What English Sounds Like To People Who Don’t Speak It

An Italian singer writes a song to simulate the experience of hearing English without speaking it.
Excellent!

Cubilone’s Dimension Turns Two!

Just like Garret and Necro (Stefanos), this here blog has its birthday today!

…but this post is two days late! So yeah. Happy birthday Cubimension, and may you see another full year of posts and much much more that is in store for you! 🙂

two

Pink Floyd – Echoes (Three Parts)

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.

And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me

And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can

And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sun

Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

And no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky

Abandoning the System: Addendum

Not really an addendum, since I haven’t written any of this myself, just some links to very interesting texts about Facebook and what it is all about. They come as a nice addition to the original post and the discussion that it sparked.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

(why Facebook is evil at its core)

http://mollyschoemann.com/2009/01/01/why-i-left-facebook/

(why Facebook is detached from reality)

http://wrathfulindifference.com/2009/01/08/in-defense-of-facebook/

(why Facebook has its uses)

November

eyes-wide-shut

It all began when They realised Their time together meant less and less. They loved eachother, that much was obvious. But was it enough? Could it be that their passion was in danger? “I love you” was so easy to say, so truthful, it meant so much but implied so little. Even when they bridged Their physical distance and met again, armed with what They thought were new experiences that would bring balance to everything, it made matters worse; nothing had changed. They could not let Their relationship rot away due to routine and perfectly fulfilled expectations… Something had to be done to stir things up a bit. And when, after they separated, each headed to their own little island She told him of how She had already taken the step. She had mentioned it while They were Together, but He had not managed  to feel it into His skin at the time. But then She told him of the step that had left everything behind and at the same time preluded infinity. From now on They were truly free to do as They wished with anyone, as long as They kept Their own relationship intact. And this is how It started.

tt0049406_largecover2

Before learning of Her step he had observed and contemplated, but the new developments had made the plan clear in His head and had blown confidence, power and decisiveness into Him. Decisiveness to execute the plan and get the girl, despite all odds. He thought that if he went according to his honest wishes, everything would go according to this plan. And thus He set it into action and He did carry it out flawlessly. Or at least everything pointed towards that at first. Little did He or anyone know that The Killing would be the result of this grand scheme… And he was happy and satisfied in His success, just as He would love the thrill of rushing down a speeding river right before the waterfall.

clockwork-orange

Even before all of this had even begun to form, He had promised to visit Her in Her new life. And so He did. Together They practiced ultra-romance, bringing a supposedly known type of human interaction to unknown extremes. Many thought of what They did Together as sick, inhuman, not the result of pure love but a twisted, self-conscious kind of thing. But how can an act of pure feeling survive in a society where the sick, inhuman and twisted acts are frowned upon unless done underground? Under “special occasion”? When anybody indulges in these acts out in the open, it is natural for them to become a target, a scapegoat… This ultra-romance was not, consequently, a stable situation. Warnings had been given by the rest of society about how it would ultimately bring Them down. Twice They survived almost-fatal internal strife, which in turn brought Their peak of ultra-romance. He, in the end, would end up getting caught in the devastating whirlpool of social reconciliation, easily influenced as He is. Now everybody else was to teach Him a lesson and teach it to Him for good.

DrStrangelove4

It is always the unpredictable factor that takes anything stable to brutal instability. Just as it takes only the push of a single button for two huge nuclear arsenals to destroy the world. His new-found love interest did not enjoy this ultra-romance bullshit, nor did she like the fact that she was part of a grander scheme or a plot, even when she was cherished through it. “I’m never going to get used to it! I don’t want to hear a single thing about Her!” With a single move of breaking ties and flipping the finger, she would set up the scene for the End War to take place. He would not let go, He did not want to let go; it could not be that His plan had gone so awfully wrong, His ultra-romance been this misguided and worse still, misguiding. It could not be that society had been right… but right about what? He could not make it out. He decided to end it with a bang, to take the chance, to go all out for what He desired. Just like taking a chance with a nuclear war… like saying: “Is MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) really the only possible outcome”? Could it be possible that He might win something by making the move? Surely, it’d be true that he would not have faltered, he would not have cowered in fear when the time to take the risk did come. He took the seemingly brave step. He took the plunge riding His proud atom bomb all the way to hell. The result?

We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.
Keep smiling through, just like you always do,
‘Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.

What did He expect? To win a nuclear war just because He struck first? He lost everything, He won nothing. Everything lay in ruins, nuclear fallout everywhere. The idea of the goal, of Vicktory, so forcefully spitting in His face, and His image of Her just as destroyed in His eyes as His own in Hers. He had ridden the bomb, taking the chance and risking the world… And He was shot down in a million mushroom clouds. The idiocy of such a war, the whimsical, spontaneous decision to consciously destroy everything that matters… Yet…

Can it be true that He won nothing?

2001_space_odyssey_fg2b

To create is to destroy. But what you create is, thankfully, not dependent on what you destroy… Sometimes, radical changes have to be made for something new, productive, better to emerge. This fact is what all revolutions are based on. The initial result might have been devastating, heart-breaking… but, as it goes:

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I’ve felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I’ve been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for, I don’t know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

Source (note: He played this monologue last week for the uni Theatre Group).

He has seen the possibilities of the blank canvas.This canvas is not white though. It is a radioactive shade of gray. It’s still blank, however. Blank and ready to draw on. His memories of the time when the world was beautiful, the things that really count, are all intact. He can recreate it, if He wishes. He can make it even better now, the experience having made Him richer. He can make a whole different kind of world. It all depends on Him now. What woeful glee!

What are the chances of a post-apocalyptic world reaching a transgressive state of being?
They can’t be too slim.

http://www2.aegean.gr/kinimatografiki/?p=3

Modern Warfare 2

I bought CoD: Modern Warfare 2 today… Can you say “subliminal peer pressure?” It must be the first game I buy new in over a year. That I’ve been playing it for hours online speaks wonders on whether it’s actually worth the €50. Infinity Ward delivered once again! I can remember buying the first Call of Duty new in 2003… Even back then it was a great game. Now it’s become almost essential.

I do, however, feel a bit like a robot… (sic Yahtzee in his most recent review on the game).

modern-warfare-2-logo

PS: Level 16 already!

Random music for a random application for a random project.

Sunday, stress, having to work for so many projects yet lazying around for hours… I was looking for an application today that can be used to create drawings out of text. I have a project I will not divulge full details on here — yet — in which I have to do just that. One way to go about doing it is manually, which will probably also produce the best result, even though I’m not very good at drawing at all…

Anyway, looking around for this kind of application, I came across this site.

http://www.artext.co.uk/downloads/text%20draw.html

What beautiful music, what great flash art, great typography, everything! I’ve been listening to this track for hours but I have no idea what it is and where I can find more of it.

This is just some random music for a random application for a random project.
And I love it.

The top 250 best movies of all time Map

Also from strangemaps.wordpress.com (I just found it linked there, it’s not hosted there), I found the following.

http://blog.vodkaster.com/2009/06/25/the-top-250-best-movies-of-all-time-map/

mapglance2

Based on the Top 250 movies on IMDB, June 2009.