daveholmes.suprglu.com

Muxtape Motivational Poster
DISS001

Modification of webpage for Muxtape.com relating to the notice of shutdown that appeared on August 18th, 2008. 

Promiscuous Songs - American writer Jonathan Lethem, best known for his novels, short stories, and essays, freely gives his collection of song lyrics and lyrical fragments to songwriters, musicians, and bands for use in new creations. Selected sound files of completed songs are available for listening via the site with attribution to the writers and performers.

This is part of the The Promiscuous Materials Project where Jonathan also offers stories for filmmakers or dramatists to adapt, priced at a dollar apiece. The works are available non-exclusively, so other people can use the same material, for short films (30 mins) or one-act plays (45 mins) only. For the stories some rights are restricted and the materials may not be republished in text form on websites or books etc.

Released under a CC NonCommercial Sampling Plus 1.0 license

You can find high quality resolutions and formats at bigbrotherstate.com

Excerpts from openwaterproject.org

The OpenWater project was a group project for an Instructional Technology
class at Utah State University.

About 75% of the material used in OpenWater is remixed or used from other
sources licensed under public domain or creative commons. The remaining 25% is
original footage that was shot by the OpenWater team.

The soundtrack is supplied by Magnatune artists and the video is licensed under Creative Commons.

Alternative Freedom is a documentary about the invisible war on culture, featuring insights and ideas from Lawrence Lessig, Richard Stallman, Danger Mouse, Bunnie, Jason Shultz, Doseone.

Here's the trailer:



You can buy the ALTERNATIVE FREEDOM DVD/SOUNDTRACK COMBO (2 DISCS) for $12 knowing that $1 of your purchase goes to EFF, a donor-funded nonprofit organization that depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights.



The Alternative Freedom soundtrack features over 52 minutes of full length songs from:

diabetic elf
foureveryoung
high karate
ithacamoon
loch lomond
ritchie young

TagCrowd is a web-application that allows you to enter any text and generate a tag cloud to visualize word frequency. These visualizations can be revelatory due to spontaneous perceptions triggered by displayed patterns in the tag cloud, such as word proximity and weight. Interesting and meaningful connections between keywords emerge including meme-like phrases, concepts and new sentence fragments.

Below we see the contrast in vocabulary between the lyrics of the John Lennon song "Imagine" and politically loaded phrases as used by Democrats and Republicans. See How to speak Republican or Democratic for background information and lists of phrases as compiled in a recent paper by Gentzkow and Shapiro from the 2005 Congressional Record: What Drive's Media Slant?

John Lennon was shot and killed this day December 8, 1980 by Mark Chapman.



John Lennonspeak




Democratspeak




Republicanspeak


Here's a hybrid cloud made from combining the two original political lists to create a Slantscape mashup. In all cases the clouds have been restricted to display a maximum of fifty keywords and the last cloud shows a frequency count for each word.

DemoRepspeak

As a tool for working with language the creative possibilities are fascinating. TagCrowd can be applied to a multitude of artistic and interperative situations including blogging, songwriting, sloganeering, poetry, hyper linking etc, and the range of input material is obviously limitless from recipes to religion. More language tools and toys can be found on the REPROMAN sidebar.

TagCrowd created by Daniel Steinbock

The generated code and its rendered image are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Via Sean Kearney's /patternHunter [/ph] - thanks for mentioning Apophenia, the word really grabbed my attention and on further exploration proved to be very fruitful. In particular to this List of Cognitive Biases and my list of social applications at Web Buzz Explorer.

Language Visualization Resources

ThePowerOfWords - A text analysis of political discourse during times of crisis.

US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud - Shows the popularity, frequency, and trends in the usages of words within speeches, official documents, declarations, and letters written by the Presidents of the US between 1776 - 2006 AD.

Timothy Leary massages his message on reprogramming the brain into your brain in this 29 minute video produced by Chris Graves. Via Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing

Lasse Gjertsen uses video editing techniques akin to music sampling to create new digital media compositions. In the video below called Amateur he creates a cut-up illusion of himself jamming on drums and piano. In another video he makes an appearance as a human beatbox.

Lasse also creates animations and a good introduction to his creative influences can be found in Jeg går en Tur - A self portrait that you can watch below: In animation, EVERYTHING is possible!

