This looks like it's going to be a great movie (especially for electro. music folks like myself): Bruce Haack: The King of Techno. Check out the trailer if you can. I love the bit with Mr. Rodgers.

I had never heard of the guy, so I wasn't quite sure if this was for real at first. It appears to be.

Happy New Year to you all.

Here's a site I discovered recently and have been checking daily ever since: Neural.it. Their description: "It's an Italian daily updated site on new media art, electronic music and hacktivism..."

Here's a little something I threw together for all you Christmas folks out there: God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen.

Feds Want To See Enron Videotape

Skits and jokes by a few former Enron Corp. executives at a party six years ago were funny then, but now border on bad taste in light of the events of the past year.

A videotape of a January 1997 going-away party for former Enron President Rich Kinder features nearly half an hour of absurd skits, songs and testimonials by company executives and prominent Houstonians, the Houston Chronicle reported in its Monday editions. [...]

President George W. Bush, who then was governor of Texas, also took part in the skit, as did his father.

At the party, the younger Bush pleaded with Kinder: "Don't leave Texas. You're too good a man."

The governor's father also offered a send-off to Kinder, thanking him for helping his son reach the governor's mansion.

"You have been fantastic to the Bush family," the elder Bush said. "I don't think anybody did more than you did to support George."

And you think this administration is not in bed with big business?

p.s. I fixed the comments so email address is no longer required.

I would love to see this game played: Sepak Takraw. It's like volleyball with your feet. People do these insane inverted backflip spikes, etc. Unfortunately I couldn't find video of it anywhere online.

The New York Times Year in Ideas 2002

I spent all morning reading this. Some very interesting stuff.

Hilarious Calvin and Hobbes snowman cartoons

I just made the switch to a different weblog software, Moveable Type, so things might look a little wierd. Especially the archives and the comments.

I plan on taking advantage of some of the new features (recently commented list, categories, etc) as soon as I get a chance to redesign a bit.

Check the bottom of this page. You can search the archives now!

I heard the Joan Baez version of this song today:

Satisfied Mind by Joe 'Red' Hayes & Jack Rhodes

How many times have you heard someone say
"If I had his money, I could do things my way?"
Little they know that it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.

Once I was waitin' for fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed for to get a start in life's game
Suddenly it happened, I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind

Money can't buy back your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely, or a love that's grown cold
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
Compared to the man with a satisfied mind

When my life is ended, my time has run out
My trials and my loved ones, I'll leave them no doubt
But one thing's for certain, when it comes my time
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind

Links Galore today:

Internet spammer can't take what he dishes out

Sonic Blaster

Car Record Player

Optical Camouflage

Car mechanic finder from the Car Talk guys

Bush anything but moronic, according to author

Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit

California urges study of alarming breast cancer rates

Big Money Is Not Free Speech

Congressman Dennis Kucinich calls for the creation of a Department of Peace

(Thanks to Matt and Rebecca's Pocket for a number of these links.)

I love Afrobeat music! I just got the new benefit compilation Red Hot + Riot. So so good! Amazing music, beautifully put together. 10/10, definitely. I cannot recommend it enough. (Go buy it! You will not regret it. Also, all profits go to fight AIDS in Africa, where it has reached terrible epidemic proportions.)

I also saw Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra a few weeks ago, and I danced my ass off! Now, those of you who know me know that I do not dance easily. These guys were absolutely amazing. I danced for at least an hour straight. And, they really are an orchestra. I counted 13 people on stage. To give you an idea of how good they are, after the show I was musing about getting them to play at our wedding. :)

Interesting thoughts on the nature of reality from Mitsu (of synthetic zero):

Suppose you were watching a screen filled with totally random dots. Except, you're sitting in a room in which, without fail, in some instantaneous way, if what you're looking at doesn't correspond to a shape that looks like a square bouncing off the edges of the screen, the room will kill you. Now, imagine that, a la the old Everett Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, every possibility happened. There would be some universe in which you survived indefinitely, watching what appears to be a square, bouncing off the edges of the screen. You might measure the square's trajectory and conclude that it was a law of physics that made the square move that way --- but in fact, it's just that in the universes where the square turns into random noise or fails to move according to certain rules, you simply get instantaneously killed, and therefore don't have the time to discover the violation of the law.

I believe, in some sense, that's what spacetime is like. We think we live in spacetime with many well-defined properties, when in fact it's just that in a world where there appears to be spacetime, one can have ongoing awareness. We "die" in the other directions, so to speak.

A wonderful scathing critique of SUVs and their drivers:

Bumper Mentality: A review of Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty: SUVs

After covering the auto industry for six years, Bradsher is an unabashed critic of sports-utility vehicles and the automakers that continue to churn them out knowing full well the dangers they pose. He doesn't equivocate in his feeling that driving an SUV is a deeply immoral act that places the driver's own ego above the health and safety of those around him, not to mention the health of the environment. Ironically, and though most supposedly safety-conscious owners don't realize it, SUVs even imperil those who drive them.

...and on a related note, Bill Maher has a new book out: When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden.

The Latest Kissinger Outrage - Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation?

Take the Homeland Security Quiz

(The part about Eli Lily is just sickening. I read an article about this last week. The language granting them immunity from lawsuit was snuck into the Homeland Security Bill at the last minute, and no one knows who put it in! Whoever did it is not talking! How's that for representative democracy!?)

...and also...

In Terror War, 2nd Track for Suspects

The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say.

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