God bless Fred Rogers

How the late Mr. Rogers, fair use hero, saved the VCR

Ruins - Hyderomastgroningem

Amazon.com: Music: Hyderomastgroningem

I ordered this disk back in Jan. I had ordered the Boredom's Super AE in the same shipment though and so the order didn't arrive till last week. At that point I was in the middle of a basic rock kind of kick and so I put the two albums on hold untill I was more prepared to take them in. Apparently, that day is today.

I'm listening to this album for the first time right now. The album opens with an interesting short little piece (Hyderomastgroningem) that's acctually starts off as quite a funky little number. Not what I expected at all from the heros of japanese prog/noise. Then comes the turn on a dime time change and the whole thing starts to quickly shift in and out of moods, sometimes returning to the original phrases to ground the piece before shifting into a different area. The whole thing doesn't loose focus though, and none of the track seems out of place. The opening track quickly cements that this is going to be an experience like none other. Not bad for a minute and 25 seconds.

The second song is much more like what I expected. The drums and bass play a precise arrangement. Or acctually two arrangements. After a short intro these two pieces come together for a short period before dropping out, and bringing the band's lyrics forward.
All lyrics are written in a language that the band made up, reminescent of Eye's vocal/sreaming, but a little less intense. Not to say it isn't effective though. Since I don't speak Japanese the lyrics have the same effect as if they were acctually japanese.
After the opening salvo of chaotic playing, the band vaults back in forth between a slow laid back sound where the vocals slide across fuzzed out bass and delicate drumming, and a catchy snappy chrous that brings the drumming up in the mix and pushes the vocals into doing a little jig. The song then slips into a funky little bridge as the laid back fuzzed out bass is propelled forward by an increased intensity in the drumming, before it drops back into the laid back figure and fades out.

Third song is short and noisey.

Economic Mond Possa is hard to describe. Needless to say it solidifies the band's modus operandi of introducing two juxtiposed sections of music and then jumping back and forth between the two of them untill the pieces, which originally feel incompatable, feel perfectly natural next to each other.

Good noise/experimental music will redefine how you perceive music. This is good noise/experimental music.

Instead of hitting every song here, how about I just keep the window open and jot down notes as things grab me.

One of the great things about the Japanese underground is how dense the songs can get. Zurna Taksim is 35 seconds long, and there's about six cool little fragments that any other band would have felt forced to turn into a whole song. Ruins though drops the fragment and then moves on. Perhaps they touch on it again later. But, they don't seem to feel the need to expand on it.

Gravestone has an interesting gimmick of tieing the bass and the vocals together through out the piece. Each mirroring the other. The first section of the song is all energy as the drums propel the fragment along. Then the drums drop down to a laid back vibe and the bass/vocals follow suit. The drums are deffinetly driving this piece and its done masterfully. Switching back and forth effortlessly with just two beats to join the two vibes. It fits together seamlessly.

Pontemcorary Music #2 is an interesting little monster. It starts with a 30 second noise intro before falling into it's dualism. One a typical noise piece that's only a few seconds long. The other a hauntingly delicate vocal with a xylaphone sounding background accompined by a bass that mimics the vocal. This dualism lasts for about 45 seconds before returning to the opening piece to play the song out on. The song is short. I almost wish it has been longer.

And now, at the end of my first full listen through, I'm impressed. Sections of the album I found myself listening to a couple times before moving forward. Other times my interest waned. Right now, I prefer their instrumental stuff. But, I've found that my opinion of the bands in the Japanese underground changes with my moods. When I first heard Melt Banana and The Boredoms, I wasn't impressed. Later, when I listened to them in the right frame of mind, I was blown away.

I had expected something in my mind, and was giving something else. Reminescent of what I had expected, but also very different. I need time to difest this album and learn to appreciate it on it's own terms. I need to take the time to understand Ruins' musical language. Only then will I be able to truely give me thoughts on this album. I'm willing to bet though, that my current enjoyment of the album will turn to a love of it.

The future of connectivity

The Wireless Future (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog) has some interesting predictions.

On Apple's Airport hubs:

"Apple gets tired of releasing new, faster wireless hardware (AirPort, AirPort Extreme, AirPort Insane, AirPort Illegal). So they release one box, software upgradeable to use whatever new protocols and frequencies become available. As consumers clamor for more bandwidth the FCC opens up more spectrum, making the adjustable boxes more valuable."

