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20 Feb 2010 17:16

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Music: Saturday Mixtape: Adam Green makes a pretty good Lou Reed

  • 1. Expect Local Natives to become like catnip like blogs like ours for the next twelve months or so. They have all the elements of every big indie act here – the multi-voice harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the scale and trauma of The Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend’s ability to ride a groove, and the garage swagger of just about everybody else. And that’s all in one song, “Camera Talk.”
  • 2. Adam Green has a lot to atone for, what with the calling card of the Moldy Peaches (and all the good and bad that entails) on his resume. But “What Makes Him Act So Bad?,” along with the Velvet Underground sparkle of new album “Minor Love,” goes a long way.
  • 3. Speaking of Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons may be the first band to be directly inspired by them, if “Sigh No More” is any indication. That’s a lot of vocal harmony.
  • 4. Phantogram has more than a little trip-hop influence in their sound, as the big fat beat at the beginning of “Running From the Cops” emphasizes. The calm female “Ooh…” in the mix has the effect of making the blunt effect of the rough beat seem a lot less blunt.
  • 5. A pretty awesome compilation that came out this week, “The Minimal Wave Tapes: Vol. 1,” focuses on very minimal electronic from post-punk movement, as curated by Minimal Wave label-runner Veronica Vasicka and released on Stone’s Throw records. From the comp, Crash Course in Science’s “Flying Turns” has a lot of edge, a lot of simplicity and a dark groove.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 16:25

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Offbeat: A new kind of folk hero: Watch “Epic Beard Man” do his thang

  • (* note: graphic video *) It’s perhaps a great commentary on our society that a video of an old dude beating up another dude can become a phenomenon of the first order. But this clip isn’t even the first for Thomas Brusso, who was also involved in a tasering incident at an Oakland A’s game last Summer. Spike TV also has an interview with the dude. If nothing else, the beard lives up to the legend.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 16:01

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Tech: Authors all scared eBooks about to ruin the book economic model

  • I’ve got news: It takes about a year to write a book, you have to travel extensively, you have to do a lot of fact-checking. What Amazon and Apple are trying to do is significantly decrease the amount of money that publishers, and specifically authors, can make.
  • The Register writer Dan Goodin • Regarding the possibility of making profits off of eBooks via Kindle or iPad. We think the point he’s trying to make is pretty weak. Why’s that? Well, it completely discounts the things that eBooks make obsolete: The high costs of printing and distribution, which are no longer an issue. We’re not geniuses, but we’re guessing that if you take those two things out of the equation, it more than makes up for the $5 less that an eBook version of your average novel costs. Not convinced. Blame publishers for damaging the model by taking more than their fair share of the pie, not e-readers. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 15:55

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Offbeat: WILLLLMA! A lot of Texans think humans and dinosaurs coexisted

  • 41% of Texans don’t think that humans coexisted with dinosaurs
  • 30% think that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time
  • 30% aren’t sure about that, or if “The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones” is a good movie or not source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 15:36

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Tech, U.S.: Pennsylvania school district learns spying on students a bad idea

  • 42 number of times the school turned on the webcams to check on behavior (they did)
  • one student was nailed by the school for reportedly selling drugs in his home (he didn’t)
  • one class-action lawsuit was filed as a result of the privacy-infringing app (oh boy) source
  • The result? Students are totally up in arms about the violation in privacy, with some students noting the laptop is open in their bedrooms even when changing. Dear Lower Merion School District of Rosemont, Pa.: You guys are idiots. We don’t live in a nanny state.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 12:41

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Tech: From MP3 blogs to phone support, Google learns they’re not golden

  • Google isn’t to blame for the DMCA, one of the most spectacularly abused pieces of digital legislation  ever created. But it does seem to be getting more aggressive about DMCA enforcement.
  • Robert X. Cringely • Regarding Google’s year of screw-ups, most publicly with Buzz and Nexus One (Lack of phone support for a mobile phone? LOL!), but specifically in this case with the closure of a number of popular music blogs on its Blogger site, which Cringely notes has been underreported by the media. Which is why we’re doing our part by reporting it here. Many of the sites got no notification before they were straight-up taken off the Internet. “If at this point you’re drawing the conclusion that neither the IFPI nor Google know exactly what they’re doing in these matters, you’re not alone,” says I Rock Cleveland founder Bill Lipold, whose site was taken down based on a handful of broken links. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 12:40

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Culture: “Our Little Genius” isn’t nearly as smart as he looks

  • Word on the street is that this highly-promoted Fox game show, “Our Little Genius,” never made it to air because of an FCC complaint about the show. Apparently, the kids were getting fed answers to make them seem a lot smarter, which is totally not cool. More than anything, though, we’re sad that Kevin Pollack lost another gig. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

20 Feb 2010 12:07

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Politics: Ryan Sorba: How did this gay-bashing jerkbag get on CPAC’s stage?

  • Ryan Sorba, shown in this clip here, bashed CPAC for bringing a gay conservative organization, GOProud, as a sponsor. And his arguments make him sound like a massive bigot. And he got booed pretty impressively. Hey, bigoted assclown, you’re supposed to be bringing more people under your tent, not less, OK? It’s pretty awesome that a huge conference of ultra-conservatives won’t put up with this kind of bigotry. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 11:52

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Politics: We’d like to correct David Paterson’s reelection run speech

  • There’s so many people saying, ‘you shouldn’t run for governor.’ But you need to know this is a governor who does not quit will not win.
  • New York Gov. David Paterson • Who brushed off a New York Times article which should have been murder for his reelection chances to announce his plans today. Paterson, who is unpopular in his state, faces a challenge in the Democratic primary from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who, like the last attorney general (Eliot Spitzer) has bolstered his rep in that position. Paterson, on the other hand, is trying to use his underdog status – he has just $3 million in the bank, which is anemic for a gubernatorial campaign – to his advantage. Good luck with that, bro. This ain’t no movie comeback story where the underdog wins. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2010 11:36

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U.S.: R.I.P. Nixon staffer Alexander Haig: No, he wasn’t Deep Throat

Haig, shown here talking to Henry Kissinger, was chief of staff during Nixon, and saved his political soul by reportedly convincing Nixon to resign. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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