Archive for 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Funky Forest: The First Contact
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on November 3, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010Within just minutes of my first contact with Funky Forest: The First Contact, I had ordered a copy on Amazon.
Is Classical Music Dead?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 2, 2010 by admin in Music
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010Obviously not. But it doesn’t seem to be feeling very well.
 Maybe classical will have the last laugh. |
I was much more of an audio snob when I was a teen than I am now. At the peak of my snobbishness I had a Thorens direct drive turntable, a McIntosh (no, not MacIntosh) amp, and custom speakers that I built myself using components from a Seattle company called SpeakerLab. Aside from being able to blast my Aerosmith, Bowie, and Clash records at 120 decibels, I could then turn around, switch out the stylus, and throw on some immaculate Deutsche Grammaphon pressing of Beethoven, Bartok, Tchaikovsky or Arvo Pärt. Not too long after that the CD came along, and we were all so distracted by its signal-to-noise ratio and “accuracy” that it took us forever to notice how really bad they sound because of their sample rate. And in the 90′s, my snobbishness finally died a quiet death in the hands of a computer and a crappy file format known as mp3. The ability to compile and shovel around songs by the thousands and not need physical storage space seduced me. And the ability to choose from such a vast array became more important somehow than slowing down and really listening. This fact was painfully highlighted for me the other day when a friend and I were lamenting the dearth of classical music outlets these days. I don’t even know if there is one where I live, and my friend who lives in Chicago says they are a rarity even in a city of its size. So is classical music dying? Well, in a way, yes. The broad category referred to as classical has recently had extremely low unit-per-artist sales and accounted for around 3% of American music sales, and around 5% of global sales. And the trend has been to head steadily downward for some time. Adding to the genre’s woes, American orchestras are recently enduring severe budget crunches. So is this the end of the centuries-long line? Well, Universal and Sony don’t think so; they’ve launched Passionato and Ariama, respectively. Both sites offer CD’s and downloads in both mp3 and FLAC formats. Does this mean there’s hope? What do you think? Have you rocked any Amadeus lately? Is classical doomed? I personally predict an indie classical rock revival with renewed interest in the classics. But then, I’m an ELO fan.
5 Weird Alternative Thanksgiving Turkey Recipes
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on November 1, 2010 by admin in Holidays
Monday, November 1st, 2010Stuffing a quail inside a chicken inside a turkey inside a goose lined with bacon is soooo 2009. Here are a few alternative turkey recipes for Thanksgiving 2010.
 This hardly qualifies as a recipe, but it’s an obligatory image for lists like this. |
I don’t know if anyone really knows how turkey became the traditional Thanksgiving dinner meat in America. My guess is that it’s either because the bird presents such a large target when hunting, or it was revenge for all the humans that had been maimed in wild turkey attacks. Whatever the reason, we’re stuck with it. But if you’re looking for an alternative, you’re in luck. Thankfully, we’ve seen some turkey innovation in the last few years; we’ve all heard of the deep-fried turkey, and perhaps you’ve heard of Turducken. However, an impasse was reached a couple of years ago with that meat-stuffed-meat-stuffed-meat idea with the Bacon Turgooduccochiqua. The only way to go from there would be to put live Ortolan in the quail and stuff the whole thing in a goat, and that’s where I draw the line. So I thought we’d look into some new alternative Thanksgiving turkey recipes this year. We’ve rounded up a few below. Feel free to share any other weird turkey ideas we missed. Read the rest of this entry »
Gulf Oil Spill Weather Report
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 31, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Sunday, October 31st, 2010The forecast calls for widely scattered blamestorming, with high-pressure greenwashing continuing through 2050.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the only global media operation that’s covering the tragic aftermath of BP’s use of toxic dispersants is Al Jazeera. In spite of local news reports of illness from the chemicals as early as May, 2010, mainstream American media sources like MSNBC assured us back in August that the 1.8 million gallons of toxic dispersants dumped in the gulf were less toxic than the oil itself. And there’s not a lot of incentive to dig into this story, when BP and the NOAA have partnered for a propaganda campaign aimed at middle schoolers, in which they use cooking oil and detergent to show how safe the use of dispersants was. I’m no scientist, but detergent seems like a poor analogy for a chemical that causes heart trouble, organ damage, and rectal bleeding . And while major news sources like the WSJ were questioning the cleanup figures back in August, most media sources have since gone silent on the topic, except to acknowledge that Greenpeace is still looking into things. Or to talk about the Halliburton Blamestorm about the concrete used in the well. In fact, they’re telling us things are fine. Eat the fish. The fish that have been swimming in the water that just months ago would explode in the lab when tested for toxicity. Read the rest of this entry »
U Flattr Me
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 30, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, October 30th, 2010What if there were a “Like” button that let you put your money where your “Like” was? Flattr is a cool new micropayment service that lets you do just that.
We’ve pointed out the limited usefulness of the Facebook “Like” button before; in fact we offered a set of alternatives. Although I have no metrics to prove it, I personally think that the “Like” button significantly diminished the quality of interaction on Facebook. I’d guess the amusing banter on my “wall” dropped by about 60-80% as people suddenly found it easier to simply ‘like” something than actually use their brain for a moment and add a witty comment. But what if when you liked something, you could put your money where your mouth was, and actually know that in a small way you were financially supporting the thing you liked? We’ve talked about the new frictionless, wireless economy before, but one service we missed was Flattr. Flattr is an ingenious new service brought to us by some of the people that created The Pirate Bay, the occasionally controversial BitTorrent tracker. A little ironic that the people who brought the world so much stuff that might not be properly paid for would dream up a way for lots of people to legitimately give money to content creators they like. But it really is a brilliant idea, and could be a great thing for anyone from bloggers, to musicians, to social causes and non-profits. Although the concept has what I consider a few small barriers to broad acceptance, I think this is one of the coolest social networking ideas in a while. It’s like a tip jar for the internet! The barriers I’m referring to? First of all, the site frames all the payments in Euros as of this writing, and we all know how intimidating non-US currency can be to an American! And I have to confess that when I signed up, even though I was well aware that the 2 Euros required was about 2.80USD, I spaced out and paid 2 *dollars, then had to go back and add another buck to bring it over 2 Euros. But that’s really just my attention disorder at work, no fault of Flattr’s. It would also probably be cool if they plugged into more virtual currencies; for now you can use PayPal and most major credit cards, but if you’re building a new economy, you might want to open up the market as wide as possible. And the last thing? I have to admit that I had a weensy bit of trepidation about turning my credit card info over to people who were famous for starting a thing called the Pirate Bay, but quickly got over it. Ultimately, if this caught on it would be a fantastic new paradigm of payment, and a solution to a lot of the woes of undercompensated content creators. Like me. So here’s your chance. Sign up and Flattr me:
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