Pandora.com now available on (very select) Windows Mobile phones (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

I love, love, love Pandora Radio, which suggests music for you based on the types of music you like. One of the things I’ve always wanted is a way to listen to Pandora in my car. I was jealous when iPhone users got to listen to Pandora on the go, and I hoped for a [...] Posted in: htc touch , internet radio , music , pandora , technology , windows mobile

Low and Slow: used CD e-tailer SecondSpin.com review (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

Used CD, game, and DVD e-tailer SecondSpin often has low prices on used obscure albums. Slow shipping and taxes mar an otherwise pleasant shopping experience. Posted in: customer service , music , review , secondspin

Holy crap, this is really something! Shazam! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Ho-ly crap! I'd heard about this software before, but I never imagined it worked this well! Shazam is a small application that can be installed on your iPhone (or other phone) and which fills a very particular niche.

You know how you'll sometimes hear a song playing, but you just don't know what it 's called or who the artist is? It starts to itch in the back of your head and you just CAN'T let it go! That's what Shazam is for! Let the application listen to about ten seconds of the song and it'll try to recognize the song. I don't know how it works (yet), but it sure as heck does! It managed to recognize some of the more "exotic" songs I threw at it. This is definitely a keeper :)

Posted in: awesome , iphone , music , shazam

Forever the Sickest Kids - My Worst Nightmare [music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands right now. Yeah, I know. I have the musical tastes of a 13 year old girl, I’ve resigned myself to that—no need to mention it to me in the comments ;)

Underdog Alma Mater is all around an awesome album. If you like this song at all, you’ll like the whole album.

Play the song below (you may not see this in your feed reader):

My Worste Nightmare - Forever The Sickest Kids

iTunes: Forever the Sickest Kids - My Worst Nightmare

Posted in: music

R.I.P. Leroi Moore (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

It pains me greatly to post this, but I just learned that Dave Matthews Band saxophonist Leroi Moore passed away today. The news came via the band's official site:

We are deeply saddened that LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, died unexpectedly Tuesday afternoon, August 19, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles from sudden complications stemming from his June ATV accident on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. LeRoi had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.

Leroi had been with the band since its inception in 1991. I will miss him tremendously and there is no doubt that he will be missed greatly by the band, the crew and the entire DMB community.

Jeff Coffin has been filling in for Leroi since his accident in late June. Leroi's final show was at the Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge in Bristow, Virginia on June 28, 2008. If anyone would like a copy of the show, let me know and I will provide you with a copy or tell you where you can get one (DMB explicitly allows taping of their shows, so it is completely legal).

Technorati Tags: Dave Matthews Band, DMB, Leroi Moore, death

Posted in: death , dmb , music

Internet radio is about to get punched in the balls … again. (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

I’ve written about how royalties have threatened Internet radio in the past. According to this Ars Technica article, it seems like the Sound Exchange is trying to drive nails in the coffins of my favorite Internet radio stations. Ars Technica discusses the awesome-o Pandora in particular, but the disproportionally high royalty fees will affect all [...] Posted in: frisky radio , internet radio , music , pandora , royalties , somafm

Step up 2: less yacking, more dancing (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

A few weeks back I bought Marli the Step up 2 DVD. We'd seen the first part in the cinemas and are both rather fond of dancing+music movies.

Just like last time I really enjoyed the dancing scenes, with the music pumping. It's just that for me the story got in the way of the good stuff. Yet again they felt obligated to force a cliche-filled plot in between the dancing.

Seriously! If they gave me a DVD with just these cool dancing scenes and the great music, I'd be a happy camper!

Posted in: dancing , music , plot , step up 2 , story

Can the Kindle Do For eBooks What iPods Have Done For Music? (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Next in a long series of thoughts about electronic books an the Amazon Kindle: can the Kindle have the same kind of huge, mainstream success, and become embedded in our culture like the iPod has?

You can read my previous posts on the Kindle, including my Two Month Review (and Washington Times interview), Why eBooks are a Great Entertainment Value, my Rebuttal to Kindle Critics, and my video Kindle Unboxing and First Impressions. Each of those posts has some great discussion in the comments, and I’d advise you to read them if you’re interested in the topics. Now, on to the topic at hand!

