Nine Inch Nails has just released an Instrumental collection.
I’ve been waiting for something like this for ages. Trent Reznor has always been amazingly creative in the soundscapes he creates. Even some of his earliest works are more layered an detailed than a good chunk of music you’ll run into today. He’s branched out in this direction before making atmospheric world-describing tracks that get included on some albums, and he has worked in soundtracks to both films and video games with great success. Now we’ve got something even more his own.
Ghosts I-IV is a real treat for the imagination. I ordered the $75 special set which includes a blu-ray disc with high quality recording and imagery associated with the tracks. I won’t see it till May unfortunately, but I’m anxious. That set also includes a DVD with multi-track recordings that you’re free to remix under creative commons!
I’m hearing that NIN is seeding the first part of the collection on torrents. Bold move, and cool. Trent Reznor is really pushing the edge on the evolution of the music industry. Thank you, Trent.
Popularity: 38% [?]
Putting the post up now to maybe snag some extra search engine traffic 
Photos will appear here in the next hour for the 2008 lunar eclipse visible from North America. Got some good pictures from my home near Dallas, TX. It’s cloudy, but the clouds are moving fast so don’t pose a huge problem!
And here we are with some pictures!
8516
8523
8529
8531
8533
To take these pictures I used my trusty old Canon 20D with the 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens. I also used a very crappy tripod. In this situation neither the IS nor the tripod helped me much. The first few pictures before the shadow is dominating the moon I took at an Aperture of f14 and a shutter of about 1/250 second. You can see these are much sharper than the latter pictures.
Since the 20D doesn’t have a spot meter I had to experiment a bit to find the exposure I wanted. Using center weighted or whole scene metering throws things FAR too overexposed for the moon. When shooting the moon you have to remember that the moon is very very bright compared to it’s surroundings. Even using exposure compensation, 2 stops underexposed according to the meter is no where near enough. I think at 1/250 @ f14 the meter thinks I was 6-10 stops underexposed. If I had a spot meter, I probably could have metered on the moon, and dialed it in with EC.
The latter pictures where the shadow dominates my shutter crept down to 1/30 – 1/2 second. These are not as sharp. I tried using IS on mode 2, full IS, sacrificing aperture to bring the shutter up higher and I just couldn’t get as sharp a shot. Time for me to get a real tripod.
Popularity: 42% [?]
Trying something new here. Here’s a panorama I put together a couple weeks back from my drive across Texas. I’m putting a high res version up here free for all to use. The jpg here is about 9 MB. If you want to use it in a print project, just contact me and I’ll send you a PSD (300 meg.)
I didn’t take the time to do all the touchups and tweaks I normally would for a print, that is up to you. You are free to use this however you want, even commercially. All I ask is a credit and link for the original source.
Additionally here are a couple crops to use as wallpaper if you fancy the scenery.
West Texas Pano by
Alex Morse is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
Popularity: 44% [?]
This post is in response to today’s Question of the Day.
I didn’t have to think about this one long. Most of you know movie sequels rarely live up to the original film they are based on. There’s always good sequels… but hardly ever QUITE as good as #1. Well I’ve got one for you that exceeds the original movie in most every way.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Most fans of Star Trek hail this to be the best of the movies. To me, it’s a lot more significant that most non Star Trek fans recognize this title, and many have seen it. It’s a good flick.
The original Star Trek Motion Picture was a good movie, but it came off as a little too hard sci-fi. It’s a lot more esoteric and cerebral than the others. It was well acted, and directed but it would have been much better as it’s own (unparented,) film rather than the introduction of some beloved characters to a new medium.
That’s where The Wrath of Khan steps in. It brought the fans back to Star Trek, and it gave the non fans a good introduction to what made Trek so popular in the first place. Solid characters, action packed plot, amazing settings and a pace and tension that leaves you ready for another movie at the end.
Popularity: 38% [?]
Spent today on the road.
Popularity: 24% [?]
I use skype a lot for talking with colleagues, both via text and voice chat. I also use it to video conference with my parents now and then. I’ve always been a fan of IM (and now, twitter,) so I have often gone to “skype-me” mode, which lists you in a directory so people you don’t know can say hi.
This has been cool, a lot of people from china will talk to me a bit and the cultural differences are really interesting. It inevitably has it’s down side as well. There are often spammers. There are religious spammers, trying to get you to convert to Islam. There are lots of kids that will just try to call, or type without knowing your language. I’ve built up a pretty healthy block list.
Today I got one of the strangest ones yet, I think. Some fellow (at least by profile information,) named houssem-09 sent me the following text. This was his opening volley, mind you.
I’ll confess that younger girls tend to catch my eye more easily. I like girls my age and older as well, but young ones are best, like you.
My first thought was, oh, a spam. I get email spam that’s similarly nonsensical, but there were no links. Now I guess he’s trying to pick up virtual chicks or whatever, but my profile is filled out, marked as male, and even has a picture. So I reply “I’m male, also straight.” There was no response.
Was this just a spambot that forgot to send it’s links? A very lonely and confused man? A kid messing around? Who knows. I’m invisible on skype now. If you need me feel free to send a message, I might be around.
Popularity: 25% [?]
In the past week both Yahoo! and Blogger have made announcements about supporting OpenID. Not only support, but if you have a Yahoo! or Blogger id, you now have an OpenID as well. I’ve got to say: about time!
What’s an OpenID? Basically It’s a way of authenticating yourself on sites across the internet. Microsoft tried to do something similar with their passport system, but the only sites that ever utilized it were Microsoft sites. If you use an OpenID, people will know that the comment on that website is actually you, as opposed to someone who just typed your name in. It’s also nice being able to use one unique id across a bunch of sites instead of creating accounts everywhere you go.
My site’s been supporting OpenID for what must be a couple years now. You can comment using it, and I can comment other places and identify as makesitgood.net. It’s pretty cool. With this new surge of people that are now able to use it, I hope to see it take off and become popular.
Popularity: 23% [?]
There have been a flurry of UFO sightings in a nearby Texas town named Stephenville. The town is a couple hours south west of me. Normally my reaction to this sort of thing is something along the lines of “cool, wonder what that was.”
Stephenville paper story
Fort-Worth Star story
Telegraph story
Today I had a bit more reason to ponder.
Around 10 AM CST today I hear what sounds like a jet. It’s quite loud, so it’s either a very powerful jet going fast, or a more normal jet flying rather low. We have a lot of air traffic in my area, and I always enjoy seeing what’s going by. Sometimes we have military jets on test runs, sometimes it’s just a commuter that’s been forced lower due to weather.
Since this one was abnormally loud I wanted to catch a glimpse, so I darted out my back door and took a look around. Conditions were great, absolutely clear sky, visibility for miles and miles. Yet… there was nothing in view. I was a bit disappointed, but that happens sometimes. Especially in the case of the military jets, if they go supersonic you can be hearing things after they’ve passed you by. What was odd is I was still hearing the engine… and the loudness hadn’t diminished. I went out front, looked around, still couldn’t catch a glimpse of anything.
The sound continued to be audible indoors for nearly two more minutes.
I’d really like to know what that was. It was either going very fast, I’m blind, or it was very hard to see.
Popularity: 23% [?]
« Newer Posts —
Older Posts »
