• Permalinks broke completely, still haven’t fixed this. For now, just using an ID call (static links to articles are nonfunctioning right now).
• RSS feed also seems to have gone down the drain. This is due to the same bug in 2.6 that caused the permalinks problem. I haven’t yet been able to fix it.
• Note that for you authors the login page has moved from ‘admin’ to ‘wp-admin’. This was a quick fix to another bug in 2.6 which I have decided to leave unresolved for the time being. Expect this change to be permanent.

Sorry about all this. The permalinks and RSS feed issues will either be fixed by me if I find the time/motivation or they’ll be fixed in the 2.6.1 release whenever that comes out.

Cheers.

This was a nice storm: decent MCS and individual supercell formation leading to a squall line. Loving thunderstorms and the study of weather as I do (thanks Meyers!), I was pretty busy taking pictures/watching/looking at weather data when I saw a swirling cloud of debris headed straight for the back of the house. I figured it couldn’t be that big of a deal so I just sat there and watched. Then the 100 mph winds hit the house and I hit the deck (and subsequently an interior room). While the damage to our house was moderate (shingles, aluminum siding and gutters missing, thrown AC unit, etc.), some other people right down the street didn’t fare so well.

Pictures of the storm and of some of the damage are available here.

Cheers.

This has been one of the few “political” topics followed by vdov.net but I believe it has been an appropriate topic. For a little more background on the Canadian “Human Rights Commissions” vis a vis free speech you can see this previous article. Any debate and/or comments on the topic are always appreciated.

For those not closely following (anything in Canada) the dust up over free speech in Canada I will provide a couple basics. Several individuals including Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn have been hauled before provincial “Human Rights Commissions” to be tried for things they have said or written that may have offended individuals or groups. The idea being that what these individuals wrote or said was “hate speech” that disenfranchises people.

My general view is that all speech should be free, naturally. I take the “sticks and stones” approach with the caveat of speech that incites immediate violence. I am very much in line with standard American legal thinking. By placing restriction on forms of speech considered “offensive” or “hateful” a broad and completely subjective stifling of speech can occur which I find completely unacceptable. The point of all of this being that the current “trail” of Mark Steyn for his writings provides an excellent example of the farcical nature of limiting some forms of speech “for the greater good.” Andrew Coyne has been liveblogging the trial of Mark Steyn. The whole process is not only ridiculous from the standpoint of truly free speech it crosses into the realm of self parody because the Human Rights Council itself seems completely unable to justify or conduct itself in any kind of competent legal framework.

I am hoping that folks around here will take a crack at this one. It’s at least worth some discussion.

I was reminded of a quote from way back in the day when I was first learning BSD (as introduced to me by the first Mac OS X … yes, I was a late bloomer in the grand scheme of things). From Ray & Ray’s Mac OS X Unleashed, reproduced without permission,

Caution [...] Just as some of us are safer not owning super-fast sports cars, some are less a threat to ourselves and others if we don’t have a big box of firecrackers, and some would be better off if we couldn’t buy donuts by the dozen, Unix is just too much for some people. It might be too much power, or too much flexibility, or too much information to remember, but Unix seems specifically designed to create a user who epitomizes the phrase knows just enough to be dangerous.

Each of these examples deals with “excess” in some way shape or form. While I disagree with its application to Unix for obvious reasons, it’s perfect for some of these people. Some of those to which this commentary is directed (not listed) I believe are extremely intelligent and linear in their thinking when writing through other mediums, but good lord, they all just become trivial little assholes who’d rather post off-the-cuff remarks then actually think through anything logically anymore.

Vdov.net has often published prolifically, through just as often we lag in our content production. I will no longer care if in a given month we lag … microblogging belongs at twitter.com.

Cheers.

“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” -Samuel Adams

Vdov.net is not normally prone to politicking and this post is mostly about principles rather than politics. The authors here, from what I know of them personally, tend toward unfettered freedom rather than more tempered and restrained freedom. I am personally enamoured of the cause of liberty wherever it arises. I have a soft spot in my heart for all democratic reformers and movements that sincerely want to replace repressive regimes with open societies governed by democratic principles, whether that be anti-theocratic student movements in Iran or the Free Tibet movement.

