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tumbled/from woopwoop: Marissa Nadler (Feat. Black Hole...

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:54:31 -0400

tumbled/from woopwoop:

Marissa Nadler (Feat. Black Hole Infinity) “No Surprises”

Sterogum’s tribute with 6,625 listeners : 16,315 plays on Last.fm
Radiohead’s OK Computer with 641,166 listeners: 15,218,353 plays on Last.fm

“OK Computer— primarily written and recorded in 1996— was created at a time when British rock was colored by nationalist backslapping and necrophilia. On both sides of the Atlantic, meanwhile, dance music was bigger than it had been in years— despite becoming creatively unhealthy: A decade of almost unparalleled progression in dance had, in the UK, culminated in Big Box-like superclubs and a focus on superstar DJ and artist albums, while the U.S. music media made a belated and clumsy embrace to exalt what it called electronica.

In this environment, the Prodigy’s The Fat of the Land was released in America the same day as OK Computer, and, not surprisingly, made a much larger initial impact, landing at No. 1 on the charts (OKC debuted at No. 21). In the U.S., the Prodigy were heralded as the bellwethers for electronica, while, in the face of electronic music— and exponentially rising sales of country and hip-hop— Radiohead were charged by some critics with the minor task of “saving” rock music. Oddly, the two records seemed to have opposite effects: Throughout the late 1990s and early 00s, Thom Yorke practically functioned as a Warp publicist, helping to expose rock fans to electronic textures and sounds, while the Prodigy— along with Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, and Korn— inadvertently spawned the well-selling mook rock…” — PitchforkMedia

Not to miss, this excellent song by song dialogue: Radiohead: The album, song by song, of the year on Greenplastic.

New Music: Stereogum: OK X: A Tribute to OK Computer on Pitchfork
Stereogum Presents… OK X: A Tribute to OK Computer on Last.fm
Radiohead’s OK Computer on Wikipedia.

National Film Board on the Missing Canadian Digitization Strategy

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:45:19 -0400

National Film Board on the Missing Canadian Digitization Strategy:

Michael Geist

“In its submission to the CRTC New Media consultation, the National Film Board of Canada warns:

Canada today finds itself years behind other countries in developing a clearly focused and effective digitization strategy. The United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and China have already established digitization strategies that feature robust programs and ambitious plans. An effective digitization strategy yields significant domestic benefits such as wider access to knowledge for the creative industry and all communities, a greater appreciation of national cultural heritage, and the facilitation of lifelong learning. A digitization plan could also lead to a cultural export strategy.

While I don’t think the CRTC is the right venue for this, the continued sluggish development of a strategy by Library and Archives Canada and the utter missing-in-action approach from the government (Canadian Heritage seems more committed to locking up content in C-61 than in making it available) merits far greater attention.”

Scavenger Hunt! (via joe holmes)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:45:03 -0400

Scavenger Hunt! (via joe holmes)

I’m Sorry, I Don’t Know, I Can’t …

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:44:50 -0400

I’m Sorry, I Don’t Know, I Can’t …:

ThinkSimpleNow dot com

“I find myself blurting out I don’t know as an instant answer to questions I don’t have immediate answers for. Lately, I’ve been noting how these simple words made me feel, and I’m starting to take notice that on some level, these casual words are effecting my emotions and self-esteem.

Saying I don’t know, I’m sorry, I can’t and “I don’t want to but have to” are slowly changing my mindset. Through my observations, I’ve noticed how common it is to use these popular phrases without giving them a second thought.

Do you find yourself saying the words I’m sorry or I don’t know often? Did you know that this over-sighted language pattern is actually limiting our potential to happiness and ultimately getting what we want?

