respec.tk

good bye world.

2006-01-11T17:14:00.000-05:00

If it is not already clear from the montly posting frequency, this blog is no longer where I am going to be posting...

keep your eyes on jonbro.tk where I will be starting to blog within the week. thanks, bye, love... jonathan.

p.s. if you want to keep this blog eli, or elijah, feel free. I am just going to leave it here, you can do whatever you want with it.

UPDATE:
the address of the blog is jonbro.tk/blog. Once again, enjoy, and thanks for the fun.

A short story about techno

2005-10-31T00:57:00.000-05:00

I remember the first time that I heard techno music. I was in the back seat of my parents car on the way to a family event at my grandmothers house in north carolina. Any car that I could tell a story about would be my parent's car, but that is a different story for a different night. The reason that we were traveling to north carolina was a christmas party. The objectives of one of the games at the party was to guess how late my family would be.

Because it was a christmas party we were packed in the car with all kinds of gifts. Part of the journey had been spent with the lights on, because we needed the light to wrap the presents with. When the radio started playing techno the lights were off. It might not have been techno, it could have just been an electronic phenomena, waves canceling out waves. There was a beat there, and I begged my parents to leave it on.

I remember the beats going on forever, my parents would change the station and I would ask them to change it back, and the clicking would still be there. My mother claimed that the sound was designed to induce a trance, that perhaps it was used in cults to brainwash people. I listened as long as I could. I wanted to hear the beat change.

c.j.t (2 of 6) - dumpsters and donuts

2005-09-16T10:17:00.000-04:00

last night I went with my roommate billy to get rid of a trashcan that the garbage men had not been emptying. The cops rolled up just as we were tipping it into the dumpster outside of his office and informed us that we were "stealing services". Later on, while coming home from the bar, I decided I wanted some donuts. the store that I went to had those same cops in it! I said, "do you have any donuts?", and the attendent said "you will have to wait until 4 or 5 am"

c.j.t (1 of 6)

2005-09-15T20:52:00.000-04:00

today I went through the motions of the first drunken conversation that I generally have with a person. family mental health history, drug usage, big plans. I suppose that it always ends up at the big plans stage.

(1) Today I went out for a coupla' drinks with my boss, and we ended up talking about the basics...
(2) or at least I did, covered the mental health of my family, my drug use family, and my large plans.
(3) [me sitting with my 3rd glass of beer (dark)]
(4) she offered me to trade a painting for theknowledgeoftheweb.
(5) I told her about my emo ass comics...
(6) ...

big old idea hole update

2005-08-28T18:18:00.000-04:00

actual bell attachements for cell phones.

we are the hell raisers of our generation, locking ourselves inside with our second personalities, doing nothing but gibbbing and fragging until we can't keep our eyes open anymore.

channel101 vs. em411 to create a sort of online version of mtv, one which is more open

can we use our dining room as a screening room?

the bronx equivilent of stephen hawking is like the way kids talk to each other on aim today.

getElementByClass() needs to be written. I know it can. I just need to write it.

we need a way to bankrupt the search engine spammers, those people that make the first 30 links on any particular subject totally worthless. I think just bots that click a ton on ads on sites that we like, then our friendly sites get the money, the spammers don't see any conversions off of ad clicks, done.

battery powered hand warmer, willing to recharge once every 16 hours, 60 to 90 seconds, every 15 minutes. credit to amelia

today I went to cvs, bought a can of iced tea, a bottle of tylenol with arthritis medication, and a wrist splint. I am slowly joining the cyborg legion.

on time.

2005-08-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

showed up to work today at 9:30 am, rode my bike in while drinking hot coffee out of a paper cup.

The orentation for the management school masters is occuring in the lobby and they have quite a spread, coffee, donuts, bagels, the works.

have to stay tonight until at least 7.

I am dressed like a clown. TGIF.

A little less conversation and a little more philosophical voyeurism (kottke.org)

2005-08-16T13:22:00.000-04:00

What Kottke hosted wasn't a conversation at all. It was nearly 80 people carrying on their own conversations with themselves while others watched. That's not a conversation -- that's philosophical voyeurism spiced with a hint of insanity.

A little less conversation and a little more philosophical voyeurism (kottke.org)

idea hole 4k

2005-08-13T17:15:00.000-04:00

what if avatars had been called avatarts? what if?

chreck - Google Search

2005-07-30T18:25:00.000-04:00

another one for the idea pit...
A camera on the outside of your closet door that records what you are wearing everyday coupled with a simple sorting program that allows you to easily build statistics on the clothing that you are wearing every day.

I am realizing how necessary this is as I fill yet another garbage bag with clothing during my moving process.

Anil Dash: How Do We Judge Our Tools?

2005-07-28T20:50:00.000-04:00

One for the idea hole:

As I was reading today about web applications, I noticed that one of the main complaints is that they are inherintaly unstable. This is due to the fact that the application exists entirly on someone elses server. I propose that some developer creates tools that will allow users to easily host their own version on their home computer, with total database backup of at least their own files.

It would need to be a one step process, and then the whole web 2.0 concept may really start taking off.

this is the article that I was reading. Anil Dash: How Do We Judge Our Tools?

Comics: show

2005-07-19T16:08:00.000-04:00

Comics.jonbro.tk is now up!!!

have a phun!

an album that I should find.

2005-07-18T00:39:00.000-04:00

raw like sushi

dude, there's a hand on your face...

2005-07-13T01:07:00.000-04:00

this is aurelia...

totally not helping your google rank at all. good luck making it to the top sister.;

Rails Cookbook | Hieraki

2005-07-07T20:03:00.000-04:00

Rails Cookbook | Hieraki

this is the last tutorial that I will need to do for rails... I hope :)

then it is OFF TO THE RACES!

handface :: Index

2005-07-07T02:14:00.000-04:00

handface :: Index

OK< I lovadubadubadub...

see everyone on monday/tuesday/wednesday.

another comic

2005-06-28T01:43:00.000-04:00

ivdrip,
originally uploaded by jonbro.

one last one before I go to sleep.

vermontmousetrap

2005-06-27T23:18:00.000-04:00

vermontmousetrap,
originally uploaded by jonbro.

Today I discovered that our house had a mouse in it. Sadly, we do not have any mousetraps, and when I was talking about my roommates about it (while watching the daily show) dave suggested that we build the mousetrap illustrated here.

He then suggested that we put a webcam on the thing so that we can record the workings of the vermont mousetrap.

Help with the redesign

2005-06-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

I just started working on the redesign this afternoon, and I would like to just have a little fun contribution session.

If any of our multitude of readers (that is you yann) could write some one liners describing what this blog is or why you read it, I will include it in the redesign. It is totally like a magazine contest, except instead of getting moderately excited about winning, you will get a similar feeling to when you toss a bum a quarter on a street corner.

some ideas to get you started:

why read if it isn't the deep thoughts of a hot cam girl?
for your consideration: a link that I found on someones personal diary
we are all friends here. OR SO THEY THOUGHT. a new movie from jerry bruckhimer.
if you think you can't write or have nothing to say... check THIS out
aweblogbysomepeoplethatyoumayknoworenjoythecompanyof

anyways... just drop them in the comments section.
and hold onto your pants for the upcoming redesign. it is gonna be a scorcher.

