[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Noah Cover of Sexy and I know it – you sooo know it

The Hipster Hunt – “This video attempts to de-code the hipster for the clueless foreigner, like Lorena. In this piece, she invites viewers along for the journey as she hunts for the meaning of the term “hipster.” This quirky piece takes viewers around the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn”

R.I.P. Adam Yauch: Some Beastie Boys Cuts You May Have Missed – “With that, I’d like to give a huge R.I.P. to Yauch, and in honor of the Boys, I present some cuts you may have missed:” some real gems in this list.

ProxTube Unblocks US-Only YouTube Videos for International Users – “Chrome/Firefox: Non-US users know the pain of having services blocked from them pretty well, and YouTube is no exception. If you’re tired of stumbling on videos you can’t watch, ProxTube will fix the problem by unblocking all US-only videos for anyone to see.”

Because – Cyriak – “So I found a stupid photo of my face and decided to make a video out of it. Why? Just because.”

Gabriel Royal – On Again Off Again – “at the Metropolitan Ave. G station in Brooklyn, NY on April 25th, 2012.”

Man Fights Goose, With Lightsaber – “just added some effects to make it a little more interesting.”

The Forger: Master of the funky found-footage video beat-mix – “Nearly a year ago, someone called The Forger—who we’re thinking is a composite character of videographer Ben Stokes and rhythm master Jack Dangers, both of Meat Beat Manifesto—started releasing beat videos that looped, sampled, layered and scratched up found footage of subjects both unknown and iconic.”

How To Avoid Facial Recognition – or ‘YOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PAAARTY (anonymously!!) fffff.at/how-to-avoid-facial-recognition by Kyle McDonald & Aram Bartholl Berlin 2012

Allo Allo {Deux Américains à Paris} – “Robert Kolodny and Bennett Elliott, took the train to Paris for a week of couchsurfing and wonder. Accompanied by their filmmaker friends from Mexico Rodrigo Quintero and Marissa Bolaños they explore all of the idiosyncratic magic of Paris”

Tribute to Adam Yauch: MCA’s opening lines from every Beastie Boys song – MCA Supercut

#learn

I am Steve Albini, ask me anything : IAmA – “I have been in bands since 1979 and making records since 1981. I own the recording studio Electrical Audio. I also play poker and write an occasional cooking blog. I’ll be answering questions from about 3pm – 6pm EDT.”

Buying DVDs just got worse thanks to obnoxious new anti-piracy warnings (pirating movies remains unchanged) – “Now when you buy a DVD, you’ll get twice as many unskippable anti-piracy warnings, including one with a Homeland Security Investigations “special agent” badge next to the FBI badge, as well as a screen telling you that “digital theft harms the economy” and inviting you to visit a taxpayer-funded website that parrots a bunch of unsubstantiated lobbynomics numbers that the MPAA pulled out of its ass.”

Hotel installs bicycle-powered television – “Guests in the “Standing Hat” room at Cottage Lodge in the village of Brockenhurst, can now keep fit, watch their favourite programmes, and do their bit for the environment using the novel device. The room also features low-energy lighting, solar panels and a wood-burning stove to produce hot water, and a low-flow toilet and shower to reduce water use.”

Franziska Nyffeler 09-05-2012 – “emmental meets NYC”

Sorrel recipes | Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – “Easy, delicious and verstatile – there’s a reason sorrel is a true spring great”

Wordless Web – a bookmarklet to make all the words dissappear from a website

RIP Maurice Sendak – “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

Panic, panic, panic: the Ninja Tune story – “So we thought: we’ll go back to what we know we can do, which is to make odd music [laughs]. And started Ninja” interview with Jon More and Peter Quicke

The honeybees are still dying – “In many cases, bee mortality appears to be the product of many interacting factors, but there is a growing consensus that the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor plays the role of the major predisposing liability. We argue that the fight against this mite should be a priority for future honeybee health research.”

Marina Abramovic’s Performance Art Center Will Feature Sleep Chairs On Wheels – … “will feature auditoriums for long-duration performances, and specially-designed reclining massage chairs to fall asleep in. The chairs will be on wheels, and, as Abramovic envisions it, each audience member will have their own personal attendant who will roll any sleepers out of the room into a special nap area. “When you arrive,” Abramovic tells the Times, “you have to sign a contract that you will stay a minimum of six hours.””

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[Download this image in better resolution here]

Many people probably saw this image that has been going around facebook, a visualization of our “choice” in food brands, tracking many smaller brands back to a few global players, the usual suspects, coca cola, kraft, nestle, etc.

When i saw it, I was reminded of a list of who owns some of the organic health food companies in the USA:

Recently during a discussion with a vegan friend I mentioned this list, cited by lierre keith in her book the vegetarian myth. I find many other points in that book very questionable or even disagree with them completely, but this list alone should make anyone re-evaluate how environmentally helpful a vegan/vegetarian diet really can be.

If companies like exxon/mobil, monsanto, mcdonalds and of course big agriculture companies have an interest to invest in soy products and organic health food companies, there must be something fishy going on.

This article appears to be the source of the information quoted by keith:

What We Need to Know About the Corporate Takeover of the “Organic” Food Market by Carole Resnick

A familiar brand name to organic shoppers is Hain. This company now owns many other organic brands, which continue to appear to be independent. Some examples include: Bearitos (chips), Bread Shop (granola), Celestial Seasonings (tea), Garden of Eatin’, Health Valley, Imagine Foods (Rice Dream), Terra Chips, and Westbrae (canned vegetables, soy drinks, pastas, and more). And who owns Hain? The prime investors in the Hain Food Group are mutual funds and holding companies. Their principal stockholders are Phillip Morris (tobacco), Monsanto (genetically modified food), Citigroup (responsible for rainforest destruction), Exxon/Mobil, Wal-Mart, Energy Nuclear, and Lockheed Martin (weapons manufacturer). In 9/99 the H.J. Heinz Co. acquired ownership of nearly 20% of Hain. And, no surprises here, Heinz is principally owned by the same mutual funds and principal stockholders as is Hain.

Cascadian Farms (the brand offering much of the organic frozen food on the market) and Muir Glen (tomato products) are owned by Small Planet Foods, which is the organic marketing “niche”owned by General Mills, the third biggest food conglomerate in North America. Agribusiness is guilty enough for negative impacts on the global environment, local economies, and the nutritional quality of the food most of us have little choice but to consume. But look who “owns” General Mills. Their principal investors are Philip Morris, Exxon/Mobil, General Electric, Chevron, Nike, McDonald’s, Target Stores, Starbucks, Monsanto, Dupont (weapons & pesticides), Dow Chemical (Agent Orange, breast implants, napalm), Pepsico, Alcoa Aluminium, Disney, and Texas Instruments (weapons producer and one of G.W. Bush’s top contributors).

Fresh Samantha, a popular organic juice brand regionally produced in Maine, merged with Odwalla in 5/00. Little do health conscious consumers suspect that Odwalla Juice is owned by CocaCola, as part of their Minute Maid unit. Boca Burgers is owned by Kraft Foods, which is owned by Philip Morris. Stoned Wheat Thins is made with GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and is owned by Nabisco, which was acquired by Philip Morris in December, 2000. Arrowhead Water and Poland Spring Water are owned by Nestle (which is being boycotted because its “breast milk substitute” causes the deaths of millions of babies). Silk Soy Drink is owned by White Wave, which is owned by Dean Foods, whose main shareholders are Microsoft, General Electric, Philip Morris, Citigroup, Pfizer, Exxon/Mobil, Coca Cola, WalMart, PepsiCo, and Home Depot.

Writing for the New York Times Sunday Magazine (5/13/01), Michael Pollan reported that Organic Cow, previously represented to consumers as an organic dairy based in the Northeast and consisting of a network of small farms, was bought out by Horizon. Another source of organic dairy products, Horizon is a $127 million public corporation that has become the Microsoft of organic milk, controlling 70 percent of the retail market. The milk is now “ultrapasteurized” using a highheat process that “kills the milk,” destroying its enzymes and many of its vitamins so it can be sold over long distances. Arguably, ultrapasteurized organic milk is actually less nutritious than conventionally pasteurized non-organic milk. Horizon’s “factory farms” in the West are described as a clear example of the certifiability of inhumane practices through the emerging corporate organics system. Pollan writes: “On Horizon’s dairy farms in the west, thousands of cows that never encounter a blade of grass spend their days confined to a fenced dry lot, eating (certified organic) grain and tethered to milking machines three times a day.”

Now, many of these companies are only known in the USA, some we know here as well, Celestial Seasonings, Health Valley, Westbrae. I remember many of them when I was a vegan, organic food coop shopper, and naturally I was shocked.

But I wonder, if it is as bad in Switzerland and Europe. Something worth researching, if anyone wants to help?

Edit 1:

We already checked Biofarm here in Switzerland. Pheew, it seems to be ok, owned by a cooperative.

Rapunzel seems okay as well, according to this article, Nestle und Rapunzel.

Lima, a good european source for japanese based health foods like Miso, Seaweed, Soysauce etc. however is owned by Hain, which is owned by … see above. Other Hain brands operate in Europe, but we didn’t know them that well. Some nice body care products like Avalon Organics and Jason are also in the Hain Group portfolio, see here.

edit 2: this website has a bunch of infographics showing the Organic Processing Industry Structure:

especially interesting is the animation depicting acquisitions over time between 1995 and 2007.

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Do Cute Kids Like Radiohead? – Paranoid Android Review – “Our gang of adorable tykes are back and this time they’re reviewing Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android”.” [via b3ta]

Beastie Boys 1987 – Beastie Boys in japanese TV show

Rob Hopkins – My Town in Transition – TED talk by the Initiator of the Transition Town Initiative, Rob Hopkins

DJ Food’s Summer Bottled – Sunspot – Bee sounds made into Beats! Love it. But for a Beer Commercial? Well I suppose it pays the rent, innit…

History of New York City – sweet animation

a grain of sand – “In the thirty-six-years that he has lived on the island, Brendon and his friend, Rene Lafortune, planted sixteen-thousand trees, built 4,8 kilometres of nature paths, and brought and bred 110 giant land tortoises, creating an island of incredible beauty now worth 34 million Euros.” my new hero

David Shrigley vs Anish Kapoor – “David Shrigley jokes about Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate.”"

Orgstep Dubgasm (EM) – “EM’s latest NSFW bass warped supercut is Orgstep Dubgasm, a dubstep mashing of some of the most iconic orgasmic scenes from film.”

#learn

Banksy Ideas (banksyideas) – “There’s this cow, yeah, but it’s face looks like Obama. And sucking on its cow tits are Cameron, Sarkozy and Kim Jong Un” Remember when Banksy exited us? [via b3ta]

Avaaz Attacked: Cyber-war vs People Power – “Use the tool to the right to donate to an Avaaz defence fund to take our security to the next level, and show our attackers that whatever they throw at us only makes us stronger.”

White Car – Now We Continue (Heinrich Mueller Continuum) – Gerald Donald, half of Drexciya during much of the 90s, remixes white car.

Off the Grid : Eric Valli – “There are growing number of people who have decided to live light on the earth to not be a part of problem anymore I spent the last few years with four of them striving for harmony with nature in the most pristine corners of United States.”

Occupy Wall Street’s anarchist roots – “The easiest way to explain anarchism is to say that it is a political movement that aims to bring about a genuinely free society – that is, one where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence.”

Urban Plant Tags – Include Care Instructions

May Day, 2012 (big photo gallery) – with xeni selecting the photos, the gallery must be great

Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Rappers Delight is Released. – the latest episode is out, “They Gonna Kill the Culture with Vinyl”, wait what? Oh…

Moss Grafiti – what do they mean by water-retention gel?

A Mixtape for Your May Day – “May Day is finally here, so pump yourself up with this Occupy.com exclusive download, inspired by Occupiers all over the world.” free mixtape

John Peel’s Record Shelf – A is out!

Wormworld: Chapter 3 – A Monstrous Forest – “Ok, I’d say go and have a good time with Chapter 3!”

Get Our Damn Book and Support The Cause – “The Architecture for Humanity team has assembled an indispensable handbook for anyone committed to building a more sustainable future.”

Moment of Clarity by SoulDr3000 – “featuring clips from Occupy The Hood Radio”

So what the fuck has occupy done so far? – “Off the computers & into the streets.”

