Lost Continent Words

Important Economic Indicator

I wasn't too worried about the economy until I saw this. Now I'm convinced!

Remembering Kwame Kilpatrick

Actually I'd rather not. Good Riddance. Hopefully, we can finally get somebody worth a damn, though I'm not overly hopeful. Having the council in charge until Da New Mayor takes over is terrifying. Not having a mayor or a police chief can't be good for the city. But here's the point: I'm not sure it can actually be worse having no one than it was having who we did. And for this reason alone, I celebrate the departure, even though there is still a very long and painful road ahead.

RFID and Mythbusters

Not an issue I'm highly energized about, but it does seem important and I AM highly energized about stymieing corporate lawyers attempts to suppress important consumer information through bullying. So here, watch a video, and you can quit watching when the pizza talk starts, though it is annoying in a mildly amusing way.

Chinese Democracy

Oddly enough, this entry has nothing to do with the Olympics.

Anyone who has paid attention to rock for the last 20 years has likely heard of what must be the biggest bust in rock history, Guns N' Roses fabled album "Chinese Democracy". "Wait, GNR?" you say, "They aren't even still together are they?"

Yes in fact, technically they are, though only barely, and maintaining their credibility as the most disappointing and out of control band in history (Yes, The Who and Keith Moon were crazy, but they were only responsible for one mass crushing and the deaths of 11 people, whereas GNR has not only had that, but at least a half a dozen riots in cities around the world, and has played less than half of the scheduled dates in most of their tours.)

Now comes the news that finally, after going through a dozen band members, a half dozen spectacularly failed tours, several riots, and 14 years of recording, word comes that Chinese Democracy may finally be released this year.

How ridiculous is this? Well, in 2003, The Offspring threatened (in a joke) to name their new album "Chinese Democracy (You Snooze, You Lose)" Wait, The Offspring? you say. Yes, that's right, that semi-novelty, punk-metal band from the late 90s early 00s. Yes, in the time they've been working on this album, a band has risen from obscurity, had some big hits, released 5 platinum albums, made a joke about the GNR album, and then faded away back into obscurity.

How ridiculous? The Dr Pepper company has promised to give every single citizen of the US a can of Dr Pepper if the album is released in 2008 (naturally assuming they'd never have to pay up). Of course, they're excluding former Guitarists Slash and Buckethead, they'll have to pay their own dollar.

I just wonder, at this point, how could an album possibly live up to the incredible baggage of this one? And I'm firmly in the camp that says that Izzy Stradlin was the real heart of that band, and he left in 1991 (right around the last time they were relevant), but now the only one left from the original line-up is Axl, and his unique methods of screaming seem to have destroyed his vocal cords.

Truly I have no idea how to feel about this album. I still celebrate Appetite for Destruction as one of the greatest rock albums in history, but paying attention to it all is starting to hurt.

Notes:
Wikipedia article on Chinese Democracy's sordid history

Harmonix announces track from Chinese Democracy included in "Rock Band 2" game coming in fall

HA! Turns out the Offspring have a new album out, too, and they beat GNR by months releasing it in June.

Spicy Science

New research this week reveals that spicyness confers an evolutionary advantage to plants subject to fungal infection. Posted here primarily because its cool. I'll save any editorializing about intelligent design, mainly to confound those who know how easy it is to get me started.

Anthem Orchestration

Just wanted to note how much I like the Chinese arrangement of the US National Anthem. I've been watching a fair amount of Olympics as I take breaks from my obsessive study of Morse Code in an attempt to pass the evil FCC telegraphy exams. (If at this point you are asking: Why do they still test people on Morse Code? Isn't it essentially dead as a communication method? The answers are "I have no idea." and "Yes." ) I always try to be cynical about the Olympics each time they come around, as is expected of me, but once I start watching I can't help it. This applies I think to my admitted love for watching people who are the best at what they do accomplish amazing things. Perhaps it stems from my own inability to really focus on any one thing in that way. In any case, I've been watching it quite a bit, and not just for the Beach volleyball (which no one has to apologize for, though I am disturbed by the unfortunate double standard on skin for women and non-traditional male viewers).

Quite a few US Gold medal ceremonies and so a lot of opportunities to hear The Star Spangled Banner, which normally is not a cause for musical rejoicing, but the Chinese arrangement is really nice. It hits all the important aspects but also dials up the bombast quite a bit with a lot of moving low brass parts and really cool counterpoint and perfect tempo. So if you're still cynical even with the Olympics here, the Beach Volleyball and the music makes it worth a quick look at least.

Where am I?, Blog Creep, and FriendFeed

So, as a statement of philosophy, this blog has generally been used as an exercise in writing, and it really follows for the Gregg Easterbrook blog model than the more common and typical modern version in which blogs are for just spewing out whatever half-formed thoughts that come to you, under the pretense that more is better. So most of my entries there are actually reasonably planned and well thought-out entries, more akin to a small less-polished magazine article than to a typical blog-post.

Of course, practitioners of the "spew" style are typically people who dedicate many hours of their day to blogging, and because of their effort actually create a narrative through their many entries. So I'm not completely dissing that style of blog, I'm just saying, I can't and don't do that.