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005)

2005-06-27T11:31:00.000-04:00

Boffins create zombie dogs

well the last one may have been a lie, but check this out! done right in our town no less.
Safar Center for Resuscitation Research

Flag On The Moon: Writing down ideas

2005-06-26T11:18:00.000-04:00

Jack Masters has some comments about how he records his ideas. This blog is getting more and more interesting every time there is a post to it. I like it because it is surreal enough to be humorus but feels very genuine at the same time.
Flag On The Moon: Writing down ideas

almost happy one year old

2005-06-20T18:04:00.000-04:00

I was filling out this survey from mit about weblogs, and I noticed that this one is quickly approaching its 1st birthday!!! happy birthday!

I don't yet know what I am going to do to celebrate. Maybe give it a new name and purpose in life? maybe post everyday for the next week?

I wish that I could buy it a present, like a new host or something like that. I don't know if I can afford that though.

perhaps I will make it something... like a redesign?

and because weblogs need links.

surfinglessons

2005-06-17T14:03:00.000-04:00

surfinglessons,
originally uploaded by jonbro.

a comic that I wrote on the plane home from my vacation.

anarchaic unix problems

2005-06-17T13:53:00.000-04:00

I am getting really pissed off at the fact that if I want to run my own server with web applications that I can access from anywhere I have to deal with innumerable problems. I don't mind the scripting, ruby and php and perl are all running fine, the problem that is really starting to piss me off is the fact that mySql is totally getting all up in my junx.

should an application that appears to be 30+ years old really not have comprehensive help out there? perhaps it is the fact that I don't really know why I am having the problems that I am having.

I guess there will always be a place in the world for people that are willing to bang their heads against these types of problems until they get a breakthrough.

(the current problem that I am bashing my poor head against is mp3act)

Boing Boing: Patent-leather thigh holster for cellphones

2005-06-10T01:16:00.000-04:00

Boing Boing: Patent-leather thigh holster for cellphones

are any women going to seriously wear this? I think it is hot, and I bet the guy that thought it up thinks the same.

but it really looks like some gun fetish comic book wear.

VGMix.com - About

2005-05-27T17:50:00.000-04:00

A forum / release system that runs on the same type of principals that guide a MMORPG seems like it may be a nice way to develop content for a print journal mayhaps? I have never played a mmorpg, except for about 5 minutes of the beta version of ultima online, so perhaps something like this would only work for systems that expect a ton of people to participate.

about half way down the page, under THE VGMIX RPG STAT SYSTEM
VGMix.com - About

Flag On The Moon: How to get out of bed

2005-05-27T15:17:00.000-04:00

Flag On The Moon: How to get out of bed

jack masters, an online artist and posible internet crazy person has a solution for how to get out of a bed in the morning.

EM411.com - [mixit_user] - Electronic Music 411

2005-05-24T15:46:00.000-04:00

a new release over on em411.

EM411.com - [mixit_user] - Electronic Music 411

beingproductive

2005-05-24T01:32:00.000-04:00

beingproductive,
originally uploaded by jonbro.

a comic for everyone.

I find it is much easier to write this way than to write the comic before hand and write the pictures after way.

or at least I get results that I am happy with.

respec.tk

2005-05-19T18:13:00.000-04:00

respec.tk

I am wondering what to do with it. I know for a fact that it is high time that I buy my own webspace... in fact, after paying my rent, that is what I am going to do with my next paycheck.

if anyone has ideas about what this space could become, how to make it more useful / provocative / fun, please let me know. I want pie in the sky ideas people. really. let me know.

ok, peace out everybody, see you soon.

2005-05-13T15:05:00.000-04:00

The Unicorns say:

'Look at the ants on the floor
They work real hard
lifting three times their mass
and sometimes more'

Caleb Carruth.COM

2005-05-06T01:32:00.000-04:00

Caleb Carruth.COM

All the cool people are moving to frisco, TX. apparently.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Cambodian troops Quarantine Quan'su

2005-05-02T13:18:00.000-04:00

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Cambodian troops Quarantine Quan'su: "Cambodian officials say that the outbreak has been contained and the public has no need to worry."

oh, just another zombie outbreak, no need to worry.

Two Items.

2005-05-01T23:10:00.000-04:00

I have had a similar reaction to two seperate and wildly different pieces of media that I managed to consume over that past 24 hours. The first piece of media was this bizzaro anime that is showing on cartoon network called one piece. Really what set me off about this animation was the opening, which laid out the plot as a boy trying to find the treasure of the king of the pirates. This opening also explained that the kid had super powers, and was done in a really shoddy pop - hip - hop style.

I think I am outgrowing this stuff. Not even ghost in the shell excites me anymore.

Something that I found today, however, made me super excited and happy. That is the booty bass that is coming out of the favelas in rio and sao palo brazil... This stuff is not that great, in fact it kinda reminds me of early 90s radio techno... but dang!!! it is fucking RAW!!! you can hear that this stuff was produced on no budget at all. The low fi samplers, the noise in the mics. It is SOOOO FUCKING GOOD. You can hear people having fun, and I don't hear that too much in the music that I listen to.

a big collection of albums (in mp3 form) here.

Bill Moggridge lecture at Carnegie Mellon University

2005-04-25T19:57:00.000-04:00

I only started about 20 minutes in, but here are my lecture notes from the IDEO lecture at CMU school of design.

The thrust of the lecture was to get people to sign up for jobs at IDEO. An interesting lecture, but not really all that great, I guess not that surprising considering that it is a giant company.

the one thing that I really wanted to know was if their designers came up with product sectors outside of the Zero-20 group (the toy designers). I feel like that would be a nice place for me to work, that is creating sweet ass product concepts for companies that don't even have an idea, just piles of money and engineers in the hallways and conference rooms.

Also, I just stabbed live-blogging in the face. It is totally dead.

YOUR LECTURE NOTES FOLLOW.
===========================================================================

second section: prototyping...

the have prototyping labs where you send your cad/cam models(traditional)
Experience Prototyping
we need a new way of creating things when we work with people, not just create things for them

how to prototype an underwater camera
spyfish (H2I)
interaction design problem (HUD)
Started as a game, control a person in a conference room holding a video camera, has a monitor outside to transfer the instructions in.
team of 6 people to understand the problem (with out actually creating anything.

how to prototype a digital camera interface
kodak built an experience prototype (big clunky, big display, large buttons, clearly a prototype)
included all of their interface concepts.
following this, IDEO made system concepts.

most difficult prototype...
for a museum piece dealing with how peoples workspaces look.
created a personal sky cubicle, sit in a chair, pick up the phone and choose the sky that you wanted over your head.
the chair would store an image of the back of your shirt and display it on the chair.

make your product video like the product is actually being sold, except remember that you can make it as long as you want.

also, sometimes don't do that, when the idea is "pie in the sky"

also, prototypes can be crappy (like made out of trash), just as long as you have the potential users sitting around with you.

SERVICE DESIGN::
experience prototype for a company without even a product.

use existing products, and heavily show what the users will actually be doing.
(no voiceover)
show an entire story (resolve?) serveral uses of the service, even if identical different connotations

WHORE! (it was just CBS was being really nice to them)

KINda creepy video about hiring process, where each canidate is in a seperate room, and they are on CC video, one of the canidates decides to drink coke, and is forcibly ejected from the building.

winning the google game

2005-04-23T18:01:00.000-04:00

I am number 36...

my eventual goal is to beat Joseph Brodsky, and I figure that I can do it considering I use the internet quite a bit more than he does.

