My Favorite Music of 2017

I gotta admit that I went a bit overboard on music this year with 58 albums purchased. That's a lot for me. But in my own defense, a bunch came from RareNoise's "leap of faith" (buy up-front all their releases for the year and pay no shipping) and another bunch came from buying David Kollar's entire Bandcamp catalog with a sweet "black Friday" deal. And you'll notice in the write-ups below, these albums each led to purchases of related albums.

I wrote few album commentaries throughout the year simply due to time constraints. And even this list will lack explicit justification for my choices. I recommend you click through to each album's page to stream a sample because I am not good at describing the music versus sharing my reactions to it.

Choosing favorites from such a big (for me) list was difficult but here it is.

The Stone House by Wingfield Reuter Stavi Sirkis

Wow.

The Stone House by the quartet of Mark Wingfield, Markus Reuter, Yaron Stavi, and Asaf Sirkis was completely improvised and recorded live without overdubs in a single day. And the result is a complex, progressive, instrumental performance that's astonishing for how composed yet relaxed it feels. It was followed later in the year by Lighthouse from the same sessions and a third album is promised. "Wow" came out of my mouth before the first track on Lighthouse had finished. The Stone House and Lighthouse are both available from MoonJune's Bandcamp page.

Loneliness Road by Saft, Swallow, Previte ft. Iggy Pop

Stellar.

I will admit right up front that I came into this album a bit biased because I'm not really a fan of Iggy Pop's prior work. Bias aside, this is a damn beautiful performance by a jazz trio (piano, bass, drums) with three of the tracks featuring Iggy Pop's vocals that, upon repeated listens, provide a gravely, emotive contrast. Loneliness Road is available from RareNoise.

After Loneliness Road I developed an insatiable appetite for Saft's work and bought The New Standard (again with Swallow and Previte) and two albums by Saft's New Zion Trio: Fight Against Babylon and Sunshine Seas, the latter featuring Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista.

Magnetic by Gaudi 

Serious joy.

I really enjoy a lot of the music coming from the RareNoise label. So when it was announced that Gaudi's new album would use sounds from the entire RareNoise catalog as his "orchestra of musicians" combined, augemented, and enhanced with new performances by a broad cast of musicians, I was sold.

Magnetic did not dissapoint. It's like a party with all your friends with their best work on display but with intersting bits highlighted that you may not have noticed before and then want to go rediscover.

Notes from the Underground by David Kollar

Hope.

I was first introduced to guitarist David Kollar through the album KOMARA from the trio of Kollar, Pat Mastelotto (drums), and Paolo Raineri (trumpet) that I praised back in 2015. This year, Kollar released Notes from the Underground.

Kollar performs on guitar, synth, and treatments and is accompanied by Raineri on trumpet. The result is a bittersweet hopefulness.

I was so impressed by Notes from the Underground that I purchase his entire catalog of music that I'm still trying to sort through.

Rosebud by Bernocchi, Einheit, Quail

Grace.

The first thing that popped into my head upon learning that Eraldo Bernocchi's next album (with drummer FM Einheit and cellist Jo Quail) would be called Rosebud, was to try to draw some analogy with the movie Citizen Kane. Then there's the cover art with (what I see as a) roughly painted black star with the word Rosebud neatly nested inside.  But I digress.

While I'm reluctant to label this music, the best I can come up with is industrial ambience. The performances balance the infinite with the immediate, tragedy and beauty, rigor and fragility.




My list of all 2017's listening is available for the curious. And regarding my musical tastes, just remember what I say: "I don't know much about music, but I sure like the sound it makes."

My Favorite Books of 2017

It's time for the post that no one asked for but gets anyway - the list of books I enjoyed the most from all my reading during 2017.

Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out

Christopher Rothko's book about his father, Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out, is neither a biography nor an art book. Instead, it's a series of insightful essays on various aspects of his father's work from someone with an up-close vantage point combined with perhaps the person most familiar with the artist's entire body of work. It may be my favorite book about Rothko and that includes Rothko's own The Artist's Reality.

Here's a sneak peek at the book from Yale Art Books.



11/22/63

Watching The Shining in the theater ended, for a couple of decades at least, my interaction with Stephen King. I am definitely not a fan of the horror genre. However, my interest in JFK's assassination (see here) was enough for me to give King's 11/22/63 a try. If you had a time machine, would you go back and prevent JFK's assassination? So you've got sci-fi and historical fiction. But you know what? This novel is a great love story. The fact that a lot of it is set in the DFW area doesn't hurt.

