It’s that time of year again — TLC is accepting applications for warriors for the 2003 season of Junkyard Wars! This year, though, they want individual applicants instead of teams. I’ve always enjoyed the teams, personally, because it’s like watching a bunch of rowdy friends on the weekend in their own back yards and garages. Here’s hoping that throwing teams of strangers together doesn’t degenerate our beloved Junkyard Wars into The Real World with blowtorches. Now go apply!
Audio-what?
Check out Audioscrobbler, a Winamp (and XMMS) plugin that keeps track of what you’re listening to, compares it with what other people are listening to, and then recommends new music that you might like. This is just begging to be hooked up to a P2P system.
Gibson’s Pattern Recognition
William Gibson has a new website with blog in conjunction with his latest book, Pattern Recognition. It includes a discussion area that is getting some serious traffic.
The Next Wired?
I’ve been looking for the next Wired for a long time. Bruce Sterling has essentially anointed MetropolisMag as the heir apparent. Waddayou think?
Uncle Bill’s Helicopter
http://www.taht.net/uncle_bills_helicopter.html
Uncle Bill’s Helicopter: It’s a story I tell myself, so I can get up, every day, to do my job, writes engineer Michael Taht
Link courtesy of Scitech Daily
This is your brain on Recursion
Fun Flash animation, shows infinite zoom.
Copyright Patient Zero
This article on Snopes, explainer of legends urban, traces the circuitous path of ownership of the song Happy Birthday, from it’s authoring by two kindergarten teachers who died childless and unmarried nearly a hundred years ago, to just another piece of AOL Time Warner IP.
My wife, the rock star
My wife, Pam Bricker, and her band Thievery Corporation performed on KCRW in LA yestersday morning. The webcast is available here. Pam’s singing the 2nd and 3rd and the last tune. Pappa’s so proud.
Bruce Sterling on Open Source
This came out in July, but it’s so wonderful it deserves a good read. Viridian Note 00325: Open Source Speech
The older Bill gets, the uglier he gets. He’s a guy riding a white horse, that turned into a runaway bronco bull, that turned into a scaly crocodile, and now, it is turning into some kind of diseased revenant. It’s like the Steed of the Nazgul, those black, flying zombie horses that explode when exposed to fresh water. That’s what Microsoft is like now. These guys, these Nazgul… They used to be kings. They were originally human beings, they had wives and children and futures, they had their own little nations to govern and manage. But then there was the One Ring – One Ring to Rule Them All. One. And they couldn’t resist. And they gave in.
Swiping with Style
Following the advice of a well-connected Net celebrity, I started using Limewire to fulfill my P2P needs on OS X. Then I discovered Iswipe Connects to three times as many networks, including Hotline and some others I’d never heard of. Finally, I’m able to find some artists that just weren’t showing up in Limewire. Iswipe is also donation-ware.