Doomsayers Say Benedict Fits World End Prophecy - Yahoo! News Doomsayers Say Benedict Fits World End Prophecy - Yahoo! News Some people are just stupid.   ¶ 9:03 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  The young moon of April 2005
I have made a small gallery of pictures I took of the young moon of April 2005. Here is a sample. The full webpage is here.   ¶ 11:46 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Trailer Park Boys 5.2 OK, episode one of season five of Canada's best tv show had me a little worried. It was dull. Obviously they were setting up various plot points that will happen this season, but it was still dull. My main worry was that expanding the season from 8 to 10 episodes was the culprit. I hate to see quality diluted.

However, this week's episode, The Shit Puppets, renewed my faith. Pretty much every character managed to do something stupid. And that was funny. We now see that Cyrus, Dennis and um, I don't remember his name, may be recurring characters, and Mr. Lahey, Randy and Phil Collins (the guy with the gut from Season 4) are a threesome that can compete against Ricky, Julian and Bubbles.

I didn't need Bubbles to point out Lucy's new boobs, and what's going to happen to Trinity? after falling in with the bottle kids.

I look forward to the future episodes.

Warning: the preceding blog entry may have contained spoilers.  ¶ 11:47 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Free techhouse tracks from Ernestock Untitled Document

I like Neker7 best. All are minimal, with dub elements and a few clicks.   ¶ 11:26 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 091 - April 25, 2005 Influx - Flying All Day (Rising High)
Speedy J - Patterns (remix) (Novamute)
AFX - Batine Acid (Rephlex)
Kid Spatula - Dirtwah (Planet mu)
Gescom - TR2A (Skam)
Global Goon - Globy Dubes, Champion of all Americky (Rephlex)
Kinesthesia - Flicklife (Rephlex)
Marc Houle - East to West (M_nus)
Swayzak - The Long Night (K7)
Plastikman - Circles (M_nus)
Ricardo Villalobos - Hireklon (Perlon)
Savvas Ysatis - Select (Tresor)
NAW - Penny Fishing North of Bay (Noise Factory)
Rabbit in the Moon - Time Bomb (DJ19 mix) (Ultra)
Daft Punk - Technologic (EMI)
Pole Folder - Before It All Changes (Bedrock)
Ulrich Schnauss - Wherever You Are (Morr)
Et Sans - Track 1 (Alien8)  ¶ 9:34 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Free Mag 7 Star Charts Free Mag 7 Star Charts

Wow! Star charts can be very expensive. Andrew Johnson has published this set of star charts under a Creative Commons license. They're free, and they are quite well done.   ¶ 1:49 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Observations on the inverse relationship between the number of search terms and the accuracy of Google's results I've noticed in the past few months that the fewer search terms used with Google correlates with a more accurate search result. This is good and bad.

Example:

I needed some information on gout. The first result returned by Google (other than the unidentified ad) was excellent and provided all the information I needed. One search term, one good result.

I also wanted to know what bassline Adam Freeland sampled for his recent song "Heel & Toe". Well, so far I haven't been able to find it. I figure it's the White Stripes or Strokes or someone like that. But any combination of the six (or less) terms "Adam Freeland Heel Toe bassline sample" hasn't been any help at all.

To me, this suggests Google is getting the easy things right, which isn't very impressive, and the hard, obscure queries wrong. Someone out there must have identified the bassline sample and posted about it. Their engine can't seem to put together a large number of search terms to get an appropriate reply.  ¶ 10:10 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Physicists at war  ¶ 11:07 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 090 - April 18, 2005

