Wii Bowling

One thing I can count on doing when I go home for the holidays is getting into some Wii Bowling. Nearly anyone who's played a Wii knows this game. It has universal appeal to all age, skill, and experience levels. Plus the game comes with the system, so nearly everyone who owns a Wii owns this game. It used to be that my sister had a Wii that made it over to my mom and dad's place for the holidays, but now I've discovered that they have their own. They love this game.

Today I found this video that makes new use of the Wii Bowling by chopping up screenshots and reassembling them to remake a scene from the Big Lebowski. Enjoy!

warning! strong language

SOF - Bill McKibben

Yesterday I caught this show on the radio. It's an interview with Bill McKibben. He's an author, activist and most recently the head of 350.org. This is an agency that is "dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that science and justice demand." The 350 refers to aiming for atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 350ppm.

The radio piece is not heavily focused on faith but touches on the spirit of environmental activism as it relates to humility, and what realignments the movement and society could benefit from. I am probably messing that up so listen for yourself.

Humility

It's a important characteristic to have and one that comes to mind when you think of our lives on the scale of earth and climate. I think it's a good reason to advocate for changes, or rather less (climate) change. In the same vein, this frightening and prophetic advertisement from the ironically named Humble Oil company found in a 1962 issue Life magazine made me think of it.

COP15 - Google Earth Outreach Showcase

Yesterday the COP15 talks were kicked off in Copenhagen, Denmark. I took a break from writing papers to follow some links on some of the many sites devoting some time and space to this huge conference. [banner from Grist]

One of the coolest things that I found was a series of tours, demonstrated on Youtube here. It's also a bit funny because you can hear about climate change from Ted Danson. From there you can download some of the demonstrations you watch on Youtube for real interaction within Google Earth, including full IPCC climate scenarios. It's so cool because it easily combines modeled changes with satellite data that portrays information about land use, population and land cover. You can add and remove layers and scroll through time too (not sure how much satellite imagery will change with time). It also puts you directly in contact (with hyperlinks) with organizations and documents that back up or expand on the data. This eventually took me to their Earth Outreach page. They have a number of tools available to help non-profits visualize problems and projects using Google Earth. Below is one that I found pretty cool.


Now I'm thinking about how I can use this in my class next semester. More to follow on this and COP15.

Happy Thanksgiving

Still pretty busy and not much new. Spent the holiday in Atlatna and went to a Liz and Derek's house for dinner. Pretty standard Thanksgiving. Great food, ate too much, Lions lose. Then on Friday I went climbing at Foster Falls, TN with Derek and Lauren came up to meet us after work along with Ben and Caity. We camped in the cold on Friday night and did some more hiking and sport climbing on Saturday. I really liked Foster Falls. The camping is free, the hike in is easy, they allow dogs, there are great views, climbing and you can swim in the summer. This was my first time sport climbing and it took a little getting used to after so much time in the gym and on boulders. It is much slower, much more footwork intense, and much headier. I was glad to get on the climbs I did but needed some motivation to get started.

In other news I happened upon this tonight. I love good graffiti and thistakes it to a new level. Bogota had some really good stuff and from the collective's website I am guessing this is in South America somewhere as well.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Hip Hop

I started this post in response to a recent post on a friend's blog about some required listening since 2000. Here is his original post

I noticed you he had no hip hop in there. This is a shame. Despite a marked falling off there were a some huge albums in hip hop since 2000. While Outkasts best work came before 2000, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below came out in 2003. I would say Andre's piece is a work worth mention. Also, Jay-Z's Black Album came out that same year. It was supposed to be his farewell to the game. This turned out to be a Favre-ian move, but led to the seminal hip-hop mashup album; Danger Mouse's The Grey Album. Most recently I've seen Sufjan's Illinois mashed up Finally, the prolific Lil' Wayne must be mentioned (like the Ryan Adams of rap). His 's Tha Carter III signaled the end of hip hop, according to a recent piece on trends in the genre.

Here are some more relevant comments on the direction of hip hop from Matt. They should be on his blog but they are here instead.

I have several 2-cent coins to toss into the discussion of "the death of rap music." My main thesis is: we want new rappers to emerge, but industry change prevents them from emerging.

Barrier to Entry 1:
NO PROFITS. Only the rappers who gained a toehold right before the death of the CD are able to afford to rap for a living (Jay-Z, Wayne, Kanye, T.I., 50 Cent). The internet killed all motivation because there's no money in it any more and therefore no incentive for young rappers to pursue it. To put out an album now, you've got to be willing to distribute free mixtapes while you keep your day job, or have plenty of money in the bank from your previous albums. Back in the day, the labels were signing guys up left and right.

Barrier to Entry 2:
MARKET SHARE. Only the old heads listed above are currently relevant because they're the only rappers that transcend the young and old (us) generations, thereby benefiting from a fanbase that is hip (young folks that guide trends) AND long-standing (loyal old folks). The new rappers leave the old folks scratching their head. All the classic rappers from like '87 to '02 are simply unknown to the young folks. So this leaves the market in 2009 really top-heavy.

