MD love

By anders pearson 22 Nov 2002

last time i went down to DC, my diskman broke and i had to spend four hours on a greyhound with no music. that was a nightmare that i don’t want to repeat anytime soon. so i started thinking about a replacement.

i quickly decided that i would finally make the move to minidisc and ordered a <a href=”http://www.minidisco.com/minispecs/sonymzn707-hd.html”>sony MZ-N707</a>, which arrived in the mail today.

so far i’m pretty impressed with it. minidisc’s are just so sexy that it’s a real shame the technology never escaped its niche market. 1/4 the size of CDs, more rugged (you can toss a disk in your pocket without worrying about it scratching), rewritable, and you can use different quality encodings to record either 80 minutes of CD quality audio, 160 minutes of audio roughly equivalent to 168kb mp3s, or 320 minutes of lower quality on a single disk.

the question i keep getting asked is why i didn’t get an mp3 player like an iPod instead. there are a few reasons: 1) the ability to record from a microphone was a big selling point on minidiscs for me. 2) i haven’t found any really compelling mp3 players yet. the iPod is getting there but not quite (not to mention that i’d have to get a new computer to use an iPod since my current machine doesn’t have firewire support and i don’t have any more free PCI slots so i couldn’t add it). 3) i really like removable media. 4) iPods are still really expensive. 5) did i mention that minidiscs are <em>sexy</em>?

anyway, so far i’m pretty happy with the 707. it got some pretty good reviews and i can see why. the only thing i’ve encountered so far that i don’t like is that the display isn’t backlit. luckily you really only need that when you’re recording or titling tracks; everything else you can pretty much do by feel. the remote that comes with it is particularly well layed out and easy to operate by feel.

sony’s been pushing this <a href=”http://www.minidisco.com/minipages/netmdinfo.html”>NetMD</a>

technology. it basically gives you the ability to download audio to a MD player directly over USB very quickly (16-32x) rather than the usual realtime dubbing over an optical cable. unfortunately, sony’s been very closed about the whole thing and you can only use one or two proprietary applications to do it (sony’s openMG, and a few others) which reportedly are a pain to use and only run on windows. luckily some linux folk are busy <a href=”http://opennmd.monochromatic.net/“>reverse engineering it</a>. so far they just have some of the editting functions like track titling and reordering working and not downloading. but i’m hopeful that they’ll get that figured out someday. in the meantime i’ll just have to keep using the optical link.

live capsule markets

By anders pearson 21 Nov 2002

lani flew up to new york last night and then flew back to DC early this morning.

why would she do something like that?

to catch one of the <a href=”http://www.madcapsulemarkets.com/“>Mad Capsule Markets</a>’ four US shows of course.

the MCM’s are a japanese band who describe their sound as ‘digi-punk hardcore’. imagine something between fear factory and atari teenage riot with some surf and hip hop influences thrown in for good measure. then wrap that all up with super hi tech japanese video game aesthetics.

anyway, <a href=”http://www.giantrobot.com/“>giant robot</a> sponsored them on a limited tour of the US. by limited i mean 2 shows on the east coast and 2 shows on the west coast.

we caught the one at <a href=”http://www.northsix.com/“>north 6</a> out in williamsburg. lani was excited because the bar there had <abbrev title=”Pabst Blue Ribbon”>PBR</a> in cans. the crowd was pretty small but fairly lively for a new york crowd. the small size of the crowd was a little disappointing when you consider how good the music is but isn’t really surprising since they haven’t exactly gotten much airplay in the states.

the opening band, ‘the screw’ was strange and not really what you’d expect to see opening for the MCM’s. they were wearing weird homemade alien costumes. when they started their set, they warned the crowd “we just got out of art school and are very pretentious”. their music sounded like some kind of bizarre cross between the muppets and souxsie and the banshees. but they were funny so it was tolerable.

the Mad Capsule Markets were fantastic. very energetic and aggressive live. the sound was pretty good too. loud enough for a heavy band but not so loud that it gets distorted. about the only complaint that i could make would be that they pretty much just played their album OSC-DIS straight through. they only had two or three new (or maybe old. i’ve only heard OSC-DIS) songs.

