danielheaf.com

Yamaha Tenori-On

It's been a long time since I blew a staggering amount of money (£600) on musical equipment but I can't believed I missed the Yamaha Tenori-On. Designed by Japanese artists, Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori of the Music and Human Interface Group, the Tonori-On consists of a screen, of a sixteen by sixteen grid of LED switches, any of which can be activated in a number of ways to create an evolving musical soundscape.

Had my what the hell is that moment when watching the brilliant Little Boots. While I love the intuitive way it allows you to make music I can see my lack of musical ability making for a slightly less enchanting composition.

Road kill toys

Looking for something original for your four year-olds birthday? Get your Squash-plush toys while they’re still fresh off the tarmac. Twitch the Raccoon was the first to be scraped off the road. But now there’s a new not-so-cuddly toy in town. His name is Grind the Rabbit. If you're lucky enough to snap up one of these limited edition cuddlies you'll be pleased to know they come complete with a translucent body bag and identity tag, giving you details of the toy’s demise.

(Via Andy Puleston)

The internet in numbers

According to Kevin Kelly:

• The internet generates 100 billion clicks / day and is composed of 55 trillion links
• There are 1 billion PC chips of the internet
• 1 million IM messages sent every second
• 8 terabytes of traffic / second
• 255 exabytes of magnetic storage
• 2 billion location nodes activated
• 600 billion RFID tags in use

All of this built and deployed in 5,000 days. With the internet we should believe the impossible.

Future browsing

The Genius of Charles Darwin

To mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins presents the ultimate three-part guide to Charles Darwin on Channel 4.

Shocked to hear that despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary four out of ten British people still believe God created the Earth and everything on it. But perhaps this is unsurprising given that only a few hours are devoted to Darwin's ideas in the typical school curriculum. Dawkins struggles to win round a class of school children. His tested and forthright arguments are clearly no match for a lifetime of religious indoctrination.

Channel 4 websites have an all too familiar chaotic offering. A programme page offering embeddable clips with links to other programmes of interest but not the long form programme on 4oD. Searching Channel 4's site reveals great content from the Cheltnam Science Festival with additional lectures by Dawkins, behind the scenes footage, illustrations, pictures and text but no links to the clips or programme pages.