André-Alexander Giesemann: #15 – Photo Series of German Clubs after the Party, in full light

Facebook likes aren’t speech protected by the First Amendment-Bland v. Roberts – “it’s well off the mark to say in this case that “likes” were not speech for First Amendment purposes. As menial as a Facebook like may be in the overall scheme of life, it’s an announcement to your Facebook friends that you support something, whether it’s a cause, a candidate, a company, or another person.”

#lang:de

what’s the system and how can i fuck it? – “FUCK THE SYSTEM!? — WAS IST DAS SYSTEM UND WIE KANN ICH ES FICKEN? Fuckfuckfuck.org ist ein Online Kurzfilmwettbewerb für alle, die sich trauen sich dieser Frage zu stellen. Finde es heraus oder scheitere kläglich. Aber tu es. Und gewinne 1000 CHF dabei.”

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

IN BED WITH INVADER – “Shot in winter 2011, this movie invite you to spend one night in Paris with the street artist Invader.”

Spike Lee / The Dolly Shot – “A montage of unique dolly shots from the films of Spike Lee. Music: “Bra” by Cymande”

#learn

Let’s Ride the Magic General Strike Bus – well, it certainly won’t be the posters fault if May Day fails. some fantastic pieces.

Update: Filthy Luker – gotta love these scary AND cute sculptures

Klouchebag – Klout parody determines your level of douchbagery on twitter

The Pirate DVD King of Long Island, “Big Hy” Strachman, Keeps Soldiers in Free DVDs – “‘Big Hy’ — his handle among many loyal customers — would almost certainly be cast as Hollywood Enemy No. 1 but for a few details. He is actually Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife.” arrest that, hollywood

Laurie Penny: A papier-mâché puppet and a badly tuned guitar… how to go on strike when you haven’t got a job – “Whatever future these young people collectively create – and sooner or later, they’ll have to come up with one – the meaning of direct action, the meaning of work, and the meaning of success and failure itself will be redefined. That’s not something to dismiss in haste.” does the left really only set themselves up for failure? hmm

May Day General Strike posters – !!!

Bruno Neri, the footballer who stood up to fascism – “The players are lined up in the centre of the pitch, standing in front of the still unfinished stands and all are giving the fascist salute. Except for one: Bruno Neri.”

YouAreMinecraft Live Map – asks people to upload minecraft avatars

Joebot: Memes @ Gallery 1988 – “Straight from the World Wide Web and into your hearts comes the new hit album “Haters Gonna Hate” from The Internets! Now you can sing along with hit songs such as “Friday”, “Trololo”, and “Bed Intruder Song”.”

Sex toys found on Swiss trains for sale – “A vast array of weird and wonderful items from the Swiss rail network’s lost-and-found department is now on sale, including butt plugs, dildos and worn underwear.”

Descriptive Camera – “The Descriptive Camera works a lot like a regular camera—point it at subject and press the shutter button to capture the scene. However, instead of producing an image, this prototype outputs a text description of the scene.”

Mr Oizo 3000 – Mr. Oizo New EP Stade 3, free to download

The hidden side of your soul: How the FBI uses the Web as a child porn honeypot – “The FBI had set up its fake CP site for precisely this situation. When investigators had a lead on someone specific, they e-mailed the person with a custom password and the site URL.”

The True Size of Africa – Can you fit the USA, China and India inside African Continent? Yes. And Much more…

Holy cow … – “how google drive terms compare to dropbox and Microsoft. ..wow.” whatever happened to Don’t be Evil?

Tour for GHOSTS WITH SHIT JOBS, a Lo-fi Sci-fi Feature by Jim Munroe – “By 2040, the economy has flipped and North Americans are a cheap labour pool for wealthy Asian markets. A Chinese documentary show focuses on the “ghosts” (Cantonese slang for white people) unlucky enough to have been born into the slums of Toronto in a special report that translates as “Ghosts With Shit Jobs.”"

Occupy Wall Street: what is to be done next? | Slavoj Žižek – “How a protest movement without a programme can confront a capitalist system that defies reform”

How Can I Recharge My Depleted Motivation? – “Regaining your motivation involves a combination of combatting the sources of its depletion and tricking yourself into taking the first step.”

Various & Gould: “Zu Gast Arbeit” – strong work by german street artist duo various & gould for instanbul group show OUTSIDE-in, the swept a street in the city with a mix of sand and blue pigment addressing the issue of migrant workers in the cities

Some Objections To Occupy May 1st – “As the call has spread around and become something inseparable from Occupy as a movement, there have been a number of objections or concerns about a May 1st general strike.” reading through some of the comments makes me lose all hope…

Chains of oppression: Katie Roiphe, Lena Dunham and the sexual counter-revolution. – “Female sexual autonomy itself is what’s really unorthodox today. Agency and self-determination, the right to own our own desire – those are the kind of forbidden fantasies women across the world still pant over in private, unable to pronounce for fear of being slut-shamed.”

The History of File-Sharing – “Last century filesharing was a fringe hobby, only for geeks who were lucky enough to own a computer that could dial into the World Wide Web. How different is that today, where filesharing has become daily routine for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In just a few years swapping files has become mainstream. Time to take a step back and see how it all came about.”

More OWS Arrests, Staggering Police Presence At Federal Hall – “the first eight arrests, which occurred across the street from Federal Hall, and wrote that they were prompted by the protesters’ desire “to draw attention to statements made by police commanders over the last few days that protesters were not allowed to lie on the sidewalks.” This interpretation of the law, despite a court ruling from 2000, has forced protesters off the sidewalk on Broad Street and onto the stairs of Federal Hall.”

Dani Alves: ‘At Barcelona we are taking football back to its origins’ – “Barcelona’s buccaneering right-back explains that staying true to attacking principle is secret of Catalan club’s ongoing success”

IHTFP Hack Gallery: Tetris on the Green Building – “MIT hackers have long considered “Tetris on the Green Building” to be the Holy Grail of hacks, as the side of the building is a wonderful grid for the game.”

Why And How To Strike On May Day – “We are striking to halt the flow of capital, reclaim a tool of resistance, and unify movements against exploitation, repression, and corruption.”

#lang:de

apokalypse now (and then) – “In den aktuellen Katastrophen und weltpolitischen Ereignissen spitzen sich die tiefgreifenden globalen Umwälzungen der vergangenen 25 Jahre dramatisch zu. Je nach Perspektive werden sie von den Menschen als Krise oder als Chance auf einen Neuanfang interpretiert. Auf nahezu allen Ebenen politischer, philosophischer und künstlerischer Diskurse erleben wir eine Konjunktur apokalyptischer Rede.”

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

The Flaming Lips: Supermoon Made Me Want To Pee – the flaming lips featuring prefuse 73

D’Schütz isch da – “Since the photos have been tone mapped directly from RAW, they’re only medium and not high dynamic range”

Battle for the Soul of Occupy – “In this Al Jazeera video a profound discussion emerges over the question of how Occupy should deal with the 99% Spring movement.”

A Show – the show – something to watch after we return

OccupiedAir – you can spot us in this stream

GUNS (EM) – making music with gun sounds

#learn

Welcome | Your Bank Of America – “And when the day comes that you, the American taxpayer, own this Bank, you will be ready to make it a Bank for America” another great yesmen spoof

Laurie Penny: Real men want to talk about sex – when are we going to start listening? – “The first thing boys learn is that there’s nothing worse than being ‘like a girl’. So men keep quiet”

Anonymous launches new music platform – “a group of programmers affiliated with the faceless web activist group Anonymous launched a new social music program, in development since December, called Anontune. Anonymous is releasing the application as part of its offensive against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry group that has fought for years to keep free music off the internet.”

URBAN FARMING TOOLS – “The five-piece “Urban Farming Tools”-set comes with a backpack in which all the tools find their place. The detachable handle of the bigger tools can be strapped to the outside of the backpack”

Le Biciclette – vintage super heroes

Occupy Museums – “Art and culture are part of the commons. Art is not a luxury item. However, many art and cultural museums are currently run by and for the 1%. Economic interests dictate what art is accessible, successful, and desirable. Institutions often have board members who are part of the 1%. Galleries and museums increasingly operate as profit-driven business.”

A System of Torture? DMZs Argument through Comment, and Comics – “Brian Wood’s chief character is despondent and sounds like many of us do today in the era of Occupy Wall Street, hostilities in Afghanistan, the Obama administration’s drone campaign, and rampant corruption plaguing state and federal government, all amid an ever-theatric run-up to another presidential election.”

Bug Memorials – R.I.P. Roach

Ben Long | 2 – “Motion-blurred landscapes are presented on commercial billboards in the public realm. For each of these artworks Long has digitally manipulated the image of a historically significant 19th Century oil landscape using computer painting techniques.”

Berners-Lee: Don’t let record labels upset web openness – “We mustn’t allow record companies’ fear that their business model isn’t working to upset the openness of the internet”

Sandy Smith – Mauritian Sunset – “A small doorway was built into the wall, only five and a half foot tall, and two foot wide. The monitors facing forwards showed flat colour, working over the wall to create a rough gradient representation of a classic sunset.”

Talking to Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk – “Mr. Hütter said a new Kraftwerk album was under way. “We didn’t fall asleep,” he said. “The 168-hour week is still going on since the beginning, since 1970.””

Anna Utopia Giordano | Venus – classical art photoshopped to fit current beauty standards

* SNOWBALL! * – flash pinball game

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

I thought it would be fun to share some thoughts and observations I made in regards to the recent Kraftwerk Retrospective at the MoMA.

When I first read about these planned shows I got quite exited, I really wanted to attend at least a few of the concerts. They happened to be scheduled right around my 50th birthday, in the city where I was born in, but never lived for long. I always loved New York City, no other motivation was needed to book a trip there. But since I have been a Kraftwerk fan for years, these concerts sounded too good to be true, like a perfect bonus for a trip to the great city.

My wife and I talked it through and decided to book the trip at any rate, we would have a great vacation there, regardless if we were able to score tickets or not. New York City is such a fantastic place to visit, we saw plenty of things to do besides the Kraftwerk shows – art, occupy wall street, foodie adventures. And at this point we were still positive, that we could score at least two tickets…

The day came when the tickets went online, and as feared it turned out to be the debacle, that i described elsewhere. But even though we didn’t get any tickets, we still planned to check out the scene and visit the exhibitions at the MoMA and the PS1.

On our second night in NYC, which also happened to be the first of the eight Kraftwerk concerts – they performed Autobahn – we went to Brooklyn to an event called Krautwerk, where New York bands and musicians played their favorite Kraftwerk songs. It turned out to be a fantastic night, that motivated me to say this on twitter:

the #krautwerk gig last night in and of itself justified our trip to #NYC (sans MOMA tix). everything else from here on out is just bonus.

The MC made a few very good points, when he introduced the night. The band playing the MoMA, he said, wasn’t even really Kraftwerk, just a fourth of the original band. Just, you know, Ralf! The disdain with which he said “Ralf!” was funny, but also quite prophetic. I later came to a similar conclusion.

But at this point I still hoped to score tickets for at least one of the nights, why not for Man Machine, the one concert we got out of the queue for during the online sale, but then the website decided to not accept our credit card… We also started each day by listening to the Kraftwerk record that would be performed on the night. And I purchased 0462/2000 of the catalogue MoMA release, 04 62, get it? Yes, my birth month and year… But hey.

Kraftwerk Special Edition Box … Birthday present… Thx thx. pic.twitter.com/VH01kMos

I still was a little obsessed to get tickets, on twitter I wrote the following and was only half joking:

with #kraftwerk playing man machine at the MOMA tonite things are getting desperate. we’ll be offering sexual favors for tickets, and such.

On friday the 13. we visited MoMA during the day time. Yes, there were a few traces of Kraftwerk to be found, the robot installation (see video bellow), projections of some logos (see photos above), and a huge long banner above the stairways. We also saw the stage where the shows were being held during the night, which struck me as a very odd place for a concert. This “room” had no ceiling and the walls were painted all white, which for acoustics and for projections is a nightmare, ask any technician. The space was also really small, which explained why only 450 people could attend. And so I asked some attendant why the gigs where being held right there. He said, there were bigger auditoriums available, better suited even… but the band had insisted on this spot, right smack in the middle of the museum. Ralf! apparently went for the show effect…

Later that day we went to the PS1, where a Kraftwerk installation was being shown. This turned out to be one of the saddest multimedia installations I have ever seen. A white dome tent with some pathetic red cushions in the middle, cheap visuals projected onto the eight side walls, and a music piece for each of the eight albums, interspersed with a long robot voice countdown. After three songs we had enough. They played the newer versions of the songs, the remixed, cleaner stuff that they introduced since “The Mix”, not the old gritty Kraftwerk music, that we love. And the graphics were really sad and clumsy stuff. This all smelled of Ralf! so much that I wrote on twitter:

I am cured of my #kraftwerk obsession! how come? long story, short version: ralf! I think I actually hate the guy.

