Ok! I'm allowed to make updates to my top 10 albums of 2004 list until the 31st. At which point the list will be considered finalized. Why do I bring this up? The Secret Machines. This stuff is good! Here's what I have to say about them.
- Now Here Is Nowhere by The Secret Machines. I missed this one on Pitchfork, but managed to catch it on MTV2 of all places. Now Here is a stellar bit of rock music. There's definitely a Led Zeppelin influence here. Pounding percussion, indie vocals, and instrumentation that just sounds... huge. An amazing record.
So, this knocks that Modest Mouse album off the list. That was the one pick that I really wasn't sure about, and Now Here Is Nowhere is just so amazing, I feel much more comfortable putting it on the list.
See the original post with the new update here.
Well, my last (and primary) Christmas gift from my dear, dear Mother arrived today. What is it you ask? A synthesizer. I've always loved playing with software synthesizers (ahh, Rebirth. I miss you so!) and for some reason since about a year ago, I've been pining to get a real hardware synthesizer to play with. Not that I'm all that musical, it's just fun as hell.
So, having no idea what else I would want for Christmas, I as like, "Hey! I can get a synth." And so, I researched. It came down to a choice between two nice, low-end systems: the Korg Microkorg and the Alesis Micron. The synthesis capabilities were pretty close, but the Micron has a step sequencer (think drum machine programming, etc.) and the Microkorg didn't. So, despite the fact that the Microkorg has a much cooler old-school look, I went with the Micron.
And it rocks! It's so cool! I really haven't figured out all of the features yet, but I've gotten down filter cutoff frequency sweeps and I've messed around with the REALLY cool vocoder effects. Just plug in a microphone, and go to town with some mad robot vocals. Wee!!!
I'm such a nerd. :)
Courtesy the Kentucky Kernel. This, along with the semi-daily crossword puzzles are the extent of the useful content of my university's student newspaper. :)
Cold weather + shiny presents = good times.
Wishing you and yours a horry, jorry Christmas. (Note the A Christmas Story reference!)
- Zach.
OK, before I go to sleep (and it's not even 4 a.m.! Wow!), just wanted to point out a few more measures I've taken in my ongoing struggle against comment spam.
First, I renamed the CGI script that handles the comments. That is, the little program on my web server that handles comment posting. Presumably, if I change the name of that file, automated spamming tools might not figure out what's going on and pass my blog over.
Also, I've totally reset the comments portion of the database that stores all of Sector 42's data. Granted, there were a few legit comments, but out of the 2000+ comments posted here, probably only 100 of those were legit. And none of them were very deep. :)
So, that's all I'm doing as far as computer type activity for the next couple of days. Because... it's Christmas!! Woo!
Yeah, it appears my little anti-spam security hack didn't work. Several new spam messages have popped up on some of the more recent posts. As annoying as they are, I find them rather humorous. E.g.:
Great men can't be ruled. by free online poker
Or even more philosophical:
The blind willingness to sacrifice people to truth, however, has always been the danger of an ethics abstracted from life. by online poker
I'm personally waiting for:
Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to a possible giving of universal law through its maxims. An action that can coexist with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does not accord with it is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will. The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy being. The objective of an action from obligation is called duty. by online poker
Ahh, Kant. Er, yeah. I'm going to have to figure something out. I really dig comments on my posts, but this spam shit is killing me.
For the past few weeks, I've had comments completely disabled on this site because I was a little peeved about comment spam. I'm not talking idiotic jerks who flood comment sections just for the fuck of it. They usually take care of themselves with a quick IP ban. No, I'm talking the blog-comments-section equivalent of e-mail spammers. Morons who post advertisements for penis enlargement, online casinos, and teen-sex webcams.
As much as I love teen sex (ahem), spam is annoying and evil. I came up with a solution the other day, but I'm not entirely sure it's going to work. A lot of big online sites stop automated account signups and whatnot by requiring users to type in a word or passcode randomly generated and displayed as an image. This makes things harder for bots. I've tried something similar, but less sophisticated.
Basically, to post a comment, you type in your user info as normal. But before you go to type in the text of the comment, you write the word that appears in the little image. If you type it correctly, the Post button will be enabled and you can go to town.
I'm not sure this will work. If the bots just send data directly to the comment-posting script, then I'll have to do a little bit more hacking to get the comment-posting script to check that the security word is correct. But we'll see if that's necessary in the coming days.
It seems like music is the only form of media that I really consume with any kind of passion. Seriously, I've seen maybe 10 new movies this year. And that doesn't make for a very good top 10 list. Likewise for books and TV shows. Although, I think I will say a word or two about video games, but that's for later. Right now, we get to talk about music! Sweet, wonderful music.
A girl at Russel High School near Ashland got kicked out of her prom because she was wearing a Confederate flag-themed dress. Despite the general disdain I have towards "rebel" flag-waving types, I can't imagine many non-Southerners really understanding the girl's motivation. For example, take most of the reactions to the story on Metafilter.
My view? Well, I'm a pretty ardent supporter of free speech in general. So, obviously I would have supported her wearing the dress. But one really should consider the deeper cultural significance of the flag.
For the vast majority of people who currently display the Confederate flag, it's a symbol of Southern heritage, not a symbol of racism, white supremacy, or support of slavery. Certainly, over the years, it has carried those meanings for various groups, but today, in most cases, it's simply a cultural symbol and individuals ought to have the right to display it. No matter how hideous the dress you put it on might look. :)
Aaagh. Stop the nose running. I'm having snot overload. It's irritating.
Well, Semester 7 is finished. A's in my classes. Was kind of concerned about that German class, because I skipped that class about 1/4 of the time.
Currently sitting here at the house enjoying some downtime before I head home for the holidays. Have to wash the dishes so that disgusting mold things don't grow in the sink while I'm gone.
On a totally unrelated note: Blue Collar TV on Comedy Central is an absolutely terrible show. If I weren't posting this, I'd go find the remote and change it. Alack. Whatever happened to Comedy Central playing old episodes of SNL? Well, after the 30th time, it starts to wear thin, but it's better than Mad TV or this tripe. Urf.
Well, I have 2/3 of my finals finished. PHI 320 (Symbolic Logic) went well. Finished in 20 minutes. CS 463 (Artificial Intelligence) went well enough. It was pretty tough, and it took me almost the full 2 hours, but I think I did okay. German 102 exam here in about 2 hours. I'm cramming for it now. Shouldn't be too bad. But I haven't even looked at German since Dead Week and I'm a little rusty with some vocabulary stuff. Not too worried though.
Currently Listening To: Slouvaki by Slowdive. I think I've probably talked about Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine, and other such bands before. Well, Slowdive is a lot like them. More Galaxie 500 than MBV, but same idea: swirly, spacey rock music. I love this stuff. Shoegaze forever.
See above.
Furthermore, apologies to any readers I might have left. Last few weeks have been less than pleasant for me. I'm feeling in a better mood right now. And blog posts tend to be inversely proportional to how bad my depression is. So, hopefully, you'll see some more posts over the next few weeks while I'm off from school. Hopefully.