Crock Pot modification

One of the neat things we got as part of our Christmas haul is a Crock Pot.  I've been wanting one for a while, and it was really perfect timing.  We've already made quite a few dishes in it, and it's been going very well.  One thing that kind of sucked was that one outlet in the kitchen (apparently) doesn't work, and it took an hour to find out that the Crock Pot wasn't cooking.  There is no power light on the device anywhere, and the only way you know anything is happening is by the surface getting hot, which either takes a long time to do so, or is so hot that it will burn your hand.  Besides these lengthy guessing games, it's a safety concern when there is no visual indication that the thing is so hot you can't touch it.  Not really ideal.

To complicate matters, I also invested in a simple outlet timer that would shut off power to the cooker in case no one was home to do so.  The timer I got also lacks any sort of on/off indicator, so it's even more difficult to tell whether the crock pot is functioning or not.

A number of possible solutions came to mind, but I finally decided that the slow cooker/crock pot should really just have a power light.

DIY Snowshoes

Susannah was talking about snow-shoeing today, and I got the idea that it might be neat to try to make some.  From a pure practicality standpoint, at worst, it would be nice to have something to help the occasional trek out to the storage shed when the need arises.  At best, I might actually try doing some real snow shoeing (in a place where I won't be judged by some yuppie with their $300 designer L.L. Bean, carbon fiber jobbies).  I decided to use any of the million scrap pieces of wood in the garage.

Diesel Haulin'

In the final days before the snowstorm, I managed get my act together and squeeze in the acquisition of half a cord of wood.  

Comcast to the rescue (too bad there was nothing wrong)

Comcast keeps calling me and leaving messages (I don't answer) saying that my modem "is not capable of receiving the full range of their speeds".  This has been going on for months.  I upgraded to a Motorola SB6121, a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, about 6 months ago.  Everything has been working fine, speeds are around 30 Mb/s download.  So I finally decided to call Comcast and... pretty much just see what they had to say.  I figured at best I could get them to stop calling me.

After almost 3 minutes of menu surfing, I finally was on my way to speak to a human.  The person I talked to verified my identity and had a look at my account.  She asked me if I had 2 modems.  (Wondering why this matters): "I only have one connected..."  Apparently the reason why she asked is that the other modem was shown as a Comcast rental.  I have ALWAYS owned all of my modems.  She put me through to the "Internet department" (haha) and I spoke to someone else, who asked me most of the same questions.  After I explained that I own all of my modems, she said she would need to create a ticket, and someone would do "research", and call me back.

Helicopters and Recording Sessions

The other day we were recording the band Flowting Bridge in our Randolph studio, a large garage. We have a decent live room area, and a wall to separate the control room. We were doing live recording with a miked amp, and since there is a back entrance to the live room, we had the bright idea to use the great outdoors as the "amp room". So we put the amp out there with an SM7 on it.

At one point during the day, a helicopter flew over at low altitude (coming in for a landing in town). Fortunately(?) this happened while we were on break. My first thought was, "phew, glad that didn't happen while we were recording..." and my next thought was to BOLT inside and hit record on the console. I ended up with a "field recording" of the flyover, which the boys decided they will use on the album as a hidden track. If you'd like to check out the sample, I uploaded it to freesound.org here. Enjoy:

http://www.freesound.org/people/doctor567/sounds/161579/

480 Million Needles Floating In Space

The dumb things people will do for war. I just read about this 1963 experiment, where the US launched a package of 480 million tiny needles into space, in order to create an artificial ionosphere that we could bounce radio signals off. The idea was to provide a backup method of communications in case our undersea cables were taken out by the enemy.

It "worked" for a couple of months, and then scattered to the point that it would no longer provide any effect, other than to obscure communications attempts beyond the orbit altitude of these needles, which it probably still does to some extent today. On top of that, this blanket of space junk is one of the many things that modern spacecraft have to avoid when doing, for example, real advancement for mankind.

Why Reward /Offer Cards Suck

Ok, here's another scam to watch out for. "Reward" debit cards. These are becoming all the rage. If you haven't seen one yet, rest assured you will. They may eventually replace all offer checks sent to you by companies (things like rebates, rewards, gifts, etc.) Popular amounts are $25 - $100.

They are basically debit cards with a fixed limit for the amount the company is giving you. If you have used one, here's a familiar scenario.

Joe has a $50 debit card he got from a cell phone rebate. He used it to buy dinner last night, and has $35.42 left on it. Today Joe finishes pumping his gas. The total comes up to $38.42. Joe inserts / hands the clerk his offer debit card and attempts to pay. Uh oh, transaction denied. No big deal, Joe can use it to buy something cheaper. Except, HOW MANY THINGS CAN YOU BUY WITH A DEBIT CARD UNDER $35.00? Here's the short list of reasons why these cards suck:

• Transactions for more than the balance of the card are denied. Yes you can split the transaction between 2 cards, if you know how much you have left on the card, and you are using it at a location where this is possible, but who has time to screw around?