Check out Lasse's music page for some fine electronic tunes.

Via Kottke.org

Amateur - Lasse Gjertsen


Jeg går en Tur - A self portrait by Lasse Gjertsen

Kel McKeown: Instructional Video

A mashup masterclass and classic example of creative cut-up techniques. Part of the fun is learning how it's done.

reactable: improvisation demo

Team designer Marcos Alonso explains:

The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop
tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete
control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table
surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a
classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic
topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible
modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi
Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music
Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

More information is available via the Reactable Website which also has a good overview of related tangible musical interfaces. See also Wikipedia reacTable

Here's an organic interface that takes a more fluid approach...

Toriton Plus: Water Surface as Music Controller II

These four time-lapse videos show human evolutionary processes and cosmetic transformations over varying periods of time. These type of clips became significantly popular via YouTube and other new media outlets during the latter part of 2006.

I have posted the clips here in order of appearance on YouTube, over the 3 months of August, September and October (dates may be innacurate). Each successive video was compiled over a longer period of time apart from the final clip which was shot relatively quickly and digitally manipulated later.

For the first two videos shown below, the viewing figures quickly reached into the millions each and the level of interest was high across many important forms of media dissemination including blogs, social networks and mass media news outlets.

The clips continue to capture the imaginations of millions and it seems fitting to profile the trend in a single post. There's obviously a powerful fascination with the aging process and the technique of projecting these visions of accumulative degenerative processes over time. The fourth clip, possibly influenced by the success of the earlier videos, shows the power of cosmetic / technological practices to promote an image of desirability, albeit dependent on particular cultural perspectives and identification. Click through to the YouTube sources to get further details and comments.

Me: Girl takes pic of herself every day for three years

Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years

Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project

Dove - Evolution

More about this type of photography at Wikipedia Time-lapse

Circuit Bending

Students learn the art of Furby reprogramming in a circuit bending workshop with Ben Goldstone. Below, an adept demonstrates the fruits of circuit bending knowledge as applied to a Kawasaki toy guitar.

cicuit bent "Double Neck" kawasaki toy guitar


Kawasaki motorcycle company licensed DSI Toys to use their name on a line of musical products. Unfortunately it's difficult to find online info about these particular electronic toys. If your interested in circuit bending and modifications to electronic sound toys here are some links worth exploring:

Metalriffs.com Guitar Toy Museum - a small picture gallery of electronic guitar toys.
Miniorgan.com - a private collection of rare small music keyboards and vintage musical electronic toys.
WarrantyVoid - the electronic sound toy and keyboard modification site.
Wikipedia Circuit bending - provides info and links to other websites.

If you're looking for online virtual sound toys and interactive music guides see the Museum of Sound Toys.

This work by artist David Ellis combines the body of a double bass with modern day audio hardware and electronics.

SKDubs gold (double bass boombox fiddle)

36 x 50 1/2 x 17"

Medium-modified double bass fiddle, spraypaint, casters, oak, plywood, metal, iPod, two tube pre-amps, B and C mids and tweeters, Electro-voice woofers, JVC tweeters, Crown XLS 602 Poweramp, and Behringer equalizer - 2005.

Via Hulger.org where you can find lots more interesting and arty contemporary designs.

The Double Bass

Along with classical music, the double bass has found its place in genres such as the blues, bluegrass, jazz, rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, drum and bass. It has been used widely in pop and rock music on recordings by artists like Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Frank Zappa. A well known example being the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side" where session musician Herbie Flowers created the distinctive sounding bass hook, by using a mix of old and new sounds. He recorded one part on acoustic upright and then overdubbed a crossing part a major tenth above on electric fretless bass. The song was later recycled by other artists including A Tribe Called Quest who used a sample of it in "Can I Kick it?" - You can just about hear it on the intro of the video remix below. For more examples of recordings using double bass, see this thread from the TalkBass forums discussing Examples of Upright in Pop Music.





Perceptions

David Ellis's work evokes some interesting perceptions through the marriage of old and new world technologies.

At first site the juxtaposition creates a slight element of cognitive dissonance, a clash between the older acoustic culture and the contemporary electronic culture. However, the sense of discomfort is lessened by the idea the two cultures are not completely contradictory. The fundamental function of sound reproduction, for the purpose of music and entertainment, remains intact. In fact the instrument has merely been rewired, the strings replaced by electric wires.

