BunkBlog

I’ve been slowly building every KROQ “Top 106.7 Songs” playlist for the years they did them, and recently finished 1985. It’s interesting to see how many of the songs that were considerd the biggest of the year (for that station) are completely forgotten today. For instance, the John Palumbo song “Blowing up Detroit” – I don’t remember that song at all, nor the singer, nor the band he’s still in today (Crack the Sky). Other songs are an interesting piece of history. There’s the obvious John Hughes reference – Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me.” And there’s also the social commentary – Artists United Against Apartheid’s song “Sun City” was big in 1985. It took 5 more years for De Klerk to begin negotiating an end to apartheid, and it wasn’t until 1994 that apartheid ended with multi-racial elections in South Africa. But, the song is a part of many people’s memories of the era when (after 40 years) we in the USA finally noticed apartheid was part of the society of a country where our rich people went to party.

As Kat points out, the list also includes a very obvious LA-centric slant.  Three Oingo Boingo songs are on the 1985 list, and yet most folks outside of SoCal have heard of exactly one OB track – Weird Science. Amusingly, there’s also a Danny Elfman song, “Gratitude,” on the list, which was recorded with the entire Oingo Boingo band on an Elfman solo album (So-Lo) – the ridiculous nature of recording an album with the exact same people but calling it solo instead of Boingo is due to some dispute with their record company. So, “Gratitude” is considered to be both an Elfman solo track and a Boingo band track – it appeared on the Best O’ Boingo compilation album years later, adding some credence to the Boingo provenance. Hard to believe it’s been 15 years since Oingo Boingo performed their farewell Halloween concert.

So, any bands or songs you remember from years past, but are completely lost to most of your friends’ memories?

At the grocery store last night, a leggy blonde in a VERY short tight black dress and high-heeled boots (with a thigh tattoo peeking between the two) strolled past, drawing the eye of every straight man in the parking lot. The Boy said, “That’s not a very practical outfit.” He obviously doesn’t like girls yet.

If you’re a geek, you’ve thought of or maybe even built a home-theater PC – that strange device which is a full-fledged computer hooked up to your television. Most of the rest of the TV-watching public, however, is utterly uninterested in such geekery. They do want to see their Youtube videos and Netflix streams on the bigger screen, but they’re not interested in doing the hard work necessary to put them there.

Enter Google TV and Roku boxes and Apple TV. A simple, somewhat affordable (Logitech, why 300 bucks?) device, hooked up to your television and your internet connection, enter some passwords and usernames, BAM! Internet media on your television. That’s the dream, right?

Google TV has been blocked from streaming ABC, NBC, and CBS shows from the networks’ web sites. Think about this for a minute, and you may begin to see the point of view of Network Neutrality advocates. Google TV uses Chrome, the web browser, to access ABC’s website. The user on his couch sees the web site just as he would see it if he were using his regular PC to view that site. The same ads load. The same content is there. But, because the machine he’s using says (as it’s supposed to), “I’m a Google TV browser” – no soup for you.

Still here?  True, this is not an actual case of network neutrality being violated, because the ISP is not the one blocking content from flowing over their network. The content provider has the right, no matter how irrational, to prevent anyone from watching their content in any manner. They could capriciously decide that only certain blocks of IP addresses could view their shows online. They could browser sniff and decide that they don’t like Opera, even if Opera is perfectly capable technically of watching their content. They’ve decided they hate Google this week. By extension, their viewers, the ones who care enough about How I Met Your Mother to go to the CBS website and seek it out, the most avid viewers with the most brand loyalty – fuck them.

Interesting business decision.

The jeep was out of the Army inventory before I enlisted (I saw lots of CUCV and HMMWV and tracks and the occasional deuce and a half or five-ton), but they were legendary for their ease of repair.  These guys make it look incredibly easy to rip one apart and put it back together, in less than four minutes.  I think they’ve practiced.

In case there’s any doubt that the terrorists have “won” the war for hearts and minds, here we have a bomb squad blowing up a “suspicious” $300 toy pony.

Yep, we’ve given up and are now paranoid police state wackjobs.

This squirrel has to be the most determined critter ever.  LET GO!

I love this comic.  Anyone who has ever had to deal with grammar nuts complaining about prepositions and split infinitives, when those are bizarre latinate rules applied to a germanic language should be able to relate.

Because the only significant story in the tech press today is about Apple (as is true every time Steve Jobs gets on a stage), I have become far too aware of the various iPod and iPad updates announced.  I find it interesting that Apple chose to replace the most popular model, the nano, with a version completely unlike the one which sold so well – it now has a touch screen and no buttons. Since the iPod classic was not mentioned, one assumes it is being led out behind the barn for an Old Yeller moment.  That leaves the iPod Shuffle as the sole remaining iPod with buttons.  Apple has decided that you can either have buttons or a screen, but not both.

I personally use my Sansa Fuze in the car, and the tactility of the physical buttons is the only thing which allows me to jump past a song while keeping my eyes on the road.  I’ve heard that people who listen to their music while exercising are also quite fond of physical buttons.  Would those people now have to resign themselves to the screenless shuffle (4 gigs of music without a screen? Ick) or does Apple just not care if some portion of their market jumps to a Samsung or Sansa or Creative player instead?