Comparisons between the Kindle and the iPod are inevitable. Some say (and I’m among them) It could do for books and reading what the iPod has done for music and listening - make it a very digital, customizable, personal experience. Part of the draw of iPods, I think, is the ability to bring your whole music library with you, and mix it up and listen to it in whatever way you feel like moment to moment. The Kindle seems similar on the surface - they even use some of the same terminology (”library”, etc.). The terms of the DRM (Digital Rights Management) restrictions on Kindle books and iTunes music files are also very similar - you can only use the digital files on devices from the manufacturer from whom you purchased the iPod/Kindle, you can authorize up to 5 devices to share the files within your family, but not with thousands of your closest friends on the internet, etc. You are permitted to load up free files that you’ve obtained from elsewhere. The promise of the Kindle seems to be the same as that of the iPod - you can bring all of your digital books with you, and read them however and whenever you want.

This is certainly part of the appeal of the Kindle, and ebooks in general. But there are some differences - places where direct comparisons between the Kindle and the iPod break down. I think the linear nature of books and reading means that people won’t be shuffling through their books on random, like we do with music on our iPods. And there’s the attention issue - you can listen to music or podcasts or other audio content on your iPod while you’re doing something else - driving, working out, even reading. You can’t really do much else while you’re reading a book. In the end, though, I think there’s one big issue that will prevent the Kindle from obtaining the same level of commercial and popular success that we’ve seen the iPod soar to:

Lots of people just don’t like to read.

Steve Job said as much when he was asked if Apple was working on a Kindle competitor (though many took that to be tacit acknowledgement that Apple IS planning such a device - just like when Jobs said “no one wants to watch video on an iPod” years ago). Speaking as an avid reader, and lover of words and books in all their forms, it saddens me to admit this. But I know lots of people who just don’t enjoy reading. And it’s going to be almost impossible to convince that set of people that they should buy a Kindle.

So why do people love their iPods so much? Most of us like music, and even if you’re not a full blown music lover, listening is a passive activity - it doesn’t take much effort - so it makes a nice background filler. Personally, I love listening to podcasts - they make me smarter. Plus there’s the “cool” factor - wanting to be seen with the latest iPod dangling from those white headphones, wanting to express yourself through your playlists and preferences. So even if you don’t think of yourself as a music lover, there are lots of reasons to own and use an iPod.

No one is ever going to be considered “cool” for walking around with their nose in a Kindle (although I do know people who express themselves through the books that they read in public - nothing tells the world you’re a science fiction lover like reading a Cory Doctorow paperback on the train - something the Kindle can’t do). Why the stigma against reading? I’d say that often it goes back to our school days, and the whole “smart kids” versus “cool kids” culture clash. Those habits and preferences are deeply ingrained.

For these reasons, I don’t think the Amazon Kindle, or eBooks in general, are ever going to be as popular, culturally or commercially, as the iPod and digital music.

That doesn’t make it less important. I’d argue that the Kindle and digital books are likely to change and influence people on an individual level, because of how much more stimulating reading is for your brain compared to listening to music. And for that set of people who DO love books, words, and reading, even if they’re not technologically inclined, there’s a lot to love about the Kindle. It won’t make you into a book lover, but if you’re already of that ilk, the attraction of the Kindle is just as powerful as bopping your head to the latest tunes with those white earbuds in your ears.

Posted in: blog , drm , ebooks , habits , ipod , kindle , music , reading

Frozen in time (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

One of the stupid things I do is when I have heard a song enough times, I try and picture the moment that the recording happened. What does the room look like? Is the band there? Or just their tracks? Is the artist isolated in a booth, or singing in the same room as the band, wearing big headphones, and singing into a pantyhose over a hanger in front of their mic?

What does the studio look like? Is there a half-eaten pizza on a table near an overflowing ashtray? Is someone's girlfriend sitting barefoot on an old couch, sipping a Jack Daniels, and bored after take #23 got aborted because there's a hiss on the bass player's amp no one can get tack down? Are the walls paneled with fake knotty pine, or is there professional sound-absorbing foam? Is it a private studio in someone's house or some studio in an officer building also containing a clinic and a travel agency?