Beaumont Hannant - Crouton (GPR)
Keef Baker - Reckless Engineering Through Diamonds (n5md)
Icarus - Ganglion (Leaf)
Alvin Curran - Canti Illuminati (Om)
Freeform - Caniton Web (Worm Interface)
Bola - Vhieneray (Skam)
Death From Above 1979 - Little Girl
Aframes - Negative (Sub Pop)
Christian Kleine - Stations (City Centre Offices)
The Project - Here We Go (R&S)
Care - Dissconnections (Force Tracks)
Martini Bros - Flash (Poker Flat)
Swayzak - Then There's Her (K7)
Young American Primitive - Trance Formation
Steve Porter - Between 9 & 10 (Fade)
Steve Porter - Swanky (Fade)
Adam Freeland - Heel and Toe (Ultra)
Boy From Brazil - Treason to Defeat (Transsolar)
Cursor Miner - War Machine (Lo)
Orbital - Tunnel Vision (ATO)
Junior Boys - Birthday (Manitoba mix) (Domino)  ¶ 11:30 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Here is an interesting story by Chris Mooney on how a condition called sleep paralysis may explain tales of alien abduction and other related imaginations.  ¶ 1:51 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  This Saturday is International Astronomy Day.

To celebrate it, my astronomy club, the RASC Niagara, will be holding three events. In the afternoon, there will be telescopes set up at A.N. Myer secondary school in Niagara Falls. Also, there will be telescopes set up for solar observing out the Starbucks at Fairview Mall in St. Catharines.

At night there will be a pubic starnight at Firemens' Park in Niagara Falls, where the public will have an opportunity to see Jupiter, Saturn and other things. The weather forecast looks good, I hope there will be a big crowd.  ¶ 1:30 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

 
The 5-day old moon on April 13, 2005. Shot through an 8" Orion Dobsonian.   ¶ 1:27 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 089 - April 11, 2004

DJ Shine - Coach [to] (Nice and Smooth)
Impossible Beings - Greasy Kittens (End)
Moonface - U Get So Give (Bedrock)
Ricardo Villalobos - I Try to Live (Can I Live) (Playhouse)
Swayzak - Keep It Coming (K7)
NAW - Railroading After Dark (Noise Factory)
Monolake- Ice
Casino vs Japan - Marilyn Set Me Free (Attack Nine)
Manual & Syntaks - Adinava (Darla)
Steve Lawler - Illectronic Music (Ultra)
Jamez - Feeling Good (Mute)
Steve Porter - Vodka Cranberries (Fade)
Orbital - Crash and Carry (ffrr)
Redanka - Waves
Softballet - You
Plaid - Tan Sau (Warp)
Junior Boys - High Come Down (Domino)
Squarepusher - F-train
Vincent Gallo - A Wet Cleaner (Warp)
Morgan Caney and Kamal Joory - Take My Light (City Centre Offices)  ¶ 11:49 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  I'm not a big of Brian Greene's books on string theory, or his PBS special, but his essay in today's New York Times on Einstein is excellent. You should read it, to learn what scientists think about Einstein's discoveries, one hundred years later.  ¶ 2:09 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  In this month's Exclaim! you can read Martin Turenne's column on wide-ranging mixes in dance music and more specifically, John Digweed's new Fabric 20 mix cd, which I review in the same issue. You can see we have similar feelings. In short, take some chances!  ¶ 9:54 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 088 - April 4, 2005 - Fine Flavours of Funk

Jedi Knights - May the Funk Be With You (Clear)
Freq Nasty - Check It Out
Orbital - Tension (ffrr)
Neotropic - Electric Bud (Ntone)
DJ Wally - Travelogue 1 NYC to Hawaii (Meat Beat Manifesto mix) (Thirsty Ear)
FSOL - Snake Hips (Astralwerks)
Autechre - 902 Quarter (Warp)
Air Liquide - Combat Zone Part 1 (Electrola)
Bola - Mauver (Skam)
Stereo MCs - Deep Down & Dirty (Two Lone Swordsmen mix) (Rotters Golf Club)
Slam - Alien Radio (Soma)
Black Dog - It Felt Like It
As One - Majik Jar (Terrace mix) (New Electronica)
Orb - Close Encounters (Attic)
MLO - Wimborne (Daniel Pemberton mix) (Rising High)
Richard Devine - Scatter, Fold, 28 (Warp)
Blackjwell - Falls (Dig Your Roots)
Aphex Twin - Pancake Lizard (Warp)  ¶ 9:26 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  The science journalism program I attended at Boston University has a new online science magazine out, called Resonance.  ¶ 11:18 AM 0 Comments Links to this post