Barrier to Entry 3:
CRITICAL RECEPTION FROM THE CRANKY HIP-HOP FANS. This top-heavy nature of the market further suppresses new talent because there are so few benchmarks for "good" rap. Everything new is compared, critically, to only these few legends and inevitably gets dissed because it can't measure up. But not everything has to be THAT good to be on the ipod. Back in the day, there were a bajillion great 2nd-tier rappers and rap groups (speaking of, whatever happened to the rap duo??). Now there are none. You are either one of the few at the top, or you're nothing because the internet critics say you're nothing.

Barrier to Entry 4:
SUBSTITUTE GOODS. In the meantime, we listen to cheap-to-produce knock-off stuff made from guys who went to Skidmore (Ratatat), which luckily sounds great, but only stokes our fears that rap music is dying. And of course prevents us further from spending our time and money on new rappers.

It's All Good

I am out of town for a software training and was having dinner at a local bar/restaurant the other night when I overheard the older couple next to me talking about this New Yorker cartoon which I had remembered seeing and liking. Here it is. Feel free to comment, or not. It's all good.

ASL study

I am currently taking part in a study to test a new way of teaching basic sign language vocabulary to adults. The study was developed by the American Sign Language Group within the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Tech. Each day for a week I follow a link from a text message to a mobile website where I go through my ASL lessons for the day. I can complete up to 80 lessons in the week of the study. and each lesson takes about 4 minutes.

During the lesson I watch 4-5 short videos of this guy signing a word. Then I click on "continue" and am shown 4 choices for the meaning of that sign, along with a button for "Don't Know." Finally you are told whether or not you chose the correct meaning for the sign and you move on to the next movie. Over the course of several lessons you see words multiple times and reinforce your knowledge. A week after completing my week of lessons I go in to take a test and wee what I've learned.

Not only do I get to learn some basic sign language, I get Amazon dollars too ($0.625 per lesson, plus time in the lab). I'll end up with around $60. I am asking you, the reader to post interesting and unusual things from Amazon that I could buy with this money. Provide links in the comments section of this post. Nothing vulgar please. I may end up purchasing your suggestion.

Cumberland Island

For the Columbus Day weekend we had a trip planned to Cumberland Island, GA. Fresh off finishing the Ken Burns' National Park Series I was ready to see some preservation in action. I went to Cumberland Island expecting to find no cars, no people, and wild horses; a semi-tropical setting in prime season.

We drove down to Blythe Island State Park on Saturday with a stop in Savannah for lunch. This trip followed a weekend in the mountains of Boone and so I was not ready for the heat that south GA still possesses in October. Temperatures hovered close to 90 most of the time we were there. We slept in tents; a euphemism for sweat torture chamber. Regardless of the heat we still purchased firewood and built a fire to stand around. The threat of storms kept the rain flies on our tents and made it hotter. Luckily though we didn't get any rain while were out there. I'd much rather deal with the heat than be stuck in the rain all the time.

To get to Cumberland you take a small ferry for about 40 minutes from the small town of St. Mary's. The ferry ride was one of my favorite parts of the trip. While we were on it, the sun was out, the wind is blowing in your face and the scenery is nice. I took some time to contemplate the nature around me (save the chemical plant silhouette in the distance) and compare it to the mountains. The coast always seems much more delicate to me, like it has so many more moving parts. That also makes it seem more dynamic. The mountains seem like they are forever unchanged. The views also have differential impacts. In the mountains one can get to great vistas and see the expanse of the landscape as well as stand at the edge or base of a cliff and feel how small you are. On the coast you only get the expansive views that go on forever and make you feel so small in time. I think a lot of naturalists write about each morning in a natural place feels like the first morning; the morning of creation. Like every thing in that place was like it had always been. For me looking out on the ocean and watching the waves gives me that feeling.

Nonetheless, most of my time on Cumberland Island was spent wishing I was in the mountains. I was surprised that there are still occupied residences on the island, and that the horses weren't out running on the beach like something out of black beauty. It didn't help that the rangers on the island give you a run down of everything that can go wrong on Cumberland Island before you head off into the backcountry. We had planned to head in about 7 miles to Yankee Paradise but found out it was occupied and went to the closer (4 miles) Stafford Beach camping area. The spot was very cool. Tons of old live oaks, plenty of room to spread out and keep the kitchen away from the tents, close to the beach, and it even had bathrooms.
The ticks and bugs were still pretty bad but we didn't have any problems with raccoons or mice or gators or snakes or horses or armadillos. The beach was great and in fact my favorite part was heading there in the morning to watch the sunrise and spending time playing in the tidepools.

I'm not sure if I'll head back to Cumberland right away but maybe someday I will revisit the place. I think for now the next barrier islands I try to see will be off North Carolina and maybe we can make a stop by some mountains while we're up there.

Success

[update :: in reference to earlier post]

We did it!! We blew up the moon.