Beautiful image of blue screen of death in times square. The moment an advertisement died and showed it's soul. (Thanks Stu for the link).

Album #2 is coming along. We have a title.. "Novus Ordo Mantidae" and we have decided to record some more songs. 5 of the songs are mixed and we plan on doing some edits to one of them plus we have a song that Per sings on that we have to mix and add some guitar/bass onto.

Current tracks & status of unfinished compositions: Brain Delete, Save Our Shitty, Human Head, Signal To Noise, Out Of Body Out Of Mind (Rough Mix), Sex/Fashion/Numbers (+Overdubs), Nanoloop 1 (+Overdubs).

And now a news item about a Mantis robot in tokyo!

[ LINK TO MANTIS ROBOT ARTICLE ]

Electronic band FM3 released their "album" in the form of a box that plays loops. The concept is really a welcome one in the creation of a special cultural object. People have been buying up the boxes and enjoying these ambient machines in their homes and in public spaces. The group has even gone "on tour" and set up Buddha Boxing matches where people interact turn-based with the machines. This is rather old news on the web but something I finally stumbled upon in my data-haze. Enjoy the interview below, it is inspiring.

I'll be getting my machine in the mail soon!

[ INTERVIEW WITH FM3 ON BUDDHA BOX ]

Labels: ambient music, buddha machine, digital age, experimental

Archives weren't operational and now they are repaired.

Factoid: "Guru Meditation" was the term for system error on the Amiga computer. I have only fond memories of these errors nowadays (even though they were frustrating at the time) while running my Amiga BBS and playing loads of games. I also have a Frodus song from our first cassette release called "Guru Meditation" to be released this year digitally.

[ READ THE WIKI ARTICLE ON "GURU MEDITATION" ]

Labels: amiga, archives, blogger, early computing, error, guru meditation

We'd like to announce the birth of new mini-mantis Julian Stålberg... 2nd son of Per Stålberg and Annette! CONGRATULATIONS and welcome to this weird-wild-world little one...

Yeah, the new iPhone sets the bar for new mobile phones in functionality and design. Yeah yeah. But for some reason this site, Gersh.no, touched me more today. I like the free apps this guy makes and in particular I like this quote on his page:

"Computers are not important. Internet either. Spend more time in the real world. Experience the fresh air and the silence of the nature. Get to know your friends better. There is much exciting on the internet, but the knowledge of computers are just temporary, its all gone tomorrow!" - Gersh

[ GO TO GERSH.NO ]

Technolitude: using electronic or techogadgets to sequester one's self from community, or to excuse one's self from engaging in meaningful social interaction...

[ READ THIS BLOGGER'S POST ON 'TECHNOLITUDE' ]
(Comrade of Birru, FM Shadow Mantii)

Labels: free apps, gersh, iphone, norway, technolitude

Kind of random enjoyable wiki article that was featured today about Villarceau Circles, which are "...are a pair of circles produced by cutting a torus diagonally through the center at the correct angle. Given an arbitrary point on a torus, four circles can be drawn through it. One is in the plane of the torus. Another is perpendicular to it. The other two are Villarceau circles, usually not coplanar. They are named after the French astronomer and mathematician Yvon Villarceau (1813–1883)."

[ READ THE ARTICLE ]

I've been under a rock in my corner of the web, or I just don't go wandering around the internet as often as I used to. "Web 2.0 killed the casual explorer" (???)... Anyhow - I found this article from Octoboer 2k6 about a Sony PSP Tracker, it contains a link to a mp3 song which is rather enjoyable. Still think I like Nanoloops sound better but this is intriguing nonetheless.

[ LINK TO ARTICLE ]

Slowly editing and piecing together album 2 by Frantic Mantis. Less nanoloops... however, I have created a new 8bit nanoloop that I played guitar on that I may do some vocals on for this album. It becomes confusing when creating Nanoloops for various projects and to know where they should have a home! That's where oblique strategies and intuition comes in.

Above image from this article about stiched DOS commands.

Labels: 8bit, creative grumblings, nanoloop

When not mixing and not eating holiday and post-holiday food I find myself gaming when i want to wind down and clear the brain, this is of course when I choose to not take a walk amongst the winding Bucharest city streets. The game of choice aside from Contact (see post below) is Rocketslime. It's based on the Dragon Warrior world and consists of a small slime that must save his kingdom of Slimenia. The gameplay is jumping and slimeattacks (stretching yourself and shooting your body at enemies) and extensive tank battles (which are rather addictive). It's an overall simple game but if you love japanese animated absurdity and just good old school minded gaming with a twist of a RPG, this is it! My pick of 2006!

[ GAMESPOT REVIEW ]

[ ROCKETSLIME MYSPACE???? PAGE! ]
(Okay folks, this is really getting ridiculous)

[ ROCKETSLIME OFFICIAL SITE ]

PS .. someone please make a sequencer for the Gameboy DS! If not, then I will have to learn how to program. Give me 10 years.

Labels: anime, Gameboy DS, nintendo, rocketslime, technology, video game review