Ponzio, 35, was reported missing after he was last seen on Tuesday November 15.

The police statement says that police received a call on Saturday November 19, shortly before 5 pm reporting the discovery of a body in a room of the Balmoral Hotel in the 100 block East Hastings. There were no visible signs of trauma, but police are treating the death as suspicious.

Vancouver police are asking for anyone that might have seen Ponzio in the days or hours leading up to the discovery of his body to contact Major Crime investigators at 604-717-2500 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 .

Ponzio’s death came as a shock to well-known Vancouver guitarist Don Alder, who said he was surprised to hear Ponzio was found dead in a DTES rooming house.

He said he never knew Ponzio to have any addiction problems and wondered if something might have happened in his personal life that led him to be in a room at the Balmoral Hotel.

“Being an artist, he’s sensitive, so I wonder if something happened at home,” said Alder, adding he knew Ponzio had a girlfriend and a young daughter whom he was devoted to.

“He passionately loved his daughter,” said Alder.

“Every time I’ve seen him he was positive. He was very much a cheerer. He would get people [other musicians] together and be really positive.”

Alder described Ponzio as a “working man’s artist” who also enjoyed street busking besides playing open mikes at various clubs in Vancouver.

“He had the potential to be something great, and because of the win he had, he was starting to get larger exposure,” said Alder, referring to Ponzio’s winning Shore FM’s song-search contest in August for his song For the People.

Alder said he first met Ponzio five years ago at the Anza Club, where both were performing.

“I fell in love with his voice. He could [have been] a back-up singer for Sting. He’s such a sweetheart of a guy. Very supportive of everyone. Not afraid to acknowledge other people’s talents,” he said.

“It’s a sad, sad thing.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Missing+Vancouver+musician+Randy+Ponzio+found+dead/5740776/story.html#ixzz1eIgGNV1g

YMCMB’s newest member

These celebs have to be extra careful!!! No nookie on the road…

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Shot for the worldwide 11/11/11 timelapse project – 1day6cities.

So much going on – and this was on the quietest day of the week!

Copyright Gerald Donovan 2011
@gerald_d

http://08.ae

All rights reserved. No reproduction anywhere without permission.

Thanks Robert and Tai

(Audio is Out of the Darkness by Paul Mottram)
Category:
Film & Animation
Tags:
timelapse Dubai UAE Skyscraper 24 hours 24 Burj Khalifa Dubai Mall Dubai Fountain 111111 11/11/11 1day6cities

Megaphone from RACOON_STUDIO on Vimeo.

MegaPhone by Ene&is. A pretty piece.
“Passive Amplifier for iphone made of ceramic. the form is designed to amplify and optimize the best sound output. the amplifier is based on a thin wooden frame that allows the object to float off the table. this in order to increase the vibration of the object and to optimize the emission of sound. designed for the iPhone is perfect for listening music without headphones, for audio conference to hear the person on the phone as live voice.”

The 25-ton, 70 foot long Midnight Rider is the world’s heaviest limousine, according the the Guinness Book of World Records. Technically a “Tractor-Trailer Limousine,” it was built between 1997 and 2004. The Midnight Rider is based in Southern California and licensed to travel throughout the USA—at least roads wide enough to accommodate its 48-foot turning radius.

The Midnight Rider is the only vehicle of its kind with more than 90 percent of its 4,200 parts fabricated in-house. Its trailer employs an H-frame stainless-steel construction with 1400 aircraft-quality welds and an aluminum belt sixteen times thicker than conventional big-rigs—creating a solid and safe frame that surrounds the 416 square feet of interior party space. A 435 HP Peterbilt 379 tractor provides the towing power while the rig’s 22 wheels and over-sized brakes keep this mammoth mobile disco in check. Drawing current from a pair of on-board generators, its double-redundancy electrical system powers the limo’s 3.2 million candlepower worth of exterior lights.

