Something that impressed me:
100 Movies, 100 quotes, 100 numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FExqG6LdWHU


Related to this, I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your help. I'm planning to do a piece of wikiart dealing with numbers, and I need facts about numbers, especially numbers between 10-100 (1-9 is welcome too, but I expect those to be easier). Now I'm not sure what kind of facts I want... Not the sort of numerology facts that talk about meanings of numbers or such. More like actual counts (like "the phrase 'Christ on a bike' is mentioned 24 times in the film 'Second Coming'") or physical instances of numbers (like "The house number of Donald Duck is 13"). I was considering limiting the facts to movies, but I won't, I want facts about numbers from all over. But I'd still rather have it as something widely accessible or observable (not something like "on the way to work I saw 45 plastic bags"). I'm not even horribly fust if the number isn't a scientifically proven fact (for example I will use the catch line from the movie 21 Grams for number 21 even though it might not be true) as long as it is accessible in some way.

Hmm, maybe a preparation wiki is in order so I won't lose track of this deal... Let's use NumberPedia.

Those of you who don't read Calico's diary (<diary:1008594>):

http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html

This is recommended reading.

Moar:

http://rapidshare.com/files/87853321/ManWithAMovieCamera.mp3.html

The absolutely wonderful soundtrack to the absolutely wonderful silent film Man with a Movie Camera. You don't need to have seen the film to listen to this (although I did post a link to a place where you can watch it on the internet - it's somewhere in my old diary, feel free to find it :P)
I guess this file could be divided into tracks, but I never bothered. If you'd prefer it that way, you can talk me into it or download a free program called Audacity that is easy to use and will get the job done.

The Art of Sleep

I am extremely proud to present to you all:

The Listening Machine.

A tremendous art film by Carmen D'avino, called "The Room":
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/carmendavino/carmendavino.php (it's the very middle one, they're all QuickTime files). I adore it, it's absolutely gorgeous! <3 <3
(On a sidenote, "The Finnish Fable" is very strage <_<)

Two links for you to look at if you're not too busy. :)

http://writersco.com/207.Academic.ReactiveMedia
My reactive media report. I'll upload the program at some point, because it's exciting.

25 skills every man should know
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4223337.html
But I think this goes for women too.

A request:
Please do something nice that will only take a short minute of your time.
Go to quest for girlfriend and email a girl in Belgium to tell her she is pretty. It would be really nice if you did that. Thank you. :)

I'll start doing this:
http://xkcd.com/156/
<3


It is proof that at least something good comes from dabbling with ActionScript - I understand obscure webcomic jokes :P

Guess what.
I've been reading Art in America again, so I'm sharing the findings. :P

Margarita Cabrera
http://www.margaritacabrera.com/gallery.htm

The tractor. It's awesome. Possibly because it is "the right colour" and a machine. But it's also precious and it has a collection of smaller things (birds and butterflies) all over it, which also resonates with me. I'm not so hot on the other things, the soft stuff (the VW is cute, though, and the bikes are interesting because someone in scupture is doing a similar thing and I wonder if they know of her) although I must admit that "soft machine" as a phrase interests me - just not done that way. There's a real movement with thread and sewing on canvas etc... in uni, it's getting boring to me. But it cold be worse.

Shawn Smith
http://www.dbermangallery.com/artist-portfolios/reed-smith-07/ShawnSmith/ShawnSmith/peafile.html

Peafile <3 Combining sculpture and computer/web art. I've seen some paintings done to look pix'ated, but this is the first sculpture that does it. Gorgeous. The other things are cool too, though not all of them really go for the pixel-look (they seem to be more about "made out of plywood blocks").

Steve Wiman
http://www.stevewiman.com/

Found objects, preciousness, a lot of the "right colour" - <3 He is catalogging the stuff and arranging it, no actual manipulation going on. I like that, it's somewhat Duchampian. It's odd, no matter how much I've seen similar things, it never gets dull to me. I love the dusty museum collection type of work, that preserves found objects - no matter how worthless - and just collects them.
           It makes me wonder why I don't work that way, but I sort of do with the collections of machine images - albeit I manipulate them and force them to join together. Maybe I should stop that, and just collect them, keep them somewhere, pin them on boards like dead insects, categorise them like a scientist...

Ai Weiwei
http://www.aiweiwei.com/html/works.htm

I love the bicycles. It's sort of what I do with the machines...

I also looked into Elizabeth McGrath ( http://www.elizabethmcgrath.com/index_flash.html ) but it was a bit too Tim Burton-ey. But it's nice to see, especially if you like Tim Burton :3 And she has merchandise and a MySpace, so some of you might get a lot out of it.

[480660]

Comment please.

Yet again there is an event going on in GaiaOnline, and I find myself hopelessly addicted. X_x
In there you have to give stuff to orphans (because Santa has been replaced with a cow) to "un-shabbyfy" them, and every so often you do so, you get an item. Also, when you go to shops, you go caroling as well, and every 15 times you carol, you also get an item.
Plus you get a free item if you just log in for every day for 12 days before Christmas. Free stuff... *drool*

A nice thing someone linked me to in the toobs:
An explanation of Don MacLean's American Pie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycgegp0KdE4
I found it an eye-opener.

I have no idea how this is coming off as, I might sound really racist. If I do, I apologise and assure you that I'm not a racist (well... that's a whole different philosophical discussion :P) But it's a thought in process, so please reply in some way. I need to bounce this idea offa people to make it mature.


