Sure, it won't stabilize itself, it doesn't sport a cute wicker basket, and it has a five figure price tag, but the 2009 Optibike OB1 is on sale now -- and if you're a typical Engadget reader, you're probably considering four or five of them for you and your family. Designed by award winning bike designer Jim Turner, this lithium-ion battery-powered hybrid features a GPS, fully integrated PDA (to keep track of the vehicle's performance), two hours of battery life, and -- for those of you who like to kick it old school -- pedals. You know, for pedaling. Be sure to order yours now -- only twenty-four OB1s will be manufactured this year.

[Via Style Crave]

Filed under: Transportation

Optibike's OB1 hybrid electric mountain bike: yours for a cool $13,000 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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div align="center"a href="http://www.optibike.com/index.php"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/081201---ob1-1.jpg" alt="" //abr / div align="left"Sure, it won't a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/04/self-stabilizing-bike-stabilizes-bikers-who-cant-stabilize-them/"stabilize/a itself, it doesn't sport a a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/sanyos-eneloop-hybrid-bike-has-basket-will-travel/"cute wicker basket/a, and it has a five figure price tag, but the 2009 Optibike OB1 is on sale now -- and if you're a typical Engadget reader, you're probably considering four or five of them for you and your family. Designed by award winning bike designer Jim Turner, this lithium-ion battery-powered hybrid features a GPS, fully integrated PDA (to keep track of the vehicle's performance), two hours of battery life, and -- for those of you who like to kick it old school -- pedals. You know, for pedaling. Be sure to order yours now -- only twenty-four OB1s will be manufactured this year.br /br /[Via a href="http://stylecrave.com/2008-12-01/2009-obtibike-ob1/"Style Crave/a]/div /divpFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/transportation/" rel="tag"Transportation/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/optibikes-ob1-hybrid-electric-mountain-bike-yours-for-a-cool/"Optibike's OB1 hybrid electric mountain bike: yours for a cool $13,000/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:17:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.optibike.com/index.phpRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/optibikes-ob1-hybrid-electric-mountain-bike-yours-for-a-cool/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1387677/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/02/optibikes-ob1-hybrid-electric-mountain-bike-yours-for-a-cool/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/yPbECzY4Asj569HFOkAWJQxB8ho/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/yPbECzY4Asj569HFOkAWJQxB8ho/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=lmIeML1w"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=lmIeML1w" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=fEsza6GI"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=fEsza6GI" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/YpUxnlxRCjk" height="1" width="1"/

Ponca City, We love you writes A study has confirmed that many people see human facial features in the front ends of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars. Forty study participants assessed cars based on a system known as geometric morphometrics by viewing high-resolution, 3D computer reconstructions and printed images of 38 actual 2004-06 car models and rating each model on 19 traits such as dominance, maturity, gender, and friendliness, and if they liked the car. Study participants liked best the cars scoring high in the so-called power traits mdash; the most mature, masculine, arrogant, and angry-looking ones. Researchers theorized that over evolutionary time, humans have developed a selective sensitivity to features in the human face that convey information on sex, age, emotions, and intentions. The lead researcher explained, Seeing too many faces, even in mountains or toast, has little or no penalty, but missing or misinterpreting the face of a predator or attacker could be fatal.pa href=http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/02/0040227amp;from=rssimg src=http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/02/0040227 //a/ppa href=http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/02/0040227amp;from=rssRead more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href=http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/7eNQBR-56XNrSe2uJVbwAWquGqc/aimg src=http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/7eNQBR-56XNrSe2uJVbwAWquGqc/i border=0 ismap=true //a/pimg src=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/CFBH7vDJ2Ek height=1 width=1 /

a href="http://cllct.com"CLLCT - The Collective Family/a An online community of indipendent musicians who have made their music free to download. No, it's not myspace. br / (disclaimer: I have a href="http://cllct.com/art/robotot"a profile /athere too, but nothing that I haven’t also posted on mefi.music. Apart from that I have nothing else to do with running or maintaining the site.)br / br / Originally the 001collective, a href="http://cllct.com"cllct/a is a community (or a collective if you will) of musicians dedicated to a href="http://cllct.com/freemusic"giving away their music for free /aon the internet. I randomly found the original 001 site while looking for online communities to post my own home recordings to. Not long after I signed up, the site changed to its current format under the new name cllct.br / br / There is some phenomenal music to be found there, from the cuteness overload of a href="http://cllct.com/release/yeahandiminlovetoo"Shelby Sifers/a, to the mature stylings of a href="http://cllct.com/release/compromise"Generous Alzir/a, and even the off-kilter experiments of the a href="http://cllct.com/art/secretowlsociety"Secret Owl Society /a(who is also the man behind the entire site).br / br / Some other favourites of mine include:br / a href="http://cllct.com/release/21lovesongsatributetothemagneticfields"21 love songs – a tribute to Magnetic Fields/abr / a href="http://cllct.com/release/fireinthemountains"Fire in the Mountains/a – James Ericbr / a href="http://cllct.com/release/pinecones"Pinecones/a – The Uggamuggasbr / a href="http://cllct.com/release/macondo"Macondo/a – Fox Pawsbr / br / I hope you enjoy the music!

