Mile Zero
no matter where you go, there you are
Mile Zero is the personal website of Thomas Wilburn. All statements and opinions here are my own, and do not represent the views or policies of my employers at Congressional Quarterly, Ars Technica, or other publications.
Take a trip up I-66 towards DC, then turn onto the exit for 495 (the infamous Beltway). Relax and watch the side of the road, where bland office buildings rise up from behind tastefully-planted trees. Those are the contractors that support the government--the businesses that absorb large chunks of your tax dollars every year ($382 billion in 2005). And what's the name on that building?
ManTech International?
ManTech?!?
One of the surreal dilemmas of living around DC is the way it sometimes resembles a poorly-written b-movie. The politicians are corrupt, the metro strands you in dark tunnels (sometimes without power), and "Chinatown" looks like a cheap set. Which is not to say that it's a perfect comparison: to date, Mansquito has not stalked the back-alleys of our nation's capital. Yet.
But it amazes me that the technology and defense contractors squatting around the Beltway practically make an effort to sound like a villainous corporation--the kind of bland, vaguely-threatening names that hide experimental robo-pirahnas and DNA-fused werewolves in a Sci-fi Feature Presentation. Just look at a few other examples:
Who knows where the names come from? Probably many of them are concatenations, leftovers from countless mergers and buyouts and subsidiaries. There's probably a computer program that generates them, making sure that they are completely inoffensive while still catching the ear of a passing congressman or bureaucrat.
Of course, with this political climate, it's hard to say whether brands in defense and tech will stay so elusive for much longer. That's why I've considered registering a few likely copyrights myself, for the days when the Beltway Bandits finally embrace their b-movie existence. Anyone who wants prize names like "RapeCo," "DeathCorp," and "InkTechCo Tech Inc Corp" is going to have to deal with me. I'm thinking of it as a retirement plan.
09:11 x Thomas x /dc/local_flavor/beltway_bandits x link x 1 comment
They All Have Abandoned Their Hopes
So I whine and complain about how rock is dead, and how Nickleback should be strangled with their own vas deferens, and we're all bored with my bitter old man impression. But this post, about how black rock (i.e. rock by African-American bands) has both faded away and may be critical for advancing black communities, is thought-provoking. The author, former Black Rock Coalition PR Director Rob Fields, theorizes that the loss of public school music program played a key role in the rise of hip-hop as a replacement for black rock, and wonders about the impact of its musical form.
Now, it's possible to read this as just another kind of curmudgeonry. I'm not sure that the opening thesis is bulletproof:
After all, this doesn't preclude hip-hop. There are notable hip-hop and rap groups that perform with instruments live, including Black Eyed Peas and The Roots. Is the difference simply the way that rock champions instrumental virtuosity (sometimes to the point of extremes, and I'm looking at you, Yngwie)? And do we need to make an exception for Lenny Kravitz and Prince, or do we consider them something separate?
Moreover, I'm not completely convinced that it's purely the audience's responsibility for the market failure of black rock. Take Fishbone, for example: fans still try to figure out why that band, arguably better than Jane's Addiction or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, never broke out beyond a niche audience. Living Colour had one semi-mainstream hit, "Cult of Personality," before suffering much the same fate. And of course, anyone with a radio may notice that Jimi Hendrix is practically the only black artist played on "classic rock" stations. Is this just because the audience wasn't interested? Or is it because the industry wouldn't back them?
On the other hand, I'm in favor of anything that gets more music education into schools and more rock bands onto the charts, particularly from a range of backgrounds.
10:29 x Thomas x /music/business x link x 1 comment
A rare interview with Squarepusher, the experimental electronic musician, was posted to the Lowdown the other day. I had heard, somewhere, that he was a bassist, but I since I'm not much of a fan of techno I hadn't paid much attention. He talks about how his electronic side project became more well-known than his work in bands, and then plays a short solo on six-string bass without any effects. It's surprisingly melodic. I'm still not really interested in his techno pieces, but I am impressed with what he does.
What was interesting was the reaction from one of the bassists, who was conflicted about Squarepusher's use of chords on a bass. He wrote that he wasn't sure why the solo shouldn't have been played on a guitar or a piano, instruments with a higher range, instead of on a bass where the lower strings weren't being used constantly. The poster also wondered why this was considered "pushing the limits of bass" when similar techniques have been used on other instruments, ones capable of greater polyphony. Later, he clarified that he's still working out his thinking on this. I don't want you to think this was some sort of blood feud. But I did take it personally, a little.
I don't pretend to be some kind of unbelievable pioneer on bass guitar. But one of my pet peeves is to be told that I sound "just like a guitarist," or to be asked why I don't just play my music on a guitar. I play bass because I like the feel and the physicality of the instrument, as well as the sound it makes. It's frustrating to be told that I can't make a different kind of music just because the bass "isn't supposed to be played like that."
A lot of that comes from playing rock music, as far as I'm concerned. For a young musical form, it didn't take long to solidify the arrangements--and particularly in the wake of classic rock and hair metal, to solidify the guitarist's hold on center stage, much to the dismay of every other instrumentalist on earth. Not to mention the relegation of the bass guitar--itself only fifty years old--to a limited style and role. Go beyond that, and for a lot of people you might as well have grown a third arm.
That's why I don't really listen to people like Squarepusher or Vic Wooten on a regular basis, but I'm really glad they're out there. It's hard to try to expand the instrument's role, especially when perception works against you in two ways: either you're playing too many notes, or you're just imitating your betters.
08:26 x Thomas x /music/technique/bass x link x 1 comment
After writing in that last post about the screenplay that I scribbled out in between Forensics tournaments in college, I went back and read it again, which is always an interesting experience. It's about four college students trying to stop the four horsemen of the apocalypse in a small town--not terribly original or clever. But there are a few bits that I always liked, and one of them was this exchange between Famine and one of the protagonists.
