Derek Tacconelli Blog » Cool Stuff

Madeon – 39 Tracks in 1

Derek — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:24:51 +0000

This kid Madeon is going to be the next super-DJ/Producer. He’s already played Coachella music festival and he’s only 17! Here he is mashing-up 39 tracks into 1 song, and you get to watch how he did it. Keep an eye on the fingers. Simply amazing…

The Entertainer by Scott Joplin on Monster-Sized Piano

Derek — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:12:35 +0000

I wonder if they ever completed the whole song…

The Original Scott Joplin – The Entertainer (Ragtime)

Some Reading Material

Scott Joplin (ca. 1867-1868? – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtimecompositions, and was later dubbed “The King of Ragtime”. During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the Maple Leaf Rag, became ragtime’s first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

Joplin was born into a musical African American family of laborers in Northeast Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. During the late 1880s he travelled around the American South as an itinerant musician, and went to Chicago for the World’s Fair of 1893 which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.

Publication of his Maple Leaf Rag in 1899 brought him fame and had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life. During his lifetime, Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems, which contributed to the loss of his first opera, A Guest of Honor. He continued to write ragtime compositions, and moved to New York in 1907. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form which made him famous, without much monetary success. His second opera, Treemonisha, was not received well at its partially staged performance in 1915. He died from complications of tertiary syphilis in 1917.

Joplin’s music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin’s rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin, followed by the Academy Award–winning movie The Sting which featured several of his compositions, such as “The Entertainer“. The opera Treemonisha was finally produced in full to wide acclaim in 1972. In 1976, Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Midnight Sun | Iceland

Derek — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:36:23 +0000

The imagery in Midnight Sun: Iceland is absolutely stunning. The lighting the Midnight Sun produces is simply amazing! Fun fact: Midnight Sun: Iceland took only 17 to shoot and houses over 38,000 images.

Midnight Sun | Iceland from SCIENTIFANTASTIC on Vimeo

Aerogel

Derek — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:20:04 +0000

Now this aerogel is just bad-ass. Very low weight, high heat resistance, great application.

It looks like frozen smoke. And it’s the lightest solid material on the planet. Aerogel insulates space suits, makes tennis rackets stronger and could be used one day to clean up oil spills. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Alex Gash shows us some remarkable properties of this truly unique substance.

Japanese Money Box

Derek — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:05:45 +0000

OMG I want one NOW! The kitty opens the box and goes MEOW, no more money on the top. COOL.

World Record Trampoline Jump

Derek — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:09:56 +0000

Oh, the Japanese never cease to amaze me. Worlds longest trampoline slam dunk. Pretty impressive I must say. Watch, leave a comment and tell me what you think!

HARD Haunted Mansion 2009 Saturday Recap

Derek — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:09:35 +0000

Angie and I left for the USC area early this time. There was zero wait to get my tickets from Groove Tickets’ will call — a relief from the last HARD (Summer) — Read more on what happened HERE. Waited for a little over an hour to get in, in total. They actually let the doors open a half hour early (6:30pm). Met about 4 or 5 different people in line, all chill. We cruised around a bit and checked both stages. To my liking, the main stage was outdoors, YES — I always get way too hot at indoor dance parties. Classixx started at about 7:45pm — early as well! They were very good!

Next was Buraka Som Sistema, who I had never heard of before. They were aaaaammmazing. Two live drummers, two male MCs and one female MC. They really brought the energy, I would definitely see them again. They did this interesting thing at the end of their show where they wanted everyone to lay on the floor — realistically everyone crouched on the floor — and on the count of three the music started and everyone jump, jump, jumped! Awesome way to close their show.

We decided to wonder inside after Buraka Som Sistema finished to catch Steve Aoki. He rocked the house!! Angie and I just sat and got light shows during Aoki; also met up with one of the dudes I talked to in the security checkpoint line. Next we went outside to get ready for Basement Jaxx — finagled our way to the mid/mid-front row for an awesome show! They were very energetic (as expected) and played some really gnarly music. Met a lot of people during Basement Jaxx’s and Justice’s sets, very down to earth crowd!

Now, the highlight of the night for me was Justice. Angie and I were as mid-front row as mid-front row gets, and their big, glowing cross was sexy as hell! They are simply amazing live and in the studio. They really based their music off the crowds’ energy at HARD Haunted Mansion — they also played a wide array of music.

2ManyDjs ended up playing both nights to my amazement! They were great, but Angie and I were very tired by this time of the night. Basement Jaxx and Justice really wore us out! We watched from a distance and just enjoyed the music and chatted. Also got a few light shows. I was sending texts at this point in the night, and I guess I never grabbed my cell. Angie called it and someone answered! Someone had found it and gave it to one of the security guards. LUCKY ME! After this, we met up with Yvonne and her friends for the end of 2ManyDJs and half of Modeselektor. We left at about 3:45am (not counting daylight savings).

Very very exciting night, I had a lot of fun!

Pulp Wave Fiction

Derek — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:38:51 +0000

I found this from a post by Quiv on the 7inchtaint.com forums, an old gaming community I belong to. It shows viewers the functionality of Google Wave through a scene from the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction.

From Quiv’s post

Someone took the dialog from the Jules / Brad scene (I will bring down upon thee with great vengeance yada yada yada) of Pulp Fiction, and basically used wave to teleplay the whole scene. It was pretty entertaining, and showed all the stuff you can do with wave.

Magic Wand Remote Control

Derek — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:20:44 +0000

Now you can watch Harry Potter in style! Pretty cool actually; found on Tim O’Reilly’s Twitter.

The Magic Wand = Accelerometer + Remote Control

The wand has a total of thirteen gestures that can be programmed to output IR signals. The gestures can be re-programmed at any time when you have the original remote. Their website doesn’t list all of them, but the names are quite suggestive of the motion. They include Rotate (for volume), Flicks (for advancing tracks or channels), and Taps (I would think for Playing and Stopping).

Read the rest of the article over there! –> ALLA KAZAM!

A Computing Future by Microsoft

Derek — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:24:12 +0000

They claim to innovate. Let’s see if they can do this by 2019.