Originally the source of sound was generated by a human drive mechanism. The machinery of bow and fingers controlled the perceived pitch, loudness and tone production. These have been replaced by electronic counterparts. The output of the iPod is the sound source, the amplifier and equalizer control the loudness and tone respectively.

The acoustically resonating wooden body becomes the architecture for the electro-magnetic speakers and electronics which are embedded in the belly. The electronics span a progression of successive developments where each stage builds on the past, from mechanical, to electronic valve, transistor and finally digital micro-chip.

There's much to contemplate in this piece that embraces change and cultural heritage: the new functionality, shape, symmetry, the handle ontop, the missing head/neck, the fact that it's no longer 'upright'.

Detritus.net is a web site devoted to recycled culture. Budding detrivores wishing to make new creative works out of old ones will find it a good source of inspiration.

Resources
Wikipedia: Conceptual art

From nakedrabbit

This piece was commissioned by the experimental sound collage group Negativland for the video compilation, "Our Favorite Things," soon to be released. The track had been cut by Negativland several years before, an audio document of their problems with copyright/trademark issues concerning their "U2" album. Many years and a painful settlement later, they had successfully transformed their experience into even more art, and a little activism besides. This little piece, made on Disney equipment after hours when no one was looking, remains quite popular. San Francisco experimental filmmaker Craig Baldwin has been kind enough to include it in "culture jamming" programs he has organized throughout the US and Europe. Several times has it been used in conferences and on panels about copyright for the legal profession. And it's fun, to boot. The statute of limitations has apparently run out on this piece, and it is now considered perfectly legal. What a relief!

Negativland is a small collective of artists and activists that create music and videos using extensive sampling and collage techniques. Further documentation can be found at Wikipedia Negativland.

Update: WFMU's Beware of the Blog has a series of MP3s with Negativland's Mark Hosler giving a presentation at NYC's New School - Negativeland: Illegal Art

Provided By: Realtablist

"I made a little composition here using ableton live, 3 midi controllers and the Rodec scratchbox. The EFX inserts of the Rodec scratch mixer enables me to use ableton as an efx unit, drum machine and loop station."

WikiMatrix.org is a Wiki feature comparison tool. Simply choose the Wiki engines you want to compare from the panel on the left, click the button and compare their features in a convenient side-by-side table.

Via ResearchBuzz

Technorati Tags:
comparison, database, wiki

Every year hundreds of "top lists" representing the opinions and recommendations of music enthusiasts worldwide are published online. Here are a couple of resources that make it easier to find and explore these lists, ultimately speeding your journey to discovering good music. Many of the lists also provide album reviews and information for buying the music online.

In Depth
DJ Martian: More Best of 2005 Music Links a central resource for 2005 music lists and information. Hundreds of lists are archived at del.icio.us/djmartian/b2005. Great for exploring specialist music resources and expert opinions.

At a Glance
Metacritic.com: best Albums of 2005 provides a table displaying the highest-scoring albums for the year in Metacritic's database with a minimum of 7 reviews. Also listed at the bottom of the page are year-end top ten lists provided by various critics and publications. Use this list for a quick overview and comparison of albums from popular music resources and publications.


If you're interested in creating your own list of things you'd like to share check out 7 Ways to Get to the Top of the del.icio.us Popular Page for some useful tips on presentation.

More interesting things from 2005 at http://del.icio.us/tag/2005

Technorati Tags:
2005, albums, CD, lists, music, mp3

When news broke about the potential security threat to computers caused by millions of Sony BMG's music CDs, most people had never heard of a Rootkit. Hopefully the blissful tide of ignorance is changing as wave upon wave of outraged opinion floods online communities. Or is it?

In a recorded interview for NPR, Thomas Hesser president of Sony BMG's Global Digital Business opined:

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

To many, his low opinion of Sony customers appears to be out of kilter with the main-stream of America and elsewhere. A Sophos survey of 1,501 respondents reveals 98% of business PC users think Sony DRM copy protection is a security threat. Since Mr Hesser's notorious rootkit sound-bite, the "Sony Sitcom" has taken a route all of its own. Every episode in the sorry saga has presented new and ironic twists in the unfolding story.

