, Toronto, Sundance and other film festivals. Daniel holds Undergraduate and Masters degrees from Brown University, as well as a Masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, and currently is a resident studio artist at the Whitney Independent Study Progam.

Take'er away Dan!

A compact, robust, elegant wind turbine with advertising space – sounds like a good pitch right? Well it’s not just good, it’s real and it’s coming to a roundabout, a street lamp, a building or any space near you. The Quiet Revolution wind turbine was designed and developed by XCO2. They are a London based consultancy who define themselves as a low carbon engineering and design studio. Their projects range from converting a library in Southwark into a high-profile IT training centre, to an eco-resort in the Maldives, but right now their new turbine is what’s on every local council’s most wanted list. First in the queue is Bristol who have bought one for a roundabout in the Temple Meads area. XCO2’s design is a vertical axis turbine, which they claim is virtually silent and vibration free. Further advantages are that the cylindrical structure with the vertical ‘S’ blades occupies less space than the average turbine, the structure is robust, and practically as well as aesthetically it can integrate easily into the urban environment.

what, no driving directions? [via]

This is a very funny video from David Hasselhoff.

My wife and I are debating whether or not he knows he’s being super-cheesy. My position is that he’s playing both sides. He’s trying to be sexy for his actual fans, but he’s trying to be cheesy for those that love to hate him. It’s a strategy invented and perfected by Shatner.

I’ve gained more respect for the Hoff if he truly is working the irony angle.

(BTW, I got the title of this post from the comments on this post: David Hasselhoff is hooked on a feeling.)

Hasselhoff goes Dirt Style --ER

At a recording studio in the Washington, D.C., area, contestants audition to be the new voice of the city's subway system. Can you say "the doors are opening?" How about "please stand back?"

From -> Marjan van Mourik
During the ARTEFACT festival for art and new media, the STUK building will be reinvented by Belgian and international artists. For six days they will use images, sounds and technology to build a fascinating and poetic world. The program consists of installations, concerts, theatre & performances, a symposium and a software / video exhibition. ARTEFACT ... [more]

LEUVEN REPREZENT! --ER

On Tuesday i went to Aachen (Germany) to visit the Artgames. Structural analogies of art and game exhibition at the Ludwig Forum. I wasn't expecting to be so pleasantly surprised. Aachen is a small city and i had never heard about the art centre (which doesn't mean anything). But i was happy to finally get to see pieces i had only read about and to discover new works. Plus, i was allowed to take pictures (now on flickr). And i smiled. A lot. And right from the start, when i saw one of Sylvie Fleury's Dog Toys at the entrance of the show. The one on the picture underneath is "Crazy Bird" but check also her Spider and strange gnome.

Behind the huge toy, was Fur's Painstation but i stayed clear of it. The moto of the game is "No Pain, No Gain" and its concept is that mistakes while playing result in real pain. I'm too faint-hearted to let my hand become one of the subjects of the Hall of Pain although the new version seems less cruel: interchangeable whips include a pink feather, there are now adjusteable painlevels and one might consider that the flash to temporarily blind the player isn't the most barbarous feature.*

Several walls were covered with "tableaux" by Norbert Bayer, alias Mister Ministeck. MM makes plastic mosaics using Ministeck, a game for children popular over the past decades. By pressing colourful pushpins onto plug-on boards to create a "pixelized" image, he translated icons from the computer world into cheerful plastic pictures.

For example in the Touchscreens series based on screenshots from C 64 games, the pixel structure of the first home computers in plastic bricks. Nice to discover that MM's work isnt' revolving around the sole computer world, he makes also charming kids' portraits and elegant light and plastic compositions. In Ministeck of course. If you understand german, netzspannung has a series of video of the artist explaining his work.

Mohair artist Elisabeth Ensenberger's Living in a Perfect World installation (image on the left) was one of my favourite pieces. Searching the web, i found an image of her mohair spacesuit, needless to say i'm very fond of it.

Artgames runs until March 5, Ludwig Forum, in Aachen.

