David Pescovitz at 11:26 am • 
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This fantastically pink slug, Triboniophorus aff. graeffei, is only found on Mount Kaputar, a mountaintop in New South Wales, Australia. According to scientists, the slugs and several other strange species are from the days when this region was a damp rainforest. When Mount Kaputar erupted 17 million years ago, it preserved a very unusual ecosystem. "A series of volcanos and millions of years of erosion have carved a dramatic landscape at Mount Kaputar National Park, creating a fascinating world with some very colourful locals," writes the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service on its Facebook page. More info in the Sydney Morning Herald. (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)
David Pescovitz at 9:48 am • •
Patator Prod's fantastic wire-and-paper stop motion animation for Professor Kliq's "Plastic and Flashing Lights." (via Juxtapoz)
David Pescovitz at 9:40 am • •
A TV news station in Portland, Maine was preparing to report on a man with dementia who had been missing when the fellow walked up behind the reporter. "Elderly Man With Dementia Goes Missing in Maine, Found by Local News Crew"
David Pescovitz at 10:19 am • •
High school student Justin Beckerman made his own single-person submarine to explore a lake near his New Jersey home, he says, and "see fish and hopefully find a bit of history, like the cannons from my neighbors' historic house" dumped in the lake long ago. The project took him six months and cost $2,000. The window is an old skylight, the regulators and gauges are from a trashed soda fountain. From CNN:
The submarine has ballast tanks to maintain its depth and equilibrium; air vents that bring oxygen down from the surface; a functioning PA and a range of emergency systems including back-up batteries, a siren, strobe lights, a breathing apparatus and a pump to fight leaks. The vessel can remain submerged for up to two hours and travels beneath the waves at one and a half miles per hour.
Justin Beckerman's site
"High-school teen builds one-man submarine for $2,000" (CNN)
David Pescovitz at 9:56 am • •
Sierra Magazine posted their picks of "Earth's Weirdest Landscapes." Some I was familiar with, like the Fly Geyser in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, California's Mono Lake, and Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. But others are new-to-me strange spots that I would be delighted to explore. For example, above is Lake Hillier in Western Australia's Recherche Archipelago. Yes, it really is pink. According too Sierra, "some believe (the hue) comes from a dye produced by two microorganisms called Halobacteria and Dunaliella salina, while others suspect the red halophilic bacteria that thrive in the lake's salt deposits." Earth's Weirdest Landscapes (Thanks, Orli Cotel!)
David Pescovitz at 9:37 am • •
BB contributor Mark Dery points us to a lovely New York Time video and article about "Subway Ballet." Mark says:
Like breakdancing, parkour, urban climbing, and Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the World Trade Towers, this is my idea of the inspired wedding of art, sport, and what Hakim Bey called "temporary autonomous zones"---brief-lived pockets of anarcho-carnivalesque resistance to…call it what you will: the daily grind, the status quo, the "unitary urbanism" imposed on city life by capitalism.
Subway Ballet
David Pescovitz at 9:17 am • •
Awesome Tapes from Africa is just that. They also issue some of their finds on vinyl, CD (and, duh, tape), including the fantastic sounds of Ethiopia's Hailu Mergia posted above.
Hailu made his name in Walias Band and later went on to do some visionary solo recordings. Hailu Mergia's beautiful and surprising 1985 foray into traditional Ethiopian songs via analog synth, electric piano and accordion has been remastered and will be available June 25 on LP/CD/MP3/C60.
Awesome Tapes from Africa (Thanks, Patrick Kelly!)
David Pescovitz at 9:01 am • •
Luis Briones, 25, blew through a red light in Albuquerque and crashed, resulting in his female passenger being ejected from the car. Briones was allegedly drunk. Oh, apparently he was also having sex with the woman at the time of the crash. She was naked. From KRQE:
According to the criminal complaint, Briones tried to drive away, leaving the woman behind.
A witness was able to grab his keys.
Police found Briones with one shoe and his shorts on inside out.