The limo’s interior is modeled after Presidential Pullman Cars from the 1870′s—that is, heavy on the mirrored wood and polished brass—and seats 40 spread among three separate lounge areas, each with its own bar, big screen and phones. It costs $1000 per hour to rent but does include a crew of five: two drivers, a hostess, an operations specialist and a bartender.

It’s amazing how human-like this guy is now. Honda has improved Asimo from its stair climbing days to now be able to understand different voices, recognize faces and respond to movement around it. Most importantly, Asimo can move on its own (it no longer needs an operator). Honda says that Asimo’s intelligence and abilities have been upgraded tenfold, its top speed is 2mph faster at 5.6 mph and its new dexterous fingers can be even used for sign language. All this sounds awesome but if we can add an Asimo to every bar, I’d totally be down with that.-gizmodo.com

The clip, seen in real time, reveals only a streak of light flashing across the sky. But freeze framing the clip definitely shows some kind of aircraft, with multiple flashing lights and a spherical shape, as it whizzes by at extremely fast speed.

The object is clearly not a meteor as its trajectory swoops, first straight to the ground, then angling back up into the sky. The stop-motion framing clearly shows a controlled flight of an aircraft, but it’s not easy to identify it as any known kind.

Here is the video clip. As the announcers set the scene between the Colts and Saints on a beautifully clear evening in New Orleans, the camera is trained on the sky just over the stadium. The object whizzes past without being noticed by the TV crew.

At one minute in to the clip, this viewer, calling himself reedickyaluss, freeze frames the video at several points in its progress and one frame clearly shows an unusual aircraft with flashing lights.

What do you think? Is this a UFO, or just a known type of aircraft?

YMCMB IN HAWAII from DERICK G on Vimeo.

Filmed by Derick G

FUNNY! Enjoy!

If you watch the video, you can hear Campbell repeatedly ask the police if “this is okay?”. I think it’s safe to assume that Campbell was verifying with the police if it was okay to film them and if he was at a proper distance from the police line. He asks this question multiple times before continuing to film. Hearing nothing back, Campbell films the rest of the police line at a respectable distance until… he gets shot by an asshole police officer. What the hell? You can see the rubber bullet (bean bag? another projectile?) being fired and hitting Campbell in the video.

Look, I can understand why police presence might be necessary at these events. Maybe things get out of hand? Maybe fights break out? Maybe just maybe it’s supposed to increase the peace? Whatever. But I can’t for the life of me see how it was necessary for that police officer to so blatantly abuse his power and attack a man who was merely documenting Occupy Oakland.

The evidence in this video is damning and it’s complete bullshit. This police officer needs to own up to what he did.

Tyler the Creator — the guy who won the 2011 MTV VMA for “Best New Artist” — took a serious blow to the head last night when someone from the crowd fired a bottle at the rapper during a concert…and connected.

TMZ Reports:

Tyler was performing in Austin, TX — when some idiot (with one hell of an arm) launched the projectile from the crowd … and it struck T.T.C. right near his eye.

One member of Tyler’s crew immediately fired a water bottle back in the direction of the culprit — and moments later, Tyler and the rest of his crew stormed into the crowd to hunt for the bad guy.

No word if Tyler suffered any injuries in the attack — and so far, it’s unclear if the crew ever found the bottle-thrower … but it probably wasn’t pretty if they did.

Anderson Silva
Burger King
Mega BK

Anderson Silva
Burger King
Mega BK

Anderson Silva
Burger King
Mega BK

Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks brings our attention to Charles Bonnet syndrome — when visually impaired people experience lucid hallucinations. He describes the experiences of his patients in heartwarming detail and walks us through the biology of this under-reported phenomenon.

We see with the eyes. But we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination. And we are familiar with the landscapes of our own imagination, our inscapes. We’ve lived with them all our lives. But there are also hallucinations as well. And hallucinations are completely different. They don’t seem to be of our creation. They don’t seem to be under our control. They seem to come from the outside, and [seem] to mimic perception.

So I am going to be talking about hallucinations. And a particular sort of visual hallucination which I see among my patients. A few months ago I got a phone call from a nursing home where I work. They told me that one of the residents, an old lady in her 90s, was seeing things. And they wondered if she’d gone bonkers. Or, because she was an old lady, whether she’d had a stroke, or whether she had Alzheimer’s.

