My old phone number used to spell LeoPig2. Happy accident and meant absolutely nothing. Or did it...
What does your spell?
Hook me up!
HMK
Monday, August 16, 2004
Sunday, August 15, 2004
TakumiPodivoli?
"Wooden penetrate expression digital clock."
That's how "LED clock made of MDF" translates from Japanese. Loosely shaped like LED clocks from the seventies, that's where the resemblance ends, because they look like simple blocks of wood. Plug it in, see the LED numerals, set the time. The block of wood becomes a clock. Now, what if we hook-up this Takumi with a Tivoli and an iPod? Then, we'd have an awsome little speaker with an LED displaying the song info... Hmmmm... HMK
DESIGNER: Kouji Iwasaki
4Senses Interior
That's how "LED clock made of MDF" translates from Japanese. Loosely shaped like LED clocks from the seventies, that's where the resemblance ends, because they look like simple blocks of wood. Plug it in, see the LED numerals, set the time. The block of wood becomes a clock. Now, what if we hook-up this Takumi with a Tivoli and an iPod? Then, we'd have an awsome little speaker with an LED displaying the song info... Hmmmm... HMK
DESIGNER: Kouji Iwasaki
4Senses Interior
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Hour you know m'entendre? Spendthrift!
Ever wonder what you would get if you took an English phrase and translated it to French - back to English, then to German, back to English, then to Italian, then again, back to English, then to Portuguese, back to English, then to Spanish and then finally, back to English? Well, Lost in Translation has got an answer for you - and most likely a funny one at that! I entered: Dirty Deeds - Done Dirt Cheap" and after going through all of the above in a matter of seconds I got: Dirty contracts - the dirt gave the form economically!
Now try: Can you hear me now? Good!
Correct That's.
HMK
Now try: Can you hear me now? Good!
Correct That's.
HMK
Friday, August 13, 2004
Save The Liver!
"I think you should go shopping!" she said with a smile in that trademark voice of hers. She then told me to enjoy the day and was off. That was the advice legendary chef Julia Child gave me when I asked what I could make with my leftovers of bacon-bits, a pickle, cream cheese, half & half and a couple of beers - the contents of my fridge at the time. I lived across the street from my favorite chef in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1991. I had the pleasure of hearing her "Hellooo." on occasion each morning on my way to the train. According to a statement from her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Julia Child has sadly passed away. She was 91.
Thanks for being sweet to me Julia! (that's what she insisted I call her.)
Say Hi to my Mom & Dad for me,
HMK
Thanks for being sweet to me Julia! (that's what she insisted I call her.)
Say Hi to my Mom & Dad for me,
HMK
Hacker takes bite out of Apple's iTunes
By Lars Pasveer
Special to CNET & That's Right
The Norwegian hacker famous for cracking DVD encryption says he has cracked Apple AirPort Express.
Jon Lech Johansen has revealed the public key that Apple AirPort Express, a wireless networking protocol, uses to encrypt music sent between iTunes and a wireless base station.
AirPort Express was released in June 2004 as a small wireless bridge from a personal computer to a stereo. Details of the AirPort Express codes were also published on Johansen's weblog, which is called So Sue Me.
In a double whammy for Apple, Johansen also wrote a program called JustePort, allowing software other than Apple iTunes to stream music to AirPort Express. As a result of Johansen's work, it's now only a matter of time before other popular software is capable of streaming music to the AirPort Express. Until now, a copy of iTunes 4.6 was required.
Johansen shot to fame over his controversial program that bypassed DeCSS encryption schemes on DVDs.
In 2003, he narrowly escaped criminal charges, brought by Hollywood, after a Norwegian court found him justified in developing the program to view legally bought DVDs on his Linux machine.
Lars Pasveer writes for ZDNet Netherlands
Special to CNET & That's Right
The Norwegian hacker famous for cracking DVD encryption says he has cracked Apple AirPort Express.
Jon Lech Johansen has revealed the public key that Apple AirPort Express, a wireless networking protocol, uses to encrypt music sent between iTunes and a wireless base station.
AirPort Express was released in June 2004 as a small wireless bridge from a personal computer to a stereo. Details of the AirPort Express codes were also published on Johansen's weblog, which is called So Sue Me.
In a double whammy for Apple, Johansen also wrote a program called JustePort, allowing software other than Apple iTunes to stream music to AirPort Express. As a result of Johansen's work, it's now only a matter of time before other popular software is capable of streaming music to the AirPort Express. Until now, a copy of iTunes 4.6 was required.
Johansen shot to fame over his controversial program that bypassed DeCSS encryption schemes on DVDs.
In 2003, he narrowly escaped criminal charges, brought by Hollywood, after a Norwegian court found him justified in developing the program to view legally bought DVDs on his Linux machine.
Lars Pasveer writes for ZDNet Netherlands
Thursday, August 12, 2004
You Are Not Alone: Soul Food
Ok. It's bedtime. You need something to read. You really don't feel like diving into one of the 3 books you're reading. The pile of magazines in the basket - done that. And you definitely don't want to read anything about technology, politics or Iraq. (That seems to be getting a lot more challenging than ever.) You need something not too long, thought provoking and substantive. A little something to ponder that just might assist in getting you a step or two closer to "what it all means". Or at least confirm the fact that you are not alone.
Enter Jugglezine.
Jugglezine is a sweet little site consisting of articles and essays for those of us that still believe that there is a better way of achieving some kind of balance in this crazy, fast paced, on-demand, spam filled, wi-fi, user id world we live in. In short, as the tagline says: Jugglezine is an unassuming e-zine about balancing work and life. Each article is also accompanied by these super fresh illustrations by Gianpaolo Pagni.
It's also goes great with that first morning cup of coffee. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
Feed Me!
Bon Appétit, HMK
Enter Jugglezine.
Jugglezine is a sweet little site consisting of articles and essays for those of us that still believe that there is a better way of achieving some kind of balance in this crazy, fast paced, on-demand, spam filled, wi-fi, user id world we live in. In short, as the tagline says: Jugglezine is an unassuming e-zine about balancing work and life. Each article is also accompanied by these super fresh illustrations by Gianpaolo Pagni.
It's also goes great with that first morning cup of coffee. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
Feed Me!
Bon Appétit, HMK
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Color Pallettes Made Easier
This rocks. Check out ColorMatch 5K. Whether you're a graphic designer, web designer or simply trying to decide on a color combo for your Tiki Room - this site will help ease the stress.
Click Here
HMK
Click Here
HMK
It's Time For Peace!
Peace Clock
I came up with this idea on the drive in to the studio the other day. Now it's printed on clocks, t-shirts, mugs and lunchboxes. And it's all for sale in the name of Peace!
Peace is The Bomb!
That's Right!
HMK
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
So - what are you going to do with all those little sandwiches?
Bargaining: All things come to those who ask
Exclusive To That's Right from Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel
It actually happened: the newlywed daughter of a friend of mine phoned home to report a tiff with her husband; could she come home right away (for a day or two)? But the cost of an immediate ticket from her West Coast city would have been a prohibitive $800.
