May 16, 2011
Dan Hicks (b. 1941) is an American singer-songwriter working at the intersection of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune, ‘How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?’ Taking up the guitar in 1959, he became part of the San Francisco folk music scene, performing at local coffeehouses. Hicks joined the San Francisco band The Charlatans in 1965 as drummer.
In 1968, Hicks formed Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, whose fourth album, 1973’s Last Train to Hicksville, gained the group critical and popular acclaim. Thus, it was a great surprise to many when he chose that moment to disband the Hot Licks. Asked why in 1974, he said, ‘I’m basically a loner… I like singing and stuff, but I didn’t necessarily want to be a bandleader. The thing had turned into a collective sort of thing — democracy, vote on this, do that. I conceived the thing. They wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for me. My role as leader started diminishing, but it was my fault because I let it happen; I cared less as the thing went on.’
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May 12, 2011
‘Maggot Brain‘ is a song by the band Funkadelic. It appears as the lead track on their 1971 album of the same name. The original recording of the song, over ten minutes long, features little more than a spoken introduction and a much-praised extended guitar solo by Eddie Hazel. Reportedly, ‘Maggot Brain’ was Hazel’s nickname. Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother’s ‘decomposed dead body, skull cracked, in a Chicago apartment.
According to legend, George Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told Eddie Hazel during the recording session to imagine he had been told his mother was dead, but then learned that it was not true. The result was the 10-minute guitar solo for which Hazel is most fondly remembered by many music critics and fans. Though several other musicians began the track playing, Clinton soon realized the power of Hazel’s solo and faded them out so that the focus would be on Hazel’s guitar. The entire track was recorded in one take. The solo is mostly played in a pentatonic minor scale in the key of E over another guitar track of a simple arpeggio. Hazel’s solo was played through a fuzzbox (distortion pedal) and a Crybaby Wah wah pedal; some sections of the song utilize a delay effect.
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May 9, 2011
The clustering illusion refers to the tendency to erroneously perceive small samples from random distributions as having significant ‘streaks’ or ‘clusters,’ caused by a human tendency to underpredict the amount of variability likely to appear in a small sample of random or semi-random data due to chance. Illusionary clusters were found in the locations of impact of V-1 flying bombs on London during World War II and as streaks in stock market price fluctuations over time.
The clustering illusion was central to a widely reported study by Gilovich, Robert Vallone and Amos Tversky. They found that the idea that basketball players shoot successfully in ‘streaks,’ sometimes called by sportcasters as having a ‘hot hand’ and widely believed by Gilovich et al.’s subjects, was false. In the data they collected, if anything the success of a previous throw very slightly predicted a subsequent miss rather than another success. Using this cognitive bias in causal reasoning may result in the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. It may also have a relationship with gambler’s fallacy. More general forms of erroneous pattern recognition are pareidolia and apophenia.
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May 8, 2011
Super Meat Boy is a platform game developed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, and is the successor to ‘Meat Boy,’ originally released in 2008. Super Meat Boy was released in 2010. The game follows Meat Boy as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Bandage Girl from the villainous Dr. Fetus through over 300 levels filled with deadly hazards. It has won acclaim for its extremely high difficulty.
Players must guide Meat Boy to the end of each level while avoiding buzzsaws, salt, and various other fatal obstacles. The player can jump and run, and can stick to walls in order to either jump off of them or to slide down them. The player has an unlimited number of attempts to complete each level; if Meat Boy is killed he immediately restarts the level, though the red blood left behind on surfaces that the player has touched remains.
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May 6, 2011
Thom Yorke (b. 1968) is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the alternative rock band Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar (notably during the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions). In July 2006, he released his debut solo album, The Eraser.
At birth, his left eye was fixed shut; he underwent five eye operations before he was six years old. He has stated that the last surgery was ‘botched,’ leaving him with a drooping eyelid.
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May 4, 2011
Sir Ken Robinson (b. 1950) is an author, and expert on education and the arts.