We still decided to try and score tickets that night, no such luck, but the scene in front of the MoMA was so hostile, that we did not regret one bit. The videos of the concerts, that we watched on youtube confirmed the same impression, it was all much too polished and sterile… They performed the polished remixed versions of the songs, and those cheesy 3D visuals…

So here is what I think. If you call something a retrospective, it could have been a fantastic opportunity to show some of the great history of this great and influential band – to show versions of the old art work, to demonstrate the samplers, sequencers and computers that Kraftwerk had to build to create their music, to display images of their studio space, photos of the former members, the history. Also some critical voices on the breakups and dramas surrounding the band. Instead they opted to show only the new Kraftwerk, the polished version Ralf! wants everyone to see, with their clean and pretty boring versions of music and graphics.

So I for one am no longer a Kraftwerk fan, at least not of the current incarnation. I still love and respect their older work, but Ralf! really has managed to take all the life out of it for now.

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Squarepusher – ‘Dark Steering’ taken from forthcoming album ‘Ufabulum’ out 14th/15th May – teaser video for the new squarepusher album. seems to combine the more melodic newer sound with earlier manic beats assault.

#learn

What Will a Billion Dollars Buy Facebook? – “It is, of course, important to be vigilant when deals of such magnitude take place between giants of the Internet, but users sometimes tend to descend into paranoia when Facebook is involved. For a clearer view on things, here are eight aspects of the likely legal implications of the purchase of Instagram by Facebook.”

Instagram’s Buyout: How Does It Measure Up? – “I crunched the numbers, pulling together data from a selection of 30 notable internet acquisitions over the last ten years, from Broadcast.com to OMGPop, to see if the Facebook/Instagram acquisition was as crazy as everyone thinks.”

How to get more likes on Facebook – desperate times call for desperate measures

INCREDIBOX – beat box game

InstaBackup: Backup all your Instagram Pictures – “I’m still not sure if I’ll keep my account with Instagram, that will depend on how the transition in ownership is handled. Either way, I want to get my images out of Instagram’s servers and safely onto my own hard-drive.”

TaxCut Money Collage – “As a professional artist, I deduct my material expenditures as a write off. If I slice up a hundred dollars to make an image, or a thousand, or just five, I am taking it out of the IRS coffers.”

The Spotify Play Button – “Simply add the Spotify Play Button to your blog, website or social page and light it up with music. You can feature any song, album or playlist.”

DJ Shadow Archival Project: MPC Era ’92-’96 – “A major new archival release exposing Shadow’s early production on the Akai MPC. Containing entirely unreleased material spanning from 1992 to 1996, the project is entitled, “Total Breakdown: Hidden Transmissions From The MPC Era, 1992-1996″”

Is Nello the Worst Restaurant In Manhattan? – the place NOT to eat at, Nello

Five Ways To Get Your Instagrams Before Facebook Eats Them – “you just heard that Zuckerburg bought your beloved Instagram for a billion dollars, presumably so that the FBI, DEA and ICE can inspect your Amoro filtered pictures of “cocaine” “clouds” or whatever. You’re thinking of jumping ship, but you want to download your photos first.”

Kraftwerk to release limited edition box set – “To commemorate the run, the band are releasing a limited edition version of their 2009 box set The Catalogue. On its original release, the set contained remastered editions of all of the band’s seminal albums, augmented by fancy supplementary booklets.”

elitismleadstotyranny – “THIS IS A PROTEST, AN ACT OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, A METHODOLOGY OF REFUSING AND RESISTANCE. THIS ACT HAS EMPLOYED GUERRILLA TACTICS. I AM SWIMMING INTO THE BOATS IN THE HOPE I CAN STOP THEM FROM COMPLETING THE RACE AND PROPOSING THE RETURN OF SURPRISE TACTICS. THIS IS ‘PEACEFUL’ … I HAVE NO WEAPONS (DON’T SHOOT!) MY ONLY FEAR, IS NOT SWIMMING FAST ENOUGH TO GET IN THE RIGHT POSITION TO PREVENT THE BOATS.”

Meanwhile, At The Smithfield Horse Fair – This Horse must be a NWA fan, fuck the police, not sure if NSFW?

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Pure Food & Wine

54 Irving Plaza
NYC, NY 10003
t: 212 477 1010

last night we ate in this rather pricey raw food vegan restaurant and it was as if the meal happened in two totally different restaurants. The first course was excellent and felt natural and inspired. we took two salads featuring excellent combos of flavors, innovative and exiting. especially the cashew blue cheese blew us away. the main course however was trying too hard. the tamale looked brilliant, but the raw food really felt forced here. it tasted fine, just nothing like an actual tamale. raw food has never appealed to me much, here it felt pretentious. if they would just stuck to innovating instead of trying to re-create known dishes in raw food version, maybe it would work for me… huge minus points for the flash website as well.

tonite (wednesday) we try out highly recommended:

Dirt Candy

430 e. 9th st
NYC, NY 10009
t. 212 228 7732

Much better and even a little less expensive Dirt Candy offers creative, lacto-ovo vegetarian food. it’s still quite pricey, but it was a real pleasure to eat there. the ingredients could be more seasonal and to make it to my top list of vegetarian restaurants they would have to go much lighter on the garlic. the “Mushroom” dish really stood out for me, as well as the chocolate beet cake for desert. the place is small, but has a very nice interior design. nice bloggy website.

Today (thursday) we will go for lunch in a korean vegetarian place in korea town:

Hangawi

12E 32nd street
NYC, NY 10006
t. 212 213 0077

fantastic food, really delicious and presented in a creative way. this has been my first time eating Korean food, a cuisine i knew nothing about – except kimchi. the starter was something they call porridge, an oat based soup with corn or pumpkin flavor. then a ginseng salad, with actual pieces of pleasntly bitter ginseng. the main dish came in a sizzling hot pot, part of the cooking process completed on the table. the restaurant looks and feels like some sort of monastery, very simple wood design. you check your shoes at the door and sit on low tables with a foot room bellow. highly recommend it!

and today (friday), indian vegetarian:

bhojan

102 Lexington Avenue
New York City, NY 10016
t. 212-213-9615

this is a very decent vegetarian restaurant serving an indian lunch thali at a very good price. not more, not less. indian food is challenging fare though, and I can’t seem to deal with it well anymore. but that’s another story.

best falafel in new york? let’s see about that today (saturday):

taim

222 Waverly Place,
New York City, NY 10014
t: 212.691.1287

well, we went there, but it was closed for pass over. so we’ll have to try some other time. we instead went to dos toros taqueria for one of the worst burritos I ever had, despite the fact that this list called it the best burrito in new york city. hmm.

we went to taim last night, and let me just say this, if this really is the best falafel in new york, new york is a sad place. these falafels were awful, much too humid, crumbling apart, weirdly spiced. best burito AND best falafel were fail? hmm, starting to doubt if new york is a good place for vegetarian food. it used to be, but not anymore.

today (monday) we will try a vegetarian thai:

pukk

71 1st ave
NYC, NY 10002
t. 212 253 2741

pathetic. worst thai food I ever ate. sad.

but luckily in the afternoon we went to brooklyn to find:

Mimi’s Hummus

209 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn, NY 11218
t. 718 284 4444

this place serves fantastic hummus and israeli food, I totally loved it. the hummus is super creamy and nice and gets decorated with either lemon-garlic chickpeas, fava beans, mushrooms or tahini sauce and even with meat. I am starting to suspect that it is better to go eat in a good non-vegetarian restaurant that serves vegetarian food, than to go for the vegetarian restaurants…

today, tuesday, we will try our luck with:

wild ginger

380 Broome
NYC, NY 20013
t. 212 966 2669

Wild Ginger serves very nice, creative vegetarian asian food, the lunch deals are great, a la carte is a little pricey. most dishes come with brown rice, others are served with coconut rice. they do serve mock meat dishes, but the quality of the tofu seems to be good. The location is nice, right on the cusp between china town and little italy.

conclusion

And the winner is … Mimi’s Hummus. in fact we’ll go there again this afternoon for our last dinner in town. dirt candy is nice, they serve good quality food, creative vegetarian kitchen. but the menu is so limited that it seems impossible to go eat there a second time. it’s also quite expensive. mimi’s hummus is not a pure vegetarian place, but their hummus is truly fantastic, comes in combos.

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Cycle trailer – Cycle the Movie [via @djfood]

Dubstep Bunny Beagle – great editing job

Festival Baixo Centro – “Baseado no projeto alemão Painting reality, Rosenthaler Platz, Berlin, 2010″ Comparing this to the Berlin Action…

MaRKR Buro Destruct creates the Edding Font – “The project: The development of a typeface from a pen. Namely the most distinctive permanent marker by pen manufacturer edding, which therefore can now write on computers, too.”

BENDING SOUNDS – NYC SUBWAY – “Shot within a couple hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon, “Bending Sounds” is a test/experiment to capture the inspirational sounds and visuals of the NYC subway.”

Clark – Black Stone (from ‘Iradelphic’, out now) – Impressive Short Movie promoting the new Clark album on Warp Records

David Lynch – Crazy Clown Time – “The self-directed video for “Crazy Clown Time,” the new single from the multi-talented director and songwriter David Lynch.” the voice doesn’t improve much, but …

Eat It Don’t Tweet It by American Hipster + Key of Awesome – “You are pathetic, we’re not photogenic Hurry it up we’re getting cold, Come down here and taste us, don’t humiliate us, No one gives a damn bout what you post” no really, eat it don’t tweet it!

#learn

Muji BGM by Tag Savage on SoundCloud – Create, record and share your sounds for free – Muji Store Background Music

Franziska Nyffeler 06-04-2012 – Amazing New Work by my most loved artist <3

Orbital Talks Vintage Synths, Throwing Up and New Album, Wonky – “You find yourself in the position of remixing Madonna!” said Phil Hartnoll. “Remixing Kraftwerk! I was like, hello!”"I nearly threw up then as well!” exclaimed Paul Hartnoll.”

For Passover fun in Israel, a safari of animals crafted from Coca-Cola trash – “The Coca-Cola Recycled Safari featuring animals made of recycled Coca Cola packages will be open to the public during the Passover holiday.” In Tel Aviv.

soundsuit sculptures by nick cave – “images of american performance artist and fabric sculptor nick cave’s most recent ‘soundsuit’ pieces. … each piece is formed from an wide array of materials obtained from various locales. cave brings elements such as sequins, twigs, feathers, knit pieces, buttons, beads, wire, metal, human hair and voodoo dolls”

Concept Artist Jonathon Keats Turns Loose Change Into Electrochemical Arbitrage – “Unlike credit-default swaps, electrochemical arbitrage is for the 99 percent, and the value is real, measurable in volts and amps. If you want to build your own currency exchange, all you need is some pocket change and seawater.”

Star Wars Continuous Line Illustrations – “Some continuous line Illustrations i drew for my Independent Final Project on Technology.”

Propellerhead’s ‘Figure’ music app is awesome, easy to use, and cheap – “Figure lets you combine drums, bass synth and lead synth together in a simple, blocky interface that looks fantastic on an iPhone screen or even when blown up on the iPad 3′s Retina Display” very sexy interface, love it.

Hackerspace Passport – “There are hundreds of hackerspaces around the world – teaching, sharing and becoming valuable parts of their local communities.”

Street artist Filthy Luker takes over Manchester with a playable version of Space Invaders – “Over in Manchester street artist Filthy Luker, with some help from Red Stripe, has created an outdoor, wall-sized and playable version of Space Invaders.”

Krautwerk 1-8 Condensed: Kraftwerk Covered – “For those that tried and failed to get tickets to MOMA’s Kraftwerk retrospective concerts, there’s a night for us. Krautwerk 1-8 condensed is better than eight days of Kraftwerk concerts;”

MoMA PS1: Exhibitions: Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 – “In conjunction with Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 at The Museum of Modern Art, an eight-channel video and sound installation especially developed for the exhibition is now on display in the MoMA PS1 Performance Dome.”

