This is a hilarious & scathing page, showing the back & forth between a designer & a client looking for work on spec. Check out It's like twitter. Except we charge people to use it.
The site also features another favorite of mine, The ducks in the bathroom are not mine
So, I was perusing i use this, one of my daily stops for finding nifty software, and came across WiFiPad. What a brilliant, awesome idea! Works wonderfully for emulated console games.
So I just read an article over at Salon, Camp Lejeune whistle-blower fired, and it absolutely blew my mind. I mean, I don’t expect our military to be perfect, especially at things beyond the battlefield, but seriously? Battle is traumatizing. Nobody’s gonna argue that seeing your buddy get turned into mist is something anyone would be ok with. I’ve known enough former and current soldiers & sailors to be aware that they’ve seen some awful things, and they need not only our understanding, but our help. I mean, both of my grandfathers wouldn’t even speak of their experiences in WWII or the Korean War to me, from which I can only surmise that they never wanted to even revisit those memories.
And while the issues facing the marines of Camp Lejeune are completely different from those that appeared to have afflicted the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, that does not mean that we should ignore them. Rather, we should grab hold of the focus that the Fort Hood incident has created and use it to shine a spotlight on the poor care our veterans receive for the invisible wounds they receive on the battlefield.
A friend of my family recently was attacked while in convoy in Iraq back in June, and nearly lost his life. A roadside bomb exploded, the soldiers sitting in the front of the vehicle were killed instantly, and our family friend was injured (he was blown right out of the vehicle.) Amazingly, he suffered no serious physical injury, and was released from the hospital within just a few days, but I cannot imagine the effect just that one event might have had on him. I mean, he was a mere few feet from death; had he opted to sit in a different seat in the vehicle, he’d be gone. He was awarded the Purple Heart, and continues to serve in Baghdad today. It sickens me to think that if he returns home with injuries beyond just the physical ones he’s suffered, that he’ll be treated with indifference at best, and derision at worst by the very country and military he’s sworn to serve.
And yes, the headline is meant to provoke. I’m a huge proponent for mental health care, having enjoyed its benefits in my own life.
(Via Salon.com)
This made me laugh uncontrollably, just because it's SO random:
Suddenly, Hebrew: How in the world did this happen?
(Via ~stevenf)
Google Providing Free Airport Wi-Fi for the Holidays:
Google Inc. today announced that it is working with airports across the country as well as Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and others to provide free Wi-Fi as a holiday gift now through January 15, 2010. The gift currently includes 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. Additionally, as a result of this project, Burbank and Seattle airports will begin offering airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely.
Pretty brilliant. Shamelessly using the same quote as Gruber (thanks!)
(Via ★ Daring Fireball)
So, the series itself is one of my all-time favorites, and the most recent incarnations (The Sands of Time, Warrior Within, & The Two Thrones) are really brilliant games with a marvelous storyline which snakes back on itself due to the madness of time travel.
The movie appears to take the idea of the Sands of Time and the Dagger of Time, but goes in a slightly different direction. However, the maddeningly awesome acrobatics of the Prince and his manner appear to have been lifted directly from the games’ story. We’ll see how it turns out, but I’m excited.
In the meantime, enjoy the teaser trailer at Apple's Movie Trailers website.
It's rare that I buy an album. Even more rare that I spin the album all the way through more than a few times before cherry picking my favorite tracks. What's most rare though, is when I repeatedly listen to an album over & over again so soon after buying it. Yet that's what's happened with Muse's The Resistance, a slice of rock magnificence. Echoing touches of Queen, electronica, classical piano, and grunge, Muse has evolved yet again, taking what they learned from their previous effort, Black Holes and Revelations, and bumping things up yet another notch.
The album kicks off with “Uprising”, a pulsing dance/rock tune driven by an overdriven/distorted octave bass figure. Handclaps are used to great effect, with unison distorted guitar/falsetto vocals punctuating each statement of the verse. The whole song is, according to Matt Bellamy (the group's lead vocalist/guitarist/pianist),“…expresses a general mistrust of bankers, global corporations and politicians.”