What did the singer do that day? Did they get up, like we all do, tired or are they anxious about today's session? Are they sober? What did they eat recently? What other mundane aspect of this person's life are now silently frozen in a moment, to be played over and over again on the radio, until every person who was there forgets?

There's a song by a group called, "The Beatles," called "A Day in the Life" made in the late 1960s. It's pretty famous with my generation. The end of the song is three pianos hitting the same E-major chord simultaneously. The sound of the final chord was manipulated to ring out for nearly a minute by increasing the tape sound level as the vibration faded out. Near the end of the chord, the recording levels were turned so high, that on good digital recordings you can hear the sounds of the studio, including rustling papers, the AC unit, and a squeaking chair.

Frozen in time. Posted in: dumb thoughts , music

A while with an iPod (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Having an iPod is nice, but I am sort of glad I didn't pay $250 or whatever for my 8gb "3rd Generation" Nano. I have two major beefs with this player, and most likely all iPods.

The first complaint is the click wheel is really not that great an operating device. It took me a while to figure out the various ways this worked. There's a "Menu," back and forth arrow, a circular motion, a center button, and "play/pause." The circular motion does different things depending on what menu you have. In play mode, it's the volume. In menu mode, it cycles through the menu. Sure, fine, I can get used to that. Except for the worst part about this navigation tool: it is far too sensitive and had no tactile feedback. So my thumb or finger slides around a featureless smooth plane, which means I have to look at it or "guess" the distance based on how far my thumb and finger are from the edge. My thick thumbs have a tough time staying within the printed lines like a toddler with a jumbo crayon, and often I can't select what I want without staying perfectly still. It's like operating an old ball mouse over a table with crumbs on it.

Not only that, but having the player in my pocket or any enclosed space changes things at random. Yes, I even bought a protective case for it. Yes, I can lock the wheel to not move at all, but the lock is a thin, hard-to-grip button at the lower edge (especially with the protective case over it), so have to remove it from the case to slide it back and forth. Plus it locks everything down, so if I use it, I am unable to change the volume or anything, which means to suddenly hear what announcement is being made over the Metro or if someone starts speaking to me, I have to quickly yank out my ear plugs. Then there's my music which doesn't have a steady volume for each song, plus I'll need to change the volume from "drown out the city traffic" to "be polite and not irritate people near me with tinny techno beats on a quiet metro ride." I have had enough times where I had needed to hit a "mute" of sorts that I never lock down the volume/pause, and so I have to be careful I do not bump the face of the iPod. When walking, this means in my pocket will often raise or lower the volume, and click back and forth between songs randomly. I think the best solution would be to get a set of headphones with a mute built into the cord.

The second gripe is iTunes. I hate iTunes. It has made my Windows boot time nearly 3 minutes from the 55 seconds it used to be. Can I drag and drop music? Oh no... I have to let iTunes load it, and then it wants to scan everything else, and thanks to my iTunes, I now know I have 9800 songs on my shared drive, which it wants to reload any time I add music. Not to mention it wrestles to be the default media player, and then doesn't play the music I click on right away. Sometimes I have to double click a song several times to get it to go, "Oh, you want to play something! Sorry, how about renaming it instead?" It always seems to be "working in the background" in some way. I see it taking up to 150mb of RAM at times, take up 10-30% of CPU when loaded, and ... oh, won't let me play or load ogg files (I found a hack to let iTunes play it, but my iPod refuses to acknowledge it). Plus iTunes only uses Windows. I am going to give Banshee a try on Ubuntu, though.

An annoyance I have for all MP3 players I have ever had: Time left and skip ahead for podcasts. I want to know how much time I have to go before the end, in case I want to speed things up before I hop off a stop, or find a good place to pause. To find where I am, I have to fast forward or reverse to get that bar. Plus, I can only fast forward or reverse about 10 seconds per second, so if the iPod resets my placeholder to the beginning for various reasons, I have to remember where I was, and hope I wasn't in the last 20 minutes of a 2-hour podcast, because there's no "rewind from end" feature, only fast forward from the beginning. So if I got reset at 1:00 in a 1:20 podcast, it will take me nearly a minute to get one hour forward into the podcast.