So my friend phoned one of the hungrier, less popular airlines, asked to speak with a supervisor, and explained the problem. “We’ll call it a ‘family crisis fare’,” responded the airline official, who then authorized a waiver of the airline’s normal advance purchase rule. And my friend’s tearful daughter flew home to mommy and daddy for only $400, round-trip.
“Ask and it shall be given,” says the Bible, and nowhere does that admonition work more effectively than in travel. Many thousands of Americans (but still a minority of them) receive substantial travel discounts each year by simply requesting them—from an airline, ship line, or hotel. We realists call the practice “bargaining.” Others, more dignified, refer to it as smart consumerism.
To a larger number of Americans, bargaining itself—let alone bargaining over travel arrangements—is unthinkable, humiliating, something done only in Persian bazaars.
No other nationality of traveler regards it as such. You have only to stand in the lobby of a large Venetian hotel during off-season, and you will observe one European after another engaged in bargaining. “We are looking for a room that costs no more than €50 ($50),” says a very proper Englishman to the front desk clerk. In fact, that tourist knows that there is no such thing as a €50 room in that hotel; he is bargaining. He is saying, in effect, “We will stay in your hotel if you reduce your rate to €50; otherwise, we will walk down the block to another hotel.”
In other words, you can bargain with dignity; you do not have to act like the proverbial “screaming fishmonger,” or as in a tobacco auction. Often, the smartest of travelers will simply call a hotel and bargain over rates by asking if the hotel has a “teacher’s rate,” a “student rate”, a “minister’s rate,” a “civil service” rate, a “military rate,” a “corporate rate,” a “travel agent’s rate”, an “airline employee’s rate,” whatever.
In actual fact, it does not matter what category you name, and the hotel itself couldn’t care less; you could ask for a “housewive’s rate,” a “dentists’ rate,” and still get a discount if the hotel were heavily empty that night. What you are doing is bargaining. You are telling the hotel, politely, that you know it is a slow night, that they have plenty of vacancies, and here’s their chance to fill an otherwise-empty room by cutting the price to you; otherwise, you will walk down the block.
Note, carefully, that these tactics work only during off-season periods, or during slow cycles of the week. Most business hotels tend to empty out on weekends, when bargaining can be extremely effective; the same hotels tend to be fully booked from Monday through Thursday nights, when bargaining often doesn’t work. And the tactic works only if you are speaking with someone authorized to discount (someone working directly for the hotel), and not with a telephone reservationist staffing a nationwide “800” number.
Note, too, that in the U.S., where hotels tend to be widely scattered, not clustered (as in our example on Venice, above), bargaining is best conducted from a nearby phone booth, or by a phone call from the airport on arrival, or by a long distance call from your home before you leave on the trip. The hotel then knows that you are easily able to make a call to another hotel, if they don’t accede to your request. Usually in the States, bargaining doesn’t work if you are already in the hotel lobby; then the desk clerk knows it’s unlikely that you will walk out and travel the long distance to another hotel, if they refuse the discount.
Does bargaining work for travel products other than hotel rooms? You bet it does. Tales circulate in the travel industry of numerous well-dressed persons who, in the port of Miami, walk from ship to ship on a Saturday afternoon, asking ships’ pursers whether they still have any unsold cabins they’d like to fill at 50% off. They have their luggage, their traveler’s checks and their proofs of citizenship—and are ready, willing and prepared to board the ship right there and then, without knowing or caring where it is going; they simply want a week’s cruise, cheaply. I’ve heard of the same happening at the Manhattan pier from which the giant QE2 embarks for a trans-Atlantic crossing.
Certainly, too, charter flights are a proper object for bargaining. In my years as a charter tour operator in the 70s, I sent young staff members to see off our flights at the airport; they were not simply authorized, but directed, to sell off, on the spot, up to minutes before departure, any remaining, unsold seats, for any price that did not injure our dignity. If a bargainer, making a sudden appearance, offered $59 for the one-way crossing to London leaving in twenty minutes, we’d stamp off in righteous indignation; if they offered $99, that was another matter.
Some more prudent travelers would phone our office on the day before a charter’s departure to determine whether there were still empty seats to be had for a song. While we could not also provide them with hotel space at that late date, we’d welcome the calls as a means of squeezing out a few last dollars of profit from the flight. To my knowledge, a great many hard-bargainers continue to make such calls to tour operators or consolidators who have committed themselves to blocks of air tickets, and would rather cut the price on unsold seats than suffer empty seats.
The travel industry consists of perishable products (seats, rooms, cabins, cars) that must be sold for a particular departure or on a particular date, or else their value is lost forever. It is clearly better to receive some income for such a product, rather than no income. And that is why most travel suppliers will react positively to your requests for a discount, if they sense you are “shopping” for value, and will turn to an alternative supplier if they fail to grant the requested discount.
“Ask and it shall be given.” More often than you’d suspect.
That's Right.
HMK
Exclusive To That's Right from Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel
It actually happened: the newlywed daughter of a friend of mine phoned home to report a tiff with her husband; could she come home right away (for a day or two)? But the cost of an immediate ticket from her West Coast city would have been a prohibitive $800.
So my friend phoned one of the hungrier, less popular airlines, asked to speak with a supervisor, and explained the problem. “We’ll call it a ‘family crisis fare’,” responded the airline official, who then authorized a waiver of the airline’s normal advance purchase rule. And my friend’s tearful daughter flew home to mommy and daddy for only $400, round-trip.
“Ask and it shall be given,” says the Bible, and nowhere does that admonition work more effectively than in travel. Many thousands of Americans (but still a minority of them) receive substantial travel discounts each year by simply requesting them—from an airline, ship line, or hotel. We realists call the practice “bargaining.” Others, more dignified, refer to it as smart consumerism.
To a larger number of Americans, bargaining itself—let alone bargaining over travel arrangements—is unthinkable, humiliating, something done only in Persian bazaars.
No other nationality of traveler regards it as such. You have only to stand in the lobby of a large Venetian hotel during off-season, and you will observe one European after another engaged in bargaining. “We are looking for a room that costs no more than €50 ($50),” says a very proper Englishman to the front desk clerk. In fact, that tourist knows that there is no such thing as a €50 room in that hotel; he is bargaining. He is saying, in effect, “We will stay in your hotel if you reduce your rate to €50; otherwise, we will walk down the block to another hotel.”
In other words, you can bargain with dignity; you do not have to act like the proverbial “screaming fishmonger,” or as in a tobacco auction. Often, the smartest of travelers will simply call a hotel and bargain over rates by asking if the hotel has a “teacher’s rate,” a “student rate”, a “minister’s rate,” a “civil service” rate, a “military rate,” a “corporate rate,” a “travel agent’s rate”, an “airline employee’s rate,” whatever.