img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/hotel_sidi_driss_t.jpg'/img: Photo: a href="http://flickr.com/photos/scottroberts/2192864663/"scottroberts/Flickr/a p Whether your fantasy hotel is a citeStar Wars/cite-style cave dwelling or a Hobbit hole in New Zealand, specialty accommodations around the world will fulfill your nerdy needs. /p p Other hotels geek out with crazy gear, from Apple- and Microsoft-themed suites to virtual golf courses. And while WiFi has become a common hotel offering, a high-tech hotel in the Middle East extends internet access all the way to its private beach. /p p These and other specialty accommodations make Wired.com's list of top geek hotels. /p p stronga href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hôtel_Sidi_Driss"Hôtel Sidi Driss/a, Matmata, Tunisia/strong /p p strongLeft:/strong The Tunisian town of Matmata is riddled with a href="http://lexicorient.com/e.o/troglod.htm"troglodyte dwellings/a, vertical caves dug out by humans and turned into homes. The Hôtel Sidi Driss is one such desert delight. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong Does the cave hotel look strangely familiar? The interior was used as a citeStar Wars/cite filming location mdash; it's the Lars' homestead on Tatooine. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/hotel_sax_t.jpg'/img: Photo courtesy Hotel Saxpstronga href="http://www.hotelsaxchicago.com/TheMicrosoftExperience/"Hotel Sax/a, Chicago/strong /p p Plenty of businesses have gotten into bed with Microsoft. Now you can, too: Chicago's Hotel Sax has a partnership with the software giant that lets weary travelers relax into "the Microsoft Experience." /p pstrongGeek factor:/strong The Studio, Hotel Sax's "Entertainment Lounge" available to all guests features Microsoft gear like Xbox 360s and Zunes. Don't want to share? Book your own private "Entertainment Technology" studio or suite./p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/hotel_1000_t.jpg'/img: Photo courtesy Hotel 1000pstronga href="http://www.hotel1000seattle.com/"Hotel 1000/a, Seattle/strong /p p The operators of this high-tech hotel sank millions of dollars into the latest gear. With luxuries like ubiquitous WiFi, HD TVs and a "fully converged IP infrastructure" that allows for internet-enabled personalization of everything from room temperatures to the art on the walls, Hotel 1000 was a shoe-in for citeHospitality Technology/cite magazine's 2008 award for overall technology innovation. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong After playing around on the hotel's virtual golf course, just flip the electronic "do not disturb" sign to keep hotel staff or annoying co-workers at bay. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/avante_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Mark Darleyp stronga href="http://www.jdvhotels.com/hotels/avante/"Hotel Avante/a, Mountain View, California/strong /p p Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Hotel Avante is making a big play for big players. The 91-room boutique hotel bills itself mdash; and its guests mdash; as "smart, visionary, iconoclastic and artistic." /p p strongGeek factor:/strong To further its "creative clubhouse" atmosphere, each room includes an "executive toy box" with a yo-yo, an Etch A Sketch, a Rubik's Cube, playing cards and a Slinky. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/pod_hotel_akihabara_t.jpg'/img: Photo: a href="http://flickr.com/photos/maurizio_mwg/2515790491/"maurizio_mwg/Flickr/ap stronga href="http://www.capsuleinn.com/"Capsule Inn Akihabara/a, Tokyo/strong /p p Capsule Inn Akihabara is one of only a few places to stay in "Electric Town," Tokyo's anime/otaku hub and the site of the largest electronics market in the world. The tiny capsule rooms look like washing machines from the outside. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong The hotel's sleeping units are "designed in the image of a jet airplane's cockpit" with every device in the capsule mdash; TV, radio, alarm clock, lighting mdash; designed to be controlled from a sleeping position. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/pod_hotel_t.jpg'/img: Photo courtesy The Pod Hotel p stronga href="http://www.thepodhotel.com/"The Pod Hotel/a, New York/strong /p p With free WiFi, iPod docks, relatively inexpensive rooms (called "a href="http://www.thepodhotel.com/yourpod.html"pods/a") and the opportunity to make new friends in its shared bathrooms, The Pod Hotel in Manhattan's Midtown East neighborhood is making a play for the Facebook generation. Antisocial guests will be pleased to know that some rooms have private baths. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong Nicknamed the "Facebook Hotel," this place has its own a href="http://podculture.thepodhotel.com/PodCultureHome/tabid/36/Default.aspx"social networking site/a to help guests find someone for dinner, drinks, shopping or whatever. