DIdo - Here With Me (Live In London)

Blah. Meeek. MapHead. Flooshie.

sewing kit pendant via Accessorize

Tiger Balm

So, I overslept this morning, and woke up to the surreal prospect that there was a tiger on the loose on our campus. This is the message I got as soon as I was about to leave for uni:

[Uni name] Alert: [Campus name] has issued a safety alert. A tiger is loose in [Campus name]. Remain indoors. See email for further alerts. 

I thought it was a joke =__=

Look, I haven't been getting enough sleep, so my sense of judgment is a bit flawed right now. Plus, when I looked out of the window, there were other people walking around, so I thought that the SMS was sent by a couple of paranoid people.

Anyways, so yeh, I walked from my dorms to the uni building with my gay green umbrella, listening to Hundred Mile High City.

I don't know if the tiger has been caught or not. We received an SMS saying that it has been captured, but then just now I again received an SMS saying that there is still a tiger on the loose (but I think that may be due to bad SMS service).

Anyways, there is some sort of creepy excitement in the air from all of this. When I reached uni, there were people running around outside and the security people were just looking so bored and fed up.

There was also a camera crew. I sometimes wonder if our uni has it's own camera crew to capture these moments and then make a feel-good montage out of them to show at the end of semester party.

Anyways, after that surreal start to a morning, I shall now get back to work.

Just a few more things.

First, listen to Hundred Mile High City by Ocean Colour Scene:




Now watch one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite movies of all time (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels).

Every time something bad happens in my life (like, say, receiving the score of a midterm exam), my reaction is always something among the lines of the brain hemorrhage that Eddie receives at 4:21 after losing the poker game:

A Futurist's Fantasy

Poster for the 1927 German expressionist film Metropolis.

The Machine Age of the 1930s inspired artists and designers to project into the world of tomorrow. Although the graphic possibilities were limitless, the common trope was the robotic figure, quite often set against a prescient skyscraper landscape. These artists saw the future and it was their own time.


Icons of Graphic Design, pg. 60, Steven Heller & Mirko Ilic

Morning Biscuits for Cereal Killers

via Vintage Bulletin

A quick blog post of random updates, because blogging is fun, but there is little time :)

Music:

I also found this German-British composer Max Richter via an art blog, and this tune divine:



With the threat of sounding like a psychopath, I paraphrase Alex from A Clockwork Orange and say that: it is gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh, if it was possible for music to be embedded into flesh.

University life:

I have a midterm coming up! And it is for this bastard:

Which is why I should be fucking off the internet and studying.

Things are picking up speed so fast. I never even realised when the midterm passed, and soon this semester will finish too.

How to make your programming assignments interesting:

Here is how I have decided to start planning my program (I blanked out the actual main parts of the algorithm, because I think I will get a massive bitch slap from my professor if I start posting my solutions to the homework online):

There you go. Amuse yourself by swearing in your comments.

Now all I need to do is make sure that I remove all this before I submit my homework.

=________='

Look at this sexy, sexy list of electives offered by the Physics department on the main campus:

• Physics of Musical Sound
• Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe
• Introduction to Computational Physics
• Physical Mechanics II
• Intermediate Electricity and Magnetism
• Thermal Physics II
• Undergraduate Research
• Intermediate Optics
• Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
• Special Topics
• Introduction to Biophysics
• Intro to Nuclear/Particle Physics
• Advanced Quantum Physics I
• Advanced Quantum Physics II
• Introduction to Solid State Physics
• Senior Research
• Advanced Computational Physics
• Spec. Problems in Comp. Physics
• Extragalactic Astrophysics and Cosmology
• Astrophysics of Stars and the Galaxy
• Supervised Reading
• General Relativity
• Quantum Computation

Oh lord, lord, lordy, lordy, lord - I want to take all of these. Every. Single One (except 'Supervised Reading' - whatever the hell that is).
But I simply cannot, since each is at least 9 units; and I don't think that between my Computer Science workload I will ever find the time.

=___='

Absolut Imagery

via My 50-word Stories

I always wanted to switch bodies with an Albatross.

But I guess looking at an Albatross wearing my clothes and looking at Mathematical symbols would be a tad bit unsettling.

Enough of this fooking sad robot poetry. How about some ye olde Links Ahoy? Links Ahoy! (5)

Ello ello ye mateys! Also, the rest of yeh lovelies, yeh bitchies, yeh stalkies and yeh geekies!

Here is another Links Ahoy! for you, from the very hell-like recesses of my bookmarks menu.

Rogue-Dolls: Web Designer and Graphic Junkie

I need to ad-whore myself out for this blog, since it is of a good friend's and has also ad-whored my own blog for me.

But ad-whoring aside, if you want excellent tips on working with CSS and such, to know what is good web design (trust me, she knows good web design), and some thoughts on graphic design, go here. There are some very useful tutorials to follow on CSS and PHP skills, as well as notes on starting your own website for the first time.

Plus some personal thoughts on uni life thrown into the mix for good measure.

[link]

Helveticons

Are you an Helvetica junkie? Are you a good web design junkie? Are you an elegant design junkie? Are you a heroin junkie? [I am sure the answer to at least one of these is yes].

Then check out this absolutely gorgeous website for Helvetica lovers. You can also download a free Helvetica package full of desktop icons, social bookmarking icons and wallpapers here.

