I know vdov doesn’t usually go for the “hey look at this cool thing on the internet” type of posts but, hey look at this cool thing on the internet. It is clearly the greatest music video that has ever existed. It also dominates the field of “zombie Stalin” videos as well. It’s by a Russian metal band called ANJ [their myspace page].
UPDATE: There has been a briefing by the Pentagon which has video of the missile launch, the “kill,” and a brief analysis. The launch occurred on time with no delays due to weather (only 2-3 foot seas). It looks like the shoot down was successful and the hydrazine tank was, in fact, destroyed along with the satellite. The collision occurred at 153 nautical miles above the Earth (~283km).
UPDATEII: Also, what do you know… it looks like there is already amateur photography of the debris field and the hydrazine trail, courtesty of Rob in Maui, Hawaii.
As many of you may know the US military is planning on shooting down a rogue spy satellite in a decaying orbit. It is designated USA-193. The satellite failed immediately after launch and was reported by amateur satellite watchers to have a decaying orbit. The official reason for shooting down the satellite rather than allowing it to deorbit on its own is that the ~5000 pound satellite contains about 1000 pounds of frozen hydrazine propellant that could potentially deorbit into parts of North America. It has been confirmed that the USS Lake Erie, a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser, will fire a modified SM-3 missile to intercept the satellite. This may occur sometime within a couple hours of this post, but it looks like weather might delay the shot.
Despite assurances from the US, there has been wide speculation that the reason for shooting down the satellite is to test US anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities, specifically as a reaction to the unannounced test by the Chinese which destroyed a weather satellite dubbed FY-1C in early 2007.
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You have all probably forgotten that once there was a podcast on this site. The podcast isn’t coming back but something very similar is! That’s right, the Rt. Rev. Fischer, like Lazarus himself, has risen from the tomb. I am now an official DJ for Brown Student Radio (BSR). They liked me enough to give me a 1.5 hour timeslot on Saturday starting at 5:30. You can listen to it streaming live or you can get after the fact at my very own archive of the show. The on air radio station is WELH Providence 88.1FM. However, you are not going to hear my show on the actual radio airwaves. This is because BSR shares their station air time with The Wheeler School, a very nice private high school in Providence. So Wheeler broadcasts from 6:00am to 7:00pm and BSR gets the rest of the time. My show inconveniently ends at 7:00, just shy of actual airtime. Hopefully, I can get a real on-air slot over the summer (who knows?). There are a lot of things that are nice about BSR compared to my former radio home WBOR Brunswick 91.1FM. It is a more tightly run ship, their website is much better, and their internet broadcast is much superior. The drawbacks are a meager 150W broadcast tower (compared to 300W at WBOR), the fact that they share the air time with the Wheeler School and a Spanish language station, and they really make you work to be a DJ (8 hours of service a month… not that bad really). However, BSR is trying to get a license for a Low Power FM station under the official call letters “WBSR.” Low Power FM stations are something that I have wanted for a long time and in my opinion would radically change the US music scene if they proliferate. For more information check out The Prometheus Radio Project and the Wikipedia article on LPFM. I am planning on generating a good rant on the FCC and its problems, corporate radio, LPFM, and various related topics, but for now just know that the Rt. Rev. Fischer is back on the air.
Living in the City By The Lake has many perks and a vibrant, independent music and art scene is one of them. Hardly a week goes by without new contemporary music of all stripes played in every place from concert halls to seedy bars. Last weekend was especially fine since acosta and myself were able to take in some culture and finally get a chance to see the much loved vdov favorites Akron/Family. We also stumbled into the official Chicago SxSW pre-game send-off for the Midwest bands that are now hitting the stages at the country’s most venerable independent music festival. Both shows were quite interesting but quite different. The venues are seemingly similar but it belies their differences. It gave a good insight into the strange topology of the independent music scene in Chicago and elsewhere. (more…)
Its not often that I get a chance to flex my Religious Studies major but I thought it would be a good time for a bit of a rant and a bit of a book review. The book is about media manipulation, hype, and how they butt up against scholarly research. By way of opening remember the Da Vinci Code, the book by Dan Brown and movie. Remember all the hype and hoopla associated with it. The book and movie’s main character, a symbologist (although he is clearly a semiotitician but that is a much harder word isn’t it?), is drawn into a web of danger, intrigue, and crafty thousand year old puzzles surrounding the ultimate secret of Christianity… that Jesus had a wife! Now that has sunk in and you are back in your chair don’t worry. For advertising purposes you were probably made to think that this is new, unheard of previously, and a shocking idea. However, this particular “heresy” is almost as old as the canonical gospels themselves and has long been known to scholars of ancient Christianity and early Gnostic sects of Christianity. Not exactly ideas that will crumble modern Christianity. I thought the vdov readership might like a book that unmasks this kind of sensationalism for what it is. (more…)
Somewhere, once, and I don’t remember where I read a review of Scotland Yard Gospel Choir and I was immediately interested. However, I was not able to get my hands on an album and they didn’t have any music online (this has changed… they now have a great website with wonderful links and a lot of media at sygc.com). So they have been on my back burner for a long time. Luckily, the band is local to Chicago and they played last night at The Empty Bottle. As an added bonus it turned out to be the record release party for their new single “Then and Not a Moment Before” (also “In Hospital” and “Lamppost”, a demo, on the single). Even better it turns out that a friend knows about the band and between shots of Makers Mark (him not me) related some back story. Apparently they have had some rough times and member of the band left for other venues but now they are playing better than ever (or so the story goes). They also recently shopped deals with some major record labels and if the show was any indication it won’t be long. (more…)
If you have been paying very close attention you might have noticed that our “friend’s sites” have gone +1up. The addition is Tim Barz and some of his associates who founded NYStreetart.com. I just wanted to let you all know that there is a new site available in the vdov universe. They are not officially affiliated with us but nonetheless there is a lot of great stuff there. The whole idea is cataloging the various images and art on the walls and facades of New York and various other places (so far NY and Berlin). I am hoping that they keep it up and build a big database. They have already opened it up to user submissions via email. So if you find yourself in a place with some good street art, snap some photos, and get yourself over to NYStreetart.com and drop them a line.