There are a couple problems that I have with the a Free Tibet movement in general. One is that Free Tibet people (and I have known several) tend to focus solely on freedom for Tibet while turning a blind eye or even sympathy to many other brutal regimes. The other, is that that it is largely symbolic and despite years of protests and political statements Tibet remains no freer today than it has ever been. This is not the fault of the movement so much as the unwavering determination of the Chinese to maintain unity above all other values, including human life and freedom. This is the same country that still views Taiwan as a rogue and unsubdued province, which sadly is echoed in US foreign policy. It is this caving into political sensibilities at the expense of what American’s truly believe that has always shamed me about our country. I have never supported the “hate is illegal in Canada” approach to free speech and I know I have support on that from this site’s authors and many readers. (For a startling reminder of the dangers of that kind of restriction on free speech takea look at the Canadian “Human Rights Councils” and their chilling effect on free speech, specifically speech that offends someone. The case of Ezra Levant and the abuses of Richard Warman. The Wikipedia paints a rosy picture of Warman as fighting neo-nazis but he is currently suing most major conservative Canadian bloggers in an effort to shut down speech he does not agree with.)

The long and short of this is looking at the protests against the Olympics that are currently taking place seemingly everywhere that the Olympic Torch is going. I am sympathetic with the protests as long as they are not violent. I have no problem with police arresting people who disrupt the torch procession, it is their choice to break the law. I believe the protests are doing good by keeping the disgusting abuses of individual liberty by the Chinese government in the spotlight. Will they change much? I doubt it. However, one article did catch my eye and dismayed me to a certain extent. My only problem is why the police immediately hustled this runner off the route and seized the torch? The woman was an official torch bearer. She is a US citizen entitled to freedom of speech. Presenting a flag is a Constitutionally protected act. She was not causing anyone danger. The issue is relatively small but I wish that the officers in charge of the event had acted differently, perhaps in a more “American” way.

Cheers.

I won’t belabor points that have already been made. Why? does not conform to genre, or at least we haven’t come up with a good genre for acts with keyboards AND guitar AND an electronic sound. I get the impression that this fact causes a lot of lazy reviewers to miss their sound entirely because they can’t slap a genre on them and call it quits. The Tiny Mix Tapes review above by Jeffrey Canino is the best I have read at hitting on Why?’s sound. It is true that it is something very hard to pin down in one genre, but that is not what makes it interesting. The best part of Why?’s sound is the stolid demand to meddle in a little of everything. The most common category for Why? is hip-hop, but that encompasses the minority of sound on Alopecia. The Fall of Mr. Fifths is the closest to a true hip-hop track even “white guy” hip-hop. Just because Yoni puts his lyrics to a distinct cadence and rhythm rather than a more “white guy” sound (although there is plenty of that as well) does not hip-hop make. It is not so much that Why? defies genre but more that their sound is an organic amalgamation of influences. After the rhythmic spitting of Mr. Fifths you find tracks like the opener, The Vowels Pt. 2, which is a glorious condensation of what makes Why? so unbelivable wonderful.

The Vowels Pt. 2 is a showcase of the intensely personal and nearly incomprehensible but wonderfully melodic vocals that strike right at the heart of the listener. The Vowels takes a touch of the dark, serious edge of the lyrics with the wonderfully cathartic refrain (cheeri-a, cheeri-e, cheeri-i, cheeri-o, cheeri-u…). Following that opener with Good Friday you get a taste of the almost spoken word nature of Why?. The lyrics are a total baring of a lifetime of quirks and psychosis which flows out like a hideously interesting torrent of intimacy which is hardly expected until you are at least half way through the song. The third track, These Few Presidents, shows the recurring themes of life and death that Why? is incomprehensibly able to throw around in the way people talk about the weather or sports. There is a beauty in the turns of phrase that seem to cram into every song without becoming trite or overwrought. “You are a beautiful and violent word…”

