Robots!

by Steven Garrity

I’ll always remember that day years ago in high school math class. The class was quiet; everyone was working on their assignments. Then, suddenly, a horrible crash and clang of metal on metal came hurtling down the hall towards us. My friend ffoeg, always able to bend a moment to his liking to the amusement of his audience, gave out a yell: “ROBOTS!“.

It turned out to be a malfunctioning ventilation system, that time. But robots are going to get us sooner or later. I’m only kind of joking. Scientists (you know – scientists) are at the World Economic Forum this week warning the all the rich people about a future that includes a “possible takeover of humans by robots.” (see the related discussion at slashdot)

GOOD LORD! ROBOTS AND MAC USERS!The end is neigh. I can’t say much more, because robots are already browsing this very website and others like it (see the shot of my web stats to the right). In the meantime, let us at least enjoy some amusing comic strip foreshadowing of our dark future.

 

traces of radioactivity in our web stats

by Steven Garrity

I’ve already confessed to being a web stats junkie. There has been no improvement in this area since my confession. Rather, as the statistics get more interesting, my addiction grows ever worse. In fact, my web stats have become one of my primary means of finding new and interesting websites. I let them find me. And, naturally, sites linking to aov tend to be cool and interesting.

The logo gives me the creeps.Every few weeks over the last year, a few oddities gave crept into our referrer logs here at aov. Most peculiar, by far, is http://www.iaea.org or the International Atomic Energy Agency. To be clear, as far as I can tell, the IAEA has never actually had a link to Acts of Volition from their website. It appears, as is sometimes the case, that our web stats have been fooled into thinking that a website is sending visitors our way.

This happens occasionally (some javascript forwarding functions can cause it), but usually from sites that an aov reader visits regularly. Are any of you members of the International Atomic Energy Agency?

The International Atomic Energy Agency is apparently a wing of the United Nations that “serves as the global focal point for nuclear cooperation”. Acts of Volition is all about cooperation, but not so much about atomic energy. We prefer more photogenic energy sources in the hopes that we’ll end up better off than these guys.

If you’re interested in finding others who find us in some way notable, see this list of some of the most common referring pages to actsofvolition.com.

 

echos of unfortunate familiarity

by Steven Garrity

While at the local grocery store this evening I was struck by a peculiar sound. It was the sound of an old fashioned mechanical cash register. However, it did not ring out with the authenticity and high fidelity that only actual reality can provide (I’m afraid you have to specify which reality now). Rather, the cash register sound squawked out of tinny little computer speakers – dozens of them.

This particular grocery store has replaced its cash registers with computers and every time an item is scanned, they play this annoying cash register sound.

I understand the need for physical metaphors when dealing with software, but wouldn’t some other visual or less intrusive audio cue work just as well? I would think that one of the main advantages of computers over cash registers would be silent operation.

The only thing worst than ten cash registers banging away is ten computer speakers doing a poor job of reproducing the sound of ten cash registers banging away.

 

Peter Gzowski, 1934 – 2002

by Steven Garrity

Peter Gzowski, 1934 - 2002
As I listened to CBC Radio on my drive in to work this morning, there was a lively and joyful discussion of the greatness and quirks of CBC veteran Peter Gzowski.

I had heard that he was seriously ill and was encouraged to hear them having such a pleasant discussion of his life and work. Then my co-worker who was riding with me to work informed me that Peter had died.

It was nice to hear such a joyful wake on the public radio. This is how mourning should take place.

Peter Gzowski is remembered at Reinvented.net.

 

It’s an honour just to be nominated

by Steven Garrity

the nominees for best canadian weblog
Note the spelling of ‘honour’, after all, it is the Best Canadian Weblog category. Acts of Volition, so far humble by necessity, not by design, has been graced with a nomination for The Bloggies.

Nikolai Nolan’s 2002 Weblog Awards are a great way to discover new sites. I had never seen Loobylu before – beautiful. I was also glad to see DollarShort.org in the best-designed category (although I think Sylloge should be in there too).

If we win, I’m not going to tell Rob or Matt (they’ll never find out), and I’m going to use the prize money to buy another copy of Sam Brown’s Exploding Dog book. The best part about the Canadian category of the Bloggies is that the prize money ($20.02) which is intended simply as a token of appreciation, takes on significantly more value when converted to Canadian Funds. Thank you, internation industrial complex.

To the ‘little people’, you can expect to be thanked if we win. If not, better luck next year.

 

I still wish I was an engineer

by rob

My first AOV post ever was concerning how I wished I was an engineer so I could take my monstrous robot onto television and beat on other robots. Nothing has changed, except for now people out there are living the dream.

There are now about three shows that deal with his, and I want to tell you why they suck and how they can be improved.

First I’ll deal with Robotica. I have many issues with this. But I’ll start with the positive. I like the short history of each competitor showing the construction process. Even though they all say “My robot will win because it’s powerful enough to pull my minivan in neutral”.