You can read more at stephenking.com.


The Berlin Project

Gregory Benford's The Berlin Project was one of the few books I took the time to write about immediately after reading which you should infer is a measure of how much I enjoyed it. Combining alternate history and nuclear weapons, The Berlin Project supposes the U.S. had an atomic bomb in 1944 instead of 1945 and asks how that might've changed the fate of WWII. That plot is compelling enough on its surface, but Benford draws from actually family insider experiences during the war to craft something enjoyable and realistic.

Here's the publisher's web page for the book.


The Challenger Launch Decision

Lest you think I found no favorites among non-fiction titles, Dianne Vaughn's The Challenger Launch Decision introduced me to the term "normalization of deviance" in its thoroughly engaging look into the organizational psychology of NASA and its contractors that led to the Challenger disaster.

Honorable Mentions

Complexity: The Emerging Science on the Edge of Order and Chaos by M. Mitchell Waldrop

Smart Marketing for Engineers by Rebecca Geier

Get a Grip by Geno Wickman

If you're curious, here's my full 2017 reading list.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past...

Finalists for the Academy Award for Animated Short have been announced. Garden Party looks like my favorite; beautifully animated and funny.

Watch Glen Keane animate Ariel in 3-D live.

I'm a huge fan of RareNoise Records and hope you'll become one after listening to their RecentNoiz playlist on Soundcloud which is kinda like a "best of" recent releases.

As I say every year, if you listen to only one mashup make it DJ Earworm's United State of Pop 2017.

Without impressionism there might have been modern art.

This untitled work by Norman Lewis is part of a gift of works by black artists to the St. Louis Art Museum.

Squatty Potty does it again.

When did life first appear on earth? Probably at least 3.5 billion years ago.

Thelonious Monk wrote 25 tips for musicians including "What you don't play can be more important than what you do play."

Pantone announced ultraviolet as 2018's color of the year.

The Washington Post ranked the top 10 chain restaurants. Last with a grade of F is a place I've frequented (too) often. Olive Garden comes in at #4 with a C (but I'm addicted to their salad and breadsticks). #1 may surprise you but when I thought about it I had to agree.

Have any of my Boston friends visited the International Museum of World War II?

It's the time of year for predictions. Here's Fortune's predictions for 2018 for business. India gonna grow.

Vistage, of which I am a member, shares their trends for 2018 and beyond in four areas: politics (gerrymandering may - will likely, IMO - be found unconstitutional), economics (overall  positive except Brexit's impacts), tech (machine learning - I need to learn what that is - and then later 5G), and sociology (healthcare at a tipping point?).

...but by the responsibility for our future. ~George Bernard Shaw

Try not to become a man of success...

A little late on this one but Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth (aka Air Force Plant 4) celebrated the plant's 75th anniversary. Watch the video to see some of what's been accomplished there.

Running may or may not help the heart. A clickbait title with weak science behind it.

But riding a roller coaster can help you pass a kidney stone.

Ten things never to wear to work. Club outfits, beachware, dirty things, things that don't fit... I'm wondering why this article needs to exist.

Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape #1, 1963. Representational, abstract. Landscape, geometric. Flat, deep. Dark, bright. Wonderful. source

Michael Hayden isn't a fan of Trump. "If this is who we are, I wasted 40 years of my life."

Another great example of black and white animation: Alessandro Novelli's Lights.

News flash: you have to take responsibility for the assholes in your life. So says a Stanford professor and author.

T-Wrecked

Teaser trailer for Incredibles 2.

Black Holes - an animated short about a Mars-bound astronaut teamed with a sentient melon. Probably NSFW.

Blast from my childhood past: the movie Paddle to the Sea.

Music scores + data visualization = colorful graphics.

The periodic table of endangered elements, those 40 or so that face shortages in the coming years.

Artists in 60 seconds, a YouTube playlist.

At the Museum, a YouTube playlist from MoMA.

There's a grasshopper stuck in Van Gogh's painting Olive Trees.

The art of asking questions, an HBR video. Clarifying, adjoining, funneling, and elevating.

I leave you with bacon sizzling.

...but rather a man of value. ~Albert Einstein

Hope is...

Scientists have found a "big void" inside the Great Pyramid.

Eyvind Earle, As Far As I Could See. I feel kinda silly having only just discovered a gallery devoted to the work of one-time Disney artist Eyvind Earle. Gallery 21.

