High-Res Map of the U.S. Carbon Footprint
From Wired Magazine…
A team of scientists has completed a carbon dioxide emissions inventory of the United States plotted down to 100-square-kilometer chunks.
That means that the NASA- and Department of Energy-funded scientists can detail emissions across all 9 million square kilometers that compose the United States. For a full explanation, check out the video that Purdue’s Kevin Gurney put together, which features a number of other excellent CO2 visualizations. Andy Revkin, the New York Times‘ environment-beat writer, put a memorable headline on a post about the video, calling it, “Breath of a Nation.”
The work, known as The Vulcan Project, has already yielded a significant discovery: Previous CO2 estimates that used population as a proxy for emissions overestimated the Northeast’s greenhouse-gas generation, while underestimating the coal-heavy Southeast’s contribution.
via Wired
Happy April Fools. Youtube.com RickRolls EVERYONE
WARNING, all of youtube’s “featured video” today get you RickRoll’d.
And thus ends the meme of RickRolling. That is all.
Note: Rick Astley call this “all a bunch of bull” and has joined the Church of Scientology
What the hell happened to Charlie Rose?
I mean, i know he asks tough questions *cough cough*, but there’s no need for violence. This is a screen cap from last night’s show. What’s Charlie been up to?
Update: Rose tripped in a pothole while walking on 59th Street in Manhattan. He was carrying a newly purchased MacBook Air and made a quick (but ultimately flawed) decision while falling: sacrifice the face, protect the computer. (via TechCrunch)
I Believe I Can Fly
Paper Mario…
Fascinating art installation…
Quietly slips under radar…
This totally slipped under my radar at least, but the iPod Touch is now available in a 32 Gig version for $499. The iPhone’s lowest model is now the 8Gig for $399 (no change there) and they’ve added a 16Gig model for $499… I do have to say I’m content with the 8Gig iPhone I have, and by the time I need to replace it there will be the iPhone2 or something like that. Just keeping everybody up to date… Wiggly icons are pretty sweet (but even sweeter with the wiggly Installer.app icon (yes I am a 1337 haxx0r dood (or I just followed instructions (but whatever))))…
Pretty much sums up “Achievements” in my mind
A screenshot from the soon to be released Devil May Cry 4 (360/PS3) off the PS3 when you unlock an achievement (with a little bit of editorializing from Joystiq (it’s that little bit in the lower right))…
People seem to go nuts over these achievements, and I just don’t get it… Isn’t getting all the items, or completing the game on the harder difficulty the achievement? Do you need the game to confirm that, in fact, you did get 20,000 points in a level? A system built into a game itself is fine, rewards of new weapons or new play modes after beating a game once gives it replay value and makes someone who spent 50 or 60 bucks feel like it was a good investment… Achievements are just bragging rights, and bragging rights for video games has always seemed, simply put, stupid… People who own X360s (and this isn’t all, so don’t take it as that) will rent games notorious for easy achievement points (::cough:: Avatar ::cough::) just to raise their gamer score… It makes gaming into a meta-game for socially competitive types, and I don’t want a meta-game… That’s not why I play video games. But maybe I’m the weird one here. The fact that Sony and video game makers seem to be bowing to this on the PS3 is pissing me off, but alas…
I Saw This And Liked It And So I Posted It
In honor of that special something.something moving to Canadia…
The Flashbulb Uploads Latest Album To Torrent Sites
I had mentioned in a previous comment to Big Jar that if he liked Aphex Twin, he should give The Flashbulb’s “Kirlian Selections” a chance… It’s an amazing album that is something I think most people should at least listen to once. Little did I know when I made that comment that The Flashbulb was just about to release his newest album directly to a major torrent site. If you were to “pirate” the latest album by The Flashbulb “Soundtrack To A Vacant Life” from one of the many torrent sites out there, it was most likely uploaded by the artist himself (Benn Jordan). In an html file inside the torrent you will find this message…
Hello listener…downloader…pirate…pseudo-criminal…
If you can read this, then you’ve more than likely downloaded this album from a peer to peer network or torrent.
You probably expect the rest of this message to tell you that you’re hurting musicians and breaking just about every copyright law in the book. Well, it won’t tell you that.
What I would like to tell you is that my record label understands that a large portion of people pirate music because it is easier than buying it. CDs scratch easily, most pay-per-download sites have poor quality and ****ty DRM protection, and vinyl is near impossible to find or ship without hassle.
In many cases I wonder why people buy CDs at all anymore. A few like the tangible artwork, some haven’t adapted to MP3s yet, but most do it because they have a profound love for music and want to support the artists making it. Kind of restores your faith in humanity for a moment eh?So, now what?
Like the album? About to go “support the artist” on iTunes?
Well, don’t.
Alphabasic is currently in a legal battle against Apple because NONE of our material (Sublight Records included) receives a dime of royalty from the vast amount of sales iTunes has generated using our material.Want to buy a CD just to show your support?
If you don’t particularly like CDs, don’t bother.
Retailers like Best Buy and Amazon spike the price so high that their cut is often 8 times higher than the artist’s. Besides, most CDs are made out of unrecyclable plastic and leave a nasty footprint in your environment.If you do particularly like CDs, buy them from the label (in our case, alphabasic.com). After manufacturing costs are recuperated, our artists usually receive over 90% of the actual money coming out of your wallet.
In addition, all of our physical products are made out of 100% recycled material.Want to show your support?
Go here and browse our library of lossless, DRM-free downloads.
Already have that?
Then feel free to donate whatever you want to your favorite artist. 100% will go directly to them.
Hell, you can even donate a penny just to thank the artist.If you really like ‘The Flashbulb - Soundtrack To A Vacant Life’ and want to show your support without it going to greedy retailers, distributors, and coked-up label reps, then click the button below.
[link to http://www.alphabasic.com/index2.htm ]
If you send us your mailing address, Alphabasic may occasionally send you various goodies (overstocks, stickers, even rare CDs) in appreciation and encouragement for your support.
Thanks for reading.
Who knows if my little business plan here will work to fund new releases, but even failure is better than the crappy label/distributor/retailer system musicians have suffered from for over 50 years.
We hope you enjoy the music as much as we do releasing it.
Finally, if you plan on sharing this release, please include this file. The only reason it is here is to show the listener where he can support his favorite artists!Benn Jordan
CEO - Alphabasic Records
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I would highly encourage everyone to find this album, download it, and if you like it, send the man a donation. Perhaps we can all encourage more artists to start supporting a system where a middleman (the RIAA and money grubbing record labels) are not needed.. If you needed a reason to stop buying shitty DRMed/poorly encoded Apple iTunes music, you heard it from Weird Al, now from another artist. DON’T BUY FROM ITUNES. Almost nothing gets to the artist.
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Peace..
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