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/tribecca_grand_istudio_t.jpg'/img: Photo courtesy Tribeca Grand Hotelpstronga href="http://www.tribecagrand.com/"Tribeca Grand Hotel/a, New York/strong /p p With its plush bar and 98-seat a href="http://www.tribecagrand.com/meetings/grandscreen.htm"screening room/a, the Tribeca Grand is definitely swanky. But book an iStudio and you'll be pampered, Apple-style. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong The a href="http://www.tribecagrand.com/rooms/istudio.htm"iStudio rooms/a. They're decked out with Apple products, including a Power Mac G5, photo- and video-editing software and an iPod. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/woodlyn_park_t.jpg'/img: Photo: a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenr/106085993/"stephenr/Flickr/a pstronga href="http://www.woodlynpark.co.nz/"Woodlyn Park/a, New Zealand/strong /p p Woodlyn Park is home to Billy Black's Kiwi Culture Show, with sheep shearing and a dancing pig. But the real star of the complex is a href="http://www.woodlynpark.co.nz/thehobbitmotel.html"The Hobbit Motel/a, two polystyrene-block units with circular doors built into a hillside. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong You can pretend you're a hobbit. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/ice_hotel_t.jpg'/img: Photo: Ben Nilsson/Big Ben Productionspstronga href="http://www.icehotel.com/"Icehotel/a, Jukkasjärvi, Sweden/strong /p p The Icehotel says it offers "an experience of a lifetime as well as an encounter with art and design that will surprise your senses." Since it's made of ice and snow, that claim sounds perfectly believable. You can book hot or cold accommodations at the Icehotel. Each ice room is designed by an artist, such as the one shown here by Andrea Thomson. Got the shivers? Heat up from the inside out at the a href="http://www.icehotel.com/Content/AbsolutIcebar/"Absolut Icebar/a. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong The ice palace in the Bond flick citeDie Another Day/cite was inspired by this hotel. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/emirates_t.jpg'/img: Photo courtesy Emirates Palace Hotelp stronga href="http://www.emiratespalace.com/en/home/index.htm"Emirates Palace Hotel/a, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates/strong /p p Everything's superdeluxe at this Middle Eastern resort hotel, and it's even better if you step up a notch: All suites boast 61-inch plasma TVs (regular rooms have puny 50-inchers). All guest rooms have handheld computers that control switches and outlets mdash; set your language preference for the interactive screens upon check-in. /p p strongGeek factor:/strong Free WiFi reaches all poolside areas and even the private beach. /p img src='http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2008/12/gallery_geek_hotels/tomo_t.jpg'/img: Photo courtesy Joie de Vivre Hospitalityp stronga href="http://www.jdvhotels.com/tomo/"Hotel Tomo/a, San Francisco/strong /p p From anime-inspired wall paintings to glow-in-the-dark desk blotters, Hotel Tomo kicks out the J-pop jams. See Wired.com's photo gallery on this Japanophile find, "a href="http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/multimedia/2007/09/gallery_hoteltomo/ "San Francisco's Hotel Tomo Jacks Into Japanese Culture/a." /p p strongGeek factor:/strong Deluxe gaming suites come with PlayStation 3, Wii, beanbag chairs and a 6-foot LCD projection screen./pbr style="clear: both;"/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:b75f61bee4a8a86d8109e8bf3c479dea:gdjlmXDagKuvEhGX5ENHbUSG%2Bc5SWOpUdQACXI8Td62ujoup%2B9ehSiohCNtmAuBYPXPh%2Ff%2BAXr1C5A%3D%3D'img border='0' title='Add to Facebook' alt='Add to Facebook' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:91fe3b2e771768819ef417c75c50c9f0:WDe9%2BmQrF2IUfcChjlR2r%2BfmBAfAjT6o6%2FyK9NgvffqOnWRdBJCQmwf%2F4d5iJhcQJ3lXunygaXXf'img border='0' title='Add to Reddit' alt='Add to Reddit' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:1692e3484550dc3dcab6d7af9328db30:DNv9zdmYxFnuBq3XXQl24bmsXn0b%2BJ%2F%2Bl6fOz2vaFFROXPooGiDP0WYqO3KL7Z8bp7rLuyxx9RdL'img border='0' title='Add to digg' alt='Add to digg' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif'//a a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;' href='http://www.pheedo.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:a63bad173c89dcbc37bf8f56ff443099:iGGf%2FxgavkIBWhN5nXayRzORRUKnkiBChOijp28Ea634%2BDN7Xn2hmphrpvSQGumyOpHm%2Bf07CjtM'img border='0' title='Add to Google' alt='Add to Google' src='http://www.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png'//a br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=5fded2fa260612e175c28588afab2f77p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=5fded2fa260612e175c28588afab2f77p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=5fded2fa260612e175c28588afab2f77" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/ pa href="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?a=0YqoMk"img src="http://feeds.wired.com/~a/wired/index?i=0YqoMk" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~4/472101282" height="1" width="1"/

