Category: culture

Audioscrobbler and Rhythmbox

rbscrobbler queue

With Ubuntu, the default media player is iTunes-alike rhythmbox. One thing it was missing was an Audioscrobbler plugin. Luckily there are two plugins available for it. Neither is offically available on the Audioscrobbler site. The first one rhythmlet, requires rhythmbox 0.8.6 or higher and gdesktlets, which personally I’ve never been a huge fan of. Luckily there is another plugin called rbscrobbler which is a lot more sane. It only requires a recent version of python and gnome python. The latest version is can be downloaded from here and the forum post for it on Audioscrobbler is over here

Southern Outpost Record Launch at High Jinks

SO Flyer

To celebrate the release of TWO RECORDS at one time (which is a record in itself), and our new distribution deal with Submerge, the reclusive people at Southern Outpost have decided to come out of the lab and wreak sensorial havoc upon those who grace us with their presence.

The night off with a live audio-visual experiment featuring Miss Memory and B.A.S.I.C
Live performance by the newest Southern Outpost member SOL-37
DJ sets by Miss Memory, k.loc, The Sentinel and Da Debonair.

Look out for a scathing yet (hopefully) enlightening interview with Miss Memory and k.loc in next weeks 3Dworld magazine.

ENTRY: FREE
WHERE: HIGH JINKS, SLY FOX HOTEL, ENMORE ROAD, ENMORE
WHEN: SAT 6TH NOVEMBER 2004
START: 7PM TIL THE LIGHTS COME UP

John Peel RIP

I guess I’ll chip into the collective sadness about the death of radio Legend and champion of new and awesome music John Peel. John passed away in Peru yesterday. If it wasn’t for John, the landscape of music might not be what it is today.

Obituary: John Peel

Party Bus

Toyota Hi Ace

Get on board for the party bus!

According to Babelfish:

This car the exhibition from Toyota!? With you can be surprised, チョイ badness it is the high ace sound satellite which engenders image, but use agrees upon is known with strangely. To tell the truth by the car which was made as the portable studio which mounds this car and the field event etc., the body side ガバッ and the opening, it has become the mechanism where acoustic equipment and the DJ booth appear from in. As for theme “the customization car which works pleasantly”. When so this car is running throughout the city truly, just a little we fear! ?

Should be great for spontaneus bush doofs or perhaps random suburban dj assaults 😉

“This is the greatest gift idea this year, some even say ever.”

Donald Trump Doll

Looks like everyone’s favourite capitalist and “The Apprentice” star, Donald Trump is now available as an action figure. You can recreate those great scenes such as when Omorosa was fired from the show. The Donald action figure can say great phrases such as “I should fire myself just for having you around”, “The one’s easy for me…you’re fired”, “That was a tough one”, “Think big and live large”, and “I have no choice but to tell you, you’re fired”.

This could possibly be the greatest gift idea this year in North America, if not the world.

Jeffrey is coming

Jeff Mills is hitting Australia next month and the dates have been confirmed. Now I just wish I had confirmed dates for Kenny Larkin and Claude Young.

From ITM:

Thursday 18th November – Adelaide
Jeff Mills @ Traffic – 58 North Terrace, Adelaide

Friday 19th November – Melbourne
Hardware 313 @ The Metro – 1 Bourke St, Melbourne

Saturday 20th November – Sydney
Hardware @ Space – Level 2, 127 Liverpool St, Sydney

Thursday 25th November – Brisbane
Jeff Mills @ Family – 339 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley

Friday 26th November – Canberra
Fang w/ Jeff Mills @ ANU Refectory, Acton

Saturday 27th November – Perth
Science Fiction @ Belmont Racecourse, Burswood

Pervasive Tiles

Pervasive Tiles

As part of a design competition over at designboom, Caleb Fung has come up with a networked tile system. The tiles has embedded cabling which then join up with other “node” tiles which have functions such as lighting, heated tiles, flat speakers, LCD panels, outlets and dimmer switches that allow you to adjust brightness, warmth, and volume.

Apparently this is just a concept at the moment. Here’s hoping that it will be commercially produced at sometime. If I ever have my own place I’d love to have these!

Here is a great mockup for the potential applications of the Pervasive Tiles.

via: we make money not art

New Dark Comedy album coming

Dark Comedy - Funk Faker

Update 30/09/2004: Looks like they’re back in again.

Update: Looks like all the copies over at Disk Union are gone

Oh, and it looks like its already available in Japan.

DARK COMEDY-MUSIC SAVES MY SOUL

SELF-OBSESSION, it’s the 21st century epidemic. M-m-my generation has become the me-me-me generation and reality has become a TV show which turns our next door neighbours into stars that flicker and die in the blink of an eye. It’s Warhol’s fifteen minutes reductio ad absurdum, Alice navel-gazing through the looking glass. And while our cathode ray icons relentlessly chant “mirror, mirror on the wall …” the myth of Narcissus – condemned to waste away adoring his own image – seems entirely apposite.
Continue reading “New Dark Comedy album coming”

The Donnie Darko soundtrack you want to buy but can’t

From Art of the Mix via Beta:

  1. Echo & The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
  2. INXS – Never Tear Us Apart
  3. Tears For Fears – Head Over Heels
  4. Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls
  5. Duran Duran – Notorious
  6. Steve Baker & Carmen Daye – For Whom the Bell Tolls
  7. Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
  8. The Church – Under the Milky Way
  9. Tears for Fears – Mad World
  10. Gary Jules – Mad World (cover)

A collection of all the 80’s songs that weren’t on the original Donnie Darko soundtrack.

WWN: RIVER OF BEER DISCOVERED IN GERMANY

From the authoritive Weekly World News:

A PREVIOUSLY undiscovered natural river of beer has been found deep in Germany’s Black Forest.

The existence of the Krautlager River, as it has been named, came as a pleasant surprise to most Germans as it is not even charted in maps of their legendary forest. The river of beer is believed to be the result of a fluke of nature.

Imagination – Just an Illusion

Imagination - Just an Illusion

Searching for a destiny that’s mine
There’s another place another time
Touching many hearts along the way
Hoping that I’ll never have to say

It’s just an illusion

Follow your emotion anywhere
Is it really magic in the air
Never let your feeling get you down
Open your eyes and look around

It’s just an illusion

Could it be that it’s just an illusion
Putting me back in all this confusion
Could it be that it’s just an illusion
Now

Could it be a picture in my mind
Never sure exactly what I’ll find
Only in my dreams I turn you on
Here for just a moment then you’re gone

Could it be that it’s just an illusion
Putting me back in all this confusion
Could it be that it’s just an illusion
Now

Dungeons and Dragons Turns 30

Its seems like an eternity ago that I used to huddle in one the art classrooms that our art teacher Mr Dawson used to let us play Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games during our lunch break with other nerdy pals of mine. Alas I gave up on it by part of the way through year 8, but my other friends carried on, making their way into magic cards, RPG conventions and live role playing. Even though it was a small part of me growing up (I never really quite got the grasp of it due to the fact that I never owned any D&D books and some other unnamed people deemed not smart enough to figure out the rules, so they just didn’t tell me squat at all), it is something that I look back fondly on.

Anyway, Happy 30th Birthday Dungeons and Dragons. I roll my 20 sided die in your honour 😀