I think that the first step is for someone to write an article about me for wikipedia.

come on you aspiring biographers, I know you are out there!!!

UPDATE:

Actually, wait a second. Don't do that. Apparently wikipedia frowns upon people being promoted by using their system. I think that raising a google ranking is probably a pretty good example of promotion.

RE: alarm clock.

2005-04-20T16:22:00.000-04:00

my dad sent me this response to my alarm clock idea... I think that it is a good one.

Actually the solution to the alarm clock problem is to have it shut off only by a key that is in the class room where the first class to be attended is. The Alarm Clock should be attached to the student permanently (Handcuffs or the equivalent). That will insure that the student gets to class on time. Alarm ringing all the way to class. Well Actually chaining the shut off key outside the dormitory door or somewhere down the street may be equally as effective. But I can imagine that some students might show up at class in pajamas, turn off the alarm clock,and then return home to sleep.

BRILLIANT!

difficultclock

2005-04-20T15:22:00.000-04:00

difficultclock,
originally uploaded by jonbro.

a picture of the difficult clock for those that need a visual help.

click on the image for a larger version

Difficult Alarm Clock

2005-04-20T02:17:00.000-04:00

So, here is my next idea.

I have been talking this one over with my roommate Billy b for a few weeks now, and I think that I am starting to approach something that may be a 1) feasible 2) useful and 3) pleasing product.

basically the problem that Billy (and I, and I am sure many college students have), is that we are programmed to shut off the alarm clock and go back to sleep. Many days I have woke up and noticed that my class started 2 hours ago, and although I remember setting my alarm to wake up for it, I have no memory of turning it off.

so there are several solutions to this problem both on the market and in the conceptual phase. The first one is an actual product called the sleeptracker waits for a light rem cycle to wake you. This is a supremely awesome product that takes into account the human body but I believe that it has two failings for the college market. 1) it costs too much and 2) I have a sneaking suspicion that its "off" button is just as easy to operate as the standard alarm clock. I think that we need a more brute force method of getting up, something that really forces our focus.

So what I propose is an alarm clock that is exceedingly difficult to operate. There are a few student projects (read: vaporware) that take this route.

Sfera moves away from you as you tap it to gain more sleep time. It seems that the way to turn it off is just to pull it back down to the bed. I think that this would be just a little too easy for someone as sleep deprived as our target user.

Clocky is an alarm clock that runs away from you after you hit the snooze button. I think that the challenges of building an AI system that could navigate the clothing filled wasteland that is the average college students bedroom take this one out of the running pretty quick.

This one is getting there... and it is in production too.
the KuKu Clock is an alarm that has a payload of 5 eggs that it releases upon alarm activation. To turn the alarm off, the user must replace the eggs. The only failings that I see with this design are losing all of the eggs (and not being able to turn it off) and the build quality making it extremely easy to smash (and turn off permanently).

So my solution?

Make an alarm clock that displays a randomly chosen integer and force you to type it back in. The cool part would be if the keypad changed its layout after every button press. Have the display for the time and initial number string be cheap seven segment displays, and the entry key pad be seven segment displays with buttons underneath them.

Wrap the whole thing in glavanized steel, and have it run off of a lantern battery that was held in with plate that was screwed in at 4 points. Even better a solenoid that ran off a separate supply that required a code to release the battery plate.

I think that the logic for such a system would be pretty easy to produce on a 10 dollar basic stamp, and the rest of the components (at least for a prototype module) would run in the 70 dollar range.

Other Links about alarm clocks
building a better alarm clock seems to think that alarms are good enough, but there is not enough home system integration, and also, it doesn't read your rss feeds to you.

another non-production model that simply requires a squeeze of a teddy bear to snooze. These people have clearly not been pulling enough all nighters.

This is a collection of clever alarm clocks including a few that I have linked to, and some that I have not. Included for the sake of total completeness of this post.

Surveillance kites

2005-04-15T15:51:00.000-04:00

Me and Eli have been talking recently about a project that is quite interesting to me, mounting a wireless surveillance camera on a kite and having it publish a live arial feed to a website (presumably, to offer arial surviellance to groups that could not afford it prior). So the main issue that we are dealing with now is the need for a low cost source of web cameras, with embedded webservers and 802.11x (or other alternatives). I was initially not sold on the plan of using a kite, because a balloon would offer a much more stable platform for the camera, but I am starting to realize that the cost of a weather ballon would be far to high, and the reasons for having a kite are stronger than just aesthetic, although aesthetic reasons are quite high.

anyways, here are some links of related projects, interesting technology and so on...

del.icio.us tag kite.cam

feel free to contribute.

Strange internet happenings

2005-04-08T01:48:00.000-04:00

tonight I just discovered a phantom post. I assume that my readers already know about del.icio.us (but in case you don't, it is a nice method of increasing your short term memory, or maybe not; read on faithful reader) but anyways, I went to my list tonight and discovered something that I have no memory of linking to. I would like to think that it was some voodoo demons that got inside my compy while my internet access was spotty earlier tonight, but I know that gibsonesque fatasies like that are probably a little far fetched.

even better would be some epic 2014 type stuff (you know, link, custom tailored news to the point where the recipient is so happy about the content that they no longer care about the source.)

the most likely scenario is that I just linked it myself and forgot about it. Maybe this is some type of del.icio.us critical mass (I have been trying to reach it recently by posting every little thing that I find even remotely interesting). The contents of the post are this link... and the word AWESOME!!!

and that it is. a really cool project that I think I would care about if I were to read the site, but I guess because I have it linked I will just do that later.

:)

UPDATE: Apparently I was logged into a school computer and eli clicked the "post to delicious" link on it, and it happend to be something that I was interested in. No grand conspiracy. maybe next time.

an email to my dad

2005-04-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

I wrote this email to my dad yesterday.

you may be interested in it...

Remember how we were looking at those head mountable displays for
virtual reality a few years ago? I seem to recall that they were a
little too expensive for a weekend project, but I ran across something
a few days ago, and realized that it may be applicable...

link

the project that she is using it for is not really the same at all,
but if you check out the ebay search for the screen that she
reccomends, it is only 17 dollars!!! (10 dollars less than the price
she quotes on her page)...

link

I think that it takes a standard composite video input as well.

even if you were not going to build a wearable computer, or a head
mounted display, that is unbelivably cheap for a backlit lcd screen.

maybe nice for a little cpu monitor / email alert / secondary monitor
for your desktop?

(although, that virtual reality stuff is still super cool, and I think
it is getting daily closer to being way affordable)

I think that the optics and the enclosure are still probably huge
hidden costs. I know that accelerometers are really cheap now.
link , need two placed at
right angles for 3 axis tracking, plus it is good enough for autopilot
for helicopters (model ones at least)
link

this is what reminded me.

link

nice.

2005-03-31T21:56:00.000-05:00

it seems that bloglines has added a way that you can track your packages through it. niiice.

the webternet

2005-03-29T22:41:00.000-05:00

I have been dicking around on the webternet tonight (instead of finishing up this paper that I need to submit to a conference tomorrow) and have been getting progressively more excited about ruby. I know that tons of tutorials are not necessarily a mark of a good piece of software, but the ease that they demonstrate just makes me want to learn, learn, LEARN!!! it also seems that this piece of software is running quite a few of my favorite web applications, and personally, I really don't want to learn php (it seems ugly, just leaving all that code sitting inside of every page).