In actual fact, it does not matter what category you name, and the hotel itself couldn’t care less; you could ask for a “housewive’s rate,” a “dentists’ rate,” and still get a discount if the hotel were heavily empty that night. What you are doing is bargaining. You are telling the hotel, politely, that you know it is a slow night, that they have plenty of vacancies, and here’s their chance to fill an otherwise-empty room by cutting the price to you; otherwise, you will walk down the block.
Note, carefully, that these tactics work only during off-season periods, or during slow cycles of the week. Most business hotels tend to empty out on weekends, when bargaining can be extremely effective; the same hotels tend to be fully booked from Monday through Thursday nights, when bargaining often doesn’t work. And the tactic works only if you are speaking with someone authorized to discount (someone working directly for the hotel), and not with a telephone reservationist staffing a nationwide “800” number.
Note, too, that in the U.S., where hotels tend to be widely scattered, not clustered (as in our example on Venice, above), bargaining is best conducted from a nearby phone booth, or by a phone call from the airport on arrival, or by a long distance call from your home before you leave on the trip. The hotel then knows that you are easily able to make a call to another hotel, if they don’t accede to your request. Usually in the States, bargaining doesn’t work if you are already in the hotel lobby; then the desk clerk knows it’s unlikely that you will walk out and travel the long distance to another hotel, if they refuse the discount.
Does bargaining work for travel products other than hotel rooms? You bet it does. Tales circulate in the travel industry of numerous well-dressed persons who, in the port of Miami, walk from ship to ship on a Saturday afternoon, asking ships’ pursers whether they still have any unsold cabins they’d like to fill at 50% off. They have their luggage, their traveler’s checks and their proofs of citizenship—and are ready, willing and prepared to board the ship right there and then, without knowing or caring where it is going; they simply want a week’s cruise, cheaply. I’ve heard of the same happening at the Manhattan pier from which the giant QE2 embarks for a trans-Atlantic crossing.
Certainly, too, charter flights are a proper object for bargaining. In my years as a charter tour operator in the 70s, I sent young staff members to see off our flights at the airport; they were not simply authorized, but directed, to sell off, on the spot, up to minutes before departure, any remaining, unsold seats, for any price that did not injure our dignity. If a bargainer, making a sudden appearance, offered $59 for the one-way crossing to London leaving in twenty minutes, we’d stamp off in righteous indignation; if they offered $99, that was another matter.
Some more prudent travelers would phone our office on the day before a charter’s departure to determine whether there were still empty seats to be had for a song. While we could not also provide them with hotel space at that late date, we’d welcome the calls as a means of squeezing out a few last dollars of profit from the flight. To my knowledge, a great many hard-bargainers continue to make such calls to tour operators or consolidators who have committed themselves to blocks of air tickets, and would rather cut the price on unsold seats than suffer empty seats.
The travel industry consists of perishable products (seats, rooms, cabins, cars) that must be sold for a particular departure or on a particular date, or else their value is lost forever. It is clearly better to receive some income for such a product, rather than no income. And that is why most travel suppliers will react positively to your requests for a discount, if they sense you are “shopping” for value, and will turn to an alternative supplier if they fail to grant the requested discount.
“Ask and it shall be given.” More often than you’d suspect.
That's Right.
HMK
Friday, August 06, 2004
Axis of Evil
Amazing how much one can communicate with a great concept and a simple drawing.
I mean, look at Castro's expression! Other than the above, I'd like to submit this without comment.
Thank you,
HMK
I mean, look at Castro's expression! Other than the above, I'd like to submit this without comment.
Thank you,
HMK
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Thank God for Our Justice System!
'Tigger' Acquitted of Fondling Teen
A Walt Disney World worker in Orlando, Fla. has been acquitted of charges he fondled a teenage girl as he portrayed the character "Tigger."
Michael Chartrand says he wants to return to work now that he's been found innocent, but not as another Walt Disney character. The "Tigger" character comes from Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" movie.
During Wednesday's trial, Chartrand's defense attorney Jeffrey Kaufman - who also moonlights as Tigger and Goofy at the theme park - donned a Tigger costume to show juroros how cumbersome it is and how hard it is to see in it.
Outside of court, Chartrand, 36, who is from England and lost his fiancee and had been suspended without pay after his arrest, said he'd like his job back, but that the experience "has ruined my dream to be a character."
Jurors found Chartrand not guilty of lewd and lascivious molestation, a felony; he had faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
He had been accused of fondling a 13-year-old girl while posing for a picture with her and her mother.
Earlier this week he had rejected a plea offer that would have given him probation.
Kaufman has contended that the girl's mother was merely after money and planned to sue Disney.
The mother also claimed Tigger touched her breast during a visit to the park last February, though no charges were filed then.
That's Right. Another pure example of another money hungry idiot trying to make a buck while exploiting a minority. I mean, isn't the wonderful thing about being a Tigger was the fact that he was the only one, which, like, makes him the minority, right?
HMK
A Walt Disney World worker in Orlando, Fla. has been acquitted of charges he fondled a teenage girl as he portrayed the character "Tigger."
Michael Chartrand says he wants to return to work now that he's been found innocent, but not as another Walt Disney character. The "Tigger" character comes from Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" movie.
During Wednesday's trial, Chartrand's defense attorney Jeffrey Kaufman - who also moonlights as Tigger and Goofy at the theme park - donned a Tigger costume to show juroros how cumbersome it is and how hard it is to see in it.
Outside of court, Chartrand, 36, who is from England and lost his fiancee and had been suspended without pay after his arrest, said he'd like his job back, but that the experience "has ruined my dream to be a character."
Jurors found Chartrand not guilty of lewd and lascivious molestation, a felony; he had faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
He had been accused of fondling a 13-year-old girl while posing for a picture with her and her mother.
Earlier this week he had rejected a plea offer that would have given him probation.
Kaufman has contended that the girl's mother was merely after money and planned to sue Disney.
The mother also claimed Tigger touched her breast during a visit to the park last February, though no charges were filed then.
That's Right. Another pure example of another money hungry idiot trying to make a buck while exploiting a minority. I mean, isn't the wonderful thing about being a Tigger was the fact that he was the only one, which, like, makes him the minority, right?
HMK
A Message from The Boss
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like after school programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
End of The Boss message.
My fellow Americans. We should never forget 9-11. I was undecided. I still am. It’s not that I’m promoting anything or party. It’s just that I believe the importance of recognizing another (the other) point of view, is the only way to truly understand and the only way to make a sound decision about anything. I do that with everything. I always ask "Compared to What?" When some one says "Taco Cabana has the best enchiladas." Oh really. Compared to what? If all you've got to compare them to is Enchilada Wednesdays from high school, then yeah, Taco Cabana rocks. But, have you been to Blanco Cafe, Los Barrios, Casbeers or Piedras Negras? Bottomlne, I try not to be too opinionated about anything unless I've got a pretty good understand of the facts. I also understand this simple fact of life: The hardest thing to teach anybody is something they think they already know. If you don't know - don't argue. And frankly, if you don't vote - don't bitch. That's Right - but not too far Right. I’m supporting the Springsteen Bono Ticket...
