Ok the podcast is now officially up. No more waiting, no more yearning for musical sermonizing. This podcast is actually a grab bag of stuff from the vault. There is not too much new music this week. I did warn you all so don’t be surprised. Although, I now have a lot of good new music in the queue so be ready for it. There is one solid new track lifted from Bob Hammond who is now posting on The Trust Fund with Sam Ubl from Pitchfork (who has yet to debut on the infant site). I am expecting some excellent musical banter from The Trust Fund and will probably cast my hat in the ring in their comments and in my articles here. There is also a nice back to back listen and compare segment for old vs. new Flaming Lips (who you should all be familiar with). I also realized that I have been pretty slow around here with non-podcast content. I do apologize for that. I hope to do some music reviews and some other music related musings. There may also be some more interviews in the mix. The real reason that a lot of this stuff is getting delayed is due to my MCAT class. This thing is a beast and I am still no where near ready for it. There will be a lot of studying between now and April. So if anyone knows a lot about Gen. Chem and Intro Physics, then I need your brain. I think by eating it I would gain your knowledge.

1) Nada Surf - Blizzard of ‘77 - Let Go Limited Ed.
2) Neutral Milk Hotel - Song Against Sex - On Avery Island
3) Islands - Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby - Return to the Sea
4) The Shins - New Slang (When You Notice the Stripe) - Oh, Inverted World
5) The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
6) The Flaming Lips - She Don’t Use Jelly - Transmission From A Satellite Heart
7) Sway - Up Your Speed Rmx. - Run the Road 2

You may be wondering about the picture. It doesn’t really directly relate to this site, but the sentiment is something that we support here on vdov. BoingBoing.net is a favorite of the vdov staffers and they have found themselves being censored all over the world and they have responded quite well. Needless to say vdov is not a fan of net censorship. We would love nothing more than all corrupt dictatorships, autocracies, dictatorial regimes, repressive theocracies, etc. were overthrown by freedom loving quasi anarcho libertarian technology friendly free market collectives, but while we are dreaming I would also like a pony. Until Friday enjoy… Michaelangelo’s “David.”

UPDATE (acosta): There were some problems relating to data reorganization that I did yesterday, and those are now fixed. Feedburner has yet to pick up the new XML sheet, so if you’re linking through Feedburner you’ll have to wait a little longer. Those of you linking directly to the site … you should be all set. Please comment and let me know if it is still screwed up.

UPDATE (acosta): All set. Feedburner has picked it up.

It is Friday and that means that you are all in for another missive in the form of liturgical indie rock. This week we kick things off with indie golden band Neutral Milk Hotel. This is the title track from their seminal album “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.” I am pretty sure that it is not possible to not like this track if you listen to it through a few times. I am thinking that I might be playing more “classic” indie rock tunes, or more non-single songs from bands that have been out a while. It is becoming very difficult to always have new music twice a week. I will obviously throw out the best of what is new and good as I stumble across it. This is just fair warning that you may find yourself in a history lesson on Monday.

We also have a two song block by the band “Man Man” who is on one of my favorite labels, Ace Fu Records. I play two cuts by Man Man. The first is off the new album that just hit stores this Monday called “Six Demon Bag.” This is a highly worthy album and you should defintiely go to the store and trade hard currency for it. That way Man Man will make crap loads of money and put out a new album (then probably sell out and go top 40). However, the next album is what is important right now. Six Demon Bag has a little more polish on it than The Man In A Blue Turban With A Face, which was their debut LP. This does not mean that they lost any of the crazed, frantic sounds that pulsates from both albums. It is hard to peg their sound into a category… you will just have to judge for yourself on the podcast.

The last track is a request from one Mr. A. Parsons who likes to request long, instrumental art pieces. This is a classic by Mogwai, staples of indie rockdom. I think we should all take a lesson from Mr. Parsons’ initiative. The Rt. Rev. always honors requests and loves to get feedback. As always you can reach the Rev. @ rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net. Until Monday:

1) Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
2) Man Man - Black Mission Goggles - Six Demon Bag
3) Man Man - Zebra - The Man In A Blue Turban With A Face
4) Vagenious - Plain and Simple - Vagenious
5) Stellastarr* - My CoCo - Stellastarr*
6) Mogwai - Chocky - Come On Die Young

You may have noted (if you have done any link following from vdov.net) that my good friend and hipster scum, Bob Hammond, has dropped of the internet radar recently. Bob was the diabolic mind behind his now defunct site Rebel Jukebox, which was quite good while it lasted.

