And the Beat Goes On...and On....and On...and On....and On...
In what has to be the most ridiculous waste of time ever, avante garde composter...ahem, I mean composer John Cage's 639-year-long musical composition was begun on a German church organ Wednesday. Yes, you heard that right. The piece lasts 639 years. Currently, the first three notes of the late author's piece, called As Slow As Possible are being played and will go on for a year and a half.
I have to confess here, I don't know much about John Cage's music, other than the fact that his estate/record company sued a guy awhile back for stealing his brilliant idea for an album track of just minutes of silence, entitled 4'33", which he released in 1952. Look, I dig the whole "avant garde" thing and maybe this is just some sort of Warhol-ish prank Cage played on the world. If so, hats off to the guy, it's gotta be the greatest practical joke in history, 'cause hundreds of years after the guy's dead some moron's liable to be sitting in a church in Germany waiting for the last note of this song to finish so he can clap and stomp his feet and that's pretty funny, but It's hard for me to believe that even he could have taken this seriously enough to expect someone would ever play the thing in it's entirety. There's a huge difference, to me, at least, between something being art and being novel and I think this is merely a cute idea taken to ridiculous extreme and I have to question the sanity of the folks behind this.
Have to admit, though, I'm curious as to whether the whole song will ever be played out, a lot can happen in 639 years.
Friday, February 07, 2003
Paint it Black
Scientists have created the "blackest" black ever, by dipping a shiny surface momentarily in nitric acid. They plan to use this super-black surface, which reflects 10 to 20 times less light than the black paint currently used to reduce unwanted reflections in telescopes, to improve the way we see the universe and allow intruments here on earth, as well as the Hubble, to see farther and better.
Scientists have created the "blackest" black ever, by dipping a shiny surface momentarily in nitric acid. They plan to use this super-black surface, which reflects 10 to 20 times less light than the black paint currently used to reduce unwanted reflections in telescopes, to improve the way we see the universe and allow intruments here on earth, as well as the Hubble, to see farther and better.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
One Word
This site simply presents you with one word, each day, and asks you to write about said word for sixty seconds, after which, you can see what kind of things others were inspired to say and the results can be interesting.
This site simply presents you with one word, each day, and asks you to write about said word for sixty seconds, after which, you can see what kind of things others were inspired to say and the results can be interesting.
The Days of Wine and Spandex
Denim and Leather celebrates the era of the eighties hair band, when bands like Accept and Motley Crue threatened a worldwide shortage of hairspray and studded belts were a staple fashion accessory. There's an extensive list of the players of the era, along with games, a thesaurous and numerous links to the subject.
Jeff, Phil...I don't know if you guys ever read this thing or not, but this one's for you, you headbanging freaks.
Neurotic Poets
A site that takes a look into the minds of several poets, such as Edgar Allen Poe (above), whose briliant legacies seem to point out a link between their artistic genius and their troubled mental states and asks the question of whether the two might be linked. Along with Poe, tragic luminaries of prose such as Dickenson, Plath and Shelley are profiled and I noticed, in a blurb at the bottom of the homepage, there's a profile of Jim Morrison in the works, as well, which is only fitting. I think The Lizard King would have fit right in at a cocktail party with this crew.
A Journey Into the Mind of a Parrot
I don't know what to make of this site, really...it's about the late budgie parrot, Victor, whose owner claims that not only could his bird talk, but that he understood language and could carry on conversations with a human-like grasp of the ideas conveyed by speech. He's compiled tons of sound files and research data about the bird and seems absolutely serious about it. I'm not sure if the guy's parrot was a genius or if it's some elaborate hoax but it was an interesting site, nonetheless and you can make your own conclusions.
I don't know what to make of this site, really...it's about the late budgie parrot, Victor, whose owner claims that not only could his bird talk, but that he understood language and could carry on conversations with a human-like grasp of the ideas conveyed by speech. He's compiled tons of sound files and research data about the bird and seems absolutely serious about it. I'm not sure if the guy's parrot was a genius or if it's some elaborate hoax but it was an interesting site, nonetheless and you can make your own conclusions.
Do We Really Need This Stuff?
The Museum of Weird Consumer Culture, a tribute to the most perplexing, unnecessary and downright idiot consumer items around, such as the dog diapers pictured above. I don't know, though...I really think the solar-powered milk frother sounds like something everyone should have. I don't know how I've managed to live without it this long, frankly.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Public Domain Photos
A rather large collection of public domain photographs as well as other resources for raw image material for projects you may have in mind. Mostly gathered from N.A.S.A., the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other govt. sources, these images are available for fair-use application with some restrictions applying.
