The Danks

Really enjoying music by The Danks, streaming for your listening pleasure by the good people at Killbeatmusic.com.


Samples EP

Who’s Afraid of the Danks? LP

The Deep Dark Woods

Now that fall is closing in on us, you should listen to The Deep Dark Woods’ latest “Winter Hours”, which can be streamed at killbeatmusic here.

Hat Tip: Larson Hicks

After Their Own Kind

Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence. . . . Oddly, their only response to several samples of human music was a calming response to the heavy-metal band Metallica.

from “Monkeys get a groove on, but only to monkey music”, PhysOrg.com
Hat Tip: First Thoughts

Playlist for the Morning

Enjoy

The Political Dr. Seuss

Because of the fame of his children’s books (and because we often misunderstand these books) and because his political cartoons have remained largely unknown, we do not think of Dr. Seuss as a political cartoonist. But for two years, 1941-1943, he was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM (1940-1948), and for that journal he drew over 400 editorial cartoons.

- Richard H. Minear

Lasagna v. Won Ton Soup: The Bushy Inauguration Speech

The Daily Show has presented a detailed, in-depth analysis of President Obama’s inauguration speech. Click here for change.

“Howard Stern Tests your Voting Prowess”, or “Obama/Palin ‘08!”, or “I’m Sure Glad our Soldiers are Dying to make the World Safe for Democracy

A prophet, one of your own, once said that “the world is full of stupid people”. In America, we let them vote.

Some enterprising researcher went into Harlem to ask folks who they were planning to vote for (Obama, obvs.), and then decided to run a little experiment to find out why they were planning on voting for that particular candidate. The Howard Stern Show (did you know he was still around?) has done its civic duty in providing an audio sampling of the results of this experiment. Here it is, and God Save the Queen:

Sal_in_Harlem.mp3

HT: N.Northup

Anymore, Bill Clinton gives me Warm Fuzzies

Forget Obama’s workout schedule, or Palin’s sexy-librarian chic: These things shall pass. What always remains a constant, like the tides or a good friend, is Bill Clinton’s ability to amaze. He really is the only politician who warrants keeping the tape rolling 24/7.

This from Politico:

Bill Clinton: Will respect Jewish holidays, then ‘hustle up … cracker vote’ in Florida
- by Ben Smith

In an interview with CNN’s Larry King airing tonight, Bill Clinton offered a slightly unusual reason for postponing his campaigning for Obama: The Jewish high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which he’s not known to observe.

“When [the Clinton Global Initiative] is over, and after the Jewish holidays, which follow close on it, I intend to go to Florida, to Ohio, to northeast Pennsylvania, and to Nevada at a minimum,” he said. “I may do events in Arkansas depending on what the Democratic Party does down there. And I’ve agreed to do some fundraising for them in California and New York.”

“Are you kind of feeling Jewish that you’re waiting until after the Jewish holidays?” King asked, according to a CNN transcript.

“No. But I think it would be — if we’re trying to win in Florida, it may be that,” Clinton began, before discussing his real Florida target: “You know, they think that because of who I am and where my politic[al] base has traditionally been, they may want me to go sort of hustle up what Lawton Chiles used to call the ‘cracker vote’ there.”

“But Senator Obama also has a big stake in doing well in the Jewish community in Florida, where Hillary did very well and where I did very well. And I just think respecting the holidays is a good thing to do,” he said.

Honestly, whatever they pay Larry King, double it. Money well spent.

New Cold War Kids LP

The new Cold War Kids album “Loyalty to Loyalty” will be released September 23rd.
You can listen to clips from the album, and the entire first single on their myspace.

For Nathan: Tom Waits Live in Atlanta

The good folks at NPR have graciously offered a pod-cast of Tom Waits’ complete 2 1/2 hour Glitter and Doom tour finale.

Set List:

“Lucinda / Ain’t Going Down to the Well”
“Down in the Hole”
“Falling Down”
“Chocolate Jesus”
“All the World Is Green”
“Cemetery Polka”
“Cause of It All”
“Till the Money Runs Out”
“Such a Scream”
“November”
“Hold On”
“Black Market Baby”
“9th and Hennepin”
“Lie to Me”
“Lucky Day”
“On the Nickel”
“Lost in the Harbor”
“Innocent When You Dream”
“Hoist That Rag”
“Make It Rain”
“Dirt in the Ground”
“Get Behind the Mule”
“Hang Down Your Head”
“Jesus Gonna Be Here”
“Singapore”

ENCORE
“Eyeball Kid”
“Anywhere I Lay My Head”

Grab a fifth and your favorite fedora, sit back, and stream the concert here.

Vicarious: Torture and Entertainment

A while back, Christopher Hitchens talked some former green-beret types into “waterboarding” him, and he wrote an article about the experience and some of the other research he did on the subject for his Vanity Fair column, which you may read here.

In case you are not entirely clear on what “waterboarding” actually is, below is part of Hitch’s description of his (relatively tame) experience:

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

Hitchens, while undeniably entertaining and intelligent, often comes across as annoyingly arrogant and condescending. Not so in this article. It is the fairest and most sober article of his that I have ever read. I suppose being subjected to such ignominious treatment would have an effect on a fellow.

In other torture news, motherjones.com has compiled a list of music used in American military prisons for hands-free torture (as well as to drown out unpleasant noises) based on a leaked interrogation log and interviews with soldiers and detainees.

Check it out here.

Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” is, apparently, the most popular song. And of course Hetfield and Co. are honored to be contributing to the war on, um, terror.

We are living in the Last Days

High-heeled CROCS.
Somebody call Tehran and tell them to get busy with those nukes.

In Which Bill Gates Hates Microsoft Products as Much as You Do

The following is an internal email from Bill Gates to various minions about his experience attempting to download Moviemaker from the Microsoft Website in 2003, as published by seattlepi.com.

—- Original Message —-

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

HT: NMT