From the irridescent pink and yellow ashes of that site rises a muted blue and grey pheonix called The Trust Fund. The notable addition to this site versus Rebel Jukebox, is Sam Ubl of Pitchfork fame. I really like Ubl’s reviews on Pitchfork and look forward to a little Hammond/Ubl action. I am also tantalized by the seeds of an anti-”Nick Sylvesters, Julianne Shepherds, Tom Breihans, or Sasha Frere-Joneses” axis of some kind, though Ubl and Hammond seem to demur. The site is clearly in the very early stages of production, but our readers should look forward to some quality music inspiration from that direction. It is almost enough to make me want to write a music review… almost.

A lot of people have been asking me recently about what it is I’m actually doing in the basement of the various Purdue chemistry buildings. Unfortunately, I almost never have a solid answer, mostly because it’s incredibly difficult to describe what mass spectrometry really is, let alone what I’m doing with it. Mass spectrometry is such a huge field, with so many different types of instruments operating under so many different fundamental principles, it’s nearly impossible to explain in a concise and understandable way. So I’ve decided to write a little post about some of the types of instruments I have been and will be working on, especially in their relationship to Ion Trajectory Simulations and the application I’ve been working on which handles such a task, appropriately named ITSIM.

Fundamentally, ITSIM (Ion Trajectory Simulation) solves Newton’s equation of motion for a population of ions in type-varying electronic devices. We normally solve this equation using a standard 4th order Runge-Kutta method, although 5th and 8th order methods, and even time-symmetric 1st order methods have been implemented. The most recent version of ITSIM (developed by the Cooks group), is version 6.0, which allows these simulations to be done in electronic devices with arbitrary geometries. The general scheme of this approach is as follows:

First, a 3D mechanical model of the device in question is generated in a CAD-type program and imported into some sort of 3D field solver (we use an application called FEMLAB, which is just freaking cool). The complexities of this process are truely mind-boggling, and even after working with the applications for months and having a solid grasp on the theory, much of this process eludes me. There are too many fine points on field solving that I simply can’t go into … this would be where you would have to read a thesis. After we’ve solved the electric field, we can import this data into the ITSIM application and simulate the motion of charged molecules inside of this electronic device. I’d like to reiterate that the fields we’re talking about are extremely complex (they involve DC, AC, and RF terms). Everything must satisfy the LaPlace conditions, of course, and we work within the Mathieu space/stability (a,q) conditions. This all means nothing to you, I know, but perhaps at a later date I’ll show you some really pretty pictures that will make it all worthwhile. (For those of you in physics, it’s not computational fluid dymamics, it’s all just fancy pictures from your field solvers!) The concepts of Mathieu space and LaPlace conditions are the basis for the operation of ion traps in general.

So, how do we really do this. We’ve got this electric device and we want to simulate the motion of charged particles inside of it. First we have to put ions into the trap. This is done in groups. Ions in each group are “created” in the trap with identical physical properties conforming to some distribution (uniform or Gaussian, depending on the situation). We can even do fancy things like inserting ions into the trap during certain RF-phases of the time-varying electric field. The calculation of the field is done using a multipole expansion. In a perfect hyperbolic (or Paul) trap, we have perfect quadrupolar fields. In practice, all traps have imperfections, and devcies such as the CIT (cylindrical ion trap), RIT (rectilinear ion trap), and the 2D linear trap all require special consideration when solving for their electric fields. I’ve included some plots of Mathieu space (a,q), and an example of ion motion in a quadrupole ion trap below. They’re pretty cool, even if to most they’re just eye candy.

If you don’t care about these plots, don’t worry about it. The point is, we know how to solve for the field. Once we know the functional form of the field in the trap, solving Newton’s equations using an iterative method isn’t so bad at all. Granted, the code that actually executes this process is quite complex, but those of you with a nice physics background should recognize that if we understand the electric field, we should be able to solve for the motion of known ions in such a field.

So, that’s about as much detail as I’m willing to go through here. We create a device, solve for a time-varying field and apply the solution to Newton’s equation of motion for charged species in electric fields. Done. There is so much more to these calculations, including the ability to introduce buffer gas interactions, varying pressures of neutral molecules, freely user-definable scan tables for RF, AC, DC voltages, etc.

