When Conspiracies Come True
If you think national phone call information database that the NSA has been assembling for the last few years is benign (are there really people who think like this?), please think again:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
Finding the Shape of Music
The Shape of Song is a Java app that creates a visual representation of music based on patterns in the compsition. It scans MIDI files and links groups of identical notes with arches. The results are stunning.
[Via The Morning News]
Loss and Recovery
The end of the year was pretty eventful in my neck of the eWoods. The Suck.com domain was apparently transferred to a domain parking services, causing a small panic in the Suck enthusiast segment (more influential than you might think) when the full Suck archives suddenly became inaccessible. But enterprising geeks sprang forth from the digital woodwork and produced a torrent of the entire archives, as well as a couple of live mirrors. No one yet knows why this went down, but everyone is finding comfort in the fact that we can still read all about drunken, regretful rabbits. Ride the torrent, share the Suck.
I suck at Internet time. While gathering URLs to linkify this post, I found that Suck.com now serves up the old content again. As you were.
Also, on new year’s eve, Last.fm had a drive failure and lost a sizable chunk of their data, causing yet another small panic, this time in the music recommendations via reputation engine segment (cooler than you might guess). John, as always, filled my heart with terror as he relayed to me that at least one month of listened-to tracks had been wiped from the face of the Internet, but it appears that the Last.fm guys have everything under control. The site is back up, although they are not accepting new submissions until they are finished restoring the data from what we can only hope is a painstakingly stashed backup.
Blind Yourself with Science!
MIT survey of blogs. Or, survey fever: contract it!
[via Stuff That Bugs Me]
And He Beheld TextDrive And Verily It Was Good
If you’re seeing this post that means that my transistion to TextDrive was a success.
Dean Allen, the guy responsible for Textpattern, started TextDrive with the help of some friends from around the world. The setup looks awesome and so far everything has run pretty smoothly. Transitioning from one hosting company to another is never easy, but so far the whole process has gone without too many hitches (none that took more than a few minutes to solve).
Not only am I saving money over my previous host, but I’m supporting the development of Textpattern and helping to keep Dean in the French wine country, where his dogs run and run and run.
The Mysical Music Release, vol 003
It’s that time again folks. It’s time for me to put a bunch of cool new music in a neat little package to be divided up, hashed and sent to your eager clients to be reassembled and enjoyed. Truly, the sweetness of life.
Last time I sent a bit too much of this so-called cool new music and some of you felt (understandably) overwhelmed. In response to all the valuable criticism I received (you can stop with the criticism now, for real) I decided to limit myself to 5 albums per release. This turned out to be much more difficult than I originally anticipated, as I found myself reshuffling the line up time and time again. Something would sit on the list for a couple of weeks and then BAM!, something like Animal Collective comes along and fucks it all up (by being so awesome).
And so, after much deliberation, we arrive at the list presented here today. I think it’s a good mix of material that will challenge you as a listener, and some that will immediately grab hold of you and cause one of those involuntary smiles that fill our hearts with joy.
Remember, if it feels like a lot just listen to the highlights and delete what doesn’t interest you right away. And now, on to the show.
Animal Collective – Sung Tongs
Animal Collective is, as the name suggests, an umbrella name that covers a fluctuating cast, with Avey Tare and Panda Bear at the core. Their bio on the Fat Cat Records web site claims they came together “with the intention of moving pop music in a direction that would place heavy emphasis on sonic experience”, and boy howdy do they ever. The album opener Leaf House is the bait, the carrot on the stick, that gets you through this entire album. It is simultaneously catchy and experimental, with its cascading vocal harmonies and rhythmic core. This leads us to Who Could Win a Rabbit, which can barely contain its exuberance. It’s so much fun that it doesn’t have to make sense. Now that we’re hooked, we move easily through the next few songs, which range from the mellow acoustic plucking of The Softest Voice to the Latin-flavored childishness of Sweet Road. After this short little ditty we find ourselves at the crossroads. Visiting Friends marks a descent into madness, where all pretense is lost and there ain’t a hook in sight. For the rest of the album we’re falling down the rabbit hole, a strange and pretty musical space that rewards multiple listens and a sense of humor. Highlights: Leaf House, Who Could Win a Rabbit, Winter’s Love.