Stray Blog has written about his visit to North Korea's Kaesong City.  His was one of the last tours before North Korea put a stop to cross-border travel.   Stray Blog writes that the North Korean are disadvantaging themselves by this action.

My visit to Kaesong City, North Korea last weekend was timely. This week, relations between North and South Korea took a turn for the worse, and the North responded by canceling any cross-border movement. The unfortunate aspect of this decision is that the overpriced tours made a great deal of revenue for the people of the North. Canceling them is really just a further punishment on North Koreans themselves, who are already struggling to combat a debilitating food shortage. I was fortunate to be able to take one of the last tours of the North for potentially a long time.

Visitors to the country are struck by the lack of advertisement banners and colour as Stray blog observes.

- absence of colour: all of the buildings are very drab, and the people were clothed in primarily dull brown and black jackets. Only some of the children were dressed brightly - usually bright red jackets

Flickr user Kernbeisser has posted images of his earlier journey along the Pyongyang-Hyangsan motorway.

This motorway was planned to connect the capital with the city of Huichon in Jagang Province but the last section was never completed. The completed part which was opened to traffic in 1995 ends rather abruptly in Hyangsan at the entrance to the Myohyang Mountains. So the original “Pyongyang-Huichon Motorway” ended up as “Pyongyang-Hyangsan Tourist Motorway”.

North Korea Economy Watch announces the launch of the website of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (website link). On the website the founder Dr. james Chin-Kyung Kim writes about the motivation behind the institution.

PUST is an experiment to determine if it is possible to train generations of North Korean students-who have been shielded from many international influences-in the technical skills and knowledge required to make positive contributions to a global community undergoing rapid and constant change. PUST will also encourage the students to become aware of the cultural influences that create the differences in international thinking.

In North Korea, you will find people wearning pins (badges) featuring Kim jong Il and Kim Il Sung. These pins are coveted by foreign tourists and hard to get if you are not a North Korean citizen. the bloggers Lianlian Films managed to get one while in North Korea.  They describe how they hold the pin in reverence even when they are abroad.

At the Pyongyang Restaurant in Kathmandu, a North Korean waitresses squealed when shown The Pin - they don't normally wear one in Nepal. The young lady picked it up very carefully, whipped out a piece of tissue and polished the little disc to a shine. Then she took out another piece of tissue and wrapped it up before giving it back. All throughout, she barely spoke a word but the message was clear - The Pin is sacred. Treat with care.

Talking about the North Korean restaurants, there are several of these across East Asia and are official North Korean investments.  In addition to the food, a big attraction of these restaurants are the singing and dancing North Korean staff. 

Here is a clip from one such restaurant in the Cambodian capital city of Phnom Penh.

Each winter the ESPN Winter X Games brings adrenaline-packed competition and cutting-edge sports drama to the slopes in Aspen, Colorado. The 2009 event will mark the 8th consecutive year of competition in Aspen. ResortQuest Aspen/Snowmass offers X Games event lodging at the Inn at Aspen Resort & Conference Center, located at the base of Buttermilk Mountain, the event's home base. (PRWeb Dec 2, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/resortquest-aspen/aspen-xgames/prweb1616484.htm