The main site, Grokking the Gimp, is full-to-bursting with tutorials and info on the freeware graphics application, which many prefer or put on par with Adobe's Photoshop product. I must admit I've never used the Gimp but I hear it's a great program.
In Memory of the Columbia
With the loss of the Columbia shuttle and it's crew today, I felt it would be a slight to them not to say something here. It's hard to think of anything to do but express my utmost sympathy for their families and my absolute respect for the people who were onboard.
While watching the reports on the news yesterday morning, I was reminded of something Tom Wolfe said, regarding the Apollo program, in his book, The Right Stuff:
What is it that makes a man willing to sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle, such as a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, and wait for someone to light the fuse?
There are people out there, unbelievably, who actually tried to profit off this tragedy. I was amazed to read that within hours, perhaps minutes after this catastrophe, auctions for bogus "debris" from the craft were on Ebay.
There are those who'd rejoice in it, as well. Many Iraqi's reportedly have, calling it "God's vengeance" for encroaching on their land.
I can't begin to describe how these reports sickened me. As far as vultures of the Ebay auctions are concerned, there's probably nothing anyone could say to show them how misguided and base their actions are, I imagine their hearts are so jaded that nothing could elicit pangs of concience from them.
To the people of Iraq, though, I would ask that they to take no joy in this event, as it was not a tragedy to be mourned by only Americans, but by everyone. The seven astronauts on board, I believe, weren't in space for the benefit of one nation or for Western culture's advancement, but for all of humankind. I truly believe that although they were patriots, one and all, their grandest goals in life weren't merely the advancement of the United States of America, but the the advancement of the entire world and it's people.
Russell 'Rusty' Schweikart, upon returning from his mission on Apollo 9, remarked:
"As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports."
Reading that, it makes you think that if everyone could see the Earth from that viewpoint, it might go a long way towards achieving some sort of brotherhood among all the world's people. Even if we had the resources to achieve such a thing, though, it would still be impossible, perhaps, as not everyone has the courage of the seven people that died yesterday, nor the vision to look beyond their earth's war-torn borders towards a better world for us all.
Their bravery and their willingness to sacrifice their lives in the name of furthering the scope of man's knowledge should be commended and their heroism remembered always.
Man must rise above the Earth - to the top of the atmosphere and beyond - for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
- Socrates
With the loss of the Columbia shuttle and it's crew today, I felt it would be a slight to them not to say something here. It's hard to think of anything to do but express my utmost sympathy for their families and my absolute respect for the people who were onboard.
While watching the reports on the news yesterday morning, I was reminded of something Tom Wolfe said, regarding the Apollo program, in his book, The Right Stuff:
What is it that makes a man willing to sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle, such as a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, and wait for someone to light the fuse?
There are people out there, unbelievably, who actually tried to profit off this tragedy. I was amazed to read that within hours, perhaps minutes after this catastrophe, auctions for bogus "debris" from the craft were on Ebay.
There are those who'd rejoice in it, as well. Many Iraqi's reportedly have, calling it "God's vengeance" for encroaching on their land.
I can't begin to describe how these reports sickened me. As far as vultures of the Ebay auctions are concerned, there's probably nothing anyone could say to show them how misguided and base their actions are, I imagine their hearts are so jaded that nothing could elicit pangs of concience from them.
To the people of Iraq, though, I would ask that they to take no joy in this event, as it was not a tragedy to be mourned by only Americans, but by everyone. The seven astronauts on board, I believe, weren't in space for the benefit of one nation or for Western culture's advancement, but for all of humankind. I truly believe that although they were patriots, one and all, their grandest goals in life weren't merely the advancement of the United States of America, but the the advancement of the entire world and it's people.
Russell 'Rusty' Schweikart, upon returning from his mission on Apollo 9, remarked:
"As you pass from sunlight into darkness and back again every hour and a half, you become startlingly aware how artificial are thousands of boundaries we've created to separate and define. And for the first time in your life you feel in your gut the precious unity of the Earth and all the living things it supports."
Reading that, it makes you think that if everyone could see the Earth from that viewpoint, it might go a long way towards achieving some sort of brotherhood among all the world's people. Even if we had the resources to achieve such a thing, though, it would still be impossible, perhaps, as not everyone has the courage of the seven people that died yesterday, nor the vision to look beyond their earth's war-torn borders towards a better world for us all.
Their bravery and their willingness to sacrifice their lives in the name of furthering the scope of man's knowledge should be commended and their heroism remembered always.
