Just noticed the concern trolls at Mozilla took the "http" out of the new Firefox address bar.
Here is how to put it back: http://www.ghacks.net/2011/09/28/firefox-add-http-back-to-address-bar/
At least they haven't gone full Google yet and removed the address bar altogether.
Lambs to the slaughter, people.
See also: domain helper
Am trying to better understand wavetable synthesis, granular synthesis, sampling and the relationship of these three.
The musical possibilities of these overlapping techniques can be heard in this Doepfer A-112 Demo on soundcloud. Some beguiling sounds coming out of this voltage-controlled lo-fi hardware sampler.
Trying to work with a wavetable that is literally a graph of data inside the module that you can't actually see but can only know the properties of (e.g, which voltages trigger which compartment within a table to produce sound) seems like a recipe for frustration. Yet having the data embedded in hardware adds an undeniable presence and character to the sound.
Contrast an instrument such as Reaktor's Grainstates, explained by Jim Aikin. Here the mechanics of the sound--where the grains are coming from inside a sample--are revealed with perfect graphic clarity. Yet the instrument is somewhat dry; it's possible to make fascinating atonal textures with it but next-to-impossible to do anything musical (just from experimenting with one a little--will keep trying).
Middle Eastern affairs blogger Juan Cole has a litany of complaints against Facebook but still feels he needs to be part of it. He tells a commenter:
I don’t think the right response is to refuse to take advantage of something that connects 600 million people. It is to pressure corporations when they do the wrong thing.
As for "taking advantage" of Facebook, there has been no noticeable change in Prof. Cole's blogging pre- and post-joining. The 600 million figure (wasn't it 500 million a month or two ago?) comes straight from the company's PR department.
Covering a show about internet friends, Kyle Chayka examines the territory:
To use the term "friend" on the Internet is to confront a meaning of the word that has vastly expanded over the past decade. Now, there are all different kinds of friends — in addition to the real-life kind (including 'best friends' and 'frenemies') there are now defunct Myspace friends, Facebook friends whom users may or may not know in person, Gchat buddies who only exist to carry on the odd conversation, anonymous Tumblr followers, and those people whose intimate personal lives we follow on Twitter just because we can.
Pre-internet, as described by mystery writer John D. McDonald, friends were people with whom you fell into a kind of easy camaraderie without always knowing why and acquaintances were people you always felt awkward or guarded around.
The net knocks this duality into a cocked hat. You can be relaxed online with someone you might be very uncomfortable with in real life. People can diss you and then change screen names and be nice to you. Separating friends from frienemies gets harder when there are so many forums for random trash talking. But does the enforced single identity of the new AOLs threaten a return to the Organization Man conformity of the '50s?
In the exhibit Chayka describes, apparently everyone in the show is a friend of everyone else, or they might actually hate each other, but have united behind the common cause of making fun of MySpace. Some of the work sounds intriguing, but let's let Chayka talk about it, in the interest of preserving, uh, friendships.
from fanfiction.net:
"Forward, Forward, Only Forward" by Abraxas 2009-10-31
Forward, forward, only forward
clicking and clicking like breathing
blind into winding, twisting paths
there are no undos with 'sweeperAs with life...
Forward, forward, only forward
step by step with a pulse pounding
thrust into vast oceans of bombs
there is no life/death but by chanceBut!
Where hides my face yellow, smiley
whispering to my ear the truth
only it knows...END
via cpb