And so they asked me if I would come and see Rosalie, the old lady. I went in to see her. It was evident straight away that she was perfectly sane and lucid and of good intelligence. But she’d been very startled, and very bewildered because she’d been seeing things. And she told me — the nurses hadn’t mentioned this — that she was blind, that she had been completely blind, from macular degeneration, for five years. But now, for the last few days, she’d been seeing things.

So I said, “What sort of things?” And she said, “People in Eastern dress, in drapes, walking up and down stairs. A man who turns towards me and smiles. But he has huge teeth on one side of his mouth. Animals too. I see a white building. It’s snowing, a soft snow. I see this horse, with a harness, dragging the snow away. Then, one night, the scene changes. I see cats and dogs walking towards me. They come to a certain point and then stop. Then it changes again. I see a lot of children. They are walking up and down stairs. They wear bright colors, rose and blue, like Eastern dress.”

Sometimes, she said, before the people come on she may hallucinate pink and blue squares on the floor, which seem to go up to the ceiling. I said, “Is this like a dream?” And she said, “No, it’s not like a dream. It’s like a movie.” She said, “It’s got color. It’s got motion. But it’s completely silent, like a silent movie.” And she said that it’s a rather boring movie. She said, “All these people with Eastern dress, walking up and down, very repetitive, very limited.” (Laughter)

And she has a sense of humor. She knew it was a hallucination. But she was frightened. She’d lived 95 years and she’d never had a hallucination before. She said that the hallucinations were unrelated to anything she was thinking or feeling or doing. That they seemed to come on by themselves, or disappear [by themselves]. She had no control over them. She said she didn’t recognize any of the people or places in the hallucinations. And none of the people or the animals, well, they all seemed oblivious of her. And she didn’t know what was going on. She wondered if she was going mad, or losing her mind.

Well, I examined her carefully. She was a bright old lady. Perfectly sane. She had no medical problems. She wasn’t on any medications which could produce hallucinations. But she was blind. And I then said to her, “I think I know what you have.” I said, “There is a special form of visual hallucination which may go with deteriorating vision, or blindness.” “This was originally described,” I said, “back in the 18th century, by a man called Charles Bonnet. And you have Charles Bonnet syndrome. There is nothing wrong with your brain. There is nothing wrong with your mind. You have Charles Bonnet syndrome.”

And she was very relieved at this, that there was nothing seriously the matter, and also rather curious. She said, “Who is this Charles Bonnet?” She said, “Did he have them himself?” And she said, “Tell all the nurses that I have Charles Bonnet syndrome.” (Laughter) “I’m not crazy. I’m not demented. I have Charles Bonnet syndrome.” Well, so I did tell the nurses.

Now this, for me, is a common situation. I work in old-age homes, largely. I see a lot of elderly people who are hearing impaired or visually impaired. About 10 percent of the hearing impaired people get musical hallucinations. And about 10 percent of the visually impaired people get visual hallucinations. You don’t have to be completely blind, only sufficiently impaired.

Now with the original description in the 18th century, Charles Bonnet did not have them. His grandfather had these hallucinations. His grandfather was a magistrate, an elderly man. He’d had cataract surgery. His vision was pretty poor. And in 1759 he described to his grandson various things he was seeing.

The first thing he said was he saw a handkerchief in midair. It was large blue handkerchief with four orange circles. And he knew it was a hallucination. You don’t have handkerchiefs in midair. And then he saw a big wheel in midair. But sometimes he wasn’t sure whether he was hallucinating or not. Because the hallucinations would fit in the context of the visions. So on one occasion, when his granddaughters were visiting them, he said, “And who are these handsome young men with you?” And they said, “Alas, Grandpapa, there are no handsome young men.” And then the handsome young men disappeared. It’s typical of these hallucinations that they may come in a flash and disappear in a flash. They don’t usually fade in and out. They are rather sudden. And they change suddenly.

