Swoon 131 - February 27, 2006 - Old School Special Spicelab - Quicksand (Rising High)
Plaid - Object Orient (Warp)
Gescom - Go Sumo (Clear)
Reload - Le Soleil et la Mer (Infonet)
u-ziq - Hector's House (Rephlex)
Wagon Christ - Throbbing Pouch (Rising High)
Future Sound of London - Lifeforms (Virgin)
Radiowaves - Radiowaves 8 (Rising High)
Source Experience - Voices of the Spirit (R&S)
Detune - Irradiation (Rising High)
Air Liquide - Ek-Stasis (Sm:)e)
Bola - Krak Jokomo (Skam)
Sabres of Paradise - Smokebelch II (Sabres of Paradise)
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray (exp)
Maurice - This Is Acid (Soul Jazz)
Aphex Twin - Digeridoo (R&S)
Autechre - Piezo (Warp)  ¶ 8:57 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Take My Survey on Swoon I have posted a short survey on my website about my Swoon radio program. I would appreciate hearing what people think of the show from my listeners. You don't have to be a long-time listener.

I get very little input in terms of email, phone calls or weblog comments, so I am hoping this survey will enlighten me as to what you like best.

There are only five questions. Please turn off your popup blockers. The survey will run for a few weeks. I may add questions.  ¶ 4:08 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Recent You Tube finds Orbital - Funny Break (good)
http://www.youtube.com/?v=RZHHqwmq3GM

Orbital - The Box (not so good)
http://www.youtube.com/?v=TthygmXimAg

Orbital - Waving Not Drowning (homemade! two nutty teenage girls in empty school)
http://www.youtube.com/?v=nfy7BgoxdH0

Orbital - Halcyon (homemade mashup of Halcyon and Hackers(?) movie)
http://www.youtube.com/?v=S676Ww2t6K8

Orbital - Halycon (the real thing, poor quality)
http://www.youtube.com/?v=NQflXbS2TI0

Kate Bush - Experiment IV
http://www.youtube.com/?v=mfUHkiTRjkg  ¶ 10:38 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Olympics thoughts I have been enjoying the Olympics, but it is starting to wane.

What can be duller than men's figure skating, cross-country skiing and bobsled? Not much. Where have all the Kurt Brownings and Scott Hamiltons gone?

I like the medals, even though they look like blank cds. NBC informed me last night that the Winter Olympics has great flexibility in medal design, while the Summer Olympics are nearly the same.

Snowboard cross? Maybe they will add roller derby at the Summer Olympics for balance.

Jeff Bean's simultaneous loss of both skis is the funniest thing I have seen so far. It's only funny because he wasn't hurt. An amazing recovery after a total disaster.

Next funniest was the Italian ice dancers glare competition after a tumble at the end of the first round. The silent treatment that last right up until their final skate was just as good.

CBC's coverage is, as usual, much better than NBC's. Everytime I turn on CBC in the morning they are covering events live. I switch to NBC, and they're talking about Italian food, or worse, fashion.

