REDCAT: The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater

REDCAT: The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater @ Walt Disney Concert Hall!!!

The Darkness | Men What Do Rock, Baby

just saw The Darkness on mtv europe's awards show. oh my god!!! these fuckers are amazing!!!

Slashdot | Lost Disney Rides Recreated in CGI: "Disney closes the rides, but the CGI geeks love them too much to let them disappear. 'Adventures thru Inner Space,' the Disneyland ride in which you shrunk down to the size of a molecule, ran from 1967 to 1985. Atommobiles.com is a fan site which includes this elaborate CGI recreation. The Walt Disney World version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride closed in 1967. Virtual Toad is in the process of re-building it.' I was born after 1967, and I've ridden MTWR many times, so perhaps they're talking about an older version."

Red vs Blue: dope!!!

Online Status Indicator for AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo: "is a service that lets you put a small image on a web page to show if you are online on AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Jabber, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Use the default icons or create your own status icons."

JavaScrypt: Browser-Based Cryptography Tools: "JavaScrypt runs entirely in your browser--nothing is sent to any Web site when you use it. You can, if you wish, download JavaScrypt to your own computer and use it when not connected to the Internet. "

Slashdot | Economics of File-Sharing: "The Red Herring's got an article by me about the economics of file-sharing, which argues that the music industry should provide insurance...against itself. This is because the contract listeners sign with labels is risky - it lets labels shirk on their end of the bargain. That's why file-sharing isn't just 'theft', it's risk-sharing. The original, longer, version of the paper is here, which argues that this a situation economists call double moral hazard."

The Shower Project

The Shower Project: just briliant!!!

Scotch v Whiskey: learn all you ever didn't want to know :)

Mutant mice chill out on ecstasy: "Mice that lack a key protein stay cool after ingesting ecstasy1. Therapies to treat potentially fatal overheating associated with the club drug may follow."

wonder if these bloskers can be added to a mdma dose?!?

Slashdot | MPAA, RIAA Seek Permanent Antitrust Exemption: "Webcasters sued RIAA two months ago in an antitrust case for anti-competitive behavior. The response? An exemption from antitrust laws. Today's Register tells about RIAA/MPAA's efforts to get just such an exemption written into law. They could become permanently exempt from such a suit, if the bill passes. They snuck it into a bill sponsored by Orrin Hatch called EnFORCE Act (Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003). Orrin Hatch says this bill contains 'First... an antitrust exemption in the Copyright Act [for] record companies and music publishers' Why? Because of 'market realities.' Which ones? The 12-year-old girl? The 15-year-old girl? Or the 66-year-old Grandma with a Mac?"

Slashdot | MPAA Sued Over DVD Screener Ban: "Fourteen small movie houses are suing the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) trying to stop the ban on DVD 'screeners'. 'It will chill the financing of independent films by limiting the awards they can receive', say the plaintiffs, who include Talking Wall Pictures, Sandcastle 5 Productions and Salty Features. They feel they are being treated differently because several 'specialty' indy film shops are still allowed to send out 'numbered, encoded videocassettes' to Oscar voters. This ban was issued by MPAA President Jack Valenti initially to stop the illegal distribution of DVD screeners on the Internet."

Wired News: Congress Expands FBI Spying Power: "A provision of an intelligence spending bill will expand the power of the FBI to subpoena business documents and transactions from a broader range of businesses -- everything from libraries to travel agencies to eBay -- without first seeking approval from a judge. "

Test Your Digital IQ: see how you stack up. thx tree for the link on your blog!

i got a 160 but it think it mis scored atleast 2 questions. i was going to point it out to the authors but they seem to have no email link. eithter they don't like criticism or have low digital iqs!!!

:: Douglas Rushkoff and PsychicTV : The next incarnation of PsychicTV - PTV3 - will debut at the Coral Room in NYC on December 5. According to the press release:

"The line-up ov PTV3 is Douglas Rushkoff, Lady Jaye, Electric Eddie, Isaiah Singer,Alice Genese, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. With video sculptures presented by HONEYGUN LABS, and live sound mixed by Scott Reiter. This event is cosponsored by BBgun Magazine whose new issue features Breyer P-Orridge and Psychic TV ideas. With host Lyle Derek,deejay sets by Nick from the YEAH YEAH YEAHS and more."

what ever happened to fred? good luck kids we missed you!!!

Recycling TV Ads: "According to this article in the Denver Post a young entrepreneur has gotten into the business of recycling junked TV commercials for clients with low budgets. TV ads cost anywhere between $50,000 and $1 million and small businesses usually cannot afford an original production. The company, Thought Equity, wipes off all references to the earlier company and makes the junked commerical ready for reselling with a price tag less than $10,000. Also businesses that want their ads on the air as soon as possible are approaching the company seeking recycled ads because producing original ads takes time."

New Supersonic Jet Test Less Than Successful: "The BBC is reporting in this story that the first test of Japan's supersonic jet didn't go quite as planned when it crashed into the ground seconds after takeoff on its test rig. It looks like a successor to the world's only supersonic passenger jet, Concorde (built jointly by the British and French in the 1960s) is still some way off.' Reuters has more pictures.

word!

Decoding the Algorithm for Pop Music: "Over at Modplug, they have an article describing a mathematical algorithm to predict if a given song will become a hit or not. Paraphrasing the article, a Spanish company called Polyphonic HMI has made a business out of analyzing song submissions and predicting their 'hitability'. Here's their description of the algorithm and here's their FAQ. They claim to have predicted the commercial success of Norah Jones through this method. Here's my question (which is not fully answered in their FAQ): if they (music company executives) are currently using the algorithm to screen submissions for their 'hitability', can we (people who listen to music) use the same algorithm to reject recycled tunes and encourage originality? I for one, still like the fresh talent and community feel of the tracking scene."

the other day my professor said no one has "ears" and there are not "hitmen" but masybe there are they just go by the names of asciq, big mac, and deep blue!!!

The Register

DVD Jon Unlocks iTunes' Locked Music: "Jon Lech Johansen, better known as DVD Jon for his authorship of the DeCSS decryption software, has turned his attention to Apple's locked music format."

it appears jon has created a stream ripper / audio hijack like program that while saving removes all drm header info. for now the program is not entirely useful becase resulting files can't be played without a valid header, but as a proof of concept it is interesting. the theory, i guess, is that one could build such an application that writes the new unprotected file with out a header containing drm and instead replaces it with a valid header without drm.

seems to not bode well for the idea of locked files of anykind let alone music!!!

Vivendi to Destroy MP3.com archive: " Vivendi Universal recently sold the MP3.com domain to CNET. That in and of itself is a yawner. MP3.com doesn't really fit the Vivendi profit model, so it's understandable that they're dumping it. Why this matters is they're not selling the archive, containing more than a million songs by 250,000 artists. As of December 3rd, they're destroying it."