the vocalist doesn’t speak much english so he had all his stage banter written down ahead of time on a piece of paper in his pocket. so between songs, he’d stop pull out the paper concentrate real hard and read off something like “yeah. how yall doing? yeah. it’s great to be here. yeah. you guys have been great. yeah. next we’re going to play a chillout song. yeah. a chillout song.”. it was hilarious. the bassist had a shirt that just said ‘METAL’ across the front. i need to get one of those.

wipeout

By anders pearson 17 Nov 2002

prasanth is doing his rotations for med school this year. that basically means that every month and a half, he gets sent to a different hospital/clinic to get some first hand experience with a different branch of medicine. for the next month and a half, he’s at a clinic way out in Queens doing pediatric medicine. luckily, unlike residency, which he’ll have to do next year, rotations generally are pretty low stress and leave you with free time after your shifts. so he’s got his weekends free.

this weekend, he came over to my place and brought his ps2, which we then hooked up to the projector. we bought some beer, gathered up the delivery menus and proceeded to spend the entire weekend playing Wipeout Fusion.

i’m not much of a video game player. when i was a kid, my parents wouldn’t buy me a nintendo so i never developed that innate hand/eye coordination thing that other kids my age with consoles did. that meant that whenever i did go over to a friend’s house to play video games, i was at a serious disadvantage and would get my butt squarely kicked. since video games are much less fun when you consistenly lose, i basically have never gotten very excited about them since.

every once in a while though, i find them quite therapeutic and a nice little mental vacation. when i was doing my engineering coursework at columbia, i’d occasionally make it back up to maine for breaks. since i still had most of my friends at bates, i’d often find myself crashing at jP’s apartment with nothing to do while people were in class. jP plays video games like he breathes, so there were always plenty around his place. a few days spent plopped down on the floor of jP’s apartment with a 40 playing hour after hour of drunken Wipeout XL or Unreal Tournament and my mind was a blank slate, ready to return to the grueling engineering classes.

i still don’t plan on ever actually buying any kind of gaming system, because it would probably destroy me, but every once in a while it’s good fun.

aphasia

By anders pearson 11 Nov 2002

i went to a lecture tonight by <a href=”http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/faculty/kelley/“>Darcy Kelley</a> on Neuroscience (part of a <a href=”http://www.millertheatre.com/series/ideas.html”>lecture series</a> that <a href=”http://www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/“>we</a> are involved with).

anyway, i learned that <a href=”markov.pl”>markov</a> is a remarkably realistic simulation of a person with <a href=”http://www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/1318.html”>Wernicke’s Aphasia</a>. neat.

praise the lords

By anders pearson 07 Nov 2002

well, what else could i do after a long day of webdesign conferencing than to go to a <a href=”http://www.lordsofacid.com/“>lords of acid</a> concert.

honestly, i can’t say i’ve really listened to them since high school, but prasanth is a big fan. so he and a couple of other old friends from mssm all came into town for the show (Jeremy, Pete, and Scott (although Scott actually lives in nyc now)).

if you’ve heard the lords of acid before, you know that their music wouldn’t exactly be described as ‘intellectual’. but they put on an entertaining show. they had pretty much everything you’d expect: leather, latex, bullwhips, blow-up dolls (and sheep), barely dressed dancing girls, and occasional outright nudity. an all around good time.

the opening act, DJ Redboy or something sucked. first of all, it was really bad house music. i’m not really a fan of even good house. and then they pretty much didn’t do anything. there was a mixing deck and turntables on stage and they were kind of hunched over them, bobbing their heads, but that was about it. we’d gotten there really late so luckily we only had to endure about 15 minutes of them. that was still way too much.

the Lords put on a pretty good show despite a small and not very excited crowd.

met the makers

By anders pearson 07 Nov 2002

yesterday, <a href=”http://www.columbia.edu/~zm4/“>zarina</a> and i went to the <a href=”http://www.meet-the-makers.com/“>meet the makers</a> conference.

