This page contains all entries posted to Manufactured Environments in December 2006.
Coming Soon: Top Albums of 2006 on KWLC
Posted by Faust Gertz on Thu 28 Dec 2006 at 12:39 PM
Tune to KWLC on Saturday from 4:30pm–8:30pm (CST) to hear Classic Rock DJ Jason Stonerook and I countdown our picks for the best albums of 2006.
Don’t let us have all of the fun. We want to hear what our listeners think.
There are three ways to participate:
- Comment on this post.
- Leave a voice message on the hot line, +1.312.278.3833 (+1.312.Art.Dude), before the show.
- Call +1.563.387.1240 during the show.
We are interested in full blown top ten lists lists as well as simply some albums that you feel deserve props. Please feel free to make a case for why your picks are list worthy.
Note: Email and voice mail may be included in the show as well as this blog.
Open Source Christmas
Posted by Daniel Stout on Tue 26 Dec 2006 at 10:36 PM
We saw the Christmas Pageant of Peace at the National Christmas Tree in Washington DC. DC is festive this time of year. We did our Christmas shopping there and had a good time of it. We hope your Holidays have likewise been pleasant.
Santa put some choice musical selections into the Christmas stocking, such as The Crane Wife, Low-life, and even somewhat mysteriously Awake. Josh Groban’s Awake was unexpected, but I relished the track “Machine,” which featured Herbie Hancock, who was one of my favorite artists growing-up.
In other news, I’m enjoying the new openSUSE Linux version 10.2. The new applications menu in Gnome is a nice change (it’s similar to what appears in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10). Amarok 1.4 can play iTunes-style AAC files, so my complete music collection is available on Linux. I also loaded all of my digital photos into F-Spot, which is a fantabulous photo gallery program, similar to iPhoto. The more I use open source software, the more impressed I am with what people have accomplished. openSUSE keeps getting better with each release. There’s no need to put your computer in the landfill to switch to Vista or Mac OS X. Download openSUSE for your computer, and you’re set.
Tags: amarok · linux · mac os x · national christmas tree · opensuse · pageant of peace · vista · washington dc
Happy Holidays from Washington DC!
Posted by Daniel Stout on Wed 20 Dec 2006 at 8:03 PM
Happy Holidays to our Manufactured Environments readers from the unseasonably warm Washington DC! Even the police horses are getting into the act. Hope you’re all having a pleasant holiday season. Early Merry Christmas, everyone!
Tags: christmas · horse · photo · police · santa hat · washington dc
Footmaster Michel Gondry solves the Rubik’s Cube
Posted by Daniel Stout on Wed 20 Dec 2006 at 3:55 PM
Michel Gondry is known for being a master of the foot. He’s also known for shooting various Björk videos and directing movies such as Eternal Spotlight on the Sunshine Mind and more recently The Science of Sleep. He posted a fun little video of himself solving a Rubik’s Cube with his feet. Impossible? Not for a Grand Footmaster like M. Gondry. Watch this bit of twistiness in a state of disbelief on YouTube.
When you’re done with that, see the simple analysis of how he did it.
Tags: bjork · footmaster · michel gondry · rubiks cube · youtube
Freeform Faust’s playlist for December 16, 2006
Posted by Faust Gertz on Sat 16 Dec 2006 at 11:07 AM
Tune to KWLC on Saturdays from 11:00am–1:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.
