inquam.ca

This is awesome! lolBlog

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:06:42 -0700

This is awesome!

lolBlog

(via im-perfectionist) Words to live by.

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:31:31 -0700

(via im-perfectionist)

Words to live by.

Last summer (‘09) I went to a music festival in Nanaimo...

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:06:13 -0700

Last summer (‘09) I went to a music festival in Nanaimo called the Big Easy mainly to see my favourite band Thrice. It was great to see them perform in my neck of the woods and I really hope they come back some time soon.

I was even lucky enough to find a lost media pass dropped by some unassuming journalist which let me get back stage! I met and talked with Teppei from Thrice. It was one of my few star-struck moments.

Thrice being awesome wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was finding other good bands at this festival. My big find was a band by the name of Open, Parachute!. The were a local band from Nanaimo and Victoria who disbanded a while back and were brought back together as all of their spin-off projects were all playing at this festival too. I’d never heard of them but I was thoroughly blown away.

Over the past year, they have stayed one of my most listened-to bands. I thought it would be nice to share their music and some of the photos I’d taken of them at the festival. Enjoy.

Open, Parachute! - An Autumn Commitment (2007)

Flickr page

Two weeks ago (April 30th) marked the 35th anniversary of the...

Wed, 12 May 2010 21:24:00 -0700

Two weeks ago (April 30th) marked the 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. This was a war fought between communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam with the United States being the main supporter of the south.

The war is well known to have had a huge death toll: between 3-4 million Vietnamese, 1.5-2 million Laotians and Cambodians, 58 159 U.S. soldiers.

Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam.

-Marshall McLuhan, 1975

There have been countless movies on the subject, including such well known films as: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, The Deer Hunter, and Full Metal Jacket to name a few.

I hope you enjoy (in the least insulting way) this photo-collage I’ve made.

Right Where It Belongs - Nine Inch Nails [With Teeth] -...

Tue, 04 May 2010 23:16:58 -0700

Right Where It Belongs - Nine Inch Nails [With Teeth] - 2005

See the animal in his cage that you built,
Are you sure what side you’re on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye,
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it’s all, right where it belongs

What if everything around you,
Isn’t quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks,
Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the worlds inside of your head,
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your Gods, all the living and the dead
And you’re really all alone?
You could live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can’t find the woods
While you’re hiding in the trees

What if everything around you,
Isn’t quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks,
Would you find yourself, find yourself afraid to see?

Here is one from the genius that is Trent Reznor. For those that don’t really know about Trent and NIN, you should take a look because he and his band are quite a unique occurrence. Trent is the only member of the band. He writes and generally records all the parts of NIN recordings. When he goes on tour he does being a band with him.

He is quite an outspoken critic of the music industry which tends to get him into hot water. But over the past twenty years he has fought and won his freedom to be an artist totally independent from a record label. In fact, his latest record was given away freely on his website without any promotion.

This song, taken from his 2005 release With Teeth, came out while Trent was recovering from alcoholism and substance abuse. It always makes an interesting story to tell! I love the lo-fi ambience in this album, but especially in this song.

Turn the lights down and the volume up. Yes, it’s one of those songs.

"If the TMI [too much information] posts and status updates on Facebook and Twitter have taught us..."

Mon, 03 May 2010 22:34:37 -0700

“If the TMI [too much information] posts and status updates on Facebook and Twitter have taught us anything, it’s that users apparently have little sense of boundaries in sharing personal or sensitive information with the anonymous masses.”

- Tony Bradley in an Open letter to facebook.

He goes on to talk about how fb likes to introduce new interfaces and features, which lately were ‘opt-in’-by-default, without warning.

With this business model, Facebook gets the same net result—half a billion users freely sharing personal and sensitive information with the entire world via Facebook and its third-party partners—but without the legal or regulatory scrutiny.

I don’t even care anymore. People are stupid and I am crazy.

"They [Twitter] contain more observations, recorded at the same times by more people, than ever..."

Mon, 03 May 2010 09:27:12 -0700

“They [Twitter] contain more observations, recorded at the same times by more people, than ever preserved in any medium before.”

- RANDALL STROSS talking about the wealth of knowledge hidden inside of Twitter (http://nyti.ms/cdGwP7)

Ever wonder what it would be like to play through Super Mario...

