If there's one thing that REALLY annoys me it's wires! Yeah, it seems silly since we think that we need them. In my mind, even as a kid, I thought there must be a way to transmit electricity with out wires or at least figure out a better way to power our appliances and gadgets. Well, as luck/fate would have it, Marin Soljacic at MIT has finally got the technology at a point where it will be widely available in the next few years!! I first heard about this a couple years ago on MIT's Technology Review website (it's one of my favorite sites! yeah, so what I'm a nerd.) but at the time it was big and impractical. In addition to just making sense and being more convenient, this could have major impact from an environmental perspective. Of course, companies will not stop putting wires on products anytime soon but in the future we will hopefully see a dramatic decrease in the use of PVC & copper for wires. Wires actually account for a major percentage of PVC consumption. There's also the environmental perspective of just how an area looks. whether in your house or on the street, wires are an unsightly eyesore. Think about how much better Tokyo will look without the wires everywhere!
I could go on and on about this but read about it more on his company's website- WiTricity
After a long week of frustration and hard work TheRecordPlayer.net is completely revamped! So what's the big deal? Well, for someone that barely knows any programming I did a pretty good job hard-coding CSS & HTML for a custom domain FTP blogger site. What does that mean in basic terms? A total pain in the ass! Apparently, you're very limited to what you can do with blogger on a custom domain unless you really tweak the template code...which I learned isn't truly a "template". So, unfortunately I can't use any cool XML stuff until I move the site over to a new service in a couple months. For now I am satisfied but will continue to add some features and tighten things up along the way. If any of you know a good work around to include a good tag/label cloud and solid code for pagination on an FTP blog, please let me know!! I tried everything I could find for both features and nothing worked.
So, starting tomorrow we'll be back to our irregularly scheduled programming.
Thank you for your patience! (it was worth the wait)
I can't claim to understand the world of 'high fashion' but I know a good idea when I see it. Any dress that can automatically transform to be more revealing just makes sense. This is very practical for summertime weather and for making guys horny. Wait until the end for the best of the collection.
This is part of a series of Public Service Announcements that aim to educate and raise social awareness of serious issues facing America. I don't have TV, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure these are being aired on all the major networks. If they aren't yet, they should be! I would encourage you to watch the other ones in this series too. Very enlightening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know it's only taken a month but here it is finally. I have good reasons why it's taken this long though. Between teaching DJing classes to kids all summer followed by a 17 day trip to Japan I just didn't have enough time.
Originally I was going to do this big long post with tons of info but I'm just gonna keep this one brief. I had already had a nice post all typed up when Safari decided to crash. So, you're not even gonna get the good brief one..just scraps. Sorry :(
There have been some good changes to the site though which you may have noticed:
-More mixes in the player: you can't download these but there is enough music here to get you through your 9-5.
-Last FM player added: This thing is awesome. I used the desktop software and it scanned my iTunes library (which is huge) and plays stuff based on that and makes similar suggestions for songs that aren't even in my library. You could listen to this thing for weeks on end and not get bored. Listen to it right on the site or use the pop out option to open it in it's own little window.
-Muxtape: I want to make this a weekly updated list but I haven't got much feedback from this yet. So, for now it will just be updated periodically. When I see that more people are interested, it will get updated more frequently.
-Travels: So, I finally went on a 'real' vacation. (I don't consider a day in NYC a vacation) The last time I got away from Philly was in 2002 when I went to Paris for 12 days. So it's been 6 years since my last vacation and it was well-deserved!! Japan was/is amazing and it wouldn't have been possible without a few solid connections that really helped me out. I'm not really caked up so with out them I couldn't have went at all. Ok, I'm lyin...I got more money than I know what to do with and though a long trip to Japan was a good way to spend some of it. I'll start posting some of my adventures from Japan next week.
-Events: I don't go to a whole lot of events anymore compared to back in the day but I do go to some good ones. I'll start posting some of those soon as well. They won't be in any particular order but will be based more on when I'm looking through pictures.
-Diggin' At Home: Over the last couple months I've recorded a bunch of my vinyl and am still in the process of making the mp3s (I'm one of those types that likes to have his music sounding proper so it takes some time with some records to enhance the sound). Here's a couple recent purchases and both are soulful disco bombs! You NEED these in your life...go buy them immediately!
Holding On - from We Can't Take Life For Granted... (anthology)
No, the title is not referring to the way that women are portrayed in modern American culture (and other cultures around the world). This is a feature length documentary about objects, how they affect our lives and the designers who create them. I'm really looking forward to the release of this film mostly for other people. So, when I say "I'm an industrial designer." I don't get some weird look followed by the predictable question, "What is that?"
NOVEMBER 7th!!! I'm really looking forward to this. The 22nd film in the 007 series is sure to meet expectations and become an instant classic. Learn more at the official 007 site.
I'm finally getting around to uploading some mixes available for download. These are mostly live sets but I'll put up some old mixes that I don't sell anymore. Hopefully you'll finally start to see some new mixes from me before the year's end. Until then, here's some oldies but goodies.
There's usually some good background information on these that I'll include if I have the time. Thanks for listening. These are both all vinyl mixes. I'll always prefer vinyl to Scratch Live but I like being able to play music I don't own yet on vinyl.
For years the internet has forgotten a small group of people. This small demographic is those among us that use tools to fix and build stuff. Well, now these freaks got their own blog. I checked it out and even found out that there are stores with nothing but tools (and now bottled water). Who'd a thunk of such a brilliant idea!? amazing!
As you get to know me and this site you will quickly learn that I watch, read and listen to an insane amount of media. Although it seems at times that not a lot is getting done, I still remain amongst the busiest and most productive people I know personally. This site is both an avenue for me to share some of these findings with you as well as a way for me to catalog some of this information from this point forward. There will be plenty of time to talk more about everything but for now let's get right to it!
First is a video I stumbled upon a few months back while researching for an unrelated project. It is of a small group painting in only black and white on only one wall over the course of one week. Equally impressive with these works is the content, styles, improvisation and collaboration. Enjoy!