• The balance is a pain in the ass to find out. It usually involves creating an account on some website or calling an obscure 800 number and typing in many digits.

• It screws up your accounting, if you like to track your spending through your bank statement.

Essentially, they know you're not going to be able to access the last bit of the money. So in essence, they are giving you $25-$100, but there's a pretty good chance that they may only actually have to spend about $5-$85.

The irony of it all is that they are frequently touted as being a "more convenient" alternative to traditional check payments. Keep your debit card, I'll take a good old fashioned check.

Broadvoice unable to call Fairpoint phone numbers

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but since last night, I am unable to call any Vermont landline (a.k.a. FAIRPOINT) phone numbers from my Broadvoice line. Message is: "I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." The same issue also exists at work, where we also use Broadvoice.

I called Broadvoice tech support, and they said the problem is on Fairpoint's end. They've reported it several times.

On an interesting and semi-related note, I have experienced (twice in the past) a problem where people with Verizon Wireless couldn't dial my Broadvoice line (similar message). I got through to someone at Verizon Wireless, and they were able to confirm and fix the problem. They said the issue was with routing tables (the dialing kind, not the IP kind).

Of course, being a Verizon Wireless customer also, it was a lot easier for me to get them to listen.

Prem tech visits the wrong location

I finally had the chance to play around with xtranormal.com. It's pretty addictive. You can make a machinima movie very quickly (once you learn how to deal with a few idiosyncrasies). I would recommend steering clear of the "Take 5" button, as it pretty much ought to be relabeled "trash my video".

If you aren't familiar, there is a subculture of "premise technicians" (technicians that go on site to make repairs), for certain well known cable and telephone companies. It's not a rewarding job. There is a raft load of satirical videos on Youtube, using xtranormal machinima, in the format of sort of "a day in the life" of a prem tech.

So, with that as my inspiration, here's my first piece. Yes, this is based on a true story. Some liberties were taken, and the names were changed to protect the guilty. Audio track is NSFW.

FAIL: The Snowdrift 2000

I'm sure everyone has thought about trying this at some point, right? Come on, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Timbaland rips off a Demoscene artist

I knew this day would come. The new Timbaland/Nelly Furtado song "Do It" uses a song made in 2000 by Finnish demoscene artist "Tempest" (Janne Suni). It's a 4 channel .mod (the ripoff is from a playback using the C64 SID soundchip). The song was hosted on scene.org's servers (the main repository for all everyones demos and tracked music, etc.). As you might expect, no permission or royalties were paid to Tempest.

Just to clarify, we're not talking about some kind of coincidence here. There is no question that this track was used to create the song "Do It".

In an interview, Timbaland tries to downplay it, saying things like "he sampled it from a video game". (This track was not written for a video game- it was actually written for the 2000 demoscene music competition, in which it won 1st place). Regardless, he basically claims he has no legal obligations because it's just like all the other pop artists that sample other music. The difference is that those artists get royalties even when other artists sample their music. Anyway, when you here the song, this is a little more than a "sample". Tempest deserves some compensation.

That being said, this is a very interesting situation. Timbaland has the legal power of Geffen Records behind him, and Tempest has his one lawyer. No one has heard of the Demoscene, so he's going to get screwed, and all of us who have written and submitted tracked music to repositories popular among the Demoscene could be next.

There is such a huge difference between the worlds of pop music and demoscene music. In the pop music model, the music is highly "accessible" (simple assed writing, CD's that sell in retail stores, played everywhere you go, etc.) and the artist generally receives revenues (and fame). In the Demoscene, because of the nature of the way the music is "programmed", the music can be complex and intricate, and often uses sounds not heard in the pop world because of the computer architecture that is used in playback. The music is awesome, but obscure. Most importantly it's always been freely shared. For a big pop artist looking to do something revolutionary with their "sound", this is a wide open door. All you have to do is throw away a little thing called "ethics".

When the pop and demoscene worlds are mixed, everything breaks down. The precedence of this case is really important because there's a fricking ton of incredible music out there in the demoscene that could fall "victim" and be used to make money for someone else, and the outcome of this will decide whether there will be any royalties paid to those artists if their music is used.

To make matters worse, he apparently already used this piece of music to make money in 2005, in a ringtone "written exclusively by Timbaland":



Media
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Here's the entire C64 playback of the original (mp3 format)
http://www.genietervan.com/hoerr/glenn_acidjazz.mp3

Here's the Timbaland/Furtado song:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8N4ovp90Ea0

The first post in this thread does a good job of explaining what happened:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2274635&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Timbaland, in an interview answering to the controversy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTvY3wZrHrQ