Things move on from there to the love anthem “Resistance”, which is glued together by a floating piano figure, and again, pushed along by the bass, but this time a driving sixteenth-note figure in the verse, which is then passed on to the hi-hats in the pre-chorus. Really a cool way to hand off the rhythmic duties, and the chorus breaks it up nicely by dropping into an eighth-note groove. The Matt Bellamy's liner notes from the iTunes LP state that the song is based on the love story from George Orwell's 1984, but more generally is“…also about any love which crosses boundaries such as religion or strong political beliefs and the subsequent recognition of the unimportance and divisiveness of such beliefs.”
“Undisclosed Desires”, the next track, is an abrupt shift in groove for the group, with a very dance/R&B feel to it, with the pizzicato strings & broken up drum beat. The whole song has a cool texture to it, and is fun to listen to.
“United States of Eurasia” is musically very fascinating; it's heavily influenced by Ravel & Tchaikovsky, and also features some obvious “eastern” sounds throughout, utilizing the harmonic minor scale. It segues into “Collateral Damage”, a solo piano piece featuring Chopin's “Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 2” with sound effects. Bellamy's liner notes state“The song is from an imaginary musical about a ‘United States of Eurasia’, the search for peace and the accidental creation of a new super power challenging American primacy.”
The whole album seems to bounce back and forth between heavily political tracks followed by love songs. Easily exemplified by the next tune, “Guiding Light”, which is another love song and is definitely straight-up stadium rock.
“Unnatural Selection” is probably my second favorite track, starting off with church organ and Matt singing through a filter, then kicking into high gear with a pounding guitar & drum bit before the bass joins up for a unison guitar/bass/drums figure. The song is reminiscent of the group’s earlier song “Hysteria”, although it's more varied in its rhythmic and harmonic content. The song itself is about the “winner take all” world we live in, and that “if you can't beat them, join them.”
“MK Ultra” is probably the only track I could take or leave. It's good, but doesn't quite stand up against the rest of the album. The pre-chorus and chorus are definitely the better parts of the song, but it's still the weak point of the album.
“I Belong to You / Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix” is definitely my personal favorite. The groovy piano bit, and the envelope filtered bass track, it’s got a really cool funky groove to it, and the second part of the title refers to the fact that the middle section is from the aria of the same name from Camille Saint-Saens’ opera Samson and Delilah. This is followed by, of all things, a bass clarinet solo. Bellamy describes this as being something they“…wanted to sound like a theme tune from a children’s TV program featuring teddy bears in a garden.” Like I said, the inspirations are varied & sometimes bizarre.
The last three tracks on the album are actually three movements of a larger work called “Exogenesis”. Definitely a reach for the group, I think it shows just how large their vision and scope can be, and I hope to see more like this from the group. Here I’ll just quote Bellamy from the iTunes LP liner notes regarding this work, as I definitely cannot explain it any better:
This is influenced by Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Chopin and Pink Floyd. It looks at the concept of ‘panspermia’. It is a story of humanity coming to an end and everyone pinning their hopes on a group of astronauts who go out to explore space and spread humanity to another planet. Part 1 is a jaded acceptance that civilisation will end. Part 2 is a desparate hope that sending the astronauts to find and populate other planets will be successful alongside the recognition that this is the last hope. Finally, part 3 is when the astronauts realise that it is just one big cycle, and recognise that unless humanity can change it will happen all over again.
So yeah, deep subject matter there, but I expect nothing less from Muse. The first movement seems to have the larger of the Floyd influence, with the second movement beginning like a mix of Rachmaninov/Chopin, then diminuendoing into something more Chopin before the rock kicks back in. The last lines of the second movement is quite eloquent:
Tell us, what is your final wish?
Now we know you can never return
Tell us, what is your final wish?
We will tell it to the world
The last movement I read as more than just the realization that we need to change, but the determination that we will change, because we must. It begins very quietly, slowly building into an earnest promise to get it right, before ending with a quiet piano/strings coda.
I do enjoy reading things like this.
Brian Krebs on Safe Online Banking:
An investigative series I’ve been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud.
The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don’t use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.
(Via ★ Daring Fireball)
