It usually takes me a while to warm up to new music…

But the moment I heard the lyrics I fell in love with this album.

It had aged in my hard drive undisturbed for nearly a year before I re-discovered it, and I just happened to be in one of those adventurous music-discovering moods. If you like cyberpunk, electronic music, drugs, sci-fi, or revolutionary thinking, you might just enjoy Double Helix. See, I was going to take a shot at describing Double Helix, but instead I’m just stealing their description because I’ve run out of the drugs I’d need to do it justice.

Double Helix are bipolar as fuck. On our UP days we sound like Nine Inch Nails trading vocalists with cLOUDDEAD while Squarepusher, Kid 606 and Si Begg fight over the panels. On DOWN days we can sound like Gary Numan doing crunk rhymes over the greatest hits of Nick Drake, but on the wrong speed. And then there are the MANIC days, when we sound like Prince scouting Berlin bars at 5am with the Gomma gang, trying to score ketamine, with a bunch of fashion models in tow. If Texture calls it hip-hop, Sola Perplexus brands him with microwave-heated midget gems. Sola Perplexus refuses to call it anything. It’s pop music…… y’know, for kids.

You can download the album here: http://www.audiodacity.co.uk/
Visit their Myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/doublehelixonline
Then make your way over to grinding.be because if you enjoyed this album you’ll love this site.

I, for one, welcome our new Advertisement Overlords

Video: Jesse Schell talks about gaming and advertisements

This video blew my mind right out of it’s cozy little home in my skull and sent napalm-like bits of my neocortex flying in all directions, so I’m typing this using the same technology Stephen Hawking uses (yes, telekineses). Jesse Schell is a game designer with a pretty impressive resume. He used to be an Imagineer at Disney, worked at IBM, is the CEO of Schell Games (the largest videogame studio in Pittsburgh) plus he can juggle and do magic. No, seriously, he can.
In this video he describes the mental tricks used that make games like Farmville so popular and profitable, followed by the trend of games invading our real lives. After that mental charge is primed, he goes on to lay out an explosive vision of the future where advertisers can control people like they’re marionettes. Using simple mental tricks in combination with what he says is an inevitable world of sensors that will be able to detect our every action, the social fabric could change completely for better or worse.
If that last sentence didn’t make any sense, you should probably just watch the video. It’s about 30 minutes long, but it’s well worth it.

Paul Stamets talks about the amazing uses of mushrooms

Video: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world

I can’t afford to pay for the right to embed video, so you have to go through the extra effort of clicking that link up there. The video is about 18 minutes long, but well worth the time investment.

Basically, Paul Stamets is a mycologist that has found many extremely useful and interesting applications for mushrooms and mycelium. The uses include things like pest control, treating disease, cleaning up oil spills, you know, stuff like that. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, check out Paul’s book Mycelium Running

Good times around the corner

That is all.