I live in Coventry, England, this is my fourth year here. I like it here. But it is very common for the people who live here to really hate the place. Everyone is constantly putting it down. When I mention that I'm from Finland, most people ask "so why on Earth did you come here?" Now there is nothing wrong with Coventry city as a place. Historically it used to have a lot of weaving industry and car factories, it was bombed flat in WWII (hence the curious architechture, which is a mix of new and old) and generally speaking it's a lot like any old place. There are pretty bits and there are ugly bits. Different areas of the city are different in prestige and income of their residents, just like any other place. There's a fair few estates and more run down areas in the city, like Hillfields and Willenhall, but there are also a fair few really nice areas like Coundon or Allesley (I'm not actually sure if Allesley is part of Coventry or outside somewhere o.O). There's a fairly large university and there's quite a lot of chavs (or white trash, for people who understand Americanese better). I'll talk about the chavs another time.

Now, politically/socio-economically Coventry has had some issues in the past (at a point the city's been near bankruptcy), and as a result Coventry has a history of being very welcoming to immigrants (something about the British government paying for every immigrant living in the city). Hence Coventry is often called a multicultural city. And the other day I was trying to figure this all out: the bad rep of the city among people who live there, how I feel about the place etc... And I came to the conclusion that Coventry is too "multicultural", or more accurately, it is multicultural in the wrong way.

I am from Finland, born and raised there. I have lived in England for three years. I've been to Italy, Sweden and Russia, and I want to travel a lot more in Europe and Americas. I am very fond of American music, films, tv, cars and culture in general. I like French and Italian foods and languages, I like the ancient history of Greece and Italy, I like literature from pretty much everywhere (especially magical realism, which is sort of hispanic/South American thing if I've understood it correctly), I like Indian movies and the food's ok too... so on and so forth. That all suggests that I know and like something about different cultures, and they all shape me as a person. If you've read [Hedda]'s diary lately, he posted a link to a talk by Lawrence Lessig called "Free Culture" which has got me thinking quite a bit. And I agree with the talk in that I have the right to my culture. I am a rightful heir to my culture, I've inherited it from the past generations, and the future generations will inherit it from me. Kalevala belongs to me. Shakespeare belongs to me. Harry Potter belongs to me. Matti Nykanen belongs to me. Elvis belongs to me. They are all my culture. I have the right to those cultural things, because they are in my culture. If it's in my culture, shaping me, it belongs to me (it belongs to you too). Culture is shared by importing and exporting it in different ways. Not all culture is exchanged like this. I have no claim to the culture of the bushmen of Africa, or the aboriginals of Australia. Their culture doesn't shape me, so I can't appropriate it and inherit it (if I really wanted to, I probably could by learning about it, having an interest in it, "trying" it...) Now, the more aspects of different cultures that belong to me, the more multicultural I am. This is not what happens in Coventry. The Indian/Chinese/Polish/Afro-Caribbean/whatever communities in Coventry do not belong to Coventry nor to the people of Coventry. They're just there.

Multiculturalism is not about demanding extra attention or special treatment because your cultural background is from somewhere else. Coventry doesn't know the meaning behind the saying "when in Rome..." In Finnish, the equivalent of that saying is: "when in Rome, do as Romans do or leave." These communities demand space and special attention, but they don't wish to share their culture (I think the worst thing I've heard was when a friend of mine told about this hot-snack selling trailer-thing that actually told his daughter who wanted to buy a burger: "no whites" O_O). These foreign communities stick to themselves, like a little bubble inside the big bubble that is Coventry (and if you've ever blown soap bubbles, you know that two bubbles stuck together sink faster than one bubble, which can actually rise quite high). So instead of helping shape Coventry's identity, these communities want to float on their own, without being a part of the whole, yet sticking to the whole like a leech. There is a sad story about how Foleshill road became as Indian as it is now, by ruthless favouritism/nepotism based on race within the Indian community there. In Coventry, you'll often notice that people who live in their own cultural community don't mingle with the other cultures in the city. The people in the Indian community only buy stuff from shops run by Indians, they only have Indian friends, they only eat Indian food, they only like Indian music etc... So when you go on like Stoney Stanton Road, it doesn't feel like Coventry anymore. It doesn't feel like India either. It's like the reverse of "best of both worlds", it's the worst of both worlds.

Actionscript. I pwns it.

~~~
Oh my Gosh! I went to icanhascheezburger.com to find a lolcat that would illustrate how much I own and rule and how happy I am of having sorted my code out, and this one was the newest one there:



Ceiling Cat always makes things right. :3

http://omgwtfstfupwn3duran00blmaoroflkthxbye.istheshit.net/

I is being amused :)
*goes back to ActionScript*

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next three sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

In a society that values privacy such as the United States, employees consider it important to have their own space. Because privacy is highly valued, higher-status members of an organization often have larger, more private space. Finally, in a mixed society, views on space fall somewhere in the middle; a combination of public and private spaces.

(Some random business studies text book that some moose left on the table instead of returning it to the shelf in the library)

Because I'm still not quite over how cool They Might Be Giants really are, I'd like to ask all you wonderful people (because they ask in their myspace page that fans spread the link around) to watch this :
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=19482974
Their new music video The Mesopotamians. It's wonderful, you'll love it, I know I do and I think [Viking] in particular will enjoy it :3

PC versus Mac a la PHD Comics
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=13
Heh. :)

Also, I need to find my nearest G.A. meeting. >_>
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=25