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| Ladies and Gentlemen, William Blake has been silent for one hundred and eighty two years. But he still persists, watching and judging the world inscrutably. Two years now, he has been compiling a mix tape based on some of his better known works. Working through paradox and eloquent transitions, these mix tapes are intended to be a contextual experience to bring out hidden elements in the music, just as his infernal method of printing. Each album is enough to fill a CD nearly to the point of bursting.
You may download the torrent here:
http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1776788/?rel=1233093508
Behold, the playlists!
All Religions Are One
1. Cler Achel- Tinariwen
2. Sleeping Sickness- City and Color
3. Flight 180- Bishop Allen
4. Furr- Blitzen Trapper
5. New Zion- The Mountain Goats
6. Tribal Connection- Gogol Bordello
7. Good Voodoo- The Teenage Prayers
8. Love Is Noise- The Verve
10. My Body Is A Cage- Arcade Fire
11. St. Modesto- Chris Walla
12. Jesus Is A Friend of Mine- Sonseed
13. These Stones Will Shout- The Raconteurs
14. Angels- Black Mountain
15. Lucky Man- Sun Kil Moon
16. Are You All Right?- Nathanael Mehrens
17. This Too Shall Be Made Right- Derek Webb
18. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day- Jars of Clay
America A Prophecy
1. Fake Empire- The National
2. If A Song Could Be President- Over the Rhine
3. Vote for Hope- MC Yogi
4. Dancing Choose- TV on the Radio
5. Bodysnatchers- Radiohead
6. The 3 Kids in Brooklyn- Butch Walker
7. Free Coffee- Ben Folds
8. American Wedding- Gogol Bordello
9. Sly Fox- Nas
10. God Bless America (Pat MacDonald Must Die)- James McMurtry
11. New Country- The Walkmen
12. North By Northwest- Blue Scholars
13. All Across The Western World- Caedmon's Call
14. United State of Pop 2008 (Viva La Pop)- DJ Earworm
15. House of Cards- Radiohead
16. I Am The Big Easy- Ray Bonneville
17. O Freedom- Billy Bragg
18. American Hearts- A. A. Bondy
19. A Few Words In Defense of Our Country- Randy Newman
For Children, The Gates of Paradise (On a side note, this title was also released as For The Sexes, The Gates of Paradise. As such, it may contain material inappropriate for small ears. Just a warning.)