Zach and Famine stare off the porch at the sky ahead, watching as a flock of geese fly by. FAMINE I will have to remember that. ZACH Something for your new world? FAMINE Lots to think about. What to keep, what to make different. ZACH I hate I won't be there to see it. FAMINE Maybe you will. Who knows how these things work? ZACH Don't you? FAMINE No. Not really. As much as I hate to admit it, I probably live in a world of much less certainty than you do. Think about it: all your life you've been taught that the laws of physics cannot be broken, that monsters and boogie men do not exist, that everything is well- reasoned and rational. Your world makes sense. Whereas for us, you never know what could happen next. ZACH Sounds exciting. FAMINE It's exhausting. We're tired, all four of us. We were created to do one thing, and yet for millenia had to hold off, wait until we got the go-ahead. No matter how much fun we've had with our hobbies over the years, the real point has always been the big event, Apocalypse. Now, even if it doesn't work, we finally get to do what we do best. There's a pause as the geese fly completely out of sight, just dots on the horizon and then gone. ZACH So you guys just decided one day, hey, why not take over the world? FAMINE Funny you should say that. ZACH You're kidding me. FAMINE Hey, we figured we were on a roll. People die from famine today, no matter what Sally Struthers says. And the best part is how Americans pretend it doesn't happen. Pestilence has diversified into pollution, so he's happy as a clam. Owns a stock of shares in several major oil companies, last time we checked. War is in a period of steady growth, especially with escalating international tension, and Death is always a popular commodity. All in all, why not strike while we're strong? ZACH I guess I can't argue with that logic. Look, how the hell are you going to kill me anyway? What are you going to do, starve me to death? Make me anorexic? Blacklist me at Food Lion? FAMINE I prefer something a little more subtle. He leans forward, and the darkness around him, on his suit, in the crevices of his skinny grin, seems to crawl. FAMINE I'm going to eat you, Zach. I'm going to swallow you up and digest on you for a little while, because I'm a very hungry guy and you look like someone with some substance to you. Zach backs away, horrified. Famine grins even wider. FAMINE You'd probably like to think that I mean this in a metaphysical sense, Zach. I know you like to pretend that you're a big-time philosophy major with important ideas. So you might like to think that this is just some nihilistic kick of mine, something to scare you. And you might be right. Famine sits back enough that he can comfortably reach into his jacket, pulling out a gingerbread man. Its icing gives it a look uncannily like Zach himself. He flourishes it. FAMINE But you might be wrong. He looks down at the cookie. Holds it up and squints at it, as if comparing its likeness with the inspiration. Then he smiles tightly and offers it. FAMINE Care for a bite? As if dazed, Zach reaches for the cookie, takes it, and holds it in his hands. Slowly, he brings it to his mouth and takes off a leg. FAMINE This isn't going to kill you, Zach. Not right away. It's just going to take you out of the action for a little while. Long enough for my comrades to remove your friends from the picture more permanently. When you resurface, you're going to have to face the fact that when those you really care about needed you, you were right here on your front porch, not lifting a single finger. As he eats, Zach gets more and more tired, more and more sleepy. FAMINE It's not about starvation, Zach. Never really was. If you do your research, the third horseman stands for much more that that. I am unfairness. I am inequality. I am inaction. Zach pauses, only the head of the cookie-Zach remaining. Famine takes it from his limp fingers, places it in his mouth. Zach tries to follow the movement with his eyes, but he's too far gone. FAMINE Bon apetit. He closes Zach's mouth around the cookie. Blur, and fade to black.
07:24 x Thomas x /fiction/screenplay x link x 1 comment
According to His Girl Friday, being a writer is all about the tools. Journalists in the movie huddle around their phones, their notepads, and their typewriters, in that order. It's a romantic vision of writing, one that makes journalism seem like an adventure. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell don't hurt that impression any. You'd have to work pretty hard to make writing look that good nowadays. Warren Ellis has commented that one of the hardest parts of writing Transmetropolitan was to make the main character, a reporter, look interesting. And this may be partially because the tools have changed. Sending an e-mail, or searching a database, lacks a certain frisson compared to yelling down the phone line.
I've never really lived during an age where word processors and electronic research weren't part of writing. But I sometimes think about the tools that I use every day, and I do feel a pang of nostalgia for the melodramatic chunk of typewriters. On the other hand, that kind of analog technology would drive me insane if I were actually forced to use it. The only time I write anything longhand is when I'm taking notes during interviews--but for the actual writing from those notes, it's always done digitally, where I can correct it easily as I go.
The reason I've been considering not just what I write, but how I write, is because the National Novel Writing Month is soon upon us, and I occassionally flirt with the idea of participating. It would be the longest piece of fiction that I've ever attempted, at 50,000 words. But it would compare with the last really long effort I made while in college, a hundred-page screenplay which coincidentally also involved an odd input method--I wrote it mostly using the Grafiti handwriting recognition on a Palm III.
Nowadays, I still have a PocketPC, one with actually better handwriting input than the Palm, and I've even got one of those little folding keyboards. It's pretty cool. I've hardly ever used it. When I go out to do research or reporting, I do use the PocketPC--but it's for the voice recording and the ink notes. I bring it back and synchronize those notes to a full-sized computer, and then I write it up from there. It feels like kind of a waste to have the keyboard--to carry it around, no less--without ever really breaking it in. So I'm starting to think that I might use it on the Metro in the mornings and the evenings during NaNoWriMo.
Do the tools used by a writer change what he or she writes? Neal Stephenson wrote his Baroque trilogy by hand, claiming that the deliberation it required was helpful, particularly considering the historical setting. It's certainly more final. Maybe more final than I'm willing to actually be, in my writing. I'm sure that most people wish life had a backspace key. I'm not sure I have the nerve to give it up, even if it's just in a fictional setting.
00:00 x Thomas x /journalism/writing/tools x link x 0 comments
Wow. Everyone's probably already seen this since TBogg and AmericaBlog posted it, but this is the kind of ad we need. It's also worth mentioning, as Ezra Klein does here, that there's a lot of creative ads going out this season. I wonder if this is a sign of new blood in political media consulting, or just shows that the technology has finally trickled into the public arena?
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/issues/stem_cells x link x 0 comments
Rolling Stone is trying very hard to reach the same level of political relevance that it might once have possessed. Hiring Matt Taibbi (author of the greatest Tom Friedman takedown ever written) was a good start. His cover story in this issue, which you can read online, is a disturbing look at how the 109th Congress has worked around its original purpose to become merely an enabler for the executive branch. If there's a weakness, it's that Rolling Stone still doesn't seem to require more than a few sources for its articles--Taibbi's piece seems somewhat researched, but a lot of the other articles pull from only two or three sources, one of which is Nancy Pelosi. I would tend to believe her, myself, but the golden rule of journalism is "trust, but verify." And one of the best ways to make it clear that you've verified is to quote from that source as well.
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/national/congress x link x 0 comments
Belle Watches the Battlestar Mini-series
12:01 x Thomas x /movies/television/galactica x link x 1 comment
James Sullivan is not a spammer
I just got off the phone with Mr. James Sullivan, whose name has been used to plaster malicious cross-site scripts across the Internet and especially on Movable Type-based blogs. Unless he's an exceptional actor, Mr. Sullivan is not actually responsible for this spam. He's a victim of a particularly vicious identity theft, one which he seemed barely able to comprehend.
I introduced myself as a tech journalist from Washington, DC--technically true, and it's much less confrontational. Do you own usuc.us? I asked him. "I don't even know how to put up a web site," he said. "Why are all these people calling me?" Briefly, I tried to explain what was going on, including the porn site. "Don't visit it," I said, "it just opens straight to dirty pictures." Mr. Sullivan noted that he had no intentions of visiting a porn site--although, granted, his wife was in the room.
This led to the question of how he was going to fix this. He's going to the cops tomorrow, he said. "Well," I said, "this may be a federal matter, to be honest with you." "The feds?" he exclaimed with a big-government skepticism that I'm sure does Colorado proud. Yes, the feds, I said, and also said he'd probably have to check with InterNIC and ICANN.