This I like a lot. It provides a nice neat solution to issues of standards and changes in the network. This idea would allow the network to grow in a more organic fashion. Esspecially if the software upgrades are relatively cheap. Upgrading to the latest and greatest will no longer be an issue of cost. Or at least not as much of an issue. It will also allow the network to experiment more. Allowing the network to adjust to new standards and then switch back if there are issues.

On the nature of the net we've got:

"Meanwhile the boxes are getting stronger too, able to push bits for farther distances. They’re cheap and popular enough that all of San Francisco is covered a forest of overlapping wireless. It’s time to unify them. The next software upgrade turns this collection of hub-and-spoke networks into one large mesh, letting packets bounce from one base station to another, perhaps stopping at a few laptops in between.

Brewster buys a faster Internet connection and opens it up to this giant wireless network. Everyone in SF cancels their cruddy cable and DSL service, and uses real high-speed two-way Internet connections, running their email and web servers from home, like the creators intended."

I like the idea, but I'm not sure about it being centralized around San Fransico. First major deployment of a wireless mesh network will likely happen at some universities. They have traditionally been the leaders in connectivety. Then into places like San Fransico and other techie type cities. I think SF will be a leader because of it's high saturation of techies, but I doubt it will be limtied to just them before things get nasty.

In the end Aaron says the ISPs get pissy over loosing thier business to free networks and try to get legislation passed. This sparks a huge out cry from the general population and the politicians get spooked. It all ends with:

"By then it is too late. The people own the Internet now. When there is censorship, the software routes around it. As long as there is a client and a server, they can communicate. No more DMCA takedown notices, no more Carnivore boxes, no more $40/mo., no more “capped upstream”, no more “running servers is not permitted”. The Internet is remade in its original image."

I've longed beleaved that the internet should be a utility like phones or water. And I like the idea of a freenet. I just think that the country is becoming more and more capatalistic, more and more concerned with trying to make a buck. And I think in the end we just need to get used to the idea of having to pay for connectivity.

One senario that Aaron didn't mention was competiion between free networks and pay networks. Personally, I think corporations will get more and more interested in the idea of hotspots and try to set more of them up. Probably with a "roaming" type fee attached to them for when you wonder into a competitor's hotspot. I think as these companies start setting up hotspots they will start to run into freenets that are squatting on various locations. A legal battle of the rights to a location will ensue and eventually the corporations will be given the rights to the location because they want to make money, and making money is good. And no one likes those damn hippie commies who give shit away anyways.

Ultimetly, I think freenets were squeezed out on the land lines. And I think they'll be squeezed out in wireless as well.

It's a nice dream though.

(Thanks to Doc for the link. He also provides this study as well. And for that, I owe him a drink if I ever meet him. I know some people who will be very interested in that data.)

Welcome to the Land of Mu

Welcome one and all. Nope, you aren't in the wroung place, this is my new blog.

So why did I move to a new one? The main motivation factor was needs. When I set up the Radio blog I was working at a customer site, with no ability to post from work. So, Radio looked like a nice easy choice. Now that I'm working out of our office, I have much greater ability and want to post from work as well as home. I'm also hoping to get a laptop by year's end, which would throw a third system into the mix. Switching to Moveable Type just made a lot of sense. And since I was switching, I thought I might as well just start fresh with a new blog.

I will be keeping tSuibhne's thoughts around though. Unless I run into space limitations (not likely) I'll keep the link on the front page to the archives. They just won't be updated anymore. Look here for the new info.

So, what does the new blog mean for you? Well MT has some neat tools for you to play with, including a search function, which is deffinetly nice. As far as content, I've been talking to Shava about some things and we might be working together to supply each other with something to talk about. We'll have to see though.

Right now though, I need to go run some numbers and try to figure out how I can by my laptop in June, if my new raise doesn't take affect untill May 1.

Back to plotting

A small amendum

BTW, I doubt Shava's blog will have much tech stuff on it. She's been focused on social change/activism type stuff for the last several years. The center piece of the blog right now would probably be a piece on the religious signifigance of the current war.

New Blog/Link

If I ever decide to have a hero, at the top of the short list would be my friend Shava Nerad. Easily the most intellegent, thought provoking, woman I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. And now, finally, she has caved in to her ego and set up a blog. So, if you enjoy intellegent writings from a perspective that you probably hadn't considered, go read her blog.