We know Houston's Rothko Chapel, but there's also Morton Feldman's musical work, Rothko Chapel.

Formation flight of 25 stealth fighters.

I wish I had something interesting to put here.

A map of the U.S. showing, among other things, the ages of the geological formations.

A text link would be perfect here.

Today's must-watch video. Beyond. 

How to be a CEO. For example, "You sacrifice and you’re a victim, or you sacrifice because it’s the right thing to do and you have pride in it. Huge difference. Simple thing. Huge difference.”

Let's kill two birds with one stone: Disney and modern art. Roy Lichtenstein, Look Mickey, 1961. As seen during a recent visit to the National Gallery of Art.

The oldest restaurant in Fort Worth is Carshon's Deli. (And a good one too. Damn, I want a Reuben now.)

A tree font by Katie Holden. source

Hey NASA. The earth has tilted say the Inuit people.

I can only imagine the patience required by photographer Stefan Draschan for his series of photographs of people matching artworks.

Twenty questions to improve your conversational intelligence. #16 "I'd love to know what criterion you used to make your decision."

Have you found your ikigai, your reason for being?

This apartment is filled with the most fabulous collection of modern art.

B-52 nose art indicating it participated in the D-21 program. What's that? Read here.

Fans of country French cuisine take note: St. Emilion is moving to W 7th Street where Le Cep used to be.

...patience with the lamp lit. ~Tertullian

Air Travel Rant

I like to think I've got a pretty good imagination, yet I find it hard to imagine a respected, profitable business that can operate the way air travel currently operates in the U.S. Let's take this morning's experience as an example.

Literally half of American Airlines' check-in kiosks were out of service, some for something as simple as being out of paper to print bag tags. A frazzled attendant, attempting to service one broken kiosk and a customer at a working kiosk blamed how busy they were this morning. No, sorry. Your lack of preparedness is the source of the problem. How hard is it to service those machines overnight?

When dropping my tagged bag at the check-in desk, I couldn't help but notice the conveyor wasn't operating and a long line of at least 20 bags was set to the side, mine included, hopefully waiting for the conveyor to begin operating and carry them away to their waiting aircraft. One agent commented to another agent about how "they" had better get that started soon. I'd like to think so too.

As is often the case, there was no TSA precheck line at the security gate and the regular line extended about 20 yards down the passageway. So it was a 20-gate walk to a security entrance with a TSA line. Of course, that TSA line extended beyond the labrynth of blue tape into the ticketing area. Fortunately, the TSA agents finally welcomed each of us to the front of the line with a surly reminder to have boarding passes and ID out and ready to expedite the process, as though their lack of capacity was our problem.

And of course there weren't any bins available on the x-ray conveyor for jackets, packages, etc.

At least they didn't find it necessary to give me my free TSA freedom massage this moring.

The airlines say their primary goal is our safety, passing the buck to the feds. The feds say they're protecting us from terrorists when the risk of that is astronomically lower than the risk of getting killed in a car accident driving to the airport. No one asked for perfect safety, as if such a thing was achievable.

What other business could survive if this is how they welcome their customers, how they create that first impression, that first touch-point, for the flying public?

Sorry for the rant. Waking up at 4am makes me a bit cranky. At least I have something really good to look forward to later today and for the remainder of the week.

Until my return flight.

Hope is not the condition or cause of action...

My bookmarks folder has a backlog of work-related stuff (The Big Issues in Engineering Simulation, Content Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2018, etc.) and artist websites (Julie Mehretu, Katie Holten, etc.). But there's enough gibberish to post while I have the chance so here it goes.

Soon. 

You can download (and read) all 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics in ebook form.

I don't recall who recommended that I listen to Alex Haas' music but I'm doing so now. (Was it Eraldo Bernocchi with a statement about Alex's ability to create atmosphere?)

While making the case for mindfulness (aka meditation), this article cites modern research in psychology and neuroscience making the case that the self is actually multiple selves which can explain inconsistent behavior. And those voices in your head.

A Google map of U.S. nuclear weapon design, manufacture, and testing.

Science finally found about half of the universe's (up to now) missing matter in gas filaments strung between galaxies. Now, who's got the other half?

Isn't Shakespeare in modern English kinda like the Mona Lisa as a GIF?

And there's a new album from Centrozoon.

And you can watch a video of J. Peter Schwalm performing The Beauty of Disaster live.