The album overall rises above Elephant Eyelash primarily in that it is more comfortable in its own shoes. The songs flow better even though they are little different from their predecessors in content or sound. There is a certain ineffable quality in them that is clear to almost any listener. The tone of Alopecia is most often described as more serious and dark than Eyelash but that smacks of a lack of listening to Eyelash rather than an actual analysis of Alopecia. It is not a matter of (as Chris Dahlen seems to think) understanding Why? or frontman Yoni Wolf, but simply an experience to be enjoyed. You might get a glimpse of the internal monologue of Wolf but it is not understanding that comes forth from every song. It is a strange journey in unknown territory. Why? remains unknown but not without incredible beauty and more than one catchy hook.

On an unrelated note, I was talking with afischer tonight about some random things and brought up my previous ‘Gmsh’ post. He said mostly what I expected … that is, “no one will remotely care about Gmsh”, but then said (paraphrasing), “no, I bet there is some ridiculous vdov.net groupie out there somewhere who feverishly anticipates anything new that comes onto the site”. I replied, “yeah, there may be, but I’m pretty sure if I met this person I would likely hate him/her … what does that say about vdov.net?”.

Nothing good, that’s for sure. Ha!

There is no doubt that this is album showcases Toth and his vocals. It is a welcome counterpoint to earlier Wand works that were far more freak folk with little in the way of traditional tunes. That is not to say that Wooden Wand has been entirely experimental. The prodigious amount of music they have recorded spans a wide swath of musical territory, ranging from stripped down, droning instrumentals to lyrically adept harmony that even the stodgiest old timer could appreciate. However, with James & The Quiet we come to Toth in what he has said is his “un-weird album.” From the Ecstatic Peace! label website:

“I want it to be an un-weird record,” was Toth’s plan. The road-weary Toth been spending a lot of time with old Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings records, and wanted to transcend the ‘psychedelic’ connotations he’s been pegged with since his days fronting Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice. He wanted to do what Elvis Costello did on Imperial Bedroom or Leonard Cohen did on I’m Your Man – he wanted to not give the people what they wanted, necessarily, but instead endeavor to follow his muse and create something altogether different.

Toth is clearly jumping the archetype of an anarchic tribe of indie folksters to that of a traditional singer-songwriter. It is difficult to tell whether this is really bucking fans’ hopes or playing into them. I have been waiting for a purely Toth album despite the excellence of his collaborations.

There is something undeniably American about Toth in this album. He is installing himself quite well into a tradition of nearly apocalyptic individualism, mysticism, and country/folk influences that can only be a product of the vast unsettled strength of the American populace. The one obvious omission in the claimed influences for this album is Dylan. Costello, Jennings, and Cohen are good references but there is clearly the strain of “urbanized ruralness” that Dylan injected into the American musical consciousness. The other very American strain that no reviewer seems to touch (it is not really post modern enough for indie critics) is Toth’s earnest use of Christian symbolism. That is a kernel around which huge amounts of lyrical real estate has been centered in the American and European musical traditions.

One of the most brilliant products of American creative imagination, hym­nody has had a massive global impact through popular music. Wherever rock ‘n’ roll is played, a shadow of its gospel roots remains.

According to Camille Paglia in a frankly brilliant essay from the Boston University journal “Arion” it is this shadow of Christian hymnody which infuses so much of American music with transcendent meaning.

Before getting too far afield it is worth mentioning that Toth’s adept weaving of traditonal influences makes something that is both historic and fresh. The Christian imagery is blatant in tracks like Blood, Blessed Damnation, and We Must Also Love the Thieves. This is not to say that Toth is singing hymns or laden with (capital R) “Religion.” He takes up the mantle of the enigmatic and deeply personal lyricist very much akin to Dylan (listen to the title track James & the Quiet). The songs themselves are hit or miss. It is a difficult album to swallow. However, knowing that it is a pure expression of the artist earnestly trying to create something very much in the grand arc of his culture makes it worthwhile. The pinnacle of beauty on the album is Spitting at the Cameras (mp3 link). It is personal, beautiful, enigmatic, and seems to tell a story about the artist. What more could you hope for? Whether this is a “good” or “bad” album is hard to say. Despite the conversion to a singer-songwriter it is no more accessible than previous albums. That is not to say that it is not captivating and beautiful. It is just difficult.