* if you're in Stuttgart from February 11 till April 30, you'll be able to indulge your masochist tendencies as Painstation is part of Pong Mythos, an exhibition of over 30 works that revolve around the computer game Pong.

HOWTO

A new free book delivers a complete HOWTO for assembling and maintaining wireless networks in rural towns in developing countries. Wireless Networking in the Developing World was co-written by some of the world's leading community wireless experts, including Rob Flickenger, who wrote O'Reilly's seminal Building Community Wireless Networks and Wireless Hacks, wire.less.dk's Tomas Krag, and numerous wireless hackers of great skill and repute. Many of the contributors have built and deployed networks in the developing world, and they have released the whole text under a very liberal Creative Commons license that encourages others to build on their work and profit from it.

In almost every village, town, or city in the developing world, there are people who can build just about anything. With the right know-how, this can include wireless networks that connect their community to the Internet. The book addresses what Rob Flickenger, the book's editor and lead author, calls a chicken-and-egg problem: "While much information about building wireless networks can be found on-line, that presents a problem for people in areas with little or no connectivity", said Flickenger from his workshop in Seattle.

The book covers topics from basic radio physics and network design to equipment and troubleshooting. It is intended to be a comprehensive resource for technologists in the developing world, providing the critical information that they need to build networks. This includes specific examples, diagrams and calculations, which are intended to help building wireless networks without requiring access to the Internet.

In the developing world, one book can often be a library, and to a techie this book may well be a bible. Access to books is difficult where there are few libraries or book stores, and there is often little money to pay for them. "Our book will be released under a Creative Commons license, so everybody can copy and distribute it free of charge. That doesn't mean it is a 'cheap' book. I think it is a great book," stated Corinna 'Elektra' Aichele, one of the books co-authors who was recently installing wireless networks in Bangladesh. [posted by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing]

Cory Doctorow:
Duck Hunt 1945 is a Flash game that combines the classic video games Duck Hunt and 1945 -- you are armed with a machinegun and charged with shooting ducks and emeny soldiers. Link (via Wonderland)

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

One of the most significant electronic musicians to emerge from the postwar era, Pauline Oliveros is known for meditative compositions that are inspired by the inner sounds and psychic states of the life (or in some cases inanimate objects) around her--a process she calls Deep Listening. To put it another way: some people ruminate on existential states; she mics them. And she also broadcasts them in diverse ways: around the world, across the dial, through the Internet, and even, via satellite, to the moon. On January 26th, she will perform at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center with Brown University's Meme Improvisation Group (MIG) and the Tintinabulate Ensemble, a group of improv musicians she founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's I-Ear center, where she currently teaches. Unlike your average rock show, at which the band might only achieve harmony after several rounds of Guinness, Tintinabulate Ensemble performances coalesce spontaneously through the 'intuition, play, and sympathetic resonance' of the artists. Previously, MIG and the Ensemble have engaged in two Distance Performances, playing together remotely through the Internet. Hosted by the Upgrade!, this event brings them together for their first, live and in-person performance. While broadcast out of Eyebeam's 21st street headquarters in New York, their collaboration--under Oliveros's guidance-- will surely call upon more subliminal areas and perhaps unearthly ones as well. - Lauren Cornell

http://www.eyebeam.org/engage/engage.php?page=unique&id=87

When I was a teenager I remember reading a science-fiction story which predicted that by the 21st century, information would be piped directly into the brain. In this story, a character encountered that most archaic object, an old-fashioned book, and felt appalled that people in the 20th century had been forced to endure so much physical discomfort, holding books and turning their pages manually--or trying to prevent the pages from turning if there was a breeze.

Well, here we are in 2006, and yet another science-fiction prediction has failed to pan out. While we're waiting for wetware implants, we'll just have to make do with a stopgap solution: A plastic thumb aid.

