Your Smile For Today

Wow. I just read this and it really felt like I was reading the titles in "12 Monkeys" : in the future, looking back at the first real snippet of confirmation that utter doom is on its way:

Reporting for The Independent, Cahal Milmo writes, "A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures - the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change which will expose millions to drought, hunger and flooding - is now "very unlikely" to be avoided, the world's leading climate scientists said yesterday."

Then, not wanting to kill myself just yet, I rewrote it in such a way that made it much more palatable:

Reporting for The Independent, Cahal Milmo writes, "A rise of two degrees centigrade in local temperatures - the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic mood swings in women and gay men - is now "very unlikely" to be avoided, the world's leading fashion experts said yesterday."

And suddenly, I felt better!

I think I should create some kind of web site that can translate any other web page into "happy talk". It would make the news easier to bear, even if it had no effect on reality.

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"Information Age", My Ass

I got a spam email just now with the subject "bedraggle backpack antagonism". The body text is as follows:

"contralto bindery attica cardiff. descriptive britain boy blurt bellyache dayton. corbett definition disciplinarian clog cochran bull curvature clinging clapeyron. annunciate ascomycetes ak cause deterrent azure bearish."

Seriously, what are they trying to sell me? All-You-Can-Eat-Gibberish for $9.95? Either that, or some study has just shown that one out of every million spam recipients will spontaneously send their MasterCard number to anyone with a reply-to address.

Free Enterprise System, your days are numbered.

- g-spot -

Genius Is Manifest In Many Different Ways

"Never gonna stop, eat it up
Such a tasty snack I always eat too much, then throw up
But I'll soon be back for my, my, my, yi, yi, woo
M-m-m-my bologna
M-m-m-my bologna"

- g-spot -

Creep-Me-Out Factor 10, Mr. Sulu!

I just thought : how would you express the perfect number, 777, as time, in minutes and seconds? 7 minutes and 77 seconds, or really, 8 minutes and 17 seconds.

Guess how long it takes for the sun's light to reach the Earth?

I'm trying very hard to make this not mean something.

- g-spot -

What It's Going To Feel Like At The End

That's it.

No more worrying about the consequences of your next action, because there won't be one. No more consequences having to do with you.

People aren't scared of dying, they're scared of the prospect that the Universe can get along without them okay.

- g-spot -

Predictive Generative Music

I've come up with a new way of writing ambient music, which I'm calling "Predictive Generative". You define a “space”, which could be as small as your apartment, or as big as a city. Each logical area within the location is a “sub-space”. In my apartment, the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room, front hall and main hall are the sub-spaces.

Next, you create “paths” which are steps taken to go from one sub-space to the next. Each path is a separate instrument in the peice and the note lengths are actual footsteps travelling from one spot in the "space" to another. A normal step forward is a whole note; a 45 degree turn in any direction is a half note; a 90 degree turn is a quarter note. A path can only contain 3 notes; it’s up to the composer to decide which three. The first tone played is considered the “base” tone; the others are “alternate 1” and “alternate 2”.

When you move into a new sub-space, two things happen. One, you change from the base tone to alternate 1; if playing alternate 1, you go to alternate 2; if playing alternate 2, you go back to the base tone. And two : all movement into a new sub-space is preceded by a pause the length of the step just before entering the new sub-space.

All instrument parts loop immediately when their initial notes are finished playing. Because most paths will be of different lengths, the entire peice will become “generative”, or evolving, as different sequences play over each other in ways they didn’t start out playing.

The composer defines the spaces and sub-spaces, has complete discretion regarding the overall tempo and dynamics (tempo and volume changes are allowed, including total silence for an instrument, provided the sequence is still being followed), decides which instrument a path will be played with and which 3 notes are used in each path. The sequence of notes, their lengths, pauses and tone changes, however, are determined entirely by the physical paths.

I even worked out a notation system...

Step Notation:
| Full step
/ 45 degree step
– 90 degree step

Tone Notation:
0 Change to Base tone
+ Change to Alternate 1 tone
x Change to Alternate 2 tone

(Note : tone changes are written in brackets and are always preceded by a pause whose step value is that on the next step in the sequence)

This is the path from my kitchen to my office:

||| (+) | (x) --||||||- (0) |//||

So, what did YOU invent today?

- g-spot -

The Schizophrenia of Paris

This just in :

"PARIS Hilton is supposedly at the breaking point in jail - but she'll be breaking out the champagne and partying like mad the second she's released, if her parents get their way.

Page Six has learned that the celebutard's doting daddy, Rick Hilton, was recently shopping a "Get Out of Jail" bash for his little girl to the top Las Vegas clubs, including Pure, the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and the Palms."

My guess is God is going to get shunted off to the family vault the minute Paris hears about the bash. Which is maybe where he should be. Save him for a rainy day.

You know, I feel like this is what it must have been like during the 20's; mind-numbing celebrity drivel, evermore outrageous... and you know what happened after the 20's?

- g-spot -

What I love about this guy is that...

... he plays the most vicious T.V. executive imaginable on "Studio 60", and yet he is as clearly fucked up as any of us! Whoa!... I mean Woe! to his wife and kids; I think he's got about 4 good years left.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-weber/paris-when-it-dribbles_b_51478.html

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