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/55504?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+Let+there+be+lightch=Art+and+designc3=The+Guardianc4=Architecture%2CEuropean+Union+%28News%29%2CWorld+news%2CCulture+sectionc5=Middle+East+Travel%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CArchitecturec6=Jonathan+Glanceyc7=2008_12_02c8=1127261c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Architecturec13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FArchitecture" width="1" height="1" //divpIf the law were a colour, what would it be? Dominique Perrault, the Parisian architect of the newly reconstructed European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, thinks the answer is gold. Why gold? "Because this is not a criminal court," he says. "It's not a place concerned with prisons and punishments. It's do with relations between European countries, with constitutional concerns. And anyway, I thought the sky over Luxembourg is often so sad that it would be nice, somehow, to catch the sun and bring it here." He's right: when the low, late November sun catches the base of the court's brand new twin towers, they light up like a pair of giant candles. /ppThe European Court of Justice, founded in 1952, is the highest court in the union, with a judge appointed from each member country. Located on top of the Kirchberg plateau, separated from Luxembourg City by a deep ravine, the court was until recently a rather soulless place. Perrault has succeeded in introducing an unexpected playfulness. "I like those cities you find in Spain, Austria or Bavaria," he says, "which have patches of wonderful and unexpected colour - where buildings have been designed to bring some nice architectural weather when conditions are grey." /ppThe Kirchberg plateau forms a sort of latter-day bureaucratic Acropolis. Since the founding of the European Union, this place has been studded with a large number of imposing, if not exactly delightful, EU buildings. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was one of the six founding members of the European Community, and as the EU has expanded, the need for new architecture here has grown. Today, mighty institutions such as the European Investment Bank, housed in a purpose-built 1980s fortress designed by Denys Lasdun (the architect behind the National Theatre), stand next to a new generation of cultural buildings, among them the recently completed Philharmonie concert hall by French architect Christian de Portzamparc, and the new museum of modern art by IM Pei, the Chinese-American architect behind the glass pyramid at the Louvre. This all seems well done, although somewhat worthy and antiseptic./ppAs for the Court of Justice, this had to expand when it was announced that EU membership would increase to 27 countries. Perrault was commissioned to wrap a new building around the existing complex. His brief was not simply to enlarge the court, but to ensure that every one of its 2,000 staff, formerly spread across a huge campus, was housed under one roof. He and his collaborators have doubled the amount of space - and yet the building does not appear twice the size. It feels generous, easy to use, and well crafted - which, given that it cost you, me and everyone else in the EU more than euro;500m, is as it should be. /ppBehind those two pencil-thin gold towers lies a kind of shimmering palace. This is the grand new public plaza, between the towers and the main building, and its interiors are some of the most extraordinary yet created for the EU./ppFrom the main entrance into the building, a ramp leads down to the central court. A dramatic room by any standards, this handsome timber-lined chamber boasts a ceiling straight out of One Thousand and One Nights. Above a great glass screen, a giant gold flower appears to blossom out over the judges' benches and the public viewing gallery. This is in fact a woven steel veil, which floats over the court like an improbably glamorous mosquito net over the bed of a fairytale princess. Well, that's what I saw, anyway. Perrault describes this ceiling as "like a shining Medusa". Perhaps the judges who meet here will make the final ruling on what it is meant to signify./pp"I wanted to create a warm ambience," explains Perrault, "not a confrontational one. I wanted to grab the sun and bring it inside the court. The judges wanted some daylight, but not views out because this might distract them from their deliberations. So I thought of this golden veil, where the light can come in, [where it can be] warm even on a cold day. Then I made the floors and walls in warm wood, and the carpets in purple."/ppThe smaller courtrooms, while less dramatic than the main chamber, are also timber-lined and warmly finished. These are encircled by a new two-storey corridor or internal street of crisp, modern spaces - lobbies, cafes, libraries, judges' chambers. Daylight filters through the building, while the artificial light is playful and imaginative. /ppThe overall impression is of an earnest giant who, despite himself, wants to dress up and play. While Perrault has decked his building in colour and plays of shimmering light, the structure of the remodelled court is logical and perfectly serious. In a way, it reminds me of Barry and Pugin's Palace of Westminster: a mighty parliamentary building for what was once the hub of an empire, garbed in stunning fancy dress, and all the better for it. /ppOutside, the twin 100-metre-high towers are reminiscent of Oscar Niemeyer's National Congress Building in Brasilia. In cityscape terms, they have been designed with the same end in mind - as eyecatchers, architectural focal points to be seen from afar. Perrault's towers will be home to some 600 legal writers from across the EU, whose job it is to ensure that European laws are understood in more than 20 languages. That there are a lot of EU laws is evident in the sheer scale of the towers. /ppDominique Perrault's Court of Justice is a highly unexpected one - though you could argue that we should expect nothing less. Born in Clermont-Ferrand and based in Paris since 1981, the architect made his name with the vast and hugely controversial Bibliothegrave;que Nationale de France, one of President Mitterand's "grands travaux". Rising from what was an industrial wasteland in the 13th arrondissement on the south bank of the Seine, this giant library, known as "la TGB" (Tregrave;s Grande Bibliothegrave;que), is composed of four giant glass towers shaped in the guise of open books set about a plinth. Books are stacked in these towers, while readers gaze out into a sunken garden, planted with evergreen trees. /ppStacking books in glass towers was, to many minds, an odd and even contrary thing to do. Soon after the building opened, wooden screens were placed inside the tower windows to keep the sun at bay. Exotic woods lining the reading rooms were a further source of controversy. Had they come from a sustainable source? What did their use say about a nominally post-imperial France? Despite these concerns, the building remains deeply impressive. Perrault has the knack of somehow combining the role and skills of an architect with those of an art director. His up-and-coming Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, women's university in Seoul and San Pellegrino thermal baths near Bergamo all promise to be cinematic buildings of great daring and adventure. (The latter will look something like a fall oftumbled boulders, seen through a glacier at the foot of a real mountain.)/ppPerrault's designs can be wildly imaginative, and they can be abstractly minimal. He treads his own bold path. With the EU Court of Justice, he has shown us how a rational, highly organised and seemingly matter-of-fact building can be dazzling, even romantic. The law has never looked quite so colourful./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture"Architecture/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/eu"European Union/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/byFTd24JRU4K-V9EvtRELhOjARY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/byFTd24JRU4K-V9EvtRELhOjARY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pEditors note: Marine geophysicist Robin Bell is leading an expedition to Antarctica to explore a mysterious mountain range beneath the ice sheet. Following is the fifth of her updates on the effort as part of ScientificAmerican.coms in-depth report on the quot;Future of the Poles.quot;/ppMcMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA -- In the U.S. Thanksgiving, with the traditional turkey dinner, is held on a Thursday. Here in Antarctica, the festive meal for the 1000 residents of McMurdo is served the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The Saturday holiday provides a rare two-day weekend for a community that works at a grueling pace. This Thanksgiving Saturday brings a howling blizzard up the McMurdo Sound. The lsquo;Turkey Trotrsquo; out onto the sea ice is postponed because of the increasing winds and decreasing visibility. Even our Canadian gravity engineers have been driven away from the survey aircraft. While they were eager to move forward, it seemed imprudent to stay in the canvas-sided building wobbling in the wind. The 50-knot wind is buffeting the sides of the Crary Lab and the normally spectacular view of the Royal Society Mountain Range is gone. The Crary Lab is a modern science building that could be on any university campus except that the front doors look like a walk-in freezer. The blizzard has all the scientists holed up in the Crary Lab. a href=http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=thanksgiving-day-in-antarctica-bliz-2008-12-01[More]/a

