SPAM on the rise…
Researchers and IT managers are confirming security vendors’ claims that spam levels have spiked in the past month – some say by as much as 80 % — and show no signs of decreasing. “There are enormous amounts of spam; it’s shot up like crazy since the beginning of October,†says John Levine, president of…
Malachi Ritscher’s suicide
On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity has still not been officially determined, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community say they are certain it was Malachi…
Tideland
If you’re not angry, they say, you’re not paying attention. Mad hatter Terry Gilliam has been accused of a lot of things–directorial self-indulgence (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), professional self-sabotage (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), creative accounting (Brazil). But one could never blame the Monty Python alum and native Minnesotan for failing to reckon…
Is it true???
It’s not exactly official just yet, but the latest word from “people familiar with the companies” being printed up by The Wall Street Journal is sensational enough to run even if we overheard a couple of bums whispering about it on the street. Apparently Microsoft has reached an agreement with Novell, wherein Microsoft will provide…
Tesla Motors
[thanks to Dr. Rick for this] When you build a car that’s electric, you start with one built-in advantage: Electric cars just don’t have to be as complex mechanically as the car you’re probably driving now. Sophisticated electronics and software take the place of the pounds and pounds of machinery required to introduce a spark…
ZipCodeStats.com
Another nifty example of how Google APIs can be implemented to make more cool web apps. Still, like i didn’t know the Midwest was so white? duh. = c
Ladies and Lords, we present Black Blondie
This morning where i work a very cool thing happened. instead of the usual mid-week ughs around eightish Black Blondie set up and played one of their earliest-in-the-morning gigs ever and ever so slowly, hypnotically melted and rendered the sleek yet somewhat stiff corporate environs into one that had me thinking of how subtle the…
Kansas gives birth to METEORITE!!!
Oct. 17, 2006  Scientists were excited when they pulled a 154-pound meteorite from deep below a Kansas wheat field, but what got them most electrified was the way they unearthed it. The team Monday uncovered the find 4 feet under a meteorite-strewn field using new ground-penetrating radar technology that someday might be used on…
[Van] Damme Yankees and their tactics!!!
Pretend Jean-Claude is wondering: “is this really the future of advertising? is this how Tom Sawyer got his pals to paint the fence for him? how long will it hold out? how long will it be before people are like — hey, wait a minute…i just spent three hours making an ad for Mentos and…
Down with motivational sloganry
How would you like an antidote for the motivational poster in your office? How do you like the one I made above? You can do it too! Make your own here: http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php = c
Bass Fiddle!
welp, i finally received my new upright a couple of weeks ago and it is everything a fella could ever want, if you’re into it that is. for those of you who care, you can check out some nice pics of thee ole boy here. next week, i begin studying under Liz Draper, who is…
DOURIC BARTSCHMANN: East and West in Mini
This week is another dream-week of music here in Minitropolis and at first glance [below] they look so much alike you’d think it’s two pictures of the same dude [with full beard, stocking cap, light facial hair, beret, respectively]. welp, it is indeed two distinct pictures of two distinctively talented artists who [while they share…
Modern Times
What better way to follow up David and Sarah’s wedding than with a review of Dylan’s new album? If Bob Dylan’s 31 studio albums have taught us anything, it’s not to take his words at face value. The title of album No. 32, Modern Times, is a typically mischievous Dylanism. For one thing, it’s a…
Some they just can’t contain
Our dear pal, Buddy Wakefield, started something while we were living in Seattle. Indeed, he was the first person i ever knew who went earnestly into the void, chasing a dream. When i knew him then, he’d recently recorded his first album “A Stretch of Presence“, won the Seattle Slam and went on to become…
Jack’s new Stripes shine
Jack White does not have to play at being a rockstar. He was built to be the juggernaut that he is who shakes and wakes the spirit right up in the crowd while the sonic wail shakes the plaque off their teeth. White is forbiddingly private when it comes to his personal life, and is…
Happy Chief debuts “Gold Plated”
Lo-fi and amateurish, this is the speck Happy Chief will make on the skillet of rock and roll’s breakfast. Ingredients: yours truly, upright and fretless electric basses, wineglass, guiro, four-string slide guitar, steel drum, drumkit, piano, harmonica, shaker and dog barks. All made on a four-track cassette recorder and no computers [if you know what…
Lewis and Clarke couldn’t have dreamed
Pavion’s KCN 9000 handheld looks more like a PMP than a GPS unit, which is no doubt exactly what Pavion wants you to think, touting the device’s audio and video capabilities as much as it’s navigation functions. Alongside a SiRF Star III GPS module, the Windows CE-based device packs a 300 MHz Atlas 2 processor,…
Open Letter to Creators of Publicly Published Playlists
Taken from DaveTheGrinch.net… We (me), the undersigned, respectfully request that the technology enabled, power granted 15 minute fame seekers please stop clogging up the internet with their badly conceived and predictably executed user created playlists. Just because technologies such as Rhapsody allow you to create and publish your own playlist of tracks doesn’t mean you…