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Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

  • oasisob1

    Can’t wait for the remix.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/KV3PDLBSUEJ3YCGEWYUGDQ664E Leo

    that poor, poor bird.

    • darladoon

      And poor bird owner :(

      Seriously, I wish he/she could mimic Burial instead of Skrillex.  

      Would make the owner’s apartment nice and mellow.

      • Bobsyeruncle

         Are you implying that the cockatiel acquired it’s, um, distinctive musical tastes entirely on its own? :-D

  • nixiebunny

    I’m having trouble deciding if this is better or worse than the phone ring and fax ring and doorbell that the last talking bird I knew had learned to sing while spending its days in an office environment. 

    • http://twitter.com/dizietembless Paul Downs

      I used to work in an office where the bird (bought in to relieve stress!) had learnt to mimic individual ring tones.  Desk workers had their own unique tone so they knew, when they were at another desk, if it was their phone ringing.  The bird would watch from it’s elevated perch and mimic their phone when they weren’t there.  I was doing filing at the time so I thought it was frickin’ hilarious.  Relieved my stress.. :D

      • http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

         Selected high-traffic intersections in my city have that “audio tone for the vision impaired” thing going on with the pedestrian crossing signs, but intersections with no pedestrian crossing light lack the tone. One weekend, I was walking past City Hall when I heard the signal indicating that it was safe to cross the street. I stepped off the curb before I noticed that the crosswalk had no pedestrian light at all, and a car was coming at me. Nonetheless, I continued to hear the “safe to cross” sound.

        I looked up to see a magpie sitting on a second floor building ledge across the street, singing and waiting … singing and waiting. So patiently.

        • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

           It was waiting to loot your dead body.

      • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

         I have the break from Skream’s ‘Listenin to the Records on My Wall’ as my ringtone because 1) it vaguely sounds like a phone-tone 2) it’s simple enough that the tiny speaker doesn’t butcher it.

        So if I ever spend time around a mimicking bird I’ll have to see it does copy it

        http://youtu.be/1WUZf0JmBsU?t=1m23s

  • LinkMan
    • http://twitter.com/OnceDeadFlesh Once Dead Flesh

      thankyou very much, that was pleasant.

  • http://thisisonlya.blogspot.com robcat2075

    It sounds like a parrot squawking to me.  Is that what “dubstep” will sound like if I investigate it?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=644711248 Chad Smoliak

      Yes

    • nixiebunny

      It sounds exactly like what the bird’s doing. Having two teenage male children, I can assure you that dubstep was invented precisely to annoy parents. I can’t think straight when it’s playing.

      • ocker3

         I wonder if the thought-disrupting effect is intentional, given the intended club-going audience

        • Shane Simmons

          I had a suitemate in college that did live PA, and his stuff sounded a lot like that.  It tended to get closer to Aphex Twin, the more acid he’d dropped…so you may be onto something.

        • ldobe

          I enjoy Dubstep.  I find wobble-bass playful when done right.  But yeah, I can be pretty thought disrupting.  My hypothesis is that it’s intentionally designed to keep kids on MDMA from dancing too long.

          • http://twitter.com/OnceDeadFlesh Once Dead Flesh

            Well, it is doing a terrible job. I can’t really handle listening to dubstep at home or in the car… but under the correct influences I will lose my mind and dance for hours to it. I think it is designed for people on MDMA, how it specifically effects each person isn’t in the planning.

      • darladoon

        the odd thing is, at the origins of dubstep (in the UK), dubstep sounds nothing like this anymore, and hasn’t in several years.  this is what it sounds like now:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7AXRJsXjk0 in other words, chicago 808-driven house music.  yeah, mala, pinch and benga still crank out the occasional “OG” dubstep sound, but rarely do you hear it pervade in clubs.

        now, if that bird could mimic this……

  • PKMousie
  • Souse

    Better haircut.

  • franko

    so now all i have to do is imagine dubstep as birds singing, and voila, it’s tolerable? i’m dubious.

  • Mister44

    Where is the PETA when you need them? Imagine the untold hours that bird had to  listen to dub step to learn to mimic it so well. :o(

  • Matt G

    How, in 2013, do people not know to rotate your phone 90 degrees when shooting video?

  • yragentman

    This will be it’s own reward for the owner – these birds can live to be 100!!

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/WE7XANQYGBLQ5F2L3ZLHZMGWEQ Lyra S

      Some parrots can live to be 100.  This is a cockatiel, so it’s lifespan is more around 15-20 years.

  • Jonbly Herbert

    45 seconds of this = funny.

    A lifetime of this = ouch.

  • http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

    Is this a dubstep bird or is Skrillex a cockatiel human?

  • http://twitter.com/stevemullis Steve Mullis

     Do people still not realize you can turn your phone sideways to get rid of the “bad cropping?” You know, like a camera.

    • Donald Petersen

      Some of us don’t care.  My antediluvian HTC Incredible is kinda slippery to hold sideways one-handed, especially when using the camera.  If I were shooting something where the aspect ratio was important, I might do something about it.  A bird sitting upright on my hand with an irrelevant background?  I’d probably be lazy and hold the camera upright.

    • Syn -

      I don’t understand this knickertwisting about vertical video. Is it some weird attempt at being cool? I must be getting old. 
      It makes sense for cinema, tv, whose supports are predone, and are intended to be seen in full screen, but in video embedding, much like photography, composition and framing is up to whatever the fuck the onewith the camera wishes. I wonder if cartier bresson (or my grandma on her birthday party, for what its worth) thought he was offending anyone when framing vertically.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Do you not understand that most people are viewing things on monitors with a horizontal orientation?

        • Syn -

          most likely, not on full screen. Sensible cropping should fix that right away. 

        • Shane Simmons

          Not to mention Youtube

  • Boundegar

    This video has been removed due to copyright infringement.

  • rachel ten bruggencate
  • http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton

    Slow it down to half speed and that would drop pretty hard.

  • Robert

    They were feeding the bird his lunch, but he dropped the beet.