Man must rise above the Earth - to the top of the atmosphere and beyond - for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
- Socrates
Barry's Blog
This is old news by now, I realize, but Dave Barry has a blog. I know a lot of folks dig his humor, so if you happen to be one of them and weren't aware of this fact, you might want to swing by and check it out.
This is old news by now, I realize, but Dave Barry has a blog. I know a lot of folks dig his humor, so if you happen to be one of them and weren't aware of this fact, you might want to swing by and check it out.
Consoles that Sucked
A look at game consoles that didn't make it. Either their price tags were outrageous, their concepts were flawed or they just never really had a good reason to exist in the first place.
Saturday, February 01, 2003
When You Just Can't Handle the Thrill-a-Minute Action of Solitaire
For the terminally bored or enthusiasts of the popular time-killer, Jigzone has lots of online jigsaw puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty for you to while away the hours with.
A Letter from the Editor
Re: The proposed "new look" of The Ends of the Earth, mentioned in a previous post.
Well, I really did intend to put up a new template, in fact, I worked on the thing, off and on for probably six or seven hours over the past few days. However, when it came time to put it into action, I looked at it, looked at the template I have now and just really liked this one better, so why fix what ain't broke, huh? I'm sure at some point I will be changing the look of my page, but until I come up with something that's markedly better, I'm just going to hang with the current look and perhaps give it a few tweaks here and there. In better news, I've fixed the archives, so there's no longer a Santa Claus on the older pages, nor that gimmicky snow-flake effect, which I only meant to leave up here for a week or so, back during the holidays. Also, having gotten all that crap out of the way, as well as some pressing personal problems I won't go into here, I'm now free to return you to you regularly-scheduled diet of neato links and semi-lucid rants. That is all, thank you for reading.
Re: The proposed "new look" of The Ends of the Earth, mentioned in a previous post.
Well, I really did intend to put up a new template, in fact, I worked on the thing, off and on for probably six or seven hours over the past few days. However, when it came time to put it into action, I looked at it, looked at the template I have now and just really liked this one better, so why fix what ain't broke, huh? I'm sure at some point I will be changing the look of my page, but until I come up with something that's markedly better, I'm just going to hang with the current look and perhaps give it a few tweaks here and there. In better news, I've fixed the archives, so there's no longer a Santa Claus on the older pages, nor that gimmicky snow-flake effect, which I only meant to leave up here for a week or so, back during the holidays. Also, having gotten all that crap out of the way, as well as some pressing personal problems I won't go into here, I'm now free to return you to you regularly-scheduled diet of neato links and semi-lucid rants. That is all, thank you for reading.
Beware of Xupiter, the Browser Tool from Hell
Some evil programmers whose website resides on Hungary have created a particularly nasty little download that installs itself without your permission and hijacks your browser, periodically changing your start page to the Xupiter.com homepage. Surfers who've been unfortunate enough to have downloaded Xupiter say it's incredibly hard to get rid of. Though it does have an "uninstall" program, it either doesn't work or makes things even worse. If you happen to find yourself at it's mercy, you may have to resort to using something like Spybot Search and Destroy or, for more advanced users, editing your registry.
Having personally dealt with a couple similiar programs that took over my browser settings, I can assure you that nothing will make you madder than connecting to the net and finding that not only has your start page changed (which would be aggravating enough in and of itself) but you can't change it back, no matter how hard you try.
I had one awhile back - EzyCyberSearch - if I recall correctly, that was nearly as frustrating as this and my friend, Phillip, is currently dealing with another, which offers no uninstall or information on it's homepage and even changes your address bar search settings so your browser is directed to their own, utterly useless search. A search for, say, National Geographic won't turn up their website in the results, only links to speciously-related items you can buy on various e-stores. This is the internet at it's worst. I say track these scum down and hang them alongside the spammers, the bot-makers and all the rest of the slimy, sneaky opportunists on the internet and let's be quick about it, okay?
Some evil programmers whose website resides on Hungary have created a particularly nasty little download that installs itself without your permission and hijacks your browser, periodically changing your start page to the Xupiter.com homepage. Surfers who've been unfortunate enough to have downloaded Xupiter say it's incredibly hard to get rid of. Though it does have an "uninstall" program, it either doesn't work or makes things even worse. If you happen to find yourself at it's mercy, you may have to resort to using something like Spybot Search and Destroy or, for more advanced users, editing your registry.
Having personally dealt with a couple similiar programs that took over my browser settings, I can assure you that nothing will make you madder than connecting to the net and finding that not only has your start page changed (which would be aggravating enough in and of itself) but you can't change it back, no matter how hard you try.