Looking for Japanese recipes? Check out Otaku Food, a blog written by a friend's daughter.

More from friends: Blue Hope, the second novel builds on Red Hope and man's quest for all things Martian.

If jazz is your thing, check out Pete Levin's new album Mobius.

Fred's won the 2017 Burger Battle here in Fort Worth. I'd link to the article in the Star-Telegram but it's behind a paywall.

Everything I know about drawing (which admittedly isn't much) comes from Don Martin in Mad Magazine.

I can't do more than quote directly from the Newsweek article. "Security experts warn sex toys connected to the internet are vulnerable to hacking." (If your sex toy is connected to the internet, you're doing it wrong.)

...Hope is the consquence of action. ~Cornel West and Roberto Unger

The two most powerful warriors...

A backlog of musical bookmarks that needs exploration:

• VELD by Daniel O'Sullivan
• Music for Buchla Music Easel & Drums by Ritchie DeCarlo
• Psychedelic Future Dub by Gaudi
• 15 questions with the founder of Rare Noise Records. 
• The track Motion in Field from the upcoming Finding Shore album by Tom Rogerson and Brian Eno.
• MoBIUS by Pete Levin 7
• Repons by Pierre Boulez
• Blue Nude by Alex Haas

Kandinsky's painting set to Mussorgsky's music. Well worth watching.

The Clyfford Still Museum launched an online database of the artist's works. You could spend hours in here.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest announced it's 2017 winner for composing the worst opening sentence for a novel. Marvel at this: "The elven city of Losstii faced towering sea cliffs and abutted rolling hills that in the summer were covered with blankets of flowers and in the winter were covered with blankets, because elves wanted to keep the flowers warm and didn't know much at all about gardening."

Speaking of bad writing, marketing. Here are some phrases to ban from your marketing copy beginning with "industry leader."

How about 61 hours of Orson Welles' radio plays including War of the Worlds? In junior high, friends and I would sit around a record player wearing big, old school headphones, listening to War of the Worlds on vinyl. It was/is fantastic.

Here's an infographic tracing the lineage of the world's languages.

Yummy math cakes. 

Competence is underrated, especially in management. Maybe because everyone's drinking the Steve Jobs or Elon Musk strategic kool-aid and not keeping their eye on operations.

A long but worthy read about identify theft and credit reports. "Mean words cannot hurt a bank. Threats cannot hurt a bank. Paper trails, though, are terrifying to regulated institutions. "

Money magazine named Allen, Texas the 2nd best place to live in America. Bedford, Texas is #23.

I tweeted about this a while back, but science seems to have discovered a brainless animal that sleeps. Like me, you are probably thinking "teenage boy." But no, it's a jellyfish. Why is this relevant? Sleep is thought of as a brain-oriented activity. But this jellyfish suggests sleep is more of a core biological function.

Scientists tracked gravitational waves back to their source: the collision of two black holes.

The engineering of roller coasters and other rides at the state fair. I know this guy.

source

...are patience and time. ~Leo Tolstoy

The Second Train

No one sees the second train coming.

When I was in second grade, the sister of a classmate was killed by a train. She was waiting patiently at the crossing while the train passed. When it cleared the crossing she hopped on her bike and pedaled across.

Unfortunately, she didn't see or hear the second train coming from the opposite direction on the second set of tracks. She was killed instantly.

We all see the first train. But how many of us are looking out for the second?

Work shapes the mind...

The public school system I attended as a wee lad was ranked as the 2nd best in the state of Ohio.

This NYT article on wealth goes against what I was taught was good manners; don't talk about how much you spend on things. The author believes, on the other hand, that not talking about your wealth distracts all of us from considering the moral implications of wealth inequity. Even worse, the author believes that judging wealthy people by their individual behaviors (work ethic, charitable effort, etc.) is just another veil that hides the moral dilemma of income inequity. (In other words, you can be a good person but vilified simply for success.) I'm unable to describe how disturbed I was by this article.

NASA has made available for free the ebook The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini. Highly recommend.

The state of craft beer in Texas.

How about a time lapse video of Sol Lewitt's Wall Drawing #797 being drawn?

If you are an art fan, and Disney art in particular, I highly recommend the PBS American Masters episode on Tyrus Wong, the artist responsible for the design of the film Bambi.

I've mentioned here before the Disney film Four Artists Paint One Tree. Andreas Deja's blog post Four Old Men & One Young Lady introduced me to a Disney TV episode called The Tricks of Our Trade in which animation techniques are demonstrated by animators. There's a Leonard Maltin intro to that film on YouTube.