I am not sure the iPhone will be much better (as a music player). It does not have a click wheel, but it's an all-screen interface. The headphones do have a mute feature, though, to answer calls. That will be REAL handy. My biggest fear with an iPhone? How to carry it around while using it. It's a bit big for a belt clip, and I am afraid as much as I run into things that I'll break the iPhone in a matter of weeks with it attached to my hip. Posted in: apple , ipod , mp3 , music

iPod review (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Yeah, like most of my readers have had an iPod for a while now. I couldn't afford one, which seems wrong considering what I make, and I am working on that problem. So, apart from a few moments at an Apple store, I have never actually played with one apart from the Shuffle I got back about a year and a half ago.

So now I am trying to get used to the "click wheel." It's not designed for fat thumbs like mine, and since I have that dyspraxia, it's hard for me to get my eyes to look at the screen while my thumb moves about. But if I figured a mouse out, I'll manage this eventually. But the problem is that it's so damn small.

I'd like to be all, "OoooOOooh, iPod is popular, and I am so counter-culture that I will claim something outrageous about the decline of modern morality by Steve Jobs," I used to be like that, annoyingly enough. But I have to admit, this is pretty cool. Maybe not $249 cool, but pretty nifty. What a crisp, bright screen for something so small. It reminds me of one of those gadgets I imagined as a child as being futuristic to the point I want to go back and time and show my 8-year-old self how impressive this is.

"Ha HA! You are stuck in 1977, where a 'portable TV' is the size of two car batteries and nearly as heavy! And you only get black and white at that! Mwah ha ha!"

I have issues with the 1970s.

I still hate iTunes. I had to boot back into windows to activate/register my iPod, which took like 35 minutes because one of the things I have noticed about Windows is that if you don't start it in a while, you have to download a lot of updates which you don't really have a choice at. Windows updates, Java, Firefox, new anti-virus signatures, and even Pidgin and Quicktime/iTunes wanted to be updated. Then the iPod already had a firmware update, which then crashed iTunes and wiped out all my playlists (it's okay, I didn't really use that feature, but I had to re-import some 5800 songs just to copy them to the iPod). I swear, I only left Windows off for a few weeks! Yay Ubuntu!

I also realized, I need an iPod case. Possibly better headphones than these stock ones. Posted in: ipod , mp3 , music

Weezer video for Pork and Beans [fun, music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

The guys in Weezer (including Cuomo’s amazing ‘stache) has put together a great video for their new single, Pork & Beans, using a mixture of mimicked and real people who starred in popular internet memes.

Watch it, you’ll find it extremely funny ;)

Posted in: fun , music

Lousy f***ing luck... (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, a few days ago, my MP3 player disappears. This is cause for concern because I really need it to stay sane on the Metro. I had it Tuesday, and then I couldn't find it Thursday. I always put it back in my backpack in a special pocket, which is where I last saw it. The headphone wire extension was still there; I have an extension because headphone wires are often too short for my long torso, so unless I want to hold my Walkman/MP3 player with a crooked arm, I need an extension so the player can go in my pocket. But the MP3 player and actual headphones were gone. I know I didn't get it stolen, because I came home with it Tuesday, put it in my backpack, and noticed I still had my camera, which I took out and upgraded the firmware on; it has all these new options which may help it stop being a crappy camera, but that's another post.

I looked everywhere for it. Figured I'd give it a good look over the weekend. Losing my MP3 player is like losing my wallet; I *always* know where it is, so when I *don't* know where it is, that's really abnormal.

So last night, I decide to get ahead on my laundry work. I wash my stack of underwear, socks, and a Katuscon shirt I am wearing for a meeting today. As I start the dryer, I hear thumping. That's odd, I think. Why would socks, underwear, and one polo shirt thump? Sadly, my brain just went, "Well, maybe it's the zipper on the Katsucon staff polo shirt," and immediately forget about it.