| Artist | Album | Track | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debbie Ann Bradford and her “friend” Ann Slanders | Fun and Inspiration | Joy, Joy, Joy | |
| Ronnie Caldwell | Children’s Church Classics | I’ve Got The Joy | |
| Bettye Lavette | I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise | Joy | |
| Sun Ra | Nuits De La Fondation Maeght Vol. 1 | Enlightenment | |
| Sam Cooke | The Complete Specialty Recordings | Joy, Joy To My Soul | |
| Rhonda Harris | Under the Satellite | Joy is Everywhere | |
| Great China Chamber Music Orchestra | Essence Of The Chinese National Classic Music | Joy | |
| Magical Power Mako | Lo Pop Diamonds | Sea Of Joy | |
| Liz Mandville Greeson | Back In Love Again | Shine Clear With Joy | |
| John Rydgren | Radio Spot | The Noise | Download Pastor John Rydgren’s Silhouette Segments from Psychedelic Christian Radio: Pastor John Rydgren MP3s via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. |
| Mitch Ryder | Rev Up | Joy | |
| James Last | Make The Party Last | Joy To The World | |
| Howlin Wolf | Real Folk Blues | Three Hundred Pounds of Joy | |
| The Adicts | Smart Alex | Ode to Joy | |
| Albert King With Stevie Ray Vaughan | In Session | Pride and Joy | |
| Inspirational Souls of Chicago | Don’t Give Up | Joy | |
| Stickleback | The Day We Sold Out | Love Happy Joy Joy | |
| Karrin Allyson | Collage | Joy Spring | |
| Oris Mays | Absolutely The Best Of Gospel, Vol. 3 | Joy Bells | |
| Mary O’Callahan | Hammered Dulcimer Christmas | Joy to the World | |
| The Cathedral Brass | Christmas Remixed: Holiday Classics Re-Grooved | Joy to the World (Mocean Worker Remix) | |
| The Glad Singers | Swing Bells! | Joy | Download the entire album at FaLaLaLaLa |
| The Golddiggers | We Need A Little Christmas | We Need a Little Christmas | Download the entire album at FaLaLaLaLa |
| Captain Kangaroo | Merry, Merry Christmas | Crackerjack Christmas | Download this song and more from Check the Cool Wax |
| Gayla Peevey | I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas | ||
| Jeff Mitchell | Monkey & the X-mas Blues | Download this most excellent song and more from Lonesome Gallery. | |
| Mexicali Brass | Christmas with the Mexicali Brass | Joy to the World | Looks like this is available for download from Blog of 999 Dances. |
| Evolution Control Committee | Plagiarhythm Nation, Vol. 2.0 | The Christmas Wrong | |
| Natalie Cole | Magic of Christmas | The Christmas Song | |
| Nat King Cole | The Christmas Song | O Tannenbaum | |
| Dar Williams | Mortal City | The Christians and the Pagans | |
| Ed Sullivan | Presents Music Of Christmas | The Little Drummer Boy | |
| Mahalia Jackson | Mahalia Sings Songs Of Christmas | I Wonder as I Wander | |
| The Vienna Choir Boys | Merry Christmas: Carols From North America And Europe | Huron Carol (Twas in the Moon of Wintertime) | |
| Doc Severinsen and his Orchestra | Merry Christmas From The Command Family Of Recording Stars | Joy to the World | Download the entire album from Ernie (Not Bert) |
| Dickie Goodman | Santa & the Satellite | Looks like this is available for download from Christmas A Go Go! | |
| Dickie Goodman | Santa & the Satellite (Part 2) | ||
| DJ Riko | Merry Mixmas 2006 | Twas the Night Before the Goose Got Fat (Jon Kennedy vs Louis Armstrong) | This and a whole lot of other great music is available for download from DJ Riko Christmas Music Mixes. |
Freeform Faust plays joyful noises on Saturday from 11:00am-1:00pm (CST)
Posted by Faust Gertz on Thu 14 Dec 2006 at 1:00 PM
Tune to KWLC on Saturday from 11:00am–1:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust play joyful noises unto the featured listener and enjoy all of your favorite holiday hits.
How do I know that I will only play your seasonal favorites and not any songs you hate? It is simple. During the last show, we voted your least favorite songs off of the Christmas Island. They are currently en route to Trans-Siberia via a Manheim Steamroller where they shall spend the rest of their days in exile.
If you have a message for our featured listener, a request, or just want to tell me something, please use the contact form or leave a voice message on the show’s hotline (312.278.3833).
The easy way to get openSUSE 10.2
Posted by Daniel Stout on Thu 7 Dec 2006 at 8:25 PM
Just as an example of how cool Linux is to use, it’s very easy to do huge downloads. If you’re wanting to get the DVD image for openSUSE 10.2, a simple command will do the trick. In Windows, if you’re trying to download a greater than 2 GB file, then you’ll have to download some nasty download manager that may or may not have spyware attached. But with Linux it’s easy.
