...as in, it's worse than AOL.
Had heard about "the poke" but couldn't believe it. (Obviously we aren't Facebook users here.)
Update: The Tomorrow Museum blog went offline -- the above article is in the internet archive.
February 2010
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (with Electro)
A tune of mine ("Yog 2012") is used in a YouTube-documented sculpture work by Aron Namenwirth, titled I Can Hear You. An abandoned speaker is filled with soil, which is used to grow an oak tree seedling. The music emanates from the "tweeter" while the tree occupies the slot for the former "woofer."
Namenwirth is using cast-off furniture and other artifacts as soil cases for growing trees--in this case with a literal audio component. Back in the '70s there was much discussion and media buzz about talking to plants and playing music for them. That's somewhere in the cultural background of this electro-eco-botanical artwork. I like the lumpenfuturistic element--it works as an abject counterpoint to all the buff new media pieces that try to incorporate growing things, while still being straightforward in its urban environmentalism (Namenwirth plans to eventually plant the trees and let the casings rot in the ground).
"Fusion Disassembly"
"Fusion Disassembly" [mp3 removed]
Tunes were added to "Audrey (Royal Beats 2)." Much time spent EQing and compressing and rearranging to get this--it's about 10 tracks total, including three drum tracks, three basses, and two e-pianos.
Had in mind a kind of deliberately robotic, or MIDI-oid, fusion jazz, a collection of parts that come together as counterpoint elements as the song progresses. (But still feels "perky" and moves along, and with a fuller sound than old school "homepage MIDI.") So the tunes are kind of placeholders, that I start liking more towards the end of the song. (And it's only two minutes.) No idea if any of this communicates in the finished piece, or why anyone would especially want to do this.
Your daily scare brought to you by someone who can help
Newspapers are more and more becoming simple distributors of corporate press releases. For example, this New York Times story by John Markoff about a new, malicious botnet that is sweeping through many companies' computers. Alarm bells should always ring when reading stories about cyber-attacks, since they are so often sourced to "security consultants" who can help you solve the problem (for a fee).
The Markoff story originates with one such consulting service, which "discovered" the botnet and wants us to know they are on top of the situation. While the article may have a grain of truth and will be "prescient" if said viral cootie becomes a larger threat and eventual household word, how credible is it that no other cyber "experts" besides this one company are quoted?
Markoff makes it look to the hurried morning skimmer that he's sourced the story more widely by obtaining quotes from two people, in addition to what he recycled from the press release. But they both work for the company that "discovered" the botnet! The last sentence admits the Wall Street Journal got the jump on the Times, by previously running a story on the alleged botnet prior to the security consultant's press release. (Which means the consultant gave the Journal an "exclusive.")
The Journal story is here, and not much more credible. The companies supposedly compromised by the botnet are barely talking. A consultant asked to give a second opinion doesn't actually speak to the first consultant's data but makes a vague statement like "these darn worms can really be a problem." It's clear that both the Times and Journal took this story seriously because the CEO of the consultant who made the announcement used to work for a major government agency (hint--the one that brought us color coded terror alerts).
Amingo
From wikipedia: "he is on a search for a wind that is sweeping across his land and destroying any plant [life]... He can reshape his entire body into several forms for some of his attacks using a plant theme, and plant smaller, child like versions of himself. He is one of the few characters in the game also to feature a healing assist." (emphasis added)