Can Apple give police a key to your encrypted iPhone data? – “Apple declined to comment on iPhone security for this story, so we were unable to confirm whether the company has these abilities or uses them to help law enforcement.”

We Are Not All In It Together – “a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year, compared to 2009 — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income.”

Inside the world’s quietest room – “A typical quiet room you sleep in at night measures about 30 decibels. A normal conversation is about 60 decibels. This room has been measured at -9 decibels.” I need anechoic chambers! NOW!

Ai Weiwei installs studio webcams for supporters and security services – “On the one-year anniversary of his detention, the artist has a gift to friends worried about his safety and the authorities who want to know what he’s up to”

8bit GoogleMap – love it

#lang:de

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Cleaning up my computer, look what i found

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

webcamtears – “Webcam tears is a project depicting contemporary sadness in an voyeuristic internet era through the medium of the webcam.”

Occupy Wall Street: Surviving the Winter – “Fault Lines follows key Occupy organisers through the winter as they continue to build a movement even after violent evictions across the country.”

Défense d’afficher – “what street art says about the world – An interactive documentary”

Rangers & Celtic – “The hatred between Glasgow’s “Old Firm” sides is the most famous in world football. It’s the game’s flagship loathing, proof of the power of the sport to inspire profound levels of tribal loyalty and a near-Pavlovian revulsion at anything to do with a rival.”

Geometric Porn App Preview – thank god apple protected us from this filth

#learn

Kraftwerk month #31 Kover Kollection 7 – “To finish the month off here’s something that’s been in the pipeline for over a year – KKK vol.7. This took far too long to do and I completely redid the start three times before I was happy with it.” kev finishing off his fantastic kraftwerk month in style.

Rhetological Fallacies – “Errors and manipulations of rhetoric and logical thinking” state of the art infographic

Clothes Make the Man – Urban outfitters founder richard hayne supports santorum: “the fiftysomething Hayne is mom-and-apple-pie conservative. He and his wife Margaret have contributed $13,150 to the campaign coffers of Paleolithic right-wing Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and his Political Action Committee over the years.”

edible cookbook by korefe – “‘the real cookbook’, an edible instruction manual for making a classic lasagna. first, the user reads each inscribed fresh pasta page of the guide, learning the steps necessary to make the dish. then, each informative sheet is baked into a home-crafted lasagna with the filling ingredients complementing the text-covered base.”

BrowserQuest – a massively multiplayer HTML5 – “BrowserQuest is a tribute to classic video-games with a multiplayer twist. You play as a young warrior driven by the thrill of adventure. No princess to save here, just a dangerous world filled with treasures to discover. And it’s all done in glorious HTML5 and JavaScript.”

Epic Sax Game – your chance to become epic sax guy

Art V cancer – “Art V Cancer is run by Chris Thornley (aka Raid71) & Julia Hall. A couple of years ago our life, and our family’s lives were turned completely upside down when Chris was diagnosed with a very rare incurable non hodgkins lymphoma at the age of 37.”

still-life series of rotting food by klaus pichler – “austrian artist klaus pichler has developed ‘one third’, a highly legible photographic commentary of the connection between the individual wastage of food and globalized food production after learning the UN finding that one third of the world’s food supply is left to rot.”

Movies as code – “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”

Chick-Fil-A threatens guy who made – “Bo sells a t-shirt that says “Eat More Kale” from his home in rural Vermont. Titanic chicken sandwich chain Chick-Fil-A claims that this shirt infringes on their trademark for the slogan “Eat Mor (sic) Chikin’ (sic).”"

The Moon Goose Analogue: Lunar Migration Bird Facility – “One of the works on show is the extremely long-term project that sees Agnes Meyer-Brandis training a flock of young geese to fly to the moon. The whole training started last Spring and according to her schedule, the birds will go on their first unmanned flight to the satellite in 2024.”

A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work – “I thought I was giving them a shield, but turns out I gave them a missile with my name permanently engraved on it.”

DRAWING APPARATUS – “The revolution of the records create drawings that serve as a markers of temporality. The drawings also speak to the idea of the editionable print through their ability to be replicated using domestic materials.”

Laurie Penny: America learns it cannot ignore race and class on the Million Hoodie March – “Whereas six months ago, white activists were shouting that police were part of the 99% and encouraging their fellow occupiers to welcome law enforcement into the protest camps, the chant today is: “police are the army of the rich!””

Screenshots of Despair – sadly poetic

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Union Square Regulars Have Mixed Feelings on Occupation – pretty disenchanting

The Beekeeper – “Local farmer Megan Paska has witnessed beekeeping as it morphed from an illegal (and possibly crazy) habit to a sustainable, community-supported skill.”

234 gritos de Messi para la historia – his 234 goals for Barca in 14:20, shit music

Golden Tiger – “Street Mapping in Paris”

Modeselektor feat. Miss Platnum – “idea, animation, cut, composition: François Chalet”

Girl Walk // All Day – a feature-length dance music video, kickstarter financed

#learn

Hyuro New Mural In Valencia, Spain – “With the recent context and various aspects of the Spanish’ crisis, this clever piece goes straight to the point.”

Imaginawesome – “Kids have the ability to come up with some pretty amazing things, but not always the ability to draw exactly what they were imagining. I’m here to help make those drawings come a little bit closer to reality.”

maps.stamen.com / watercolor – “our watercolor maps apply raster effect area washes and organic edges over a paper texture to add warm pop to any map.”

In Yo’ Face, Facial Recognition! – “One day, I hope to upgrade the Anti-Facial Recognition System with a vision-providing, head-mounted camera that will identify nearby facial recognition systems by linking to a database”

Documentary Bad Brains: A Band in D.C. Sheds Light on Punk Group’s Legacy – “when H.R. was forced to record vocals to the song “Sacred Love” using a pay phone in jail, where he was serving time for pot possession.”

10 Places You’re Not Allowed to See on Google Maps – “if you want to see towns or streets in North Korea, you can’t. Also blurred is the Royal Palace in the Netherlands and even a power plant on Cornell University’s campus in Ithaca, New York.”

From Kony2012 to Horny2012: the blurring of lines between memes and movments – “I suggested to a friend last night who is a screenwriter that if he’d written this story into a script I’d say it was a little too far-fetched to believe. If I’m completely honest part of me still just doesn’t believe in the egomaniacal characters, overly-designed insignia and far-fetched decline of it all. What if — just what if — this is an extraordinary hoax? A social experiment? A marketing campaign?”

Occupy Movement To Launch Online News Site, ‘Occupy.com’ – “After a winter of extensive planning, the Occupy movement will launch its own online news site later this month. Occupy.com, which has the associative meaning of “occupying the commons,” will go online in late March”

Very, Very Minimalist LEGO’s Versions of Toons You Know – “A tipster tells us the campaign “borrowed” from an uncredited Internet image. Surprised?”

Letter From Athens: Inside the Greek Crisis with Anarchists and the Radicalized Ex-Middle-Class – “They try and threaten us with bankruptcy,” he says. “We’ve already gone bankrupt! What is bankruptcy if not hungry people in the streets? For years the banks and the politicians shared the profits with themselves, but now that there are losses we have to pay for them?”

Posterous is Joining the Flock at Twitter – “The opportunities in front of Twitter are exciting, and we couldn’t be happier about bringing our team’s expertise to a product that reaches hundreds of millions of users around the globe.”

stillspotting nyc – “The interactive map developed by SIDL presents actual noise complaints generated by New York residents when calling 311, the city’s phone number for government information and non-emergency services. Reading the complaints offers insights into the city’s noise, and the contrasts between private and social space and between residential and commercial necessities.”

Join us to stand in solidarity with Occupy… – “No Work ✩ No School ✩ No Housework ✩ No Shopping ✩ No Banking – Instead, take to the streets and protest with us!”

Damien Hirst and the great art market heist – “Hirst is the world’s richest artist and the Tate’s big retrospective will mark the zenith of his power. But when his stock falls, how will an art world in thrall to big money respond?”

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

I wrote this a few days ago, but then hesitated to post it.
Why would I keep moaning about my idiotic life?
Who cares?
What’s the point of such a post?
Today I decided to post it anyway, who knows, maybe it will help me to turn a page and to move on.
I am so low, something has got to give.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

This is how my days look like.

I get up at 5:30 to meditate for half an hour. At that time it is quiet. As an atheist I don’t believe in god or any other deities, nor in any other religion, buddhism may come closest. Still I consider it a good thing to just sit in silence for a while and face the emptiness, experience the nothingness that I am. At the end of the meditation I repeat a few times “May all beings be happy”. Note how I say “all”. That would theoretically include me even though I realize that I could never be happy. At the same time I am fully aware, that if I am not happy myself, wishing happiness for others won’t be of much use.

That concludes the semi-useful part of my day.

Around six my wifi starts up and I grab my iPad to check email, twitter and finally my RSS feeds to get my first news fix of the day. The interesting things that I find I post on various social media websites – delicious, twitter, facebook, tumblr, pinterest and mlkshk. I am a news junkie, no harm done to others in that. But I use an iPad and a Macbook Air for my news intake, fully aware that these machines were assembled in China under very questionable working conditions, then shipped halfway around the globe, some of the components that were used are toxic to the environment and Apple is a huge corporation that like all huge corporations should be boycotted. My huge online time contributes to worldwide server usage, which fast is growing into one of the major energy wasters. My daily allowance according to the 2000 watt society is probably covered by my internet, tv and other computer usage alone.

Around 6:30 I wake up my wonderful wife, which is the absolute highlight of my day. I love the sounds she makes and how beautiful and peaceful she looks when i wake her. We share a glass of Chi, which I justify because I think it’s good for my health. Chi is the closest to proper Kombucha I can find in Switzerland. But Chi is produced here in Switzerland by the cult community formed by the late Sri Chinmoy. So much for my atheism supporting a religious sect. While is not produced locally at least it does not get shipped half way around the globe. Really I should just make my own Kombucha, which is very easy to do. But I am too lazy to find a “mother”.

Next I go to my garden plot and dig around in the dirt for a few hours. I am a terrible gardener and really hate the work, but this gives me the illusion of doing something useful. Since I can’t seem to find a job or a career that interests me, I deceive myself in believing that this urban farming thing could be my “job” of sorts, my calling, and more gravely, that it could contribute to making the world a better place. But of course it does no such thing. Our plot with its 150 square meters is fairly big and should suffice to feed the two of us for nine or more months out of the year. But I fail miserably, we only eat homegrown food seven or eight months of the year. I still buy most of my seeds, despite being fully aware that worldwide seed production is controlled by just five huge international corporations, Mosanto et al. Some of the tools I use are produced in China and in other such countries. We are supposed to garden organically in these family gardens, but my direct neighbor secretly uses a ton of poison on his plot, fertilizers, pesticides and what have you, which means a. his vegetables grow twice as fast and are twice as big as mine, b. all the pests move from his to my plot and c. some of the poisons get onto my vegetables. According to knospe, the swiss organic food certification standards, the food I grow is not even organic, since it is produced in such close vicinity to non-organic farming.

Then I go home and make some tea with organic milk. Organic milk that gets shipped here across the country. Or not. I wouldn’t know. I can’t really buy local organic milk. To be brutally honest the only reason I still buy organic food is to calm down my bad conscience. It still costs much more to buy organic food, but the organic food market has turned into a joke since the major supermarkets have jumped on the organic food bandwagon. Recently I bought organic chickpeas “Produced in China”. Oh really… I keep buying organic because I think it healthier and because it gives me the illusion that this contributes in some absurd and esoteric way to make the world a better place. But I know better, it does not. You can’t shop to make a difference, there is no such thing as green shopping. It’s all the same mechanism, exploitative to the earth, and questionable on so many more levels. Supermarkets kill small businesses, the work conditions of people in the food industry, organic cucumbers from Spain all year long, and I could go on…

It is now time to take a bath and eat a banana. Yes, you guessed it, a fair trade and organic banana, see above. The bath uses more water than I should be allowed to use per day, considering that water scarcity is a reality. It does not matter that we have plenty of water in Switzerland, to really make a difference I would have to consider the global picture and take a bath only once or twice a week. Clean water will soon turn into such a rare resource that we won’t be allowed to waste any of it. As most others I keep wasting water as long as I am allowed to do so.

