Two weeks ago (April 30th) marked the 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. This was a war fought between communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam with the United States being the main supporter of the south.
The war is well known to have had a huge death toll: between 3-4 million Vietnamese, 1.5-2 million Laotians and Cambodians, 58 159 U.S. soldiers.
Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
-Marshall McLuhan, 1975
There have been countless movies on the subject, including such well known films as: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, The Deer Hunter, and Full Metal Jacket to name a few.
I hope you enjoy (in the least insulting way) this photo-collage I’ve made.
Right Where It Belongs - Nine Inch Nails [With Teeth] - 2005
See the animal in his cage that you built, Are you sure what side you’re on? Better not look him too closely in the eye, Are you sure what side of the glass you are on? See the safety of the life you have built Everything where it belongs Feel the hollowness inside of your heart And it’s all, right where it belongs
What if everything around you, Isn’t quite as it seems? What if all the world you think you know, Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, Is that all you want to be? What if you could look right through the cracks, Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?
What if all the worlds inside of your head, Just creations of your own? Your devils and your Gods, all the living and the dead And you’re really all alone? You could live in this illusion You can choose to believe You keep looking but you can’t find the woods While you’re hiding in the trees
What if everything around you, Isn’t quite as it seems? What if all the world you used to know, Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, Is that all you want to be? What if you could look right through the cracks, Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?
Here is one from the genius that is Trent Reznor. For those that don’t really know about Trent and NIN, you should take a look because he and his band are quite a unique occurrence. Trent is the only member of the band. He writes and generally records all the parts of NIN recordings. When he goes on tour he does being a band with him.
He is quite an outspoken critic of the music industry which tends to get him into hot water. But over the past twenty years he has fought and won his freedom to be an artist totally independent from a record label. In fact, his latest record was given away freely on his website without any promotion.
This song, taken from his 2005 release With Teeth, came out while Trent was recovering from alcoholism and substance abuse. It always makes an interesting story to tell! I love the lo-fi ambience in this album, but especially in this song.
Turn the lights down and the volume up. Yes, it’s one of those songs.
If the TMI [too much information] posts and status updates on Facebook and Twitter have taught us anything, it’s that users apparently have little sense of boundaries in sharing personal or sensitive information with the anonymous masses.
He goes on to talk about how fb likes to introduce new interfaces and features, which lately were ‘opt-in’-by-default, without warning.
With this business model, Facebook gets the same net result—half a billion users freely sharing personal and sensitive information with the entire world via Facebook and its third-party partners—but without the legal or regulatory scrutiny.
I don’t even care anymore. People are stupid and I am crazy.
Ever wonder what it would be like to play through Super Mario Bros. as Bill from Contra!? Or maybe Link, Samus or Mega Man? Well now you can with Super Mario Crossover, a flash game developed by explodingRabbit. The game comes complete with all the music from whatever game your chosen character is form, which is a very nice touch indeed.
Simply put, our customers do not want a world in which it is easy for developers to write apps that run on many platforms. They just don’t. They want this to be hard for developers. I don’t know why — you’ll have to ask the customers. We’re just listening, and doing what they want.
Hubble is now 20 years old. It is expected to be in continued use until 2014 when it will be replaced with James Webb Space Telescope. Over its lifetime Hubble has captured some of our most beautiful views of our galaxy and beyond. It has helped solve as many mysteries/theories about our universe as it has created new ones! One of it’s main missions was to help accurately measure the Hubble constant (the rate that the universe is expanding, which also helps in determining its age).
Google Earth has the nifty feature of flipping your view of the world to the stars where you can learn a thing or two about constellations, as well as looking at many well known (and not so well known) images taken by the space telescope. This video is a nice overview of many beautiful images taken with this amazing instrument.