But why do we do it? There must be more to it. And in fact, there is. The best thing about this program is its ability to give us insight into the performance of mass spectrometers, specifically the mass analyzer, without having to build a new instrument each time we want to test some random theory. We have a grea tool to aid us in the development of the ion trap mass analyzer as a high performance instrument. We can predict the performance of ion trap designs and truely understand the complex elements that control this performance. And, simulations are freaking interesting in-and-of-themselves. This application is in active development in the group, and it looks like that the current head of the project is about to leave with his Ph.D., and I’ll be taking over the project. If you’re actually interested in ion traps (you should be, they’re awesome), I’d be happy to give you some references that lay them out in a much more didactic epilogue.

This is one of the areas that I’ve been working in during my time the past few months in the Cooks group. I’ve got more stuff going on here, but my time writing is just about up since CHM 116 is about to come to an end. Do I pay attention to my Freshmen’s lectures? No, no, I just write ridiculous posts for my website.

Cheers.

I hate to do this, but in order to keep the podcast on schedule I do have to bury Costa’s post a bit. To alleviate the burying I will try and keep it short. As promised I will hit you up with some info about vdov.net pal rhollen and his new reviews and podcasting. He is preaching his own indie rock gospel to the heathens and sinners at University of the Pacific. I also promised some info on the mashup competition CD The Best of Bootie 2005. It is all highly quality stuff. Until Firday, enjoy:

1) Belle and Sebastian - Final Day - Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before
2) The M’s - Going Over It - Future Women
3) Ruff Muff - La La Her Madly (The Doors vs. Goldfrapp) - Best of Bootie 2005
4) Listing Ship - Jawbone George - Dance Class Revolution
5) Of Montreal - Disconnect the Dots - Deflated Chime, Foals Slightly
6) Modest Mouse - Styrofoam Boots/Its All Nice, On Ice, Alright - Lonesome Crowded West
7) Belle and Sebastian - Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It - Sing Jonathan David

As always you can reach the Rev. @ rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net. Requests, rants, suggestions, denunciations, crazed insights, etc. are always welcome and and what else could Holy Trinity Possibly Mean?

Thomas Edison, the great American inventor, once said, “The airplane won’t amount to a damn thing until they get a machine that will action like a hummingbird: go straight up, go forward, go backward, come straight down and alight like a hummingbird. It isn’t easy; [but] somebody is going to do it.”

I just watched a great little program on The History Channel which attempted to lay out the history and development of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. The sheer number of ridiculous aircraft and attempts at this technology is absolutely incredible. I’m not going to go into any diatribe because I simply don’t know enough about the technology to make any kind of original statement, but I was struck by Edison’s comment in relationship to our ambition toward VTOL technology.

Currently, the US Air Force is hot on the F/A-22 and X/F-35, the latter of which is a VTOL type aircraft. While the F/A-22 is officially in service, the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is not. Wikipedia has some great articles on both these aircraft (linked above).

Those of you that know me know of my facination with aviation, and I just felt like I would write about this even if it’s pretty uncharacteristic of vdov.net. Cheers.

UPDATE: In a weird twist, the same day I posted this the first production F-35 was delivered to the flight line. You can see a Flickr set of photos of the event here.

Hey there all you faithful vdov’ers… for those of you who don’t know me I’m Alex and I’m a web developer, currently working for Palo Alto Software in Eugene, OR. I’ll (hopefully) be posting here from time to time about hot topics in the web community, new technologies, and anything else I deem a worthwhile use of your precious blog-reading time.

Lately, I’ve been hearing (as I’m sure you all have too) quite a bit about this new “Web 2.0″ thing that promises to revolutionize the way we use the internet. If you’re like me, you might wonder just how such a crucial upgrade managed to slip under the radar, and where to go to download a copy of this new version. All jokes aside, I feel like there may be a lack of clarity on exactly what Web 2.0 IS and how it’s going to improve all of our lives.

In all reality, Web 2.0 is nothing more than a clever buzzword to describe a group of technologies that have existed in their own right for years, and an attempt to legitimize their increased use web-wide. A handful of these technologies includes such vdov staples as podcasts, blogs, and RSS feeds, to name a few. This interactive wiki/blog environment which has become so common lately stands in stark contrast to the static HTML pages of WWW past, and has forced commercial and recreational sites alike to embrace the new structure or risk extinction.

