Rock Star alter egos are growing in numbers "You're forming a fake band -- that's what you do," says Sadri, calling the game "the best part of karaoke, adding in a drummer and guitars."
The Magpie Developer Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer.
Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry. (Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that.
To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.
Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood.
making vodka pills in 24 hours Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms.
Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.
Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz.
It has been awhile since I posted about some new tunes, so here is a few CDs I am looking forward too and also a few that I have been listening too this past few weeks. First some albums coming up that I am really excited about:
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Already preordered this baby. I am extremely excited about this album by The Raconteurs Jack White [White Stripes], Brendon Benson , Jack Lawrence [Greenhorns] and Patrick Keeler [Greenhorns]. I have heard about 5 tracks off of it and I have enjoyed every single one of them. In the player are 2 BBC sessions and a song Blue Veins that Fred posted on his site earlier this week, also you can get 'Steady as She Goes' as a single on iTunes. I think Blue Veins and Store Bought Bones have to be my favs so far. I usually won't tell people to preorder an album if I have not heard all of it, but this one might just be too good to pass up.
Jars of Clay - Good Monsters
We went and saw Jars of Clay last weekend, and they played 3 songs from the forth coming new album (Sept?) called Good Monsters. There was one song (didn't get the name sorry) that I swore I was watching CSNY perform, the band sang almost the entire song in perfect harmony, and I really think it will be as big of a radio single as they have ever had. They also played the title song from the CD and I enjoyed it immensely also. The songs sound a little more alt-country than previous CDs (I have to admit though, I have only heard 3 albums of their massive catalog).
Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
I really enjoyed Riot Act immensely when it came out, although I liked Binaural, No Code, and Yield, they just didn't appeal to me as much as my favorite PJ album Vitology. I have not heard a single thing off this album, but I have heard comparisons to Vitology, so I am hoping for the best. You really can't go wrong with a Pearl Jam album though.
Also included on the player that I have been listning to this week a bunch:
Heavy Mojo - Polly : Awesome Cover of Nirvana's Polly. I saw these guys 3 weekends ago at Tabernacle, awesome live show. It Is What It Is (at Amz).
Eagles of Death Metal - Poor Doggie : I love this band, I loved Peace, Love and Deathmetal and the new album Death by Sexy is just as good. This is one of my favorite tracks off it. Whole CD is awesome. Wish these guys would come to Atlanta. Pick Death By Sexy Up here.
Willie Nelson / Merle Haggard - Pancho and Lefty : I have been on a big Willie Nelson kick here lately, and had forgotten about this Duet till I bought the CD off iTunes. certainly this is the highlight of the album, but the whole album is great. The Cover always freaked me out a little bit in that Uncanny Valley/Bad Photoshop way, but the music is awesome. Pick Up Pancho & Lefty.
Lewis Taylor - Stoned Pt. 1 : One of my favorite artists is Maxwell, and although this isn't Maxwell it does sound like the smooth sound of him. Again, I wouldn't post it unless the whole CD was good. Stoned.
David Gray - Nos De Cariad : Me and the wife were in the car the other day and had the ipod on shuffle and this came on. I listened to the CD a decent amount, the first single off the cd was very John Mellancamp (not a bad thing) but this song really struck a cord with me. It is dark, but great. Life In Slow Motion Here.
Also included is the Raconteurs's Blue Veins mentioned earlier, and 2 BBC session that were posted over on avc. Great stuff.
Brainstorm it:
I'm so stoked about the Racconteurs CD . The only song I've heard has already made an excessive number of rounds on my iPod.
Travis - The Boy With No Name Travis is back. I wouldn't say I hated 12 memories, it was meant to be very political, I just thought it went a little overboard and was somewhat preachy. Then when the greatest hits CD came out to be honest I was really hoping it didn't mean the end to one of my favorite brit bands. Boy With No Name is everything they were capable of. Supurb CD all the way through. Every song is brilliant. Big Chair is probably my favorite song and the opening to the CD on 3 Times is as good as it gets in music imho.
Pop! Why Bubbles are Great For The Economys (Gross) One of the better economic books I have read in while, where the author gets their premise across in a well written, clear and concise manner. Basically Gross believes that the infrastructure left over after economic bubbles, provides companies with the ability to move forward (maybe more than the original bubble did). Not a hard read, I would definitely suggest it for a day and the beach/lake.
Feist - The Reminder I CANNOT GET "I feel it all" OUT OF MY HEAD. Period. Great album, angelic voice.
Catan - Xbox Live Arcade I am hopelessly addicted to this board-turned-video game on the xbox360. I had never played the board game but had seen it being played in some comic shops growing up. Click the Pick and play the demo, it isn't the 360 interface, but same game.
Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worse Nightmare No Sophomore slump here. Just as good (if not better) than Whatever they Say.
Beautiful Evidence (Tufte) Tufte reads like a text book, most people would say bleh, but the information about "information" that he can deliver is top notch. My first Tufte book was "A Visual Display To Quantitative Information" and it was extremely well done, albeit confusing at time. I think beautiful Evidence is a little easier of a read (I am still only half way through it) and a little easier for myself to understand the ideas he is presenting..
Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather Fountains of Wayne are the Gods of pop music. If Welcome Interstate Managers was a collection of short stories in song form, then Traffic and Weather is an even better collection with more humor. I already feel like CNN has the hottest female anchors, imagining them throwing their lust around like the Title track to the CD makes it even better.
Game of Thrones (Martin) I started this book assuming it was going to be a high fantasy novel. Elfs, Dragons, Magic and the like. It isn't. It IS fantasy but more surrounding the politics and cunning of a few high ranking families. Incest, Murder, Intrigue, unscrupulous midgets. It has it all and more.
