If you have a Hostmonster account, chances are more than not you’ve run into the less-than-friendly account suspension / CPU Quota Overload gray screen of death. Figuring out the process for un-suspending it isn’t readily available on the Hostmonster knowledge base and Googling for it isn’t much help either. Don’t even bother sending in a support ticket, since it’ll take about three days to hear back from a person. Here’s the auto response you get if you do send a CPU support request through email or through the online chat window, and then some additional steps you can try that have worked for me. {READ MORE}
On the heels of the announcement that Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 is scheduled to drop in November of this year comes a few interesting revelations regarding their production methods and raises some questions about the “ethics” of production.
Kanye West’s new single “Stronger” features a sample from “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” slowed down and rearranged as suitable backing material, a fact that’s easily recognized by anyone who’s familar with DP’s work. But in a strange, meta-twist, it turns out that KW is sampling a sample, and even self-referentially referring to the sample-sampling in his own lyrics: {READ MORE}
Those of us who combine geekery with personal style usually have a running list of people we admire, even if it’s not on a conscious level. In your opinion, who are the “role models” for Geek Chic? If there was a top ten list for geeky cool celebrities, who would be on it?
Tux, the chubby, cuddly penguin mascot of Linux is now as open source as the software package it represents–how appropriate!
If you would like a plush Tux, head over to The Free Penguin Project and download their latest “development release” of open source sewing patterns. The blog attached shows a few of the penguins made from the patterns, a few of them differently-colored. I think this would make a pretty cool Etsy project, seeing how many variations and interpretations you could get from one pattern.
No fabric on hand? You can still get a 3D Tux in paper form by downloading and printing out the Paper Tux Model made by Pricoinsa.
Here’s some great gifty stuff for geek girls, chem-bots, and engineers that features earrings like floppy disks, cell phones, and microscopes. It’s a side project of the tech jewelry line, Zelle (mine): Gnerdy Jewelry.
I used Drupal to build the site, with a long list of modules like CCK, Contemplate, Captcha, and TinyMCE. The design elements may remind you of this very blog (shapes created from electronic schematic symbols.) Digg and share!
Lumen is a new Chicago club that’s got an LA-from-the-future vibe, with lots of blonde wood, stainless steel white walls, plenty of couches and tables, music that’s not tinnitus-inducing, and sound-reactive LED-encrusted ceilings.
Come check out audio from Kate Simko and Quantazelle (Liz Revision) at the Lumen + Snow Queen Vodka Industry Night on Tuesday the 25th of September.
9pm – 2am
Lumen
839 W. Fulton Market St, Chicago IL
Half price Snow Queen Vodka bottles and cocktails all night http://www.lumen-chicago.com
A friend of mine sent me a link to the WIRED-sponsored video of this adorable, Peeps®-like dancing robot that’s miles above and beyond that swaying guitar-playing flower you got as a birthday gift in the late 1990s. Needless to say, I was both instantly charmed and impressed with Keepon’s moves and spot-on sense of rhythm, and wondered a bit about the mechanics of its internal workings.Thankfully Create Digital Music has spared me the hours of Googling and served up photos of his interior as well as demystified his creator’s choice of software-hardware interaction: Max/ MSP. Cycling74′s paramount platform has not only been used to program the mind-warpingly complex beats of IDM, it allows for physical interaction, making not only Keepon possible, but projects as diverse as the Musical Soccer Ball and music responsive lightshows enabled by Jitter.PS: The track is “Don’t You Evah” by Spoon. ;-)
Many Boards of Canada fanboys and fangirls were disappointed with the Scottish band’s latest albums, finding them insubstantial frottages of their profound, emotionally resonant, layered-synth-heavy earlier work. Tycho‘s stellar show at Sonotheque in March proved that the legacy of early Boards can live on in the hands of contemporary artists without being flatly derivative, and this September 11th our guest of honor, Miles Tilmann, will take the reins and lead us all on a consummate sonic journey of his own design.
“Miles’ music is powered by a blend of deep atmospherics and heavy sequencing, balanced with live keyboards, field recordings and a broad assortment of rhythm,” the Consumer’s Label tells us. So while he’s got a solid grasp on powerfully emotional ambient soundscapes, the kid has beat skills and is not afraid to use them. But rave-kick-tendencies aside, he’s not an easy one to figure out. Much in the same way as Boards of Canada encodes symbolism and esoteric references into their music, Miles often encodes a loftier goal beneath the surface of what you hear. In an interview with Modsquare.com, Miles spoke of his album Over and Through as a sonic metaphor of the fetus’ experience during the late stages of pregnancy and subsequent birth. Wow. Be prepared to be completely overwhelmed by Miles’ latest compositions—in a good way. {READ MORE}