Let’s have a closer look at each one and notice their effect in our internal mental space…”

Pete Townshend Muses on Rock Honors, Smashing Computers, Eddie Vedder in E-Mail to Rolling Stone

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:43:00 -0400

Pete Townshend Muses on Rock Honors, Smashing Computers, Eddie Vedder in E-Mail to Rolling Stone:

Rolling Stone/ Rock and Roll Daily

“After taping VH1 Honors: The Who, Pete Townshend e-mailed Rolling Stone’s Jenny Eliscu with a post-mortem discussing his own performance, his desire to smash plastic Rock Band instruments and the advice he gave Eddie Vedder a few years ago. Here’s the message:

Despite my smiley face, I was on guard on the red carpet and didn’t say much although the New York Times guy caught me off guard with the best question of my life, delivered almost dead-pan: “WHY DON’T YOU JUST DO WHAT ROGER WANTS?” For a split second I tried to answer…”

Fair Copyright for Canada: The Friendfeed

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:17:15 -0400

Fair Copyright for Canada: The Friendfeed:

Michael Geist

“As the amount of online activity related to fair copyright in Canada grows, it is becoming increasingly difficulty to track everything. With that in mind, I’ve created a new Friendfeed channel for Fair Copyright for Canada. The channel currently includes aggregated blog postings, videos from YouTube, photos from Flickr, the Google Fair Copyright for Canada calendar, and bookmarks to relevant media coverage on Delicious. There are also two active search services that will gather blog postings and YouTube videos tagged FairCopyright4Canada. If you want your posting included in the feed, simply add the tag.

If this sounds useful, you can subscribe to the rss feed, bookmark the page, embed the feed on your blog, or become a member of Friendfeed and track it…”

stansted airport transit #1 (via lomokev)

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:15:24 -0400

stansted airport transit #1 (via lomokev)

Google To Start Indexing Audio Files as Text?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:13:44 -0400

Google To Start Indexing Audio Files as Text?:

Search Engine Roundtable

“WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, started a thread at WebmasterWorld suggesting that Google may begin indexing audio files in the near future. Tedster linked to the recent news on Google announcing that they are “automatically” transcribing YouTube videos “from speech to text” and then indexing that content in a searchable format.

Many operating systems have speech to text technology. They make software that tries to transcribe your voice as you speak to it. They make technology, OCR, that reads text as an image and translates it to machine readable text. None of this technology is perfect, or even close to it. Google has dabbled in all of this in the past and I am sure they continue to experiment with this now and in the future…”

tumbled/from woopwoop: Gord Downey “Chancellor” With 1,517...

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:12:34 -0400

tumbled/from woopwoop:

Gord Downey “Chancellor”

With 1,517 listeners and 24,962 plays at Last.fm, Coke Machine Glow was the first solo album released — in 2001 — by Gordon Downie, lead singer for The Tragically Hip.

Coke Machine Glow, the album, has been written up at Wikipedia. Also, pay The Tragically Hip a visit at Last.fm or at Wikipedia.

Disambiguation: cokemachineglow is a music digest (no relation to the Gord Downey album or Gord Downey’s book of poetry by that name).

My Weekly Top 10 Artists at Last.fm (20.7.2008)

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:52:00 -0400

Sparklehorse 225
The Jesus and Mary Chain 165
Mystified 117
Brian Eno & John Cale 115
Gregor Samsa 97
Songs To Sleep To 81
Horchata 75
Supergrass 65
Andy Partridge & Harold Budd 61
A Hawk and a Hacksaw 54

with the most played track being Songs To Sleep To’s 2-13-08 with 21 plays.

(via Brooke Pennington)

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:58:16 -0400

(via Brooke Pennington)

LiquidID: A Buffer for OpenID

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:57:00 -0400

LiquidID: A Buffer for OpenID:

WebWorkerDaily

“Wanting to use OpenID, but concerned about some of the problems? Take a look at LiquidID, which combines the single sign-on and universal identifier features of OpenID with management tools to help you manage your ID with more precise tools. When you sign up for an OpenID at LiquidID, you can use it just like any other OpenID. The key difference is that LiquidID proxies your real email with a unique throwaway email address.

