ARS Electronica CENTER
Gotta get to this museum in Austria someday. Overall the focus is art and technology. This particular link goes to a flight simulator, not an airplane simulator, but a superman style flight simulator. The picture might be little hard to understand at first. There's a person suspended in the center of ring wearing a virtual reality helmet. Reminds me of our too brief experience with hang gliding. I wonder if the feeling is similar.
Topobo
I saw this on Discoveries this Week a few weeks ago. It's like the coolest set of leggos you could ever imagine. You put the pieces together including a motor or two. When you're done, you move it around and it remembers the movements and plays them back. It's supposed to teach lessons about physics (mass, center of gravity, etc.), but I know if I got a set of these as a kid it would have been battle city, follwed by me getting older and having the topobots ... er, do other things to each other. Not available quite yet.
Black Box Theatre
I've always been intrigued by this little alternative performance space on LSU's campus. I've only ever been able to attend one event, but I'm set to try another this week with "What are you trying to tell me?," The cost is $5 and the times are 7:30 W-Sat and 2:30 Sun.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
"With this performance, I'm playing with the trust we place in our personal relationships and social systems, composed of seemingly conclusive knowledge and reliable source material," said Shkreli. "I try to tap into the assumptions we all carry about language. I'm fascinated with the larger questions of how we've agreed that arbitrary signs carry meaning around which we craft our whole lives. What moves us forward even though language is so unstable?"
I'll post something after I see it Thursday night.
For the first of what I plan to be a weekly series, we start with the classic Manhattan
South by Southwest
The schedule is out. If you go to the schedule, every band with a little cassette tape next to it has a free mp3 for your listening pleasure. There are a ton of new acts to sample. You can also stream the songs using the sxsw player and if you like something, click it to check it out in more detail.
Just had it pointed out to me that this experiment really began on the first day of my 34th year of existence. Damn that quantitative reasoning. Well, I'm not going to change the web address and all that, so I just had to change the About blurb to be accurate. And they practically beg me to teach statistics.
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Probably most of you have already seen the movie (if you haven't do yourself a favor and find it somewhere), but I was just given the soundtrack by my friends Leanne and Casey for my birthday. It's got all the wierd portugese cover songs and a few other greats. But, my favorite is Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op by Mark Mothersbaugh. The link should play the whole song. It's also now my ringtone. I love how the song starts as a peppy minimalist techno tune, then builds into a fully orchestrated piece replacing the synths and drum machine. It really starts the work day off right.
Thanks Leanne and Casey
BTW - There will likely be several posts today, including a Friday afternoon cocktail.
The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment
Not sure what kind of omen this is, but for my first link blog, I google experiment and use the I Feel Lucky Option and get good old Phillip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment. For those who don't remember or didn't take intro psych this study demonstrates the power of roles to affect individuals behavior. Zimbardo placed college kids in either the role of prisoner or guard and within days saw tremendous behavioral and emotional transformations. I was (and many others were) reminded of this experiment when the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were made public.
So, it's a bit darkish, but overall I think a fine start to my own experiment. Something a little different, a little bit topical (well not really that topical, but for someone starting a blog in 2005, meh), and something I know a ton about, find fascinating, and worth sharing with friends and strangers.
Today is my birthday.
I am 33.
I am a researcher looking for a creative outlet.
I have the web running in the background almost all the time.
I'm addicted to boingboing.net and Josh Rubin's Cool Hunting (and several others)
Hence, Experiment 33
What should you expect from Experiment 33?
A new link to something I find interesting and worth sharing every workday that I didn't find via boingboing.net or Cool Hunting, or any of the other favorite links I'll post somewhere.
Probably some commentary and stories from my life.
Why should you care?
I don't know. That's part of the experiment, figuring out if anyone will find this, and if anyone will care. The other part is to see if I can really find something interesting every day that doesn't come from my usual sources.
Cheers