"I thought I was going to have to call Al Gore!"
"No, Mr. Sullivan. He only invented the Internet, he doesn't fix it."
So there you have it. I'm sure it's a small consolation for the people who, unlike me, faced serious problems as a result of the scriptbots working in Mr. Sullivan's name. But at least all the scripts did is mess up a few web pages. Mr. Sullivan will probably be getting phone calls off and on for a while to come. I think he's gotten the shorter end of the stick.
11:52 x Thomas x /meta/blosxom x link x 1 comment
What I have found, when picking up Guitar Hero again, is that I most enjoy playing it on Hard difficulty, the next-to-highest. I can play the game on Expert--I've almost beaten it there, in fact--but I don't usually enjoy that much. Expert is insane. I am pretty sure that it is actually easier to play most songs on a real guitar than to play them on Guitar Hero's expert mode.
I loaded Guitar Hero back onto Belle's PS2 this weekend for a housewarming party, in case we needed something to do. I wanted to have all the songs unlocked for people to play. It turns out that we had 24 people in our tiny little apartment, and we didn't need the entertainment after all. But it was fun to pick up the plastic SG again. Note that I didn't unlock new guitars, or new characters. There's not really much point. They don't do anything except look pretty. Normally, those kinds of pointless unlockables bother me. But here, I don't really care.
Guitar Hero's real strength is that its fun doesn't rely on the characters or guitars. They don't do anything. Your reward for playing Guitar Hero is being able to play more Guitar Hero. This will never happen, of course, but I think I'd like to see the sequel with all the songs unlocked at the start of the game. It would make it easier for my friends and I to just jump into the game, and it would remove the silly system of rewarding people for struggling with a plastic guitar on difficulty levels where they're not necessarily having fun. I wouldn't mind having to work my way up through different venues in career mode. But it'd be nice to pick my own set list.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/software/guitar_hero x link x 0 comments
With David Kuo's new book, Tempting Faith, explaining how the Bush administration took advantage of religious conservatives for political gain (who could have thought they were capable?) and Mark Foley stretching the limits of tolerance in the Bible Values crowd, it's worth the effort to examine the phenomenon of Christian Nationalism. This trend, also known as dominionism, is something that I find myself increasingly worried about as I consider the American political scene. Perhaps living in Northern Virginia simply accentuates the trend--stay around Arlington, where I live, and it's as blue as can be, but travel 40 miles West and you'll find yourself in deeply Republican territory.
Having gone to high school out in that area, what degenerates like George Allen call "Real America," I figured I had a pretty good idea of the problem--and more seriously, the disconnect that (as far as I can tell) many Democratic leaders simply don't understand. These really are two Americas, although not in the simple economic sense that John Edwards means. They're two separate cultures, one grounded in Biblical fundamentalism, and the other in a kind of casual secularism. But to get a perspective on what this might mean in the long term if my theories are right, I've been doing some reading.
Kingdom Coming, by Michelle Goldberg
Goldberg subtitles her book "The Rise of Christian Nationalism," and it works best as a primer to the dominionist movement. It's organized by issues, with separate chapters for evolution, sex education, and homophobia in turn. It's not a terribly long book, and Goldberg is an unobtrusive writer, so it's a fairly quick read.
Kingdom Coming was apparently inspired after Goldberg had done a series of pieces for Salon about Christian and Far Right meetings. She apparently had a knack for getting into conferences and seminars, where she would deliver neutral-sounding but ultimately terrifyingly honest reports--the fanatical and apocalyptic language of extremists behind closed doors. After those articles, or perhaps because the Religious Right's rhetoric has become more open, Kingdom Coming is a little disappointing. It's a pretty high-level, wide-angle view of the movement.
Which is not to say that there aren't good insights here. Goldberg presents the dominionists as not just a movement, but a political machine, and links it together as a whole. Her solutions to this problem are sadly vague, perhaps because she herself has little hope for the future. "From what I've witnessed while researching this book, I'm convinced that Christian nationalist symbolism and ideology will increasingly pervade public life," Goldberg writes in her final chapter, titled "Exiles in Jesusland."
Righteous, by Lauren Sandler
If Kingdom Coming is the big picture, Righteous is a more personal view from the bottom of the movement up. Focused on a growing Evangelical youth culture, Sandler works more with interviews and events. Righteous also examines creationism and home-schooling, but not from the leaders of the movement, but from its footsoldiers. This gives it an entirely different feel--to me, it comes across as more urgent. It's easy to dismiss Kingdom Coming as cynical politics, but Righteous reminds us that there are real people behind the fundamentalist movement.
Sandler is also a Salon editor, although it could be argued that she's a more interesting writer than Goldberg. The book is filled with anecdotes that would be comical if they weren't a little chilling: Stephen Baldwin's rise as the face of hip youth Christianity, for example. A common theme throughout the events and communities Sandler visits is the "sneaky deep." That's the hook used to attract youth to Evangelical movements--hiding overt Jesus-freak appeals behind skateboarding videos, fake scientific language, and rock music. It's the idea that people come for the entertainment, but they stay for the Christianity.
The ability to weave pop culture into conservative Christian faith is not only attractive for new members, who don't have to give up "fun" when they join, but Sandler also points out that it tends to reinforce their most regressive tendencies. At the Mars Hill church community (read an excerpt at Salon), members may have a hip priest who quotes rappers and preaches to a background of rock music, but women are relegated to the roles of mobile womb and housewife only. The communities are fiercely anti-intellectual, and their "pop culture" is restricted to Christian facsimiles as soon as a religious version can be crafted.
Although it's been mentioned before, especially when that excerpt was published, it deserves to be noted again: these movements are not only a draw because they offer security in a changing world, but also because for the young men that invariably drive and lead them, they are not actually giving up very much for the Lord. Sandler's profiles are of Christians who can find Jesus and keep their music, their tattoos, and their skateboards. Women who join the movements, however, either because they're in a relationship with a convert or through evangelism, give up much more. They lose their freedom, their independence, and (to some extent) their futures. Female graduates of Patrick Henry College work for four years building contacts and learning deep political savvy, only to reject those abilities completely once they get their degree. Despite the surface appearance of modernity, the youth Christian culture is one that's deeply regressive, and blatantly aimed at preserving the power of white males.
The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
After those two books, it's nice to kick back with Dawkins' unrelenting atheism. Anyone who's read his other books, such as The Blind Watchmaker or The Selfish Gene will be unsurprised by the clear prose and sly sense of humor in The God Delusion. In fact, it's a generally unsurprising book, which is not entirely a bad thing.
While Sagan's Demon-Haunted World and other pro-science writing have made a soft case for atheism, Dawkin's book is a lot more assertive. In fact, the closest comparison might be Sam Harris's End of Faith, which was refreshingly blunt but also disturbingly sidetracked into defenses of torture and ravings against the Islamic threat, as well as a bizarre defense of Buddhism and mysticism. Dawkins is more restrained: The God Delusion walks through the myth of a Christian America, disproves the belief of figures like Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein, and explains why religious claims shouldn't be protected from scientific criticism.
