It’s funny how a song can completely change in your mind once you actually pay attention to its lyrics. One such example is the 1979 song “Escape” by Rupert Holmes. This song is mostly perceived as romantic, mainly because of its chorus:

If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape
I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape

I, for one, never payed much attention to the rest of the lyrics and therefore was just another person that associated this song with a romantic setting (as it is used in general in pop culture).

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Most people won’t remember about Captain power and the soldiers of the future, but since I grew up in the 80’s, I have some great memories of this show. If you don’t know the show or simply want to refresh your memory, here’s the intro:

Sure, it looks rubbish now but you have to look at it with the eyes of a small kid from the 80’s who didn’t have that much to watch on TV.

My favourite character was Major Matthew ‘Hawk’ Masterson because he was the one that could fly. I remember sticking a set-square with some rubber bands in the back of one of my G.I. Joe action figures to emulate this great character.

I wonder what TV shows my sons will watch know that will look completely dumb 30 years from now. My money is on Uncle Grandpa (hint: it’s already a dumb show).

Buddy Rich is well-known as one of the greatest big band and jazz drummers of all time. His technique was simply amazing and listening to any of his performances is just a pleasure. I have an electric drum set (so as to not piss off the neighbours while practicing) and love to pretend that I’m able to keep up with any of his songs. There are some easy ones that I can actually play (because the emphasis is on the other instruments of the big band), but most are just incredibly difficult.

But there’s one song in particular that always leaves me floored. The live performance of The Nitty Gritty:

Click here to listen to the performance

I’ve always been a fan of podcasts ever since I bought my first iPod (which is now over a decade ago), because I’m able to listen to them anywhere while doing other things (like driving, cooking, etc.). And the world of podcasting content has only gotten better. In the past few years, podcasts have gain more notoriety and stopped being viewed as that niche media that only geeks use. They have become massive online repositories of interesting audio content, specially after major radio broadcasting networks have adhered to this format so intensively.

But one of the things that I like the most about podcasts is the freedom they give to content creators to go back to one of the most interesting features that radio broadcasting used to have: telling smaller less-known stories about individuals or places that you may not have heard before. And I’ve been focusing more on listening this kind of podcasts.

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… is to drink the “perfect martini” as he himself describes it.

Living in the shadow of the great Sean Connery meant that many didn’t consider him a worthy James Bond, but he sure made the 70’s and 80’s Bond look cool (and very much entertaining). He’s the first Bond I watched and therefore he embodied that persona in my head. It hasn’t until a few years later (when my father told me that there were other actors impersonating this British spy) that I became acquainted with these other iterations of the enigmatic “Bond, James Bond” character. But at that time, the Roger Moore’s take on James Bond had already stuck in my head and everything else felt short in comparison.

So, it’s sad to see him go, but it’s a good thing that he left this great body of work for all of us to enjoy.

R.I.P. Mr. Moore. Now you can drink as many martinis as you want.

I don’t usually care about in-flight entertainment, since I carefully plan what I’ll be watching, reading or working on during flights and I pre-pack my laptop and kindle with the necessary stuff. However, last week I was travelling to Angola and the plane I was in had one of those neat in-flight entertainment systems per seat and I decided to try it. It was packed full of movies, tv shows and music and since I had a few hours to kill, I decided to watch a couple of movies (and maybe doze off until arrival).

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Every time I see a video where Apollo Robbins, a well-known master pickpocket artist, shows his skills I’m fascinated by the way he manages to fool the mind of his unsuspected victims.

In this TED talk he gives us a glimpse on how this is as much a work of physical misdirection as it is of cognitive misdirection. And please watch it ’till the very end. Your jaw will drop as you yourself become a “victim” of his misdirection techniques.

If you want to know more about Apollo and how he came to be this magnificent artist, read this great article in The New Yorker.

I’ve recently watched two movies that are quite different but equally great. I just feel I should share them with you:

Click here to read on…

I thought about creating different ways to control a toy car in a race track, instead of the typical handheld joystick-like device. One of those ideas was based on the use of a sonar (that measures distance to an object) as the controller for the car – the closer the hand to the sonar, the highest the acceleration.

However, considering that the sonar works through eco-location and that the track makes an infernal sound, the sonar accuracy is affected by the sound of the track, thus rendering this approach useless.

Any alternative ideas? I will try the best one (as long as it is not cost-prohibitive) 🙂

When I was a kid, I used to do these spinning paintings using a small motor (salvaged from a broken toy car) connected a 9V battery with a piece of paper on top. The effect was mesmerizing and I had fun for hours.

Last week, given the amount of hardware I gutted for parts (for a digital fabrication workshop), I ended up with a bunch of different motors and that brought back those memories. So, I decided to do the same setup again, this time using an arduino (to easily control the speed given to the motor) to see if my son would find it as amusing as I did.

Check the video for a demo:

Click here to see more details