The rest of the morning I try to read my books, if the noise level allows it, checking and re-checking twitter, facebook and email, watching jon stewart and other videos stuck in my browser from my morning internet surfing. Yes, yes, wasting more energy, justifying nuclear power plants, see above.

At noon I fix a lunch. I am still vegetarian, again out of some sense of guilt or weird antiquated principle, and most probably just out of habit. But I am fully aware that eating vegetarian does not make the slightest bit of a difference. Some claim I would have to go vegan to make a difference, but I find that claim quite questionable, if only for all the soy that gets shipped half way around the globe. I believe the best I could do is eat only local, seasonal food, that either I produce myself, or that gets produced by people I know and trust. Eating some meat would make sense, for many reasons, just one reason here: you need manure to produce good vegetables. Usually my lunch consists of shop bought bread and cheese, yes yes, all organic, LOL, see above. Foods that I neither produce, nor know who does, and just blindly assume that it was produced in ethical and ecological ways, which knowing humans, it probably wasn’t. On the TV I watch the weather and the news, which is probably just a habit to try and make me feel superior, since I got all the news much earlier online on twitter and elsewhere.

In the afternoon I usually try to have a small project, fix stuff, in summer organize something for my urban farm, make jam, conserve food, what have you, currently I want to make preserved lemons, or sometimes I go shopping. Blah. The rest of the time or if I am depressed (most of the time) I just lay around, agonizing. Sometimes I watch a movie or play a game.

I try to read whenever I can, which is rare. It is usually too noisy, so I can’t concentrate. We live above a family with two small boys, both of them around two, just a year apart. Two boys in their terrible twos. Great. All day long they have a competition going who can cry the loudest. If they don’t cry they bang shit on the walls or floors, or run around in those clumsy, loud infant steps. If the kids are quiet you can usually hear their mum screaming around. Because of them, it is almost never quiet in our flat. When they go out to the playground, I know it would now be possible to concentrate enough to read my books. Sometimes I manage to find it in me to pick one up, but usually I just fall asleep enjoying the temporary quiet.

My wife and I, we don’t have kids. A while ago we decided not to have kids. We had tried to have one for some time, but it never worked out. We then started to see the advantages of not having kids. There are already way too many kids on this overpopulated planet, it is one of the biggest ecological contributions you can make, not to put any more kids on to this planet. Plus kids are noisy and obsessed with themselves. Me me me. Pure ego. So, no own kids, but live above two small boys who terrorize me all day long? Brilliant. I try not to hate the kids, but I’m afraid I hate these two more and more every day. And I really question their parents for being so egotistical to bring kids to this fucked up place. We don’t have kids, but most of our direct neighbors have two or more. On balance the positive ecological effect of us not having kids is instantly erased.

There are many more such things. If I move around the house I usually walk up and down the stairs, in order not to use the elevator and save some energy. I live in the fifth, the top floor. People in the floors bellow us, even people living in the second floor, use the elevator all the time. What I manage to save in energy by walking the stairs gets used up by them. I also don’t own a car. I really love to drive, but ecologically I can’t justify owning a car. Again, everybody else in our house owns a car. For my vacations I try to only visit locations I can reach by train, I try to fly as little as possible. Meanwhile my friends and family travel to thailand over christmas. Whatever I may save in energy and resources the people in my direct vicinity waste ten fold. And in these individualistic times I can’t even confront them with it…

In the evening my wife comes home and we fix an early dinner. We like to cook and eat well, creative, luscious vegetarian cuisine. We should feel so guilty that we choke on every bite, because we are so privileged, with all our fancy spices, ingredients and cooking gear. After dinner we hang out on the couch and watch mostly shit movies, that happen to be aired on our subscription cable channel. This is how time is killed best till bed time around 9:30.

Usually around 3 in the night I wake up with a start. It is then that I see clearly what a joke my life is. My pathetic attempts to be a responsible, ecologically conscious, considerate human on this planet are just so futile, that it is beyond ridiculous. Maybe I should rather start to do things that contribute to rid the planet of this cancer that we humans are… But I am too scared of the consequences.

Usually on saturday i join some protest or other, occupy, anti-nuclear, what have you. I pretend that we can make a difference. But I am not a reformist. I am convinced things would need to change on a much more fundamental level. What needs to happen, and I don’t even know if I can call it a revolution, would involve such a deep questioning of our ways by each and everyone of us, that it seems impossible that it could ever happen. Everyone has so many blind spots. Even I do, and I am one who honestly tries to look at things and to question my ways. Or so I delude myself…

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Good Books – Metamorphosis – “It is not very often that we have the opportunity to create a graphic equivalent of a drug fueled rant bringing all of our collective skills to bear.” awesome animation for goodbooks.com, the booksellers that passes all its profits to charities…

Free Starbucks Day | Help us wipe out local business. – nice hijack idea

we are ready – “Dancefloor Diplomacy introduces ‘collage music.’ 20 musicians. 38 songs quoted. All live / No samples”

Sarah Palin versus Julianne Moore – “A scene for scene comparison of Sarah Palin’s actual media appearances and Julianne Moore’s reenactments of them from the movie Game Change.”

‘Bike Thief’ – “I recently spent a couple of days conducting a bike theft experiment, which I first tried with my brother Van in 2005. I locked my own bike up and then proceeded to steal it, using brazen means — like a giant crowbar — in audacious locations, including directly in front of a police station. I wanted to find out whether onlookers or the cops would intervene.”

Adrian Frutiger – Ein Leben – “Einer der größten Designer des 20. Jahrhunderts ist den meisten Menschen vollkommen unbekannt. Dieses Interview soll das ändern.”

Occupiers set up living room in Bank of America lobby – “A crew of occupiers makes a home of a Bank of America lobby with a couch, a coffee table, a rug and a potted plant. “Bank of America took our homes so we though we’d move in here!”"

A Life in Pictures on Vimeo – Moebius Documentary with many interviews and images

#learn

New York′s Best Coffee App – ;p

In response to an open letter from Rose Collins,… – “when we saw the open letter from Jeremy Hammond’s mother linked above, we knew we had to issue a response of some sort.”

How Christian Marclay created “The Clock” – “Christian Marclay created the ultimate digital mosaic.” super cut of super cuts

Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs – “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail.”

streetagainst – escif, very intersting street artist based in valencia spain

HEXEN 2.0 – “The body of works is based on an impressive congregation of actual events, historical figures and fields of knowledge but its main anchor is the Macy Conferences, a set of meetings held in New York right after the Second World War to investigate and set the foundations for a general science of the human mind.”

Olympics 2012 security: welcome to lockdown London – “All this in a city convulsed by massive welfare, housing benefit and legal aid cuts, spiralling unemployment and rising social protests. It is darkly ironic, indeed, that large swaths of London and the UK are being thrown into ever deeper insecurity while being asked to pay for a massive security operation, of unprecedented scale, largely to protect wealthy and powerful people and corporations.” Madness, 59’000 pounds per athlete…

Haruki Murakami – As an Unrealistic Dreamer – “You might say that we are living as uninvited guests on planet earth. Planet earth never asked us to live here. If she shakes a little, we can’t complain, because shaking from time to time is just one of the earth’s natural behaviours. Whether we like it or not, we must live with nature.”

Four Tet, Colin Greenwood and more contribute to the new album from One Little Plane – “the first audio to emerge from the record, which is due for release in May, features both Four Tet (on production) and Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood (bass). You can stream ‘She Was Out in the Water’ below.”

Another Occupy Wall Street activist’s Twitter account subpoenaed – “Just one month ago, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office subpoenaed the Twitter account of Occupy Wall Street participant Malcolm Harris, aka @destructuremal. Today, Jeff Rae received word of the same. He has published a copy of a notice he received from Twitter, which was accompanied by a copy of the DA’s subpoena.”

At SXSW, homeless people become WiFi hotspots – “Homeless people have been enlisted to roam the streets wearing T-shirts that say ‘I am a 4G hotspot.”

What to Do When Shepard Fairey “Uses” Your Photo – “When Shepard Fairey reached out to photographer Andrena Douglas to use her portrait of a fellow cancer survivor to use in his work, she consented under licensing terms: credit her photo and let her take portrait of Fairey with the work in his studio, before it goes off to be exhibited. They confirmed it by phone and email. Well, he didn’t.” More and more of a douche…

The Holy Trinity Issue Hath Descended – “due to the United States Postal Service’s disgusting and ambiguous censorship policy, we were forced to obscure the very realistic-looking fake penis that graces the March issue’s cover conceived by Italian art superstars Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari.”

sebastian errazuriz: occupy chairs – “Nothing like profiting off an anti-capitalist movement and passing it off as scribbled “art”. Almost as bad as Jay Z’s t shirt release. ” that comment sums up my feelings about this project

Update: ± MaisMenos – “Been doing a few interventions and videos related to the economic situation running in Europe, wich is affecting Portugal very badly.”

Sounds of the Internet – “a mixtape of websites with autoplay music” completely reframes that annoying phenomenon

PirateBox Takes File-Sharing Off The Radar and Offline, For Next To Nothing – “Users wirelessly accessing the device are presented with a web interface which allows them not only to download files but upload them too. No logs or other identifying information is stored in the device.”

On Kony 2012: – sums up everything you need to know about that Kony 2012 video. “The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention. There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.”

Does Propranolol Reduce Racism? Probably Yes, Subconsciously – “A small study found that people’s subconscious racial bias is considerably reduced if they are taking propranolol, a heart disease drug”

After Kony, could a viral video change the world? – “a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on”

#lang:de

Menschenstrom 2012 – I tried my best to sport my post-nuclear redneck mutant smile…

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

I created these hoping to win tickets for the MOMA Kraftwerk retrospective here.

more tomorrow…

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Cobwebs – “CYRIAK: A brief journey through a world of spiders and the never-ending networks that bind their universe together.”

Fresh Guacamole – stop-motion animation

Ralf And Florian: the Kraftwerk sitcom – “Just discovered in a Dusseldorf car boot sale is this rare pilot for the uncommissioned Kraftwerk sitcom, “Ralf and Florian”.”

Guardian open journalism: Three Little Pigs advert – three little pigs treated as if it was a breaking news story

Cops Get Owned!!! – Epic Pee Prank – “This was just a fun old fashion way to trick a cop! and get away with it.”

Foot Elevator (Rémi Gaillard) – so it seems rémi has moved into an elevator

#learn

A New Role for the One Percent – “The debt crisis is not entirely President Bush’s or President Obama’s fault. It’s not even Congress’ fault. It actually resulted from a short-term “fix” to the economy made about 700 years ago.”

Insects may have ‘personalities’ like humans – “Bees have different “personalities”, with some showing a stronger willingness or desire to seek adventure than others, according to a study by entomologists at the University of Illinois.”

OccupyCampDavid and OccupyNATO – “They’re scared, ladies and gentlemen. They are scared and they are running. So what do you do when a band of criminals run? You chase them.”

Choose your color – “je me suis fait vraiment plaisir à concocter un petit Pantonier en forme de tartelettes ! Vous pouvez retrouver toutes les recettes dans le dernier Fricote”

nomad tablet table by spell – “this side table is designed by spell and the various ranges of tablet systems can be used for waiting, working, relaxing or even for small meetings.”

Light in the Alleyways, Positive Word Murals for a Brazil Shanty Town – ““Luz nas Vielas” (“Light in the Alleyways”) is a participatory street art project in which children were invited to paint positive words like “love” and “pride” on the alleys of one of the shanty towns, or favelas, of São Paulo, Brazil.”

Rush Limbaugh: a vicious clown – “When somebody is paid to say the worst possible thing, it allows someone else to say the next worst thing and sound sane.”

Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot face trial for cathedral protest – “Pussy Riot is one of the most unusual of all the opposition groups that have arisen in Moscow over the past few months. They perform political songs dressed in colourful mini-skirts and balaclavas. Their faces are covered so anyone can potentially join in. They were arrested after performing an anti-Putin punk prayer in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour cathedral”

McDonald’s and NYPD, together – “With “Three Strikes, You’re In!,” individuals who are stopped and released three times without charge are eligible for one Happy Meal™ at participating McDonald’s stores. To receive their Happy Meal™, customers must record each stopping officer’s badge number, as well as the the time and location of the stop, on a voucher obtainable at these stores.” another yes lab spoof

Tag Challenge – “A band of jewel thieves is on the run in five cities across the world. We need your help finding them. On March 31, 2012, we’ll release their pictures to the public. Be on the lookout.”