I also really want to develop that web comic thing that I talked about earlier, and this may just be the perfect platform.

some things are italicized

2005-03-22T12:12:00.000-05:00

Elijahsays: now lets change the topic to the usefulness of italics
Allansays: Italics are useful to emphasize single words or to give whole sentences newfound authority.

Also here is a segment on Lactic Acid from our beloved wikipedia:

This lactic acid fermentation occurs in red blood cells since they don't have mitochondria, and in skeletal muscle during intense exertion when sufficient amounts of oxygen cannot be supplied fast enough. This lactate is released into the bloodstream. The typical lactate concentration in the blood is 1-2 m mole/L. The liver takes up about 60% of the lactate and reoxidizes it to pyruvate, which is then reconverted to glucose in a process known as gluconeogenesis. The glucose enters the bloodstream and can be used by the tissues. This glucose → lactate → glucose cycle, originally described by Carl and Gerty Cori, is known as the Cori cycle. About 40% of the lactate is taken up by well oxygenated muscle cells and oxidized to pyruvate, which is then directly used to fuel the citric acid cycle.

2005-03-13T22:32:00.000-05:00

St. Augustine once said:
I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a living death?

Cut My Voice On the Chorus

2005-02-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching an ok documentary on sampling and although 96% of it was old hat, right at the end, 3 artist suggested that it would be an honor for them to hear themselves over the chorus. So, I am gonna do that. I guess they would probably like it if I bought their albums, but I don't know if I am willing to go quite that far.

wow, the post frequency has really gone down here.

well, it was fun while it lasted wasn't it?

HIV vs. Cancer

2005-02-17T17:20:00.000-05:00

I have been telling people about this all day. I think it is about the coolest thing that I have ever heard. So dope. Essentially, HIV turns out to be a pretty good virus to use as a carrier for gene therapy. So some researchers are using it to fight cancer.

Also, I made a little music video. It is part two in a series.

Also, I would like to know if this posting method is working out for my readers. Should I do more of a one idea, one title thing? Or is this ALSO method working out?

respond in the comments section

Awesomeness

2005-02-16T17:53:00.000-05:00

At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment.
Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no
more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.

link

In other news, I told you so.

A barely annotated link, newssource, and art software politics

2005-02-16T01:10:00.000-05:00

Warren Ellis, as one of my readers knows, and the other perhaps does not, has some interesting things to say about the future. He address the issue of where your jetpack is, and why we are not on mars yet with the following witty phrases.

People are disappointed with the future they’re living in. Since 2001, the refrain has gone up, louder year by year: “This is the future. Where’s my flying car? Where’s my fucking jet pack?” Pre-millennium, we were living in an unprecedented density of imagined futures, and we assumed it was all waiting for us around the corner. And here we are, around the corner, and none of it is standing here.

well, acutally that block quote was totally worthless, but I assure you, the rest of the article is solid gold platinum, the only heavy metal worth dealing in.

link

Speaking of articles, I decided last night to become a contributer to the wikinews project. I edited three drafts, and today they have come up on the front page (although they did not make it to the rss feed). I would love to just barely annotate this link, but I think that is in bad form, so let me let you in on what I think. I am not a newsreader by any measure, but I do enjoy finding out about interesting items in the news. I am not a newswriter either, but I do enjoy helping others find out about what is going on in the world. So therefore, wiki is for me, the one that does but doesn't.

A third item that I would like to mention is that adobe software (specifically aftereffects) is really a pile of crap. Sorry, let me extrapolate that a little further... The aesthetic of much of the after effects work that I see is based heavily on the tool, a very plugin centric sort of game. The problem that I have is that the tool requires you to wait for a very long time to create these effects. Why can't it realtime render? Would that have been so hard? I have seen the effects that I am trying to create done in real time in video games, and at higher resolutions as well.

I think that the reason that after effects does not render in real time is because adobe is in line with hardware manufacturers. Just an unsupported thought.

Holding it down

2005-02-14T17:13:00.000-05:00

I would like to try a new method of posting that will hopefully create better posts for readers, and that will in turn make me happier about what I post to this blog. This method will be working on a post every day, but only posting every two days.

I working on an animation right now (or should I say, I am trying to work on it, but this dang browser window is in my way) and while working on it, I am questioning myself about what it is worth and why I am doing it... I have yet to come up with an answer, other than, it is cool and maybe will help me get a job in the future.

I also have finished up a little patch that controls audio playback based on how fast I play the drums, and it is a bit of a dope ass guitar solo type thing. I am going to make a music video for it tomorrow (or later tonight, perhaps, and post it on this blog).

Sometimes I think that if I had worked a bit more on writing in school my writing in general would be better. What makes this writing bad? I think that perhaps it is both because I don't have enough questions, nor do I have enough answers, I just have a head full of globo-corporati caffine and a broken keyboard. This combination clearly results in some fustration, but I know you, fine reader (and friend) can deal with it.

I would like someone to throw me a birthday party. I will provide links to all of my profiles on webbased personal services, if you would like. Really, what I am looking for is the opportunity for me and my friends to all drink ourselves into submission while listening to some good music. Ok, wait, I actually just want to have a dance party. I have some Dj friends. ok, lets make this happen. together we will stand strong, celebratory, with our fists held high in the air, sweat streaming off of our bodies, empty of all consciousness save for the fact that we remember that stupid post that we wrote on the internet (to our audience of 2) fantasizing about our party.

also, I would like to have the type of mind that produces poorly formed thoughts suitable for printing on the back of japanese peoples t-shirts. There is something really good about the two words "fuzzy robot".

Vday.

2005-02-13T16:14:00.000-05:00

so, I did my week (was it two?) of blogging every day, and I think that I came up with a few good pieces of content, but it was really cutting into my time, and I could not keep up with it. I would like to do it again some week, but I am not really sure when.

Zero Quality Control 2 is out now, and I have sold about half of the issues already. If you would like a copy, it is only a dollar, and I would be glad to accept your paypal payment (just make sure to include your address for shipping). I think I will release it on the web within the week, but you know, paper is cool!

I have been working a bit on a floppy disk album, which I hope will be about 10 songs and a music video. I think that most people are not using floppy disks anymore, but whatever. I will also release it on the internet simultaneously. It is quite the challange to fit a whole album on a floppy disk, but the methods remind me of the good old gameboy, so that is pretty exciting.

I had a funny idea for a photoseries involving my webserver blowing up, after me hosting some delicious extension on it, but I don't have a digital camera. Hahaha, I remember those times when I tried to pass off the gameboy camera as a digital camera. oh, man, good times.

Also, to contribute to the global metadata, I have this link for you today, connecting you to the always amusing Josh at fireland. He contributes some nice thoughts about where the web went, and coming from 2003 it is pretty insightful. Let me block quote a little for you, so that you can laugh along, and maybe even hit the hyperlink.

The weblog—and I’m using the original definition here, namely oft-updated annotated links—became the default personal site. I mean of course: it’s easy content. It’s like when you’re in the office kitchen trying to like maybe quietly enjoy a juice box for once and some guy comes in and starts reading the paper and saying Can you believe that? And: What do you make of that?

oh, man, this guy is smart. Feel free to peruse the rest of his site!