In the end, it's not really something that you couldn't read on a well-written atheist blog. But maybe I'm just thrilled to have a book explicitly written in support of atheism without resorting to the crazy extremes of The End of Faith. The God Delusion is a solid effort. On the other hand, current atheists might not have problems waiting for the paperback edition.
21:40 x Thomas x /culture/religion/books x link x 1 comment
Chris P, an old friend in a new suit, asked in comments what I thought of Robert Greene's strategy for electoral success in the upcoming election. But really, why go half measures? Why only comment on the grand, pretentious strategizing of others, when I could offer my own grand, pretentious strategy?
So here goes: with the upcoming congressional election admittedly looking like even hysterical gay-bashing can't rescue a pedophile-protecting Republican majority, there's still a chance that Democrats will maintain their current sad-sack status. My solution is as follows:
Move farther to the left.
Seriously. And hear me out on this, because I can already feel the comments of "we're too far left already" even before it's posted. Obviously, I would want the Democratic party to become more liberal even in a perfect world, because I'm a radical myself. But frankly, I think the reason that most people believe that Democrats are at an extreme is because they've been told that's the case. The Republican strategists have made a point of painting us as commies and godless babykillers anyway. I don't see why we shouldn't get as much out of it as possible.
Besides, despite the fact that they call us extremists, the Democratic party line is really pretty tame. If we're extremists, then where's my universal health care? Where's my government regulation of private industry? My pro-environment energy policy? My aggressive withdrawal from Iraq? If we're going to be castigated simply for being liberals, then let's not screw around. Besides, most of America supports a lot of these proposals, if someone would just try to advocate them without undue knee-knocking and quivering.
When you hear supposed "independents" like Lewis Black joke about politics, a common line is "Remember when we had an opposition party?" That's the second advantage of really taking up a real liberal agenda: it gives us an actual spine. Forget the idea that extremism is driving people away: Republicans have run on increasingly extreme political positions for the last 12 years. The answer to that extremism is not to meet it halfway--how do you meet someone halfway on torture or gay marriage anyway? We're only going to brutally sacrifice our values if we flip heads? Give me a break. Show Americans that Democrats actually stand for something, and the independents will whine and complain--but eventually, they're going to vote for the people they were going to elect anyway, and the base will be reenergized. Again, we've seen this work on the other side.
Speaking of the other side, there's the argument that Democrats should compromise to lure people away. Rabinowitz puts paid to that argument, and I tend to agree: you're not going to pull people away from the Republican party by becoming Diet Republicans, because they've already got a party filling that role. Why would they vote for Diet R when the original formula is still there, and still so fanatically delicious?
Not to mention the part of the Republican base that liberals continually imagine they could seduce: the Christian Right. I love this idea in a sick way, because it presumes rationality. But the Christian Right is not rational--indeed, by choosing a fundamentalist, anti-science faith, they are explicitly irrational and proud of it. They will also never vote for a Democrat, because they're convinced that Jesus wasn't about the poor as much as he was about keeping women pregnant and killing fags. We can't win them, and we can't compromise with them. All we can do is fight them.
This is a country that's split and polarized, and I'm not going to argue that. Eventually, it does need to be dragged back together. But I don't want our goal to be unity under a racist, homophobic, Christian compromise. We might get there eventually, but until that day is unavoidable I don't see any advantages to caving. I see a lot of advantages to a radical agenda and then (possibly) meeting in the middle from there.
09:57 x Thomas x /politics/activism x link x 1 comment
09:35 x Thomas x /random/comedy_and_tragedy x link x 1 comment
So every year, my parents host a pumpkin massacre. A whole bunch of people get together, they bring their own pumpkins, and at the end of the night the best carvings win prizes. Someone will walk away with a fake Elvis Presley driver's license this year, among other things. My dad cooks a ton of jambalaya and different desserts. There's going to be Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero playing on a TV somewhere. It's a good time for all.
This year, they asked if maybe me and my brother (a guitar player) could get together and provide some music. We've been trying to think of vaguely Halloween-themed songs we could play. Here's a few off the top of my head, and with the help of the bass players in the Low Down Lowdown.
Any other ideas? Ideally, the looser the connection (while still being vaguely Halloween-related) the better.
06:20 x Thomas x /music/performance/gigs x link x 1 comment
MySpace is Terrible: Pass AND Fail Edition
So I log in to MySpace, as I usually do once a week just to check on it, and I find that there's a note up about the spam bulletins and comments that have been posted in my name--I thought it was just that MySpace security was the equivalent of protecting Fort Knox with a mighty wall of damp Kleenex, but I guess it's more interesting than that. Apparently password phishers have been redirecting people to trojan pages that look like the MySpace login using Flash. Then they take your password and use it to send messages about dating sites to other people. Which is ten kinds of awesome.
But let's make one thing clear: while it is true that most web-based applications are vulnerable to this kind of thing, and while MySpace can't necessarily be blamed for a weakness in Flash, the fact of the matter is that people wouldn't have fallen for this scam nearly as easily if MySpace weren't a buggy hunk of garbage that kicks users out at the slightest provocation. For once, the responsibility for this social engineering falls entirely on the system admins, and not on the users.
Good thing MySpace isn't the vanguard of American youth culture, with a staggering reach into people's home computers, most of whom have no idea how to protect themselves.
On a lighter note, MySpace cannot confirm that Mark Foley's account was cracked this way. So if you are an underage male who has received obscene messages from the ex-Senator, it may be less a security issue, and more your tax dollars at work under the Republican government.
11:02 x Thomas x /music/tools/internet x link x 1 comment
The B-SPAN podcast this week is a presentation from "Serious Play and Urban Planning," a seminar held by the World Bank Institute on using games as training tools. In the podcast, Dr. David Shaffer, professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of How Computer Games Help Children Learn, talks about how he's used games as city planner training, and explores some of the ways that they create an "epistemic frame" for the user. It's fairly interesting stuff. The full video of the seminar should go up later today, and I'll update with a link.
UPDATE: Find the complete videoconference, including Scott Osterweil from MIT's Education Arcade, here. As usual, be warned that it is encoded using the Bank standard of Realplayer. No, I don't like it. No, I don't have a choice about it. Yes, I'm trying to get it changed, but you know how large institutions are.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/design/learning x link x 0 comments
Lessons from the Bill Clinton Model, Podcast Edition
I'm proud to say that the Best of B-SPAN Podcast for November 1 is taken from Steve Rabinowitz's speech on political messaging, which I previously recommended. The segment for the podcast is the first part of his talk, where Rabinowitz discusses the components of message targeting and the 10 C's of successful political messages, although I had to cut his interesting comments on messengers and delivery media to keep it at around half an hour. Feel free to check it out on the Best of B-SPAN Podcasts if you didn't see it the first time around.