So to download the latest 3.6 GB DVD ISO for openSUSE, just open a terminal window and type:
wget http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/iso/dvd/openSUSE-10.2-GM-DVD-i386.iso
And yes, that’s a long URL, so just do the easy thing and copy and paste it from Firefox. You can right-click a link and select Copy Link Location, and then just paste it into the terminal window. The important part is the wget. wget is a handy utility for downloading huge files over HTTP. If you type wget —help, you’ll see that you can even use it for downloading from password protected sites, even FTP sites. wget does it all and does nothing I don’t need.
And that, in a word, is how Linux is. Linux is filled with lots of useful stuff. Linux is a great operating system for getting the job done.
Tags: download · getting the job done · linux · manager · opensuse · wget · windows
openSUSE 10.2 released
Posted by Daniel Stout on Thu 7 Dec 2006 at 8:02 AM
Well, the new version of openSUSE has been released. It’s version 10.2, and initial word is that it’s great. You can download the entire operating system and applications as a single DVD image or 5 + 1 CDs here. Traffic will be heavy today, so if things are a bit slow, give it a day or two and try again. Or just use the BitTorrent download, and life will be cool.
From the announcement email:
As usual, we ship all the latest open source packages available at the time. But we want to give special mention to the redesigned GNOME and KDE desktop, Firefox 2.0, ext3 as new default file system, support for internal SD card readers, new power managment and last but not least our improved package management.
I probably won’t have time until this weekend to download and install it. So let me know if you do and what you think. This is the first release with the new name. The commercial Novell product will be known as SUSE, and the open source community distribution is now called openSUSE 10.2.
Tags: 10.2 · ext3 · gnome · kde · open source · opensuse · release · suse
Mamas, Papas and Carpenters
Posted by Daniel Stout on Wed 6 Dec 2006 at 8:50 PM
Here’s a joke about the Mamas & the Papas and the Carpenters:
If Mama Cass had given that ham sandwich to Karen Carpenter, they’d both be alive today.
Tags: joke of the day · jokes · karen carpenter · mama cass
Freeform Faust’s playlist for December 2, 2006
Posted by Faust Gertz on Sat 2 Dec 2006 at 2:00 PM
Da Bomb or Christmas Island meltdown?
Tune to KWLC on Saturdays from 2:30pm–4:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.
| Artist | Album | Track | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Lee Hooker | Blue Yule | Blues for Christmas | CD player wouldn’t play and I was already depressed. |
| Miles Davis | Cool & Collected | So What | The show got off to a bad start. In an effort to save it, I “rewound the tape” and started over from the end of the previous show. |
| John Lee Hooker | Blue Yule | Blues for Christmas | CD player worked. Yippie! We are off to a good start. |
| Leroy Carr | Where Will You Be Christmas Day | Christmas in Jail-Ain’t That a Pain | The song didn’t play right. The CD was cracked and held together by the label. I love this CD. Now I am really bummed. |
| The Sonics | Here Are the Sonics | Don’t Believe In Christmas | |
| The Damned | Punk Rock Christmas | There Ain’t No Sanity Claus | |
| Captain Sensible | New Wave Christmas—Just Can’t Get Enough | One Christmas Catalogue | |
| El Vez | Happy Birthday Baby Jesus | Feliz Navi-Nada | |
| Wall Of Voodoo | Just in Time for Christmas | Shouldn’t Have Given Him A Gun For Christmas | Brings back X-Mas show memories with Mr. Stout circa 1990 |
| The Christmas Jug Band | Mistletoe Jam | Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit | |
| Jeff Mitchell | Monkey & the X-mas Blues | ||
| Air Force Band of the Midwest | An Evening in December | An Evening in December | Vocal by SSgt Kim Morris |
| Air Force Band of the Midwest | An Evening in December | Carol of the Bells | Faust speaks |
| Air Force Band of the Midwest | An Evening in December | I Heard the Bells | Faust keeps speaking |
| Air Force Band of the Midwest | An Evening in December | With Bells On | Faust shuts up to listen to vocals by SSgt Kim Morris and SSgt Doug Jordan |