HMK
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like after school programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
End of The Boss message.
My fellow Americans. We should never forget 9-11. I was undecided. I still am. It’s not that I’m promoting anything or party. It’s just that I believe the importance of recognizing another (the other) point of view, is the only way to truly understand and the only way to make a sound decision about anything. I do that with everything. I always ask "Compared to What?" When some one says "Taco Cabana has the best enchiladas." Oh really. Compared to what? If all you've got to compare them to is Enchilada Wednesdays from high school, then yeah, Taco Cabana rocks. But, have you been to Blanco Cafe, Los Barrios, Casbeers or Piedras Negras? Bottomlne, I try not to be too opinionated about anything unless I've got a pretty good understand of the facts. I also understand this simple fact of life: The hardest thing to teach anybody is something they think they already know. If you don't know - don't argue. And frankly, if you don't vote - don't bitch. That's Right - but not too far Right. I’m supporting the Springsteen Bono Ticket...
HMK
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
We Make Our Own Good Luck
It's true. the harder I work, the luckier I get. With these five basic principles, and a litlle luck, you're on your way too. Responsibility. Learning from Mistakes. Perseverance. Confidence. And Cooperation.
Read on my friend...
Click Here!
That's Right,
HMK
Read on my friend...
Click Here!
That's Right,
HMK
Monday, August 02, 2004
Best of Both Worlds
| There's only one thing I dig more than cheesy movies. That's Right - cheesy movie logos! Steve Hill's got a great selection of title stills from tons of wicked bad movies at his sweet little site. Go there now! www.shillpages.com/movies/ Thanks for sharing Steve! HMK |  Bill&Drac still Originally uploaded by H. Michael karshis. |
Sunday, August 01, 2004
Perseids 99
| A brilliant Perseid Meteor Fireball pierces the night sky just below the North Star over the dark desert skies of Joshua Tree National Park, California. Photo by Wally Pacholka of Long Beach using standard 35mm Minolta camera on tripod with 50mm lens at f/2.4 and Fuji 800 film for 10 minutes. |  Perseids 99 Originally uploaded by H. Michael karshis. |
Heads Up! The Perseid Meteor Shower is Coming!
The 2004 Perseid Meteor Shower
The annual Perseid meteor shower is coming, and forecasters say it could be unusually good.
Meteoroids in space since the Civil War will spice up this summer's Perseid meteor shower.
The shower begins, gently, in mid-July when Earth enters the outskirts of a cloud of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. Dust-sized meteoroids hitting the atmosphere will streak across the night sky, at first only a sprinkling, just a few each night, but the rate will build.
By August 12th when the shower peaks, sky watchers can expect to see dozens, possibly even hundreds, of meteors per hour.
This is a good year for Perseids, for two reasons, explains Bill Cooke of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. First, the Moon is new in mid-August; moonlight won't spoil the show. Second, in addition to the usual shower on August 12th, there might be an extra surge of meteors on August 11th caused by a filament of dust newly drifting across Earth's orbit.
The filament, like all the rest of the dust in the Perseid cloud, comes from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The difference is, the filament is relatively young. It boiled off the comet during the Civil War, in 1862. Other dust in the cloud is older (perhaps thousands of years old), more dispersed, and responsible for the month-long shower that peaks on August 12th. The filament will eventually disperse, too, but for now it retains some of its original ribbon-shape.
If predictions are correct, Earth will plow through the filament on Wednesday, August 11th at 2100 UT (5 p.m. EDT). This will produce a surge of mostly-faint meteors over Europe and Asia. Observers might see "as many as 200 meteors per hour," says Cooke, who recommends getting away from city lights to watch the flurry.
(Note: Perseids favor northern latitudes. Because of the way Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit is tilted, its dust falls on Earth's northern hemisphere. Meteors stream out of the constellation Perseus, which is barely visible south of the equator.)
Later that night, observers in North America can see the "traditional Perseid peak" caused by the older dust from Swift-Tuttle. "Expect 40 to 60 meteors per hour, some of them bright," says Cooke.
The best time to look for these "traditional Perseids" is during the hours before dawn on Thursday, August 12th. Set your alarm for 2 o'clock in the morning; go outside; lie down on a sleeping bag with your toes pointed northeast. You'll soon see meteors racing along the Milky Way.
Can't wake up at 2 a.m.?
Try looking around 9 or 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 11th when Perseus is hanging low in the eastern sky. You won't see many meteors then, but the ones you do see could be memorable. Shooting stars that emerge from the horizon and streak horizontally through the atmosphere are called "Earthgrazers." Slow and colorful Earthgrazers are a good target for city dwellers, because they are so bright.
Dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle hits Earth. What about the comet itself?
Americans Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle, working independently, discovered the comet in 1862, and they watched the Aug. 11th filament billow into space. Three years later Giovanni Schiaparelli (of Martian "canali" fame) realized it was the source of the Perseid meteors. He understood that the comet could come close to Earth, but in those days no one worried about such things.
The idea that comets and asteroids might threaten our planet was not widely accepted until the 1980s. Then astronomers began to worry. Comet Swift-Tuttle is big, about the same size as the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and as recently as 1992 it seemed that Swift-Tuttle might strike Earth in the year 2126. New data and calculations show otherwise, though. There's no danger of a collision for at least a millennium and probably much longer.
So relax. Enjoy the show. Perseids are harmless … and beautiful. This is an unusually good year to see for yourself.
The annual Perseid meteor shower is coming, and forecasters say it could be unusually good.
Meteoroids in space since the Civil War will spice up this summer's Perseid meteor shower.
The shower begins, gently, in mid-July when Earth enters the outskirts of a cloud of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. Dust-sized meteoroids hitting the atmosphere will streak across the night sky, at first only a sprinkling, just a few each night, but the rate will build.
By August 12th when the shower peaks, sky watchers can expect to see dozens, possibly even hundreds, of meteors per hour.
This is a good year for Perseids, for two reasons, explains Bill Cooke of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. First, the Moon is new in mid-August; moonlight won't spoil the show. Second, in addition to the usual shower on August 12th, there might be an extra surge of meteors on August 11th caused by a filament of dust newly drifting across Earth's orbit.
The filament, like all the rest of the dust in the Perseid cloud, comes from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The difference is, the filament is relatively young. It boiled off the comet during the Civil War, in 1862. Other dust in the cloud is older (perhaps thousands of years old), more dispersed, and responsible for the month-long shower that peaks on August 12th. The filament will eventually disperse, too, but for now it retains some of its original ribbon-shape.
If predictions are correct, Earth will plow through the filament on Wednesday, August 11th at 2100 UT (5 p.m. EDT). This will produce a surge of mostly-faint meteors over Europe and Asia. Observers might see "as many as 200 meteors per hour," says Cooke, who recommends getting away from city lights to watch the flurry.
(Note: Perseids favor northern latitudes. Because of the way Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit is tilted, its dust falls on Earth's northern hemisphere. Meteors stream out of the constellation Perseus, which is barely visible south of the equator.)