NBC's sole bright spot is in skiing, where they use computers to show you two racers at the same time and can see how they pull ahead or fall behind. CBC could use that.  ¶ 10:12 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 130 - February 20, 2006 Orbital - Time Becomes (ffrr)
Boy Robot - Invaders of Vanity Clubland (City centre offices)
Elegy - Climatic Calm (New Electronica)
Sieg Uber Sie Sonne - You'll Never Come back (Plaid mix) (Peacefrog)
Coldcut - Everything is Under Control (DJ Kentaro mix) (Ninja Tune)
Philippe Quenum - Lemon (Trapez)
Break 3000 - Lights (My Best Friend)
DSP Speedwagon - What Happened (Trapez)
Marek Bois - You Got Good Ash (Trapez)
Shane Berry - Sigh (Trapez)
Adam Kroll - Godzilla (Traum)
Daso - Go Upstairs (My Best Friend)
Kaito - Nobody Could Be Alone (Kompakt)
Himiko - Aurora (Haunted)
Crouched Head - CH New Year (Drip Audio)
James Bernard - Ponder (Rising High)
Static - Spawn (City centre offices)
Sinewave - Todd's Journey Into Temporal Space (Vinylrepublik)
1-Speed Bike - 8 Months Stuck In A Shipping Container With 12 Jehovah's Witnesses (Broklyn Beats)
Aphex Twin - Start As You Mean To Go On (Warp)
Vitalic - No Fun
Beef Terminal - Avails (Noise Factory)  ¶ 9:12 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 129 - February 13, 2006 Kaito - Natural Source (Kompakt)
Funk d'void - Way Up High (Alex Smoke mix) (Soma)
Slok - Lonely child club mix (SAW)
Fidgital - You Got it goin on (Fidgital)
Bebel Gilberto - Simplesmente (Quango)
Carsick - Fringe Bananas (Drip Audio)
Dominik Eulberg - Harzer Roller (Traum)
Mufo - Claudia (K2)
Lump - Ho Smut Chop (Rrygular)
Chaton and Numon - Dreaming Surfaces part one (Nummer)
Mikkel Metal - Rain (Kompakt)
Orb - Speicher 33 (Kompakt extra)
Ghislain Poirier - Hamado (Chocolate Industries)
Ghislain Poirier - Don't Smile, It's Post-Modern (Chocolate Industries)
Ghislain Poirier - Cold As Hell (Chocolate Industries)
Ghislain Poirier - Synthetic Rhythms (Chocolate Industries)
Ghislain Poirier - Refuse To Lose (Chocolate Industries)
Sinewave - Gravity-Vortex Vertigo (Vinylrepublik)
The Notwist - Neon Golden (Domino)
Kris Tall - Elbe 1 (EMI)
Kaito - Your Brilliant Flowers (Kompakt)
Kate Bush - King of the Mountain (Kick Inside mix) (EMI)  ¶ 9:28 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 128 - February 6, 2006 69 - Rushed (R&S)
AFX - Untitled (Aka .942937) (Rephlex)
Coldcut - Everything Is Under Control (Solid Groove remix) (Ninja Tune)Trentemoller - Polar Shift (Poker flat)
Dominik Eulberg - Basstolpel (mute)
Royksopp - What Else is There? (Trentemoller mix) (Wall of Sound)
Hardfloor - Da Revival (Brique Rouge)
The MFA - The Difference it Makes (Superpitcher mix) (Kompakt)
Pryda - Aftermath (Pryda)
Tilt - Seduction of Orpheus (Tilt mix) (hooj)
Funk d'void - Diabla (Heavenly mix) (soma)
Isolee - do re mi (playhouse)
Black Dog - Remote Viewing (Dusted)
Autechre - 902 Quarter (Warp)
Orb - Cool Harbour (kompakt)
Kenny Larkin - Soul Man (R&S)  ¶ 9:56 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  2003 UB313, bigger than Pluto, so what is a planet? The latest study of the small planet 2003 UB313, published today in Nature, reveals that it is bigger than Pluto, a team of astronomers says. The team used infrared measurements to determine its size, about 3000 kilometers across, making it significantly larger than Pluto, which measures 2300 kilometers. Infrared measurements at a wavelength of 1200 nm are more sensitive to size than visual light, which depends on knowing a body's color and what percentage of light it is reflecting. 2003 UB313 is so far out its color is very difficult to determine.

All this serves to smash further holes in our definition of a planet. Many researchers currently consider our four rocky inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and the four outer gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune to be typical planets. (See them all here.)

Pluto was recently demoted to being a Kuiper Belt Object, which is debris and smaller objects on the outskirts of the solar system. This upset a lot of people, including astronomers. A google search quickly shows the controversy. Astronomers responsible for the demotion claimed Pluto was just the largest and closest object of the Kuiper Belt. 2003 UB313 definitely lives farther out in the thick of the Kuiper Belt. But its large size makes its irritatingly outside of the standard boxes that define planets.

Other problem children include the large gas giants that circle around stars other than our own. These extrasolar planets can be much larger than Jupiter and can orbit much closer than Earth. And where do asteroids fit, such as the asteroid belt in our solar system, which didn't have the mass to become a rocky planet? Then there's brown dwarves, which have just enough mass to glow warmly in infrared light, but certainly not enough to start the fusion that makes a star.

So we have all these oddballs tugging on our definition of planets. The IAU working group on planets clearly has its work cut out.

Personally, I like Alan Stern's proposal best (you'll have to scroll way down): have lots of different kinds of planets, like we have for stars. For stars there are main-sequence, white dwarves, brown dwarves, neutron, pulsar, red giants, red dwarves and supergiants. They all have different characteristics, but nobody doubts there are, or were, stars.

For planets, there could be gas giants like Jupiter, rocky ones like Earth, and small outliers like Pluto and 2003 UB313. We just need the nomenclature to define them.

My view: if it can pull itself into a sphere under its own gravity and isn't a star, it's some kind of planet. Unless it's a comet. Rats.

  ¶ 11:28 AM 0 Comments Links to this post