DAVID LYNCH DOCUMENTARY by LYNCH THREE PROJECT – “Our goal is to make a film that deeply explores the influences and experiences that have helped shape one of the most distinctive voices in modern cinema: David Lynch.”

amnesty international campaign silences dictators in cake – “the project pictures cake-sculpted heads of dictators fidel castro of cuba and alexander lukashenko of belarus with
a slice taken out of each leader’s mouth.”

LulzSec Leader Was Snitch Who Helped Snag Fellow Hackers – “When he went dark and tweeted the famous Usual Suspects line about the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, I thought then he was snatched up by the FBI. Then he came back a month later and like nothing ever happened — like he took a break or just went on vacation” sad to see the rumors confirmed

David Lynch @ Tilton Gallery, NYC – “Tilton Gallery in NYC is set to open an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and drawings by famed filmmaker, David Lynch. The exhibition marks Lynch’s first art show in NYC since 1989.”

Screw Art by Andrew Myers – “Southern California based, German-born Andrew Myers takes hundreds of screws, nails them to a wood panel, and then paints over each screw top to get these interesting, three-dimensional appearing portraits.”

blue forest: eco-perch – “the structure may be implemented within 5 days, minimally impacting the landscape with adequate site preparation beforehand. contained within a 6 meter by 8 meter footprint, the combined kitchen, dining, living area and bedroom may comfortably accommodate four people. wrapped with a continuous roof surface”

FACT mix 319: Juan Atkins – “Unlike some of his peers, age hasn’t dulled Atkins, as anyone who’s seen Model 500’s Kraftwerk-meets-Funkadelic live show or heard ‘Control’, Model 500’s fiery new single for R&S, will attest to.” wicked raw heavy dj mix

▶ Burial + Four Tet – Nova by Four Tet – brilliant collaboration joining talents beyond good

Negative space invader – lol graphic

Youthful rebellion turning inward with deadly consequences – “Work hard; eat less; consume frantically; be thin and perfect and good; conform and comply; push yourself to the point of collapse. It is no accident that eating disorders are often associated with obsessive overwork and perfectionism at school, in the workplace or in the home. We followed all the rules, sufferers seem to be saying – now look what you made us do.”

Three Occupy Oakland protesters charged with hate crimes – “Three Occupy Oakland protesters accused of surrounding and taunting a woman before stealing her wallet were charged on Friday with robbery and hate crimes, authorities said.” seriously? if this is true, way to help the “cause”.

Freiwillige HelferInnen für den Menschenstrom gegen Atom gesucht! | MenschenStrom gegen Atom – “Um diesen wichtigen Grossanlass zu ermöglichen, sind wir dringend auf Hilfe angewiesen. Während der Kundgebung, bei den allerletzten Vorbereitungen und dem Abbau braucht es viele helfende Hände und mitdenkende Menschen die uns als freiwillige HelferInnen unterstützen.”

hardcorecorn.com – “The hottest site for free corn on corn action” lives up to the claim. NSFCorn

Stuff on Scout’s Head – scout is a dog. and yeh what it says on the tin

Listen: MOO covers Radiohead’s Lucky, Tarantino-style – “And yeah, that’s what they did do… covering Radiohead’s Lucky, as it was scored for a Quentin Tarantino vs. Ennio Morricone film”

Your Five-Minute Primer to Tomorrow’s Totally Corrupt Russian Election – “Whatever happens tomorrow, one thing’s certain: on Monday night, there will be protests. During a protest last week, attempts were made to hand out tents, viciously thwarted by the authorities fearing a Ukraine-style Orange revolution in Russia. The Interior Ministry has already stationed 6,000 police reinforcements in Moscow. When asked about a planned crackdown, Putin quipped, “Why do I need to do that?””

julius von bismarck: punishment I – “‘punishment I’, an exhibition of photographs, film, and artefact at the alexander levy gallery, showcases the journey made by german artist julius von bismarck in his quest to ‘whip nature’, actualized by his traveling throughout the world to physically whip natural objects and monuments. included on show are the actual whips von bismarck used.”

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

The winter was rude, harsh, depressing. We had moved to a shit hole of a new apartment. Excuses, excuses excuses…

Shortly after christmas I caved in and used that 60 day World of Warcraft game card, that had been sitting in my desk tempting me for all this time. After more than a year of not playing it was amazing how quickly I was completely absorbed again. Worrying. A game like World of Warcraft is dangerous for someone like me, long term unemployed, depressed, bored… There is always something to do in Azeroth, the days fly by farming, grinding, building rep, dungeons, pvp, raids, etc, etc, etc, there’s always something to do. Daily quests. The never ending story.

I had started playing WoW back in 2005, shortly before Xmas, and pretty much played non-stop until August 2010, only missing a few months here and there. With these recent two months that adds up to close to five years playing a game, and that includes several hardcore phases, like going for High Warlord with my hunter and hardcore raiding with my holy paladin during WotLK. Five years. I feel ashamed for wasting all this time. But yes I had fun. And mostly I had “something to do”, or at least the illusion that I did.

I named it a binge in the title, and of course this implies alcohol or drug addiction. At times it did feel like a binge, but never unsafe. The time frame was set in rock. I had these 60 days, not more. They were winter days, when my other main project, urban farming, is mostly on hold anyway. At the end of the 60 days we would move house again, leave that shit hole of an apartment, live again. Spring would start soon with vegetables to be grown, chickens to be raised, revolutions to be started…

It may well have been a binge. But is it an addiction? Since i stopped playing, I didn’t think about the game much at all. It was actually more like a relief to stop playing. Towards the end of that period most game play aspects had started to annoy me again. And of course it helps, that I am not a very talented player and never got to see any of the high end challenging content… We also went to Berlin for a week in there and I didn’t miss the game for a second.

But I do miss some of the people I hung out with, guild mates and others. That aspect of the game has always been the most fascinating to me, the social part, the people you meet and “befriend” from all around Europe. Yes, these are not necessarily real friendships, but they can turn into that. Many people have met playing and become real life friends, lovers. The social interaction is the healthiest part of this game.

I always tried to look at the game with some perspective, while playing I always tried to analyze it as well. I think I could name quite a few of the psychological and group dynamic tricks, that Blizzard is employing to get people hooked into the game. A lot of it is comparable to drug dealers, providing the players with always higher and more intense “doses” of the buzz. Most of it is subtle psychological trickery, building up competition among the players, random drops creating rat like looting behavior. These tricks should be quite easy to see through, yet still I kept falling for them, again and again. What a shame. And what a weakness. I felt guilty a lot. But the sickest part of the game again lies in the social aspect of the game. There is always another player, who has it worth than you. Yes, you are playing too much, but this other guy, he really has it bad… Instead of telling him to slow down, you prefer to use him as your justification for playing more.

And of course then there was the fox. I don’t know how many foxes i killed in Tol Barad. Many. Hundreds. Finally, I looted the pet companion the day before my game card ran out. After killing hundreds of foxes I got the small companion fox. In real life I hate hunters and especially fox hunters. World of Warcraft turned me into one. And of course, the joy after the pet dropped lasted a few moments and then was forgotten…

World of Warcraft Binge on Youtube

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

Sarah Palin: Bums Out With The Bath Water – “Sarah Palin drops dope rhymes, Obama eats a baby and Joe Biden dances like a ninny. And still, somewhere, someone will find a way to pin this on the Bush administration.”

2012 Scotch® Off The Roll Tape Sculpture Contest – mark jenkins stop motion, interesting to see how he works, but this really is just a commercial.

Peter Weyland in TED Talk Video – Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland in a Prometheus, TED talk 2023

Holes Of Happiness – “Holes Of Happiness is a short documentary looking at the reactions of the public to some pothole gardens that have been popping up around East London.”

#learn

▶ This Is What Crazy Looks Like Via Text Messaging… – “Vaughan acts out a woman’s crazy texting spree to a guy after 1 date.”

DJ Shadow @ Dachstock, Bern, Switzerland — April 5th, 2012 – DJ Shadow show in Bern, but I receive an error when I try to click I’m Going

Pixels and Polaroids – “Pixels and Polaroids is a series of images I’ve created combining pseudo-Polaroid photography and retro 80s era video game graphics. The concept behind Pixels and Polaroids was to blend these two elements into one world where pixelated characters live through the eye of a Polaroid camera.”

Media Fasting – “For the last year I’ve been trying, as an experiment, to see what it would be like to cut off the news. That means no newspaper, no Google news, no NPR, no broadcast television of any kind.” I did that several times in my life and can only recommend it.

China Miéville on Apocalyptic London – “The Olympics are slated to cost taxpayers $14.7 billion. In this time of “austerity,” youth clubs and libraries are being shut down as expendable fripperies; this expenditure, though, is not negotiable. The uprisen young of London, participants in extraordinary riots that shook the country last summer, do the math.”

Why shrinks diagnose anti-authoritarians with mental illness – “Bruce Levine, a clinical psychologist, has written on Mad in America about his colleagues’ propensity for diagnosing anti-authoritarians with mental illness. Levine says diagnoses like oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder and anxiety disorder are applied to people who question authority’s legitimacy by mental health practitioners who are, themselves, unconsciously deferential to authority.”

Spray Can Lamp – “Someone had to do it right? At least they the right idea using a vintage Krylon can”

floating cloud installation by berndnaut smilde – “beginning with the concept of a vacant or abandoned room and aspirations of enhancing this ominous environment, smilde introduced smoke, moisture and backlighting. the artist was able to create the entirely eerie and whimsical illusion of a cloud floating within the gallery space.”

Kraftwerk month on DJFood.org #1 – “I’ve decided to make March ‘Kraftwerk month’ on the site, which means I’ll be posting something Kraftwerk-related every day at least. This had been bought on by the recent news of the 8 night residency at MOMA in New York and the subsequent fact that no one I know has managed to get a ticket.”

Preserving Lemons – “The basic protocol is: wash & dry the lemons thoroughly (more emphasis on the wash). Slice the lemons in quarters, stopping before slicing all the way through. Put in a quart jar and mash down releasing the juice. Add just under a tablespoon of salt (I used Redmond’s & yes, that is tablespoon not teaspoon) on top of each lemon.”

25 Alleged Anons Arrested in International Crackdown – “Police in four nations arrested 25 alleged participants in the Anonymous collective Tuesday for attacks against websites in Columbia and Chile dating from the middle of 2011.”

Occupy London says St Paul’s Cathedral colluded with eviction effort – “I was shocked to see policemen on the balcony,” said Naomi Colvin, a spokeswoman for Occupy. “It seemed to be collusion.”

Der Baum hinter der Anzeige – the tree behind the advert, adbusting from russia

A Show with Ze Frank by Ze Frank – “If we get to $1 Billion I will buy Greece and install sea to sea carpeting!”

The Yes Men on Stratfor – WikiLeaks begins to publish today over five million e-mails obtained by Anonymous from “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails, which reveal everything from sinister spy tactics to an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs (see below), also include several discussions of the Yes Men and Bhopal activists.

Trotzdem Danke – Thanks Anyway – “Armed with only a pail of water, we took on the Germans “stick-up-their-ass” mentality, proving once again that Berlin may be poor but it is still damn “sexy”.” we saw the video in berlin, awesome urban intervention, sadly the video can’t be found online though.

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

THE SIMPSONS EPISODE 500 INTRO (SLOWED & Edited) EIPC Season 23 Episode 14 – “The Simpsons intro. Episode 500 episode, with music, and slowed to .125 so we can actually see it..”

Sean Taylor – Stand Up – “The song is called ‘Stand Up’ and the video was put together by Colm McCarthy. It is from my forthcoming album ‘Love Against Death’. This song is dedicated to the anti-cuts and Occupy Movements all over the world. The 99%.”

Cassetteboy vs The News – NSFW. Made from 15 editions of the BBC’s News at Six during January 2012.

Sound of Noise Official Trailer – movie about a music band that robs banks just to sample the sound of shredding money…

U900_Ben – “This is the music clip of ukulele duo U900. From the album “UKULELE MICHAEL”"

#learn

Studio porn fail – Jazz radio station hacked with gay porn

John Peel’s record collection to be made into online museum – “Peel’s collection, which contains 25,000 LPs, 40,000 singles and many thousands of CDs, will become part of The Space, a new experimental digital service organised and funded by the Arts Council and the BBC.”

