Everyone has been exposed to the debate surrounding global warming. A lot of the scary consequences of global warming are found by the way of global climate models. It can be hard to decipher, at least from general reporting, as to where these models come from, how they are calculated, and how accurate they are. The following should clear up some of this mysterious witchcraft known as climate modeling and give scientific background to the problem. (more…)

With a small amount of supposition and daring and surprisingly little coercion, I have secured the South wall of the famed Empty Bottle in Chicago for a month-long exhibition of some of my photographs. They are up now, as you can see in the picture to the left, and some of you will have the lucky opportunity to personally view them them there at the Art Brut show this coming Friday. That is, if they survive that long. I’m beginning to think that, with regards to survival, even beer bottles, really, are pushing it with the glass/drunkard combination. So I went back today, after one weekend, to hang the last (forgotten) picture and expected to clean the frames of the other photos; surprisingly, the glass was clean–but one pane had broken (just in the corner, I don’t think I’ll replace it). Not surprisingly, this isn’t really the safest place for a wall of glass. (more…)

In preparation for The Pitchfork Music Festival there will be no Monday podcast. Before this weekend I have to move all of my stuff over to my new apartment (which is within walking distance of the festival) so I am going to take this one off. Acosta, The West Coast Informant, Dr. Hollencomium, and myself will be going for total coverage of the festival so stay tuned for pictures, sounds, reviews, and more. Also stay tuned for pre-festival coverage of Muse, The Cloud Room, and Art Brut. I will try to work out a schedule for updates that will work for everyone and maybe previews before each day. If I really decide to imperil my electronics I will try and get some recorded sounds (not music) from the show in the form of interviews etc. if I can scare up some interesting characters.

Well kids, all the discussion about the gallery recently prompted me to spend more or less all night and a bunch of time this morning before starting work implementing Gallery 2! This is opposed to the previous version, Gallery 1.5. The improvements over 1.5 are pretty staggering, far too many to discuss in this brief post. If you’re interested in any of this, please feel free to head over to the gallery site and check it out. Performance, aesthetics, and functionality have all been greatly improved. All that being said, I invite you all to check out the new gallery, featuring the life-oriented pictures of both myself and afischer, as well as the art of shollen. To all: enjoy.

You may have noticed that once again I have slacked off in getting the podcast writeup off and running. You should already have the podcast itself (it went up on Monday) but here is the rest of the info. Most of the stuff this week is from Hello Radio, a They Might Be Giants (TMBG) tribute album. The weirdest thing I came across in making this is the improbable life of Steve Burns. Anyway the rest is in the podcast. Enjoy:

1) Frank Black (TMBG cover) - Road Movie To Berlin - Hello Radio
2) Dr. Octagon - Trees - The Return of Dr. Octagon
3) Dr. Octagon - Halfsharkhalfalligator Man - Dr. Octagonacolygist
4) Steve Burns (TMBG cover)- Dead - Hello Radio
5) OK Go (TMBG cover) - Letterbox - Hello Radio
6) They Might Be Giants - Letterbox - Flood
7) The Wrens - 13 Months In 6 Minutes - Meadowlands

Any new music suggestions can be sent to rtrev -at- vdov -dot- net

As some of you may know, I have inherited shollen’s life, her job, her friends, her exact living situation for a few weeks. This, however, has nothing to do with science and neither does her unemployed lifestyle. Since she no longer has anything to do with science and I have inherited every other aspect of her life, it was collectively decided that I would also fill the role of the Sexy Science Report. For the first edition of the Sexy Science Report, we will look at the Gravity Probe B (GP-B) experiment. This probe will test the theory of general relativity, which was oddly visited during shollen’s first Sexy Science. (more…)

Surprise! After months of not updating my gallery, I have finally added new photos. The most noteable addition is the flat album in projects and excursions. This is either a very interesting project that I undertook recently, or else a very boring one…depending on who you are and how you feel about standard, 2-dimensional, eye-level objects you might not compose artistically on a daily basis. There are also new photos in standard fare, geometry class, and portraits. With any luck, I will be getting out specifically to take pictures in the near future, and I am almost willing to promise that there will never again be such a lag in the update of the gallery wing of vdov.

