November 2005 Archives

For a long, long time, Slashdot has ruled the geekdom. But there is unrest. The chattering classes have found a new upstart who seeks to grab the throne. Who is this? What foul stench lies across geekland? Bodies are lying in the streets in various states of decomposition. Grim the situation seems. The peasant geeks have revolted. Led by a fresh, new leader called digg.

So digg is scraping up the geeks left and right, and Slashdot is becoming...? Check out digg for a wider range of geek topics—although less emphasis on security, open source, Microsoft, etc. I've been reading digg for a couple of months—at least the front page stories—and appreciate it's egalitarian approach to news editing. It's a site by and of and for the geeks. Check it out. digg.com.

The NYTimes.com has a great article about Kazushige Goto whose Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines (GotoBLAS) power a surprising number of the world's fastest computers. Mr. Goto has exceled at hand-tuning code for calculating linear equations on a variety of microprocessor architectures. Currently at UT-Austin, he has been in the supercomputing field for only a decade. He's now 37 years old. Well, go read the article yourself. It's fascinating, if you're into that kind of thing.

Kind of appropriate that his last name is Goto, no?

Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 2:00pm—4:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

Notes

I was running late and in my haste arrived at the studio without the second half of my show, an hour of Jandek music from the early nineties. Tanya called and offered to deliver the LPs to the station. As usual, I decided to leave it up to the listeners. As absolutely no one called wanting to hear Jandek, I played Charlotte Moorman's answering machine tape and an old Abbott & Costello Show instead.

Daniel Stout's first choice for the Rockin' Song of the Show was Ciccone Youth's "(Silence)" off of The Whitey Album. Since that would be a minute and three seconds worth of dead air, I played his second choice, The Cure's "Shake Dog Shake" off of The Top, instead.

"My Bathroom Is A Private Kind Of Place" went out to Sam Teigen simply because I think he would like it.

Today in the United States is our annual holiday Thanksgiving. The traditional meal is that of a large North American gallinaceous bird (Meleagris gallopavo) that is domesticated in most parts of the world. And in case you were wondering, a gallinaceous bird is of or relating to an order (Galliformes) of heavy-bodied largely terrestrial birds including the pheasants, turkeys, grouse, and the common domestic fowl. (Thanks, Merriam-Webster.)

The non-traditional meal in the U.S. of course is the tofurky, or tofu turkey. But to be honest, folks, I don't know any self-respecting vegetarians who would eat such a thing. The idea is to still give thanks, but to eat something else that doesn't have anything to do with turkey. Traditional holiday meals in the U.S. center around the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas ham, but I think a lot of people go their own way with these meals nowadays. So eat, drink, and be yourself!

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

There is a certain class of site that falls into the One Trick Pony category. These are sites that don't have any content or any other real purpose except to amuse. Robert Scoble, the Microsoft Blogger, links to a good one today. It's the singing eye-yey-eye site at www.iiiiiiii.com. Another one of my favorites that I never tire of is KHAAAN! over at www.khaaan.com. You need to have the sound on for both of these sites.

What one trick ponies do you like?

In the continuing Battle of the Sexes and in light of Maureen Dowd's book Are Men Necessary?, Samantha Bonar of the Los Angeles Times has decided to limit her vocabulary when speaking to men. In fact, she finds that only 10 or so words are necessary. Check this out:

I also have decided to limit my vocabulary to 10 monosyllabic words (not counting contractions and articles):

You
Big
Strong
Yes
Chips
Game
Beer
Man
Want
Great

For example: "Big strong man want beer?" "You want chips?" "You great!"

Hmmm...Interesting. Bonar also notes that there are some words that women shouldn't say to men. Just as much as there is a vocabulary to use, there is a vocabulary to avoid.

I will avoid these words like New Orleans:

Me
I
Why
What
Can
Will
No
Never
Stop
Yuck

As in: "Why do you insist on my wearing these sheer red stockings?" "Can I have one of your beers?" "Will you let me know if you are married?"

There you have it. The Guide to Talking to Males courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.

Personally I would beg to differ. It's a guide for talking to the typical male—the typical male would respond to that type of interaction. But most of the men I know are not your typical males. I think smart men like smart women. At least I know I do. Let's hear it for smart women and smart men! Harrah!

Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 2:30pm—4:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

One of the side effects of running your own website is the data that is generated by your visitors. Our web host, pair.com, dumps a daily log file of all the traffic on the site. Typically we've looked at these with a web analytics program about once a month. But now there's a new kid on the block, Google Analytics. Google's service is free, and it's great!

Basically you put a small bit of javascript code into the <head> section of your web pages. There's nothing else you need to do. The statistics are generated automatically—no log files to process! Real-time stats 24/7. We've been using the new Google Analytics service for a few days, and the level of detail is fantastic. We're now getting more stats than we were before with the simple log files. Sure, there is referrers, search engines, browsers, exit and entry pages, and so forth. The usual stats you'd expect to see. But because of the magic of Javascript, we're now getting information like screen resolution, language version, Flash version, and all kinds of crazy stuff like that.

There are also a lot of features for marketers, especially if you're using Google's AdWords. That would be a real value proposition for Google advertising clients, but for our modest site, not so much. At any rate, Google Analytics is well worth a look if you want detailed statistics on your blog or website. It's free and easy to use. Very detailed reports, and very nice looking as well. Once again Google has a killer service that they're giving away for free.

