or to the challenge of arrival or to the challenge of our rivals. Whatever. Bryan at 2:20 am: “2006 is my bitch, yall!!” Happy New Year from Rocky Balboa and the Garden State Chorale, Inc. And from all your best friends at The Great Whatsit.
Archive for the ‘Technology’ category
Another break in the schedule: More short reviews
Because we gotta keep it real, keep it fresh, 100 words or fewer, yo, not counting shorties w/ one or two letters: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach (Norton, 2006) Children who have uncanny memories of “past lives.” Ectoplasm photographed spewing out of a psychic’s nose. “Spirit voices” caught on tape at the […]
And it’s only a dollar
I love records. Of course, I love music in all formats. I’ll occasionally listen on my computer, but I don’t download much, mainly because I like to have a physical object to accompany the sound. CDs are great, due to their size, sound quality, extra tracks, etc., but I truly love records. The physical experience […]
Life and death in the long tail of music
One of my favorite pastimes is shopping for and collecting vinyl records. Old recordings, new recordings, hard-to-find recordings, you name it. If it’s an album that I like, or has a song that I like a lot, I need it on vinyl. It’s an odd obsession, perhaps. Odd because it is neither logical nor practical […]
The distance between numbers and sensation: Arraigning the heat index
You all know how miserably hot it’s been across America this last week. 100 degree temperatures everywhere. It’s been incapacitatingly hot. As I write, it’s 10pm and it’s still 93 degrees outside. I can hardly think. I’m currently sitting in nothing but my skivvies, chugging iced drinks, and stretched as close to the too-far-away window […]
Is technology killing privacy?
As you read this, armies of skilled professionals are rummaging through various digital dossiers they have collected on you. They’ve acquired an impressive array of data points, and they are trying out different algorithms to characterize and predict your behavior. These people don’t work for some shadowy government agency, although some of them do wear […]