Tales from the Crypt

2005-02-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

This sounds cool:

For those of you who have a car that can be unlocked
by that remote button on your key ring: If you lock your
keys in the car and the spare keys are home, and you
don't have "OnStar," here's your answer to the
problem:

If someone has access to the spare remote at your
home, call them on your cell phone (or borrow one from
someone if the cell phone is locked in the car too!)
Hold your (or anyone's) cell phone about a foot from
your car door and have the other person at your home
press the unlock button, holding it near the phone on
their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from
having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no
object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if
you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for
your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk, or
have the "horn" signal go off, or whatever!)

(Editor's Note * It works fine! We tried it out and it
unlocked our car over a cell phone!) Distance doesn't
seem to be a factor.

Not Quite Net.Label

2005-02-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

While watching a Cory Doctorow speach tonight on the web, I came up with a nice idea. He mentioned that asimov's science fiction magazine payed very small amounts to a very small percentage of the writers that submitted (i.e. the few writers that got published).

So, what net.labels are able to pay artists for music that they host? I think that I could pony up a dollar per a release if I ran a net label. I guess what I am trying to say is that giving away hosting is not enough of an incentive for me to send music to other people to allow them to distribute. The net.labels are getting something out of it as well, right?

also, how do you feel about this new text size? I like it.

Muzzik :: Gangzta, Eskimo, Stuff by me.

2005-02-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

so, I have been reading some stuff tonight about the death of dance (as in music that would be classified as such, not the movements). I know that most people don't care, but I think that it is pretty interesting that all these people grew up, or whateve. Gutterbreakz links to a few arguements and has some comments of his own...

The thing about technologically-driven music is that, during those certain 'white heat' phases, it develops and mutates at such a ferocious rate that sometimes you feel that the original ideas didn't get a chance to be fully explored, as with Darkside Jungle. I spent nearly fifteen years telling anyone who would listen that the synthpop/futurist* period circa 1978-82 was ripe for fresh exploration...
Yet when the revival actually began, I was horrified by the majority of it.

As for myself, I am mostly interested with what the hell is happening in two places...
Gangzta/krunk/hip-hop is dead and come back to life as a flesh eating zombie and whatever the fuck "eskimo" is (Grime/dubstep/NUSKOOL-UKG). I like to think of whatever hiphop has mutated into is the most bizzare stuff to dance to. It is strange to see people dancing to tongue slap rythyms (snoop dogg - drop it like its hot).

Eskimo it turns out, is not in fact music made for dancing to while wearing those silly eskimo looking jackets (although they can certainly dance to it), it is a track by a guy named Wiley (although according to some sources, it may be somebody elses track). I think that one of the things that I like most about all this grime stuff is what is written about it, but that may be because I don't have the inside perspective on the scene.

I guess the best way to deal with it is just to start dropping some of these tracks the next time I am allowed to dj, and see how people deal with it. I think that it may just be too wierd.

also, I was going to share some acid house that I have been writing, but I think I am just going to share the eskimo track instead.

birdyvsplane

2005-02-03T17:39:00.000-05:00

birdyvsplane,
originally uploaded by jonbro.

This is a comic that will eventually end up in zero quality control issue two. I just want to remind everyone that submissions are still open (even though I am about half way done scanning what I have now, so you know, whatever). The format is going to be half of an 8.5 x 11 page so you know just drop them on me. The more the better...

2005-02-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

René Magritte's
La condition humaine

linked from: National Gallery of Art

2005-02-02T23:46:00.000-05:00

Okay here are the links http://www.niitholeinthewall.com/

2005-02-02T23:43:00.000-05:00

Link The "Hole-in-the-wall" home
Link
PBS Reportage

Here's the idea behind this computer device via PBS:

Mitra has some provocative ideas on the connection between learning and poverty. "Poverty has two different definitions," he tells me. "Poverty of information is one kind of poverty; poverty of materials is another kind of poverty. The same method may not apply to solve the two problems."

Mitra observes that the developed world has spent billions of dollars over decades trying to solve the problem of "material poverty" with little success. He speculates that if the problem of "information poverty" is addressed instead -- by providing poor people with access to information they need and can use -- then the poor "might just figure out how to solve the problem of material poverty by themselves."

Here's how the idea got turned into a computer kiosk:

Like many great ideas, Mitra's was essentially simple. He cut a hole in the boundary wall separating NIIT from the adjacent slum, put a high-speed computer connected to the Internet in the hole, and turned it on.

I'm intrigued by the physical metaphor of a window, in reality a rear window into a tech company, for people who have not had opportunities to be involved in India's ongoing tech boom. I hope it works as planned but I have a feeling that setting someone loose on the internet without guidance is like dumping a lifeboat in the ocean without a compass. I think I'll write about this more after I think on it for a little while.

Rene Magritte is an artist

2005-02-02T23:34:00.000-05:00

Corporate Lesson #2:
A priest was driving along and saw a nun on the on the
side of the road. He stopped and offered her a lift,
which she accepted. She got in and crossed her legs,
forcing her gown to open and reveal a lovely leg. The
priest had a look and nearly had an accident.

After regaining control of the car, he stealthily slid
his hand up her leg. The nun looked at him and
immediately said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The
priest was flustered and apologized profusely. He
forced himself to remove his hand. Changing gear, he
let his hand slide up her leg again.

The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"
Once again, the priest apologized. "Sorry, Sister,
but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the
nun got out gave him a meaningful glance and went on
her way.

Upon his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to
retrieve a bible and looked up Psalm 129. It Said "Go
forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in
your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

The computer as a door.

2005-02-02T14:45:00.000-05:00

I found this interesting article on the design constraints of social software. Right from the beginning it is fun...

When we hear the word "software," most of us think of things like Word, Powerpoint, or Photoshop, tools for individual users. These tools treat the computer as a box, a self-contained environment in which the user does things. Much of the current literature and practice of software design -- feature requirements, UI design, usability testing -- targets the individual user, functioning in isolation.

And yet, when we poll users about what they actually do with their computers, some form of social interaction always tops the list -- conversation, collaboration, playing games, and so on. The practice of software design is shot through with computer-as-box assumptions, while our actual behavior is closer to computer-as-door, treating the device as an entrance to a social space.

It goes on to describe and suggest social software art projects...

Jonah Brucker-Cohen's Bumplist stands out as an experiment in experimenting the social aspect of mailing lists. Bumplist, whose motto is "an email community for the determined", is a mailing list for 6 people, which anyone can join. When the 7th user joins, the first is bumped and, if they want to be back on, must re-join, bumping the second user, ad infinitum. (As of this writing, Bumplist is at 87,414 subscribes and 81,796 re-subscribes.) Bumplist's goal is more polemic than practical; Brucker-Cohen describes it as a re-examination of the culture and rules of mailing lists. However, it is a vivid illustration of the ways simple changes to well-understood software can produce radically different social effects.

You could easily imagine many such experiments. What would it take, for example, to design a mailing list that was flame-retardant? Once you stop regarding all users as isolated actors, a number of possibilities appear. You could institute induced lag, where, once a user contributed 5 posts in the space of an hour, a cumulative 10 minute delay would be added to each subsequent post. Every post would be delivered eventually, but it would retard the rapid-reply nature of flame wars, introducing a cooling off period for the most vociferous participants.

This seems like a very interesting field of new media art, what I would like to see is projects that are slightly less text centered and take advantage of vocal buildups of social networks.

via the best software essays of 2004

Romancing

2005-02-02T02:07:00.000-05:00

So, I know I should go to sleep, but I am puttering around the internet wondering what the hell is up with all this shit.