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Naked woman thrown from car after crash"
David Pescovitz at 1:00 pm • •
Separated at birth: the Michael Graves Design Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Kettle and Hitler? (The handle is apparently his hair. The spout is a sieg heil salute.) Redditors are having a field day with this. More at The Atlantic. (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)
David Pescovitz at 11:25 am • •
Over at ESPN, Jon Mooallem tries his damnedest to push through hoaxes, misinformation, and egos to suss out the story of the high five.
The low five had been a fixture of African-American culture since at least World War II. It might seem impossible to pinpoint when the low five ratcheted itself upright and evolved into the high five, but there are countless creation myths in circulation. Magic Johnson once suggested that he invented the high five at Michigan State. Others trace it to the women's volleyball circuit in the 1960s…
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History of the high five"
(via Bernalwood)
David Pescovitz at 10:23 am • •
At Smithsonian, Jimmy Stamp posted a brief history of bird automata. And yes, I know that Bubo from Clash of the Titans, above, isn't real. But... Bubo! Clash of the Titans! From Smithsonian:
The earliest example (of an avian automaton) dates to 350 B.C.E. when the mathematician Archytas of Tarentum, who some credit with inventing the science of mechanics, is said to have created a mechanical wooden dove capable of flapping its wings and flying up to 200 meters, powered by some sort of compressed air or internal steam engine. Archytas’ invention is often cited as the first robot, and, in light of recent technological advancements, perhaps we could even consider it to be the first drone; the very first machine capable of autonomous flight. Very few details are actually known about the ancient mechanical dove, but it seems likely that it was connected to a cable and flew with the help of a pulley and counterweight. This early wind-up bird was chronicled a few hundred years later in the pages of a scientific text by a mathematician, Hero of Alexandria.
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A Brief History of Robot Birds"
David Pescovitz at 10:09 am • •
UPDATE: Sadly, "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Shakey Pictures."
This is Devo and Neil Young performing Young's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)." Seriously! It's from the 1982 comedy Human Highway, starring and co-directed by Bernard Shakey aka Neil Young. (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)
David Pescovitz at 9:57 am • •
Our dear friends at San Francisco's Treasure Island Music Festival have announced the (killer) line-up for this year's two-day extravaganza, October 19-20, 2013! If you're not familiar, Treasure Island is a masterfully-curated mix of electronic/dance and alt.rock that takes place in a stunning location right on the San Francisco Bay. Much more intimate than the likes of Coachella or Lollapalooza, TIMF is a lovely way to experience an eclectic mix of modern music. (Yes, 25,000 people is intimate compared to 100,000 at the huge festivals!) This year, you'll get to see:
Thom Yorke and Flea's Atoms For Peace (video above), Beck, James Blake, Animal Collective, Major Lazer, Little Dragon, Sleigh Bells, Phantogram, Strfkr, Holy Ghost!, Japandroids, Tricky, Real Estate, Disclosure, Lord Huron, DJ Falcon, Haim, Palma Violets, Poolside, Adult., Cayucas, Robert Delong, IO Echo, Giraffage, Deep Sea Diver, and Antwon.
Treasure Island Music Festival
David Pescovitz at 8:35 am • •
Bartholomäus Traubeck's "Years" is a modified record player that "plays" a slice of a tree, converting (and transforming) year ring data into piano music.
It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.
"Years" (Thanks, Syd Garon!)
David Pescovitz at 8:27 am • •
Over at our sponsor Intel's LifeScoop site, I wrote about several fascinating iOS apps for music creation that employ non-traditional and intuitive interfaces. My favorite is SoundPrism:
Created by Audanika in Germany, SoundPrism is a stunning interface that immerses the user in a relaxing, meditative music making experience. . The iOS app, most impressive on iPad, is incredibly intuitive, generating an alluring grid of glowing tiles whose colors represent pitch. But while it’s easy for total non-musicians to make stunning melodies, the interface design is steeped in some deep musical theory. The SoundPrism tiles are arranged in a Circle of Thirds, a symmetric model that the app’s musician developers believe is a fantastic method for teaching basic harmonic theory. In fact, if you’re a music theory geek, Audanika created a harmony theory blog to explore the “symmetry model” embodied by their app.
Experiments in Mobile Music Apps
