Health (s)Care

Revealing expose of the interests behind the FDA and the medical industry.

Artificial Stupidity

Engineering artificial neural nets that teach themselves appears to be the key to computer intelligence. Read Richard Powers' "Galatea 2.2" for an excellent book and an illustration of the concept.

Hearts and Minds

I watched the actual documentary Hearts and Minds which is on the Vietnam War. This however concerns the hearts tenuous connection to the mind. I think this might be more revealing about biology than anything else. An interesting point to ponder regardless.

By UK's Channel 4.

Intelligence is Scary, huh?

Steve Kurtz of the Critical Art Ensemble is currently awaiting trial. He faces a 20 year sentence. Ask yourself what scares you more: bio-artists, or governments that arrest artists?

Evolve Artificially

At least artificial avatars cannot overrun us since they remain trapped within the framework of the program. They will just start beating us at every video game.

Evolve Evolution

We needn't be merely slaves to natural circumstances. We can enhance our environment, as well as our relationship to that environment. Through this technology we not only improve technology, but our understanding of the brain as well.

Better Thinking

Evolution is an ongoing process, and we have to evolve new ways of dealing with information the same way organisms used to have to evolve new methods of survival.

Project Alpha

Once again ladies and gentlemen, the Great Randi!

Interest-ing

Everyone has an agenda, some just have money and lawyers too.

How May I Help You?

Fine prank from the good kids over at Improv Everywhere.

Jesus Christ, child abuse!

...and the kid wants to be a SCIENTIST!

via Bad Science

Bophal Disaster

Here is a clip from the ever ballsy Yes Men who have an excellent interview in the new Pranks #2 Book. The YEs Men have made it quite far posing as other people and speaking for them. This is just another one of many great examples. In this case, Dow was actually pressure into monetary aid and action by this prank.

theyesmen.org

Vallance on MTV

Jeffrey Valance was one of my favorite pranksters from the original Pranks Book. Valance did all sorts of great stuff like paint wall socket coverings with strange little images and swap them out at art museums. He had a funeral and a plot of land taken out for a frozen turkey. And my personal favorite, when he was a kid his father used to hate garden snails to the point of going out every morning and stomping them. So Valance woke up really early one day and painted tiny American Flags on the shells of as many snails as he could find. It apparently freaked his dad out really bad, and he quit stomping snais. Great Prankster, great artist.

recent work

The Many Faces of Alan Abel

Media hoaxter extraordinare Alan Abel. From Abelraisescain
alanabel.com

POPaganda: The Art and Subversion of Ron English

Continuing with in the subversive substream of Pranks is a short documentary on Ron English, whom I transcribed for the new Pranks 2 book. I'm not saying we're like brothers or anything, but yeah, we're that tight. I listened to his voice on a tape for like 4 weeks. But a great artist anyway, and a supremely funny individual.

popaganda.com

PRANKS - JOE COLEMAN

Another one from the Pranks vaults. Joe Coleman, a man who blurs the boundaries between artist and psychopath. Another one of the greats.

joecoleman.com

Boyd Rice - pranks

Another from the Pranks series. This on with Boyd Rice, aka NON.

Boyd has a long history of being a controversial provocateur all the way back to his release of the "Black Album." which he hand drilled 2-4 extra holes into the record for "multi axial rotation". While working exclusively with vinyl, he employed locked grooves that allowed listeners to create their own music.

From: Wikipedia
and boydrice.com

Joey Skaggs: Bullshit

The greatest media prankster of all time, Joey Skaggs.

joeyskaggs.com

PRANKS!: Karen Finley

From Pranks TV by RE/Search, a companion piece to their life-changing books Pranks, and now Pranks 2. Karen Finley is one of the greats.

karenfinley.com

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Fantastic little video exploring the issues currently at hand when dealing with the Web. Rethinking indeed...

Carl Sagan

This is from the last part of Cosmos. One of my heroes, but that's a given. I do Sagan a disservice by reducing him to a hero of mine. He represents the humanist that we should all strive to become.

Negativland - Helter Stupid (newscast)

The murder was real, Negativland's influence on it was a prank. They sent out a press release after it happened announcing that the SF police had ordered them to stay in town. This was so they would not have to go on tour, which their label STT at the time was putting alot of pressure on them to do. Negativland are one of the more interesting segments of music history. Along with this I have posted my own interview with Mark Hosler of same band on the Fire {breathing} Podcast. Enjoy.

Convincing Ghost Footage

View this clip, think about it, form a hypothesis, and then see if you are smarter than all of the "experts." Hint A) You probably are. Hint B) None of them get it right.



Figure it out yet? This is a simple one, but it just goes to show that the solution is sometimes far more simple than he problem. If you are still convinced that you have witnessed a genuine apparition, first of all, I'm sorry, second please observe the movements of a common house spider and watch the clip again.