But this blog has also been a means for me to tell people where I am and what I'm doing, which since I travel for a living and like traveling when I'm not making a living is a pretty difficult question to answer. So I've started a new blog to provide short updates on where I am and what I'm doing for people who care or want to get a hold of me. I know that the rage for this sort of communication is now twitter, but I'm just not ADD enough to have much interest in that. To me its far too "micro" to be useful, and there is no way in hell I'm updating it with where I am 15 times a day. Plus I'd like to include photos and short travelogue entries and such. So that's what the new blog is. I expect to update it much more often, as it will be composed mainly of short (for me) entries about where I'm at, what is happening there, and what I'm doing. As well, hopefully some travelogue type stuff, and flickr photo's from different places.

And I can hear you saying, dear reader, "Another blog? Jesus, I barely have time to keep up with the rest of this Interweb crap!" and I understand and sympathize. Which is why I'm telling you about some options. First off, if anyone out there isn't using Google Reader, you should start. I tried to keep up with dozens of blogs, and it took forever and inevitably I'd forget about one of them and then be 45 entries behind 5 months later and just give up. Google reader is a free web program for gathering RSS bookmarks. If you don't know what that means, have no fear, as it stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and they mean it. In fact, if you're using Mozilla Firefox for your web browser (and really there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be) all you have to do is click on the little orange box in the address bar on any site you want to read, and it will ask you where to add it to, and you can choose Google Reader from the list. I'm sure there's a way to do it with IE that isn't much harder, but you need to stop using it, so I won't tell you. Once you've got all the feeds you want, you just go to the page and there they all are. This means, that if you've got a friend with a blog who posts to it particularly sporadically (in olden days I'd have used myself as this example, but Princess Blogonoke has earned this distinction for all time) you don't have to go to the blog, you can just check Google reader and it will let you know when there's something new on *any* of the blogs or news feeds you follow. Add to that the social aspect of sharing stories you find interesting with any of your friends who are also using Reader and it completely changes the way you enjoy blogs, and allows you to use your friends as a filter for the most interesting stuff out there.

I first learned about Reader from Lenny. Even though I'm a fairly savvy computer user I do tend to get stuck into my habits and don't look around too much until I get really fed up. But I immediately fell in love with Reader and I think anyone else who uses it will too.

However, in my slate reading today (using Google reader) I saw an article on a (somewhat) new website started by former Googleers called FriendFeed that makes this process even easier. Using it you can create a page for yourself that pulls together information from the dozens of social-networking sites on the web and collects all your info together for others to access all at once. This greatly eases the burden on anyone trying to keep up with you and reduces the list of sites they need to visit drastically. There are still some sites not supported (MySpace is a big one) but it is a much easier method.

However, that's only half of the story, the real important take away is that you can also create pages for people, even if they are too damn lazy to do it themselves (like Andy). This is the "Imaginary" Friend option, but it doesn't just have to be for cyberstalking the latest from Cory Doctorow, it can actually be used on your friends and the public data they have listed. So anyway, I'm on there as ktismael (no surprise) and by going there you can keep up with all of this stuff. Of course, once I got on there was only one person in my whole gmail address book who was already there: Lenny. So I suppose I could have just asked him 6 months ago and he'd have told me. But then I was in his house 6 months ago, so maybe I'm not too far behind.

I'm currently still using Reader primarily, and probably will always use both together. But its a pretty cool service. Anyway, using one or both of these sites will hopefully make this much easier and allow you to forgive me for bringing one more blog to the planet.

Letter to Slate's Green Lantern

Attached is a letter written to Brendan I. Koerner, Wired editor and Slate's environmental answer man known as the Green Lantern. If you haven't read any of these columns they're a great source of information about the true environmental impacts of various choices, and are written without the hysterical or overly self-impressed manner of which some environmental writing is guilty. You can find them all by this link or searching for lantern in the Slate main page.

Bear in mind that this is in fact an email which was written in one sitting with very little editing, and so may have major errors or omissions or places where I make no sense at all. Which you may or may not find different from regular articles. In any case, it was too long to just sit in my sent items folder so, lucky readers, here it is. Interesting also to note that I have been ranting to anyone who would listen about plug-in hybrids since at least 2004 and promised an article on plug-in hybrids in January of 2007 but this is the first time any thing substantive has appeared about them in this space. I still plan to put together a slightly more indepth article.

George Carlin

For me it started with my parents records of Class Clown and FM-AM. Were that era his only legacy he would still be remembered as a great comic. But in the years since he was so much more. Stand-up philosopher, yes. Ranting misanthrope, perhaps. But in a term stolen from several other memorials I've read and too true to leave out, our nations preeminent bullshit detector. Apart from that, I agree with this guy.

Wings Win! Wings Win!

OK, I admit, my heart actually stopped dead on that last shot by Hossa. Luckily there was an Auto-Defibrilator out in the hall way and I was able to get it started again.

It is a special kind of torture to see the Wings win without any cell phone service far from home and the rest of my Hockeytown comrades. I'm sure somewhere out there I can find a recording of this, so for Andy and I, both of whom are currently exiled from the homeland in this moment of triumph, I'm going to have a barbeque at which the sacred tape will be played again. Hell, I was going to have a barbeque anyway, now I have an excuse.

Great props to the Pens fans for sticking around. Its just the right thing to do, and real hockey fans know that.

I hope they at least delay the parade until Sunday so I could make it.