since we got in for free, i’d say it was definitely worth the price of admission. i wouldn’t really have paid much for it otherwise.

most of the conference was product demos by various software companies like netomat, IBM, adobe, atomz, and macromedia. they all left me less than excited.

the panel discussions were ok though. they interviewed one of the developers who works on <a href=”http://www.zagat.com/“>Zagat.com</a>. he was pretty boring, but he was immediately followed by Joshua Davis from <a href=”http://www.praystation.com/“>praystation</a>. for the last few years, he’s been working mostly in flash and so i haven’t really been following his work very closely (since macromedia hasn’t released a flash 6 plugin for linux yet, praystation is just a big gray box in my browser) but i remember being blown away by his webdesign back in the day. Joshua is a former pro skateboarder, is covered in tattoos and loves to swear (afterwards i overheard him asking a friend “so, do you think i said ‘fuck’ enough times?”), so it was fun to watch him being interviewed by a guy in a suit.

the real highlight though was a panel discussion on web standards with <a href=”http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/“>eric meyer</a> from netscape and <a href=”http://www.zeldman.com/“>jeffrey zeldman</a> of the <a href=”http://www.webstandards.org/“>WaSP</a>.

there was pretty decent free food too. i felt a little bad though because, being the first day of ramadan, zarina was fasting and couldn’t enjoy any of it.

didn’t really do too much actual meeting of makers unfortunately. i did meet <a href=”http://www.pixelcharmer.com/“>tanya rabourn</a>, who is very cool. but she works for Columbia (in a different department) and knew zarina already, so i don’t know if that really counts.

caputo returns

By anders pearson 04 Nov 2002

keith caputo left <a href=”http://www.lifeofagony.com/“>life of agony</a> a few years ago. they’re apparently getting back together with the original line-up for two shows in january. the first one that they started selling tickets for sold out in 20 minutes. they’re selling tickets to the second show starting on sunday at 1pm. must remember to get mine before they sell out.

high school music history

By anders pearson 02 Nov 2002

AC/DC - back in black

when i was in junior high, AC/DC was the beginning and the end of music as far as i was concerned. at one point, i had every single one of their albums. my friend russ was similarly obsessed and we would hang out and listen to AC/DC together.

Black Sabbath - We sold our soul for rock n roll

when i was finally starting to branch out from AC/DC, Sabbath was just a natural progression.

Motörhead - 1916

Lemmy is god. this isn't motörhead's best album but it was the first that i'd heard.

Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction

my older sister and her friends were incredibly influential during my junior high and early high school years. for quite a while, i would use my little dual cassette deck to copy every tape that her friends lent her. i think someone lent her a video tape of an episode of Headbangers Ball with the video for Skin of my Teeth.

Faith No More - the Real Thing

when my sister got her drivers license, we used to ride around blasting this album.

Pantera - Vulgar display of power

i met my friend cj in art class. during one of our first conversations, he asked if i liked pantera. "pantera? who's that?" Vulgar remains one of the all-time heaviest albums ever. pure, distilled aggression.

Sepultura - Chaos AD

i think cj showed me this album and i was mostly attracted by the spikey, 'S' logo. the music turned out to be good too.

Morbid Angel - Covenant

cj kept going on and on about how great morbid angel was. when i first heard it, i didn't know what to think. they were the first band i'd ever heard who used totally distorted, growling vocals. while any metal band worth listening to has some kind of satanic overtones (or at least is accused of it by the right wing), morbid angel went all the way. they had songs about feeding christians to lions and sacrificing virgins and pentagrams all over their albums. how could i resist? Ministry - a mind is a terrible thing to taste

someone left this tape in my sister's car. i found it on the floor or in the glove box or something and started listening to it.

NIN - broken

i was discussing ministry with one of my sisters' friends and they said something to the effect of "i don't know... they sound too much like NIN for me..." by that time i was obsessively listening to ministry so i immediately went out and picked up a copy of broken.