Also, please be aware that VideoLan Player does seem to be able to play the audio of B-SPAN streams, although I can't get the video or the indexing to work. It requires some digging to get past the scripts we use, but if you're dying to hear something from the World Bank's Internet video archive without installing RealPlayer, the option is there.
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/activism x link x 0 comments
Television Week, Part 6: Wrong Channel
When I was in college and I was writing fiction on more of a regular basis, I had a few images in my head that I wanted to get out as kind of a horror story. I never finished this one, but considering my theme this week, I thought I'd haul it out for kicks.
Shannon did not particularly care for her boyfriend's roommate. James was, as William Gibson would have put it, a very technical boy. Technical, actually, to the point of distraction. Take tonight, for example. It was a Friday night. As usual, she and Seth were planning on watching a movie, sitting on the bed together under a big thick comforter with the window open. Later on, they might go for a walk, or they might just stay inside and fall asleep together, exhausted from the week.
Unfortunately, this trajectory was failing to set itself into motion, largely because James, in a typical display of ignorance or naivete (she could never decide which it was) had unplugged the television set from the wall and from the cable, strewn computer hardware all across the floor, and was currently sitting in the middle of it all humming death metal. Off-key.
"Look," she told Seth, outside the room, after dragging him out by his shirt-collar. "I understand that you have to live with this geek. I am fine with his constant rambling about things I don't care about. I put up with him mentally undressing me every time I walk into the room. I deal with the fact that he never leaves the room, so we have to go to my place if we want some time alone, and that he never takes a hint."
Shannon tapped Seth on the lips as he opened his mouth to speak, a quick prefunctory gesture.
"...but I am NOT going to put up with this. He knows we watch TV every Friday at this EXACT time. He is fully aware that I do not see you often enough during the week, and that we set aside this time specifically for each other. We have done this for a semester and a half."
Another tap on the lips.
"Now, one of us is going to go in there and do something about the situation. If you are not willing to confront him, I will. I have no compunctions about looking like a bitch in front of that misanthrope. However, if you want tact and delicacy in these dealings I suggest you take care of it while I wait here, because the kid gloves are off. I'm ready to break something, Seth, and whether it's his head or that stupid computer, I'm not picky."
He tilted one eyebrow at her, looked down at her hand, still pressed against his mouth. Despite herself, Shannon smiled.
"You may speak, sir." She told him.
"Thank you, milady," he chuckled, playing along with their private game. "I will take your quest with the gravest of countenances. But prithee, would you deign to bless these lips once more, this time with your own?"
Her smile now in full bloom, Shannon punched him softly on the shoulder, then pulled him close.
"Goofball. How am I supposed to stay mad if you're going to start that on me?"
"Exactly." He kissed her lightly on the nose. "Now wait here."
Shannon waited in the hall while a low murmur of conversation emerged from behind the door. After a few minutes, it reopened to reveal a smiling Seth. "All ready," he said. Behind him, James sulkily cleared a path through the clutter, shoving cords and components under the desk. The comforter was pre-fluffed, and previews were already rolling on the DVD player. Shannon gave Seth a curious glance. He winked and shrugged, a wide look of feigned innocence. She choked down another grin and settled in on the bed.
"It's all hooked up, right James?" Seth asked, the tone of his voice not entirely making it a question.
"Well, it's being routed through the 3D accelerator, which should boost the signal and possibly run a bilinear interpolation on blurrier channels--but yeah, it's hooked up. DVD should work fine."
"Good. Thank you." Seth swiveled his head to look at Shannon. Pointedly.
"Thanks."
Seth leaned over to whisper in her ear.
"Try not to sound so enthusiastic," he murmured. "I'll be jealous."
By the time the movie wrapped up, Shannon wouldn't even think about moving. She had practically built a nest around herself of blankets and pillows, a habit that generally required re-making Seth's bed every weekend before he could sleep there. As the credits rolled, she burrowed down even deeper, until only her head from the nose up poked out of the covers, and relaxed against Seth.
The moment of silence was broken by James, as usual, blowing his nose loudly into a tissue from the box he kept on his desk. Shannon rolled her eyes. It seemed the guy had a permanent head cold, or was just terribly fastidious about his breathing habits. Still, he had kept quiet during the movie, and she felt a little ashamed about her behavior earlier. She was about to apologize, when James stood and stretched, then went to pull on his jacket.
"Heading out?" Seth asked.
"I was thinking I'd get some fresh air, and give you kids a little time to yourself."
And with that, he left. Boy and girl gave each other stunned looks on the bed as the door closed behind him.
"My God," muttered Shannon when she had a chance to recover, "I should have gotten pissed at him long ago."
Seth looked thoughtful and stared absently through the TV.
"I didn't think he'd gotten the hint," he said. "It's not like him to go out like that. I swear he's agoraphobic."
Shannon nudged him in the side.
"So now that he's gone," she said softly, pulling his head down for a quick kiss, one that soon became a not-so-quick kiss, before Seth broke away.
"Hold that thought," he said, and reached for the DVD remote to hit the eject button, then moved to grab the disc from its tray. Halfway off the bed, he froze, and Shannon turned to see what had caught his eye.
The TV screen no longer showed the bright blue Sony logo. Instead, it opened onto a spotless white room. In the middle of the picture stood a fairly attractive woman in a skin-tight leopard-skin leotard. Her short black hair was topped with a pair of fuzzy fake cat's ears, and her face was painted with a black pattern vaguely reminiscent of tabby spots and a set of whiskers.
From behind the cat-woman's back, one hand emerged holding a long, sharp kitchen knife. The other arm rose from offscreen, gently cradling a man's head. Shannon realized with a start that it was James, and he seemed to be screaming at the top of his lungs, even though no sound came from the set. The woman in the room looked down at James, then looked straight out of the TV set, directly into Shannon's eyes. She smiled, a casual expression that seemed sweet and innocent, then plunged the knife directly into James' chest. Blood welled out around the blade, and James stopped moving.
Reflexively, Seth's hand slammed against the TV's power button, almost knocking the DVD player from the top of the cabinet. When he turned, his face was set and flushed with anger.
"I'll kill him," he said. "That was juvenile and completely unecessary." He seemed to focus on Shannon, noticing her white cheeks and tight fists. "He's just getting back at us, understand? He's got no friends, he's got no social skills, and so he probably thought that was very funny. It wasn't real, okay?"
"I didn't say anything," murmured Shannon.
"No, but you're scared half to death. Don't worry about it. When he gets back I will make it very clear to him that I will not put up with this any longer."
"Are you sure it was fake?"
Seth glanced away for just a second, then continued more reassuringly.
"Of course it was."
But Shannon saw his expression in that brief glance to the side. Seth wasn't convinced it was fake at all. James never actually returned to the room that night, nor the following. In fact, she never saw him again.