[link]

Yuri Yakovenko bookplates

Out of all the art work I have come across, I can honestly say that it is rare for me to find something so intricately beautiful as this. Belarus artist Yuri Yakovenko makes these exquisite bookplates, full of detailed surreal imagery and dulled silvery-blue-grey colours to create an absolute spark of an image.

I tried to look up more things on him, but couldn't find anything at all. It's such a shame that his work has not garnered more praise and attention, because I think that bookplate art is definitely something worth exploring.

The link is to a Japanese site, which I think specialises on bookplate art, but I am not entirely sure. I originally got the link via {Feuilleton}.

[link]

The xx

OMG YOU GUYS, THIS BAND IS SO TOTALLY AWESOME. STOP FUCKING AROUND AND GO LISTEN TO THEM NOW.

...Phew...capital letters and swear words aside; this band is currently one of my favourites. Their sound is very simplistic and basic, yet there is something very ethereal and soft about it.

Somehow, their music makes me think that they have some affinity with textures. It is like their music is analogical to delicately rubbing smooth plaster over rough textured walls, and then smothering in clumpy blue dye over it. This is what comes into my mind whenever I listen to them.

I never thought that I would fall for soft spoken indie kids (I never ever liked Snow Patrol for instance); but these Brits caught me by surprise.

First, look through this lyrics part of their official website. I just found it to be a gorgeous webpage design.

Now check out the video for their single Islands:



I have watched this video about seven times now, and if you also end up watching it more than once, then the director has accomplished her/his task.

During each 'recursion' there is something slightly different in the pane, and all these little parts come together to tell one story throughout the video.

Below are links to all of their other music videos (not as good as this one, but still pretty awesome):

[link to: VCR]
[link to: Basic Space]
[link to: Crystalised]



.

The Story of Man (Part I)

Imagine this:

There you sit,

That human being,

That person in that corner,

That place in this universe,

You sit there and devise.

You take your hands,

Turn them outwards,

Take up that metal.

With that you shape

And govern,

A thousand cogs,

Glistening cogs,

Heavy modern complex cogs,

And turn into them,

Slowly with those hands,

You make a perfect being.

Now imagine this:

You moulding it,

All arches and thought,

Slowly, intricate,

You hold that metal,

And you wind those clocks,

One by one,

Oil screaming,

Metal screeching,

You never stop.

Now imagine this:

Into this metallic being,

You pour all your wisdom,

All your glory,

All of your being.

It is not you, 

But it is you,

You make it your essence,

A container,

For your own being,

An empty container,

But in it,

Is all of you.

Now imagine this:

You take this little vessel of your thoughts,

Take it out,

And set it free,

To roam this place,

And make what it can,

Produce what it can,

Learn what it can.

Now imagine this:

You are this little being.

Everything you touch,

Your sensors flare,

The intricate beauty of it all,

Take up these wooden pegs,

With your mechanical joints,

You crush them,

Powder them,

And feel this smooth powdery delight,

Sliding between your sensors,

The ecstasy of little clumps,

Which you crush more,

More joy.

You roll about,

Your delicate wheels fretting,

Over every single angle,

Every detailed gap,

And collide,

How it all feels,

When you learn,

No not there,

There is a wall,

That is not right,

That is a nasty chair.

Imagine this.

Imagine that absolute pure artistry,

Those first graceful hours,

Those first simple labyrinths,

How you manoeuvre them,

How you gaze with them sensors,

Gaze into an infinite possibility of nothing.

And then those sounds!

Imagine those sounds,

The most gorgeous cymbals of delight,

One by one,

Them bells and gongs ring,

Deep resonance,

All around,

Lit up with reverberations,

Fluctuations of perfect waves,

Perfect mathematical waves,

All up in the air,

All particles quivering.

Imagine, imagine, imagine!

Imagine picking a heartless piece of metal,

But look at it,

As such:

As the most intricate flower,

Brimming with joy,

Grey metal flashed with beautiful lights,

Tiny folds within creating perfect geometry,

Perfect space,

All spread out.

You,

This machine,

Stuck in this world,

This room,

Yet, this,

Your universe,

Is all the beauty,

All the infinity imaginable.

Imagine:

Within this you build all of you,

With those mechanical hands,

You construct that insignificant refuge,

Metal and paper mixed to form,

A pitiful meaningless tower,

Yet you pour all your health,

All your power,

Into that one inept structure,

Because,

For you,

In this entire universe,

That is all there is.

The only thing you have,

Is the thing you make.

Now imagine,
Back as a human.

The maker.

How mirthless is your laughter,

When you walk across your room,

And come across these knickknacks,

These artless clumsy creations,

Inelegant implementations,

Of your intellect,

Crude imitations of your nature,

You being the higher being,

Step over them.

Your being,

Your own creation,

This odd little anomaly of your dreams,

This cheap imprint of your mind,

Scuttling around your domain.

You manipulate,

Pick it up,

Set it somewhere else,

Let it be lost,

Let it feel pain,

Let it feel deprived,

How its mazes become complex,

How it learns more,

Yet the simple delight,

That heartless unfeeling delight,

In the power it gives you,

To inflict on to your own creature,

To inflict on to your own mind.

Imagine how,

You do nothing but mock,

Mock your own being,

Mock through to the very recesses of your mind.

How, how how,

How is it possible to feel nothing?

Imagine just once being that process of mechanical cogs,

Being forever lost,

In this trapped space of nothing,

When you turn the lights on,

That little universe is plunged into nothing,

With them lights on,

It is day,

A trench of possibilities,

Yet it is nothing but your experiment.

'Ello 'Oto