Consider the precarious road ahead.

• EFF Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Sony BMG
• Texas sues Sony BMG over alleged spyware
• Spyware Sony seems to breach copyright

Lawsuits litter the horizon and this may yet be a digital tragedy of epic proportions.

In another ironic twist to the tale CNet's John Borland reports Sony BMG has so far sailed through the rootkit CD backwash apparently unharmed. Data from market analysts Nielsen SoundScan and Gracenote shows no appreciable change in sales or trends for the titles in question. The Register follows up with further insight as to why this may be.

The crash course in DRM technologies offered by the tech savvy bloggers may have hit a brick wall. The vast majority of the CD buying public actually don't care, partly because they don't need to play CDs on computers anyway and partly because they are not very security conscious. The alarmed minority keen to alert consumers to unethical practices represents a blip in the blogosphere rather than a storm in the media. With the support of RIAA members, Sony will no doubt make all the right noises, sit it out and continue with the anti-piracy wars. (See Music biz to 'hijack' Europe's data retention laws - From terrorism to filesharing)

Did I mention piracy wars? The Wikipedia entry for a pirate is:

• Pirate may refer to someone who robs other ships at sea, or sometimes the shore, without a commission from a sovereign nation.
• Someone who commits copyright infringement, including pirate decryption, computer piracy and in particular, software piracy.
• Pirate radio, the practice of making unauthorized radio broadcasts.
• Unlike the stereotypical pirate with cutlass and masted sailing ship, today most pirates get about in speedboats wearing balaclavas instead of bandannas, using AK-47s rather than cutlasses. Fragment

Welcome to Neverland. In a story that gets stranger and stranger it appears the real battle is between the major record labels and Apple over the iTunes music store.

Both Sony BMG and EMI "hope to reach a deal with Apple, which will allow users to move songs onto iPods. But by launching the copy-protected CDs without iPod compatibility, the labels are raising the stakes in an ongoing conflict between Apple and the rest of the music business, which wants the tech company to open its proprietary iPod and let others sell antipiracy-protected songs that work on the device" Forbes.com

Instrumental in this "Treasure Island" the big labels are dreaming of is a variable pricing system where they can dictate what songs are worth. Variable prices means the labels can send signals to consumers that some products are better than others. This can be used as leverage against artists to manipulate deals in favour of the labels. Apple on the other hand (hook) uses a fixed price system. The conflict is about who gets to manipulate what music we buy. Joel on Software provides a good explanation in Price as Signal.

Looking more like the Battle of Trafalgar and the spoils of war, this is a struggle where the artists and consumers are the collateral damage.

With millions of infected CDs still in circulation and the prospect of similar DRM technologies to come, the emphasis is now on security software companies to protect us, but that's another story.

Beware the citizen who dares to rip, mix and burn. The blazing path to DRM glory rumbles with the sound of gladiators in their chariots of fire. This is no route 15, this is the hallowed ground of Hollywood and the only burning here will be heretics at the stake. This is the long and winding road to nowhere that angels fear to tread... a lost highway. Stand and deliver.

Repeat after me, the minority reporter's rootkit mantra...

"Most people, I think, would like to know what a rootkit is, and care very much about it."

Swingometer: Currently in Sony BMG's favour due to no obvious signs of a drop in sales to infected CD titles. However, the rootkit revelations are less than a month old and serious litigation combined with bad public relations could prove costly for the media giants in the long run. It remains unknown to what extent artists will suffer losses due to issues of trust. Consumers are the main losers having paid for products that degrade the performance of computers, open new security vulnerabilities, and install updates through an Internet connection to Sony BMG's servers.

Company Profile for Sony Corporation (Reuters)
Sony BMG Music Entertainment Company Profile (Yahoo! Finance)

Technorati Tags:
audio, CD, copy-protection, DRM, music, RIAA, rootkit, security, Sony

The Search Engine Experiment is a simple online test that lets you judge which engine really offers you the most relevance. By participating you'll be contributing to the larger sample base used to compare Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Here are the latest test results with graphics.

Swingometer: This month shows Google has the larger share of the votes, although participants often report marginal difference in terms of relevance between the three engines.

Via digg

Technorati Tags:
Google, MSN, Yahoo!, search