Charles Lullin, the grandfather, saw hundreds of different figures, different landscapes of all sorts. On one occasion he saw a man in a bathrobe smoking a pipe, and realized it was himself. That was the only figure he recognized. On one occasion when he was walking in the streets of Paris, he saw — this was real — a scaffolding. But when he got back home he saw a miniature of the scaffolding six inches high, on his study table. This repetition of perception is sometimes called palinopsia.

With him, and with Rosalie, what seems to be going on — and Rosalie said, “What’s going on?” — and I said that as you lose vision, as the visual parts of the brain are no longer getting any input, they become hyperactive and excitable. And they start to fire spontaneously. And you start to see things. The things you see can be very complicated indeed.

With another patient of mine, who, [like Charles Lullin, still] had some vision, the vision she had could be disturbing. On one occasion she said she saw a man in a striped shirt in a restaurant. And he turned around. And then he divided into six identical figures in striped shirts, who started walking towards her. And then the six figures came together again, like a concertina. Once, when she was driving, or rather, her husband was driving, the road divided into four. And she felt herself going simultaneously up four roads.

She had very mobile hallucinations as well. A lot of them had to do with a car. Sometimes she would see a teenage boy sitting on the hood of the car. He was very tenacious and he moved rather gracefully when the car turned. And then when they came to a stop, the boy would do a sudden vertical take off, 100 foot in the air, and then disappear.

Another patient of mine had a different sort of hallucination. This was a woman who didn’t have trouble with her eyes, but the visual parts of her brain. A little tumor in the occipital cortex. And, above all, she would see cartoons. These cartoons would be transparent and would cover half the visual field, like a screen. And especially she saw cartoons of Kermit the Frog. (Laughter) Now, I don’t watch Sesame Street. But she made a point of saying, “Why Kermit?” She said, “Kermit the Frog means nothing to me. You know, I was wondering about Freudian determinants. Why Kermit? Kermit the Frog means nothing to me.”

She didn’t mind the cartoons too much. But what did disturb her was she got very persistent images or hallucinations of faces and as with Rosalie, the faces were often deformed, with very large teeth, or very large eyes. And these frightened her. Well, what is going on with these people? As a physician, I have to try and define what’s going on, and to reassure people. Especially to reassure them that they’re not going insane.

Something like 10 percent, as I said, of visually impaired people get these. But no more than one percent of the people acknowledge them. Because they are afraid they will be seen as insane, or something. And if they do mention them to their own doctors they may be misdiagnosed.

In particular, the notion is that if you see things or hear things, you’re going mad. But the psychotic hallucinations are quite different. Psychotic hallucinations, whether they are visual or vocal, they address you. They accuse you. They seduce you. They humiliate you. They jeer at you. You interact with them. There is none of this quality of being addressed with these Charles Bonnet hallucinations. There is a film. You’re seeing a film which has nothing to do with you. Or that’s how people think about it.

There is also a rare thing called temporal lobe epilepsy. And sometimes, if one has this, one may feel oneself transported back to a time and place in the past. You’re at a particular road junction. You smell chestnuts roasting. You hear the traffic. All the senses are involved. And you’re waiting for your girl. And it’s that Tuesday evening back in 1982. And the temporal lobe hallucinations are all multisensory hallucinations, full of feeling, full of familiarity, located in space and time, coherent, dramatic. The Charles Bonnet ones are quite different.

So in the Charles Bonnet hallucinations, you have all sorts of levels, from the geometrical hallucinations, the pink and blue squares the woman had, up to quite elaborate hallucinations with figures and especially faces. Faces, and sometimes deformed faces, are the single commonest thing in these hallucinations. And one of the second commonest is cartoons.

So, what is going on? Fascinatingly, in the last few years, it’s been possible to do functional brain imagery, to do fMRI on people as they are hallucinating. And in fact, to find that different parts of the visual brain are activated as they are hallucinating. When people have these simple geometrical hallucinations, the primary visual cortex is activated. This is the part of the brain which perceives edges and patterns. You don’t form images with your primary visual cortex.

