Brandon's Blog
2/15/2006 #
Fall Out Boy
Nobody likes emo. It’s okay to say that; we’ll leave emo to those who have angst, to those who have more teenage girl problems than driving hours behind the wheel.
That being said, Fall Out Boy marks the evolution of emo into something stomachable and quite artistic. What shall we call this? Perhaps I should first outline the structure of what I hope will be a new movement in rock music (perhaps we shall say the rebirth of rock music): driving, forward-leaning beats.
The best way I can describe forward-leaning beats is by contrast. Jazz syncopation (in my verbiage) is backward leaning, think bossa nova. It makes you want to sit down and smoke a stogie. However, we do not deal with simple dichotemy here. Most rock beats are at a 90-degree angle with the beat. This could be thought of as a thump, like dropping a dumbbell. In artistic-energetic rock (the intersection of the two attributes), we see a more evolved beat construction, one that drives the music forward.
I wish I knew exactly what did this. I think it’s about a 64th beat preemption of the beat by the drums and lead guitar. It also heavy 16th note work on snare and symbols.
Many of us refer to this as “workout music” or in my case “debugging music.” Either way, it’s auditory cocaine. It makes you want to move.
3 Doors Down (the non-girlie stuff), Better than Ezra (the non-girlie stuff), and Kanye West (typecasting, as I feel his beats have some degree of rock fusion in them) come to mind. This is important for the future; this is the “swing” of rock. If this takes hold to some extent in a big way, we’re finally looking at our next movement.
I can see headbangers rising up out of the woodwork for this music. I’m not talking about little TRL boppers jumping around. I’m talking about serious musical passion, something that got an escalatingly-bad case of pneumonia during the years following Kurt Kobain’s death.
May 23, 2000, may actually be the date I give for the death of alternative, as this was the day the breakup of the Smashing Pumpkins was announced. I’m no fanboi, so this should give me credibility. I feel like Billy Corgan was prophetic and diagnostic in the announcement. It marked the official announcement of the commercial unviability of traditional alternative.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say Fall Out Boy will be the standard-bearer in a new movement. I think they will be a voice in the wilderness. I think we can take emo and reshape it into something useful, something that isn’t worried about hairstyles. In fact, we might be able to find some parallels between 80’s glam rock and emo.
I need a band to come forward with evolutionary styling and a visionary leader. We need iconoclasts, and we might need a new record label.
I’m talking past my bounds. Time to close it up.
2/13/2006 #
Using SDP to Grab mms:// Protocol Videos
It seems I’ve developed a fairly stable method of capturing music videos to a local file over the mms protocol. First, expand your free software mind with SDP. Once that monster is installed, navigate over to HotGet.com and find your favorite, coveted video.
Right-click, view the source. Run a find for “embed”, then clipboard-ify the src= attribute contents. Make a magic file on your desktop called “foo.html” (I use “go.html” historically). Include within it a single link:
<html> <body> <a href="[paste here]">Go [now you see why]</a> </body> </html>
Then, open up that file in a browser and right-click Save As… the link to the desktop. You should get a dovid.php from that download. Open that up in Notepad, and copy the link out of the REF HREF area. Paste that URL back into go.html file, open it up, and download the file. You should get a medialog.asp file off the download.
This file is the “bingo” of the project. The medialog.asp contains a URL that SDP can process. Put it into SDP and let it parse the asx. You will get a valid video download.
\/\/00+
2/13/2006 #
I <3 RMA
RMA, oh RMA
You are so much my friend
I get free stuff
Shipped to me
RMA I love you.
RMA without return
RMA without cause
RMA without reason
RMA I love you.
RMA when it’s my fault
For flashing bunk firmware
Onto a perfect device.
RMA when I’m an idiot
But the company is dumber
RMA I love you.
RMA when I flash firmware
Over a wireless link
RMA when I pull the power
Long before I should
RMA I love you.
Yes, oh, yes
RMA I love you.
2/10/2006 #
Whoa
Qt4.1/Windows OpenSource rocks.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
2/9/2006 #
U2 Sucks
Razza frazza stupid.
2/9/2006 #
Sigma
I’m feeling Sigma dying. I think that I have it all basically figured out, so it doesn’t do much for me as a hobby project anymore. This is a weakness with me and computer science… when it’s comp sci for comp sci’s sake.
On the other hand, I have lots of other stuff brewing, including a Qt-based Quicken replacement that may end up with my grandmother, and the server project always goes forward.
I may pick up Sigma again; it’s good code, and a good idea. I just don’t see much of a future in it, and I see a whole heck of a lot of work.