Tool - Opiate

i'd bought Tool's album Intolerance after seeing the video for Sober. but it was Opiate that really grabbed me. i actually wore my way through the tape.

Godflesh - selfless

by this time i'd started playing guitar and was reading various guitar magazines all the time. one of them had a small article on godflesh basically saying that they were the musical equivalent of the apocalypse. so when i saw Selfless in a used bin, i decided to give it a try.

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses

during high school, i used to drink a lot of mountain dew. this would keep me awake late at night. i spent most of that time just lying in bed listening to the radio. i first heard the song 'Christian Woman' at about 3 am and didn't catch the name of the band. i spent the next week staying up all night hoping for them to play the song again so i could find out who it was by.

Carcass - Heartwork

the greatest blend of aggression and melody i've ever heard.

Fugazi - Repeater

Fugazi was the first concert i ever went to.

White Zombie - La Sexorcisto

for some reason it took me a while to get into this album.

Pink Floyd - The Wall

dark. creepy. complex. i have a theory that the first time anyone seriously listens to this album it changes them forever.

Fear Factory - Demanufacture

i have vivid memories of listening to demanufacture in cj's car riding around maine in january at night with no heater. the combination of ice cold temperatures, headlights piercing the darkness, and fear factory somehow seemed just right.

Life of Agony - River Runs Red

venice gave me this CD. at the time she'd decided that she didn't like keith's voice. years later i reintroduced her to LOA and she repented.

Wammo - Fat Headed Stranger

when my sister was a dj for the USM radio station, she rescued this disk from the throwaway bin on a hunch. "There is too much light in this bar" is sheer brilliance. i think i have yet to meet a single person who has even heard of wammo.

blasphemy

By anders pearson 31 Oct 2002

gerard recently bought a bunch of catholic vestments on ebay, which he wore to work today as a halloween costume.

so i grabbed my devil mask (yes, i just happen to have a devil mask laying around in my apartment. doesn’t everyone?) and put on a tie (it just seems natural to me that the devil would wear a tie).

we got some good pictures of the two of us together (i’ll be sure to get them and post them later).

all in all, we’re both going straight to hell.

phoenix

By anders pearson 31 Oct 2002

i must say that i’m impressed with <a href=”http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/“>phoenix</a>.

it’s a new lightweight browser built on top of the <a href=”http://www.mozilla.org/“>mozilla</a> platform but intended just as a simple web-browser. so no email client, javascript debugger, DOM inspector, or html editor.

the 0.4 release includes every mozilla feature that i’ve become reliant on like popup blocking, good cookie handling, tabbed browsing and type ahead find. and it’s so fast. on my machine it feels even faster than <a href=”http://galeon.sourceforge.net/“>galeon</a>, which is surprising since phoenix uses XUL for its interface rather than native GTK like galeon. XUL is basically just dhtml on steroids and was intended to be easy and flexible, but hasn’t previously been thought of as terribly efficient. that may all have to change.

phoenix development has reportedly slowed down after the 0.4 release. but that doesn’t seem like much of a problem when you consider that a very small team of netscape engineers went from <em>absolutely nothing</em> to IMO, the best web browser out there in just a couple weeks (the 0.1 release was september 23rd). that is unreal. there aren’t really any missing features. future development is apparently aimed at making it <em>even smaller and faster</em> and polishing the code up.

this really speaks volumes about the potential of mozilla and XUL as a cross-platform application development platform that’s just starting to be realized since mozilla stabilized after 1.0. i’ve been reading <a href=”http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mozilla/index.html”>Creating Applications with Mozilla</a> recently and i’m becoming more and more convinced that mozilla is nothing less than revolutionary. the skillset needed to develop reasonably sophisticated applications in mozilla isn’t much beyond what any skilled web designer who’s dabbled in javascript already has. mozilla isn’t competing with internet explorer anymore, it’s competing with Visual Basic as a rapid, easy development platform and it has the significant edge of being naturally cross-platform.

things are starting to get really interesting.