No foreshadowing needed here, huh? I imagine you know what comes next. I don't even want to say it.

I have no idea HOW my MP3 player ended up in the dryer. Needless to say, it no longer works. I found the headphones twisted around a sock like vines on a fencepost. The player won't even turn on, and it was probably cooked since it was so hot, it was initially hard to hold in my hand.

It wasn't an iPod. It was a Cowon iAudio U4, a gift from takayla over a year ago and I *loved* that thing, because it could play OGG files, of which I have many. It had an easy-to-understand interface, and I didn't need no F***ing "iTunes" to put music on it; it was just like a hard drive. I hate iTunes. Hate hate hate because not only do they not have a Linux client (yes, I am aware there's a hack; I tried it on my Shuffle), their Windows client is a downright memory hog, a bitch to remove, saves stuff in some proprietary format that is hard to back up, slows down my boot time almost as bad as an AOL client, and generally a bloaty, piss-poor design.

Yes, I could but another one, but you know what? I am not exactly rolling in the dough here. I guess I'll have to find my older one with only stores 256k, or go back to the Shuffle, which I loaned/gave to takayla for the gym, so I don't know if I can get it back without being an ... well, I wish there was a better, non-racist replacement for this word. Posted in: laundry , mp3 , music

For my musicial friends... (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I dedicate this with love to all my musician friends, and why not give an extra shout out to stegosaur, and dare her to have this conversation at one of her own performances.



I love this strip. It's funny, I have heard this argument made about computer code.

"The compiler is not your enemy, it's the code you wrote that won't compile!" Now I am so going to say, "Punkie, my time has not yet come..." Hah.

Also, the truth about what happens when you eat that silica gel. Posted in: comic , horn , music

Utah Saints - Something Good [music, partying] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Awesome video, watch it here or click through if you can’t see it:

Posted in: music , partying

Adrian Holovaty's Radiohead remix [music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Quite good if I do say so myself, Adrian explains:

Radiohead is holding a “contest” called Radiohead Remix, in which they’re inviting fans to remix the song called “Nude” from their latest album. They’ve released the raw tracks — separate, isolated audio clips of vocals, guitar, percussion, etc. — and are encouraging people to remix the tracks to create something different, then upload it to radioheadremix.com…

I listened to a bunch of the submitted remixes on Wednesday and was kind of disappointed that none of the ones I listened to did anything interesting musically. Most of them retained the same techno/electronica feel of the original song, kept the song’s melody intact and added a couple of drum beats. So tonight, I gave a shot at making my own remix.

Listen here or click on the link below to check it out:

If you like it, give it a vote on the site!

Posted in: music

Totally weird video for Justice's Phantom II [music, partying] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Posted in: music , partying

Herschell at Club 720 [life, music, partying] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Jacqui and I went to Club 720 last night to see Herschell and listen to him play his trumpet while some DJ’s laid down some music. Pics from Herschell:

We had a really fun time! I hear Herschell is hanging out at our apartment right now, I need to get done with work crap and get outta here!

Posted in: life , music , partying

Matt Roan at Dark Room and Hot Doggs at Underdogg [life, music, partying] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Me and Jacqui went to Dark Room (Yelp] last night in Ukranian Village to meet up with a new friend of ours. Nilay Patel is a writer for Engadget and lives in Chicago. He invited us to Dark Room last night to watch Matt Roan lay down some awesome music.

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It was one of those nights out when you’re supremely happy even though you’re cold and trying to grab a taxi. We attempted to um… convince the guys at the 24 hour McDonald’s to sell us some double cheeseburgers, but they weren’t having it because it’s drive-thru only at that hour. Since the cheeseburger option was shut down, we took our cab up to North/Damen/Milwaukee in hopes of finding nourishment in the form of Flash Taco. Unfortunately, every one else goes to Flash Taco at 2:30 in the morning. The place was packed and it looked like we’d be waiting an hour just to get a burrito.

