This paper arcade was given out as a series of flyers from the “I AM 8BIT” event held in LA. It was designed by Scott C, who apparently imagines himself as a giddy potato (click on the link and you’ll see).
1. His and Hers Lightmare Watches
This chunky watch with a rubber band has a novel way for displaying the time. You know how you’re expected to recall the position of numbers on a watch with a blank face? Well this watch operates on the same principle, but substitute a large inner dot for the hour hand position and a small outer dot for the minute hand position. Cool huh? NEW for ’09: There’s a nerdy girl’s version (the white one).
2. Game Boy Advance SP Cufflinks – Blue LTD
If you’ve got a gamer boyfriend (and, OT, might we add–clearly he must only be a casual gamer if he’s able to hold down a serious romantic relationship with another human being), he’ll flip when he sees these GBASP Cufflinks. Each one in the pair opens and closes and forms an innocuous blue square in closed clamshell format, and each has its own removable game cartridge. Now, hopefully you two kids are dressing up and going to fancy events that require French cuffs…
3. Smiley Necklaces – Sterling Silver – Kissing
OK, so maybe you already scored your girl the “Less Than Three” Necklace for her birthday early in January. What to do? Fear not, you have another option for nerdy jewelry that screams “we have a higher-than-normal level of oxytocin in our systems and for this I am grateful.” This is the emoticon for the kiss: :-* which your sweetie can now wear around her neck proudly.
4. Purple Waterfall Resistor Earrings LTD
We’ve only got a few of these limited edition, complex resistor-and-chain earrings created exclusively for us by Zelle. Hurry and get yours now before they’re all gone!
5. “Less than three” Heart Necklace – Sterling Silver
Nerd love at its absolute finest. Your girl will likely screech a combination of “woot!” “OMG” “THX” and will definitely proclaim that she “less than three”s you. All you have to say is “NP.”
Moar: Fractalspin’s Awesome Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas
Charlie Cooper of Telefon Tel Aviv passed away on January 22.
From Josh Eustis on the Telefon Tel Aviv Myspace Page:
We have been so fortunate to tour the world together, while at the same time having a massive amount of laughs at one another’s expense.
Aside from Charlie’s singular genius and musical gifts, I can tell you that he was a total sweetheart of a guy, and a loving friend and confidant to people everywhere. His musicianship was surpassed only by his greater gift to the world – his warmth, his generosity, his unquenchable humor, and his undying loyalty to those whom he loved. In the spirit of honorable mention, however, I should mention that he had a shoe collection that was marvelous, knowledge of hip-hop that was profound, and knowledge of wine that was subtle.
When their album was released in 2001 I was deep in the Chicago IDM scene, spending my Monday nights at Danny’s in Bucktown supporting the experimental scene and bonding with my fellow industry folk, among them Charlie and Josh as well as their compatriots at Hefty Records, as well as other artists and labels that were Chicago-local. I was running Modsquare.com at the time, a webzine doing IDM album reviews, gear hyping, Chicago-event promoting, and interviews with notable musicians in or around the genre.
Hefty folk confided in me that one day at the office they received a FedEx envelope with a demo inside and were immediately impressed with whatever band would be so ambitious as to overnight it. Turns out that band was Telefon Tel Aviv, and Hefty would go onto release the melodic IDM opus that was Fahrenheit Fair Enough. More than once when I had a DJ gig that let me get away with intellectual melodic downtempo I would sneak in the hit that was “ttv” off said album. I did a silly review for the site–that Charlie and I had a laugh about–of Ghostly’s Idol Tryouts where the press promo had reversed the titles of two songs, and since I was familiar with all the artists involved I could decipher by ear which was which. For me, TTV were the IDM rock stars of Chicago, combining forward-thinking, processor-intensive programming with a developed songwriting skill that conveyed deep and complex emotion, and gaining fans at every turn.
Unlike artists that constantly replay the formula they’re best known for, Charlie and Josh as Telefon Tel Aviv were continually evolving, not content to lounge in the accolades they received from their first album. They went on to include vocals integrated in their then-signature sound in Map of What is Effortless and delve within songwriting itself and crossing genre boundaries in their just-released Immolate Yourself.
Charlie will be missed. Much love and support to Josh and Charlie’s family.
New City did a great feature on the subVariant relaunch party with Insideout called "Spin Control: Coasting Once Again". It’s also the #1 "Show to See Now."
