Children of The Atom

Playing tunes with big sparky electrickery. COOL.

“This is a solid-state Tesla coil. The primary runs at its resonant frequency in the 41 KHz range, and is modulated from the control unit in order to generate the tones you hear.

“So just to explain a little further, yes, it is the actual high voltage sparks that are making the noise. Every cycle of the music is a burst of sparks at 41 KHz, triggered by digital circuitry at the end of a “long” piece of fiber optics.

What’s not immediately obvious in this video is how loud this is. Many people were covering their ears, dogs were barking. In the sections where the crowd is cheering and the coils is starting and stopping, you can hear the the crowd is drowned out by the coil when it’s firing.

This Tesla coil was built and is owned by Steve Ward. Steve is a EE student at U of I Urbana-Champaign. He and Jeff have been going to Teslathons, which is where they met.

It’s been suggested that a good name for this coil would be the “Zeusaphone”. “Thoremin” has also been mentioned, though personally I think we need Theramin type inputs for that.”

Many of you will already be aware of mr_hopkinson’s_computer (especially listeners of Miss Kitty’s Adventures In MySpace on TheCoolestRadioEver, or the Bristolites amongst you), but for those of you who aren’t, here’s the skinny…

There’s a man named Mr Hopkinson, or even, mr_hopkinson. He’s a musician (he was once one-half of Stoloff & Hopkinson, a.k.a. Essenhaitch), and a bit of an artist and film maker too.

He owns a computer. This is mr_hopkinson’s_computer. And mr_hopkinson’s_computer likes to sing. Not only that, mr_hopkinson’s_computer also likes duetting with other musical computers, like Audrey3000.

Explains mr_hopkinson’s_computer:

I like to sing cover versions. I mostly like indie songs from the 80’s & 90’s, but I like some newer ones too.

I started off just doing them for fun in my bedroom but over the last year or so I’ve been lucky enough to perform some live shows, including a little UK tour with my friends Minotaur Shock and Freeze Puppy, and get some play on the radio thanks to Rob Da Bank and Huw Stephens.

See? Not that hard to get your head around.

Anyways, mr_hopkinson’s_computer has both a CD and a 10″ EP out. They feature lovely renditions of songs like ‘Fool’s Gold’, ‘Raspberry Beret’, ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and ‘Where Is Your Mind’. They are spiffing. Many of them can be heard across the various mr_hopkinson’s_computer MySpace pages (and those of mr_hopkinson’s_computer’s friends, like Audrey3000).

Index of /mr_hopkinson (links to all the MySpace pages, freebies + details of CD/vinyl)
mr_hopkinson’s online interactive video sample orchestra

Political pranksters/Situationists Lite Space Hijackers are trying to raise the spondoolinks to buy a tank, or, at the very least, some kind of armoured personnel carrier…

There comes a time in every activist groups development when they realise that there is something missing in their set up. We have been striving to cause trouble, save the world and wind up the powers that be for 8 years now. However we still don’t own a tank… Please help us right this wrong.

For more info on how to help, see the Tank-O-Meter page.

Barry Cooper sells a DVD on how to stash pot in your car without getting caught. This fall he will release a second one on how to keep police from raiding your home for marijuana.

Now for the kicker: Cooper is a former narcotics officer once considered among the top cops in Texas, where more marijuana is seized each year than in any other state.

The formerly straight-laced lawman has become a shaggy-haired militant for the legalization of weed.

Six months ago he released “Never Get Busted Again,” in which the former star of West Texas’ Permian Basin Drug Task Force gives tips on hiding marijuana (dashboards are rife with nooks and crannies) and throwing off drug-sniffing dogs (coat your tires in fox urine).

“I’m not helping them to break the law. It’s clear the law is already being broken,” said Cooper, 38, who left law enforcement a decade ago. “I will do anything legal to frustrate law enforcement’s efforts to place American citizens in jail for nonviolent drug offenses.”

CBS News story
Never Get Busted website

Was watching ‘Black Belt Jones’, a rather stodgy 1974 blaxploitation/karate/mafia picture with Jim Kelly, and came across this fella Mel Novak, who’s a second string gangster in it. He’s definitely a familiar face - you’ll probably remember him from things like ‘Game Of Death’, or perhaps ‘Truck Turner’… Or maybe even one of his more recent flicks, like, ah, ‘Vampire Assassins’ or ‘Pocket Ninjas’. Or maybe not.

Anyhow, this dude doesn’t just star in Hollywood’s finest films; he also does his own stunts! And not only that, he’s “a dedicated Soldier for Christ, is an Ordained Minister called by God to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and salvation to the homeless on skid row and in prisons”!!!

According to Mel, he’s been blessed with personal experience of Teh Lord’s Good Workz:

Although Mel believes that Christ heals more important things than bodies, he has personally experienced God’s miraculous healing power. As a child, Mel’s leg was saved from amputation through prayer. Years later, his throat was healed by the Lord after having ten failed surgeries in ten years. The Lord healed a serious injury to the eye, a torn cornea, only hours before surgery. During Easter of 1983, Mel was spared from death after serious hemorrhaging from surgery. On March14, 1998, Mel almost died from peritonitis caused by an anti-inflammatory prescription medication. For the fourth time God spared Mel’s life. It was his twenty-first surgery.

A native of Pittsburgh, Mel was an outstanding athlete in several sports. He passed up 60 football scholarship offers and signed a pro baseball contract with the Pirates. His career was cut short by a massive rotator cuff injury. Despite the pain and setback from his injury, Mel learned even more clearly “that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and for those called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28), After sixteen years, he once again experienced a miracle. His shoulder was healed, including a complete deliverance from pain.

Crikey dude, if that’s miraculous then pass the smelling salts, I’m steering well clear, sounds all too painful

Anyhow, Mel documents all this and more in his personal Give For God page, where he also talks about some of the films he’s been in and stuff you godless heathens might be interested in…

“In sixty fractions of Megon, we’ll start the landing manoeuvre!”

‘Terrore Nello Spazio’ - a.k.a. ‘Planet Of The Vampires’ - was a 1965 Italian/American co-production, an SF picture said to have (in part) inspired Ridley Scott’s vision of ‘Alien’… Check out the trailer!

‘Planet Of The Vampires’ at Videostored (DivX)
‘Planet Of The Vampires’ at IMDb

Rap is something you do, hip hop is something you live

The Good Samaritan Music Project website
TGSMP on MySpace

Films that rip off Mad Max!

Last.fm are now doing a cool widget for you to embed a link to your top tracks, or top artists, or what you is listening to. Here’s mine:

From HowItShouldHaveEnded