First up, I don't think that the page rank system that google uses is really terrible. I just think that you should be able to do things like get the results in reverse order, or at random, or like flashcards. I also think that link ranking should somehow be based on the rank of what you link to, so that you could get search results that would run from links to respected to links to disrespect and then everywhere inbetween. This is clearly oversimplification, but I think that the real method of improving the problems with google is not taking away functionality or using subpar rating systems, but rather to develop new rating systems that take into account the fact that people really use this stuff.

Second up, I can add your del.icio.us links to the side bar... Anybody in?

Third, while googling my name, I discovered a strange thing, and that was my address came up with the second hit. This concerning fact was pointed out to me by Eli earlier tonight, and it makes me wonder what I can do about it. It also made me wonder who this person in first was, who is linking to them, and why they rate. I chalk it up to the fact that I have been using a pseudonym almost since the beginning of my service on the internet.

Fourth, slightly further down the search results, I found this disconcerting little album review which I wrote near the beginning of my romance with the internet.

notice the following...

I have found that this music works best around middle-aged women, and people who just need to relax.

and later on...

Great Music to Play While: Romancing

uhhh, wtf?!?!?

Be sure to check out my other reviews on that site for a look into the life of an idiot 16 year old. The one regarding mission impossible 2 is possibly a high mark in the world of action movie criticism.

2005-02-01T23:53:00.000-05:00

One more image.

2005-02-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

Link to birdhouses built into buildings by Ottoman Empire architects during the 16th-18th century.

http://www.turkishculture.org/architecture/birdhouses.html
http://www.kulturturizm.gov.tr/portal/tarih_en.asp?belgeno=3990

Folks might be interested in seeing how different cultures throughout history construct different relationships with non-human nature.Constructing these additions required that the architects think outside their own experience, imagining what a bird might desire including "runways for landing and take-off, and even balconies where the birds can venture out and survey their surroundings." Although the ornate decoration reflects the convention for human architecture of the time it seems that it was meant as a gesture of respect for the importance of birds within Turkish culture.

I liked this poem from the site:

Mehmet Zaman Sacliolus poem, Bird Houses;
The outer walls of houses should be bird houses
That take wing when children laugh.
Even if its winter outside,
The summer sun should rise inside the walls
And happiness will also warm the birds.

System specs, comics, ads---

2005-02-01T23:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight my mission is to write some system specs for a online collaborative comics writing system. I have been told that the right way to do it is in the Universal Modeling Language, but after looking at the front page for a second, I think that project is bigger than tonight (although I find it interesting that you can write business models in UML). Tonight I am going to downgrade to just taking some notes...

first, however, I have two announcements.
1) Google ad words are gone... Apparently google is evil. In addition to that, the main goal of that little venture, to see specifics about the view logs, was not as successful as I thought it would be.
2) Welcome to another friend, Eli. I think that he will be writing nice essays and helping the content of this site increase, and possibly make it a nice destination for links and that type of junx. Slightly related, my name is Jonathan Brodsky, and I will be working to make the site reflect that.

WTF SYSTEM NOTES FOLLOW
----------------------------------
A system to allow collaboration in the WTF style (pioneered by myself and Josh Atlas in the Carnegie Mellon University Newspaper, the Tartan [haha, that site is the result of a comic {not written by myself, Josh Atlas, or and of the contributors to this site}]). The WTF style is for creator A to draw a panel, then for creator B to provide the captions for that panel, and draw the next. This occurs until the comic is complete, either based on a predetermined panel number, or based on the paper size / number of drawings.
An online system would allow for users to decide who they were going to work with and how long the completed comic would be (if in fact it was going to be completed at all). Average users would have thresholds for comics that would be displayed on them, based on completion percentage, contributing artists, and personal preference.
The Basis of the system would be a page that showed the last completed panel of the comics that you were working on. Once you wrote a caption for it, you would have the opportunity to draw the next panel. Only once that panel was complete and submitted would it stay in the system.

This system would allow comics artists to find others with styles, tastes, or humor, as well as improve their weak points in the comic writing duality. Of course you probably already knew that, because there are about 3 people that read this, and I write comics with all of them (except you elijah, but we can fix that).

I am an undercover monk

2005-02-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

In early january upon my return from Italy I was invited to partake in a seminar on my friend's island, located on the Potomac River opposite of Old Angler's Inn. I spent a solid three day weekend there discussing how to preserve an individual philosophy in a world of perverse intrusiveness. The head of the seminar, Ed Binns, was an educated man who started this group of Urban Coyotes, as he likes to call them, so that we would be encouraged to consider this damn important question.

It just so happens that I am pretty stubborn in my religious beliefs and he just as stubborn in his areligoius beliefs, so arguing with him was lots of fun. It seems, ironically, that taking a break from society brings you only closer to your fellow man. Anyhow I won't bore you kiddies with my old geezer stories (and by kiddies I mean Jonathan Brodsky), but I will be posting a few 'corporate parables' which Ed shared with us.

Corporate Lesson #1:
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is
finishing up her shower when the doorbell rings.
After a few seconds of arguing over which one should
go and answer the doorbell, the wife gives up, quickly
wraps herself up in a towel, and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the
next-door neighbor. Before she could say a word, Bob
says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel that you
have on." After thinking for a moment, the woman
drops her towel and stands totally naked in front of
Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her 800 dollars
and leaves.

Confused, but excited about her good fortune, the
woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back
upstairs. When she gets back to the bathroom, her
husband asks from the shower, "Who was that?? "It was
Bob the next door neighbor," she replies.

"Great!" the husband says, "Did he give you the $800
he borrowed from me?"

Moral of the story: If you share critical information
pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders
in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable
exposure.

yellow birthday cake

2005-02-01T01:21:00.000-05:00

[verse 1]
G Am Am G
last night I had some yellow birthday cake, it was protected by a friend until it got ate.
I am on a plan to gain some weight by the end of minute or at least eight.

Dm E Am
please tell me, mister what you got there.
can you spare a change to spare.
hey there, buddy, what choo selling,
break some off and make a killing.

[chorus]
Dm Em (Dm transposed 3) E A7
find your self another pathway...
this ones been taken for a walk.
find your self another hallmark...
this ones been taken around the block.

[verse 2]
let the record spin out and play, I doubt they were listening anyway.
speakerboxes on the sidewalks, remaindered visions from somebody elses thoughs.

say is that ok,
the rip off?
I will keep my voice low,
so nobody hears...

[chorus]

[bridge... aka verse with retared ass solo]

[chorus to fade out.]

0wnzed

2005-01-30T20:59:00.000-05:00

I added ads to this blog. partially so that I can make some kizzash, and also partially because I think that they will give me better page view statistics. so, to all those that think making money on the internets is cool, hook it up, post, and we will split the dividends. ok, peace out.

Difficulty with music software.

2005-01-30T14:43:00.000-05:00

last night I spent about 3 hours on di phone with my sister, helping her ta get ableton live up and running. live is di argueably di easiest piece of music software ta use, and without a doubt one of di prettiest, but deh was many a snag along di way. most of these snags were hardware related (turned out, her sound card would work in one usb port and not di other) and I just had some audio hardware snags dis ya morning, so I am ready ta filp out on dis ya business.