Later that night, observers in North America can see the "traditional Perseid peak" caused by the older dust from Swift-Tuttle. "Expect 40 to 60 meteors per hour, some of them bright," says Cooke.
The best time to look for these "traditional Perseids" is during the hours before dawn on Thursday, August 12th. Set your alarm for 2 o'clock in the morning; go outside; lie down on a sleeping bag with your toes pointed northeast. You'll soon see meteors racing along the Milky Way.
Can't wake up at 2 a.m.?
Try looking around 9 or 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 11th when Perseus is hanging low in the eastern sky. You won't see many meteors then, but the ones you do see could be memorable. Shooting stars that emerge from the horizon and streak horizontally through the atmosphere are called "Earthgrazers." Slow and colorful Earthgrazers are a good target for city dwellers, because they are so bright.
Dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle hits Earth. What about the comet itself?
Americans Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle, working independently, discovered the comet in 1862, and they watched the Aug. 11th filament billow into space. Three years later Giovanni Schiaparelli (of Martian "canali" fame) realized it was the source of the Perseid meteors. He understood that the comet could come close to Earth, but in those days no one worried about such things.
The idea that comets and asteroids might threaten our planet was not widely accepted until the 1980s. Then astronomers began to worry. Comet Swift-Tuttle is big, about the same size as the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and as recently as 1992 it seemed that Swift-Tuttle might strike Earth in the year 2126. New data and calculations show otherwise, though. There's no danger of a collision for at least a millennium and probably much longer.
So relax. Enjoy the show. Perseids are harmless … and beautiful. This is an unusually good year to see for yourself.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Car Thieves, iPods and God.
iPod helps police nab alleged car thief
By Jo Best
Special to CNET News.com & That's Right
Organized car theft and iPods don't mix, if the case of Oludayo Adeagbo is anything to go by.
Adeagbo was allegedly the head of a car crime gang known as the "iPod Crew," which had been using identity theft tactics to get finance agreements that allowed them to drive off with posh cars--Jaguars, BMWs and the like.
Police estimate that other members of the gang, who have yet to be caught, made off with 70 cars worth more than $1.8 million (1 million pounds) during their 10-month spree.
The gang attracted the attention of a local police officer by parking all the cars outside of a housing project. When the police raided one of the men's houses there, they discovered a range of documents stored on an iPod, including forged letters claiming the cars were paid for.
Adeagbo has since found God, saying he is "happy" and is "trading crime for Christianity." He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at Southwark Crown Court.
Jo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.
That's Right. Where else can you find an article about Car Thieves, iPods and God.
By Jo Best
Special to CNET News.com & That's Right
Organized car theft and iPods don't mix, if the case of Oludayo Adeagbo is anything to go by.
Adeagbo was allegedly the head of a car crime gang known as the "iPod Crew," which had been using identity theft tactics to get finance agreements that allowed them to drive off with posh cars--Jaguars, BMWs and the like.
Police estimate that other members of the gang, who have yet to be caught, made off with 70 cars worth more than $1.8 million (1 million pounds) during their 10-month spree.
The gang attracted the attention of a local police officer by parking all the cars outside of a housing project. When the police raided one of the men's houses there, they discovered a range of documents stored on an iPod, including forged letters claiming the cars were paid for.
Adeagbo has since found God, saying he is "happy" and is "trading crime for Christianity." He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at Southwark Crown Court.
Jo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.
That's Right. Where else can you find an article about Car Thieves, iPods and God.
Friday, July 30, 2004
25 Years Ago This Month ( The Pre iPod Years)
"Sony Walkman's keep us walkin'
De la Soul can help you breathe"
-De la Soul from the song Tread Water from their 1989 classic debut lp "3 Feet High and Rising"
This a cool little article by Greg Quill
"It is virtually an extension of the skin. It is fitted, moulded, like so much else in modern consumer culture, to the body itself ... It is designed for movement — for mobility, for people who are always out and about, for travelling light. It is part of the required equipment of the modern `nomad.'"
It was such a small and seemingly innocuous thing, a little silver box with a headphone jack that allowed you to listen to music pre-recorded on audio cassettes as you moved from one place to another, walking the dog, commuting in buses and trains, sitting in a café reading, jogging in the park ...
It was at first an offence to no one. Unlike its predecessor, the cumbersome, megawatt ghetto blaster — a rampaging bully that imposed its loud presence on whole neighbourhoods — the Sony Walkman, introduced in North America 25 years ago this month, was a private thing, an individual indulgence, a secret door through which you could enter your own personal soundscape at will.
You could inhabit that insulated place oblivious of the distractions of the world around you, while the world around you was oblivious of your unobserved departure.
It can't have been the intention of its maker to change the world, to bring civilization to the brink of a techno-driven catastrophe, as some observers think. Its origins are certainly benign.
Though the giant electronics company recently settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit with a 59-year-old German inventor named Andreas Pavel — his "Stereobelt" personal listening unit was patented in Italy in 1977 — Sony chairman Akio Morita is credited with championing research on the device initiated by company co-founder Masaru Ibuka and engineer Kozo Ohsone, after taking note of how willing young people were to lug around heavy boom boxes in the cause of music portability.
Morita even insisted that the Walkman — first marketed in Japan, where personal space is cherished — be fitted with no speakers and two headphone output jacks. The idea was to encourage the close sharing of music without inconveniencing the community at large.
Curiously, the legions of users — 200 million of the $200 (U.S.) units were sold within two years, and almost as many, CD and digital players included, since then — preferred to be isolated, and the two-jack model lasted just over a year. And there's the rub.
In many ways, the Walkman and its spawn — portable CD players, Apple iPods and other digital music players, even the multi-use cellphone — really have changed the world, and not necessarily for the better.
"Personalized consumption and the relentless individualization of technology over the past 25 years can easily be traced back to the Walkman," says Dr. Graeme Turner, a professor of cultural studies at the University of Queensland in Australia.
"The Walkman significantly provided a separate cultural space for its users, no matter where they went. And they could decorate that personal space the way young people decorate their bedrooms ... It was not like the TV, stereo sound system, or radio. It was personal and mobile."
The Walkman, says Turner, was deliberately marketed to youngsters, perfect targets.
"It allowed them to escape from the world, but in a really obvious way. For the first time they could listen to their personalized music selections on homemade tapes wherever they went. They could reinforce their self-image by focusing only on the music that contained the codes and messages they needed or wanted. They could move conspicuously to rhythms no once else could hear ... and if they really wanted to be noticed, they could turn up the volume so that others could hear ...
"It was a tiny noise compared to ghetto blasters, but it was still considered anti-social behaviour in its time," Turner continues. "I remember reading signs on the London Underground in the 1980s that threatened fines for sound leakage from personal listening devices."