Josef Albers, Tenayuca, 1943. In an article on IdeelArt.com, the case is made this Albers' work is more personal than it seems and he is quote as saying "Everyone senses his place through his neighbor."

Here's a little insight into "ugly painting" or what I think people also call post-painterly abstraction. Granted, I don't necessarily get all these works either but the inclusion of de Kooning drew me in. "It serves as a reminder that art isn’t a branch of mortuary science, providing faithful replication of lost beauties. It’s a mind-altering drug: It exists to cause trouble, knock things head over heels and show that there are other ways to see."

The new band Gizmodrome (featuring the Police's Stewart Copeland and King Crimson's Adrian Belew) is streaming and commenting on their debut album.

In which we read how Steven Wilson's new album To the Bone is an attempt to emphasize songwriting over concepts.

Alma Woodsey Thomas, Orion, 1973. From an exhibition dedicated to American abstract artists who were also women of color.

Here's a slightly interactive infographic of every U.S. nuclear weapon.

Do not read this before you've had your coffee. I think it says that mathematicians have proved that the infinities of countable and uncountable numbers are the same.

...leisure colors it. ~Rev. James Dolbear

Simplicity does not precede complexity...

I just discovered piano prodigy Joey Alexander - this kid plays classic jazz piano as though he grew up on the piano bench next to Oscar Peterson.

Other music up for consideration:

• Lighthouse by Wingfield Reuter Sirkis. Neither jazz nor rock nor improv. If anything deserves the label progressive fusion, this might be it.
• Loss by Marcus Fischer. Embraces both loss and life, loneliness and companionship.

earth :: an animated, interactive, global map of wind and weather

The periodic table done with haiku. Genius.

It's that time again when we crown the best burger in Fort Worth. Don't read this article unless you plan to eat soon cuz it'll make your mouth water.

OK, so we've had a map and something about food. How about a map about food? Specifically, the food each state hates most. Steak cooked "well done"? Absolutely. 

Here are maps of the U.S. colored as Disney princesses.

When was the first f-bomb dropped? Probably earlier than you think. Like 1310.

Computer issues have cut into today's writing.

...but follows it. ~Alan Perlis

Innes, Iceberg

The dictionary definition of abstract is "existing in thought but not having a physical existence." It's no wonder then that many people can't find a connection between abstraction and their own experience of reality. "What is it supposed to be?" is often asked.

While not all abstract painting need represent a tangible object (and it doesn't), sometimes you see something that immediately reminds you of an abstract painting. Such was the case when I saw David Burdeny's photograph, Mercators Projection, on Bored Panda.

David Burdeny, Mercators Projection.

Immediately I thought of one of my favorite painters, Callum Innes. And it didn't take long for me to find a Callum Innes painting that looked like a David Burdeny photograph.

Callum Innes, Exposed Painting Blue Lake, 2013.

I'm not suggesting that Innes was painting an iceberg. But next time you are standing in front of an abstraction, try taking it for granted that the scene has a physical counterpart and spend the time thinking about the artist's expression of reality and your perception of it. Rather than a puzzle to be solved, think about the communication of ideas. You might be surprised at what is revealed.

Line into Color, Mesh into CFD

Painter Helen Frankenthaler's work has been on my mind since seeing the exhibition Fluid Expression: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler at Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum of American Art earlier this week. While there I also purchased and then read John Elderfield's book on her painting, Line Into Color, Color Into Line. Both left me with a much stronger appreciation for her work.

As often happens to me, certain concepts, ideas, or statements about art trigger analogies to my work in computational fluid dynamics and mesh generation. Such was the case when Frankenthaler was quoted in the book as saying

I felt more and more that the drawing should come from what the shapes of the colors are; rather than, "I am arranging this with lines or confinements or patterns." And I do very much believe in drawing, especially when it doesn't show as drawing... When I talk about drawing, I mean "how are you getting your space," not where the pencil is going.

To put that quote in context, the book's theme was how Frankenthaler exercised three types of lines (drawn lines, the perimeter of regions of color, and the edge of the canvas) to great effect in her paintings that are more typically known for their ethereal washes of color - poured, stained, painted or otherwise.