I had one awhile back - EzyCyberSearch - if I recall correctly, that was nearly as frustrating as this and my friend, Phillip, is currently dealing with another, which offers no uninstall or information on it's homepage and even changes your address bar search settings so your browser is directed to their own, utterly useless search. A search for, say, National Geographic won't turn up their website in the results, only links to speciously-related items you can buy on various e-stores. This is the internet at it's worst. I say track these scum down and hang them alongside the spammers, the bot-makers and all the rest of the slimy, sneaky opportunists on the internet and let's be quick about it, okay?
Acno's Energizer
A neat little Flash game of the cutesy-character-who-has-to-solve-puzzles-to-get-to-the-next-level variety.
Monday, January 20, 2003
Update Regarding My Lack of Updates:
Okay, here's the thing, I hate having this screwed up travesty of a webpage on here, all scrambled up like it was put in a blender, so there's a whole new look on the way, may keep it awhile, may change it back to something resembling this, not sure yet. At any rate, I have some things I need to burn to disk so I can just reformat this stupid computer of mine first, it's in as big a mess as this page, currently and it's time to get my ducks in a row. Meanwhile, visit the archives and poke around there, sure you can find something entertaining, or just go visit some of my links, lot of good things there to keep you busy. Give me a few days and I should have the new, possibly improved Ends finished. Thanks again for stopping by.
Okay, here's the thing, I hate having this screwed up travesty of a webpage on here, all scrambled up like it was put in a blender, so there's a whole new look on the way, may keep it awhile, may change it back to something resembling this, not sure yet. At any rate, I have some things I need to burn to disk so I can just reformat this stupid computer of mine first, it's in as big a mess as this page, currently and it's time to get my ducks in a row. Meanwhile, visit the archives and poke around there, sure you can find something entertaining, or just go visit some of my links, lot of good things there to keep you busy. Give me a few days and I should have the new, possibly improved Ends finished. Thanks again for stopping by.
Friday, January 17, 2003
Welcome to the (HTML) Jungle
Well, as many of you have probably noticed, my site's all weirded out. I'm not exactly sure what I've done to wreak such havoc on my page, but I'll try and get things sorted out soon. I may well just end up starting over and redesigning the whole thing or at least try and put things together like they were, I sort of let things get out of hand here and it's hard to tell what's giving me the problems, thus far. I know it looks like a real mess here, though and I'm not the only one seeing it that way, so I guess it's time to roll up my sleeves, get under the hood and get dirty. Thank you for your patience.
Well, as many of you have probably noticed, my site's all weirded out. I'm not exactly sure what I've done to wreak such havoc on my page, but I'll try and get things sorted out soon. I may well just end up starting over and redesigning the whole thing or at least try and put things together like they were, I sort of let things get out of hand here and it's hard to tell what's giving me the problems, thus far. I know it looks like a real mess here, though and I'm not the only one seeing it that way, so I guess it's time to roll up my sleeves, get under the hood and get dirty. Thank you for your patience.
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Celebrities Eating!
A site devoted to one thing and one thing only: pictures of celebrities eating. I haven't seen all the celebs included yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the gallery of munching superstars, like J-LO (above, enjoying what appears to be a tasty burger), is woefully lacking in snapshots of Calista Flockheart or Kate Moss.
Holy Cow, Dig What's in Store for Playstation 3!
The next incarnation of the popular gaming console, slated for 2005, will supposedly incorporate new chip technology nicknamed "The Cell", a supercomputer-on-a-chip that IBM and other companies shelling out 400 million dollar's worth of money to the project predict will be able to perform a whopping one trillion+ calculations in a second, making it roughly 100 times as powerful as a 2.5 Ghz Pentium 4 CPU.
Kind of makes you wonder what Tekken 5 or 6 or whatever will be like, huh? Actually, if the thing's going to be that powerful, maybe they should roll out a few games with a different slant: Cure Cancer Extreme 2005, EA DNA Splicer, Quantum Mechanics Man, etc. Just so long as you can play Pac-man on it, though, I'll be happy.
The next incarnation of the popular gaming console, slated for 2005, will supposedly incorporate new chip technology nicknamed "The Cell", a supercomputer-on-a-chip that IBM and other companies shelling out 400 million dollar's worth of money to the project predict will be able to perform a whopping one trillion+ calculations in a second, making it roughly 100 times as powerful as a 2.5 Ghz Pentium 4 CPU.
Kind of makes you wonder what Tekken 5 or 6 or whatever will be like, huh? Actually, if the thing's going to be that powerful, maybe they should roll out a few games with a different slant: Cure Cancer Extreme 2005, EA DNA Splicer, Quantum Mechanics Man, etc. Just so long as you can play Pac-man on it, though, I'll be happy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)