The Akron/Family show took place at my favorite Chicago venue (and the source of most of vdov’s Chicago music reviews), The Empty Bottle. The show started rather late for a Friday (10:00) and was opened by one of the bartenders’ bands “Robert AA Lowe & Ben Vida.” It consisted of a kind of tantric duet that made heavy use of brass bells, tape loops, mudras, and nearly Gregorian vocals. Their entire set was one solid sound beginning with the tinkling of bells and ending in a multi-toned layer cake of sound. The only drawback was the chanting might have dragged out a bit too far toward the end. However, no one can doubt this duet’s intensity. Toward the end of the set the afro-ed and mustache-ioed “lead” singer was literally leaning off the stage with his shoes half grounded and half jutting into thin air and standing nearly ten feet tall.

After Robert and Ben left the stage there was a seemingly interminable setup for Akron/Family. However, the Akron bassist Miles Seaton (clearly the showboat of the quartet) entertained the crowd lip synching and dancing to Michael Jackson songs that the band clearly requested to be played between acts. The playful pop intro quickly vaporized when they hit their first notes, jaunting off into the newly christened territory of “Freak Folk” which the band explicitly referenced as home. However, Akron/Family differs in sound from other Freak Folksters like Joanna Newsom or Devendra Banhart in that they have a much more robust sound and do not shy away from more bombastic rock sounds. This is not to say that they don’t have their quiet and almost precious moments on stage. Perhaps the highlight of the show was “Love and Space” from their recent album Meek Warrior. During the song as the band members gathered together around one mic they literally had the entire Empty Bottle (even way back at the bar) whisper quite chanting the backup lines of “Love and Space” while they solemnly harmonized over it. It was an impressive feat to see a crowd that engaged in a band, that enthralled.

I would say that the attention was entirely deserved as they were clearly comfortable with their instruments and each other, taking cues from one another on the fly and bringing strange sounds out of their otherwise normal instrumentation through various manipulations. For example: the drummer/vocalist/banjoist Dana Janssen drew an upright bass bow across the edge of his xylophone keys to produce crisp lasting tones that were looped back into their four pat harmonies and Seaton (the bassist) literally made a call on his cell phone during the show to use the magnet in its speaker to induce strange sounds from the pickups on his bass which he endlessly overlaid and looped on each other creating a strange harmony of noise. They ended the show with a strange sort of neo-Aquarian joint, literally handing out percussion instruments and recorders to audience members and dragging them onto the stage for a seemingly interminable jam which is the only time where I may have lost interest. Truly hipsters are the hippies of our age. My only regret is not making it back for their second night on Saturday. Akron/Family is by far the most engaging and seemingly mystical bands I have ever seen (not quite and mystical as Wooden Wand but more engaging), a truly unique and exciting live show. Even the ever aloof acosta was drawn in. I would recommend it to anyone if you find them playing in your area.

[Look for part II of this review soon, where acosta and I venture to a new venue for vdov and take part in some of the "official" indie scene of Chicago]

Date Page impressions Clicks Page CTR Page eCPM [?] Earnings
Saturday, December 30, 2006 127 14 11.02% $6.00 $0.76
Sunday, December 31, 2006 65 8 12.31% $48.44 $3.15
Monday, January 1, 2007 50 1 2.00% $0.00 $0.00
Tuesday, January 2, 2007 83 8 9.64% $21.30 $1.77

The right column lists my total earnings per day. On average so far, I make $1.42/day, which in and of itself is enough to support the entire colo shared by 6 different people (including dopefulhopefiend.com, thened.net, sphericalchicken.net, vdov.net, etc.). Thats sort of interesting isn’t it? I mean, vdov.net isn’t even all that popular yet I can support the hardware and network bandwidth with just one sort-of-intelligent blog.