View Larger Map

Luckily, Underdogg—Flash Taco’s hotdoggy partner in crime—has a street vendor stand called Underdogg Express:

The only downside to waiting in this line, besides the cold, were the drunk hipsters in front of us arguing about US foreign policy. Luckily the dogs were delicious. Perfect neon relish, just like it should be:

Dogs in our belly and sleeping on the brain, we made it home. Best part about our new neighborhood? People—and a diverse mix—are everywhere at all hours of the night; I cannot reiterate how fun it is to live in a neighborhood that doesn’t go to sleep until four or five in the mornings on the weekends.

Posted in: life , music , partying

I want to be like Daft Punk when I grow up [design, fun, music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Posted in: design , fun , music

Embedded version of the DVNO video [music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Posted in: music

Justice DVNO music video [music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

An awesome homage to the super cool movie/television graphics of the 1980’s, plus you get to listen to Justice’s super tasty track, DVNO:

Yeah. I just rocked your world.

Posted in: music

Kanye West at the Grammies [music, technology] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Kanye is so cool! I want his jacket and wait til the end when Daft Punk appears. They’re totally tronned out. Awesome.

Posted in: music , technology

Panda Riot [music] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Like shoe-gazey (i.e. My Bloody Valentine, Mew, et cetera) music? Check out Chicago’s Panda Riot—Jacqui’s brother Justin is the bassist! They were recently profiled in UR Chicago:

But that’s not to say they don’t have a unique sound that’s decidedly all their own. Since their accidental formation in 2005 — Cook and vocalist/keyboardist Rebecca Scott teamed to make a soundtrack for a short film they were making, and bassist Justin Cheng joined them in August 2007 — Panda Riot have developed an ambient version of electronic-tinged shoegaze. Built around the structural backbone of their jokingly proclaimed fourth member, a drum machine, most of the tracks on their debut album, She Dares All Things, combine Scott’s ethereal soprano with gritty guitar riffs and subtle bass lines to create layered, haunting texture.

You can preview and purchase their most recent album, She Dares all Things, DRM free on iTunes, Amazon, or directly from their website. Enjoy!

Posted in: music

Larry Lessig's Last Free Culture Talk (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Larry Lessig will be giving his last talk on the topic of "Free Culture" in about an hour. I had the pleasure of seeing Professor Lessig give this talk in September of 2006 as part of the Penn Reading Project and I think the ideas he presents are fascinating and have had a great impact on me. We've come a long way in some areas, such as in the slow death of over-restrictive DRM, but we're still a ways to go in other areas, such as the predatory litigation undertaken by the music and movie industries. As the blog post announcing the talk mentions, Professor Lessig will begin focusing on corruption in Washington, a topic I'm admittedly less interested in.

Technorati Tags: Larry Lessig, copyright, creative commons, DRM, intellectual property, Free Culture

Posted in: books , copyright , free , information , internet , movies , music , open source , penn , speech

Musical fuel for the midnight worker (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

I'm very grateful to my buddy Edmond for introducing me to the Russian folk-rock band Iva Nova (their MySpace page).

These five, crazy ladies from Russia make awesome music. Sometimes creepy, sometimes sensual and sometimes just outright fun! I'm sure their live performance must be a blast to see.

In the meantime I'm listening to their CD while hacking away at my schoolwork. And here's a sample for you :)

PLAYTRACKivnova.mp3

EDIT:
Speaking of "sensual", I just love their tango Gorod which simply oozes sex. At least, to me... The song can be heard in this YouTube clip of a tango demonstration.

Posted in: energetic , fuel , iva nova , music , russia

Tab Dump - Long Weekend Edition (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Can't say I want to write anything too substantive on these links, but I do want to get them out there anyway because they're cluttering up my tab bar.

Monsters of the Programming World is a neat little poster anthropomorphizing common programming errors. I've been meaning to pick this up for our office.

Jeffrey Friedl has developed a Lightroom export plugin for Flickr. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, as I've shamefully not uploaded any pictures to Flickr this year, but it should shave off a few clicks in my workflow if it works well enough.