It might be a bit of a lie to call this a comic review. Basically, I am just repeating to our readers something awesome that I found a while back. I know that couple of you at least will be interested. I have had (at the prodding of Mr. Meyers) a little experience with locksport, or rather the recreational art of lock picking. There are sites and groups dedicated to the activity but lock picking has long been a side part of “hacker” and general nerd culture. It is just something about defeating the hard (or not so hard in some cases) work of others. There are basic rules of conduct to it as well, so as to distinguish between the lock enthusiast and the thief. The main one being that one should never pick a lock that they do not own or have been given explicit instruction to do so by the owner. That is the general gist of it. I am still not very good and it specifically relates to my lack of tools. I know that I should have made my own set of picks but I opted for the easy way out and bought a small, basic set. Now you might be wondering where all of this is going? Well its going to the educational comic made by Locksport International! Basically they took Apple’s new Comic Life software for making homebrew comics and used it to teach the art of lock picking. No more will you be forced to learn from some IT Geek or dry MIT created text only walkthrough. Now you can get the basics in colorful comic form, which actually makes it all that much easier to follow. I think instructional comics are largely underrated and would love to see more of them. Anyway I think it is well worth a gander whether you are interested in picking locks or just want to see a good use of Comic Life.
Of Montreal is a band that I did not care for until I heard their Sunlandic Twins album. Their previous albums seem to fall outside the range of my normal tastes and never reached a novelty or strength of sound to draw me towards them. This might have been a failure of appreciation on my part but I do consider Sunlandic Twins to be their best work so far (if you don’t mind youtube college weenies for the last one)… by far. Before this album I thought they were fun and interesting but not necessarily that great, but afterwards I realized they are really just that good. With Sunlandic they pulled off a piece de resistance that is not easily matched. However, with their new “Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer” they get as close as they can.
This album does not officially come out until January 23, 2007. However, it has been sufficiently leaked that every song is available online and can be found through the aggregating glory of The Hype Machine and Elbo.ws. So I feel compelled to review it. (more…)
Who knew when we would ever get around to a book review. Seeing as we are no longer socially current or interesting and forced to beg for milk at the great teat of Google marketing I thought “why not?” Seeing as I am the only contributing member that actually has time enough on his hands to read anything other than the dense, mathematically complex tomes of statistical thermodynamics, dynamic ion resonance modeling I thought it might be worth the effort to bring some easy reading to the vdov.net crowd.
Botany of Desire is a non-scientific scientific romp through the complex interplay between man and our domesticated crops. The whole work is couched in terms of plants fulfilling our desires and us in turn fulfilling the plants’ desires. Michael Pollan (hilarious last name for a gardener no?) guides us through the massive evolutionary interplay between man and plant in everything from cannabis to tulips. There is a utterly fascinating quality in delving into the genetics of apple trees and the socio-economic impact of European potato cultivation. The best part about Pollan’s prose is that it has the grip and fascination of fiction while being (almost) completely factual. He peppers the book with his own experience and perspective without coloring the facts too much. He is engaging and wonderfully entertaining. Who knew that Reagan’s massive crackdown on cannabis use lead to one of the most rapid genetic changes that a human crop has ever seen or that a debilitating tulip virus was responsible for some of the most treasured blossoms in all of human history? (more…)
I decided to ease you all back in to some more frequent vdov posting with a mini-album review. If you are not a fan of weird freakout rock with heavy breakbeats then you should probably trail off here and find something more fun to listen to. Although that is really selling Big Star Records and Krypton Records (both near Adelaide, Australia if you happen to be in the area). If you email them they can probably send you a copy. In the spirit of full disclosure I have not heard the whole album yet, only what is to be had online. They have three tracks on their myspace page (f— myspace!) and there are a couple better quality tracks linked here and even more so (this one is good) here. Finally, there is a good writeup with a lot of info on the band at Triple J Unearthed. It looks like they are planning on coming to the US eventually and it seems it would be a really good idea to see them live. They are definitely the kind of band that loses a little in the translation to the studio. My feeling (and this has been mentioned in their writeups) is that these guys would literally lay waste to the audience at a live show. They are definitely worth keeping an eye out for.
Lady Strangelove EP - Quebi 3 - mp3
Lady Strangelove EP - Rotate 2 - mp3
The Shins are at it again this time sans Zach Braff’s machinations. The new album is decidedly soft and dreamy. It gives up on some of the whimsical stylings in Chutes Too Narrow and goes back to their homestead with moving but water thin streams of sound. There are certainly a few punctuations of accelerated beats per minute but blessedly few for it is not really their forte now is it. Inasmuch as it is currently a faux pas to remind anyone that Garden State I will make up for it by pointing you here no here oops one more time here. I think the value of the new album will have plenty of debate. I am eager to see the indie community delve into this one after the adulation heaped on Chutes. Will they show mercy? Or is it no holds barred in declaring the Shins kaput once and for all? I haven’t heard enough to say where I stand but based on a couple tracks it seems as worthy as the next sub pop release this year. (more…)