The problem is that people are treating this new type of competition as a novelty and have whacky commentators, flashy high-tech lights, and stat-screens that are useless. That Zappa guy bugs me, he’s too “Whacky and off the wall”. I’ve watched Robotica a few times and I’ve learned that there are a few reoccuring factors. There is maybe 10-15 minutes of moving robots. Maybe less. What there is no shortage of is awkward robots beached, stuck, or otherwise motionless. Wabbling or bumping awkwardly and jerkily about. Then the announcer always says “Whack! That robots seems to have a tran-tran- transmission problem! That’s noooooo good!” in a whacky and off the wall voice. It’s frustrating to watch toasters jiggle all that time in their little post-apocalyptic-esque gauntlets.

Just when I was about to give up on fighting robots for a few more months, I caught two or three episodes of Battlebots. That was more entertaining, but still has some rough edges. For example, there are no little cutesy competitions because they never work. It’s all robots beating eachother. I saw an amazing robot that did suck as far as what a BattleBot should do, but made up for all that by not looking remotely like any other robot. I can’t find a picture of it, but it was a 2 meter robotic snake. It was cool. The other robots actually worked. I saw strategy instead of wounded manatees. The commenting people were less whacky, they have BILL NYE as a scientific consultant. And Jay Leno competes with his robot too. I’m not saying you need celebrities to have a good show, but, in this case it works.

I’ve caught an episode of Robot Wars once. It was like 3am on PBS. It seemed like a less-exciting BattleBots. It had the Red Dwarf guy as host. I don’t know much more about it other than it was better than that Robotica crap with the sleeping robots.

Thank you for your attention.

 

In bed with U2’s Elavation tour

by Steven Garrity

U2 - Elevation Tour 2001 (Live from Boston)
I watched U2’s Boston concert DVD last night and I was pleased. Having seen the Elevation Tour in Montreal, I was curious to see how the DVD-on-laptop-in-bed experience would compare with the 18,000-people-in-a-stadium experience. Obviously it didn’t touch the real thing, but it was a nice compliment to attending the actual concert in that there a few things that an entire film crew was able to pick up that I might have missed from our seats at the other end of the Molson Centre.

The disc does a great job of showing how straightforward the tour was. It was a big tour with a huge crew, but on stage the four musicians were pretty much on their own. The camera catches a few great close-ups of the members of the band in which you can really see their facial expressions. The Edge seemed quite preoccupied with playing the music. Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Bono played the rock star. There are a few great shots where you see The Edge looking to Larry Mullen for the rhythm. For a second they seem less like U2, and more like four guys in a band.

The set list included 7 new songs from All That You Can’t Leave Behind, a few of the U2 classics, and a few refreshing unlikely choices (Gone, Bad, Stay (Faraway, so close), Until The End Of The World). The Edge used the set list as an opportunity to parade an amazing set of classic guitars including a full-bodied Gretsch, a pearl Telecaster, Edge’s classic Gibson Explorer, a Godin, a beautiful clear woodgrain finish Stratocaster, and a 12-string Richenbacher that The Edge kicks off the stage.

The Edge - photo from U2.comWhat I found most striking about the DVD was how great U2 is at putting on a rock concert. You can really see the experience of 20 years of touring. Bono plays the 20,000 strong audience like it was a percussive instrument. The Edge’s guitar and Bono’s voice alone can fill a stadium design for NHL hockey.

The new album contrasts nicely with the older material in the context of the concert. If Stuck in a Moment were a little more immature and unrefined, if would fit in perfectly on Rattle and Hum.

The live performances shed new light on some of what I had though where the weaker songs from All That You Can’t Leave Behind. New York, which always struck me as goofy (comparing the heat of New York to a “hair dryer in your face” just doesn’t hold up next to the biblical alegory of The End of the World – which Bono introduces this night with “this is judas”) and Walk On both shine make more sense in the live context.

Highlights include, the inclusion of Until The End Of The World and a great rendition of Stay (Faraway, so close). Introducing the band, Bono says “Even his mother calls him, The Edge“. The introductions to The Fly and Where the Streets Have No Name are classic goosebump-inducing stadium rock moments.

 

You can’t buy linux, but you can buy Red Hat

by Steven Garrity

AOL Time Warner is apparently in negotiations to buy Red Hat – the closest thing Linux has to a corporate identity (original source: Washington Post – see related discussions at Slashdot and MetaFilter). It would be interesting to see how AOL/TW would handle having a stake in the success of Linux. AOL has long had a love/hate relationship with Microsoft and the ubiquitous Windows platform. They need it to succeed (so far at least). I suppose having the most promising underdog operating systems would be a nice compliment to having the most promising underdog web browser (Mozilla).

Red Hat has had a strong web presence since their purchase of web design firm Atomic Vision a few years ago. Atomic Vision was responsible for the original design of Cnet’s Download.com, one of the better design on the web at the time. For a while, Red Hat / Atomic Vision produced some great web work, including Red Hat’s own site (great logo) and the open source news site Wide Open News. Both sites have since deteriorated somewhat in quality but are still quite good and I get the impression that much of what was bought with Atomic Vision has since been laid off (see sob story).

