Archive for 2010
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[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 24, 2010 by admin in Holidays
Sunday, October 24th, 2010As an adult, have you ever re-experienced that queasy feeling from childhood when your mom martyrously made a last minute Halloween costume with her “best sheet”? We’re here to help.
  This is a nice option. I mean, who doesn’t have a dead fish and a pipe wrench laying around the house? |
With the amount of time that seems to have been put into compiling lists of last minute Halloween costumes, it’s not surprising that they’re in such demand. It’s sad though; if the people that put together the lists had just gotten busy making their costume, this whole cycle could have been averted. If you’ve ever been in a last minute panic trying to create a Halloween costume, you may be familiar with that sick childish feeling of futility, the feeling you might have gotten as a kid when your mom forgot to plan ahead, and at the last minute is acting all martyrous while cutting holes in a sheet thinking she’s doing you a favor, when all your friends are dressed up in slick Darth Vader
Suck It, Autotune
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 23, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010Thanks to new voice synthesis technology, we’ll no longer need Auto-tune to fix pop stars’ crappy voices. In fact, we may not need the pop stars at all.
 T-Pain ponders life without auto-tune |
Finally, some good news in the world of pop music production. You know all those no-talent artists out there that rely entirely on auto-tune for their singing careers? Well, thanks to the voice synthesis software Vocaloid, we can now do away with their voices altogether. But why stop there? Because of recent innovations in the rapidly evolving field of holographic technology, we can even dispense with the artists themselves! This isn’t some sci-fi near-future prediction of things to come, it’s already happening. Just check out this concert appearance by Miku Hatsune, the Japanese pop sensation that – in spite of not even existing – has millions of fans worldwide. This should be a boon to the tragically poverty stricken, litigation-happy major labels that are using the same excuse they have since the 80′s for not making any money. Labels probably spend more on a typical artist’s room service in an hour than the total cost of this software package, and there’s even a free alternative called Utau. This is going to be bigger than you think; when you think “auto-tune” you probably think T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West, but this now-two-year-old list of Auto-tune abusers (complete with audio example) already included artists like Dixie Chicks, Avril Lavigne, and Maroon 5. T-Pain probably has less to worry about than many others; as the undisputed king of Auto-tune abuse, he was approached early on by iPhone app developers to license his name for I Am T-Pain. Which I just have to say represents to me the ultimate in meta-irony: nerdy rich white guy iPhone owners thinking they’re hip and witty for acknowledging their total lack of masculine sexuality. But back to Vocaloid. The software seems to be stuck in a weird cycle of marketing and product development; it’s hard to tell if Yamaha has any interest in developing it as a recording tool, or if they’re going to let second party developers like Zero G and Crypton deliver it more as a “virtual celebrity” creation tool. Personally, given the two-dimensionality and high maintenance costs of many real pop superstars like Hanna Montana, Lady Gaga, and the artists already mentioned, I’d put my money on the latter. Vids below. Read the rest of this entry »
The Bizarre Mystery Of Anderson Multinational
[ 6 Comments ]Posted on October 22, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, October 22nd, 2010Did David Lewis Anderson disappear into a time paradox of his own creation, leaving behind only random traces of his work, or is this some kind of Alternate Reality Game or viral campaign?