The technology-driven personalization of taste — manifested in these post-Walkman days in portable CD players, digital music downloading and playback devices, mobile wireless Internet communicators, the ubiquitous PDA (personal digital assistant), mobile telephones and text messaging — represents both a repudiation of former modes of social transaction that were necessarily communal, such as music shared in live performance settings, and a fragmentation of social activity.
As well as the privatization of identity, Turner adds, who says the Walkman has had "enormous cultural, sociological and psychological consequences.
"We may think we're connected to the universe, we may well be in control of our personal space as a result of these technologies, we may think we're networking, but it's in a one-on-one system. It's a fetishization of connectedness, an illusion."
Now comes news of Sony's launch of a smaller, lighter and less expensive competitor to Apple's revolutionary iPod digital music file player.
This new personal listening device, with the not-so-imaginative moniker NW-HD1, is about the size of a credit card, 1.3 cm thick, weighs 4 oz. and can apparently store a lot more music than the current market favourite — 13,000 songs on a 20-gigabyte hard drive with a 30-hour rechargeable battery capacity compared to the 20G iPod model's 5,000 songs and 10-hour battery life.
The new machine, released 25 years to the day after the arrival of the Walkman, uses software unique to Sony. Songs in other formats such as the popular MP3 cannot be played on it. As with other digital music players, users must transfer music from their own CD collections or downloaded from Sony over the Internet through a home computer, making it even easier for music fans to bypass conventional retail procedures and to create personalized collections of music that bear no resemblance to record industry product.
The Walkman is the watermelon seed on which the music empire slipped and fell, according to Jennifer Brayton, assistant professor of sociology at Ryerson, a specialist in technology and media studies, and a DJ for 20 years.
"If you didn't want to listen to pre-made tapes manufactured by record companies, you could suddenly make your own and take them wherever you travelled, and put the music to all kinds of uses, as an accompaniment to walking, exercising, commuting, sailing a boat.
"It gave young urban people a new kind of geographical freedom, a world without parental supervision, an environment they could make to their own liking."
But the self-creation of personal musical landscapes is anathema to the recording industry, a threat to its revenue, and the industry fought back by lobbying successfully for levies on blank tape and blank CDs, Brayton says, but ultimately to no avail.
"The Walkman and its digital offspring have changed the way music is made and marketed now by millions of individual artists working as independent businesspeople. They brought an end to music as a monolithic industry."
Brayton also points to the status value of Walkmans — models by Sony and rivals are now collectibles — and subsequent music playback technology.
"These machines aren't inexpensive, and they divide the haves from the have-nots. Having the very latest model — the smallest model, now that miniaturization is a social fetish — is a status symbol."
And the machines invite an odd sort of social overture, she adds. "You see kids asking each other what they're listening to on their headphones, implying a sense of sharing but without the actual experience. Music used to be a communal experience. The technology initiated by the Walkman hasn't increased social connections. Quite the opposite."
Marshall McLuhan observed 50 years ago that the more technology humans use, the more isolated they become, notes Bhesham Sharma, a musicologist at University of Western Ontario and author of Music And Culture In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction.
"And the Walkman embodies that notion: It is a remarkably alienating device whose key effect was to change music from a communal event to a personal experience. Because music resides in the cognitive faculties of the individual, it provides the means to construct a customized soundscape that can inspire the listener, trigger all kinds of sensations at will in an environment that shuts out the world. In fact, the world is at odds with the user."
Because the Walkman — the name is now a generic term for all personal listening devices — facilitates the enhancement of the user's emotional life, it acts, Sharma says, as a kind of "musical perfume that keeps out the noises of the real world.
"With the aid of a Walkman, laborious exercise such as jogging or gym work becomes something else, a different kind of experience."
The Walkman may also have changed popular music itself over the years, Sharma believes. All music has a shelf life, and its appeal, though profound at first, dissipates with the intense scrutiny and overexposure that personal listening devices allow.
"Overexposure contributes to a dissociation between music and emotional responses to the music. As a consequence, clichés of style start to be eliminated in the production of music, but what disappears first are the emotional and aesthetic elements, not the rhythmic and atonal qualities. In the production of certain types of music, rhythm takes precedence over aesthetic considerations."
And because music is ultimately designed for mass consumption, record companies produce more and more of what they perceive the market wants, regardless of quality.
"The associations music carries make it virtually communal, even in an in insular world," Sharma adds. "And the music (hip hop and rap) that has been dominating popular culture in the last decade has taken on the image and connotations of a subculture, music that appears connected to a larger whole, but is nonetheless isolated."
Additional articles by Greg Quill can be found at www.thestar.com
De la Soul can help you breathe"
-De la Soul from the song Tread Water from their 1989 classic debut lp "3 Feet High and Rising"
This a cool little article by Greg Quill
"It is virtually an extension of the skin. It is fitted, moulded, like so much else in modern consumer culture, to the body itself ... It is designed for movement — for mobility, for people who are always out and about, for travelling light. It is part of the required equipment of the modern `nomad.'"
It was such a small and seemingly innocuous thing, a little silver box with a headphone jack that allowed you to listen to music pre-recorded on audio cassettes as you moved from one place to another, walking the dog, commuting in buses and trains, sitting in a café reading, jogging in the park ...
It was at first an offence to no one. Unlike its predecessor, the cumbersome, megawatt ghetto blaster — a rampaging bully that imposed its loud presence on whole neighbourhoods — the Sony Walkman, introduced in North America 25 years ago this month, was a private thing, an individual indulgence, a secret door through which you could enter your own personal soundscape at will.
You could inhabit that insulated place oblivious of the distractions of the world around you, while the world around you was oblivious of your unobserved departure.
It can't have been the intention of its maker to change the world, to bring civilization to the brink of a techno-driven catastrophe, as some observers think. Its origins are certainly benign.
Though the giant electronics company recently settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit with a 59-year-old German inventor named Andreas Pavel — his "Stereobelt" personal listening unit was patented in Italy in 1977 — Sony chairman Akio Morita is credited with championing research on the device initiated by company co-founder Masaru Ibuka and engineer Kozo Ohsone, after taking note of how willing young people were to lug around heavy boom boxes in the cause of music portability.
Morita even insisted that the Walkman — first marketed in Japan, where personal space is cherished — be fitted with no speakers and two headphone output jacks. The idea was to encourage the close sharing of music without inconveniencing the community at large.
Curiously, the legions of users — 200 million of the $200 (U.S.) units were sold within two years, and almost as many, CD and digital players included, since then — preferred to be isolated, and the two-jack model lasted just over a year. And there's the rub.
In many ways, the Walkman and its spawn — portable CD players, Apple iPods and other digital music players, even the multi-use cellphone — really have changed the world, and not necessarily for the better.
"Personalized consumption and the relentless individualization of technology over the past 25 years can easily be traced back to the Walkman," says Dr. Graeme Turner, a professor of cultural studies at the University of Queensland in Australia.
"The Walkman significantly provided a separate cultural space for its users, no matter where they went. And they could decorate that personal space the way young people decorate their bedrooms ... It was not like the TV, stereo sound system, or radio. It was personal and mobile."