Robinson’s 2001 book, ‘Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative,’ argues that creativity is undervalued and ignored in Western culture and especially in its educational systems.
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May 4, 2011
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is the eighth studio album by the Beastie Boys released in May 2011. Originally planned for release in 2009 under the title ‘Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1,’ the album was delayed after Adam Yauch was diagnosed with cancer.
The working title was ‘Tadlock’s Glasses,’ which was stated to be a reference to a former bus driver named Tadlock, who used to drive for Elvis Presley’s back-up singers. Presley once gave Tadlock a pair of glasses which he was proud of. Regarding the structure of the album, Yauch stated, ‘It’s a combination of playing and sampling stuff as we’re playing, and also sampling pretty obscure records. There are a lot of songs on the record and there are a lot of short songs and they kind of all run into each other.’
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May 3, 2011
‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ is a song written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono and released in 1971 as a single by John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir. Ostensibly a protest song about the Vietnam War, it has become a Christmas standard and has appeared on several Christmas albums. The lyric is based on a campaign in late 1969 by Lennon and Ono, who rented billboards and posters in eleven major cities around the world that read: ‘WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It) Happy Christmas from John and Yoko.’ In 1971, the US was deeply entrenched in the unpopular Vietnam War.
The melody and chord structure are from the folk standard ‘Stewball,’ about a race-horse. Lennon and Ono added modulation through several keys and the ‘War is over’ counter-melody. It was recorded at Record Plant Studios in New York City in late October 1971, with the help of producer Phil Spector. It features heavily echoed vocals and backing vocals from children from the Harlem Community Choir.
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May 3, 2011
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is a fictional mascot from the Ghostbusters franchise of media, which sometimes appears as a giant, lumbering paranormal monster.
It first appears in the 1984 film Ghostbusters as a picture logo on a prop package of marshmallows in Dana Barrett’s apartment when she places the groceries on her kitchen counter, on a graffiti advertisement on the building next to the Ghostbuster’s HQ when the ghosts are released from the containment grid after the power is shut down, then later in the climax of the film.
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May 2, 2011
For a one-time charge of $10, After the Rapture Pet Care promises to look after Christian’s pets on Earth should the rapture occur. When Jesus returns, their non-Christian administrators will activate a rescue plan: animal caretakers will be alerted immediately by email and telephone that they have been activated.
Pets will be assigned to caretakers based upon location and other factors. Administrators will do whatever it takes to find and rescue pets covered by a policy.
Posted in Death, Humor, Philosophy |
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April 29, 2011
Operation Nifty Package was a US Navy SEAL plan conducted in 1989 to apprehend or prevent the escape of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
Forty-eight SEALs (three SEAL Platoons) were tasked with destroying Noriega’s private jet on the ground in Panama City. This part of the mission put the SEALs into a skirmish with Panamanian military forces guarding the airport, and four SEALs were killed and eight wounded. Despite the casualties, a well-aimed AT4 rocket destroyed Noriega’s plane.
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April 28, 2011
Hair cells are the sensory receptors of both the auditory system and the vestibular system (sense of balance) in all vertebrates. In mammals, the auditory hair cells are located in the cochlea, a spiral-shaped cavity in the skull. Unlike birds and reptiles, humans and other mammals are normally unable to regrow the cells of the inner ear that convert sound into neural signals when those cells are damaged by age or disease. Mammalian cochlear hair cells come in two anatomically and functionally distinct types: the outer and inner hair cells. Damage to these hair cells results in decreased hearing sensitivity.
The outer cells do not send neural signals to the brain, they mechanically amplify low-level sound that enters the cochlea. The inner hair cells transform the sound vibrations in the fluids of the cochlea into electrical signals that are then relayed to the brain. Nerve fiber innervation is much denser for inner hair cells than for outer hair cells. A single inner hair cell is innervated by numerous nerve fibers, whereas a single nerve fiber innervates many outer hair cells. Inner hair cell nerve fibers are also very heavily myelinated, which is in contrast to the unmyelinated outer hair cell nerve fibers.
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