The Faint – Wet From Birth
A couple of albums ago The Faint were just another 80’s retro act out of Omaha, albeit one with some flare and creativity. With Wet From Birth they’ve created the perfect balance of looking back and moving forward, all while managing to make songs that move hips. The album is consistently strong, from the silky snub of How Could I Forget to the dirty synth sprint of Paranoiattack to the vulnerability of Phone Call. Highlights: Desperate Guys, How Could I Forget, Symptom Finger
Feist – Let it Die
I promised myself I wouldn’t over-hype this album because I want as many people to be able to enjoy it as possible, and nothing spoils a good thing more than overestimating it. So how best to describe this album? What affect did it have on me? I guess one could say that it unfurled in my heart like a thousand-petaled lotus, and by the time I was done listening I felt that I had fallen in love and had my heart broken and come to terms with it in the course of 45 minutes. Leslie Feist’s voice is sublime, and her songwriting is earnest, inventive and beautiful (the coy reversal of the title track is a perfect example). She is comfortable in any genre, and the album happily skips from folk to disco to pop to lounge. This has to be my top album of 2004, and I don’t even make top-10 lists. The only downside is that about half of the albums is comprised of covers. Beautiful though they be, I wish there was more original material to enjoy. I’m reticent to select highlights because they’re all so consistently great that I would hate for you to skip over any of them. Just sit down and listen to tracks 1 through 9. You won’t regret it.
Nellie McKay – Get Away From Me
Nellie McKay was 19 years old when she recorded this album. She can’t be more than 21 now. This little fact blows my mind every time I listen to her debut. The album is equally the product of a musical prodigy and a precocious teenager. But we forgive the vagaries of youth, do we not? We can only hope. The topics range from stalking prospective lovers to drinking to dealing with the death of a cat (which leads to drinking). There’s even a rap song in there. The lyrics are just smart enough (she apologizes for the stupid way she rhymes. It’s meta!), and the production literate enough, to overcome the sound of a young white female jazz vocalist rapping. There’s a lot to love here (it doesn’t get much better than Ding Dong), and her potential is limitless. Highlights: David, Ding Dong, The Dog Song.
Phoenix – Alphabetical
The Frenchmen of Phoenix have produced some of the best pop music ever with their sophomore effort Alphabetical. It’s got everything: crisp production, vaguely sentimental lyrics, vocal harmonies. There’s not to much to dislike, and at just under 38 minutes it’s also rather difficult to get bored. The songs just breeze along and before you know it you’re shaking what your mama gave you to Holdin’ On Together (Maybe you can tell me what “He told me a height could smile / if it’s filled with tears” means.) This often gets me through gridlock traffic with a smile. Highlights: Everything Is Everything, (You Can’t Blame It On) Anybody, Holdin’ On Together.
Console Fever: Contract It!
Gamespot recently posted their most anticipated games of 2005, a multi-part writeup from a handful of their editors. I love these kinds of lists as they help me filter through large amounts of information allowing me to focus only on those things worthy of my precious time. So far, 2005 looks to be a stellar year for games.
I have one problem with this article, however. Gamespot is an excellent game resource, full of useful previews, videos, screenshots and news. A lot of hard work is put into collecting and presenting all of this information. Why, then, are there no links to the game spaces of the recommended games? The article brims with excitement, but you have to search for further details about the games in question yourself. Links, people. Welcome to the new Internets.
In other news, I finally broke down and purchased one of those nifty and oh-so-slim Playstation 2 consoles. It is, how you say, sexy. I was finally driven to this purchase (after many a year of console-free living) by a game called Katamari Damacy, which translates into “Pure Joy Translated Into Light, With Rainbows And Music”, or something.
Here’s how the story goes: the King of all Cosmos got ripped one night and when he woke up he found that he had misplaced all the stars in the sky. Having no recollection of the previous evening’s escapades, he decides to attack the problem from another direction: he sends his son, the pure-hearted Prince (“you”) to earth with a Katamari, which is some kind of knobbed, multicolored ball which can pick up any object of appropriate size. Your job is repopulate the night sky by picking up objects on earth with your Katamari until it is large enough to be tossed into space and become a star.
In the beginning you can only pick up thumbtacks and erasers and whatnot, but as your ball of junk gets bigger it can pick up larger and larger objects. As the Katamari grows the camera zooms out and the level scales to give you some perspective. In the later levels you end up picking up buildings, airports, oil tankers, islands and even giant octopi.
And the soundtrack! It ranges from classic video game techno to smarmy lounge jazz (“I want to roll you up into my life!”), to satisfying J-pop. All this for $20.
Oh, and a sequel is scheduled for release later this year. Now you can pick up anything!
Deep in the Heart
I live in Texas. Texas often gets a bad rap, and I try not to take it too personally because I really don’t identify with the state. I like to think of myself as an example that the whole state isn’t bad, that there are pockets of intellect and reason that just need to be sought out.
And then we go and spend federal anti-terrorism funding on lawn mower racing.
[via]
Gag Me With a Spoon
I’m sure this a great article about design, but it’s long, it’s late, and I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that opener.