I’ll let everyone know when I have some more data — 4 data points isn’t quite enough to get establish >$1/day average earnings at any reasonable level of confidence. Cheers.

Professor Murder was one of our West(East) Coast Informant’s picks. They played at Spaceland in LA so they were mainlined to me by TW(E)CI. Professor Murder just released their debut EP, Professor Murder Rides the Subway, which has gotten some love from the higher ups. The single is most likely the crisp and beat heavy “Free Stress Test.” The other serious contender on the album is Champion, which is Test’s dirtier little brother. The percussion is equally rough yet captivating yet the almost tantric vocals floats eerily over the electric drive of the instrumentation. The whole track is a little discombobulated but has enough internal cohesion that it sticks in your craw and demands at least a couple more listens.

Look for more tracks soon. If you want to request a track review email me @ rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net

The long standing goal of infrared mode-selective bond scission at surfaces has been achieved for simple hydrogen and deuterium adsorbate systems on Si(111).[1] The possibility of using IR mode excitation as a means to directing chemistry at surfaces is an exciting prospect and one that has generated significant interest over the past three decades.[2] Previous attempts, however, have not shown any significant selectivity. The typical experiment involves two isotopes of a simple species coadsorbed on a surface. Subsequent IR irradiation of the surface in resonance with a vibrational mode of one isotope results in non-preferential desorption of both isotopes.[3, 4, 5] This is thought to be due to rapid energy delocalization and redistribution from the excited mode to other molecular modes and to surface phonons. This redistribution of energy to surface phonon modes effectively represents a thermal, non-selective desorption mechanism. No previous study has shown isotopically selective desorption, an experiment which would lend significant evidence to a non-thermal directed mechanism.[6] Such a mechanism might open the door to significant advances in surface science. Si-H vibrational energies on a Si(111) surface differ by over 50cm−1 depending on the site of adsorption.[7] Bulk modification of the surface sites available for epitaxial growth or catalysis might be possible via site-selective desorption of adsorbate.[8]

In a recent study, isotopically selective desorption has been observed.[1] A free electron laser (FEL) with a linewidth of between 50 and 90cm−1 is used to generate mid-IR photons resonant with the H-Si stretch mode (0.26 eV) on a Si(111) surface terrace coadsorbed with an excess of deuterium. The experiment yields preferential desorption of H2. The partial pressures of desorbed H2, HD and D2 species are measured and the ratio of desorption yields for H2:HD:D2 is found to be 1:0.04:0.005. This result is significantly different from the ratio of desorption yields seen in the thermal desorption experiment (1:4.3:16.9), indicating a nonthermal, directed desorption mechanism. The simplicity of the system plays a large role in the effectiveness of this experiment: complex physical processes such as dipole-dipole coupling and intramolecular vibrational redistribution are limited or eliminated completely.[8] The possibility of controlling epitaxial growth with resonant vibrational excitation now has some experimental backing. Developments in this area are sure to produce new innovative techniques in surface science.

After having worked on my slides and finishing my abstract, I accidentally catted my .ispell_american file in my home directory, which lists all the words you save as legit words when you’re writing. After looking at it I realized that those words you save probably say qutie a lot about you and what you do on that machine. So, here’s mine at work.

achemso
adsorbates
AutoCAD
Biosketch
Bowdoin
Calvo
coadsorbed
Collisional
COMSOL
Costa
delocalization
delocalized
DESI
desorbed
dichlorobenzene
electrosprays
english
ESI
eV
FEMLAB
Fluoromethane
GHz
HD
intramolecular
isotopically
ITSIM
KCl
linewidth
monohydride
monolayer
monolayers
Navier
nebulizer
nonthermal
pdf
phonon
phonons
photochemistry
photodesorbed
predesoroption
quadrupole
Runge
scission
SIMulation
thermalization
vibrational
Xeon

Cheers.