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:21:47 -0700

Ever wonder what it would be like to play through Super Mario Bros. as Bill from Contra!? Or maybe Link, Samus or Mega Man? Well now you can with Super Mario Crossover, a flash game developed by explodingRabbit. The game comes complete with all the music from whatever game your chosen character is form, which is a very nice touch indeed.

I recommend giving it a try. It’s super fun!

"Simply put, our customers do not want a world in which it is easy for developers to write apps that..."

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:32:18 -0700

“Simply put, our customers do not want a world in which it is easy for developers to write apps that run on many platforms. They just don’t. They want this to be hard for developers. I don’t know why — you’ll have to ask the customers. We’re just listening, and doing what they want.”

- Fake Steve Jobs on the removal of Flash from OS X after real Steve Jobs posted his essay “Thoughts on Flash”

Hubble is now 20 years old. It is expected to be in continued...

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:02:00 -0700

Hubble is now 20 years old. It is expected to be in continued use until 2014 when it will be replaced with James Webb Space Telescope. Over its lifetime Hubble has captured some of our most beautiful views of our galaxy and beyond. It has helped solve as many mysteries/theories about our universe as it has created new ones! One of it’s main missions was to help accurately measure the Hubble constant (the rate that the universe is expanding, which also helps in determining its age).

Google Earth has the nifty feature of flipping your view of the world to the stars where you can learn a thing or two about constellations, as well as looking at many well known (and not so well known) images taken by the space telescope. This video is a nice overview of many beautiful images taken with this amazing instrument.

Although astronomy plays a much smaller role in navigation and surveying than it used to, it is still taught to geomatics students of survey technology. For example, with observations to a few stars from a thodolite, and a few other pieces of information (Lat/Long and/or time depending on what you’re solving for), you can determin a very accurate true north azimuth, or you relatively accurate location on the earth (if you happened to not know where you were while having a theodolite handy :P).

For example Willem Barentsz, a Dutch explorer and cartographer of the late 1500s, famous for searching for the northeast passage north of Siberia, used astronomic observations many times to help his navigation. It sounds like a cold trip, I wouldn’t doubt if he wished on a few of those stars while he was at it!

Here’s my Top 15 Artists of the past 3 months....

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:32:58 -0700

Here’s my Top 15 Artists of the past 3 months. Wasn’t expecting Joy Division to be so far ahead of everyone else.

What’s your top 15 of the past month? Year? All time?

Add me as a friend if you have Last.fm

Whiskerino If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if...

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:45:00 -0700

Whiskerino

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you combined social networking, photography and beards together, look no further than Whiskerino.

We are alienated from our own facial hair.Society tells us that full beards are unacceptable. Businessmen, politicians, bankers, and the like are all clean shaven; all demonstrating the standards that middle class society expects us to maintain.

The website is an awesome source of inspiration for those of us who love a good beard, but have a hard time staying motivated in letting it grow out to it’s full potential. As all children and parents know, a solid beard is a fundamental part of being a great and well respected father! All that is required in a great beard is belief that it is great… and maybe some good strong genes. Whiskerino’s rules are simple:

Shave completely clean, post images regularly, interact, participate in themes, be nice. Grow a massive beard.

If you think you can handle it, take a look yonder and behold the power of facial hair!

Guess what I found and subsequently purchased today? Yes, a...

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:17:00 -0700

Guess what I found and subsequently purchased today? Yes, a Radiohead album on vinyl. In Rainbows in fact. I don’t really splurge on vinyl music often but I don’t have any Radiohead yet and I like their latest work, so why not?

This happens to be one of those records that can be easily compared with its digital counterpart for the slight mixing changes that happen in vinyl world. The upper end of the frequency range is a lot smoother and less aggressive in analogue land. The lows also sound a lot more round. I guess you’d be best to listen, and compare if you wish, to a high quality vinyl rip of the album which I’m including in this post! Enjoy :D

Here is the music first of all: MP3 version [73 MB], and for those who want the utmost in lossless quality, here is a 24-bit lossless [too many MB] :P. I recommend the lossless even though it’s huge. It will play in iTunes. Yes it is normal for it to be a little quieter than your other MP3s. Increased dynamic range is one of the measureable differences of vinyl. (Lossless coming in a bit, just uploading)

Some key tracks that I’ve noticed:

15 Step - Drums sound more natural in the intro.

Nude - Drums also sound more natural throughout, but more noticeably in the last minute

Rockoner - Tambourine sounds nice in the intro. Stereo separation sounds different throughout

Jigsaw - Guitar sounds awesome! Snare drum also sounds great.

