Category: from the blogroll

Boat Race

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No. Not that one (although it does get a mention).

I’m talking about the annual boat race between the football clubs of Sevilla and Real Betis.

No, I hadn’t heard of it either. But, thankfully, The Tim Traveller is there – once again – to help us out with a short, but entertaining and educational video:

Lovely stuff, as always.

But his video (as her reveals at the end) was shot last year, while this year’s race took place this last weekend.

And with Betis on a 14 year winning streak… it was time for Sevilla to make a comeback. So did they?

HIGHLIGHT HERE…

Yes, they did.

…TO HERE TO FIND OUT.

I don’t like this…

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…but not just for the reasons that Casey Neistat shares in this video.

Absolutely, I agree that AI is going to kill creative industries. And that’s both scary and sad. Progress is moving so quickly these days that we’re struggling to keep up with it and even worse, we’re struggling to keep up with what its effects might be.

But this particular app is bad news, and not just because of the slop that is replacing decent video-making (beautifully explained by Casey, by the way). Not just because of the bullying aspect that he touches on in the video. Not just because it’s just going to fill up our timelines with yet heaps more utter shite, hiding all the (ever-decreasing) decent stuff.

I’m more concerned by just how good this is at what it does. This is going to fool a lot of people and it will absolutely be used nefariously to fool a lot of people. Whether that’s in politics, in phishing scams or in personal relationships, giving the average voter* access to this sort of technology will not end well.

Tipping point stuff.

* “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

Die Mimik der Tethys

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[OK. Some few internet problems here in the bottom corner of Africa, so I’m getting this out now in case everything falls apart later.]

In Greek mythology, Tethys is a Titaness, the wife of Oceanus and mother of the river gods and Oceanids.

Die Mimik von Tethys is piece of artwork in which a suspended buoy in Turin – at least several miles from the Bay of Biscay – mimics the movement of an real, identical buoy in the Bay of Biscay:

Continuously transmitting motion data via satellite to its relocated double, the information guides eight electric motors and cable winches, which precisely reproduce the buoy’s movement in the ocean. 

And it is quite interesting, thought-provoking and maybe a little disconcerting to watch a buoy suspended in an old car factory (because we’ve all watched this video, right?) moving up and down as invisible, distant waves drag it around.

Aside from the technology involved, and the idea of the art…

You inevitably understand the ocean as a character—you feel the whim of the wild water that can potentially hold your life in your hands. Most people lack such existential experiences with the sea. Buoys function as outposts in the sea. They are like space probes—external ambassadors that represent our human existence without our actual presence.

Yes. Space probes and external ambassadors. Just what I was thinking.

…it’s also quite interesting to see just how big some of the waves are. Waves of 6m high are a regular occurrence in the notorious Bay of Biscay, and visualising that as a couple of storeys in the art gallery is quite sobering and unsettling.

Some of JvB’s other projects are also rather interesting. he really doesn’t hold back…
Have a look here and here for examples.

Finding London’s Most Central Sheep

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London blogger Diamond Geezer (see 6000 miles… passim) located London’s Most Central Sheep in this post. And the rules were pretty simple:

I’m only interested in live sheep, so not a cuddly toy in Hamleys nor lamb cutlets at The Ritz. I’m not interested in temporary sheep like those that get driven over Southwark Bridge in September or shorn at the Lambeth Country Show in June. Also by ‘most central’ I mean closest to the centre of London which is generally agreed to be Trafalgar Square, specifically the statue of Charles I at the top of Whitehall. Hopefully that’s clear.

And using some traditional foot-based detective work and some internet sleuthing, he found London’s Most Central Sheep:

Here she is. She’s in the sheep enclosure at Vauxhall City Farm, lapping away at a bowl of water resting on a spare tyre.

And all was well with the world.

Except…

That isn’t London’s Most Central Sheep. In fact, it seems likely that it might only be London’s Third Most Central Sheep. DG had overlooked Oasis Farm Waterloo, less than a mile from Trafalgar Square.

And so he has revisited the question. And he found two sheep there. So those would be London’s Most Central Sheep.

Except…

There may be an additional issue.

…they might have been goats. Their heads were hidden so it was hard to be 100% sure what kind of cloven animal they were. The Oasis Farm Instagram feed has a number of photos of sheep but also some of goats so it is possible I saw the wrong animal.
Their website also says “our farm animals rotate from Jamie’s Farm in Wiltshire”, suggesting they’re not always here, and also that “we usually have a ewe with her lambs”, which before lambing season may mean they currently don’t. Alas this isn’t cut and dried.

At the end of the day, it’s reasonable to say that he has accomplished what he set out to do.
He has found London’s Most Central Sheep. It’s just that it is either 0.8 miles or 1.4 miles from Charles I statue in Trafalgar Square. And if it turns out that he was correct in the first post, and it is 1.4 miles, then he’s also managed to find London’s Most Central Goat.

Bonus points right there.

I’m sorry?
You’re saying that no-one would ever need to know where to find London’s Most Central Sheep?

Well, that just sounds like a ewe problem.

Setenil de las Bodegas

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Easy for you to say.

This is a town in Andalucía (some of) which is literally built into the cliffs of the gorge that surrounds it.

But don’t take my word for it. The Tim Traveller has been there and checked it out in a(nother) typically quirky video:

The background music (performed by him, I believe) is just so good. Subtly clever.

And what a place.

Enjoy a fun five minutes with his witty commentary down in Southern Spain.