After you log into an OpenID-using site, any mail the site sends you is proxied through LiquidID. If the site annoys or harasses or spams you, you can simply delete them off your LiquidID account and that’s the end of it…”

Dylan's Real Moments

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:16:57 -0400

Dylan's Real Moments:

Photo Essays/ TIME MultiMedia

“A new book of photographs by his friend Barry Feinstein takes us behind the scenes during Dylan’s first electric tour of Europe…”

"In probability theory, the Kelly criterion, or Kelly formula, is a formula used to maximize the..."

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:33:40 -0400

“In probability theory, the Kelly criterion, or Kelly formula, is a formula used to maximize the long-term growth rate of repeated plays of a given gamble that has positive expected value. It was described by J. L. Kelly, Jr, in a 1956 issue of the Bell System Technical Journal. The formula specifies the percentage of the current bankroll to be bet at each iteration of the game. The Kelly system maximizes the growth rate in the long run, and therefore also minimizes the risk of ruin, but that risk is not zero. Using the Kelly system cannot result in a bankroll that is identically $0, but the value of the bankroll can approach arbitrarily close to $0, and so a finite probability of ruin does exist. An assumption of the formula is that currency and bets are infinitely divisible, which is not a concern for practical purposes if the bankroll is large enough.”

- Kelly Criterion - Wikipedia

(via misscedar)

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:29:24 -0400

(via misscedar)

‘Home Delivery’ - At MoMA, a Look at Instant Houses, Past, Present and Future

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:23:52 -0400

‘Home Delivery’ - At MoMA, a Look at Instant Houses, Past, Present and Future:

Design Review/ New York Times

“The idea of a well-oiled assembly line churning out gleaming and affordable new houses, flooded with light and as compact as a ship’s cabin, is a well-worn Modernist fable.

For the average middle-class American, however, prefabricated housing has always lacked sex appeal. The masses tended to prefer a traditional style, no matter how shabbily designed, and never really bought into it. Nor did most of the industrialist tycoons with the money to make the dream real.

So “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling,” which opens on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, is a delightful surprise…”

I've lost my key. Can you pass me that banana?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:48:26 -0400

I've lost my key. Can you pass me that banana?:

Lock-picking enthusiasts are cracking the ‘uncrackable’ in increasingly creative ways. And locksmiths aren’t happy about it.

Patrick White/ Globe and Mail

“You won’t be kicked off a car lot for asking about horsepower or ousted from a bar for asking about booze. But apparently, you can be tossed from a locksmith shop for asking about locks.

It happened to Steve Boisvert a few months ago. He dropped by a locksmith store near his home in…”

How to Tap Your Nap

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:41:35 -0400

How to Tap Your Nap:

Think Simple Now

“What do you do when you have problems that need creative solutions? Would you like to be more creative? Are you willing to give sleep a try? Thomas Edison, Salvador Dali and Stephen King all did it. So did Wagner, Poe and Twain. They all used this technique successfully at one time or another.

What am I talking about? The ability to use the initial stages of sleep to generate creative ideas or to solve a perplex problem. Sounds a little far-fetched, doesn’t it? I thought so too, until I discovered that many of the great scientists, artists and engineers of our time have used sleep as a means of inspiration and problem solving. It has been described as trolling or mining for ideas in the subconscious of our mind.

We now know that our minds are just as active while we are sleeping as when we are awake…”

Losing your head (via Hugo*)

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:29:20 -0400

Losing your head (via Hugo*)

"The bottom line is this: For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science..."

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:28:09 -0400

“The bottom line is this: For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science to illuminate the murky world of human action. Instead, as Turkheimer writes in his chapter in the book, “Wrestling With Behavioral Genetics,” science finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call the Gloomy Prospect, the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do.”

- Op-Ed Columnist/ The Luxurious Growth

New York Times