But true Web 2.0 enlightenment goes well beyond the cleverly CSS styled, content-rich, collaborative web publications put out by any Joe Schmo with a Blogspot page (no offense intended to the vdov community, naturally). The real beauty of this conglomeration of technologies lies in the service oriented architecture which is becoming increasingly more application-like in nature, bending the concept of “surfing” from this page to that, in essence creating a user experience not unlike that found in a desktop application. The keystone of this architecture is AJAX, yet another buzzword for technology that has been available for quite some time, but has taken off in recent years now that it’s found an identity and brand name. AJAX, which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, allows a browser to interact with a web server and update page components without reloading the entire page. For example, gmail users will recognize the fact that their back button is essentially useless, as they navigate from their inbox to searched messages and composition of a new message without ever witnessing a page refresh. Web 2.0 is perhaps more easily defined by the companies and sites that have adopted these new technologies and pushed the limits of what is capable within the confines of a web browser. Sites such as Wikipedia, Flickr, and Google Maps do a much better job in conveying the message of Web 2.0 than I ever could.

As the e-commerce world struggles to recover from the dot-com bubble and subsequent burst of said bubble, Web 2.0 has emerged as the poster boy for the web renaissance, even though it exists mostly as an ideology rather than a concrete framework. One thing’s for certain, the phrase has captured the hearts of web marketing management, being tossed around corporate boardrooms like so many snowballs on a winter’s day. The success of an organization’s use of Web 2.0 really depends just as much on its ability to convince the target audience that it is in fact Web 2.0 as it does on actual implementation. As consumers and web connoisseurs, we are becoming increasingly spoiled by feature-rich web experiences that provide the most convenient and quickest access to the data we require, and therefore are placing that much more pressure on the producers of this experience to continue to progress into Web 2.0 and beyond. So until next time, vdovers everywhere: rejoice, knowing that this site is keeping pace with the ever-expanding web frontier.

My brother is in town visiting this weekend, and, naturally (to avoid him), I’m leaving tomorrow to go snowboarding at Mammoth. He is very obnoxious and I’m glad that I won’t be around to hang out. However, it turns out that he has done at least one useful thing for the world lately: He has started writing The Hollencomium Music Reviews for his college paper, The Pacifican (latest review here). He is also doing short weekly podcasts of the reviewed songs. His reviews are fairly inbred to vdov & associates, but apparently The University of the Pacific is musically crippled and pop-centric so he is doing all sorts of good deeds for his fellow classmates. He is also interviewing Viva K, an upcoming LA band that you may have heard of previously on vdov.net, at their San Francisco show next Saturday. This interview will be published in The Pacifican as well. Go check it out, this just might be the best thing that Richmond Hollen has produced in his life (though the homemade raspberry jam of ‘91 was a damn good effort).

Disclaimer: I was told to inform you that the first podcast was produced in 5 minutes and will be much improved in the future. Apologies all around.

Friday means podcast in the form of Indie Rock Gospel preached by the Rt. Rev. Fischer. We are back on schedule (for now) and ruining your eardrums with the best that the contemporary Internet Age has to offer. This week we have a lot of random elements. We have an appearance by His Name Is Alive who have been around forever. Their newest album is actually not bad, despite the wandering and not always pleasantly so earlier output. We also have some new “Best Music” from Pitchfork which is only decent, despite a glowing review over at the PF. There are also two tracks from DJ BC, the Boston mashup guru (for those that need to know more about mashups and “bastard pop”). They are from his “The Beastles” project, combining The Beatles and The Beastie Boys. There is also new Colin Meloy work, where he sings the long time folk classic Barbara Allen. The prince of indie rock has gone the way of folk (weak though it may be) with his new solo album “Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins” (compare with Colin Meloy Sings Morrisey). It has been critically acclaimed in some circles. I have not been completely sold. I wish Meloy would just get back to doing what he does best, and that is rocking out hard in Victorian style with The Decemberists. I am still waiting for my dual disc set called “North and South” with one disc called “The Civil War” all about the North, and the second disc called “The War Between the States” all about the South. Also, speaking of the South I think that Englishwoman Shirley Collins who Meloy croons from deserves mention here, if not exclusively for her work on Coen brothers’ masterpiece and Odyssey homage O’ Brother Where Art Thou?. I hope that is enough info for you until Monday dear listener.

1) His Name Is Alive - I’ll Send My Face To Your Funeral- Detrola
2) MYLO - Drop The Pressure - Destroy Rock ‘n’ Roll
3) The Fiery Furnaces - Winter - Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One (Rough Trade 25)
4) The M’s - My Gun - Future Women
5) DJ BC and The Beastles - Mother Nature’s Rump - The Beastles
6) DJ BC and The Beastles - Let It Beast - Let It Beast
7) Colin Meloy - Barbara Allen - Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins

As always you can reach the Rev. @ rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net. Requests, rants, suggestions, denunciations, crazed insights, etc. are always welcome and honored by the Rt. Rev., so send them my way.