Tell me what you think once you’ve given it a few listens! :D

Black on white.

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:52:52 -0700

For Christmas I was given a bottle of Sheaffer Scrip black ink for my Lamy fountain pen. I hadn’t given it a try until last week, but now that I have I might not go back to my old stuff!

This black ink is very nice and flows out just the right amount to not bleed on regular everyday paper. I’m not worried about it coming through on the other side either. It’s also thin enough to give texture to your lettering from top to bottom.

Here’s an example of what I mean: you get the beautifully textured, bottom heavy lettering from this ink without bleed. And this is only engineering scratch pad. I found that both my Lamy green and Faber-Castell blue inks came out too heavily to be used just anywhere. I bet you the nib and pen have affect the final product too, but so far this is the combination for this pen.

(You can view a few more examples in my flickr group here)

We have a gig tomorrow night somewhere in Delta. That’s...

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:42:09 -0700

We have a gig tomorrow night somewhere in Delta. That’s all I was told been told about it until now. They first only gave me the date, and finally this week I was told the name of the venue.

How will I get there? I dunno, probably just show up before the rest of the group leaves and get a ride.

I don’t get told anything anymore; it’s like I’m the bass player or somethi…. Oh wait. I get the joke now.

This is one of the most awesome and clever placements of...

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:58:46 -0700

This is one of the most awesome and clever placements of StarWars on a product I’ve ever seen.

dorksandjews:

samiwaslike:

translated: i will not be your father!

(via:owlatthemoon)

"This garden is metric; no feet!"

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:12:04 -0700

“This garden is metric; no feet!”

- A sign in a garden in Deep Cove

“So you need a Typeface” is a project created by...

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:06:54 -0700

“So you need a Typeface” is a project created by graphic designer Julian Hansen of Copenhagen created to visually show what a person goes through when deciding what typeface to use. 50 of the top 100 typefaces from Font Shop. You should take a look at the full size image to get the full impact (and full humour) of the poster.

And the winner is...

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:26:00 -0700

Last night Juno awards were given out to a handful of great canadian artists. Several of my favourite canadian groups were recognized at this year’s Gala dinner including:

Billy Talent for Rock Album of the Year. I love how one of my favourite CBC radio personalities, Jian Gomeshi, presented the award. Billy beat out Nickelback, Tragically Hip, Alexisonfire and Three Days Grace for the award, which I find quite impressive. They also still have a chance to win Single of the Year, Album of the Year and Group of the Year in tonight’s televised awards show. Way to go guys!

Also of note, K’naan (whom I’ve had the pleasure of being a performer with at a festival) won Artist of the Year, Metric received Alternative Album of the Year, and Deadmau5 got Dance Recording of the Year.

There are also a few lesser known artists on the short list worth checking out too. Andrea Lindsay is the girl who fell in love with french while taking a trip to Paris came home and changed her university major from classical singing to french studies. Soon after finishing her studies in Guelph she moved to Montréal and has since started a successful music career. Her newest album Les Sentinelles Dorment won Francophone Album of the Year. It’s an easy listen even coming from a foney phrancofone! (Ooops :P)

Also the two roots music winners (solo and group), Amelia Curran and The Good Lovelies, are a few of women who know a thing or two about folk/roots music. You’ll find Hunter, Hunter and The Good Lovelies’s self titled album to be refreshing breath of fresh air.

Tune in tonight and tell me what you think of the final awards being unveiled!

via jesuisperdu Marc from my house owns this record on vinyl...

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:44:23 -0700

via jesuisperdu

Marc from my house owns this record on vinyl and we got to experience the first listen of it. It always blows me away how great this album is and how it really captures them “in the moment”. The tell tail sign of great musicians is getting it right (read “being happy with it”) on the first take, and that’s pretty much what happened during the “Kind of Blue” sessions. It’s what puts Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and “Cannonball” Addreley in a class of their own. It’s what makes them and their recordings significant now and for a long time.