The Walkman, says Turner, was deliberately marketed to youngsters, perfect targets.
"It allowed them to escape from the world, but in a really obvious way. For the first time they could listen to their personalized music selections on homemade tapes wherever they went. They could reinforce their self-image by focusing only on the music that contained the codes and messages they needed or wanted. They could move conspicuously to rhythms no once else could hear ... and if they really wanted to be noticed, they could turn up the volume so that others could hear ...
"It was a tiny noise compared to ghetto blasters, but it was still considered anti-social behaviour in its time," Turner continues. "I remember reading signs on the London Underground in the 1980s that threatened fines for sound leakage from personal listening devices."
The technology-driven personalization of taste — manifested in these post-Walkman days in portable CD players, digital music downloading and playback devices, mobile wireless Internet communicators, the ubiquitous PDA (personal digital assistant), mobile telephones and text messaging — represents both a repudiation of former modes of social transaction that were necessarily communal, such as music shared in live performance settings, and a fragmentation of social activity.
As well as the privatization of identity, Turner adds, who says the Walkman has had "enormous cultural, sociological and psychological consequences.
"We may think we're connected to the universe, we may well be in control of our personal space as a result of these technologies, we may think we're networking, but it's in a one-on-one system. It's a fetishization of connectedness, an illusion."
Now comes news of Sony's launch of a smaller, lighter and less expensive competitor to Apple's revolutionary iPod digital music file player.
This new personal listening device, with the not-so-imaginative moniker NW-HD1, is about the size of a credit card, 1.3 cm thick, weighs 4 oz. and can apparently store a lot more music than the current market favourite — 13,000 songs on a 20-gigabyte hard drive with a 30-hour rechargeable battery capacity compared to the 20G iPod model's 5,000 songs and 10-hour battery life.
The new machine, released 25 years to the day after the arrival of the Walkman, uses software unique to Sony. Songs in other formats such as the popular MP3 cannot be played on it. As with other digital music players, users must transfer music from their own CD collections or downloaded from Sony over the Internet through a home computer, making it even easier for music fans to bypass conventional retail procedures and to create personalized collections of music that bear no resemblance to record industry product.
The Walkman is the watermelon seed on which the music empire slipped and fell, according to Jennifer Brayton, assistant professor of sociology at Ryerson, a specialist in technology and media studies, and a DJ for 20 years.
"If you didn't want to listen to pre-made tapes manufactured by record companies, you could suddenly make your own and take them wherever you travelled, and put the music to all kinds of uses, as an accompaniment to walking, exercising, commuting, sailing a boat.
"It gave young urban people a new kind of geographical freedom, a world without parental supervision, an environment they could make to their own liking."
But the self-creation of personal musical landscapes is anathema to the recording industry, a threat to its revenue, and the industry fought back by lobbying successfully for levies on blank tape and blank CDs, Brayton says, but ultimately to no avail.
"The Walkman and its digital offspring have changed the way music is made and marketed now by millions of individual artists working as independent businesspeople. They brought an end to music as a monolithic industry."
Brayton also points to the status value of Walkmans — models by Sony and rivals are now collectibles — and subsequent music playback technology.
"These machines aren't inexpensive, and they divide the haves from the have-nots. Having the very latest model — the smallest model, now that miniaturization is a social fetish — is a status symbol."
And the machines invite an odd sort of social overture, she adds. "You see kids asking each other what they're listening to on their headphones, implying a sense of sharing but without the actual experience. Music used to be a communal experience. The technology initiated by the Walkman hasn't increased social connections. Quite the opposite."
Marshall McLuhan observed 50 years ago that the more technology humans use, the more isolated they become, notes Bhesham Sharma, a musicologist at University of Western Ontario and author of Music And Culture In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction.
"And the Walkman embodies that notion: It is a remarkably alienating device whose key effect was to change music from a communal event to a personal experience. Because music resides in the cognitive faculties of the individual, it provides the means to construct a customized soundscape that can inspire the listener, trigger all kinds of sensations at will in an environment that shuts out the world. In fact, the world is at odds with the user."
Because the Walkman — the name is now a generic term for all personal listening devices — facilitates the enhancement of the user's emotional life, it acts, Sharma says, as a kind of "musical perfume that keeps out the noises of the real world.
"With the aid of a Walkman, laborious exercise such as jogging or gym work becomes something else, a different kind of experience."
The Walkman may also have changed popular music itself over the years, Sharma believes. All music has a shelf life, and its appeal, though profound at first, dissipates with the intense scrutiny and overexposure that personal listening devices allow.
"Overexposure contributes to a dissociation between music and emotional responses to the music. As a consequence, clichés of style start to be eliminated in the production of music, but what disappears first are the emotional and aesthetic elements, not the rhythmic and atonal qualities. In the production of certain types of music, rhythm takes precedence over aesthetic considerations."
And because music is ultimately designed for mass consumption, record companies produce more and more of what they perceive the market wants, regardless of quality.
"The associations music carries make it virtually communal, even in an in insular world," Sharma adds. "And the music (hip hop and rap) that has been dominating popular culture in the last decade has taken on the image and connotations of a subculture, music that appears connected to a larger whole, but is nonetheless isolated."
Additional articles by Greg Quill can be found at www.thestar.com
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Village Gorilla Head
Finally! The new Tommy Stinson solo album, Village Gorilla Head is officially out. Tommy was the bass player for the Replacements way back when, touring with the band started at age 14.
Clearly the world is weary of waiting for ‘Chinese Democracy’, the long overdue and almost mythical ‘Guns N’ Roses’ album. Clearly the public aren’t the only ones growing impatient as the band’s current bass player has gone off and recorded his own solo album called ‘Village Gorilla Head’. In fact ‘solo’ is a particularly apt word here as Stinson takes on all manner of musical duties, supplying the majority of his own backing vocals, bass, six-string guitar, keyboards and even drums on one track! The big question is of course does Axl but in a guest appearance? The answer is of course ‘No’ there’d be more chance of Elvis turning up to lend a hand, however Dizzy Read and Richard Fortus do turn up and help plug musical gaps here and there.
The sound of ‘Couldn’t Wait’ hints that the album was recorded in Frank Black’s studio, but most of the other tracks are more linear and traditional fare. All the songs here are incredibly catchy and sharp; and there are no weak songs on the album. ‘OK’ is a particularly strong track, it has an innocence provided by the chorus of child like voices that perfectly compliments Stinson’s vocals.
The album is full of contrasting tracks; ‘Hey You’ is a raw gritty ballad, whilst ‘Motivation’ is a full throttle belter of a rock track. Elsewhere there’s a slightly bluesier feel on ‘Bite Your Tongue’ whilst ‘Light of Day’ feels as though it belongs on the soundtrack of a modern day western. ‘
The shame is that at least half of these songs would be perfect if delivered by ‘Axl Rose’ and clearly the Guns N’ Roses front man has a very talented band mate, who on the evidence of ‘Village Gorilla Head’, could clearly help make his band a force to be reckoned with once more. So a word of note to Mr Rose, please listen to your band mates album, it should at the very least inspire you, and if not then ask him if you can re-record some of these tracks, add a little of your trade mark vocal excesses and you should have a world class album that will restore you to your former glories.