It’s fascinating how the life’s work of large groups of people can get lost in the mix of mergers and acquisitions. I get the feeling AOL/TW doesn’t even know it owns ICQ or WinAmp (although, I died a little bit the day WinAmp started including an AOL icon as part of its installation). They seem completely unaware of their own participation in the development of the file swapping Gnutella service.

I wouldn’t expect AOL for Linux for Dummies next week. AOL/TW has been slow to leverage their technology takeovers so far. Netscape hasn’t done much at all (their still pushing Netscape 4.x even though the open source Mozilla project has produced a far superior browser). ICQ is still an odd ball next to AOL Instant Messenger. There are two possibilities here:

  1. they are looking a little farther down the road for integration of these various entities and a return on these investments or;
  2. they have no idea what they are doing.

Consumers are like electricity, they’ll take the path of least resistance. So far, this has generally been dictated by pre-installation and universal compatibility of the Windows and Internet Explorer platforms (that’s compatibility via monopoly, btw) and the Wal-Mart-style lowest common denominator approach taken by AOL.

Bill Gates has often said that in 30 years, Coca-Cola will still be on top, but Microsoft will not. I think he’s right, but I think they’ll be enjoying the next 25 years first.

 

cows strike back

by rob

Yesterday I learned about a suspicious connection (or a dark cloud gathering overhead) between a bacterium in Pasteurized milk and Crohn’s disease.

They haven’t proven anything, but if it is eventually proven to be true, I think it’s perfectly fair for a cow to give me a disease after I’ve eaten so many of thier brethren.

 

moments of musical transcendence

by Steven Garrity

All this talk of great music has got me thinking (more than I should, perhaps). I love music. I can’t listen to music in bed at night because instead of going to sleep, I listen intently until the entire CD is though and only then can I think of sleeping.

What I love most about music is the moments where a lyric, song, or performance just hits you. I don’t think can’t describe the phenomenon adequately. I heard Sarah MacLaughlan say describe it once as ‘resonating with peoples souls’. Sounds corny, I know – but I don’t think that’s such a bad way to describing what it.

Sometimes it has as much to do with your own thoughts and environment as it does with the artists and music itself, but I don’t think that matters much. Sometimes it’s a song – any time you hear it – sometimes its one particular time or place you remember hearing a song. Perhaps I can better illustrate what I’m talking about with some examples from my own experience.

  • The Tragically Hip’s performance of Nautical Disaster on Live Between Us. I never really liked the hip much. They always sounded like a sloppy bar band to me (in a bad way). However, when I first heard this song, and ever time since, I was totally captivated. I listened to, heard, and understood every word (or thought I did, which is good enough for me). The lyrics are brilliant and the chord charges perfect – you can feel each chord coming and it feels perfect when it does. There are lots of songs with brilliant lyrics and great melody – this one just hits me.
  • The bridge in the song Transfiguration from Copyright’s album Love Story. The part of the song that goes “Love is divine; Love has its own design” and the musical phrases that follow. The chord changes are, again, perfect. It gives me goose bumps. Honestly.
  • Hearing the opening vocal lines of The Garden Song by Sandbox on a great old stereo in the old CIMN closet in The Barn at UPEI. When his voice drops (“…bring you down…”) Steve Albini proves that he is worth $100,000 to record your record. This took on a whole new meaning after seeing them live.
  • Listening to Heal from Catherine Wheel’s Happy Days as loud as possible in my bedroom on my beautiful old Pioneer 100 watt tube amp stereo when my house was empty when I was in high school. The guitar on the album reminds of a power of a giant church organ and needs to be heard very loud.
  • Listening to Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins from start to finish at an almost uncomfortable volume. Mayonaise is one of my favourite songs ever. Again, church organ guitar.
  • Skipping school and driving around in my parents old Saturn listening to my cassette of Poor Old Lu’s Straight Six.
  • The songs Ugly and Enya by Age of Electric’s from their self titled album.
  • Brighter Hell and All Uncovered by the Watchmen.
  • Playing Street Spirit by Radiohead with my high school garage band (we never actually played in a garage – well once)
  • My Boy by Eyes for Telescopes from their album Please Survive.
  • Watching U2’s Mexico PopMart concert on MuchMusic (the Monteal concert was good too)
  • The opening moments of Where the Streets Have No Name by U2 from both Joshua Tree and Rattle & Hum.
  • The chorus from Satellite from Catherine Wheel’s Adam & Eve.

I hope you can understand what I’m talking about despite my description. It’s not just about great songs and albums, but moments when you notice how great an album is, or actually hear a lyric for the first time even when you’ve heard the song many times before, or something as simple as a melody, vocal or chord change.

Some of you have shared your concert experiences with us before, but I’d love to know what song or lyric or album does this for you? Why? Is it even music?