I was over at di radio station, doing my thing, and I thought ta myself, hmm, maybe I will play some mp3z off of my laptop. I hooked it up, and did so, but I got ta tell I and I, di signal ta noise ratio on my laptops headphone jack is horrendous. wa mek oh jah wa mek couldn't toshiba just have built in a bad soundcard or barring that, wa mek has one not made it ta di market in di sub 100 range that has quarter inch jacks on it. I have had it up ta yahso with eighth inch. it is really truely crap.

also, last night, I thought ta myself...

short check up

2005-01-28T23:47:00.000-05:00

so, it is really late, and I need to wake up in 6 hours to run a LARPG (google it) for little girls, but because of my strive to post every day, I am going to drop something on you that I should probably just send to del.icio.us (check it out) ummm, and maybe I won't even hypertext it correctly. ..

click!!!

it seems to be part of some mp3 giveaway artist type thing, which I hope to become one of. Also, I just had an idea tonight, to make music that sounds like that first time you listened to an album at 45 just because you could. you know, because you can't anymore, and that was really sweet.

also, I am starting to find this thread, you may see it in the comments there on the link that I posted, but it is also going on over at gutterbreakz, about ghettotech music and how electronics are fitting into that. I walked into my room tonight and was presented with a large pile of gear (mostly electronic, some customized stuff, some normal instruments, about 50 pounds [maybe more] altogether), and I wondered, what would someone who knows music only from top 40 and garage bands think of this horrible pile of shit.
I would like to think that I am somehow bridging the gap with my prosumer approach, but it may be that the studio that gave rise to the 80s sound has finally made it home, and if so, why the fuck are we still listening to music that sounds the same as the cutting edge did in the late 70s.
As I write this however, I should point out that I am listening to videogame music that has been expertly remixed into easy listening/makeout music. So, you know, catch up with this shit people, and accept my piles of ghetto ass electronic gear.

Catching up

2005-01-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

I spent some quality mIRC time catching up with an old friend. Also, Jon, you've been blogging like a lumberjack man, props to that shit.

* Now talking in #blah
* Topic is 'It's as Anne as the nose on plain's face.'
* Set by Allax on Mon Dec 06 18:41:14
[Elijaoutsijah] dude there are some light notebooks coming out
[Elijaoutsijah] this fujitsu p7000 is 3.3 lbs
[Elijaoutsijah] and its 1.1 ghz mobile processor
[Elijaoutsijah] its crazy
[Elijaoutsijah] soon we'll have some cool shit
[Elijaoutsijah] but batteries arent becoming any more powerful
[Elijaoutsijah] so we are eating up more and more power exponentially
[Elijaoutsijah] but not matching up with the energy resources
[Elijaoutsijah] so lets see.. burnout... civilization.. in a couple of years? =)
[Allax] I can't wait
[Allax] Going back to nature will rock.
[Allax] I'll probably die fast
[Allax] But the little time I have to enjoy nature would rock.

Internals.

2005-01-27T13:22:00.000-05:00

so, I know it is not professional to tell you all about the internal workings of the site, but this pertains to all of you.

I fixed the comments!!! you can now comment on posts, so, please, do so!!! I can't wait to see what other people have to say about my short rambling statements about nothing.

music that sounds like

2005-01-26T16:09:00.000-05:00

When squarepusher was just learning to play the bass, and his friend came over with a harmonica, and then they built a robot drummer, but was made mostly out of a car that they had stolen earlier that week, so the snare drum never sounded quite right.

the guy with the harmonica said, "hey, lets go to the liquor store and buy some 40s" but on his way through the front door he was shot, so squarepusher jammed the harmonica in his mouth while he was breathing his last breaths.

this track was recorded directly to the 911 emergency recording system.

Rules.

2005-01-25T19:43:00.000-05:00

1. Don't post every day if you don't have something to say, it just cheapens the whole mess of words that are up here.
2. If you don't have something good to say, make up some litigous statements, or something that you can spend more time commenting on.
3. While adding to the metadata of the web is nice, it is also necessary if you are a poor writer.
4. Only post links to songs if you can provide full length high quality mp3 or at least something by the same artist that sounds similar, or an artist with a similar sounding name.
5. Having something better to do is no excuse for not posting.

GOD I HATE WRITING!!! OMG! F.

also, I have been commenting alot over on gutterbreakz, so feel free to hit that up, and read what I have to say there.

comics

2005-01-24T21:53:00.000-05:00

hey I know I am posting twice in one day, but I couldn't resist.

the funny.

A few thoughts and possible directions

2005-01-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

Today as I was walking from my house to WRCT [my radio station] I realized the reason that I chose to study design was not from any super starz or books, but rather because I really liked rave flyers. well, I got to tell you, that was the most bomb ass decision that I ever made, because now I still have the opportunity to find a super star to inspire me. The thought that triggered this thought was about my uncle, who was supposedly inspired to become a doctor by reading a book called "the lives of a cell".

on a different note, I think that this blog may look like a live journal for a second now, because I will be posting daily. I think I may do some work on the backend of the site that is running on the server that I have managed to keep up for the past week, and then migrate my post from this blog, and a blog that I was working on about 3 year ago over to that box.

on yet another note, it seems like css is a bomb wild thing to do. so, maybe I will learn a little bit by hax0ring up a css zen garden.

well, that was some dumb writing, but my method at getting better at anything is just to practice everyday.

labelz

2005-01-23T21:08:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to resist posting this because it would almost make this feed seem as if it had a life, but I really can't resist.

my first ever interweb label release is out on floppyswop. I don't know if anyone is reading this blog, but if you are, please go download.

on a only slightly related note, I think that maybe the point of these things are to write as if no one else is reading for the maximum potential energy of the folksonomy/emergent intelligence of the net to form. Or maybe not, but that is a nice thought isn't it?

Art gallery attendent

2005-01-23T16:20:00.000-05:00

I am an employee at an art gallery that is on my college campus, and for the most part I enjoy my job quite a bit. The artists that come through here seem to be interesting enough, and the masters students shows are always good (the last one had a psychadelic water bed that I napped on occasionally).

The current show, however, seems to be something different, or at least worth writing a few words about. I am currently sitting on the third floor, in the midst of an exhibit by david robbins. The exhibit is a collection of work related to his "ice cream social" a collection of different pieces including a tv show, some poetry, a movie, some bowls, and other stuff. The book that describes his work explains it by saying that he is exploring the events of one night during which he hung a painting at a baskin robbins. While I like his repetition, I find that with so much work that he has supposedly put into this, the floor could be a bit more than two projections, a few refridgerators and some vinyl lettering (god, someone needs to ban that stuff. at least ban artists from using it.)

I like the mood that is established, but really, it seems like there could be just a bit more here.

Sleepers

2005-01-06T11:48:00.000-05:00

hey floks, we all know you sleep. You don't have to show it to us to drive the point home.

I got really angry watching this because it reminded me that almost every product demonstration video that I have seen a design student make includes a section with them sleeping. some times the whole video is about them sleeping. unless the sleeping actually proves something, don't include it. I think that one of my major complaints is the fact that no one ever performs that well directly out of bed.

I wish I had more examples to show, but sadly I have not collected design demonstration videos.

On another note, the wakeup scene was used well in "ghost in the shell" but that was only because you were like, what the hell is a robot doing sleeping?!?!

something?!?!?

2004-12-01T20:13:00.000-05:00

I wanted to write something, but I forgot. It was really cool, but then I forgot. I should have visited the website, and I didn't and I know why... because I went to sleep, because I went to sleep, because I went to sleep.

In all likelyhood, it was something about music or technology or writing. If I can remember it, I will come back, I promise.

