Cool site

visualisingdata.com. (Hope they play with data better than they spell.)

Happy Birthday, Scooter!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOOTER

Daily Show reports from Austin

tonight. Per the Statesman.

Fandom power applied to charity

Earlier this evening, Adam posted an announcement on his official fansite that he'd like fans to make donations to a charity in lieu of sending him birthday gifts. The charity he selected this time is charity : water that funds clean drinking projects (wells and so forth) in areas lacking clean drinking water.

In honor of this being his 29th birthday, he set the goal amount at $29,000 to be raised over 85 days.

In under 6 hours, his fans donated . . . [drum roll] . . . more than $29,000 dollars.

This was accomplished without any distribution of a press release and no announcement on Twitter.

Happy 6oth Birthday!

No, not to Michael. To The Day the Earth Stood Still and thanks to AMC for showing one of my all time faves tonight. Still love Patricia Neal.

And what geek could even mention the classic without quoting this:

Michael Rennie was ill
The day the earth stood still
But he told us where we stand
And Flash Gordon was there
In silver underwear
Claude Rains was the Invisible Man
Then something went wrong
For Fay Wray and King Kong
They got caught in a celluloid jam
Then at a deadly pace
It came from outer space
And this is how the message ran.

CHORUS

Science fiction — double feature
Dr. X will build a creature
See Androids fighting Brad and Janet
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet
Oh — at the late night double feature
Picture show

I knew Leo G. Carrol
Was over a barrel
When tarrantula took to the hills
And I got really hot
When I saw Jeanette Scott
Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills
Dana Andrews said prunes
Gave him the ruhnes
And passing them used lots of skills
And when worlds collide
Said George Pal to his bride
I'm going to give you some terrible thrills
Like a —

Chorus

"Prunes?" Who knew?

R.I.P. Clarence Prevost

Clarence W. Prevost who alerted law enforcement about Zacarias Moussaoui's suspicious behavior while learning to fly a jumbo jet at a flight school in Eagan, MN, before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has died at the age of 72.

On Kanye

Chris Jackson writing at The Atlantic talks about Kanye, what Kanye is saying, and how to interpret rap:

I was the editor of Decoded, and one of Jay-Z's main ambitions for the book from the beginning is that it give both fans and haters a primer on how to listen to rap, and why it's always more complicated than you think it is. Rap can be free wordplay or linear narrative. Sometimes a rapper uses words as rhythmic devices, as percussion, with little concern about literal meaning. Rap can be polemic or stand-up comedy. It's autobiography, fantasy, confession, satire, lecture, dream. The voice of the rapper can be first-, second-, or third-person, comic or hyperbolic or earnest. Even then it's complicated: Jay-Z's voice, even in earnest first person, is not necessarily Shawn Carter's voice, but then again sometimes it is.

[Jump]

...but at the least I think it's hard to analyze Kanye's lyrics outside of the understanding that he's fundamentally a comic, a sometimes viciously comic, rapper ... and an artist . . ., and operating out of a tradition of which he's conscious (as indicated by the inclusion of Gil Scott-Heron and Chris Rock).

[Jump]

I think the most difficult, and most intriguing, aspect of Kanye as a rapper is that you never know whether he's celebrating or satirizing an idea, or doing both at the same time.

[Jump]

All of which is to say . . . that Kanye West may or may not be a racist and a misogynist, but before making that claim he deserves a fairer hearing than a surface reading of his lyrics. We all know that rap is narrative, with unreliable narrators, and that the point-of-view in any narrative is not necessarily the point of view of the writer, but then we occasionally choose to forget this; in those moments we make judgments on rap songs without making the effort to first understand them on the terms of the form.

H/t Ezra.

T-Paw on Stewart

Former Minnesota governor and potential candidate for President in 2012, Tim Pawlenty, appeared on the Daily Show last night. The interview, including the portion that didn't air, is here.

