14! 21! Vivaldi + Pachelbel’s Canon. Lose yourself in glorious ecstatic music!

Vivaldi Tribute, played by Tina (14 y.o.), played on her Vigier Excalibur, taught and filmed by her teacher Renaud Louis-Servais ( http://www.youtube.com/renaudls )
"Presto" is the 3d movement from Antonio Vivaldi's "Summer", from the "Four Seasons".This version is an extract from Patrick Rondat's guitar adaptation in his "Amphibia" album (1996).

and while we’re in guitar hero mode, an almost historic (2005/8!) intertubes sensation – Funtwo (click this link for his website) plays Pachelbel’s canon. His real name is Jeong-Hyun Lim from Seoul, Korea. Lim's video is the fifty-sixth most viewed and tenth most favourited video on YouTube, as of June 26, 2011, with over 90 million views and counting.

And here’s how he has refined it by 2012. Probably this doesn’t quite have the raw edge of the original.

and the original "classic" version

 

No title necessary

 
On the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Blue Marble’ photograph taken of Earth from space, Planetary Collective presents a short film documenting astronauts’ life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside – a perspective-altering experience often described as the Overview Effect. Worth going directly to Vimeo for to see the full sized video.

The “overview effect”, that the astronauts talk about, was pretty much predicted by Theodore L. Thomas, in a short story in “Astounding”, in August 1956 edition – before man had even been to space for the first time. The title of this was “The Far Look”. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be available on the web.

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

Goody versus baddies plus spirit of humanity

Here is a very funny spoof documentary from globalwitness.org. Click this link for the full story starring Bill Oddie as a naturalist exploring the territory of that not-quite-human species, the feral banker (homo fatuscatus).
Bill got evicted from the bank while filming.



And here, just because I like it and we see the Earth in all its magnificence, is the viral (6.5 million views since yesterday) of Commander Chris Hadfield in the ISS singing modified lyrics to David Bowie’s Space Oddity

Aqua Lung Ocean Wings +

Flying under water. Reminiscent of the post I did with the under water wheelchair (Not the Paralympics), here’s the latest from the inventive French. I will do more environmental posts soon, I promise….

 

They glide downwards using the “wing” and ballast and use a gas bottle buoyancy device to get back to the surface; have a look at http://www.guillaumebinard.com/gallery/oceanwings/

Aqua Lung Oceanwings / The underwater human flight experience

And now, in complete contrast to the former dreamy sequence, here is the latest wing suit mayhem. Don’t get confused by the smoke – it’s not jet propulsion à la Yves (Jetman) Rossy - it’s 1) so one we can see their track better and 2) so they can see each other better as they manoeuvre in narrow spaces at very high speeds.

Dream Lines IV - Wingsuit proximity by Ludovic Woerth & Jokke Sommer

Perspective, Giddiness and Magic

This wonderful video was shot a few days ago in New Zealand. It shows the Moon rising in real-time - this is not a time lapse – over Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, N.Z.

Take four minutes out of your day to watch this and wonder at the dance of the planetary spheres in the dark of space, and sense how small we are. Feel giddy!

Source: NASA http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130130.html