When images are formed, a higher part of the visual cortex is involved in the temporal lobe. And in particular, one area of the temporal lobe is called the fusiform gyrus. And it’s known that if people have damage in the fusiform gyrus, they maybe lose the ability to recognize faces. But if there is an abnormal activity in the fusiform gyrus, they may hallucinate faces. And this is exactly what you find in some of these people. There is an area in the anterior part of this gyrus where teeth and eyes are represented. And that part of the gyrus is activated when people get the deformed hallucinations.

There is another part of the brain which is especially activated when one sees cartoons. It’s activated when one recognizes cartoons, when one draws cartoons, and when one hallucinates them. It’s very interesting that that should be specific. There are other parts of the brain which are specifically involved with the recognition and hallucination of buildings and landscapes.

Around 1970 it was found that there were not only particular parts of the brain [involved], but particular cells. “Face cells” were discovered around 1970. And now we know that there are hundreds of other sorts of cells, which can be very very specific. So you may not only have “car” cells, you may have “Aston Martin” cells. (Laughter) I saw an Aston Martin this morning. I had to bring it in. And now it’s in there somewhere. (Laughter)

Now, at this level, in what’s called the inferotemporal cortex, there are only visual images, or figments or fragments. It’s only at higher levels that the other senses join in and there are connections with memory and emotion. And in the Charles Bonnet syndrome you don’t go to those higher levels. You’re in these levels of inferior visual cortex where you have thousands and tens of thousands and millions of images, or figments, or fragmentary figments, all neurally encoded, in particular cells or small clusters of cells.

Normally these are all part of the integrated stream of perception, or imagination. And one is not conscious of them. It is only if one is visually impaired, or blind, that the process is interrupted. And instead of getting normal perception, you’re getting an anarchic, convulsive stimulation, or release, of all of these visual cells, in the inferotemporal cortex. So, suddenly you see a face. Suddenly you see a car. Suddenly this, and suddenly that. The mind does its best to organize, and to give some sort of coherence to this. But not terribly successfully.

When these were first described it was thought that they could be interpreted like dreams. But in fact people say, “I don’t recognize the people. I can’t form any associations.” “Kermit means nothing to me.” You don’t get anywhere thinking of them as dreams.

Well, I’ve more or less said what I wanted. I think I just want to recapitulate and say this is common. Think of the number of blind people. There must be hundreds of thousands of blind people who have these hallucinations, but are too scared to mention them. So this sort of thing needs to be brought into notice, for patients, for doctors, for the public. Finally, I think they are infinitely interesting, and valuable, for giving one some insight as to how the brain works.

Charles Bonnet said, 250 years ago — he wondered how, thinking these hallucinations, how, as he put it, the theater of the mind could be generated by the machinery of the brain. Now, 250 years later, I think we’re beginning to glimpse how this is done. Thanks very much.

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: That was superb. Thank you so much. You speak about these things with so much insight and empathy for your patients. Have you yourself experienced any of the syndromes you write about?

Oliver Sacks: I was afraid you’d ask that. (Laughter) Well, yeah, a lot of them. And actually I’m a little visually impaired myself. I’m blind in one eye, and not terribly good in the other. And I see the geometrical hallucinations. But they stop there.

C.A.: And they don’t disturb you? Because you understand what’s doing it. It doesn’t make you worried?

O.S.: Well they don’t disturb me any more than my tinnitus. Which I ignore. They occasionally interest me. And I have many pictures of them in my notebooks. I’ve gone and had an FMRI myself to see how my visual cortex is taking over. And when I see all these hexagons and complex things, which I also have, in visual migraine, I wonder whether everyone sees things like this, and whether things like cave art, or ornamental art may have been derived from them a bit.

C.A.: That was an utterly utterly fascinating talk. Thank you so much for sharing.

O.S.: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)

Music video by Coldplay performing Paradise. (C) 2011 EMI Records Ltd This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved.(C) 2011 EMI Records Ltd

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