I need something useful to do, and servers are too repetitive and not project-focused enough (i.e., it won’t be used anytime soon). And, I’ve kind of done it, although there is some PHP work I haven’t even touched. But that doesn’t matter.
So, I guess its my Kwicken (ha ha, I would never actually do that… or would I?) project.
2/9/2006 #
Don't mean to sound strange, but...
I’m going to put on my Oliver Stone hat and propose that Project Runway is totally rigged at this point. Heidi Klum’s voice was quite obviously overdubbed during the judgment section, and Santino basically survived the competition with liquified feces while eliminating someone who created an entire suit from scratch.
Yes, the suit sucked. But, a sweatsuit? Ill-fitting? Missing a sleeve seam? They also totally singled out Daniel when he did fine, just to generate drama during his immunity round, as he’s the obvious favorite to win. I was hoping they would get rid of one of the helpless candidates, like Kara, but whatever.
Well, I just now see John Legend wins best artist at the Grammy’s; that seems good. Fall Out Boy would have made a good #2. If Ciara had won I would not be alive to write this currently.
I love how they played an Emerson, Lake, & Palmer sample in honor of the late Moog. Not many in my generation probably got all that, but it was pretty sweet. Especially that specific part of “Lucky Man.”
1/26/2006 #
Poisoned Tree
Okay, so my thought is that anything going unencrypted across “public” wires (i.e., 99% of Internet and phone traffic) is basically analogous to speaking at a conversational volume in a subway, elevator, or street corner. You aren’t broadcasting, but you aren’t whispering either.
So, I think we can keep an eye on that. But, maybe the privacy compromise is to essentially give it “poisoned tree” status, meaning that this evidence will not hold water when it comes to putting someone in jail. It would not permit probable cause, or any other legal power. It simply allows the government to listen to public information and try to find probable cause through a more upfront means.
Anyway… off to make the bed and study.
1/22/2006 #
Hmm...
Well, Champions of Norrath is awesome. What an improved, console look at what Neverwinter could have been if it wasn’t so boring (still good, though). Kristin’s a great tank. She’s also a disturbingly good cornerback and receiver “X” in Madden 2004. Love those post routes.
I just took the political orientation test at politicalcompass.org, and somewhat expectedly I came up as a medium libertarian and an extremely weakly right-oriented economist.
The libertarian thing is really coming to the forefront for me during my college years (but not really as a result of them). My core (somewhat flippant) philosophy is that—day-to-day—God is a libertarian (or close enough). He doesn’t intervene or impose our behaviors on us, but He does hold an opinion about which way is the best. He gave us authority, and we yield it back to Him with faith. But, that’s our choice and our gift in return to Him.
I wish that the current administration could communicate to me (a disgruntled supporter) what these monitoring and restrictive measures are doing. Because, if I heard those reasons, I might just be able to say I wish the leniency granted to the Executive could be made narrower rather than removed altogether.
Frankly, the Patriot Act gives far too many abilities to the government for the Executive to find it necessary to push the limits. As far as I’m concerned, the limits are already being pushed to an unmaintainable (in the long-run) limit.
It’s easy to say these things while overlooking the fact that enemies are currently attempting to revoke our ability to allow a “live and let live” philosophy domestically. I know we need monitoring, law enforcement, military.
I think that, as spoiled black-box technological citizens, we underestimate the government-funded miracle of public fiber and copper that let us check up on the news in 0.05 seconds every morning over the computer, and we really think that our use of those public lines (truly no more public than yelling something on a street corner in Manhattan) is not open and monitorable. Surprise, surprise.
We grumpy Libertarians must realize that a few packets of 128-bit SSL would even make the NSA sweat a bit to crack in large volume. We need to use this stuff to protect ourselves if deemed necessary. And, frankly, I don’t buy the philosophy when people seem to claim “civil liberties” are necessary to permit people to break the law (read: illegal use or purchase of drugs, etc.) with impunity. Simply put: the laws should be rewritten to be correct, fair, and enforceable so that no ethical citizen need hide anything. If marijuana needs to be legal (I don’t agree, but if), then make it legal; don’t simply bolster some flawed concept of civil liberties to allow it to continue.
I was really glad to see I didn’t test far-right (nowhere near GWB, by the way). It kind of puts my current thoughts and frustrations on a scale and makes them more orderly for me to process. The conservative aspects of my look on things survive, but the Republican thing is fading fast.
1/22/2006 #
A Watch Out for the Future Alert
The future is Dojo.
Well, maybe not, but it rocks.
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