The Thumb Thing
$3
Available from ABC Stuff

Manufactured by Thumb Thing

Cory Doctorow: European junk-food companies like Cadbury and Coke will stop directing their advertising at young children, introduce low-calorie and sugar-free versions of their products, and downsize their serving-sizes:

As part of the proposals, Unesda members have undertaken to not to put "any marketing communication in printed media, websites or during broadcast programmes specifically aimed at children under the age of 12".

It also will "avoid any direct appeal to children under the age of 12 to persuade parents or other adults to buy beverages for them".

Direct commercial activity will halt completely in primary schools "unless otherwise requested by school authorities", while in secondary schools "a full range of beverages will be made available in appropriate container sizes, allowing for portion control" only after consultation with parents and educators.

Vending machines will not be branded and will promote healthy and active lifestyles, as well as balanced diet.

Nutrition labels on cans and bottles will be improved to let consumers know what they are drinking and help them control calorie intake.

The companies claim that this is because their customers are demanding healthy alternatives, but I think it's because they're running scared of the regulators of Europe's free-health-care social democracies: as the public cost of obesity soars, how long until Europe's governments try to recoup a little of that expense from the calorie-pushers? Link

Alexey Titarenko

"His long-exposure photographs, often made of moving masses of people, are imbued with a down-trodden moodiness reminiscent of the stories of Dostoyevsky. They document a time of change, yet hope is a rare commodity, and the people blur into grey shadow figures in a ghost-like crowd, with perhaps a solitary hand or shoe standing still in time."

From LensCulture: Photography and Shared Territories, via wood s lot

Mark Frauenfelder: One of my favorite memories from Cub Scouts was building a pinewood derby race car. Mine was red and my mother painted an incredible likeness of Snoopy on the side. My dad and I weighted it to the maximum limit by hollowing out the bottom and inserting a big steel ball. My car won 1st place in the troop competition.

That was over 30 years ago. Today, Mark Seremet emailed me this photo of the racer he and and his son Matthew built.

We wanted to do something entirely different and decided on mounting a very small camera to it along with an LED in the back to look like a jet engine. It was powered by a 9V battery which also served as the car's weight. The car broadcast wirelessly to a receiver which we recorded on mini-DV. We won 7 prizes and finished 4th in the races.

Dig that wild paint job! Link

The Graffiti Research Lab, a division of the Eyebeam R&D Open Lab, is demonstrating an early prototype Electro-Graf on the Eyebeam facade as part of its research and development in experimental creative technologies for grafitti writers. The prototype Electro-Graf consists of conductive and magnetic paint that electrically drive and mechanically control over 20 white and red LEDs. Viewers walking by on the street can interact with the piece by removing and repositioning the LEDs on the wall, creating their own patterns with color, location and luminocity. Come by Eyebeam to take part.

-- From del.icio.us/popular via Ben

From Zachary: "This Starbucks is in Boulder, Colorado is across the street from the University of Colorado. It was unmasked a week ago by Pope Bathos, and remains so. Apparently the staff of Starbucks is ignorant of the transformation. Or maybe they've decided they like the change."

An anonymous reader submitted a link to what they claim is the the internet's first banner ad. It comes from 1994 HotWired, paid for by AT&T. It's ugly, but no animation, no popups. It makes me a little nostalgic.

Reuters - A Frenchman who attacked and damaged "Fountain," a urinal declared a work of art by Dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp, was ordered Tuesday to pay a fine of 214,000 euros ($262,700).

My sabbatical from programming web applications is nearly over, and fortunately I do have something to show for it: OGLE, The OpenGLExtractor (pronounced Oh-Gull, as in the word, 'ogle'). This is the Eyebeam OpenLab's first new project of the year, with more to come soon.

OGLE is a software package that allows for the capture and re-use of 3D geometry data from 3D graphics applications running on Microsoft Windows. It works by observing the data flowing between 3D applications and the system's OpenGL library, and recording that data in a standard 3D file format. In other words, a 'screen grab' or 'view source' operation for 3D data.

