Pop Culture
Testify
Two unrelated and great songs, one title.
“Testify” by Parliament
“Testify” by Stevie Ray Vaughn
Enjoy!
That's the second biggest monkey head I've ever seen
A thousand times yes! The Secret of Monkey Island, revisited. My eleven-year old self is jumping with glee. Awkwardly.
See also, ScummC and The Secret of Monkey Island, The Play.
Enjoy some Wu
Ooh, baby, I like it raww… - Some Wu-Tang Clan for you. I’ve been finding Yes Yes Y’all [sic] an excellent source of music that I otherwise wouldn’t come across.
John Mayer, closet software developer
“The idea is to run as many concurrent streams of production as we can." - Is John Mayer recording an album or bootstrapping an indie app?
Think
The scene in The Blues Brothers where they are recruiting Matt “Guitar” Murphy is quite possibly my favorite of the movie. From the start of “Think” to the first “Freedom!” chorus, I get all sorts of musical tingles. I highly recommend it, if you have the means.
Since I can’t link to any video of the scene, why not listen to “Freedom” by Charles Mingus. It’s goodness.
Awesome people, hacker spaces, double basses, dictionary
Brian Oberkirch is a big fan of people who are doing awesome stuff on the web. Me too! I’d add to his list: Ryan Tomayko, Greg Borenstein, Garrett Dimon, _why the lucky stiff, Jeremy Keith, Robert Hodgin, J. Chris Anderson, and Christian Neukirchen. My list, like his, is incomplete, so make your own!
A hacker’s space in Kansas is renting an underground bunker to house their activities. Recommended joke: those guys wouldn’t know a hacker’s space from a hole in the ground.
This image and story makes me want my double bass really badly. Don’t miss the story; it’s fantastic.
Pro-tip: go ahead and add refactoring to your system dictionary. You won’t thank yourself later, but you won’t curse the machine either.
Generative Van Halen
I saw this last week (really!), but it appears the “blogger embargo” was broken on Sunday, so here goes.
“Microsoft Research released an app”:research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/… that lets you sing along to a drumbeat and then it generates music to match your singing. Many moons ago, an acappella version of “Runnin' with the devil” made it’s way on to the internet. Some brilliant joker used the former on the latter and you get: something that’s just not quite right. It’s especially interesting how the software tries very hard to accommodate David Lee Roth’s off-beat entrances.
In my opinion, the “DLR soundboard”:www.thetyser.com and the “Roth Alarm”:rothalarm.ytmnd.com are even better uses of the source material.
Birdland, Forgetting, Libertarianism, Hoboken
Hello, 2009! Let’s try a slightly different format. Starting it out with ““Birdland” by Weather Report”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqashW66D7o&feature=related can’t hurt.
Shawn Blanc says “the best todo software lets us forget”:shawnblanc.net/2009/thin… I absolutely agree. Shawn also pointed out “Rules For My Unborn Son”:rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/, which is indeed a great set of guidelines on being a mensch. A choice “JFK quote from therein on optimism”:rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/post/6117…
Provocateurs “Zed Shaw”:www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009… and “Giles Bowkett”:gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/01/f… are in much better form when they are tilting against libertarianism. Which isn’t to say that they’re right or libertarianism is wrong. They’re just better at tilting against social abstractions.
If you’ve ever looked at writing tiny web apps or services with Sinatra, you’re probably interested in “what’s proposed on the Hoboken branch”:gist.github.com/38605. “Ryan Tomayko”:tomayko.com has great taste, I tell you.
I am going to call Ghostbusters
At the risk of rambling too much about games: DO WANT.
The Ghostbusters video game for the Sega Master System was pretty much the first video game I played.
Bruce Springsteen in a nutshell
Things can't get any worse, they gotta get better
It’s the deep sadness of his songs, surrounded by undying optimism, that keeps me coming back every time.
You need more Lyle Lovett
Lyle Lovett is quite possibly one of Texas' finest exports. If you’re not hip then you’re missing out. Heck, I was missing out; consider a couple of his appearances on the Johnny Carson show.
Make it a…cheeseburger.
Do I wish that I could sing like Francine Reed or Lyle Lovett? Every day.
Last.fm's shame aggregator
Most Unwanted Scrobbles - Last.fm aggregates the tracks and artists that people don’t want the internet-at-large to know they listen to. Britney Spears appears twice in the top five songs, along with Nelly Furtado, Amy Winehouse and Avril Lavigne. The Beatles, Radiohead, Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne are the top 5 arists (along with Unknown.)
So I guess Last.fm users are just too damn cool to admit to some of their tastes. Me, I’m fine with letting you know I listened to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Mack Daddy in its entirety this week.
Some Grieg
Please to enjoy, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor. Brought to you by Artur Rubinstein and the London Symphony.
The rest of the first movement, the second movement and third movement, also for your enjoyment.
Its a musical rollercoaster
If jazz is more your thing, then you should watch this animation based on “Giant Steps”.