One of the problems with time travel is that if you do it wrong, you leave all sorts of debris behind when you disappear into your latest paradox. At least that’s what seems to have happened to poor David Lewis Anderson. David was a busy guy for a while; he was apparently the CEO and mastermind of Anderson Multinational, which was the parent company of Anderson Investors (Investing in the future with financial solutions for tomorrow), HopeMart (A not-for-profit initiative where shopping builds hope every day), Security Group One, a global safety and security management consulting firm, and about a dozen other organizations. My theory is that one day, he put one of his time control technologies to work, forgetting to delete the files from the web server that remain as the only testament to his now non-existent accomplishments. At least that’s as reasonable a theory as any; if you actually go look at the sites linked to, and you have any sense at all of when something is fishy on the web, you’ll notice something peculiar. Half of the sites that are allegedly part of “Anderson Multinational LLC” are clearly shams, but some of them actually manage to look fairly credible. But even in the case of the more obviously bogus sites, a remarkable amount of Flash content, copy, and typical corporate stock photos went into building them. Which suggests maybe an Alternate Reality Game, viral campaign for a movie, or an internet crank like Art Bell at work. But that’s where it gets really weird; most (if not all, I didn’t check every single one) of the sites are registered to David Anderson , of 620 Park Avenue #308. Compare that actual building with the dazzling contoured mirror glass building featured on the main Anderson Multinational site. Suddenly you get the impression that we’re dealing with an elaborate prank. But the scope of the prank is impressive, and a prank is supposed to have a punchline! This hodgepodge of bogus and not-so-bogus sites doesn’t; it’s sort of like an internet version of the The Aristocrats joke. To add to the weirdness, David Anderson has a seemingly serious – if perhaps a bit dull – video on YouTube (also below), and the content farm drivel-generator otherwise known as Examiner.com has written about him more than once. Will someone please unravel this mystery for me? In the meantime, I think I’ll fan him on Facebook. Oh. And what the hell is this? The unfinished site for their Japanese division? Read the rest of this entry »
CAPS LOCK DAY
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 21, 2010 by admin in Holidays
Thursday, October 21st, 2010Yeah, it’s a tired trope, but it SURE IS EASIER THAN TALKING LIKE A PIRATE ALL DAY. PLUS, MISPELLING IS FUN.
 Why is the caps lock key labeled with lower case letters? |
YES. ITS THAT TIME AGAIN. IF YOUR THE KIND OF PERSON WHO SENDS ADORING EMAILS TO PEOPLE LIKE GLENN BECK BUT POSTS THEM ON COMMENT THREADS OF ARTICLES MAKING FUN OF GLENN BECK YOU WONT EVEN NOTICE BUT ITS CAPS LOCK DAY AGAIN MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE ADDED A PERIOD BACK THERE BUT WTF LOL I THINK I WILL JUST KEEP TYPING. ACTUALLY THERES SOME DEBATE ABOUT WEATHER CAPS LOCK DAY IS ON ON JUNE 28 0R OCTOBER 22 BUT WE’LL GO WITH THE LADDER CUZ WE FORGOT ON JUNE 28 ANYWAY. THE GUY WHO HAS THE DOMAIN IS SMART HE SAYS ITS BOTH. IF YOUR CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT STARTED CAPS LOCK DAY WE ARE SORRY. IT IS ONE OF TEH GRATE MYSTERIES OF TEH INTRANETS. KNOWYOURMEME.COM THINKS IT STARTED IN 2004 BUT WE FOUND THIS 2003 PAGE. THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE FOR CAPS LOCK DAY SAYS THERE IS NO CAPS LOCK DAY PAGE WTF? I THINK ITS FUNNY THAT PEOPLE GET SO UPSET ABOUT THE CAPS LOCK KEY CUZ HEY JUST DONT PRESS IT DUH? I MEAN I FIND IT MUCH MORE ANNOYING that cuz of texting and em evrbdy lvs lttrs out n skps pnctuation cuz ur a bunch of textards hu r ruining teh eng lang HAHAHAHA. ONE BIG DRAWBACK OF TYPING ALL IN CAPS IS OF COURSE THAT AFTER A PARAGRAPH OF SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR INTERNET LUNGS PROBABLY NO ONE IS LISTENING ANY MORE AND THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL BE HEARD IS IF YOU RESORT TO BOLD OR BOLD AND UNDERLINED OR BOLD ITALICIZED AND UNDERLINED OR WORSE YET TO THE DREADED TAG.
HAPPY!
The Books – The Way Out
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 20, 2010 by admin in Music
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010Don’t let reviewers’ inability to pigeonhole The Books’ sample-driven sound collages. Terms like “Folktronica” don’t begin to capture the essence of their carefully crafted found sound creations.