Although astronomy plays a much smaller role in navigation and surveying than it used to, it is still taught to geomatics students of survey technology. For example, with observations to a few stars from a thodolite, and a few other pieces of information (Lat/Long and/or time depending on what you’re solving for), you can determin a very accurate true north azimuth, or you relatively accurate location on the earth (if you happened to not know where you were while having a theodolite handy :P).
For example Willem Barentsz, a Dutch explorer and cartographer of the late 1500s, famous for searching for the northeast passage north of Siberia, used astronomic observations many times to help his navigation. It sounds like a cold trip, I wouldn’t doubt if he wished on a few of those stars while he was at it!
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you combined social networking, photography and beards together, look no further than Whiskerino.
We are alienated from our own facial hair.Society tells us that full beards are unacceptable. Businessmen, politicians, bankers, and the like are all clean shaven; all demonstrating the standards that middle class society expects us to maintain.
The website is an awesome source of inspiration for those of us who love a good beard, but have a hard time staying motivated in letting it grow out to it’s full potential. As all children and parents know, a solid beard is a fundamental part of being a great and well respected father! All that is required in a great beard is belief that it is great… and maybe some good strong genes. Whiskerino’s rules are simple:
Shave completely clean, post images regularly, interact, participate in themes, be nice. Grow a massive beard.
If you think you can handle it, take a look yonder and behold the power of facial hair!
Guess what I found and subsequently purchased today? Yes, a Radiohead album on vinyl. In Rainbows in fact. I don’t really splurge on vinyl music often but I don’t have any Radiohead yet and I like their latest work, so why not?
This happens to be one of those records that can be easily compared with its digital counterpart for the slight mixing changes that happen in vinyl world. The upper end of the frequency range is a lot smoother and less aggressive in analogue land. The lows also sound a lot more round. I guess you’d be best to listen, and compare if you wish, to a high quality vinyl rip of the album which I’m including in this post! Enjoy :D
Here is the music first of all: MP3 version [73 MB], and for those who want the utmost in lossless quality, here is a 24-bit lossless [too many MB] :P. I recommend the lossless even though it’s huge. It will play in iTunes. Yes it is normal for it to be a little quieter than your other MP3s. Increased dynamic range is one of the measureable differences of vinyl. (Lossless coming in a bit, just uploading)
Some key tracks that I’ve noticed:
15 Step - Drums sound more natural in the intro.
Nude - Drums also sound more natural throughout, but more noticeably in the last minute
Rockoner - Tambourine sounds nice in the intro. Stereo separation sounds different throughout
Jigsaw - Guitar sounds awesome! Snare drum also sounds great.
Tell me what you think once you’ve given it a few listens! :D
![Guess what I found and subsequently purchased today? Yes, a Radiohead album on vinyl. In Rainbows in fact. I don’t really splurge on vinyl music often but I don’t have any Radiohead yet and I like their latest work, so why not?
This happens to be one of those records that can be easily compared with its digital counterpart for the slight mixing changes that happen in vinyl world. The upper end of the frequency range is a lot smoother and less aggressive in analogue land. The lows also sound a lot more round. I guess you’d be best to listen, and compare if you wish, to a high quality vinyl rip of the album which I’m including in this post! Enjoy :D
Here is the music first of all: MP3 version [73 MB], and for those who want the utmost in lossless quality, here is a 24-bit lossless [too many MB] :P. I recommend the lossless even though it’s huge. It will play in iTunes. Yes it is normal for it to be a little quieter than your other MP3s. Increased dynamic range is one of the measureable differences of vinyl. (Lossless coming in a bit, just uploading)
Some key tracks that I’ve noticed:
15 Step - Drums sound more natural in the intro.
Nude - Drums also sound more natural throughout, but more noticeably in the last minute
Rockoner - Tambourine sounds nice in the intro. Stereo separation sounds different throughout
Jigsaw - Guitar sounds awesome! Snare drum also sounds great.
Tell me what you think once you’ve given it a few listens! :D](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l1iwkmaVJn1qzar68o1_500.jpg)