For the quick and dirty on her background and credentials:

• started working on the net in 1981
  
• Vint Cerf posited that she's one of the first 100 women with email addresses
  
• Chief Software Engineer on the first commercial multimedia project
  
• on the staff at MIT for about 5 years, where she managed the first
  "intrapreneurial" administrative group, the VAX Resource Center
  
• at UNC/Chapel Hill, she was one of three network engineers managing the largest Netware network in the world, and helped plan one of the largest and finest fiber optic campus networks
  
• was the manager of one of the largest and oldest community networks in the US (Oregon Public Network)
  
• shepherded OPN through a landmark fight with the IRS, of over three years, over the charitable nature of granting access to the net to disadvantaged populations -- which resulted in her appearing in the New York Times, NPR/PRI, Business Week, and many other prominent publications
  
• her INET99 paper on Community Networking and the IRS has been used as a model by several countries of how *not* to make the same mistakes the US government made

• currently she's the Marketing Director for a successful dotcom etailer
  

Now, how do I introduce the rest of the world to this woman? Hmm... May be Doc will come by, find her interesting and drop a little link. Considering he's the only person to ever reference me. Acctually, considering that Shava spent several years in NC, and Doc's from NC, may be they acctually know each other. Wouldn't be the first time.

Must go plot.

Information Immersion

So i spent about 2-3 hours today completly immersed in the recent news of Google's purchase of Pyra Labs. It's an interesting sensation to just allow the information to flow through you for that long. Not trying to process anything, but instead allowing everything to accumulate in my subconcious so that it can be processed later after several days/weeks/months/years of chewing and evaluating.

I think I need to do more work on this. See what happens when different types of music are played (today it was Rush). I think tomorrow I'm going to go for some Asian dance music, that should allow for a more complete immersion. Though, I'm also wondering what effect something that is information dense would do. Perhaps some Boredoms or the Saul Williams CD.

Another though occured to me as I drove home. Am I ramping up again? It's getting close to three years since my dealings with theories on subjective reality resulted in a minor nervous breakdown. Have I been recouping from that experience? Licking my mental wounds, assimulating the knowledge gleaned, and preparing for the next step? Am I entering the next step? This could prove interesting if so. Judging by current interests it would be something that's extremely dense with information. Hmmm...

But, how will such a thing unfold in the new situation? Previously there has been some kind of community (real or virtual) for me to at least spew thoughts, at most to pull me back from going over the edge to fast. The blog provides a perfect place to spew, but what about pulling me back? Perhaps the relative isolation that I've been in since the last time was not the best of circumstances to heal? Oh well, to late to second guess now.

I think I might have a pulse here

So, I'm back from the dead.

How have things been for you? Hopefully good.

Now I know what people are thinking, "where the hell has he been?"

The answer is working. Right around the time that I stopped blogging I suddenly found myself being thrust into the technical lead role on the contract that I was working on when my boss was moved over to another contract. Now, nothing against my boss, but the two of us have very different styles of doing business. He's more a 'from the hip' kind of guy, where I want to know exactly what tasks are expected of me and an idea of what they are supposed to look like. So, when I got into the leadership role, suddenly I had to figure out what was still left to do on the contract as it came to an end, figure out how to do it, and then do it. All with in a two week period.

Not fun, and at the end of the year, I was looking for a new job. Just fed up with everything I'd been through over the last year. Things started changing though in Jan. Through a friend, who's also a coworker, the brass was informed about how I'd been jerked around in the past by our former VP, how I was getting paid less then he felt I deserved, and how he felt my title was inadequate for the work that I was doing. This resulted in four things

1) I got promoted to System Engineer
2) I got a raise (or, technically, I've been told I'm getting a riase, though I haven't seen anything official yet)
3) I had several high level people go out of their way to tell me how important I am to the company
4) My friend earned some major brownie points with me.

It deffinetly helps to have friends who are willing to stick up for you.

The other big development is that I've been moved from working on contracts over to the company's Technology Forecast product (which my friend happens to be the director of). My new role is basically two fold, one, to write the software report (a report on existing and emerging software technologies) and two, to create modeling and simulation tools based on the tech forecast. The software report should be interesting, but the tool creation is what I'm really excited about. So, 2003 looks like it might just be a good year. Hopefully it doesn't go south.

So what does all this mean for the blog?

Well, it should mean more posts as I start using this as a storage site for links and ideas. I'll also hopefully learn enough to acctually start providing interesting commentary, instead of just posting links with occasional half ass thoughts thrown in now and then.

Ultimetly though, we'll just have to wait and see.

And with that I'll end this little reunion. As always, have fun.