Sound waves are delicate and fragile things. They need a medium simply to exist at all, and any variations or interference in the ether can change their whole character.

Ever since 33.3 LPs started coming out in stereo, we've had an obsession with recording accurate sound. You can spend anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of million dollars setting up just the right acoustic space, you can position the baffles and mics just so, isolate and eliminate residual hum…you name it, just to get the exact right sound on tape (or these days, disk).

Some folks are just …

I won't throw stones in the Gnome/KDE debate. KDE is obviously on a more robust development track, but I've always preferred the GTK approach for its speed and clean layout. It's a drag that Patrick is no longer supporting it in Slackware, but Dropline is an excellent way to manage it.

Of course, the one thing Gnome lacks is the ability to change color-scheme on the fly. KDE, WindowMaker and even Blackbox have utilities for this, but not Gnome. You have to rely on individual static themes for that, and let's face it, most of …

I got on the bus early with Gmail, and I've still got a ton of invites left. If you want one, let me know.

Futurama never stood a chance on network television. Sure, it was created by Simpsons creator Matt Groening (and billed as such), but it never got much of an initial push by Fox, and after a few episodes, it got relegated to the usual Fox treatment: it was regularly pre-empted, its schedule was shuffled on a regular basis (making it impossibe for even diehard fans to catch), and its promotion dwindled to zero.

This is what I despise about Fox. They'll throw a ton of money at anything (sometimes good), but if they don't see the dividends immediately, …

I actually have alot of respect for the Islamic faith, and for those who truly practice it. It's a stringent religion that demands a great deal from its followers, and at its core, it posits a very rigid moral code. More than any other holy book, the Quran spells out rules for its followers conduct and daily lives in great detail. Thing is, I'm apparently the only person who's ever actually read the thing.

Huston Smith, in The World's Religions, refers to Islam as having been a "civilizing fire," which took a loosely-knit culture of ruthless barbarians and …

There's not much going on with boys as of late. Untilted's been out for a few months now, garnering the usual dichotomy of ecstatic/confused reviews.

NME called it, "so listener-unfriendly that it's almost amusing," and Contact offers this nugget of incisive criticism:

[Untilted] would be appreciated in a half-empty, smoky room by the sort of bearded, socially deficient males who would nod their heads enthusiastically at the sound of a broken tractor (…) If you like your music challenging, rhythmically taxing, melodically lacking and generally unnerving, then check out Autechre's latest.

Yep. Well, I'm enjoying it.

That …

I don't use Microsoft products. No. Really. The last time I used Windows to any degree was around mid-to-late 2000, and after that, not at all. Since then, Linux has met all my needs, and with alot less hassle.

As a result, I have no idea what's going on with Microsoft's development cycle, and I really don't care to. The last time I even booted into Windows was when I got my laptop a few months ago, and that was just to make sure everything was up and running before repartioning and erasing it.

Somehow Windows XP …

Lori's got some more pictures up on her site. Some are from a Christmas/New Year's celebration (they do celebrate Christmas as well as other holidays) in Dushanbe, and there are a couple of pages of their vacation in Turkey.

Okay, the site's working again. I'm using WordPress to manage content, and it's taken awhile to convert everything. The layout is more robust, and I've got everything categorized. And yes, there's now comment capability, so vent away.

The site theme is October Language, for which I used Chad Coleman's Stucco theme as a rough template. Unlike most other WordPress themes, I've chosen to give it a wider layout, and it's scalable. It's licensed under the GPL, so feel free to use or alter as you like; just make sure the credits in the …

Just came across a post-Untilted interview on Pitchfork. Sean opens up a bit more than usual.