Beirut by way of Brooklyn

While I have not been frequenting Pitchfork as much as I used to, I did stop by the site earlier today and found this cool film in the One Week Only section. It's a film produced for La Blogotheque site of Beirut playing their album The Flying Club Cup all around Brooklyn. A word of warning though, La Blogotheque is in French, so make sure to translate it first. For those of you who enjoyed the films of the Arcade Fire playing parts of Neon Bible in elevators and other such random places, I think you will also enjoy this film of Beirut. Below you can see the first song of the album, but go to the Pitchfork or La Blogotheque links to see the rest of the album.

It's Electric!

I was reading Seed Magazine's "Daily Zeitgeist" today, and stumbled upon this nifty article on Nikola Tesla and his quest for wirelessly powering the world. Now I'm sure many of you have often wanted to rid the area behind your entertainment system and computer areas of the Gordian knot of power cords, but Tesla was seeking to rid the whole world of power lines and phone lines. Everything wireless powered and transmitted. 

Unfortunately this dream of his never came to fruition, due to lack of funds and manpower, but one can't help but wonder what the world would be like now if the Information Age had begun at the turn of the 19th century. Perhaps like this:

Oh, and here's David Bowie with a horrible accent, playing Nicola Tesla in The Prestige: 

Enjoy!

Why You Should Admire Mr. Miyagi

For those of you who saw The Karate Kid, I'm sure you remember this scene, where Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san, try to catch a fly with chopsticks:

Well, now scientists at Caltech, led by chief investigator Michael Dickinson, have figured out why it is so hard to swat a fly, and how the fly manages to evade the impending doom of your hand. Apparently, not only do flies have near 360 degree vision, panoramic vision, but they also can decide within 200 milliseconds of seeing the swatting hand, how to position themselves and alter their center of gravity in order to leap out of the way. Amazing.