Happy New Year! (part 2)
It´s a bit late but after having celebrated Silvester for four restless days I wish you a Happy New Year - hopefully with less bad surprises than in 2001.
Hurra-Patriotismus in Schlumpfhausen
Silbenrätsel
Everything you always wanted to translate but were afraid to ask. Try to save face while you ask for the translation of Standardisierungsparadigmenwechsel (my secret favourite of words having more than ten syllables). However, I still don´t know the translation of 'Gehörschutzpfropfen'. But that's another story and shall be told another time.
Zeitgeist
It´s also interesting which topics people were most concerned with this year. While 'Nostradamus' dwarfes 'The Lord of the Rings' it´s questionable, however, to place Bin Laden next to Eminem and Michael Jackson in the cathegory "top 10 men". Pop-star culture or bad choice?
Der falsche Film
Any similarities to fictitious persons, places or events is unintentional and entirely coincidental. Was war denn da los, Herr Jindrich?
Alle Jahre wieder... (part 2)
No christmas tree was harmed during the making of this article.
Radio-Active
What´s a Negg-Negg? And how much? And where is it´s starship? The answer will soon be found surfing on the achwelle. Hopefully. Unfortunately one of the previous broadcasts upset some minds so we got troubles. Now it seems that every new broadcast will be prelistened. Let´s hope the achwelle will stay an undependent students radio without censorship.
To dwell on audio:
Our audio-project (mp3 download - 2,62 MB) for medienwerkstatt is complete (starts very quiet). It was interesting to play with pro tools.
Furthermore about one month ago I wrote a new song for guitar. As I cannot record this song right now and although I hate midi sounds, here it is: midi download, notes, notes and tablature. It´s a long time since I wrote my previous song (midi download, notes) but it´s nice to see that it still works.
Tea Time
Brrrr. As cold as it is you either start knitting a warm scarf and go out to toboggan or you keep inside. Maybe my video advice for long winter nights will help:
Magnolia - a great film by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) about chance, sin and forgiveness with great camera and strong use of sound. Most people I told about it said that they would not like to watch it because they don´t like Tom Cruise. Don´t misjudge this. It´s a perfect role for him. The film reminds of Robert Altman´s Short Cuts.
Wonder Boys - a writer (and professor) with a writer´s block who succeeds to make the chancellor´s wife pregnant, who is involved in the killing of her dog, the vanishing of Marilyn Monroes jacket, the homo-erotic urges of a student, a few more things and who attempts to find out or hesitate the solution of his problems by pot smoking.
Memento - a film about a man without shorttime memory who seeks for revenge for his wife´s dead. It´s an interesting plot structure: The film starts with the last scene on the timeline going backwards in blocks (interrupted by short forward-playing scenes), so that only the last scene (so the first scene in time) shows the truth.
I Kina spiser de hunde - in china they eat dogs by Lasse Spang Olsen: the perfect looser who wants to make things right but provokes one catastrophe after another ending with a dogma-like scene.
Una pura formalità by Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, Malèna), nearly a two-person play (like Der Totmacher) with a suspect (Gérard Depardieu) who affirms to be the writer Onoff and an inspector (Roman Polanski) who wants to find a murderer. Cathegory: Surreal.
Nice vector and pixel art to look at on quickhoney and a nice magazine to click through : tigermagazine (see image).
Les Misérables
A nice smorgasbord on robots:
»Als Descartes der Königin von Frankreich erkären wollte, daß alle Tiere nur Maschinen seien, zeigte diese auf eine Uhr und antwortete: 'Sehe er zu, daß sie Junge bekommt.'«
So now what? Here we got some definitions about our artificial intelligent friends:
»The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With.' The Hitchhiker?s Guide to the Galaxy, however, defines a robot as a machine built by humanoid ape-descendants as a result of their insecurity about being the most intelligent creatures they are aware of.«
comments