Enjoy Newpark Resort's Eco-friendly Luxury At Flat-Rate Prices All Season Long! Newpark Resort & Hotel is Park City's newest lodging destination and is launching the first-ever "Flat-Rate" winter, giving travelers the ultimate reason to book their ski trip in luxury this year. Paving the way for a change in ski resort lodging pricing, beginning Thanksgiving Day they will offer Park City's most affordable pricing all winter long, guaranteeing no price gouging during peak periods, which have historically cost travelers 2- or 3-times as much as their "Flat-Rate". Room rates start as low as $109 per night. Newpark Resort offers travelers the opportunity to experience the environmentally conscious culture branded within Newpark Resort. Conveniently nestled among a nature preserve, Park City's newest retail space, theatres, restaurants and cafes—this eco friendly resort is the premiére choice for a mountain escape. To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/newparkresort/36207/

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Tags : newpark resort hotel flat-rate park city affordable luxury eco-friendly travelers multivu 36207
Envoyé : 01 décembre 2008
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p"A high-concept album gets a high-concept video," we a href="/article/download/49661-the-acorn-flood-pt-1"strongwrote/strong/a when posting the video for "a href="/article/download/44278-the-acorn-flood-pt-1-mp3stream"strongFlood Pt. 1/strong/a", from Ottawa six-piece a href="http://www.myspace.com/theacorn"strongthe Acorn/strong/a's a href="/article/record_review/48751-glory-hope-mountain"strongemGlory Hope Mountain/em/strong/a. The same could be said about the Acorn's new video for "Crooked Legs", again directed/animated by a href="http://www.curiouspictures.com/commercials/directors_mills.html"strongChristopher Mills/strong/a (Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene, Interpol). As Mills' impressive vision shifts from outer space to the path of a firefly-- "I'm guided by fireflies," head Acorn member span Rolf Klausener sings-- we hear plangent folk guitar arpeggios at the center of an increasingly expansive arrangement. Percussion abounds, and eventually Mills follows a bird to a house where the Acorn play their song, bathed in warm, yellowish light./span/p p object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="515" height="405" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" / param name="flashvars" value="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2542/embed.xml" / param name="src" value="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" /embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="515" height="405" src="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2542/embed.xml" allowfullscreen="true"/embed /object /p pPitchfork.tv page with embed code is a href="http://pitchfork.tv/videos/the-acorn-crooked-legs" target="_blank"stronghere/strong/a./p p[fromem Glory Hope Mountain/em; out now on a href="http://paperbagrecords.com/"strongPaper Bag/strong/a]/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/8oyJkkQbhRAKqdMoSfAD3ZtKve8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/8oyJkkQbhRAKqdMoSfAD3ZtKve8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/tLuhKhYTLn8" height="1" width="1"/

coming down the south divide on lookout mountain in sunshine village in banff national park.

Author: rarrbear Keywords: banff sunshine village lookout mountain south divide snowboard ski snow powder Added: December 1, 2008

pThe coming winter sends a href="http://www.theboyleastlikelyto.co.uk/"strongthe Boy Least Likely To/strong/a, like a href="http://pitchfork.tv/videos/pas/cal-summer-is-almost-here"strongPAS/CAL/strong/a, to the beach in this video for new single "a href="/article/download/147727-new-music-the-boy-least-likely-to-the-first-snowflake-stream"strongThe First Snowflake/strong/a". But at first there's no snow on the ground except when the English indie-pop duo write the word in the sand with a stick. Filmed in Scotland, the video takes in vast, verdant landscapes that manage to convey that chilly early-winter feeling when the mercury is falling but the snowflakes aren't, not yet. As the lads wander around with their thermoses, the only perceptible flurry comes from their gentle tune's gusting snow-globe midsection. Then the band members reach a ridge, from which theynbsp; can see a deer and-- yes-- mountains dusted with white. "Snow kept falling/ But no two snowflakes are ever the same," goes the song; a whole lot of uniqueness falls down as the Boy Least Likely To end their journey indoors beside a fireplace./p p object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="500" height="375" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" / param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" / param name="src" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2370030amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=amp;fullscreen=1" /embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="375" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2370030amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=amp;fullscreen=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"/embed /object a href="http://vimeo.com/2370030"br //aa href="http://vimeo.com"/a/p p[from "The First Snowflake" single and a forthcoming album; single due 12/15/08 on stronga href="http://www.tooyoungtodierecords.com/"strongToo Young to Die/strong/a/strong, album due in March on Too Young to Diea href="http://www.tooyoungtodierecords.com/"strong/strong/a in the UK and a href="http://www.plusonemusic.net/"strong+1/strong/a in the U.S.]/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/lU3k6EMq6dSOu3YHknJRz8alnLQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/lU3k6EMq6dSOu3YHknJRz8alnLQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/9cdgoWS18v4" height="1" width="1"/

 

Here's the full interview we conducted recently with Hauschka's Volker Bertelman, a pianist who modifies his instruments with tacks, tape, felt, plastic wrap and other materials to alter its sound for his compositions, attracting fans from indie rock and classical circles alike.

As this interview reveals, Haushka arrived at the idea of modifying pianos on his own, occasionally has his equipment thrown in the trashcan by overzealous cleaning staffs, and plans to do to the orchestra what he has already done to the piano: approaching it as one would a digital audio workstation.

Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired.com: Thanks for taking the time today. I'm very impressed by your music. I didn't know about it until now, but I really enjoyed it.

