Category Archives: Uncategorized

Blinding Me With Marketing Science

defective yeti has me thinking about Google...

Way back when, in the before time, in the long long ago, I switched from using AltaVista to Google because, by comparison, AltaVista felt really cluttered and gimmicky and busy. AltaVista gave decent results, but I always got the feeling that I get when reading small local newspapers: there's some info in there, but really it's just a vehicle for crappy ads. On the other hand, Google's interface was almost as simple as could be: two buttons and a text box; the "Do You Feel Lucky?" button was the only clutter. And, when you clicked the Search button, Google just spit out a page of links and short excerpts. Nothing else.

So that means I am growing pretty dissatisfied with today's busy, cluttered, popup/animated, "no, I think I'll search for what I think you wanted to search for", ad platform, internet application host, portal, social media thingy, Google. Now, I get that Google has to eat, too; so I can tolerate the ads. It's all the other crap I wish they'd take away. When I go to Google.com, I'm there to search, not to envelop myself in a world of online productivity and social networking. I don't want every movement of my mouse to cause something to pop up or glow or change color. I don't want to recommend anything to other people. I don't want to see an unreadable preview of the page. I just want to click a link and see if it has the information what I wanted.

Get off my lawn, etc..

Pluck It For Jesus

Self-enucleation or oedipism (the act of destroying one or both eyes) has been described in psychotic patients [8], most frequently in schizophrenics [9]. Feldman and Feldman [10] reported that, after performing self-enucleation, patients were often found with a copy of Matthew's Gospel open at 5:29 where it is states "...if the right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should cast into hell". Apparently, the enucleation enacts a literal interpretation of the text.

Apparently.

Pour Some NaCl On Me

Scientific American:

This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.

href, Ruhlman

Listening To

  • The Strokes - Angles. This has been on my iPod for many months, but it's never failed to fail to make an impression. And that's weird since I like the songs when they pop up - I always grab the pod to see who's playing the song. The Strokes! But after the song's over, it slips my mind completely. There are a few that sound like Strokes songs I know: "Under Cover of Darkness" recalls "Is This It" and "Last Night", and "Taken For A Fool and "Gratsification" has a sweet "Boys Are Back In Town" vibe, which is what I expect from the Strokes. Some others are very disco or 80s new wave, but still good. And, all in all, pretty good. Like them when I hear them. Can't seem to remember them.
    Six laquos: ««««««

  • Lightnin Hopkins - (some big-ass collection) Now this is awesome. Just based on the monster best-of collections I have, Albert King started off rough and gritty, but fell under the smoothing influence of horns and keyboards as time went by; and B.B. King was always fond of the big bands and arrangements. Soul blues. Bah! But Hopkins was straight-up country blues: acoustic, rough and immediate. The Kings were electric and sizzling, even when they were trying to be soulful, but Hopkins is just primal - if Robert Johnson had recorded in the 60's and not the 30's, it might have sounded like this. He's playing acoustic, mostly, so he doesn't get the howling, screaming tone of the Kings, but the notes he gets are even more in-the-gut than those other guys. And there's never much of a band behind him, so he can't sit around silently for two verses, waiting for a nice moment to jump in and play four notes; he's working the whole time - but never overdoing it. Just right. He kills it.
    Nine laquos: ««««««««.

  • Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) The follow-up to this, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh), kinda blew me away when I first heard it. So, after giving it a few months to marinate, I figured I was ready to try the predecessor. And... well, it didn't blow me away. It's similarly-dense and complex with layers of samples, complex song structures, etc.. But it feels less organic, and there's less of Badu's singing. It's a bit more uptempo, more hip-hop based. And I don't hate it, but it makes me appreciate the follow-up even more.
    Six laquos: ««««««

  • Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee P2. Love the first three - completely classic old-school Beastie Boys. Love the hardcore "Lee Majors Come Again". "Say It" recalls "Gratitude" from Check Your head. But my favorite track is the one that features Santigold, "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win", which sounds little like either the Beastie Boys or, from what I can tell, Santigold. Somehow it feels really long, though it's only 44 minutes. I think that's what happens when I put CDs in my car - the interruptions inherent in running errands breaks the flow and so it seems like the CD is always in the middle when I come out of whatever dumbass store I was in.
    Seven laquos: «««««««

    You peeps got anything good?

The five-albums test

The AV Club posits a method for determining if a band is great or not: did the band release five, consecutive, great albums ?

They list some obvious examples from the days of yore: including Zepplin, The Beatles, Queen, Pink Floyd; they list some examples of bands who just fall short: Dylan, Stones; they list some newer examples: U2, REM, Yo La Tengo, etc.; and they list some modern examples: Wilco, Spoon, etc.. They list quite a few, but they missed a few, too.

I suppose people may have caught some of these in the 200+ comments, but I'm not going to read them all...

Greats:

  1. The Police. Only five albums, but each one is great.
  2. Miles Davis. Multiple times.
  3. Sea And Cake. Their first five = awesome.
  4. Van Halen. All six of their David Lee Roth albums are classics.

"Not greats":

  1. The Cure. They started out strong with "Three Imaginary Boys", "Seventeen Seconds" and "Faith", but "Pornography" and "The Top" aren't quite as great. They picked it back up with "Head On The Door", "Kiss Me..." and "Disintegration", though.
  2. Sonic Youth - "Sister", "Daydream Nation", "Goo", and "Dirty" are all strong, but "EVOL" and "Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star" just don't measure up.

What say you?