Rolling Stones - GuitarPickArt.com

File this under the “you wish you’d thought of that” category. San Diego-based artist and plectrum-lover Robyn makes crazy-cool mosaic art pieces of famous musicians and music icons using nothing but guitar picks. There are no power chords to encapsulate the awesomeness of these guitar pick art pieces. Maybe a G5, but not quite…

Said Robyn: “I enjoy exploring the creative possibilities that guitar pick art presents. I enjoy finding new uses for this tool. I enjoy paying tribute to the music that I love.”

You can find more of Robyn’s guitar pick art and purchase originals of her work through an Etsy shop over at www.GuitarPickArt.com. She’s also on Twitter (@GuitarPickArt) and frequently tweet pics of her picks-in-progress. BTW I have dibs on her new Jack White + Meg White mosaic, so back off!

Check out more of her art work after the bump…

Green Day - GuitarPickArt.com

Foo Fighters - GuitarPickArt.com

Bob Marley - GuitarPickArt.com

Slash - GuitarPickArt.com

When posting an email address online, instead of using a hyperlinked email address, spell out the address as though someone were reading it. So instead of Derek@NeoSprockets.com use Derek at NeoSprockets dot com.

The justification for the strategy was that Internet evil-doers scour the web looking for the [name]@[site] pattern and build large email mailing lists. Spelling out the address supposedly impedes spambots from processing your email from the Internet. Clever, I thought. I unconditionally accepted this explanation, and followed the advice to this day.

I realize now that this strategy is the Internet equivalent of holding your breath when driving past a graveyard.

Googling the following if you don’t believe me.

email * "at" * dot com||net||org||edu||gov

Rocko Socko Robots

One of my favorite modeling and simulation stories from way back: [Snopes.com verified]

iGod Touch

It’s a very polarizing concept – religion and science. You can twist and warp facts as much as you want to try and find a middle ground (see: Intelligent Design), but at the end of the day, when you are alone with your thoughts and no is around to cite white papers or Biblical passages, you probably have a preferred camp.

Every now and then, someone will ask me what I believe. I never know what to say. I like my world measurable, so I guess that puts me somewhere between “rationalist”, “realist”, and “logicist”. Naturally, science seems to offer me the best explanation of things and gives me the greater peace of mind.

Plus we get to have spaceships and iPhones.

Picking Sides

There is a phrase thrown around quite frequently in discussion boards and across dinner tables these days: ‘Science killed God.’ I guess the purpose of this comment is to attribute the dismissal of religious practices to the progress of scientific reasoning; that science has ‘won the war’ against religion via regicide – or is it theocide?

I don’t particularly agree with this strategy. While it brings me relief that someone might open their brains a tad and breathe in a little logic, what bothers me is subtle but deliberate promotion of this science v. religion war.

I’m occasionally dragged into a debate on religion and science. I’ve learned long ago to not go on the offensive with this issue; most people are so strongly dug into their beliefs that even an Indisputable Evidence Box wouldn’t shake them free. So I typically play defense, poking a few holes with counter-arguments along the way in hopes of planting some seeds of rational thought. But regardless of how the discussion ends, a common underlying theme is the idea that science has been aggressively attacking religion, like we’re some schoolyard bully or the guy who spoils the end of a movie (By the way, “Avatar” is really a ghost the whole time).

I like science because you can keep digging deeper. If you keep asking “why” for a while, religion eventually converges on coup-out concepts like “fate” and “because God said so”. Science converges on “pi”.

Science probably does seem overwhelming; the sheer number of scientific rebuttals can give the impression of aggressiveness or arrogance. But at what point do you cross over from being knowledgeable to being an intellectual-elitist jerk? Should science just keep its mouth shut when people claim “we still don’t know why the sky is blue” or “we still haven’t found the missing link”?

Absolutely not.

Responsible Science

Responsible science should seek to eliminate ignorance.

Good science should start from nothing. Observations and measurements should be taken, and hypotheses should be formed. These hypotheses should be able to withstand peer-reviewed tests, and pending the discovery of new evidence, develop into theories that serve as the basis for future scientific hypotheses.

There’s great motivation to identify and remove extraneous “stone soup” ingredients from theories. In this case, science hasn’t exactly added “God” to the soup yet. And that’s not to say it can’t or shouldn’t, but that based on the current evidence, the big guy described in the Bible doesn’t quite mix well with a lot of our other ingredients.

But what if he did? Let’s imagine for a moment this strictly theoretical scenario.

Science has made a breakthrough discovery from which the general consensus is that a higher power does indeed exists and that he has been exercising a significant amount of omnipotent control over our universe.

The religious would be ecstatic. Would they praise and embrace this science they’ve spent the last few centuries fighting? Surely there would be a few “told ya so”s, but overall there would be a universal wave of religious vindication in light of this scientific stamp of approval.

But on the other side of the court, scientists would be even more ecstatic. ‘We can actually measure God? What’s his mass? His chemical composition? Core temperature? Does he know what number I’m thinking of?’ It would be the largest peer-review study in human history!

My point is that responsible science isn’t aggressively seeking to “murder deities”. We’d surely love to find the existence of a supernatural power! But in our current scientific iteration, we haven’t. And based on the current evidence, scientists are gonna keep taking out those theological ingredients and stick with evolution.

Responsible Religion

It’s funny. Science seems to get labeled as being boring and cold. Everything is fact. Magic doesn’t exist. Ghosts aren’t real. Force equals mass times acceler – (zzzzzzzzz…)

But I find that religion is the typically the cold one. Science is actually quite fuzzy. The very nature of the scientific method leaves room for doubt and error. In fact, this fuzziness is the baseline for scientific progression.