From the article:
In 2008, Liz’s Ramp Chicago had a successful run of monthly techno events in the basement of Debonair Social Club. She decided that resurrecting the subVariant label would provide more opportunities to produce events with an interactive twist. She says, “I did a lot of searching to find alternative venues…to get a bigger space that would bring in more people, in order to have the caliber of talent I’m interested in bringing.” For its label re-launch, subVariant will host Berlin-based producer and DJ InsideOut at Vision Nightclub. The NYC ex-pat and co-owner of minimal techno label Clink Recordings will headline with local DJs Hernan Sanchez, Gianna Hardt and McLean-Knight (as Liz Revision) supporting.
Click on the images to view larger versions.
See you tonight!
-Liz
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
The interface at the police lab in Minority Report could very well be a real-life computing choice in the near future with Oblong’s g-speak spatial operating environment. As this cool video shows, the user controls objects on the main screen with gestures, and even has the ability to bring them down from the wall to a desktop to be edited further.
From the website:
The SOE’s combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984; starting today, g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles. The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.
And guess what? The similarity to Minority Report‘s vision isn’t an accident–one of the founders served as a science adviser to the film.
Pretty much all the free email-based file sending services out there limit the size of file you can send and then usually delete it from their servers after a certain amount of time. Podmailing has gotten around that limitation by using bittorrent. You download a little app that converts the file you want to send into bittorrent and then send it to the recipient’s email. Then they can use their bittorrent client to snag it. Pretty neat. The only drawbacks are that you have to install a program and get a VIPeers account and you can’t see if the file was received or not. You can, however, say how long the file would be available, a week or never if you desire.
| January 23, 2009 | ||
| 10:00 pm |
Join us for the relaunch of subVariant featuring Insideout, head of the Berlin-based minimal techno label Clink Recordings. subVariant will distribute a limited edition numbered set of artist-created buttons to the first 50 guests from DezignJK, noted local party flyer designer. They’ll also debut “Loop Points,” an event-based loyalty card based on the techno 4/4 time signature.
Insideout’s collaborative debut with Camea, Nothing Shocking/Azimuth, was a hit and played by artists such as Richie Hawtin, Magda and Adam Beyer. Grant’s production combines the influences of modern minimal techno and the basic fundamentals of this genre: intricate percussive programming, dark atmospherics and an irresistible cavernous bounce.
Hernan Sanchez—multi-monikered producer, infamous local DJ, and techno scenester—will provide support along with Forte owner, ambitious DJ and relentless promoter Gianna Hardt and subVariant label head, Liz Revision.
Friday January 23, 2009
@ Vision (632 N Dearborn St.) 10pm – 4am. 21+
$10 or $7 before 11pm with RSVP at Going (http://chicago.going.com/event-516782;subvariant_Relaunch_ft_Insideout_Berlin_Clink)
InsideOut [Clink Recordings] Berlin, Gianna Hardt [Forte Productions] Chicago, Hernan Sanchez [Newtype] Chicago, Liz Revision [subVariant] Chicago
Download Mix: http://clinkrecordings.com/sounds/Insideout_Hello_Stranger-mix.mp3
1. Pan Pot – Ape Shall Never Kill Ape (Marco Resmann Remix) (Mobilee)
2. Marcin Czubala – Los Companeros (Mobilee)
3. Vera Heindel – My Little Disco (Rhadoos Lets Deep Scope Remix) (Cargo Edition)
4. Lowtec – Untitled A1 (Workshop)
5. Null.Eins – La Gente Menuda (Markus Fix Remix) (Highgrade)
6. Seph and Pablo Denegri – Obsure (Dumb-Unit)
7. Nicholas Sauser – Pontigliano (Thema)
8. Random Skills – Zocker (Bar25)
9. Ryan Crosson – Spray Painted Flowers (Jorge Savoretti Remix) (Igloo)
10. Gaiser – Descending Order (Minus)
11. [a]pendix.shuffle – Finding Harmony (Tim Xavier Remix) (Mo’s Ferry)
12. Dilo vs Gurtz – Cosacos (Seph Remix) (Einmaleins)
13. Gypsy Family – Strangers In All Lands (Contexterrior)
14. Ruede Hagelstein – The Modest Theme (Souvenir)