Once again this will be a short podcast write up. I am pretty much wasted from having fun with my little brother all weekend. I have also been totally delayed in uploading this podcast by forces that I can barely comprehend. Until Friday:

1) The Lovely Feathers - The Only Appalachian Corn Field - The Lovely Feathers EP
2) Johnny Cash - It Ain’t Me Babe - The Man In Black (Best of Disc 2)
3) Tarkio - Better Half - I Guess I Was Hoping For Something More
4) Old 97’s - Timebomb (Live) - Satellite Rides Bonus Disc
5) The Mountain Goats - Love Love Love - The Sunset Tree
6) T. Rex - Cat Black (The Wizard’s Hat) - Unicorn
7) Bird Names - Can’t Stop Drawing (Dinosaurs) - Fantic Yard
8) Roky Erickson - Cold Night For Alligators - Demon Angel: A Day and Night with Roky Erickson

More shortness of interruption… more music. Until Friday you can reach the Rev. @ rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net.

Some of you may have noticed a prolonged amount of downtime for vdov.net and dopefulhopefiend.com last night. Don’t worry … smashy is still alive and well and working on 260 days of uptime. Last night before a scheduled apache2 log rotate and reload, I removed the last piece of php4 I still had around on the machine, libphp4, while neglecting to get rid of the enabled module load in apache2 (mods-enabled/libphp4.load). So when cron ran at 2am this morning, things just died. I caught the error when I woke up and fixed it.

Secondly, I’d like to say that my favorite show of all time, Arrested Development, is now officially off the air. This is a very sad day for me and indeed for television in general. One of the smartest, most well written and developed shows ever to be created has been axed after only 2 and a half seasons. I’m not sure who I hate more … the vast majority of America who didn’t appreciate it or the network execs who’d rather create another crappy reality show. So, it is in that spirit that I call on everyone who reads vdov.net to show the world how great AD really is and get it back on the air. Hey, it happened with Family Guy …

Last but not least, I’ll be glued to my TV in the next couple weeks due to the Winter Olympics in Torino. I’ve got a couple friends who are there, and so to you I say hello. I’m very jealous that you’re all there. The downhill is going to air on NBC tonight at 7 EST, and although I already know the results, I can’t wait.

Cheers.

UPDATE: Somehow I’ve managed to break the RSS fead for the main articles. At some point I’ll get around to fixing this but for now you’ll just have to actually visit the web site. Of course if all you’re doing is RSSing this site right now … you won’t get this info for quite some time.

UPDATE 2: I’ve fixed the main RSS feed for both dopefulhopefiend.com and vdov.net. The main and comments feeds should work as expected. Just reload them. It’s a bug in the Wordpress 2.0.1 /wp-includes/classes.php file with the $comments_rewrite variable.

Good Friday kids! The delay in podcasting is the result of picornavirus(es), lack of sleep and extended phone minutes. All of these problems have been happily traded for health and well being. The Rt. Rev. Fischer has a new installment of the indie gospel for you. I know that it just BARELY makes it in on Friday. You can thank my neurotic/obsessive nature for the late installment (it is actually a very faint part of the overall nature). This podcast is really a grab bag of stuff from disparate times. We have everything from historical music from the likes of T. Rex’s album Electric Warrior, which hiddeously enough has been labeled “glam rock.” I deny the classification. It is far more than that. To the Arctic Monkeys and their brand of modern brit-pop-rock. The Arctic Monkeys are literally blowing up all over the place. Many hipster bastards would denounce the band for being “too popular,” but I am convinced that they are a testament to the power of independent music. They will most likely sell out hard (although who really knows) but at least they left a mark of the deep cut between indie cred and mainstream acceptance. Anyway, there is much more than all that to the podcast and I hope you all enjoy. My little brother will be up this weekend which means that there might be some joint podcastation for Monday. Until then, enjoy:

1) T. Rex - Jeepster - Electric Warrior
2) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - There She Goes My Beautiful World - Abbetior Blues (Disc 1)
3) Belle and Sebastian - Sukie in the Graveyard - The Life Pursuit
4) The Weather Machines - New Rules of Conversation - The Sound of Pseudoscience
5) Pulp - Disco 2000 - Different Class
6) The Arctic Monkeys - From the Ritz to the Rubble - Five Minutes With Arctic Monkeys

As always you can reach the Right Reverend @ rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net.