The primary motivation for developing OGLE is to make available for re-use the 3D forms we see and interact with in our favorite 3D applications. Video gamers have a certain love affair with characters from their favorite games; animators may wish to reuse environments or objects from other applications or animations which don't provide data-level access; architects could use this to bring 3D forms into their proposals and renderings; and digital fabrication technologies make it possible to automatically instantiate 3D objects in the real world.

First Example: 3D-printing your World of Warcraft character
Some people in the lab are rather obsessive about their World of Warcraft characters. After capturing the character with OGLE and cleaning the geometry with Maya a little bit, we were able to render it into the real world with our Dimension BST 3D printer, as seen below.

Read more about what we have done with OGLE so far (think SecondLife and Google Earth), check out how it works, or just go ahead and download it and get to OGLE'ing.

In the meantime, don't be afraid to share it with friends or colleagues who are into 3D stuff, and stay tuned for some more exciting relases by the new-ish R&D Fellows.

Click here to view video

Re-Blogged via an email from the Notorious I.N.G. (also seen at transbuddha.com) --ER

Trixter pulled off this awesome hack, proving that the demoscene is alive and well. It started as a silly joke “well, I can display video on my XT!” , but Trixter thought about it and came up with a way to do it on his Model 5150. The production needs 10MB of disk space, a Soundblaster Pro, a CGA card and monitor. Trixter notes at the end of the page that he’s had to use text mode to get 16 colors out of the CGA instead of the standard 4. Check out the video of the XT being pushed to its limits at his site.

[thanks ex-parrot]

SF's Kid Beyond demonstrates his talent with live looping software Ableton Live. This is awesome.

SKILZZZZZZZZZZZ.... --ER

Philadelphia, PA, January 23, 2006... Bit Editions today announced a service that lets artists feature their own animation on Bit Editions' LED displays. The artist simply sends their animation to Bit Editions as a sequence of 1984 bitmap images.

Check the videos here. --ER

Cory Doctorow: If you're worried about the Federal government getting your search-history out of Google, Yahoo and other search-engines, there are steps you can take to keep your personal search-history private.

Last week, it was revealed that Google had rebuffed a Federal demand for its customers' search-histories, while other search engines may not have been so protective of their customers' privacy.

Wired News has published a collection of simple steps you can take to prevent your search-history from being associated with your identity at Google and other search engines. With all the expanded, secret snoop powers that the Feds have gotten under PATRIOT and other unconstitutional laws, it only makes sense to take precautions to keep yourself from being Tuttle-Buttled by an indiscriminate dragnet.

What's the first thing people should do who worry about their search history?
Cookie management helps. Those who want to avoid a permanent record should delete their cookies at least once a week. Other options might be to obliterate certain cookies when a browser is closed and avoid logging in to other services, such as web mail, offered by a search engine.

How do you do that with your browser?
In Firefox, you can go into the privacy preference dialog and open Cookies. From there you can remove your search engine cookies and click the box that says: "Don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies."

In Safari, try the free and versatile PithHelmet plug-in. You can let some cookies in temporarily, decide that some can last longer or prohibit some sites, including third-party advertisers, from setting cookies at all.

While Internet Explorer's tools are not quite as flexible, you can manage your cookies through the Tools menu by following these instructions.

Link

Update: Jeremie sez, "There's a Firefox extension called CustomizeGoogle that allows, among other very interesting features, to anonymize google cookie. I have no proof that it works, but the whole thing looks quite serious.

Billed as The How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit, wikiHow.com is online in beta. So far there are 14 categories ranging from “Arts & Hobbies” to “Travel,” plus “Other.” The illustration above is how- to Peel an Egg Quickly from the “Featured Articles.” The welcome explains:

wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest how-to manual. With your contributions, we can create a free resource that helps people by offering clear, concise solutions to the problems of everyday life. wikiHow currently contains 4676 articles written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers. Please join us by writing a new page, or editing a page that someone else has started.