OK kids! This looks like we actually have two podcasts this week. This week we have some new music and end with an old favorite (that is clearly designed to be really grating). We start off with some music by Chromatics which is from Troubleman Unlimited Records. It turns out I was very wrong about this band. There are actually two musical groups “Chromatics” one (at the previous link) that is a female DJ the Yeti 3 Compilation. So ignore the fact that I suggest that these are the same band in the podcast. We also give you a recommendation from the folks at Luna Music in Indianapolis. Luna Music is hands down the finest record store I have ever found for indie rock and that is after spending some time looking in Boston, New York, LA and elsewhere. They now have three (!) stores in Indianapolis and have been driving the local music scene heavily in that city since 1994. They will let you listen to anything in the store and if you go to the main store (86th street on the northside) the staff has a deep and varied ability to recommend new music, which is why we play The Black Angels today on the podcast. Then we end with some throwback 50’s B-movie reel kitcsh from The Cramps. Also make sure to keep your eyes peeled here on vdov because we are going to have a lot of live music coming up. A) Art Brut in a very small venue B) Vdov interviewees and favorites The Cloud Room C) The entire Pitchfork Music Festival (which we may have a press pass for!) Stay tuned: (more…)

Well being back on schedule apparently means not being back on schedule. This is Friday’s podcast coming at you on Monday. The reason this time is that we took shollen down to get her greivous injuries checked out by “The Family Doctor” in Indianapolis. Luckily, she won’t die. Unluckily, I am a big slacker and failed to use the internet and scp to their full potential and the podcast is only now dribbling across the web into your hard drives. That being said this weeks show has some great stuff. We have some new bands from Chicago in the line up for your listening pleasure. We also have a little homage to the taste of Douglas Gilbert a microbiologist who “ups the punx” on a regular basis. Doug also may be getting the vdov writing staff a press tour of the Pitchfork Music Festival, which promises not to disappoint. Of the new bands Doug has thrown my way the two I play are Chicago based and quite nice. One is the Beard with their debut album Surgery/Embroidery and the other is excellently named Jesus and the Devil (their website loads music right away… which pisses the hell out of me). We also have some stuff thrown my way by The West Coast Informant (despite her handicap) in the form of Grand Ole Party, which has got a great throwback sound that rides a line between Joan Jett and Jefferson Airplane’s darker side. I love the bass line and the chorus “We are all going to die here.” We also have a contribution from Dr. Hollencomium in the form of Monsters Are Waiting who he saw in LA recently and they apparently do a good show. Oh yes, did I also mention new TV On The Radio. Ahhh yes. (more…)

I’m sitting here in Chicago with none other than one shollen, trying to find something to do. Unfortunately, in her half-human crippled current incarnation (see comments that I’m sure will come), usual activities such as frisbee throwing and kite flying are out of the question. It just occured to me that vdov has hit a couple of very important milestones in the past 2 days. First, July 5th (yesterday) was the 2nd year anniversary of the first post on vdov.net. So, I’d like to say happy birthday to vdov and all those people who read and contribute to it. Secondly, this morning at about noon smashy hit 400 days of uptime.

pts/0 acosta@smashy:~ $ uptime
15:26:51 up 400 days, 3:31, 1 user, load average: 0.04, 0.09, 0.07

Smashy itself will likely be phased out as structural changes in the Bowdoin NOC alumni server farm take place over the next few months. Who knows, though … maybe smashy will make it to 500 days. Regardless, vdov will continute to kick it and I look forward to great things forthcoming.

It seems ludicrous that after a month in Chicago, Thursday night was my first outing to the famed Empty Bottle, and even more insulting: it was also my first dose of any live music at all. The Rt. Rev. and I spontaneously decided against the SlowMo Video Fest in favor of a field trip North and West to see Painted Saints, Radiant Darling, and The Thin Man. This was no bad decision; though I was intrigued by the art of playing movies in slow motion, the Empty Bottle stood a much higher chance of keeping me awake. (more…)

I realize that the podcast is delayed. A lot of this has to do with the august arrival of none other than the wonderful “Matriarch of Vdov.net,” Victoria Mom. I should have gotten things rolling much earlier but only had half a podcast done before the “Week of Oregonians” commenced. This is all basically an excuse but the podcast is up and I will get have the tracklist out sometime soon now. For now be content knowing that we are all going to be tasting the sweaty, seedy, culinary underbelly of The Windy City. Sometime soon The West Coast Informant should have a live music review up from a show at the Empty Bottle. Until Monday: (more…)