| Air Force Band of the Midwest | An Evening in December | Christmas Crackers | Faust speaks again |
| planetdan | The Kickassiest Xmas ‘06 | The Kickassiest Christmas | Available for download from ‘TIS THE SEASON and Stuff’ via planetdan.net and brought to my attention by Listener Dan. |
| Johnny “Bowtie” Barstow | A Bowtie Christmas and More | The First Noel | Purchase his album from CDBaby and visit his myspace profile. |
| Eddie Lawrence | Christmas Party with Eddie G. | Merry Old Philosopher #1 | |
| Bobby Lloyd And The Skeletons | Christmas Party with Eddie G. | Do You Hear What I Hear/You Really Got Me | |
| James Brown | James Brown and His Famous Flames Sing Christmas Songs | Let’s Make Christmas Mean Something This Year (Parts 1 & 2) | Now even the vinyl is skipping on me. |
| Bootsy Collins | Christmas Is 4 Ever | Winterfunkyland (aka Winter Wonderland) | Easily the best new holiday album this year! |
| Bootsy Collins | Christmas Is 4 Ever | Boot-Off (aka Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) | |
| Rhan Wilson | The Return of an Altared Christmas | Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer | A Just Plain Folks Music Awards nominated song |
| Rhan Wilson | The Return of an Altared Christmas | Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer | A little long, but otherwise close to genius. Download the version from David Gans’ KPFA show via Rhan’s site. His CDs are available for sale too and make great stocking stuffers. |
| Ike & Tina Turner | The Best of Cool Yule | Merry Christmas Baby | Rhan got me out of my seasonal funk and now the last song won’t play. Tried three times. |
| Otis Redding | Soul Christmas | White Christmas | This is a fine, if overplayed, track to replace Ike & Tina. |
Notes
Here is a link to the video for Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ via YouTube mentioned by Jason. It is in black and white and takes him back to the early sixties, which is before he was born. Jason says he loves any Christmas song that attempts to be a Phil Spector song. I simply like the songs on the actual Phil Spector Christmas album.
The person who sang ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ on the Love Actually soundtrack was not some nameless studio musician as I derisively stated. It was Olivia Olson, who has a name and is the actress who played Joanna in the film (see a clip via YouTube). According to her Wikipedia entry, Love Actually director Richard Curtis thought Olivia’s singing was so perfect that the audience would not believe it was really an eleven-year-old. So they trained her to not to sing so well. Sorry Olivia. Now I understand.
The worst part of the entire exchange about Love Actually, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, and Billy Mack was that I uttered the words "the Mariah Carey one is good". I don’t know what got into me. I probably meant to say that the Fin.K.L. one is good. Actually, the Twelve Girls Band one is probably the best.
Tags: christmas · faust gertz · freeform · kwlc · xmas
openSUSE Linux 10.2 is ready
Posted by Daniel Stout on Sat 2 Dec 2006 at 10:12 AM
Andreas Jaeger sent an email to the openSUSE mailing list last night to announce that the new version of openSUSE Linux, that is, version 10.2 has gone gold and is ready for release.
Our build folks have created the first set of ISO images and will continue to create all of them — and the complete ftp distribution — early next week. We’ll start syncing soon the images to the ftp mirrors so that they have all files on thursday, 7th December, for the announcement.
CD production is starting now and I hope to see some shiny green openSUSE 10.2 boxes on the shelves before Christmas.
One big change in 10.2 is the default filesystem shifted from Reiser to ext3. The other big Linux news this week is that the 2.6.19 kernel has been released, which includes support for ext4 among other things.
If you want to get started with openSUSE, which is now the official name of the community distribution, that is, SUSE will be the name of the commercial Novell product, then go to openSUSE.org.
Tags: 10.2 · 2.6.19 · ext3 · ext4 · kernel · linux · opensuse · reiser · suse linux
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