I don't agree with him on much policy, of course, but I think he deserves consideration from Republicans who want a serious candidate. He's smart; he's experienced; he's articulate; he's a true believer in a conservative economic philosophy without emphasizing a socially "conservative" agenda.

Samples used in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Over the weekend, K and I saw Four Lions and heard, over the closing credits, a melody that is included in Blame Game on Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. That sent me to Kanye's liner notes that I had not read. That, plus LJ and Scooter's interest in the 21st Century Schizoid Man sample, motivated me to investigate the samples further.

With links to a cool site that streams audio of songs with their samples, side by side, here are Kanye's samples, in track order:

Dark Fantasy: Contains samples of “In High Places” by Mike Oldfield

Gorgeous: Contains portions of the composition “You Showed Me,” written by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn.

Power:

• Contains elements of “It’s Your Thing,” recorded by the Cold Grits.
• Contains elements of “Afromerica” (Francois Bernheim/Jean-Pierre Lang/Boris Bergman)
• Contains material sampled from “21st Century Schizoid Man” performed by King Crimson Taken from the album: In The Court Of The Crimson King.

All of the Lights: None

Monster: None

So Appalled: Contains samples of the Manfred Mann’s Earth Band recording “You Are – I Am.”

Devil in a New Dress: Contains samples of the recording “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” as performed by Smokey Robinson.

Runaway:

• Contains a sample of “Expo 83” performed by Backyard Heavies.
• Contains excerpts from Rick James ‘Live at Long Beach, CA’ 1981.

Hell of a Life:

• Contains samples of the Mojo Men recording “She’s My Baby.”
• Contains samples of the Tony Joe White recording “Stud-Spider.”
• Contains portions of “Iron Man,” written by T. Butler, A. Iommi, J. Osbourne and W.T. Ward (Black Sabbath).

Blame Game: Contains elements of “Avril 14” by Richard James, Aphex Twin.

Lost in the World:

• Contains portions of “Soul Makossa,” written by M. DiBango.
• Contains a sample of the recording “Think (About It)” as performed by Lyn Collins. Written by James Brown.
• Contains samples of “The Woods” performed by Bon Iver
• Contains samples of “Comment No. 1” performed by Gil Scott-Heron.

Who Will Survive in America: Contains samples of “Comment No. 1” performed by Gil Scott-Heron

Of note, the artistic use of autotune at the beginning of Lost in the World, that I'd given Kanye credit for, is almost entirely the doing of Bon Iver.

Here's a great idea

from Ezra:

Treat the question of whether someone is a deficit hawk as a math problem rather than a subjective judgment.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye's album really really is great. It's COMPOSED. It's orchestrated. It's rap but it's not merely rapping over an unrelenting, unchanging synthesized beat under it. It's a rap album with a lovely cello solo for an interlude, for Pete's sake. Melodic hooks galore. Artistic use of autotune; I kid you not. (I cite the beginning of Lost in the World.) Also, Nicki Minaj growls while rapping in Monster and it's weirdly delightful. It deserves all the Grammies it's going to collect.

I may have played a role in this

According to Amplicate.com, as reported by Marketwire:

Adam Lambert has emerged as the best loved topic in social media for 2010, according to Amplicate's annual review of public opinions expressed on social media.

Updated: As USAToday reported it: "Adam Lambert is More Beloved Than Ice Cream."

Karma's first "title"

Karma competed in her third agility competition last weekend. She ran four events. I use the term "ran" loosely. She did run her Tunnelers event well, and "qualified". This is her third "Q" in Tunnelers and that means she has earned her first title. The agility career of a dog is marked by accumulating these titles.

During the other three events, she spent a fair amount of time sniffing the ground or loping casually along. It's puzzling to me why running the tunnels seems to her like something that should be done with great focus and drive, but she doesn't always have the same attitude with other events. She was not alone in having the sniffies; only about 1/3 of the dogs in our "novice" level qualified in most events.

