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23 Jul 2010 17:39

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U.S.: Deepwater Horizon’s alarm too noisy, so they shut it off

  • Apparently, there were a lot of false alarms. They apparently were annoying and woke up sleeping workers. That’s what a chief technician for Transocean, the company that ran the oil rig, said about the reasons that safety systems were knowingly turned off – which helped lead to the disaster that killed 11 people and caused the ocean to flood with oil. In other oil-company-friendly news, BP got transparent about their Photoshopped images and posted a set of images up on Flickr – the ‘chopped images and the originals. Which is funny, because none of the images needed any Photoshopping at all. source

09 May 2009 09:14

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Music: ShortFormBlog’s Saturday Mixtape digs into the ’90s buzz bin

  • 1. Mark Lanegan had a much more nuanced career after the heyday of Screaming Trees. Even so, it wasn’t because the band sucked – see “Nearly Lost You” for an example.

    2. Los Angeles is a popular topic in indie rock, but trailblazer Frank Black of the Pixies got there early. This scatterbrained tune also drew a line in the sand for Black’s solo output.

    3. Nobody broods like Greg Dulli. The former Afghan Whigs lead singer (currently of The Twilight Singers) came off as sophisticated on “Debonair,” off of Gentleman.

    4. Sunny Day Real Estate suffered from overhype at first. Their self-titled debut (which also has killer cover art) shows why – songs like “In Circles” grab right for your collar.

    5. Why does Shoegazer music begin and end with My Bloody Valentine? There’s other great bands from the era like Catherine Wheel, whose “Black Metallic” sparkles.source