Okay, it's kind of abrupt. The idea came from an op-ed I read at one point, where the writer claimed to have temporarily received a broadcast TV channel where school bus crashes played over and over again. The concept of a cursed channel, one inhabited by creepy, murderous, costumed freaks... well, it kinda scared me. I figured it might scare other people too. But I could never figure out where to go with it without just making a Ringu knockoff.
00:00 x Thomas x /fiction/short x link x 0 comments
Television Week, Part 5: Runway Landing
To say that fashion is not my strong point would be the understatement of the decade, which is coincidentally about the last time that I probably gave any thought to my wardrobe. T-shirts, cargo pants, and Chuck Taylors do not a fashion statement make, and I'm pretty happy about that.
So why do I get as much enjoyment from Project Runway?
For those of you who have skipped past Runway, the show is a competition for clothing designers, who each construct a new garment every show. Every week one designer is eliminated, there are different requirements for each challenge, standard reality show blah blah blah. Of course, where most reality shows are concerned, the contestants aren't using any particular trade skills, and the competition is fairly silly. The winner of Survivor doesn't go out and live in the wilderness, and the contestant on the Amazing Race probably doesn't go traveling after the show ends. America's Next Top Model, of course, involves primarily the genetic lottery of being freakishly tall and skinny women.
Runway, on the other hand, does involve people who will leave the show and try to make clothing. In some cases, you wish they wouldn't. But either way, every week the designers are creating a new garment using a combination of talent and training. And here's the thing: even if (like me) you hate fashion, and you can't stand models, it's still impressive to watch the contestants put their clothes together--not the least if they've had to make them from recycled materials, or whatever ridiculous conditions apply that week.
And even though I personally have no knowledge or interest in fashion, that still doesn't stop me from watching each outfit walk down the runway at the end of the show and deciding whether or not it looks good on the model. Because deep down, I think everyone probably suspects that they have fantastic taste in clothing, all evidence to the contrary.
There are other aspect to the show that are fun to watch. Tim Gunn, the visiting advisor from Parson's School of Design, has a kind of warm geniality that Santa Claus would envy. The contestants themselves, being creative and hard-working people, are interesting to watch. But I never, ever thought that I would ever find myself watching a reality show for the clothes.
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television/project_runway x link x 0 comments
Television Week, Part 4: Generation Shift
I was a dyed-in-the-wool trekkie when I was a little kid. I had seen the original episodes a few times--I remember watching them with my father, but I guess when I was six or so, The Next Generation began airing, and I was hooked big time. So it's funny, when recorded episodes started showing up in my TiVo and I began rewatching the show after a 10 or 12 year gap, the things that I've noticed about it. Be warned, some of this is pretty geeky stuff.
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television/star_trek x link x 1 comment
Let's pretend as an entirely hypothetical exercise that you the reader are working with me at the World Bank. You have, as is not uncommon, a piece of text that you want me to perform as a voiceover for a project. This is a task that requires me to look over the text for errors and readability. Let's also pretend that you, my fictional coworker, speak English well enough to communicate, but you are not really at a native-speaker level of fluency in speaking, much less writing. Please note the following items:
Updated to fix a typo. Well, that's embarrassing.
16:47 x Thomas x /bank/experience/personal x link x 1 comment
Television Week, Part 3: Pitiless
It would be a poor discussion of TV without mentioning Television Without Pity, which is (as far as I can tell) the definite recap site on the Internet. What an oddity: before cheap online publishing, who would think that someone would take the trouble to write detailed summaries of television shows, episode-by-episode?
I visit Television Without Pity on a semi-regular basis, once or twice a week. I started when Belle and I first started dating, and she was looking forward to the season of Alias. In that case, I wanted to catch up on the show so I could watch her with it--I was using TWoP (as it refers to itself) for its supposedly intended purpose. But with a little more perspective, I tend to disagree that strict recapping actually is the purpose behind the site anymore, if it ever was. It's not why I keep reading, and I can't imagine that it's why other people do.
I read it nowadays for a couple of shows, Galactica of course but also Project Runway and occasionally Veronica Mars. One reason is that the recappers, who have clearly watched the shows over and over again in order to write about them, often catch things that I didn't see on the first viewing, and they don't hesitate to hold opinions on the plot and the characters. Considering that media have become so plentiful and audiences so fragmented (with the exception of the big hits like Lost or Grey's Anatomy), I wonder if TWoP isn't a sublimated way of "discussing" the last episode with a friend.
There's also a whole set of recaps on the site that cannot possibly exist for any purpose other than satire and "ironic commentary." 7th Heaven? Is there really anyone who was worried about the huge creepy Christian family and their constant counter-cultural plotlines? Writing about this is a kind of hipster thing to do: pick something that everyone loathes, and then use it to highlight your own relative coolness, all under the cover of irony. It's not about the show at all, it's about the writer and the readers admiring the writer, united by their mutual distaste for the subject.
I'm split between admiration and revulsion on that one. But in that urge, Television Without Pity exposes something of the relationship with media nowadays. Entertainment is created, and then fed into a huge grist mill of analysis, which in turn has become entertainment in and of itself. We are, just as with a comedian who must be shown on huge screens and sound systems for his "live" show, farther removed and mediated from the stories that surround us.
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television x link x 0 comments
I did this on TW.net once, before I had a blog and I would just change the front page randomly. I think it was inspired by an old post at Emma Story's blog. It's better than just saying "I'm busy."
Last week and the next, I am:
Updates as events warrant.
14:18 x Thomas x /meta/announce/delays x link x 1 comment
Television Week, Part 2: Strange Chemistry*
Night Stalker is one of those shows I wouldn't have ever watched if it weren't for TiVo. Its run on broadcast TV was vindictively short, its rebroadcast on SciFi is at a timeslot that I'll never be capable of viewing, and its DVDs pale in priority compared to other series I still want to watch (Six Feet Under, for example). Ah, but TiVo'd Night Stalker fills a lag between Netflix disks regardless of my schedule--and with only about nine episodes ever made, it's not going to tie up my life, either.
The show is a remake of the 1970's movie and series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, starring Darrin McGavin, who might be a little better known as the Old Man from A Christmas Story. He was a middle-aged, washed-up newspaper hack who didn't let the supernatural interrupt his snappy delivery: "I promised I'd show up with a haircut, a new hat, and pressed suit... but I lie a lot." For the new show, they kept the journalist, the mustang he drives, a few of the character names, and that's about it. The new Kolchak is young, played by Stuart Townsend, smug, and hunting down a string of supernatural murders as a crime reporter in Los Angeles. The deaths are interrelated, with some kind of internal mythology involving Kolchak's murdered wife and post-mortem markings on their wrists.
If it sounds a little X-Filesish for your tastes, that's because it is. According to IMDB, the head writer and producer of the show, Frank Spotnitz, was closely involved with Mulder and Scully's exploits and scripted a lot of their conspiracy episodes. The writers on the X-Files were reportedly big fans of the original Kolchak, hence the remake, but Night Stalker fails to live up to either of its precursors.