Ken Rockwell on How To Afford Anything. The great thing about this article is that Ken isn't a personal finance guru, he's a photographer. This article isn't coming from a "I want to be rich" perspective but more from a "I want cool cameras" perspective, which appeals to me greater than the usual run-of-the-mill personal finance article.

Fraser Speirs on his photo editing workflow. Fraser uses Aperture, so his workflow is a bit more flexible than what is allowed (or rather suggested) by Lightroom. Still, some of his ideas carry across between any such application. I particularly enjoyed his rating process, something I currently do without much thought.

I'm working on listening to all of Fred Wilson's Top 10 Albums of the Year. Music recommendations from a VC, who would have thought? Fred's musical tastes are a bit off from mine and listening to his picks is an interesting experience. I haven't gotten through the entire list, but I did grab a copy of the Kings of Leon's Because of the Times, his number one pick. There are some songs I can't stand to listen to, and although the album as a whole isn't memorable, it is very catchy. That is, I can remember parts of songs but I can't identify which song it is or if it's the same part of another song. My biggest disappointment has to be the lyrical work. There's just not a whole lot going on there unfortunately.

Technorati Tags: links, programming, bugs, poster, art, Flickr, Lightroom, photography, personal finance, Aperture, A VC, Fred Wilson, music, Kings of Leon, Because of the Times

Posted in: development , finance , links , music , photography

2007 In Music [music (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

As far as music, I must say that 2007 was a banner year for music. I got into French electro music in a big way at the same time I became more interested in “older” music like Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Stevie Wonder (amongst others).

In terms of live music, I saw Roxy Cottontail live at Sonotheque, Flosstradamus on a few occasions, Cartel at the House of Blues, Jack’s Mannequin at the House of Blues, and Justice twice (once at Smartbar and again at the Metro). I know it’s not a lot of shows, but I think I made them all count!

In terms of my listening habits over the last 365 days, here’s a little breakdown courtesy of Last.FM:

Top Artists

1. Jack’s Mannequin
2. Zero 7
3. Cartel
4. The Starting Line
5. Daft Punk
6. Alkaline Trio
7. CSS
8. Justice
9. A Change of Pace
10. Something Corporate
11. The Go! Team
12. Jonathan Larson (RENT soundtrack)
13. Boys Like Girls
14. Jason Mraz
15. White Zombie

Top Albums

1. Jack’s Mannequin — Everything in Transit
2. The Go! Team — Thunder Lightning Strike
3. A Change of Pace — Prepare The Masses
4. CSS — Cansei De Ser Sexy
5. Cartel — Cartel
6. The Starting Line — Based on a True Story
7. Cartel — Chroma
8. Zero 7 — The Garden
9. Something Corporate — Leaving Through the Window
10. The Starting Line — Say It Like You Mean It
11. Something Corporate — North
12. Head Automatica — Decadence
13. Zero 7 — Simple Things
14. Boys Noize — Oi Oi oi
15. Matisyahu — Youth

And the number one played track of the whole year?

• Jack’s Mannequin — MFEO: Pt. 1 - Made for Each Other / Pt. 2 - You Can Breathe

Posted in: music

Attention weirdos (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I am not sure who this applies to, so I am opening this up to all of you (well, ninjacooter and aurienne will probably appreciate this). Have you ever done a film, or worked at a convention as the tech crew? Want music that sounds like 1950s hygiene films? I found it, courtesy of the WFMU Blog:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/12/365-days-336--.html

Most of the music sounds the same. But who cares? Jaunty 50s background music can always find a place in some niche of your brain. Posted in: 50s , films , hygiene , music

Math + rock + animation = I'm in love (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Bally-bally, oh my golly! I'm in love with a new song :)

As some of you know I love geekery when it comes to music and animation. Of course it's even better when they're combined into one! I found this video through the Wiskunde meisjes website. The song is "Mandelbrot set" by Jonathan Coulton. The video is an awesome blackboard animation done by Pisut Wisessing and a bunch of his friends.

Beauty, right here.

Visit Jonathan's website for more videos.

Posted in: animation , jonathan coulton , mandelbrot set , music , pisut wisessing