Of course, this assumes that Apple purchasers are sane humans who weigh the balance of features they need and desire against the value proposition they’re offered.  I’ve seen no evidence that is the case, so Apple is probably safe in betting that everyone they’ve already hooked will wander into an Apple store in a hypnotic trance and buy the latest doodad that Steve says they want.

Maybe this story will start a new campaign like Mothers Against Dirty Drivers. Although the “nature” of the video is not disclosed, I’m willing to bet what type of video it was.

I can relate to this SO much.

For those five science fiction geeks who haven’t seen it yet, may I present the only viral video I’ve heard of devoted to a Golden Age author: Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury. Embedded video after the break, since it is obviously Not Safe For Work (As an aside, this is likely the only time I’ll get to use the category tags of “Literary, Music, Video, and Geek” all on the same post).

More »

Wil Wheaton continues to prove that there are decent human beings that started out as child actors. An 8-year-old girl sent in her Wilpower fan club application back in the 80s, and the “6 to 8 weeks” ended up being much longer. She never got that fan club package, and the fan club folded many years ago. She’s now a professional writer and blogger, and when Wil Wheaton heard about her lack of Wilpower memorabilia, he fixed it. He found a set of fan club swag, and sent her a really funny letter. You should read it.

Another great stop-motion video, with the bonus feature of the paintings coming off the walls as well.  No digital effects, just thousands of photos and a lot of creativity.

Direct Youtube link

I think what the Oregon Tea Party has learned is “don’t steal slogans from vindictive anonymous geeks” but I may be mistaken.  I’ve seen precious little evidence that most Tea Party folks are capable of learning.

I recently noticed that it had been a while since I’d received a new issue of Geek Monthly magazine. Turns out, they went under six months ago.  Huh.  I guess I won’t be getting a refund of my remaining subscription fees. That prompted me to look at some of my other less-established magazine subs, and the only one that was missing was Seed.  Seed magazine was started four years ago as something of a spiritual successor to the 80s gem OMNI.  OMNI was a fabulous combination of science and science fiction, which in later years added far too much pseudoscience and then decided to jump into the “online only” realm before anyone was ready to read magazines online. They are sometimes missed. But this is about Seed.

Seed was pretty decent, actually. They had a lot of good writers working for them, and they seemed to understand the online world fairly well. They created a site which they used as something of cross-pollination project between print and blogging, the much-visited ScienceBlogs. A while back, they lost a few of their high-profile bloggers to Discover Magazine’s active blog portal. It appears that they shuttered the magazine last fall, with the promise that they weren’t going to quit publishing a magazine, they were just reducing the frequency and won’t you just wait until spring 2010 and you’ll get a new issue.  Um…yeah. Still waiting, and there doesn’t seem to be any official word (or at least not findable on their site) about where Seed Magazine went.

Last month, the ScienceBlogs folks noticed a new blog in their midst, one written by PepsiCo. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, ending with Pepsi’s blog being dropped. This week, there is a bit more of a kerfuffle. It’s a bit vague around the edges, but it seems the need to make money has become more important to Seed Media than any respect they may have had for being a science media focal point. I’m not clear on why this all came to a head today, rather than during the Pepsi Challenge, but a new batch of bloggers have jumped from ScienceBlogs and it’s not looking good for the site as a whole.  Interestingly, the biggest SciBlogger, the one who accounts for over half of their total traffic, has decided to go on strike/haitus rather than quit, but maybe Seed Media can bring ScienceBlogs back from this brink that their own inept management has brought them to. At a minimum, they need to realize that without content, their advertising department is completely worthless.

Meanwhile, where can I get a refund for the remaining issues on my subscription?  Hello?  *knock knock*

Apparently I have nothing to say lately, so here’s another cool video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwKtihWY_Qs

This is a piece of video art that took months of work to put together, so spare it 10 minutes and be amazed.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This is an absolutely hilarious video lampooning iPhone cult members.

In celebration of the return of Futurama, let’s take a gander at the most obsessive Lego version of New New York ever.  The detail work is amazing, and I can just imagine building something even 1% as impressive just to watch The Boy rampage through it with Halo figures…

Last week, Barnes & Noble revealed a wifi-only version of their nook ebook reader for “only” $150, and dropped their high-end model to $200.  Naturally, Amazon retaliated this week by dropping their Kindle2 to $190. Update: Now Borders has kicked in a $20 gift card for people buying their Kobo Reader.

Is this the beginning of the price war that finally makes dedicated ebook readers affordable?  I know, the manufacturers currently think “under $200” is affordable, but let’s be honest – it’s a niche. When I can buy a paperback book for 8 bucks, or buy the same book as an ebook for 8 bucks, which one am I going to get? For most of us, the answer is obvious. It would be nice to carry around dozens or hundreds of books in a convenient reader for those times when I find myself looking at the dated magazines of a waiting room, but I’m not dropping $200 for what is essentially the interface to a lending library. Those books on the Kindle and nook aren’t really mine. I can’t sell them, give them away, loan them to people (with very limited caveats dealing with an ecosystem of other ereaders which doesn’t exist), etc. Not to mention, if I’m at the beach with a paperback and something catastrophic happens, I’m out 8 bucks, not 200.

What price do ebook readers need to reach before you’d buy one?