In all honesty, it's not a bad show. The portrayal of journalism, even crime journalism, is bizarre but acceptable for dramatic purposes. The mythology is a little weak, but it could have developed, and some of the monsters-of-the-week are well-done. Mythology is overrated anyway: Lost exists in large part for its bizarre conspiracy theories, which are rapidly spiraling out of control. Although The X-Files also had its increasingly nebulous and unbelievable backstory (to list a few: alien abductions, Mulder's sister, alien/human hybrids that are killed with an icepick to the neck, the black alien oil, Tunguska experiments, genetically engineered bees, clones of Mulder's sister, the Smoking Man, Scully's baby, plans to evacuate NWO executives before the aliens attack, smallpox scars, Mulder's father, and so on...), those threads were tied more closely together, instead of overwhelming it with surrealism. Besides, I would argue that this is not the legacy that later shows have fallen short. Where Night Stalker fails is its lack of chemistry.
The original show, by all accounts, was enjoyable in large part because of the interplay between Kolchak and his editor, each of which loathed the other. Kolchak himself was part earnest reporter, but also part unrepentant sleazebag, and the police treated him as such. Likewise, the X-Files may have had its share of mysteries, but the chemistry between Mulder and Scully--that will-they-won't-they question at the heart of every show--was what really drove it forward. The show began to droop once the romance was made explicit, and quietly died when Duchovny left and was replaced by the decidedly less romantic Robert Patrick.
The new Night Stalker has elements in place for its own mutual attraction--Townsend is not completely charming, but he makes a passable leading man, and his fellow crime reporter Perri Reed (played by Gabrielle Union) is very cute despite her tendency to play second fiddle. Frankly, she'd make a better main character. Within the episodes produced, however, the interaction between the two is generally limited to Kolchak producing a wild story supported by an anonymous source, and Reed lecturing him on journalistic ethics. It's possible that there were plans for more personal character exploration later, or that they were worried about being seen as too much Newspaper X-Files, but without that core the show just isn't very compelling.
* Yes, I am going to use one of my song titles for this post. Ego 1, Taste 0!
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television/x_files x link x 0 comments
Lessons from the Bill Clinton Model
Here's an excellent presentation that I just posted to B-SPAN: Steve Rabinowitz, Bill Clinton's former Director of Design and Production, speaks on political messaging and campaigning. He gave this talk to the IFC's Small and Medium Enterprise group, so he starts out with a "translation guide" to Bank jargon, but after that it's a straightforward presentation on getting elected in American politics. There's some really interesting discussion on where to target political ads, where campaigns should spend money, and how to distribute messages--all a bit Machiavellian, but no less fascinating for that.
Standard B-SPAN disclaimer applies: requires Realplayer, sorry about that, if it's a crippling problem let me know but right now I can't do much. I should really just make a disclaimer post that I can link whenever I bring up our webcast offerings.
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/activism x link x 1 comment
Television Week, Part 1: The Precipice
Perhaps the most surprising change of the third season premiere of Battlestar Galactica has been the madness of Col. Tigh. Previously the alcoholic, easily-manipulated Executive Officer on Galactica, Tigh was captured and tortured between the end of last season and the beginning of this. Now he stalks around as head of the insurgency against the Cylons, one eye gone, muttering dark words in support of suicide bombings and other brutal resistance. "Which side are we on?" he asks. "We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm suprised you didn't know that."
Tigh was never a stable or laudable character. Like much of the cast of Galactica he had significant weaknesses. It's a show about putting pressure on its protagonists, and where other shows would use that pressure to make diamonds of their heroes, on Galactica its purpose is expose those flaws and sometimes (particularly in the case of all-too-human Baltar) to crack them open entirely.
We should have known, really. When the second season ended by skipping ahead a year and completely changing the military dynamic of the series, it was a clue that the third season wasn't going to be a rehash of the first two. The cylon Sharon aboard Galactica has become the admiral's confidante, and a member of his crew. Baltar as president achieved power only to become even more a figurehead under the occupation. And Starbuck is now locked into an apartment with Loeben, the Cylon she waterboarded in the first season and who now insists that they were meant by God to be lovers. All of these are basically logical, but they're engineered to shine light on the same people from different angles, so that where we might once have seen something admirable it is now less flattering, or vice versa. Col. Tigh simply best illustrates this to me: formerly almost a running joke for viewers, he now radiates malice. Although he wouldn't have wanted to admit it, terrorist is a role that suits him, just as other Galactica characters have flirted with authoritarianism and genocide.
Waterboarding was a clue that Galactica has always been tinged with politics, but it's undeniable now. The use of "insurgency" and suicide bombers must bring certain conclusions to mind, as the writers must know, and turning them on their head to put the humans in the terrorist position will have conservatives screaming about moral relativism. I am less convinced that this was done out of liberal bias. It's more likely to be provocation, and nowadays that doesn't take much.
For example, one of the cliches of modern action movies is the scene where a hero is given an opportunity to solve his or her problem in a particularly brutal way. Tension is raised--will he really apply the electrodes?--before the protagonist casts aside the grisly instruments of torture and says the immortal words: "No, that would make us just as bad as them." I wonder sometimes if George W. Bush simply never watched any movies after, say, 1962. Perhaps that explains why he is capable of leading a movement to favor torture, rendition, and destruction of civil liberties--actions that imply we are "just as bad as them," and destroy our moral high ground. Only in this political atmosphere could Galactica's muddled moral compass be called liberal.
And it takes a simple mind to view this as "objectively pro-terrorist," or whatever phrases will be bandied about. The show clearly doesn't condone Tigh's suicide bomb tactics, any more than it condoned President Roslin's attempts to steal the election--another politically-charged plotline, especially since Baltar's victory proved so disastrous for the colonists. Galactica's stock in trade, both for plots and for its characters, has always been shades of grey. To reduce it to black and white is to miss the point, and to miss the finest moments that it has to offer. On most shows, when Caprica Sharon becomes Adama's advisor and puts on a fleet uniform, the moment would be treated with more reverence--a convert to the side of Good! But on this show, even those of us who have rooted for Sharon over all of last season find ourselves uneasy about her new loyalties. We know that these characters are more complicated than that, even if we don't know exactly which way their complications will lead.
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television/galactica x link x 1 comment
GDLN World Forum Soundtrack, Take 1
As I said, I had to compose some soundtrack music for the GDLN World Forum this weekend. The only guidance I got was that one of them needed to be a techno remix, and the other needed to be more calm. They also needed a transition between the two. I'm no Fatboy Slim, but I think the results sound pretty good, and it's surprisingly fun doing this kind of grid-based music in Pro Tools.
Everything was created using the XPand! softsynth, including the techno breakbeats--I can't take credit for those, unfortunately, but it's not like most house composers waste a lot of time on their beats, and I was actually trying to get as close to the Amen Break as possible. I'm thinking about adding some audio samples if I have time on Monday. I'd like to get my coworkers to come in, say a few phrases in different languages, and then chop those up on top of the second half.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/recording/production x link x 0 comments
Conversations with Co-workers, Vol. 2
Conversation #1 - Steffen, a project manager, walks by the office door.
