Everything is Interesting
Here Comes Science is a 2009 children’s album from Brooklyn-based band They Might Be Giants, packaged as a CD/DVD set. The album is the third in their line of educational albums, following 2005’s Here Come the ABCs and 2008’s Here Come the 123s. It is the band’s 14th studio album and fourth children’s album.
‘Ghost sign‘ is a term for old hand-painted advertising signage that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. The signage may be kept for its nostalgic appeal, or simply indifference by the owner. They are also called ‘fading ads’ and ‘brickads.’ In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time. Many ghost signs still visible are from the 1890s to 1960s. Such signs were most commonly used in the decades before the Great Depression.
As signage advertising formats changed, less durable signs appeared in the later 20th century, and ghost signs from that era are less common. Kathleen Hulser of the New York Historical Society, said, ‘[The signs] evoke the exuberant period of American capitalism. Consumer cultures were really getting going and there weren’t many rules yet, no landmarks preservation commission or organized community saying: ‘Isn’t this awful? There’s a picture of a man chewing tobacco on the corner of my street.’
Nasser Bouzida (also known as The Bongolian) is a member of Big Boss Man, an electric funk quartet formed in the U.K. in 1998. The original lineup was and still is Bouzida on organs, percussion and occasional vocals, Scott Milsom on the bass guitar, Trevor Harding on the electric guitar and Nick Nicholls on drums.
Reggie Watts is a New York-based comedian and musician.
Watts’ shows are mostly improvised and consist of stream of consciousness stand-up in various shifting personae, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions.
‘Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid’ (GEB) is a book by cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, described by the author as ‘a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.’ On its surface, GEB examines logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, discussing common themes in their work and lives. At a deeper level, the book is a detailed and subtle exposition of concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence. Through illustration and analysis, the book discusses how self-reference and formal rules allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of ‘meaningless’ elements.
It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of ‘meaning’ itself. In response to confusion over the book’s theme, Hofstadter has emphasized that GEB is not about mathematics, art, and music but rather about how cognition and thinking emerge from well-hidden neurological mechanisms. In the book, he presents an analogy about how the individual neurons of the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.
Wonder Showzen is an American sketch comedy television series that aired between 2005 and 2006 on MTV2. It was created by John Lee and Vernon Chatman of PFFR, a Brooklyn based art collective. The show’s format is that of educational PBS children’s television shows such as Sesame Street and The Electric Company (e.g. use of stock footage, puppetry, and clips of children being interviewed). However, Wonder Showzen parodies the format in a very adult-oriented manner. In addition to general controversial comedy, it satirizes politics, religion, war, sex, and culture with black comedy.
Beatlemania is a term that originated during the 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward The Beatles during the early years of their success. It is similar to the much earlier term Lisztomania used to describe fan reaction to the concerts of pianist Franz Liszt. Beatlemania became common in the United States after The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
It was characterized by intense levels of hysteria demonstrated by fans both at the actual concerts and during the band’s travels to and from hotels, concert venues, and the like. The extent of Beatlemania in the United States is evidenced by their single and album sales. The Beatles had the number one single for 59 weeks during their six and half years spanning from ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ in 1964 to ‘Let It Be’ in 1970.
A flying submarine or submersible aircraft is a craft able both to fly or travel under water. The Soviet Union made an unsuccessful attempt at developing a flying submarine during World War II. In 1961 American engineer, Donald Reid designed and built a single-seat craft (32.83 ft length) capable of flight and underwater movement, the Reid Flying Submarine 1 (RSF-1). The first full-cycle flight [underwater at 6.5 feet (2 m) depth, airborne at 33 ft (10 m) altitude] was demonstrated on 9 June 1964.
The US Navy is looking at the Lockheed Martin Cormorant, a drone aircraft launched from a submarine. On launching it floats to the surface and after flight it is retrieved from the water surface; it cannot travel directly underwater. In 2008, DARPA announced that it was preparing to issue contracts for a submersible aircraft.
The Coup is a political hip hop group based in Oakland, California. It formed as a three-member group in 1992 with emcees Boots Riley and E-Roc along with DJ Pam the Funkstress. E-Roc left on amicable terms after the group’s second album. The duo is politically Marxist in its music and aligns itself with other radical hip-hop groups such as Dead Prez. The group’s music is characterized by electronic sounds and bass-driven backbeats overlaid by humorous, cynical and sometimes violent lyrics criticizing capitalism, American politics, patriarchal exploitation, and police brutality, among other things.
In Novemeber 2001, The Coup released ‘Party Music’ to widespread praise and condemnation. The original album cover art depicted Pam and Boots standing in front of the twin towers of the World Trade Center as they are destroyed by huge explosions, and Riley is pushing the button on a guitar tuner. The cover art was finished in June 2001. In response to the uncanny similarity of the artwork with the WTC attack of 9/11, the album release was held back until alternative cover art could be prepared.
The Nano Hummingbird or Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) is a tiny, remote controlled aircraft built to resemble and fly like a hummingbird, developed in the United States by AeroVironment, Inc. to specifications provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Hummingbird is equipped with a small video camera for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes and operates in the air for up to 11 minutes. It can fly outdoors, or enter a doorway to investigate indoor environments.
SLC Punk! is a 1999 American independent film, written and directed by James Merendino. The film is about the young punk rock fan Steven ‘Stevo’ Levy, a college graduate living in Salt Lake City. Merendino created the film based on his experience growing up in Salt Lake City. Although not autobiographical, Merendino has said that many characters were based on people he knew. The film features several cliques presented as ‘tribes’: Punks, Mods (wear suits and ties, and ride scooters), Rednecks, Skinheads, Heavy Metal Guys, and New Wavers (neo-hippies).
Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. It is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as ‘bigger is better.’ First published in 1973, ‘Small Is Beautiful’ brought Schumacher’s critiques of Western economics to a wider audience during the 1973 energy crisis and emergence of globalization.
Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. Natural resources (like fossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated as capital, since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature’s resistance to pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on sustainable development.
The Daily Omnivore 