Archive for June, 2007

Flash-based jangle rock til the cows come home

Friday, June 29th, 2007

Metafilter is awash right now in links to musical toys. Yesterday’s entry no doubt had you living out your Aphex Twin fantasies. Today, get your jangle rock mojo working with Chord Studio.

Flash-based minimalist music goodness

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Fun for hours: Tinydrum 4.0. Via MeFi. Feel free to share your compositions in the comments. Here’s one of mine: 16385-32768-129-80-10282-4101
Even more fun: load it up in more than one tab of Firefox and get some “Time becomes…“-type goodness going.
Note: fixed the link.

Day of Silence

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

Today is SaveNetRadio.org’s Day of Silence event to raise awareness about the negative effects of the proposed increase in royalties that must be paid by internet-based radio stations. Lots of people are participating, including Pandoara (my favorite), Live365, Rhapsody, and many public broadcasting and commercial radio stations across the country. The point? [...]

On Richard Rorty

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

I just found out that philosopher Richard Rorty died earlier this month. I entirely missed hearing about that somehow. His work has had a very profound influence on me, so I’m sad to hear it. Here’s Stanford’s mention of it. If you’re interested in a very accessible introduction to his work, [...]

On Online Teaching, Part I

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

Starting in January of this year, I’ve been teaching online English composition classes for a technical college (this is my part-time, evenings-and-weekends job. My full-time gig is still software training and consulting, also at a technical college). I have quite a bit of face-to-face teaching experience, in both academic and training environments, [...]

Finally, some good news on Gitmo

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Richmond, VA, ruled that Bush’s whole “enemy combatants” illogic is unconstitutional. That’s obvious to anyone with a lick of wit, but it needed to be said officially, since our current administration seems to have no respect for the rule of law. The court’s decision was clear: [...]

Safari for Windows

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Apple has released a public beta of their Safari web browser for Windows. I downloaded it yesterday and have just started surfing with it a bit. After I’ve had a chance to check it out, I’ll report back.

Just in case you had any doubts about there being two Americas. . .

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

. . . those being one for the rich and one for everyone else, I submit to you Paris Hilton’s early release from jail for an “unspecified medical problem.” She gets to spend the rest of her sentence “confined to her Hollywood Hills home.” Yeah. That’s a tough bid, I’ll bet. [...]

personal weblog of James “Wheatbread” Martin