Thomas: Hey, Steffen!
Steffen: (stopping to talk) Yes?
Pause.
Thomas: ... This isn't why I stopped you actually, but I just realized that I habitually yell at you while you're in the hallway instead of finding a civilized method for getting your attention. I am so respectful.
Steffen: That's why you're a model employee.
Conversation #2 - The B-SPAN Coordinator, Maria-Martina, drops in to chat.
Maria-Martina: What's the percentage of American pay that goes towards taxes?
Thomas: You mean in general? Depends on income, it's a progressive system.
MM: So about how much?
Thomas: Well, mine would be about 20%, I think, but I have to pay another 5-10% because the Bank doesn't cover my Social Security and Medicare payments.
MM: Wow. I heard that even if you work overseas, you still have to pay taxes.
Thomas: That's right. Don't you?
MM: No. I don't pay anything. And you have to pay extra.
Thomas: Huh.
MM: The World Bank must hate you.
Thomas: You said it, not me.
00:00 x Thomas x /bank/experience/personal x link x 0 comments
I'd like to say that it's fitting that a heathen like me didn't contribute
to the Carnival
Revival of Gamers, but actually I just didn't think I had material
worth submitting this month. Kudos to Corvus for a very clever theme.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/carnival x link x 0 comments
Book Review: Real World Digital Audio, by Peter Kirn
At Create Digital Music, Peter Kirn blogs about all kinds of electronic and computer-based music tools, ranging from newly-announced keyboards to tips on running Ableton Live--generally the bleeding edge of digital sound technology. I like reading CDM not only for the news that applies to my own projects, but also because it's a peek into a musical world where I don't spend much time: that of the visualized DJ/sample-based laptop musician. I've had Peter's book, Real World Digital Music, for a few months now, and I recommend it for much the same reasons. It's a little biased towards that type of modern electronic artist, but it's also a good reference that beginners can use.
The book starts all the way back at the physics of sound, from compression and rarefraction to harmonic overtones. From there it moves quickly through the basics of converting analog to digital, setting up a studio, and preparing a computer for audio production. From that point, Kirn begins to get more specific on different kinds of digital production, such as loop-based arrangement, MIDI, synthesis, and traditional DAWs. These chapters are pretty comprehensive, especially considering the wide field of different software and situations that are involved. I was pleasantly surprised to see an entire chapter on different types of microphones and miking techniques for a variety of instruments, since I think that's one of the more difficult tasks for an amateur musician. Likewise, the guide to different effects is well-written and logically-sorted, with plenty of illustrations.
The last three chapters of the book are more niche-oriented. They cover creating printed scores, scoring video, and performing live. I hesitate to say that these were unnecessary, and they fit with the book's theme of being a broad guide to all things digital. But there are areas that I would have preferred to see more in depth--more detail about EQ for different instruments, for example. Still, I'm nitpicking about areas that other, analog-oriented guides probably have covered. This is a clear, thoughtful text, and it's made more practical by the inclusion of a DVD containing a load of free software, such as a demo of Ableton Live that can be used for many of the book's examples. Most of them are free downloads if readers search them out, but having them collected is very nice.
In the end, I think Real World Digital Audio is a good introduction to computer-based sound production. Although it's aimed at musicians (and perhaps musicians aspiring to a very particular niche of music-making), most of the text doesn't require a theoretical background. In fact, I'm considering using it as a reference when teaching other colleagues at the World Bank Institute, due mainly to the way it covers both the basics and intermediate topics without talking down to the reader. It's a good starter text, even accounting for the chapters most people will never use.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/recording/production x link x 0 comments
I have reached level 60 in Progress Quest. It's been a long slow grind, what with starting the game and then leaving it alone while I work. Sadly, I'll admit that after level 50 or so I started macroing (i.e., I put a shortcut to the game in my startup directory). According to the datestamp on pq.exe, I've been working on this character off and on since the beginning of July.
If I were playing World of Warcraft for 8 hours a day, it would take me slightly more than two months to reach level 60, which is the highest level in the game.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/software/progress_quest x link x 0 comments
Brian "Bumpcity" Timpe, monster bass player and Microsoft codemonkey extraordinaire, took up the challenge of creating a bass out of a 2x4, posting the results to the Lowdown. I especially dig the eyehook stringtrees and the drywall screw side dots. It doesn't sound too bad, either.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/tools/bass x link x 0 comments
How's this for a lead-in paragraph:
In completely unrelated news, Jesus Camp opened at the E Street Cinema in DC this weekend, and has gotten fairly good reviews. It's a documentary examining a fundamentalist training camp where kids are trained to take back America for Christ through a series of disturbingly militant metaphors.
Also completely unrelated: When I was in high school, a Pentecostal fundamentalist actually exorcised me. We were waiting for rehearsal for Godspell, where I was going to play Judas of all people, and the conversation turned to evolution and then to religion. Naive as I was, I couldn't believe that someone actually wouldn't believe evolution, but I was a little more shocked when the girl told me that her faith gave her spiritual powers.
"Powers?" I said. "What kind of powers?" I don't remember if handling snakes was part of her answer, but I remember that there was something about healing, and then she noted that she could "see and cast out demons."
"Demons?" "Yes." "You really believe that?" "Yes."
So I told her to go and knock herself out with the casting, at which point she began speaking in tongues, grabbed me by the forehead, and shoved me back into the wall, then looked very proud of herself. I don't know if you've ever been around people who speak in tongues, but if you're not a part of that culture it's terrifying. It sounds silly, but it's not. Those who believe in these kinds of things are not kidding around. They have an agenda.
Just a few unrelated facts. Nothing to worry about here.
15:27 x Thomas x /politics/issues/constitutional x link x 1 comment
Last seen in Sketchpad #7, I've completed a sufficiently final version of Strange Chemistry, now available over at FourStringRiot.com. It replaces My Foundation until I get that recorded again--the previous version was tracked before I had a half-decent preamp and using Audacity, so the quality was pretty low.
As a test for the virtual recording rig, I'm really happy with Strange Chemistry. I hardly had to touch the levels on the different loops at all, so I could devote more time to making the vocals satisfactory. I recorded the song in a couple of passes in Ableton, tracking the distorted parts on the second pass so that a mistake in the solo wouldn't ruin the whole song. Then I pulled it into Cubase for mastering and fades. My "mastering" process basically just consists of using the MDA Stereo Sim on the final mix--since everything I do is basically mono, I need a little extra separation and MDA Stereo somehow creates the illusion of a big soundfield.
Before I recorded this, I put new strings on the bass, and you can really hear the difference. I love the way the chords ring out--they're very rich and percussive, more like bells than guitar. Whereas the sketchpad version was almost all distortion, I use very little of that channel here. Despite that, I think it's actually more sinister-sounding, especially toward the end when the bass chords begin to slide around each other.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/recording/mp3 x link x 0 comments
