COD CREW & WU TANG NINTENDO VIDEO from WEN1COD on Vimeo.

Props: TheRapUp

Amusing article from Forbes about things our kids will never have to worry about thanks to technology.  This one especially struck home

Having to endlessly search to find unique content.

Related to the previous point, the digital generation will never recall a time when they had to hunt for the obscure media content they desired. When I was a teenager, I spent an absurd amount of time and money trying to find (and sometimes import) rare vinyl or CD versions of singles or albums from my favorite artists. I will never forget the day in the early 1980s when, after a long search, I finally found a rare Led Zeppelin B-Side (“Hey Hey What Can I Do”) on a “45” in a dusty bin at a small record store. It was like winning the lottery! Today, virtually any piece of desired content, no matter how obscure, is just a quick search away.

It’s true.  Our kids will never know quite how hard it was to find a rare album or single.  These days, once they’re found, these type of things often end up as MP3s and publicly distributed.  Beautiful in terms of sharing, but some of the experience is lost.

This Mural is one of the most beautiful pieces of street art that I’ve ever seen.

What is the idea behind this piece? What does it represent?

The idea was to step out of our comfort zone and show the public what graffiti artists can be capable of. There is an amazing amount of quality work being produced within Montreal’s graffiti scene. Unfortunately, bad press and political strategies often only show the “negative” side of it , creating unneeded friction between citizens and our culture. Graffiti as a form of visual language can be hard to comprehend for most. We thought it would be interesting to paint this mural in a more common language, using imagery that anyone can understand, initiating dialog and building bridges. For this, we chose to inspire ourselves from Alphonse Mucha, father to Art Nouveau (1860-1939). A style of art that most people know or have seen before. Of course we gave it our own flavour and used N.D.G as the main theme. The end product being our take on “La Notre-Dame-de-Grâce” Our Lady of Grace”

I dream of stuff like this sometimes.  Stumbling upon an incredible record collection in some abandoned place.   I mean an abandoned room in a military base isn’t exactly what I pictured, but it’s as cool a place as any.

The collection includes a variety of vinyl albums and records specially made for military audiences and distributed monthly by the American Forces Radio and Television Network as well as some commercially available records.

“In 1942, the American Forces Radio Service was started to get American music out to the troops overseas,” said Larry Sichter, the American Forces Network Broadcast Center Affiliate Relations Division chief. “Some of the radio productions were original, like GI Jill and Command Performance, and have significant value.”

Plus, props for a Tim Hortons reference.

Lecture: DOOM (Madrid 2011) from Red Bull Music Academy on Vimeo.

And they hit it out of the park.  Somehow Timberlake has become more and more likeable over the years. 

[via iamdonald]

I kind of like this idea.  For those of you who don’t know what the Internet Archive does, they’re stated mission is to offer access to a “non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 150 billion archived web pages.”  An ambitious goal, no doubt.

As part of this mission, they have been scanning as many books as they can get their hands on.  They state that:

The goal is to preserve one copy of every published work. The universe of unique titles has been estimated at close to one hundred million items. Many of these are rare or unique, so we do not expect most of these to come to the Internet Archive; they will instead remain in their current libraries. But the opportunity to preserve over ten million items is possible, so we have designed a system that will expand to this level. Ten million books is approximately the size of a world-class university library or public library, so we see this as a worthwhile goal. If we are successful, then this set of cultural materials will last for centuries and could be beneficial in ways that we cannot predict.

Thus, as they scan these books, they also want to archive a hardcopy of the same volume for the future.  In an age where traditional publishers are hurting, and ebook sales are starting to surpass traditional book sales, I think this is a noble goal.  I love the tactile feeling of a physical book, even though I tend to favour my ebook reader these days.

The system, as described by the Internet Archive, is as follows:

In January of 2009, we started developing the physical preservation systems. Fortunately there is a wealth of literature on book preservation documenting studies on the fibers of paper as well as results from multi-year storage experiments. Based on this technical literature and specifications from depositories around the world, Tom McCarty, the engineer who designed the Internet Archive’s Scribe book-scanning system, began to design, build, and test a modular storage system in Oakland California. This system uses the infrastructure developed around the most used storage design of the 20th century, the shipping container. Rows of stacked shipping containers are used like 40′ deep shelving units. In this configuration, a single shipping container can hold around 40,000 books, about the same as a standard branch library, and a small building can hold millions of books.

Props to: Internet Archive

Oh man, I cannot wait for this! If you haven’t seen the show, Dexter, you are not living your life the proper way.  It’s a huge success, and follows Michael C. Hall as a serial killer that you can’t help but root for.  And our boy Mos Def will be appearing on the upcoming season.  I’ve been a fan of Mos’ acting career (mostly), and I’m excited to see what he does with this role.

According to Billboard, Mos will play “a hardened ex-con who claims to have found religion yet seems to continually find himself surrounded by violence,” and Dexter will show “who he really is.”

via Pitchfork: Mos Def Joins Cast of “Dexter”.