Volker Bertelman, Hauschka: Thanks a lot for that.

Wired.com: My father is a pianist, and when I was growing up, I was a boy soprano singer. I was in "Ancient Voices of Children," the George Crumb piece...

Bertelman: Right...

Wired.com: And so I saw my dad messing around in the piano a little bit, just with his hands. But I'm not too familiar with prepared pianos. How did you first encounter the prepared piano?

Bertelman: When I was a boy around the age of ten... I put some all these little metal pins that you use to pin up paper... I put tons of those in the hammers of the piano, just to use it as a kind of harpsichord, because I had no money to buy a synthesizer at that time. And so I tried to figure out how I could change -- slightly -- the sound of the piano. My mom didn't like it very much, so I got away from that, but I remember now that I did that. Finally, in 2004, I recorded my first Hauschka record. My aim was to make a record with little short piano pieces, and I went to the Welsh mountains. My friends had a piano there. While I was recording these pieces, I thought I needed some more sounds to use, but I always had it in mind to perform live shows, and was aware of the fact that I don't want to go on tour with a big band and I didn't want to use a laptop.

Hauschka - "Blue Bicycle" (MP3):

So I had the idea to invent some stuff on the strings, to get a kind of electronic sound on top of the piano sound, and that's actually where the whole thing started. I found out that paper sounds like a high hat, and then I used beer bottle caps, three of them, on one rope, and they sounded suddenly like a tambourine. So I had on certain tones a tambourine, and then I had some high hats, so I was thinking in a kind of band arrangement, you know?

Wired.com: Mmm hmm.

Bertelman: And slowly, I discovered more preparations that I could use. At concerts, people [started] bringing me little pieces that I can use, that they think can sound very well. So I'm getting more and more involved with materials.

Wired.com: Is there a way to categorize the modifications? Is it like, things that bounce and things that tamp the volume, or is it just a near infinite amount of possibility?

Bertelman: There are two different ways. One is, you put material on top of the strings that are bouncing or vibrating on top of the strings, so they are resonant on top of the string... If I'm playing an upright, it is different, because they are swinging, but if I'm playing a grand piano they are just flipping. So there is the piano tone plus vibration, which is one thing. And then I am using, for example, tape -- like duct tape. With that, you can change the envelope of the tones. You can tamp them, or you can make them shorter -- they sound just like pizzicato strings. I'm also using these felt things that piano tuners use to mute the note, you are familiar with that?

Wired.com: Yes.

Bertelman: It's just things that you just clamp between the two strings to mute them. With that, they get a very, very short tone, and very percussive. So I would say these two things I'm using at the moment. But there's more stuff coming on top of that. I'm using e-bows, which are normally used for electric guitar. Are you familiar with those?

Wired.com: Oh yes.

Bertelman: I'm using those on the piano, and they are great, because they create a kind of patch. I have a constant tone and can play on top of that. And I'm actually developing at the moment  a couple of different machines, where I'm using little motors to have more of a constant vibration in the piano so that I can create carpets of sound.

Wired.com: Incredible.

Bertelman: The more you work with it, the more you want to have different options, and the more you don't want to use other instruments. Just using this one, you get deeper and deeper into the instrument and what you can do with it. The piano offers, I would say, all the options that you would want to have.

Wired.com: In your playing right now, how many effects typically will be happening in the piano during one piece?

Bertelman: During one performance of one track, I'm using maybe around 20, 25 different preparations, all over the keys. I would say a third of the piano is piano sound, and the rest is manipulated.

Wired.com: Do you have to make changes in between pieces? I've seen some videos on YouTube, but they never show in-between.

Bertelman: You should look on iTunes, I have a podcast there [iTunes link]... I explain the material, what I am using, what is creating what sound, so you can have a look at what I'm doing... Normally, I improvise my whole show. I have to work with a different room, I have to work with a different piano, then I have to prepare the piano. I have some standard notes that I prepare. But I have to change a lot of things, and I like changing [the piano] between tracks. I like to take things out, put things back in, so that the sound of each track may be slightly different. Or sometimes I just stay with the preparations because it's quite nice to get into the preparation of a piano. You discover, very slowly, where the best part of the piano is. It's like every piano has a certain part where it resonates in a very nice way. And you find this area of the piano during your performance.

Wired.com: So, [you make adjustments] during the performance. I was picturing that you show up the day before or something.

Bertelman: No -- actually, there is not much time for that. I'm trying to find the strong parts of the piano at the soundcheck, but you can't play too long during the soundcheck -- otherwise your arms are falling off as you're performing. I'm trying to find the spaces where things work -- there and there and there -- to play. Then I... develop something around whatever -- the bass part, or some pianos have a very nice brightness in the high notes, so I work on that. There are different ways of exploring a piano.

Wired.com: I posted your "Blue Bicycle" piece on Wired, and read that that was improvised. There were some other players on it. I'm wondering what the mix is on a song like that; I imagine that you come up with a few forms first and then elaborate. Or is it 100 percent improvisation?

