RasterWeb!

Is it any wonder that last night’s episode of Futurama (Fear of a Bot Planet) was my favorite?

As someone who deals with data files on an almost daily basis I can appreciate a “large properly-formatted data file” (though sometimes they are improperly formatted, which makes me sad and causes robots everywhere to leak coolant at an alarming rate.)

Oh yeah, so where was I? “Large properly-formatted data files” right. See, a mere 6 hours after the episode (at the inhuman hour of 4 AM) I was working with large properly-formatted data files (my favorite kind) and databases, and diffs, and greps, and perls, and sqls and… I just realized, I think I’m a robot. I mean, I was pretty sure I was a pirate, but I might be a robot, which is ok, because I can still live on Robot Pirate Island.

Anyway, I’m off to plan my Robanukah party!

(Note: Order more lugnuts.)

Wired tells us that Bands Embrace Social Networking, which, um, isn’t really news, as bands have been doing this forever, the just use computers/internet nowadays to do it… (Maybe it should have said “Social Networking Web Sites”)

Traditionally, bands toured cities and played dive bars to create buzz about their music. But with MySpace, bands can host demos of their songs, announce shows and connect with fans without spending weeks on the road.

Well, in my day, bands got promoted by word of mouth, zines, touring, demos, self-released vinyl, the occasional local college radio station, etc… The funny thing about the “without spending weeks on the road” bit is that the majority of bands I saw in the 1990’s were a bunch of guys (or girls!) who were friends, and loved playing music, and managed to get enough shows to do a tour. The tour was usually a “break even” event (if that) where the shows would cover gas, and some food, while most meals and lodging was provided by promoters, or other bands, or just “cool people” you’d meet on the road… I remember hearing at least one band saying they were basically “on vacation driving across the US, playing shows along the way…”

I planned the Trademark tour, and it was a pain involving writing letters, sending out tapes, making phone calls… lather, rinse, repeat… With today’s tools and the internet handy, I can’t even imagine how much easier/more of a pleasure it would be to promote your band and book a tour. (Remember punkcasting?)

Hmmm, what was my point? Did I have one? Oh, it must be that technology, computers, and the internets make things easier, and improve the lives of all who use them. (Yeah, that sounds good to me!)

Good: JK Audio QuickTap. Not so much: RadioShack Recorder Control.

We first tried the Radio Shack Recorder Control, which worked, but gave us a noisy recording. Of course it was done in the presence of a few desktop computers, but even with some noise removal in Audacity, the quality just wasn’t quite there.

As for the JK Audio QuickTap, it is twice the price, but so far it’s showing a lot more promise as far as good quality recordings…

Argh… Firefox has been pretty darn stable for me overall, and I’m pretty loose with extensions, and will install a new one if it sounds useful, but lately I’ve have all these quits.

The nice thing about these quits are that I can see them coming. Actuall, I can hear them coming, because my hard drive starts getting loud, Firefox slows down, and then I’m alerted that Firefox has quit. Sometimes I even get to finish reading a page before it quits, so that’s nice…

Looking at the Talkback history though, I see this:

In theory, Firefox should quit on me 4 more times today. This might not happen as I’ve got a short day today, and if I actually get around to installing Firefox 1.0.4 perhaps all this badness will go away…

A conversation that may or may not have happened while two people were brushing their teeth…

Person #1: Today when I came in the bathroom the cat was licking my toothbrush…

Person #2: Ugh! That’s gross! She didn’t lick my toothbrush did she?

Person #1: No.

Person #2: Good. Because that is completely and totally disgusting.

Person #1: She was sitting on your toothbrush while she was licking mine…

For extra fun, pretend the cat is loved by Person #1 and tolerated by Person #2.

(Just to clarify, this did not happen to me. I keep my toothbrush in a drawer. Besides, my cats are too busy licking themselves and each other to look for random objects to lick…)