I know you've been anxiously awaiting Manufactured Environments podcasty goodness. Well, I'm pleased to announce that Manufactured Podcasts is up and podcasting away. I've posted a few select poems that I think you will enjoy. I know that Faust is hard at work at doing his own podcasts, and he will be posting soon. Enjoy!

The RSS feed for the podcasts is over here:

http://feeds.manufacturedenvironments.com/ManufacturedPodcasts

Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 2:30pm—4:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

Announcements

Sun Ra Radio remains on hiatus and there is no word when it will return to earthly airwaves.

Per the ratings book, this show is number one with male economists aged 21-40.

Mr. Stout was kind enough to call in. During Lou Reed's solo on "I Can't Stand It", he asked if I could play something that rocks. What? That solo didn't rock? Give it a listen and let me know. Does that track rock, rot, or rule?

Full Disclosure:

Mr. Stout had his radio turned down while we were talking. When I informed him of what was on, he simply requested that, if possible, I try to top it. Which I hope was accomplished with the final Sun Ra tune.

I was taking a look at Miqel.com and liked the dense design. There's a lot it reminds me of, and it's well worth a look if you haven't. It comes from the same design school as Dr Bronner's Magic Soaps and the Church of the Subgenius. These things seem to run together.

So what do you think? Should the next redesign of Manufactured Environments be inspired by Miqel.com?

Update: For some reason, it seems appropriate to point out this MIT study On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets. [via bb]

Domo Arigato, Mr. Yamato. Yamato founder Masaki Ogawa wants to bang on the taiko all day.

The Wadaiko Yamato Drummers of Japan performed at Luther College last night as part of their 2005 Kami-Nari World Tour. They played taiko drums, which range from six inches to six feet in diameter, as well an assortment of other traditional Japanese instruments such as the shamisen, shakuhachi, and koto. Traditionally this type of drum ensemble only features men. So it was a notable and welcome surprise that five of the eleven members were women.

I 'm glad I went, but the show was kind of hit-and-miss. There were some stunning and beautiful pieces well enhanced by dramatic lighting, effective choreography, and liberal use of a fog machine. Unfortunately there were also just as many dreadful pieces which didn't seem to be much more than pandering. While a game of catch with an imaginary ball and Chappa mitts was an enjoyable way to pass the time during a major set change, the audience-participation clap alongs and battling drummers who keep bringing out bigger and bigger drums were predictable, unpalatable, and distracted from the better parts of the show. I wish Yamato had left the cutesy comedic numbers that try to be clever to Blast, Stomp, and the Blue Man Group. That way they would have had more time for what the audience really wanted, the thunderous sounds of ancient elephantine drums walloped with enormous sticks by ripped Japanese percussionists.

Here it is 2005 and what is Dan listening to tonight? His favvy fav-o favorite album by The Cure. By some freak accident of nature, The Cure is still one of my favorite bands. I tend to only listen to their 80s music—ignoring 1979 and in whole the 1990s. I seem to never get tired of listening to this stuff.

Believe me, I love every album they released in the 1980s. My friend Chris used to complain that I seemed unable to make a mix tape without a Cure song on it. But of course, that was back in the days of mix tapes, and who can account for that? Now I know what you Cure fans are going to say. Why not Head on the Door? Why The Top? (By the way, it's not available domestically so best get it from iTunes at the previous link.) I think Head on the Door would have been better if there was more of it. All of those 3-minute songs on Head on the Door were begging to be 6-minute songs. It seems like just when the songs are getting into it they eject. The Top on the other hand does not feel like a compromise. It feels fully formed. It's more aggressive than Head. In the desert island comparison, that is, which album I would take with me to a desert island, I would still chose the Top because it's just really fucking interesting to listen to, you know?

Download The Top here:

Download Head on the Door here:

Sam requested some hints and tips from the classical repertoire, and we can only but oblige. You may be thinking, "What is it with classical music?" and "Who the hell listens to that stuff anyway?" and "Anything composed after 1945 is utter shite!" Okay, fair enough. There is a lot of music post-WWII that was atonal, abrasive, and frankly difficult to listen to. But writing off the last 60 years of classical music doesn't make any sense. There are lots of great works that will stand the test of time. I have highlighted a few works previously such as Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and John Adams' Century Rolls.

But the composer who transcends this mortal coil and really is a great listen is Philip Glass. I'll highlight first his symphony no 2 and symphony no 3. Both of these works are a delight to listen to. They strike me as tonal works for the modern ear. The previous links are to the Nonesuch recordings at Amazon.com. For those on a tighter budget, there is also this recording of both symphonies for $7. I haven't heard this recording, but I don't think you can go too far wrong for that amount.

So I wanted to get the solid recommendations out of the way. Either symphony is great. Enjoy! But the piece I really wanted to highlight is Glass' Symphony No 5. This is a choral symphony with lyrics taken from the creation myths of various traditions. It is both surprising and wonderful to listen to. The string arrangements are excellent, but the vocalists do a really fantastic job. If you've been thinking to yourself, "I've been looking for a new challenge" and "I haven't heard much good new music lately" then this is what you've been waiting for! Check out Symphony No 5 if you're feeling adventurous. It's different in scope and format than other Glass pieces, but it's one of his best works in my opinion.