Bertelman: I always started my shows with a kind of warm-up, because you have to warm up your fingers. You have to find a spot where you just try to train your fingers on the first track. And "Blue Bicycle" I used for warming up my fingers [alarm sound]... When I was in the studio with those two cello players, I just told them that we might play this one as a kind of warm-up. We sat down together, and I started carrying on with it, and in the end this was one of the nicest tracks that we created. It's just one take -- we recorded that, I mixed it, and that was it. There were no notes involved, no conversations about structure, or we want to go down there or we want to go up there. It's more like meeting each other and hearing each other, stepping back, going forward, just a proper improvisation.

Wired.com: It's interesting what you said about hearing each other. Because I play music, and sometimes you try to improvise, and you realize nobody's listening to anybody, and it's terrible.

Bertelman: You're totally right. I'm very happy that I found those two cello players, because they... already played together for ten years, but never recorded a record or anything. They were just teaching in my hometown. I just discovered their music, and was totally amazed because it was so similar to what I'm doing that I thought, "we have to come together." When I play shows with them now, a lot of people think the same -- they think we are quite in the same kind of area with our compositions. And they are so strong by themselves that you could just listen to them and it's great, you know? So we're very lucky about that.

Wired.com: Who is your audience? Your publicist said [the music reviews site] Pitchfork writes about you, and classical publications as well. So how would you describe your audience, is it a mix of both types of people?

Bertelman: So far, wherever I play, people are surprised. When I'm playing in front of an indie audience, people are just discovering more classical music. And when I play in front of a classical audience, people are surprised by how experimental a piano concert can be. I would say my audience is an audience that is open for discovering things. What's also interesting is that there's a huge range of age. There are young people and also older people coming to my show. In New York last year, there was this older lady... she really liked it, and I have the same sort of thing [happen] in Germany. I'm very surprised that there are old people, but at the same time there are very young people -- like, 18 -- and they think I'm a freak, you know?

Wired.com: (Laughs)

Bertelman: I don't feel that at all. I'm just trying to be practical.

Wired.com: You're on tour right now... do you have to bring all the modifications with you, or do you just find different tacks...

Bertelman: I bring my stuff with me, but lots of times I lose a bunch of stuff. Like, people are putting it in the garbage because they think it's stupid... it's quite weird to have material that everybody thinks is just garbage. But the good thing about it is that it's very easy to replace. There are not many things where I have to look in the city for a long time to find those things. A lot of them are very simple things that I can found in every household.

Wired.com: That's a good idea.

Bertelman: Yeah.

Wired.com: I was a stage manager once, and the concertmaster had a half a million dollar Stradivarius. I was yelled at for just moving it. Imagine if I threw it out.

Bertelman: Yeah, that's horrible.

Wired.com: I appreciate your situation, because that must be frustrating [having your equipment thrown out]... Well, this is just so interesting to me. It's beautiful music with great ideas behind it -- I love the modifying of the piano. Are you going to keep going with the piano? Do you think there's a lot more experiments to be done?

Bertelman: I want to go more to the extreme of the piano, but also to carry on my plans of disappearing in my compositions... When I feel I've said everything with the prepared piano, maybe I'll stop. But I feel on the one side, to experiment more with the very extreme sides of preparation, and on the other side I would love to compose more... for orchestra or for quartets. Which I really think can work. Especially, to transform my prepared piano sound onto an orchestra is quite an experiment that I want to do.

Wired.com: Wow... what an interesting thing. The different voices of your piano [preparations] right onto an orchestra. That would be cool.

Bertelman: Yeah -- also the function... I have a couple of functions in my head, and I would try to transform that to instrument groups. I have already an idea of how my orchestra would look. It wouldn't be the typical symphonic orchestra... a lot of things are in my head, but I have to pin them down.

Wired.com: You mean, like, arranged differently [physically], or different instruments? What do you mean by a different orchestra?

Bertelman: Well, I would place them differently. I would put them into groups of instruments, like four separate mini-orchestras, and they play different functions in the music that I'm writing. You have instruments that are playing pads, other instruments playing a rhythm, like drum machines or something like that, where I arrange them as a drum machine, so that they have different functions. I'm thinking more of units.

Wired.com: So you might have violins in each section, which create different voices on the whole?

Bertelman: Yeah, exactly, and different functionality... in the same way that my piano music works, so some are just having only improvisation parts and others are arranged... I like always both.

Wired.com: Well, I will try to keep paying attention, now that I know, and I hope to see that someday.

Bertelman: You will, you will. You can be sure about that.

Hauschka recently completed a small US tour in support of the recently-released Ferndorf, which can be streamed free courtesy of Fat Cat Records.

Hauschka - "Freibad" (MP3):

See Also:

• FatCat Records Reaches out to Classical Fans
• He Met The Walrus: Animated Lennon Interview
• Difference Engine: An Interview With Neil Halstead
• Derek Sivers: Life After CD Baby
• Interview: Peter Rojas of RCRD LBL
• Listening Post Discusses Digital Music on NPR's 'Fresh Air'
• Herbie Hancock On Apple, Breakdancing, and Buddhism

Concert photo: Tim LeGuijt; waving photo: MySpace; inside piano photo: Glen Johnson; Bertelman playing prepared upright piano: MySpace