An unfortunate email from Matt:
Greetings.
I have unfortunate news which some of you may be aware of already. Tonight will be the last installment of EIDE, the electronic night we've been holding more or less every Monday at the East End Cafe. The new owner has decided that electronic music no longer has a venue in Newark, and has opted instead to let Ben of Apex Watson turn Mondays into a "jam band" night.
So, for our grand finale, we're going to show them our version of a jam band.
PERFORMING:
Cerebral
Nintariman
William Fields
Profolyx
Brandon Schakola
Vostek
Various combinations of these artists will be performing at no set times and with only a loose direction. Rumor has it, however, that at least one familiar combination of the above will be taking the spotlight at some point. *cough*TEAM TECHNO*cough* And of course, unexpected guest artists are always welcome -- I mean shit, what are they gonna do, kick us out?
Anyway, be there or be elsewhere, which would suck. And pass it on to everyone you know and love. Newark IDM solidarity forever.
I'm not usually big on these quiz things, but this is a good one.
I was an "Existential Thinker":
Existential thinkers:Sounds good to me. :) Anyone out there looking to hire for any of those positions?* Like to spend time thinking about philosophical issues such as "What is the meaning of life?"
* Try to see beyond the 'here and now', and understand deeper meanings.
* Consider moral and ethical implications of problems as well as practical solutions.Other Existential Thinkers include:
The Buddha, Gandhi, Plato, Socrates, Martin Luther KingCareers which suit Existential Thinkers include:
Philosopher, Religious leader, Head of state, Artist, Writer
I just added a "Visual" section to this site for all my interactive/visual art experiments.
Also, I recently put up the recording of The Conversation Group performance on 9/8 in the Live section.
Silent sounds hit emotional chords
Scientists have found a way to add a spine-tingling dimension to modern music. They played an experimental organ pipe too low to be heard and then collected reports of strange reactions - sorrow, coldness, anxiety and shivers down the spine.And on a related note: Sound waves 57 octaves lower than middle-C are rumbling away from a supermassive black hole in
the Perseus cluster.
The Futile Pursuit of Happiness
If Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong. That is to say, if Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong to believe that a new car will make you as happy as you imagine. You are wrong to believe that a new kitchen will make you happy for as long as you imagine. You are wrong to think that you will be more unhappy with a big single setback (a broken wrist, a broken heart) than with a lesser chronic one (a trick knee, a tense marriage). You are wrong to assume that job failure will be crushing. You are wrong to expect that a death in the family will leave you bereft for year upon year, forever and ever. You are even wrong to reckon that a cheeseburger you order in a restaurant -- this week, next week, a year from now, it doesn't really matter when -- will definitely hit the spot. That's because when it comes to predicting exactly how you will feel in the future, you are most likely wrong.Fascinating article. Another key quote:
Much of the work of Kahneman, Loewenstein, Gilbert and Wilson takes its cue from the concept of adaptation, a term psychologists have used since at least the 1950's to refer to how we acclimate to changing circumstances. George Loewenstein sums up this human capacity as follows: ''Happiness is a signal that our brains use to motivate us to do certain things. And in the same way that our eye adapts to different levels of illumination, we're designed to kind of go back to the happiness set point. Our brains are not trying to be happy. Our brains are trying to regulate us.'' In this respect, the tendency toward adaptation suggests why the impact bias is so pervasive. As Tim Wilson says: ''We don't realize how quickly we will adapt to a pleasurable event and make it the backdrop of our lives. When any event occurs to us, we make it ordinary. And through becoming ordinary, we lose our pleasure.''So it is futile to pursue happiness by increasing your standard of living. You will always get used to it, you will always adapt. And then you have a higher set point, which takes more money and effort to maintain.It is easy to overlook something new and crucial in what Wilson is saying. Not that we invariably lose interest in bright and shiny things over time -- this is a long-known trait -- but that we're generally unable to recognize that we adapt to new circumstances and therefore fail to incorporate this fact into our decisions. So, yes, we will adapt to the BMW and the plasma TV, since we adapt to virtually everything. But Wilson and Gilbert and others have shown that we seem unable to predict that we will adapt. Thus, when we find the pleasure derived from a thing diminishing, we move on to the next thing or event and almost certainly make another error of prediction, and then another, ad infinitum.
The Conversation Group
Brandon Schakola, Steve Wolfe, Cliff Winton, and William Fields
Live at EIDE - Newark, DE - 9/8/2003
Complete Live Set, 72min 30sec, 83MB
This set was completely improvisational. Everything was done on the spot. Nothing was prepared or practiced ahead of time.
Photos here.
Processing Processing <- Paul Ford explains Processing, the programming language with which I made that crazy kite thing on my splash page.
Double Dee and Steinski's "The Lesson"
Made entirely with double-cassette decks and Steinski's extensive vinyl collection, these three tracks paved the way for current cut-and-paste turntablist experimentation. Countless basement DJs were influenced by The Lessons, including DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, who both released unofficial tributes called "Lesson Four." It was way ahead of its time, and deserves to be heard beyond vinyl bootlegs traded by DJs.Follow the link for MP3 downloads. This is some hot stuff, especially for 1983. I realize now that Coldcut were totally following in the footsteps of these guys.
Next Monday I will be performing at EIDE as part of The Conversation Group, a new improv electronic music group. Other members of the group are Brandon Schakola, Steve Wolfe (aka Profolyx), and Cliff Winton (aka Vostek). We will be creating music on the spot. Pure, live, unmediated expression.
We are obsessed with wealth. But we gauge how rich we are by looking upwards at those who have more than us. This makes us feel poor.This is one of those wake-up-call-put-things-in-perspective things. Take a second and do this.We wanted to do something which would help people understand, in real terms, where they stand globally. And make us realise that in fact most of us (who are able to view this web page) are in the privileged minority.
p.s. It seems to work a little crunky in Mozilla.
Eigenradio - The top 20 singular values all day, every day!
Eigenradio makes its optimal music by analyzing in real time dozens of radio stations at once. When our bank of computers has heard enough music, it will go to work on making more just like it. Since we listen to so much music all the time, Eigenradio is always on and always live. What you hear on Eigenradio is the best of the New Music, distilled and de-correlated. One song on Eigenradio is worth at least twenty songs on old radio.
The di format is a completely new media file format. Unlike current file formats such as mp3, the di format allows the consumer to interact with the audio information stored within it, allowing listeners to manipulate the music and customise it at the touch of a button.During the production process, the musician stores several versions of the different parts of their track - for example several different versions of the vocals, the bass and the drums - and when the file is played back using the diPlayer, the listener can interact with the music in a number of ways.
First comes the suburban sprawl, then the spread
Sprawling suburbs where it is hard to get around without a car may make residents fatter: Americans who live in the most sprawling counties tend to weigh six pounds more than their counterparts in the most compact areas.Well duh. I have definitely been walking much less since we moved to the suburbs. It's very easy (and pleasant) to walk around the community, but try to get to any kind of store without a car and you run the risk of getting run over. No sidewalks, no bikelanes, not even any bike racks! I really hope this becomes a public health issue and they start making some changes.Adding to the sprawl concern: Pedestrians and bicyclists are much more likely to be killed by passing cars in this country than in parts of Europe where cities are engineered to encourage physical activity - and whose residents typically are skinnier and live longer than the average American.
Those are conclusions of major new studies published yesterday that call on urban planners and zoning commissions to consider public health in designing neighborhoods.