Slava vishe Gospodi

2004-11-18T12:44:00.000-05:00

Praise God in the highest. He has granted us:

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 17, @01:00PM
from the creative-misapplication dept.
parasew writes "Nanoloop 2.0 for GameBoy Advance is Out! The GBA-Cartridge features a 8-voice Synthesizer an 8-Track Sequencer, a Song Editor and a HD-Recording Option, rendering the GBA one of the most cool digital gadgets for musicians that travel a lot. Extra-gear is a GameBoy-MIDI-Adapter and a Lowpass Filter Cable. Some Reviews of Nanoloop are available in the Web from samplepoolz, HarmonyCentral, nanoloop.de and a German one from Parasew. Demo sounds in MP3 format can be downloaded from the site."
-Slashdot.org

Forget graduate school; I am hitting up the school of portable 8-bit sequencing.

Also: I love you Jonathan Brodsky.

portability and the bard

2004-11-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

I have had something floating just behind my third eye for a while now, something which formed there around the same time I started thinking about performing electronic music. Maybe it formed there even earlier, like when I rented a playstation from blockbuster and brought it home and played it all night. It could have been even earlier, like when I upgraded my gameboy to a gamegear because it had a tv adaptor (which I never bought).

What has been lying there is the bard, the busker, the soundsystem and how it relates to this 8 bit / lo-fi electronics music attack that is happening right now. I don't think it is about nostalgia or interesting sound, I think it is about the fact that an amiga or a gameboy or maybe even a C64 are much more prepared to be musical instruments than any electronic instruments have been in the past. I know that the groove box that I bought certainly was not meant to rock in my backpack and my laptop is missing keys and the power supplys are falling apart. But my gameboy was designed to put up with the same kids that strap m80s to the back of their gi-joes.

I am proposing that the live electronic music performance needs to evolve. It is not about the fact that watching someone behind their laptop is boring, it is about the fact that you know that there laptop is just barely going to make it to the end of the tour.

What should you do???

two words...

smart phones

thanks...

and long live the portable toy audio attack system.

[!]

2004-10-23T16:17:00.000-04:00

This country = crazy
But for every 'poop' there is a 'pop.'
Kohina = solution

www.kohina.com

interesting

2004-10-17T01:58:00.000-04:00

the transparent press makes a prediction for the democratic canidate for 2012.
from the blog
"Obama was appearing berfore an audience of a well-heeled West L.A. crowd, but his message of lifting up the kid from the south side of Chicago lifted even the most jaded Santa Monican. It was a great political moment and I have no doubt that he will be the first African American with a legitimate shot at the White House in 2012."

link

YO THIS IS MY FRIEND

2004-09-15T21:41:00.000-04:00

e.dogg is hooking up the blog

2004-09-10T01:07:00.000-04:00

interesting boing boing post about alternative energy transportation systems.

globilization and the pain management industry

2004-09-09T16:42:00.000-04:00

The subject of pain management and its related fields have generally been localized within the context of the hospital industry. While this localization provides for expediency with dealing with issues that require a multiplicity of cures, it also limits access and marginalizes methods of pain management that deal with non critical levels of pain. These methods are generally labeled as “alternative” and exist in a realm that is associated with the fringes of medicine. This segregation may perhaps allow these alternative, low power treatments to move into contexts which pain management techniques which are close to the core of the hospital industry are unable to move into. The most critical of these locals is that of the western global business model.

There are already several arms of the hospital industry which have moved into this context. The pharmacy and the optician are two examples that immediately spring into mind. Both of these specializations are just as likely to be found in a mall as they are within a hospital, if not more likely. In both of these cases there is a specific product which the business is able to provide, but the business must also provide some amount of specialized service to be able to sell that product. While in the case of pharmacology, most of the service is provided outside of the business, in optometry, and specifically in the case of lenscrafters all of the specialized service can be preformed on site and in most cases, by administrators with very little training.

To a large extent, technological development is what allows a doctor to work next to a food court. This technology does not however lower the amount of space required to perform the diagnosis, which cuts into space used to sell a specific product. When comparing the products sold by pharmacologists, and those sold by optometrists, the value of a certain volume of product goes up proportionally to the amount of space required to determine the which product is needed. It would follow then that the amount of space needed to preform the duties of an alternative pain management specialist would be sufficiently large to require the sales of an extremely valuable product.

Perhaps there is no necessary product that needs to be sold in conjunction with these pain management techniques. It may be possible that the alleviation of the pain associated with the onset of global industry and business may be enough profit. The only remaining issue is to find an method of pain relief which can not only be simple to train specialists in its practice, but also to be sufficiently sterilized of its fringe qualities that it can fit into nearly any social context.

The faints

2004-09-07T10:03:00.000-04:00

Hello?

the ignoring stops now, at least temporarily. I witnessed some astonishing events that occured this morning, but vow to keep radio silence on them.

ok, enough for now, see you later.

[edit]

I just spent two hours writing an on how to justify to placement of pain management clinics in locations that are outside the existing hospital structure, but my computer crashed and I lost all of it, so maybe another day you will get it.

damn and blast.

something that brings warmth to my heart

2004-08-17T11:21:00.000-04:00

I made this for my baby. It reminded me of some things i have to get done: laundry, dishes, but also of the more productive and spiritually uplifting things. Like hitting up the ol' cubase sequencer and loading up some drum machine program. Learning languages. Being fiercer in my resistance of 'the man.' Exercising.

There was an interesting article published online at nature.com, the best in science journalism, which discusses a gene therapy discovered to eliminate laziness in primates (monkeys specifically in this experiment).

"The gene knockdown triggered a remarkable transformation in the simian work ethic," says Barry Richmond of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, who studied the animals.

Translation: the monkeys started doing shit. But how?

The team then injected a short strand of DNA into each monkey's brains, temporarily switching off a key gene in a region of the brain called the rhinal cortex, which is known to be involved in processing reward signals. The gene encodes a protein called a D2 receptor that makes nerve cells more sensitive to dopamine, a chemical that is also implicated in the perception of reward.

Why the dopamine receptors? I associate dopamine with stimulants. Maybe the other person who reads this blog can explain this to me. I do know that SSRI -selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors- work in a similar way; they block surplus seratonin from the receptors me thinks.

-Until next time, much love my peeps

Love Industry

2004-06-29T02:03:00.000-04:00

My old time tovarish (comrade) Jonathan Brodsky says it best: aint nothin in life bettar than communication 29893 !!expression. Why do we communicate? So we avoid bombing cultures we dont understand for corporate profiteering. So much beauty is to be found in every crevice of cultural friction. We want understanding between cultures and communities of a seemingly polarized nature. For me, the political aspect of communicative power is most prevalent in the politics of food industry. Not enough love! We need more love in the food industry! As it says in the ancient texts: Sell to ye subjects not ye lowest quality crop to rip they moneys off, but Sell to ye subjects the highest quality crop so that ye subjects may proliferate and understand ye moral philosophies!

The words of this tongue will become twofold as we explore the Industry. More Industry to follow!

what I RESPEC.TK

2004-06-29T01:46:00.000-04:00

hello, and welcome. my mission and goal with this following comment, my thesis statement if you will, is to tell you what I plan to do with this communication outlet.
I plan to tell you what I find interesting, what I am doing that is interesting, and what is going on that is interesting. I plan to bring more people on board, so that we can experiment and play with the weBLOG communi(ty)cation concept.
word.