Except the release of Brian Eno & David Byrne’s album of the same name, which will happen on August 4th, 2008. The music will be available exclusively at everythingthathappens.com with free previews and a free song, and it actually goes on sale two weeks later. Can’t wait for some new Byrne & Eno? Then make your own by remixing studio quality tracks from the 1981 release Bush of Ghosts. They’ve generously provided all the necessary tools and files at the Bush of Ghosts remix site .

Well, you may have missed Global Orgasm Day 2007, but you’re not too late for National Orgasm Day 2008. Yes, British scientists have taken the global orgasm, er, national. While Global Orgasm Day was dedicated to peace, National Orgasm Day is dedicated to science. According to the press material, this survey conducted by Pelvic Toner (”the world’s best vaginal exerciser”) and Scarlet magazine is the world’s largest survey of the female orgasm. Learn more here, read the press release here, or take the actual survey here. Attention men: There’s a good chance you are not qualified to complete this survey.

Maybe, um, stop waging a war on it? Put this in the “things - everybody - except - the - Bush - administration - seems - to - know” box. The Rand Corporation has just put on line a brief called How Terrorist Groups End - Implications for Countering al Qa’ida. They suggest that the only successful ways to counter terror groups pretty much involve anything BUT a military solution: “…most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory…” . They have a lot of interesting information in the report, which was culled from data collected on 648 groups that were active between 1968 and 2006.

I was surprised recently to find out how few of the young hipsters in my social circle seem to know about Mashups. For the uninitiated, read the overblown, self-important Wikipedia definition here. The concept is simple. Take two or more familiar pop media elements (from virtually any media), and mash them together to pleasing or amusing effect (I’ve never adequately defined for myself how they differ from “remixes”; they just do). The YouTube clip at left is a great example: George Bush covers U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, from RX’s “Party Party” mashup. Since mashups involve using large recognizable pieces of intellectual property, they’re often subject to takedown notices by the RIAA or MPAA as soon as they become popular. For that reason it’s often easiest to BitTorrent them. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but some faves of mine include Party Ben and Team9’s Dean Gray -American Edit (Green Day - American Idiot); Danger Mouse’s Grey Album (Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” mashed with The Beatles’ “White Album”) The Ciccones - The Immaculate Concoction (Madonna mixed with just about (more…)

As a person who REALLY loathes carrying a laptop about, I’m occasionally accused of being a luddite, or at least receive some amusing glances when I pull out my index cards or notepad at meetings. That’s why I love ideas like High Tech Napkins. This ingenious concept utilizes e-ink and RF technology to create the electronic equivalent of jotting ideas on cocktail napkins. This is where some of both my best (late-night-problem solving or business ideas) and worst (martini-goggle romances) ideas have come about. I wish someone would at least develop a tablet PC that has a detachable touchscreen that connects to the laptop wirelessly. [Note to self: call patent office.] An additional benefit of this design concept: It’s very green; no paper waste, no battery to deal with, and eventually recycling the display requires only separating the plastic sheeting from the inner component.

RawStory.com suggests the trailer for Oliver Stone’s upcoming biopic about George Bush was “leaked” Sunday. Looks to me like a standard teaser, but here it is, in any case: “A heartwarming romantic comedy about an adorable alcoholic with a dream — and the courage to pursue it.”

In the NPR piece Sex Without Condoms is the New Engagement Ring, you’ll hear brilliant statements like “It’s an engagement more practical than spending money on a piece of jewelry, or a marriage that might not pass the test of time”. Man, if my friends and I had thought up a spin like this as teenagers, how different life would be. Sex without condoms? Well, it feels good, but I’m sure if we’d pursued this path in our youth, we’d have exponentially more fatherless children, friends dead from HIV-related symptoms, and a general pandemic of STD’s. NPR listeners had some thoughts on the topic too. I’m inclined to liken sex without condoms to riding a motorcycle without a helmet. While it shows a passion for the sport, the consequences can be disasterous.

John McCain may be a nearly invisible, doddering old fart (did I really just say may be?) but the GOP is showing a little youthful spring in its step with two new web sites they’ve launched. First, there’s MeetBarackObama.com, which has punchy little headlines for its anti-Obama “news items” like Ich Bin Ein Hypocrite. Perhaps much more clever is BarackBook.com, which mocks Obama’s actual FaceBook page by highlighting his connections with people like William Ayers and Marilyn Katz. Unfortunately for whoever these hip kids of the GOP are, their candidate is still doing more for the Obama campaign than anyone else just by speaking in public.

…as you toss him out the airlock for being so annoying. I must admit I was a little under-impressed by billionaire beach-bum Richard Branson’s show-and-tell of the new White Knight Two yesterday. Yes, amazing technology, blah blah blah. With it’s huge wingspan, conventional jet engines, and twin fuselage, it really just looks like a LearJet gone wrong. Somehow I find the DelFly Micro (pictured here) much more impressive. It weighs only 3 grams, has a 10 cm wingspan, and can still carry a video camera! See a cool dual-view video on YouTube here. Want one of your own? Too bad. You’ll have to settle for something like the massive (6 inch long) Spinmaster Air Hog. At thirty bucks, it’s cheaper than a night at the bar, and probably a lot more fun.

As I sat on my porch this morning at 5:30 am, smoking my cigarette and drinking my coffee, several things went through my mind, things like: “I wonder why I’m awake?”, and “Why don’t I just go back to bed?”. Then I remembered I’m an obsessive-compulsive who only sleeps four hours a night, and thought “Oh yeah”. But then for some reason I got curious about why cigarettes taste so darn good, and decided to look for some answers. First of all, if your preferred brand is Just Like Dad Bubble Gum Cigarettes from Archie McPhee, they taste good because they’re made of bubble gum and they’re not burning. If you smoke a harsher brand like me though (I smoke Dunhills or American Spirits), the answer seems a little more complicated. I’ll be doing a follow up piece for just that reason. For now though, I found a list of ingredients approved by the US Government for use in the manufacture of cigarettes that made me wonder: “What DOESN’T make my cigarette taste so darn good?”. Here’s the list: Acetanisole, Acetic Acid, Acetoin, Acetophenone, 6-Acetoxydihydrotheaspirane, 2-Acetyl-3- Ethylpyrazine, 2-Acetyl-5-Methylfuran, (more…)