That's Right, we know that ain't gonna happen - Rock on Tommy!
Thanks to Greg Thomas at Rock-City UK
HMK
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Need A Break From Election Gaga?
Me too. Ok. Ready for something stupid? How about something funny?
Click Here for Something Stupid!
That's Right.
Click Here for Something Stupid!
That's Right.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
Tihs was snet to me form my sewety, Crhis Skyes. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Tollatly amzanig huh? Tahts rghit!
Tihs was snet to me form my sewety, Crhis Skyes. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Tollatly amzanig huh? Tahts rghit!
Three Hour Lunch
That's right. Now you can take the guess work out of your web page design. This utility lets you see approximately what your Web pages look like in Explorer or Netscape on Windows and Mac. By default, it loads a grid calibrated in pixels, but you can type-in any URL you like.
Take Me There Now!
So go for it - take that 3 hour lunch and if anyone questions your whereabouts, simply explain that you were out testing and trouble shooting your latest web masterpiece on multiple browsers.
Take Me There Now!
So go for it - take that 3 hour lunch and if anyone questions your whereabouts, simply explain that you were out testing and trouble shooting your latest web masterpiece on multiple browsers.
Monday, July 26, 2004
iRobot Concept Drawings
Wow! Amazing vision. If the movie is as sweet as these boards, we're all in for an anmazing ride!
Click Here!
That's Right,
HMK
Click Here!
That's Right,
HMK
My Top 10 Fun Facts form Harpers Index for 2004 (So far, anyway.)
No.10: Chance that a British infantry recruit's reading and writing skills are no better than the average 11-year-old's : 1 in 2
No.09: Minimum price a Russian company charges to provide an alibi for an adulterer's absence : $34
No.08: Minimum number of Italian men accused of paying for a "sexual anxieties" diagnosis to avoid military service last winter : 150 [Sophie Arie, Guardian (London)]
No.07: Days of below-freezing weather last winter in Hell, Michigan : 86 [National Climatic Data Center (Asheville, N.C.)]
No.06: Number of cast members of the movie Predator who have run for governor : 3
No.05: Hours it took two surgeons to separate conjoined turtles in Arizona last February : 4 [University Animal Hospital (Tempe, Ariz.)]
No.04: Number of snowballs a New York City man sold on the street one day last December : 10 (He made $9.50)[New York Daily News (N.Y.C.)]
No.03: Number of monkeys fed a nine-course meal at last year's Chinese Banquet for Monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand : 3,000 [Tourism Authority of Thailand (Bangkok)]
No.02:Price of a dozen action figures of one's self, prototype included : $889.45
No.01: Rank of Texas among states in which the largest percentage of citizens lack health insurance : 1 That's Right. We're #1. [U.S. Census Bureau (Washington)]
But really, That's just sadly Wrong.
No.09: Minimum price a Russian company charges to provide an alibi for an adulterer's absence : $34
No.08: Minimum number of Italian men accused of paying for a "sexual anxieties" diagnosis to avoid military service last winter : 150 [Sophie Arie, Guardian (London)]
No.07: Days of below-freezing weather last winter in Hell, Michigan : 86 [National Climatic Data Center (Asheville, N.C.)]
No.06: Number of cast members of the movie Predator who have run for governor : 3
No.05: Hours it took two surgeons to separate conjoined turtles in Arizona last February : 4 [University Animal Hospital (Tempe, Ariz.)]
No.04: Number of snowballs a New York City man sold on the street one day last December : 10 (He made $9.50)[New York Daily News (N.Y.C.)]
No.03: Number of monkeys fed a nine-course meal at last year's Chinese Banquet for Monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand : 3,000 [Tourism Authority of Thailand (Bangkok)]
No.02:Price of a dozen action figures of one's self, prototype included : $889.45
No.01: Rank of Texas among states in which the largest percentage of citizens lack health insurance : 1 That's Right. We're #1. [U.S. Census Bureau (Washington)]
But really, That's just sadly Wrong.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
____________ . Intentionally left blank
An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
Six years ago, in 1998, Bruce Mau unveiled a 43-point program that took the design world by storm. I "discovered" it in early 2000. Back then I remember thinking, wow - forget about design, this is really sound motivation for simply getting out of bed everyday. Well, now it's 2004.5 and it's still amazingly fresh. Here is an incomplete selection from his incomplete manifesto.
Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you: You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth are the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good, you'll never have real growth.
Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view, and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense to do so. Let anyone lead.
Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames, and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
____________ . Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas that you haven't had yet and for the ideas of others.
Stay up late. Strange things happen when you have gone too far, have been up too long, have worked too hard, and are separated from the rest of the world.
Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don't like it, do it again.
Stand on someone's shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
Don't clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can't see tonight.
Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
Creativity is not device-dependent. Forget technology. Think with your mind.
Organization = liberty. Real innovation in design, or in any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a "shining artifact of the past."
Don't borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry's advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It's not exactly rocket science, but it's surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline -- and how many people have failed to do so.
Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet -- or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer-graphic-simulated environment.
Make mistakes faster. This isn't my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: Make up something else (but not words).
Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
Take advantage of coffee breaks, cab rides, and greenrooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss called "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science-and-art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals -- but with no actual conference. Apparently, it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use laughter as a barometer to measure how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
Power to the people. Play only happens when people feel that they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we're not free.
That's Right.
Six years ago, in 1998, Bruce Mau unveiled a 43-point program that took the design world by storm. I "discovered" it in early 2000. Back then I remember thinking, wow - forget about design, this is really sound motivation for simply getting out of bed everyday. Well, now it's 2004.5 and it's still amazingly fresh. Here is an incomplete selection from his incomplete manifesto.
Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you: You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth are the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good, you'll never have real growth.
Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view, and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense to do so. Let anyone lead.
Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames, and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
____________ . Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas that you haven't had yet and for the ideas of others.
Stay up late. Strange things happen when you have gone too far, have been up too long, have worked too hard, and are separated from the rest of the world.
Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don't like it, do it again.
Stand on someone's shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
Don't clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can't see tonight.
Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
Creativity is not device-dependent. Forget technology. Think with your mind.
Organization = liberty. Real innovation in design, or in any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a "shining artifact of the past."
Don't borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry's advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It's not exactly rocket science, but it's surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline -- and how many people have failed to do so.
Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet -- or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer-graphic-simulated environment.
Make mistakes faster. This isn't my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: Make up something else (but not words).
Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
Take advantage of coffee breaks, cab rides, and greenrooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss called "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science-and-art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals -- but with no actual conference. Apparently, it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use laughter as a barometer to measure how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
Power to the people. Play only happens when people feel that they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we're not free.
That's Right.
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