chris caines

I was looking through the fantastic archive of Australian music videos on youtube and was reminded of what a blossoming of indigenous rock/pop there was in the 1980s. Seems to have ended with the Yothu Yindi hit in 91 and nothing like it has resurfaced since.

This is No Fixed Address from the 1980 film Wrong Side of the Road that gave them some profile.

This is Coloured Stone from 1984 – Black Boy.

Them also doing Dancing in the Moonlight from 86.

The fabulous Warumpi Band doing Black Fella, White Fella from 87.

And the original of My Island Home from 88.

Kev Carmody with Thou Shall Not Steal from 89.

Archie Roach, Down City Streets from 91.

Extraordinary 24hr Metafilter odyssey crowdsourcing a human trafficking rescue. Here.

I’ve only had an iPhone now for a month, but already other computing devices I own are gathering dust and it has cemented itself so completely into my day to day I fear the time is coming when I will inevitably drop it into the ocean from a moving ferry. I was an early adopter of smartphones as they were called back in the early windows mobile days, but of course the difference is the apps. In the interest of sharing navigation tips through the dark forest of the app store, here begins an occasional series on little programs I’ve found useful, addictive or fun.

First category: Traffic apps.

Sydney teeters on the edge of traffic chaos most days and knowing there is a breakdown or accident on your route is the type of foreknowledge you want to have. Snarl pulls data from the RTA website about reported incidents and combined with the traffic overlay on google maps it will usually prove useful, if it also gave info about roadworks & closures it would be hard to beat.

Just to make sure before you leave the house or office, look through the relevant traffic cameras just to be certain the reports aren’t lagging with SydTraffic.

Just finished giving a lecture on creating imaginary space in pop music and as I was preparing, searching through my files I got sidetracked into watching Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch again, wonderful film and wonderful soundtrack in a bombed out Memphis. In other news, had a great theatre experience on friday night seeing Holiday, which was a bit like an old ghost train, strapped into airplane seats with cheap VR goggles on being fed, prodded & splashed, very inventive theatre. Still on till Saturday.

Still on the cinematic imaginary there is a great show at First Draft Gallery that includes holograms by David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton from a remembered back to the future. Still on for a week or so.

And if you haven’t read it – here is the Bruce Sterling keynote from Webstock in NZ recently.

Started using Twitter a few days back & enjoying it so far. Updates down the sidebar there or directly via my twitter page. Like being able to txt to it & in turn to here.

Mitchell put me onto Ponoko, an online fabrication/laser cutting service.

You may have already come across this, but recently I’ve been enjoying this video blog rather plainly called – dvblog. A kind of group curated video/film art site where they post actual downloable QT of projects and sometimes quite good commentary.

One of my favourite discoveries has been this short, “garden cities of the future” by Adam Mufti.

I’ve read that part of what caused the 1987 crash was the growth in popularity at the time of of automated software buying and selling which caused the market to fall over entirely when systems sold faster & faster as the market dived.

It seems that while the software tools are a lot more complex now, the story is similar. Story in the NYT that uses this piece from Edge.org.

You, dear reader, surely hipper than I, have already read this wonderful satire but I only discovered it today.

Another week &  another trip to Melbourne it seems. I’m going down on thursday to the XmediaLab session themed around ipTV.  I’m interested in this at the moment & looking into ramping up the online video stuff I’m involved in via the spanking new flash streaming server we recently got. Just tonight saw the iview thing that the ABC have launched.

Control Room: “South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?”

Caller: “It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there’s a bright stationary object.”

Control room: “Right.”

Caller: “If you’ve got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is? It’s been there at least half an hour and it’s still there.”

Control: “It’s been there for half an hour. Right. Is it actually on the mountain or in the sky?”

Caller: “It’s in the air.”

Control: “I will send someone up there now to check it out.”

Caller: “OK.”

The mystery was soon solved, as the exchange between control and an officer at the scene, makes clear.

Control: “Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?”

Officer: “Yes, it’s the moon. Over.”

full story.