Archive for January, 2007

Finally made NPR

There is a raging controversy in Nebraska about changing the state song from “Beautiful Nebraska” to a really, really, really bad country tune called “I Love Nebraska”.

A Nebraska State Senator has proposed the change the state song to this abomination. You can watch the disturbing video for “I Love Nebraska” here, if you dare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI2×6vsr-TY

I thought this was funny in contrast to my old band’s version of the state song which we did for some punk rock compilation of state songs “back in the day”.

Here’s the version of Beautiful Nebraska from my old band, Sideshow.

Anyway, All Things Considered decided to cover the story today, and included a good bit of my band’s version: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7085644

2007 is going to be all down hill from here….

links for 2007-01-30

In My Language

An autistic person’s explanation of her experience with language:

“This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not.”

Profound. Fascinating.

Stay with it. It’s worth it.

(Via Metafilter - where the filmmaker stopped in to discuss)

links for 2007-01-28

links for 2007-01-26

links for 2007-01-25

links for 2007-01-24

outside.in

This crazy World Wide Web made the world much smaller, true. But what I have always found more interesting is how the same technology can bring communities, even neighborhoods, closer together.

That was part of the thinking behind the lincolnblog experiment. (Which reminds me… anyone want to take over a site?) outside.in builds on this idea by acting as an agregator of local content generated by various sources.

Pretty cool.

So far, it’s dominated by the usual metropolitan suspects Get started, Lincoln, Nebraska.

digitally analog?

Marantz-Modell7_2.jpg

I used to be the happy owner of a Marantz 7 tube pre-amp. It was a thing of beauty. Transistors and tubes. Beautifully machined dials. My records loved being channeled through the 40 year old technology. Especially old jazz records from the same era. (Ahh… Jimmy Smith.) I got the pre-amp for free. The parents of a good friend were moving out of their house and said I could come pick up this dusty old stereo equipment which would be thrown out anyway.

I can’t say I’m an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure sounded, well… right.

I put the Marantz on eBay to pay off some credit card debt. It made me feel bad, in a way. I knew I’d probably never drop $2k on a piece of stereo equipment, but carving off a chunk of debt was satisfying.

Flash forward 5 or 6 years: I sold all my stereo equipment before I moved to San Francisco. All of my listening is digital these days - straight from the laptop. I’m not sure when I will have my record collection again, so I can expect it to be digital for the forseeable future.

I can’t help but wonder if there is a software equivalent to my dear old Marantz - something to smooth off the edges of all those jagged ones and zeros.

iTunes has an EQ, of course, but I’m looking for something that can provide distinctive analog modeling, warmth, punch etc. Ideally, I could hook the laptop to a decent power amp, or stream music via Airport Express, and maintain most control and EQ from the computer. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on a fully digital set-up for someone who would prefer to be fully analog?

Thanks in advance, Internet.

look ma, no pants. #6


Improv Everywhere went and did it again. Apparently the 6th time they have done the no pants subway ride. The Improv Everywhere site doesn’t have details of the ‘mission’ posted yet. Stay tuned.

Check the photo sets from Chad Nicholson and Steph Goralnick.”

(Via laughingsquid. again.)

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about

Hi.

My name is Bernie McGinn, and you are reading my web-based junkdrawer. I live in San Francisco, California. I work for CNET Networks as Product Manager for CNET News.com and CNET Blogs.

Last century, I played in some bands and ran a record label.

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