Helen Frankenthaler, Sesame, 1970. source

But first a bit of background. Within the world of computational fluid dynamics, the mesh is the digitalized version of the object around which you wish to solve the equations of fluid motion - digitalized so the computer can understand it. Think of it as the scaffolding on which the fluid will be simulated. In the illustration below (image source), the mesh lines around a ship's hull define where the computations will be performed.

When the equations of fluid motion are solved on the mesh, the results are often presented as graphical contours of a some property of the fluid like pressure as shown below on the ship's hull (image source). In this picture, red represents high pressure and blue represents low pressure.

The analogy I'm making between Frankenthaler's paintings and computational fluid dynamics is lines are meshes and color is the CFD results. When she says "drawing should come from what the shapes of the colors are" I hear the case for mesh adaptation (closely coupling the mesh to the actual flow of fluid instead of just the geometry). When she says she believes in drawing "especially when it doesn't show as drawing" I hear the case for "invisible" mesh generation (because meshing is not and end unto itself, only a means to an end). Regardless of whether we're talking about lines in terms of mesh or lines in terms of boundaries of the regions of color, it's true that the mesh is how you're getting your space, the space within which the simulation will be performed.

Other than the fluidity with which she applies pigment to canvas, there's little that visually ties her paintings to CFD (the images above make this clear). The drawn lines in Sesame don't look anything like lines in a mesh and the regions of color don't look much like fluid flow. But it's Frankenthaler's process and approach and her way of thinking about the interplay of line and color, mesh and CFD, creating and defining space, that brings art and science, a bit closer, at least in my mind.

Mathematics is the art of giving...

Let's start with something that might be hard to get past once you start thinking about it. Is space-time an emergent (i.e. primary) property of the universe or secondary (i.e. evolved from the primary)? If time itself is secondary, might that explain why it's asymmetric (can only run forward)? And if questioning where did time come from isn't enough for this universe, in a multiverse would time in all universes be synchronized?

Helen Frankenthaler, Sure Violet, 1979. Currently part of an exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum, but only for a few days more.

Not enough for you? Scientists have observed something in nothing - quantum fluctuations in a pure vacuum.

Where are the Voyager spacecraft? And where are the last remaining people on earth who still control their mission?

How about 570 scans from da Vinci's The Codex Arundel?

This article on how famous artists overcame creative blocks ends with a quote from Chuck Close: "Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work."

The USS Indianapolis has been found at a depth of 18,000 feet in the Pacific Ocean. This wreck is historically significant. The ship was returning to the U.S. after delivering the atomic bomb to Tinian Island. After it was sunk, the surviving crew was butchered by sharks. (The story told in Jaws is real.)

Just one of many vintage advertisements that hasn't aged well.

"It was a dark and stormy night" is the inspiration for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest which seeks the opening line to the worst novel. The 2017 winner is a gem about elves and flowers. If I could summon the motivation, I might enter. Someday.

The oldest known photo of a U.S. president from 1843. Do you know who it is?

The BBC compiled a list of the 100 greatest comedies. I've only seen 21 of them.

Literally the first U.S. coin ever minted. Worth an estimated $10 million. 

An artist on Pandora would need 1.2 million plays to earn minimum wage. A lot of people are getting paid on these streaming platforms, but what they pay content creators is a appalling.

According to this video explainer, Led Zeppelin's John Bonham's drumming excellence was due to the fact that he played more along with the lead guitar than the bass.

The Great 78 Project is digitizing music from vintage 78 rpm records. I'm not going to even try to explain that to young-uns. There's a 1951 recording of Yosemite Sam singing (i.e. Mel Blanc).

Screen grab of Divisional Articulations, an animation by Max Hattler. You know me and black and white animation.

Anyone who's had to deal with used needles (i.e. diabetics) can appreciate a needle grinder that produces non-toxic waste that can be sent to the landfill in your regular trash.

Total sperm count in Western men decreased 59% between 1973 and 2011 and continues to do so, likely due to chemical exposure, stress, obesity, smoking, poor nutrition, and lack of exercise.

A map showing the literal origin of U.S. state names. Texas = Friend.

I had no idea there was a Microsoft Office World Championship.

The Ta-Ta Towel (a cross between a terry cloth towel, a scarf, and a bra) is apparently a thing. And enough of a thing that it's sold out. "Keep them high, keep them dry." 

Lest a woman's other body parts feel unaccesorized, a Japanese company has introduced crotch charms, jewelry that dangles from the crotch region of a swimming suit.

Aside from sharp blades near your junk, shaving your pubes is riskier than you think - it leads to a significant increase in the risk for a sexually transmitted infection.