Yo Momma is a Shitty Designer – “To be a little more passive aggresive, download the Desktop Wallpapers to use as a background or screensaver. All screen sizes and resolutions are in the right column.”

Is Rioting Revolutionary? – “Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection…”

Listen to Mouse on Mars’ ‘Parastrophics’ LP Now – stream the new mouse on mars album

Recycled Technology Art – art created using recycled tech junk

Flying baby is – Flying

The Magnificent Map of Rap Names – “ridiculously detailed guide to the semantics of rap names, this widescreen edition print spans over seven square feet and contains 636 rapper names”

Feeling Frothy yet, Santorum? – That Santorum Portrait made with Gay Porn

Motörhead disavows new box set – “Unfortunately greed once again rears its yapping head. I would advise against it even for the most rabid completists!” more bands need to say stuff like this.

Volkswagen Imperial Walker – I so want one

An Itty Bitty Sad Keanu – 3D print your own Sad Keanu is Sad

GIMPRESSIONISM – fantastic nature paintings with bdsm persons

Tossers unite! – “And yes I am aware they all need butter as well.”

Congoloses wrestlers – “the “legends” of Congolese wrestling invent themselves on a daily basis in the outskirts of Kinshasa. 
 

Body-building, and even black magic enthusiasts fight for glory in makeshift rings.” great photos on shite flash interface.

Snow drawings leave a lasting impression – “I’m not so into making art that lasts,” she said. “The world is saturated with manmade projects. I don’t think I need to add more things to the planet.”

Boguslaw Sliwinski . . . Ceramics Plate BS Toy – “Play With Your Food Plates”

philippe starck: peugeot city bike for bordeaux, france – “french designer philippe starck in collaboration with french car brand peugeot has developed a bike for the city of bordeaux, france’s bike sharing program. considered a cross between a bicycle and a scooter, the design is set to promote and continue encouraging citizens to chose this mode of transportation within the city”

Kurt Perschke’s Red Ball Project – “Made of vinyl and touring different cities, The Red Ball Project is a project conceived by artist Kurt Perschke.”

Dota 2 – Are We Heroes Yet? – awesome looking online comic book

#lang:de

Papiere von US-Thinktank geleakt: Ölfirmen finanzieren Klimaskeptiker – “In den USA sind interne Papiere eines konservativen Thinktanks veröffentlicht worden. Demnach werden klimaskeptische Autoren verdeckt von großen Firmen finanziert.” was bisher bloss ein vermutung war, bewahrheitet sich…

[delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed - with all the typos]

Hitler was right, this turned out to be a debacle…

Yesterday at 12 pm EST time, 18:00 here, like many Kraftwerk fans worldwide we were perched over our computers trying to score our Kraftwerk MoMA Retrospective Tickets. Both of us had four browser tabs open with the shows we wanted to see according to our priority list: Computerworld, Man-Machine, Radio-Activity and Trans Europe Express. We spammed our reload buttons to get in the queue, which eventually did happen for all our choices. The @ShowClix website then informed us that we were in the queue, no need to reload our browser windows, but no information was given on what position of the queue we were in or how many tickets were left on sale. So we waited and kept checking our tabs, ctrl tab, ctrl tab, ctrl tab.

After about 20 minutes of this one of the queues opened up for us. Man-Machine. Yet the ecstatic joy we felt was of a short nature, because what followed were forty minutes of brutal and total agony between Connection Time Out Failures and dubious Errors processing our Credit Cards.

At times it took minutes to even load the Order Forms and then Payment Forms. One Time when we finally were on the screen where you input Billing Address and Credit Card there was only one minute left on the count down clock, yes, there was a count down, that was supposed to remove us from the line, if we took too long to make our purchase.

Interestingly enough it did not actually remove us from the line, we were able to keep on trying, which technically is of course another failure. But we were not complaining about that part at the moment. But keep trying we did. And the site kept rejecting us or the connection timed out on us.

First it asked for something weird “Territory” on the address form, that is something we never use in Switzerland. Territory? Well, after a few wasted tries with slowloading error message we figured out, that they wanted it to say “Bern”. We had tried “Be” and “CH” before.

But from then on the site stubbornly refused to accept the two Credit Cards. We tried many times over. We received an error message saying that the Credit Card could not be approved and to contact Customer Service. When we did call ShowClix Customer Service we were put on hold with torturous music and a guy who kept asking us, if we knew that we could purchase tickets on their website… Right. Hours later when we finally did get through to Customer Service they were rude and incompetent and didn’t even log my complaint (“Just send us an email and we’ll look into it” “Well, I just called long distance to look into it”).

In all we went through five or six such cycles, each time the count down clock ticked down on us, our Credit Cards rejected, the same Credit Card we had succesfully used a few hours earlier to book a flight and a guest room, the clock ticked down but we were not actually removed from the line… Epic Fail.

At the very end another queue opened up for us, this time for Trans Europe Express. But when we managed to load the Order Form it informed us that all tickets had been sold out.

And eventually this was the message everywhere. All shows sold out.

I hear that many people never even made it out of the queue, and while that is unfortunate, we could have accepted it more easily. It would have meant we were too slow, or too unlucky, or too something else. But to make it out of the queue, to actually choose the tickets and then be refused by a website that fails, that was pure torture. The tickets were right there, ready for us, teasing us, but we were not allowed to pick them up… Horrible.

Well, may be we should have been warned, Man-Machine is scheduled for Friday the 13th…

Even before this debacle we decided to book our trip to NYC at any rate, not depending if we got Kraftwerk tickets or not. It’s been years since we last visited, and there so many great things to check out. It will be my 50th birthday that week and what better place to celebrate it than the city you were born in. Kraftwerk tickets would have been the icing on the caek, a big thank you to @ShowClix for messing that one up…

[image: Laura Levine]

a few other posts:
Did anyone get tickets to see Kraftwerk @ MoMA?
Most Kraftwerk Fans Scheisse Outta Luck

edit: ShowClix CEO Joshua DziaBiak issued an apology, pretty much a full on mea culpa, but that still doesn’t give me my ticket…

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

#watch and

stereo skifcha – dubstep kitteh [via b3ta]

Everything is a Remix Part 4 – and finally part 4

How to find your way home- the new google maps – “Listen carefully to her say “around someone’s yard” and “past the mango tree”.”

Plastic Snacks | My Strange Addiction – “Kailyn is only 18 but she consumes a huge amount of plastic objects every day.”

99ProblemsInFilm(EM) – “Jay Z’s “99 Problems” recreated with film clips by Eclectic Method”

#learn

Interview with Kultivator, an experimental cooperation of organic farming and visual art practice – “This cooperation of farming and visual art practice involves an organic farm with where pigs are raised, cows are milked, potatoes are harvested and linseed oil is pressed. But KULTIVATOR is also a space for artist residencies, exhibitions, performances, installations and screenings.”

Beauty and the Geek Jeans Embed Real Speakers, Keyboard & Mouse – “So I came up with the idea of putting a keyboard in your pants, and to make jeans with all the important computer stuff (like a mouse, keyboard and the speakers) in it. Besides the new look the jeans would get, there was some sort of freedom behind your computer screen. You didn’t have to be stiff behind your screen, but you can move in any position you want because the keyboard would be in the same place.”

Rem Koolhaas to Build Marina Abramovic’s New Museum of Performance Art – “Marina Abramovic signed a deal with architect Rem Koolhaus earlier this week to design and construct her Center for the Preservation of Performance Art in Hudson, New York.”

MOMA Kraftwerk – Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 – “Over eight consecutive nights, MoMA presents a chronological exploration of the sonic and visual experiments of Kraftwerk with a live presentation of their complete repertoire in the Museum’s Marron Atrium. Each evening consists of a live performance and 3-D visualization of one of Kraftwerk’s studio albums—Autobahn (1974), Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), Computer World (1981), Techno Pop (1986), The Mix (1991), and Tour de France (2003)—in the order of their release.”

Damien Hirst’s Latest (and Greatest?) Scheme: Saving the World Through Eco-Architecture – “Sustainable luxury flourishes like rooftop wind turbines, solar panels, and the most technologically advanced methods of insulation. He has made it clear the development wasn’t going to be a “retirement home” community, either.” ahh, devon. but I do wonder how they plan to make single homes like this eco-friendly.

Switzerland to Build ‘Janitor Satellite’ to Clean Up Space | Swiss Scientists Combat the Growing Space Junk Problem – “Swiss scientists and engineers have announced the launch of CleanSpace One, a project to build the first in a family of “janitor” satellites that will help clean up space.” this is so swiss, tidy but kinda cool

Shepard to guest star on The Simpsons TV Show on March 4th!! – “On March 4, 2012, Shepard will guest star on the 23rd Season of the iconic television series, The Simpsons. Episode 15 – “Exit Though The Kwik-E-Mart”, In order to get back at his dad, Bart goes undercover as a graffiti street artist and plasters Homer’s unflattering image all over Springfield. But one night, Bart and Milhouse get caught in the act by established street artists Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Kenny Scharf and Robbie Conal” do not read more, shepard pretty much manages to give the whole plot away. but this should be fun.

The Simpsons at 500: your top 10 episodes – “We asked you for your favourite Simpsons episode. Surprisingly the top 10 were made during the first decade of the show”

Anarchistic and self-trained, are street medics the future of first aid? – “Anarchistic, high-energy, and self- organized, street medics have been part of activist counterculture since the 1960s, with major presences at civil-rights protests, anti–Vietnam War actions, the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, anti-globalization protests in the 1990s and early aughts, and most recently, at Occupy encampments internationally.”

Penny Red: A love letter for London – “London is more than two cities. It is many cities. It is the city and the city and the city and the city, a delicate, dirty palimpsest of history layered on history. A city where kids with hoods and hopeless eyes can start burning police cars and looting the high streets and the question on the lips of the broadsheet writers and politicians who live and work a few streets away can still be: where the hell did these people come from?”

remove app deletes unwanted passersby from photos – “upon pressing the shutter button, the app actually snaps multiple pictures in a row in order to assess the ‘real’ background, without passersby. clicking ‘remove’ automatically displays the composited shot without the objects that the app has detected to be removable;”

The Transparency Grenade – “The Transparency Grenade fights against the lack of corporate and governmental transparency. It captures network traffic and audio at the site of closed meetings and anonymously streams the data to a dedicated server where email fragments, HTML pages, images and voice are extracted and displayed on an online map.”

‘Losing’ the world: American decline in perspective, part 1 – “US foreign policy ‘experts’ only ever provide an echo chamber for American imperial power. A longer, broader view is necessary”

Anarchism Is Not What You Think It Is — And There’s a Whole Lot We Can Learn from It – “The word anarchism has been so stripped of substance that it has come to be equated with chaos and nihilism. That’s not what it means.” Mostly on Kropotkin and his writing

I Love Architecture. | Architecture for Humanity – “Our work has the ability to effect the lives of billions and rather than cynically fighting with each other for the 1% lets work together to restore the pride of the profession and find ways to bring great design for the seven billion people that long for great spaces to live, work and play.”

plastic bottle carrier by ka-lai chan – “the flat rubber-like disk has a ten openings whereby one can easily slip the nozzles of the empty bottles through the holes. the lightweight design has a built-in handle making it user-friendly to carry around, encouraging green behavior.”

1% Art – “If we, as curators, critics, art historians and artists, withdraw our cultural capital from these markets, we have the potential to create a new art field where radical forms of autonomy can develop: not as secessionist “alternatives’ that exist only in the grandiose enactments and magical thinking of artists and theorists, but as fully institutionalized structures, which, with the “properly social magic of institutions,’ will be able to produce, reproduce and reward noncommercial values.”

Ana Tijoux: Addressing Global Unrest In Rhyme – “I live in Chile, with all those student protests, and this parallel situation that is happening with Indignados in Spain, or the crisis in Greece, or Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Oakland. When I was making [the album] I was reading a lot of news and talking about the world with friends, and in the end that totally influenced my work.”