Religion on the other hand is entirely more binary. The word of God. Thou shall. Thou shan’t. With a literal interpretation, the Bible describes a very strict explanation of the physical world with little to no room for questioning.

In this war, religion seems to say, “We’re right, you’re wrong. But we’ll pray for you anyway.” Science seems to say, “Based on the current evidence, we’re probably right, and you’re probably wrong. But we’ll keep looking and let you know what we find. Meanwhile enjoy our iPods.”

BandNamer.net -- Cutting Edge Band Name Generation

Here’s another shameless plug for a kick-ass side-project of mine.

BandNamer.net

The site uses a barrage of words and a plethora of juicy JavaScript to generate a brand that will elevate your band to a level of stardom so great, you’ll land a label contract before you can say “sell out”.

I go a step further and even use the ever-wonderful Domai.nr API to check if your new band name has an available domain to purchase.

For the control-freak Billy Corgans out there, you may also click individual words to generate a similar one, allowing you to fine-tune your band name to your particular taste. Make sure to flag any awesome band names you create!

My wife and I moved to a new house last December. During the utilities setup routine, I researched our Internet options and was attracted to AT&T’s “Basic” DSL package (“up to 768 Kbps” for $20 a month).

Once my equipment arrived and my activation date reached — which by the way, I had to wait another week after receiving the equipment for it to be activated. What the hell? — I found the service to be borderline useless. My DSL downtime was approaching almost 12 hours each day, and when it did happen to work, my download speeds were crawling below 100 Kbps.

Hoo boy. Time to complain.

I contacted AT&T through their online “Live Chat” support, where I was given tips for placement of my modem within my home — which I tried to no avail. I tried the “Live Chat” support once more and they reluctantly sent out a technician to my home. At this point, between the equipment shipping, activation delay and troubleshooting, I was beyond the 30-day “no ETF” cancellation window.

One rainy Friday morning, a tech showed up at my house, looked at some wires outside (he didn’t even step inside my home), said that he saw what the problem was and needed to schedule another technician to fix it. The issue should be resolved soon, he told me.

Weeks and months go by with no improved service. Full disclosure: during this time, I discovered my neighbor’s open WiFi and had been blissfully enjoying the uninterrupted high-speed Internet, so the annoyance of my own network was forgotten for a while.

Eventually the guilt of “borrowing” my neighbor’s Internet engulfed me and I tried once again to resolve my AT&T DSL woes. Being such a nice guy and all, I decided to try upgrading my service, hoping a faster package might boost my signal. I called AT&T and was directed to their sales department. While the sales person was “happy to assist me with upgrading my service”, they quickly discovered that my house was ineligible for any service other than the “Basic” package. Apparently my home was too far to the main DSL line. “That’s too bad,” I told him, “Then could you please cancel my service?” He transferred me to someone else and my service was canceled without any objection on AT&T’s part. I had Time Warner High-Speed Cable Internet within a few days and couldn’t be happier.

Weeks later I received a $100 early termination fee from AT&T. My eye twitched.

I spent an afternoon on the phone going through the AT&T billing center. I calmly explained my situation:

• My DSL service was not working,
• I contacted AT&T support,
• They sent a technician,
• The problem was not fixed,
• I tried upgrading and was told I couldn’t,
• I had no choice but to cancel the service,
• And I would like this $100 fee removed.

After a few rounds of “sorry sir” and “let me speak to your manager”, I still received no resolution; the $100 fee stands.

Here are some interesting bits of information from “Lauren”, the highest-ranked person I was able to talk to.

• There is no record of any technician coming to my home. I must be lying about this.
• AT&T acknowledges that my home is far from the main line; my home cannot support faster DSL packages. According to Lauren however, I apparently meet the minimum requirements for the “Basic” package

I know that this “up to” portion of advertised speed gets a lot of press lately, so I was shocked to hear the following from Lauren:

• If AT&T were to provide a constant speed of 0 Kbps (e.g. no service), this still qualifies as service within their contract.

Jesus.

Okay now here’s the real kicker: I later noticed that if I “Check for Availability” on AT&T’s website, my home address is now listed as “Unavailable” for ALL packages, including the Basic. That is correct. If I were to ask Lauren to restart my service, she would not be able to because my home cannot support it.

AT&T Live Chat representative “Shirley” also confirms this.

To add salt to the wound, AT&T has also now sent the bill to a collection agency.

Look, I’m honestly not trying to screw AT&T out of money here. I’m paying AT&T ~$100/month for my damn iPhone already; this isn’t about the money. This is a principle thing.

If I had to move suddenly or some unforeseen event forced me to cancel my service unexpectedly, I have no problem paying the early termination fee. My point here is that AT&T advertised a service to me that they could not provide. And now they are charging me $100 for canceling this broken service.

I am 25 years old. I hopefully have a few more decades of “potential customer” in me. And frankly this whole incident leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

–

Any tips? Any horror stories with AT&T DSL?

*blink*

James Cameron’s “Avatar” cost around $237 million. That’s not the most expensive film yet (Pirates 3 was $300 million), but holy crap.

At a running time of 162 minutes, that means each time you blink your eyes, you missed about $8,500 worth of movie.

So overall, your blinks missed about $7 million.

Really puts clean eyeballs in perspective, doesn’t it?

www.LyricPuzzles.com

For those of you who enjoyed the Sprocket PictoPuzzle last week, check out my newest pet project LyricPuzzles.com.

Law: All chick flicks must cast Judy Greer as the lead's best friend