Double-Stuff Oreos only have 1.86 times the cream filling of a regular Oreo. And Mega-Stuff has 2.68 times the cream. Science has spoken.

Eighteen (18?) foods that make you poop. #3 Almonds. #10 Coffee (duh).

And this guy collects poo. At least after its been fossilized.

...the same name to different things. ~Henry Poincare

The Berlin Project by Gregory Benford

What if the U.S. developed the atomic bomb a year earlier, in 1944?

This is the teaser for Gregory Benford's The Berlin Project, a thriller that ticked three of my boxes: nuclear weapons, espionage/military thriller, and alternate history.

Rather than a flight of fancy, Benford crafted this tale around his father-in-law's actual experiences back in the 1930s and 1940s working with and around Leslie Groves, Albert Einstein, Oppenhiemer, Bohr, and the entire cast of real-life Manhattan Project characters.

But back to the premise. Assume that science (and the politics of science) had turned out a bit differently back in the day such that the bomb was ready in '44 instead of '45. How might the Allies have put it to use, if at all? The difference in the science may seem small (and entirely plausible), but the results in wartime - maybe not so much.

The characters (perhaps because they are real) are so vivid and Benford's story is so believable (due to his research and work pulling it all together) that the resulting book is totally enjoyable. And while I could put it down, I couldn't wait to pick it up and finish it.

I highly recommend Gregory Benford's The Berlin Project.

You can read more about Benford at his publisher's website.

"Nothing can be said about writing except when it's bad. When it is good, one can only read and be grateful."

I received no compenstation of any kind for this review.

In ethics, there is a humility...

Read this. Pause. Read again. Think. Chinese scientists have teleported a photon from earth to an orbiting satellite.

Fans of ambient music, rejoice! It's 12k's 40% off summer sale.

Or download (free) this great ambient mix of Glacial Movements' catalog.

Or how about the 2017 remastering of the Blade Runner soundtrack?

More? vMashup does a side-by-side synch of two videos. Be mesmerized by JumpReich: kids jumping rope vs. Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Carribean Sea, Jamaica, 1980. He claimed Rothko's late, dark paintings were more realistic than his photographs.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Black on Gray), 1969.

Film from 1935 of daily life in Hiroshima.

Live webcam from the St. Louis Arch.

Relief! A hospital has set up an intensive care unit exclusively for the treatment of male patients suffering from coughs, colds, or even both.

Craft pr0n: making a wooden wheel.

Water permeable concrete. What kind of magic is this?

Considered one of the greatest animations of all time, here's a video about the making of What's Opera, Doc?

You really need to check out the videos from Oats Studios, a Neal Blomkamp project.

This is what happens when you send Rothko's Black on Gray (above) to Simplify.ThatSh.it. 

Here's what you get when you send a Clyfford Still to Simplify.ThatSh.it. The results are interesting yet uncompelling.

Gizmodrome is the new band featuring Adrien Belew, Stewart Copeland, Mark King and Vittorio Cosma. This 4 minute teaser video gives me a Zappa vibe.

Equation numbering in Word.

How well can you draw all 50 states? Not very.

This might be a good question for sparking conversations at work (or during an interview as proposed in the article): What's something that happens here but wouldn't happen anywhere else?

You've probably already seen this but - a photo suggests Amelia Earhart might have survived her plane crash.

The Seabin seems like a good idea for removing trash from waterways and harbors but the animated graphic at the top of their website makes it real hard to want to read more.

...moralists are usually righteous. ~John Berger

Blue oblivion, largely lit,

It's July. Do you know where the first half of 2017 went?

David Kollar's new album Notes from the Underground has been released. I listened to it a lot this past week and am really enjoying it. Several tracks can be streamed from the Bandcamp I linked to.

Know any nerds who'd like a LEGO Saturn V?

Applying science (neuroscience to be specific) to art (exhibition design to be specific).

On Ellsworth Kelly's greatness: “All of a sudden you begin to understand that if you dissociate narrative ideas, how strong the visual impulse is in every human being.”

Ellsworth Kelly, Blue on White, 1969. source

Our friends at TSA (Taking Scissors Away) will rummage through your luggage, play with it, and post selfies with it. But yet somehow their job remains important.

I post a lot of rude and naughty stuff here. But it's BS like this that should offend us all: anti-science in Florida.

...smiled and smiled at me. ~William Rose Benet