The more I learn about graffiti art, the more I appreciate it, and my interest in it started with Banksy about 4 years ago. He has a new psuedo-documentary out called Exit Through the Gift Shop, and it looks excellent. It has already been released in select theaters and I can't wait until it makes it to Calgary. Personal side note - when I was living in New York in Soho, my building had a Space Invaders mosaic on it.
So with all the civil war, oil spills and financial crises happening on Planet Earth these days, it is especially unnerving to be reading about researchers creating a completely new organism with a man-made synthetic cell.
The man behind it all defends up the discovery with this:"I think they're going to potentially create a new industrial revolution," he said.
"If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide."
Dr Venter and his colleagues are already collaborating with pharmaceutical and fuel companies to design and develop chromosomes for bacteria that would produce useful fuels and new vaccines.
Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK, an organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies, told BBC News that synthetic bacteria could be dangerous.
"If you release new organisms into the environment, you can do more harm than good," she said.
"By releasing them into areas of pollution, [with the aim of cleaning it up], you're actually releasing a new kind of pollution.
"We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."
This guy is a little annoying with his 'I talked to Mel Gibson' name dropping, unfunny accents, and your typical activist persona, he's also introduced by someone who seems like she's just learning how to speak. Despite all that, he knows his stuff and in this 83 minute video he outlines why we're all fucked.
Google I/O is on right now, and Eric Schmidt isn't letting Steve Jobs steal all the headlines when it comes to trashing old friends. Google made 3 major announcements that will compete directly with Apple:
In my opinion, it's great to see this competition as both companies are getting scarily huge and are dominating more and more of our daily lives. However, a lot of this is just a childish pissing match between two ego-driven CEOs. My hope is that this battle ends up being productive and will also allow for smaller players to come up and compete with some innovative products. For example, it would be great to see Apple stop giving lip-service to "open" and allow more openness within the iPhone & iPad OS. It probably won't go that way but one can dream.
Here's what Google TV looks like:
Crater Face from Skyler Page on Vimeo.
The day after the new album from The Drums is out, another Brooklyn band Here We Go Magic releases Pigeon (out June 8). I loved Fangela off of their last album and am really excited to see what they'll do in their follow-up.
The first single released from the new album, Collector, is probably the most played single in my iPod recently (along with Trashcan by the Delta Spirit). Definitely one of my go-to songs as the weather gets a little nicer. Also, their label is called Secretly Canadian - how can you not get excited about that?Listening to the new Wintersleep album, which was released yesterday. Pretty solid so far... worth the purchase.
The band is letting people download the title track from the album. Get it here:Here's a taste.
The Liz Lemon way...
...or the way this kid does it...EDIT: The girl in the bottom video is now a teenager and did an interview discussing her new-found fame.
From: Invisible Hairsuit