It was a long day for Karma. This was the first time we stayed at a competition for a whole day. Check-in was at 7:00 am and we ran the final event at about 5:30. Between events, she must sit in her kennel which she does not like very much. I don't think she slept a wink all day. The environment, with dogs and people walking past, is just too stimulating. By mid-afternoon, she was exhausted. The mental and emotional demands are a big part of the sport and they may be the hardest thing for Karma.

Kanye West's band of vampiric models

A not-quite-finished version of Kanye West's video for his song Monster (off his Grammy-nominated album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) has leaked and has been posted on youtube. (H/t to Ezra who tweeted it.) Warning that it contains images of hanging women, beheaded women, and otherwise creepy, gruesome portrayals of women.



I see it as a commentary about golddiggers and the vampire-like fans who have no limits on the amount of fanservice they require. This video stands in stark contrast to the ballerina video, in which women are portrayed beautifully, their hard-earned skills on display and honored. (In the ballerina video, I was really impressed with the very very long shots of the ballerinas, without cuts to Kanye.) But I expect that all discussion about the Monster video (and there will be lots) will fail to recognize this context and fail to recognize that Kanye has drawn a distinction between women making their own way and women trying to live off someone else.

The Decline Effect

This fascinating article in The New Yorker describes the phenomena of the unrepeatability of scientific studies. The scientific method depends upon the proposition that an experiment, properly designed and executed, yields results that can be replicated if the experiment were followed again at a later time. We regard results from a properly conducted experiment to be scientific truth, so the extent that such a thing can be ascertained.

We're accustomed to seeing results of experiments challenged due to faults in experimental protocol. The author of this article, however, describes something more unnerving - the apparently common problem of being unable to replicate results of an experiment without faults in its protocol, thereby raising doubts about the ability of the scientific method to reveal any truth.

Are you ready for some (frozen tundra) football?

The Vikings play the Bears tomorrow night on Monday Night Football at the TCF Bank Stadium at the U of Minnesota. It'll be reasonably warm for this time of year (20-25F), and there's a good chance that we'll get several inches of snow tomorrow afternoon and evening.

Here's a time lapse video of the clearing of the snow (17 inches that we got last week) from The Bank:



Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has tweeted that the field is unplayable because it is frozen solid and harder than concrete. He predicts concussions.

This game will be 29 years to the day that the Vikings played their last outdoor home game at Met Stadium. It's also a night that the Vikings/NFL are going to be celebrating the 50 greatest Vikings players of all time to commemorate the Vikings' 50th season.

Cue the quotes from the legends about how they loved to play in the cold.

Neither Favre nor Tavaris Jackson are able to play, so the Vikings will be starting their 3rd string QB.

Sleepwalker and Fever, Club Nokia

Another couple videos from Thursday night. This is Sleepwalker. On the FYE album, this song is highly produced and emotionally flat, but live he sings this emotionally intense, angry, energetic version that I love.



The last one I'll post is Fever, my favorite uptempo song on the album.



Both videos shot by cos2mwiz.

Happy Belated Birthday, Michael

Sorry. I was mostly without computer access and completely distracted.



HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, MICHAEL


And, as always, pretend your name is Terrance:

Soaked at Club Nokia

And for a complete contrast from Adam's Purple Haze and Whole Lotta Love encore, posted below, here's Soaked, also from Thursday night at Club Nokia.  Stunning.  The tone in his quiet notes is even more breathtakingly beautiful live.  This video is also shot by cos2mwiz.

Final Glam Nation show

The final show of Adam's Glam Nation tour was Thursday, Dec. 16 at Club Nokia in LA.  Here's the encore.  This show was unreal.  It's an experience I'll never forget.  His speaking voice was really hoarse, so his stellar vocal performance was all the more unbelievable.  Vocal pyrotechnics all over the place.  I'll post some more later, but for starters, here's the encore (Purple Haze and Whole Lotta Love) as videotaped by a fan, cos2mwiz fans and edited by fan terraj.  (Warning or enticement:  Contains Not-Safe-for-Homophobe gestures):