Archive for 2010
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[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 3, 2010 by admin in Music
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010No, it’s not a roundup of this summer’s blockbusters, it’s a charming lo-fi electrofolk music act from Cologne Germany.
The sixteen year old me is really mad at Julia Kotowski, the twenty-something from Cologne, Germany that is the voice and talent behind Entertainment For The Braindead. You see, when I was first mumbling my moody songs into a microphone in my bedroom as a teenager, if I wanted to layer my simplistic guitar picking, I had to take my open-reel Revox tape machine and put scotch tape over the erase head to create multiple tracks with a method we called sound on sound. There was no way I could perform the stuff live in a cafe, staring at my feet moodily mumbling to charm the audience with my shy genius after setting up a groove on my digital looper. Plus I probably had to walk barefoot uphill both ways in a foot of snow to get to the gig, just like my grandad who worked in the coal mine did. Okay. I’m not mad anymore. See how temporal teen angst can be? It’s hard to stay mad at someone like Kotowski if you just toss on some of her music; the stuff was literally recorded in her bedroom, and although this kind of post-emo lo-fi electrofolk can be really annoying, there’s a delicate genuineness here that works. And the price is right; the two releases I’ve listened to – Hydrophobia and Hypersomnia are available as free downloads. Entertainment For The Braindead also seems to receive some kind of distribution support from “netlabels” aaahh-records.net and Aerotone.be, which as of this writing both seem to be restructuring their sites. ETFB’s site also has an amusing note on the “shop” page about how they received more than 75 orders and couldn’t keep up with the demand. Time to come out of the bedroom guys. Read the rest of this entry »
What Will Replace The “Dead Tree Edition”?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 2, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010While the continuing demise of major print news sources is inevitable, what will replace them?
The fact that the term “dead-tree edition” even exists is a clear expression of the state of newspapers today. It’s clear that big changes are afoot, and it’s even clearer that no-one knows where those changes will take us. While Steve Jobs is talking about his fear of America turning into a nation of bloggers, Yahoo News is banking on exactly that as a big moneymaker. And while Rupert Murdoch loves the iPad – which is being touted as “being to news what the iPod was to music” – he has also lost billions on his takeover of the Wall Street Journal, while not ruining it in the ways everyone expected. And though people have been arguing for a while that Google has somehow contributed to the demise of print news, this piece in The Atlantic not only points out that Google CEO Eric Schmidt wants to help print news (and ironically said so in a December 2009 Op-Ed piece in the WSJ), it also points to some of the real causes of the newspapers’ demise – mostly loss of ad revenue. And mostly in forms you wouldn’t imagine, like classified ads, which with many papers generated as much as 30% of their income. I’m personally excited to see where it all goes, as long as the Huffington Post doesn’t become the leading on line news source as some expect, and as long as Google doesn’t become the world’s news filter, with their search portal dominance dictating which news Web sites we can find. Oops! We forgot that the new AP Style guide says it’s “website”, not “Web site”. Not that the AP has quite the nearly-biblical influence it used to; even their net income is down 65%, and their very identity is being parodied daily by crappily edited sites that wantonly violate half their guidelines with almost every sentence.
Why Is The American Political Process So Darn Serious?
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on June 1, 2010 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010Maybe American politics would benefit from some British style jeers and snarks.
 Just think of how much more fun Dick Cheney would be with a wig. |
As I pondered today’s Supreme Court ruling that in order to invoke your right to remain silent, you have to not remain silent, I was reminded once again that I no longer live in the country that I grew up in, but rather, a vaguely Orwellian version of it. I mean, it doesn’t get more “double speaky” than having to speak to affirm that you’re remaining silent, right? It’s a strange feeling to live in a new country without having gone anywhere. I don’t know if I like it. But it gets me pondering other nations’ governments. I mean, imagine if our leader stepped down gracefully whenever he screwed up. Or if the vocal outbursts typical of the British House of Commons were the norm in congress instead of the appalling exception. We’d probably watch a lot more C-Span. Especially if it meant we’d have some hope of hearing snarks like those of Winston Churchill in the last century like “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter“. Because you know that’s what most politicians in Washington are really thinking these days.
Might As Well Face It You’re Addicted To Oil
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 31, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Monday, May 31st, 2010Denial Is Not A River In Egypt. But if it were, it would probably be covered in oil as well.
Are you done bellyaching about the gulf oil spill yet? ’cause I didn’t hear a peep out of you as 448 million gallons of oil spewed from the ground in Nigeria in a continuous catastrophe over the last 50 years. 214 million of which spilled just this month. And I haven’t seen you sell your car or stop using any of the products that we use every day that are derived from petroleum (see a short list below). We can keep pointing fingers at Obama or at BP or Satan – or little oil fairies, for that matter. But when it comes right down to it, the parties responsible are you and me. We’re like an alcoholic who blames last night’s bartender for our waking up half off the bed with a splitting headache and our pants around our ankles using clever lines like “I was overserved last night”. The term “oil addiction” is almost hackneyed by now, but still as accurate as it ever was. If you haven’t heard your behavior framed that way before, check out the article The price of our oil addiction- excerpted from David Elliot Cohen’s What Matters
Ergonomic Designs That Get To The Seat Of The Matter
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 30, 2010 by admin in Technology
Sunday, May 30th, 2010One could easily get the impression that the definition of “ergonomic” is “strange looking”.
You may be wondering why we’re featuring a photo of a guy’s butt resting on an HR Giger sculpture today. Well, first of all, it’s because of the fact that if we used a girl’s butt you’d think we were sexist. And second, it’s not an HR Giger sculpture, it’s an actual bicycle seat, called the Manta Saddle. The makers say it “changes the whole feel of being seated on a bicycle“. Which is what you would immediately think when you see it with no-one seated on it (see below). But in spite of its first butt-pinching impressions, it apparently eases pressure on the perineum, pudendal arteries, prostate, and nerves, minimizing biker butt. You may have noticed that “ergonomic” can usually be defined as “strange looking”. In spite of our bumpy, curvy bodies, we’ve designed an entire world out of hard angles, presumably because it’s historically been easier to fabricate things this way. Or do we just find it unsettling to the mind to surround ourselves with irregular, bulbous shapes? Who knows. Below are some images of other odd-looking ergonomic designs. Feel free to share if you know of more good examples. Read the rest of this entry »