Via Stephen’s Web

Salt Lake City residents with cleaner autos get to save their quarters for laundry. The city is joining New Haven, Conn., Fresno, Calif., Albuquerque, N.M and Austin, Texas in incenting fuel efficiency. Drivers whose vehicles get 50 miles per gallon, have low emissions or are powered by an alternative fuel get free metered parking. Smart. :: Via All Headline News

When is a digital cable better than a digital guitar? When it actually solves a problem guitarists have. We're still not sure what's so great about Gibson's Digital Guitar, even after hearing it played at NAMM but we immediately grasped the utility of IK Multimedia's new StealthPlug (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/MainPhp.html?NewsDisplay.php&Id=478). It's a compact audio interface built into a cable that makes it dead simple to plug a guitar into a computer and take advantage of software-based amp and effects modeling. One side of the StealthPlug has a standard 1/4" jack, while the other has a USB plug. It also includes volume adjustment buttons, an indication LED, and a 1/8 stereo output for headphones, powered speakers, or an amp. Ed: note that the headphone amp makes this a great practice amp -- or an in-ear monitor feed. -PK The StealthPlug includes AmpliTube Live and LE, with guitar amp and effects models based on modern and vintage classics. It is expected to ship first quarter for a price yet-to-be determined. Previously: CES: Bringing Guitarists Kicking and Screaming into the Digital Revolution (http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1106&Itemid=44) Gibson's Digital Les Paul Guitar: Innovation or Reinvention? (http://createdigitalmusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=938&Itemid=44)

Free Pixelfonts! --ER

"How to Make Your Own Totally Sweet Mario Question Blocks and Put Them Up Around Town Because It's Really Awesome"

notcoming.com

At the end of each year, Sara and I sit down over a couple glasses of wine and we begin to map out a few high level goals for the year that's to follow. At the end of 2004, the goals included putting together the "Wooster Special Editions" limited edition books, more salons and get togethers at our flat, etc.

So last December, we sat down and decided that one of the major priorities for 2006 would be video content. As broadband becomes more of the norm around the world, as more artists pick up a video camera to start to experiment with making short documentaries, and as more sites begin streaming user generated content, we feel that the Wooster site can play a strong role in becoming a place to discover grea videos about art and artists. In addition we want to spend more time shooting our own short documentaries and getting back in the groove of doing our audio podcasts.

So for the last couple of weeks we've been meeting off and on the folks at Current.tv, a new American cable television channel that has become one of our favorite channels to watch. If you don't know much about Current, either check out their website or if you have digital cable, try to find it on your television. It's amazing.

We're not exactly sure yet how video will play a role on the Wooster site. But we do know that it has to. If you have shot videos or have good links to video content on the web, send it our way for sure. If you have any ideas for us, let us know.

Fnally, if you're interested in shooting some video of your work, one great resource to get some tips and suggestions is the "VC2 survival guide" on Current's website.

Here's a couple of video's that we sent to us over the past few days:

From Mysterious Al in London, comes this link to a short (3 minute) documentary on Channel 4's website about Ben Wilson, a guy who paints pictures on the chewing-gum left on the streets of High Barnet, North London:

From Font,. comes this link to a 54 minute film of dutch trains.

(You can check out a ton of graffiti video on Google here)

Also on Current.tv, there's a terrific profile of New York's own Skewville:

Send us you links. :)

An open competition to make the most viral web site. $2500 prize and a jury that includes John Cuscack, Noah Baumbach (Squid & the Whale), the Yes Men, and others.

I don't know about it being womb-like, but there is something appealingly raw about this project.

Bea Camacho "Enclose," 2004



"When I started working on this piece, I was interested in hiding spaces and creating my own environment...I wanted to refer to ideas of fear and protection by slowly producing a safe space for myself...I wanted to crochet myself in entirely but I had no idea how long it would take or how much yarn I would need...I hadn't predetermined how the shape of the crocheted cover was going to come together so I was improvising the form and constantly trying to figure out which parts needed to join up in order to have it close around me with the least amount of excess..."

This clip is from the last hour of a video that documents an eleven-hour performance in real-time.

Thanks Ashley!