Cindy Sherman as Hugh Hefner, or Is It Hugh Hefner-Esque? – “Perhaps the most remarkable shot is Cindy as Herself, sans make-up, wigs and facial locutions. The photographer as tabula rasa — blank, translucent, riddled with metaphysical tracks from decades of drag. ”

Cinemagram, An Animated Photo GIF Maker for iPhone – “Create a stunning hybrid between photo and video. Animate small portions of your photo to create a magical image that’s part-photo and part-video. Apply vintage / cross processing filters, and share your masterful creation.”

plastic bottle cap art by satoshi hirose – “the piece is formed from plastic– a heap comprised of caps from the recyclable tops of plastic bottles gathered by the artist over the course of nine years.”

The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde: It’s evolution, stupid – “We all know how evolution works, except one industry that refuses to evolve: the entertainment industry. Instead of looking at evolution as something inevitable, the industry has made it their business to refuse and/or sue change, by any necessary means.”

What Greek Austerity Looks Like – “Half-Greek and half-Indonesian, photojournalist Eirini Vourloumis moved back to her hometown of Athens, Greece, in 2010 to cover the economic crisis. She found her country unrecognizable.”

Mapping Stereotypes – the swiss perspective map scares me.

Long Term Unemployment Stories – I have been unemployed for so long, reading these stories made me cry and cringe.

The Orb to release album with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – “The Orb’s Alex Paterson has revealed that he’ll be releasing a collaborative album with dub legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry this September.”

Him & Her Chairs, Anatomical Chairs from Designer Fabio Novembre – I ate at the Osha Thai restaurant, and not only the chairs are excellent.

Watchlist: Maria Anwander – “The Kiss 2007/2010″: “The Kiss” was given to the MoMA as a donation without asking for permission. I entered the museum as a regular visitor and gave an intense French kiss to the wall. Next to the invisible kiss I then fixed a fake label, which simulated the style of a regular MoMA caption.”

Oliver Schau: Guerilla-Bänke DN_100 – guerilla benches made with drainage pipes wrapped around bicycle racks and other objects

Luzinterruptus: “Drinking water running through the streets” – “In Madrid, in less than 30 years, more than 50% of the public fountains in service have been lost, which now are seen to be dismantled, broken, without a tap to drink from or simply dry. To criticize the indifference of the administration in regards to a necessary public service, we carried out our action”

Post-Crash Fascism – “Climate change is happening faster than initially predicted, and its impacts are already upon us in the form of more extreme weather events, desertification, ocean acidification, melting glaciers and incrementally rising sea levels.”

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In 3 Stories:

^^^

Ana Tijoux: Addressing Global Unrest In Rhyme

“I live in Chile, with all those student protests, and this parallel situation that is happening with Indignados in Spain, or the crisis in Greece, or Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Oakland. When I was making [the album] I was reading a lot of news and talking about the world with friends, and in the end that totally influenced my work.”

After reading this article and listening to the podcast I really wanted to purchase Ana Tijou’s new album La Bala as an mp3 download. I don’t ever buy drm-crippled music, so iTunes is out of the question. amazon.com has the album but won’t let me purchase it where I live. amazon.de just has an import CD, but does not offer an mp3 version. further google searches didn’t give me any viable result. Ana Tijou’s official website does not have a shop.

So where am i going to turn?

This pisses me off, i really wanted to support this artist.
Ana, if you read this, can i paypal you some money?

^^^

The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde: It’s evolution, stupid

We all know how evolution works, except one industry that refuses to evolve: the entertainment industry.

Instead of looking at evolution as something inevitable, the industry has made it their business to refuse and/or sue change, by any necessary means.

[...]

“Today I urge everyone to make sure that the entertainment industry does not profit from them anymore. Stop seeing their movies. Stop listening to their music. Make sure that you find alternative ways to culture.

“Spread and participate in culture. Remix, reuse, use, abuse. Make sure no one controls your mind. Create new systems and technology that circumvent the corruption. Start a religion. Start your own nation, or buy one. Buy a bus. Crush it to pieces.”

After their appeal was refused by Swedish supreme court, the pirate bay guys face up to a year in prison. But of course this did not change their convictions. After all, the earth really is not flat.

I especially liked the suggestion to boycott the entertainment industry and to find new ways to culture. There’s something to contemplate…

^^^

[image source: b3ta]

Whitney Houston album price hike sparks controversy

The music giant is understood to have lifted the wholesale price of Houston’s greatest hits album, The Ultimate Collection, at about 4am California time on Sunday. This meant that the iTunes retail price of the album automatically increased from £4.99 to £7.99.

This just shows how deeply cynical the music industry is. And I have nothing else to add.

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited]

occupy vs. black bloc controversy – or not

Chris Hedges: The Cancer in Occupy – “The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.”

Hedging Our Bets on the Black Bloc: the Impotence of Mere Liberalism – “The black bloc is a tactic, not a group nor a movement. Its origins can be found in the Autonomism movement of 1970s Germany, where activists wore heavy black clothing, masks, and helmets to provide protection from the watchful eye of the authoritarian police state. Given the continued illegal actions of the Oakland Police Department – dealings deemed by the government has heinous enough to place the department under the oversight of a federal judge – it is no surprise that the residents of Oakland would want to protect themselves in this manner.”

Black Bloc – “On Feb 6, America author and Occupy activist Chris Hedges wrote a piece for Truthdig.com titled “The Cancer in Occupy.” In it he criticized the violent actions of Black Bloc operatives within the movement, saying they are the greatest threat to the future of Occupy. The article has generated a heated debate online about non-violence, political strategy and protest in America, and has garnered a response by Anarchist thinker Dr. Zakk Flash.”

#watch and

Every Apple Design Ever (ish) in 30 seconds – ish disclaimer, lol. nice music.

BDP > BPD – “Last week, Anonymous hackers modified the Boston police department’s website by replacing the homepage with the video for KRS-1 classic: “Sound of Da Police.” (Watch it above). In response, the cops made their very own YouTube clip.”

Russenkälte – streetarty adbusting, dressing up a nude model for winter.

oh yeah – this is what happens when david lynch makes a coffee ad

PressPausePlay – “The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities.”

Tracking the Internet Trolls – “The BBC tracks down a notorious Internet troll.”

EARTHMOVING: A Sierra Zulu Prequel (by monochrom) – “Another day at the United Nations Offices in Vienna. The Austrian Foreign Affairs Ministry invited members of the European Protocol Service, the UN Strategic Command Center for Central Europe, the United States Air Forces and a regional politician from Lower Austria to talk about the future of Soviet Unter-WHAT?!”

WTF!? Living Mobs Clean UBS and Credit Suisse – video of the mop action in zurich

#learn

Pasta recipes – “The sweet and salty combination of currants and capers is a Sicilian mix that’s both interesting and scrumptious.” scrumptious. really? anyway, it will be our dinner tomorrow night.

The following advertisement force quit unexpectedly. Your mind, money and time will no longer be affected. – brilliant adbust in nyc.

Crafting Azeroth in Minecraft – “My pet project has been to recreate a full-scale version of World of Warcraft inside Minecraft. The creation of the world is largely automated by custom software which I’ve been developing over the last few weeks. It’s just now reached a point where I can release some quality screenshots!”

Rewile | Filewile – “Filewile Rewile is a collection of remixes by Friends and Artists Filewile met during the last years of touring around the World.”

In Spite of Elections and and Camping Bans, Revolutionary Wave Grows – “But we aren’t dormant; we’re escalating. The only lull has been in the media coverage of our continuing struggle to create a more just world for all.”

Breaded Cats | Cat Breading | Breading Cats – “Cat Breading How To: 1) Take a piece of bread 2) Cut a hole approximately 1 inch larger than your cat’s head. This trips some people up. Remember: the bread has to fit around not just the cat’s head, but it’s ears, too. 3) Gently place the bread around your cat’s head. 4) Take a picture & post it! We love Cat Breading!”

Instagram Founder’s Girlfriend Learns How To Code For V-Day, Builds Lovestagram – “Trigger decided she wanted to be able to talk to her boyfriend in depth about the stuff he was working on. So the Yale political science major who “never took any computer classes” covertly downloaded “Learn Python the Hard Way” and began the Odyssey into programming, deadline Valentines’ Day.”

@BarnabyEdwards: And they say that irony is … – nothing to add to that

Famous Explosions From History Recreated With Cauliflowers – “Artist Brock Davis used cauliflowers to recreate three famous explosions from history: The Hindenburg disaster, the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and the Challenger disaster.”

Banksy in New Orleans – “I must not copy what I see on the Simpsons”

CRASS/MICHEY Tshirt – “Due to an overwhelming demand, the illegal CRASS/MICKEY t-shirt will now be available for a limited time (30 days to be exact) and will be removed from our store on March 9, 2012.”

What They Know – “Apps routinely send the information to marketing companies that use it to compile dossiers on phone users. This interactive database shows the behavior of these apps, and describes what each app told users about the information it gathered.”

bobby neel adams: agemaps – “new york-based photographer bobby neel adams addresses the affects of the passage of time with his recent project ‘agemaps’. a collection of photographs showing the same person at two points within their life demonstrates the affects of aging upon the human body, reminding us of our mortality.”

How to spot when someone lies – Lie detection guide – “Liars often maintain more eye contact than the average person “because they know it will help them ‘sell’ their story,” says Meyer. In a normal chat, people hold eye contact only 30-60 per cent of the time.”

Bungled attempts at bagging a Banksy – “the boutique hotel chain encouraged visitors to steal a work by Banksy from its walls. If anyone succeeded in pinching the work, No Ball Games, they could keep it”

All the Awesome Things You Can Do with a Long Press on Your iPhone, iPad, or iPad touch – “Long pressing—that is, tapping and holding down on a part of your screen—provides a lot of handy shortcuts on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.”

VW beetle from trash – “Indian artist haribaabu naatesan (hari) transforms over 2805 pieces of scrap metal in the lifesize ‘think blue beetle’, created for the like-titled ecological awareness campaign by volkswagen. the car utilizes 800 spark plugs, 200 bottle caps, 60 mother boards, audio cassettes, speakers, cans, keyboards, typewriters, and hundreds of other materials.”

Living Resistance – “these lovecrafty suckers are trying to turn you into a scrunched-up blood-drained pathetic crippled little cog in the death-machine of the human soul” hakim bey says it like it is.

Typewriter Boneyard: Hardback Book Lamps – lamps made from hardback books

http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com/outside.html – mark jenkins website

Guy Fawkes mask stencil – “Here’s some handy, infringealicious clip art for the discriminating Anon who wants to make a statement without paying a royalty: a Guy Fawkes mask, suitable for urban art, dress-up, and silkscreening.”

bio solar power from grass clippings – “a team led by MIT researcher andreas mershin, continuing an 8-year research project of shuguang zhang, has developed a viable means by which agricultural waste– like grass clippings and leaves– can be used to create solar panels. within a few years, the technology could be used so that people in remote and developing regions can generate their own electricity with few materials and at low cost.”

Tyrannosaur / Out now on DVD & Blu Ray – “Paddy Considine’s award-winning debut feature, Tyrannosaur, has been released on DVD & Blu Ray from today.”

Whimsical Hidden Animal Teacups – “Product designer Ange-line Tetrault created the white ceramic fox, owl, and bear teacups to be “playful as well as thoughtful reflections of her life and surroundings.””

Reverend Billy Treibt UBS den Teufel Aus (4.2.2012) – “Reverend Billy, ein amerikanischer Aktionskünstler, treibt den Teufel bei der UBS aus — diese schützte ihren Eingang mit goldenen Holzverschlag, der nach der Aktion wieder abmontiert wurde.”

#lang:de

Im Selbstbedienungsladen – “Neininger und seine Zeitung haben letztlich nur das getan, was viele andere auch tun – egal ob Zeitungen oder Blogger. Zu einem Skandal taugt der Fall also schlecht. Die Kritiker sitzen selbst im Glashaus. Wer reinen Gewissens versichern kann, nie im Netz geklaut zu haben, werfe den ersten Stein.”

Vom Mythos des Realen – “Klar fände ich – und die ganze Kummer-Familie – es heute schön, wäre ich für irgendetwas Seriöses berühmt geworden, etwas, das die Menschheit weiterbringt. Aber ich bin berühmt, weil ich Interviews mit Stars teilweise inszeniert habe.” tom kummer

Interview mit dem Autor des Bio-Schmähs – “Wir alle haben romantisierte Vorstellungen, die zum Teil von unserem Bedürfnis nach einem „reinen Gewissen“ beim Einkaufen geprägt sind. Darüberhinaus kommen sie von der strategischen Selbst-Inszenierung der Konzerne in der Öffentlichkeit.”

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