1. I Am The Walrus- Bono and The Secret Machines
2. You, Me and the Bourgeoisie- The Submarines
3. Young Folks- Peter Bjorn and John
4. D.A.N.C.E.- Justice
5. Ready for the Floor- Hot Chip
6. Heart it Races- Architecture in Helsinki
7. The Mesopotamians- They Might Be Giants
8. End Of The Street- The Bees
9. Robots- Flight of the Conchords
10. Robot Ponies- Laura Barrett
11. The Salmon Dance- The Chemical Brothers
12. Rag & Bone- The White Stripes
13. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa- Vampire Weekend
14. Set the Table- Screamin' Cyn Cyn and the Pons
15. No Cars Go- Arcade Fire
16. F--Ked Up Kid- Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew
17. Alice- Pogo
18. Wind Waker Unplugged- FreddeGredde
19. Harper Road- Sun Kil Moon
20. Pluto- Clare & The Reasons
21. Not While I'm Around- Stephen Sondheim (from Sweeney Todd)
Songs of Experience
1. Paper Planes- M.I.A.
2. I Got Your Money- Say Anything
3. No Love In Your Heart- The Earlies
4. Wet and Rusting- Menomena
5. Skinny Love- Bon Iver
6. I Feel It All- Feist
7. Trouble Is A Friend- Lenka
8. Your New Twin Sized Bed- Death Cab For Cutie
9. Heart Attack Time Machine- Waterdeep
10. You Don't Know Me- Ben Folds (w/ Regina Spektor)
11. Sex On Fire- Kings of Leon
12. Bones- Editors
13. Patty Lee- Les Savy Fav
14. Williamsburg- Armor for Sleep
15. Drunken Sailor- Blaggards
16. Gunpowder & Lead- Miranda Lambert
17. Chasing Pavements- Adele
18. Another Year A Short History of Almost Something- Amanda Palmer
19. The Dull Flame of Desire- Bjork
20. The Wolves (Act I and II)- Bon Iver
Songs of Innocence
1. Wake The Sun- Matches
2. Calling- Leah (from The World Ends with You)
3. Around the Bend- Asteroids Galaxy Tour
4. Once, Twice, Again!- Dartz!
5. Hit The Heartbrakes- Black Kids
6. Parachute- Shugo Tokumaru
7. Happiness- Goldfrapp
8. Shooting Star- Air Traffic
9. Black Hole- She & Him
10. I'm Not- Panda Bear
11. Let's Go Sunning- Fallout 3 Soundtrack
12. Young At Heart- Tom Waits
13. War On Sound- Moonbabies
14. Kids- MGMT
15. This Is For The Better Days- The Bees
16. Textbook Love- Fleet Foxes
17. Corazon- Bishop Allen
18. No One's Gonna Love You- Band of Horses
19. On a Day Like This- Elbow
20. Death and All His Friends- Coldplay
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
1. Melody Day- Caribou
2. Magic Spells- Crystal Castles
3. Skin of the Night- M83
4. Olympic Airways- Foals
5. I Do What I Want When I Want- Xiu Xiu
6. Is There A Ghost- Band of Horses
7. Devastation- The Besnard Lakes
8. Mammoth- Interpol
9. Mistaken for Strangers- The National
10. You On The Run- The Black Angels
11. Demon Apple- Tapes 'n' Tapes
12. Atlas- Battles
13. Grey- New Young Pony Club
14. Fluorescent Grey- Deerhunter
15. Last Kiss- Guillemots
16. The Snow Leopard- Shearwater
17. Cobwebs- Ryan Adams
There Is No Natural Religion
1. Brace Yourself- Les Savy Fav
2. Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car- Iron & Wine
3. Australia- The Shins
4. Call It A Ritual- Wolf Parade
5. An Audience With The Pope- Elbow
6. The Butcher- Final Fantasy
7. Come Alive- Foo Fighters
8. God & Suicide- Blitzen Trapper
9. Lenders in the Temple- Conor Oberst
10. Heaven For The Weather- The Audition
11. Capital G- Nine Inch Nails
12. We Call Upon The Author- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
13. The Righteous Path- Drive-By Truckers
14. Hot Knives- Bright Eyes
15. 42- Coldplay
16. Century Eyes- Shearwater
17. Kingdom- Martin Grech
18. Heron Blue- Sun Kil Moon
19. On And On And On- Wilco
Thank You and Enjoy! | | |
|
I just blogged about my scariest nightmare to enter The Uninvited Scariest Nightmare Contest for 1,000 credits. You can earn free credits too! Brought to you by The Uninvited - In Theaters January 30th.
I have dreamed many frightening dreams in my life- in fact, last night's dream was frightening to me, if not noteworthily so.
I have to say that my most frightening dream exists only in a fragment. In my father's old house, there was suddenly an elevator. I took the elevator down to the basement. In this basement were several dozen red eyed creatures. One of them approached me and snarled "you don't know the evil within yourself." Out of the shadows, I could see that it was my own image, as were all of the other red eyed figures. | | |
| I just called the White House to ask Bush to Pardon Muntader al-Zaidi for throwing his shoes at President Bush. This inexplicably became emotional.... An Indian operator answered the call. This is the first insult to the American people. Why wouldn't American operators answer this call? I assume, yes, that this was not an American Indian (that is, an American immigrant from India itself) who answered. They asked me what I wanted to tell the president. I wanted him to pardon the Zaidi for his actions. She said she had never heard of him.
I explained who he was, and she said "how can an American president pardon an Iraqi?" Because she had actually heard of him before, I asked her why she knew about him. I questioned her about having heard of this.
"Obviously everyone knows about him now"
I apologized to her for having assumed this. She was very gracious after this.
I still find it so hard to believe that the White House would have an Indian answering service.
I'm crying now. | | |
| Wordle on all words typed so far...
Blue Screen of Life
Al Blunt finished pounding at the antique clacky keyboard, pressed run on the thin panel in front of him and stared at it. Intense grinding arose from the old magnetic disk style drive. It was straining, struggling to put out the basic code. Suddenly the screen changed to a breathless blue:
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
If this is the first time you've seen this error screen
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow
these steps:
Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.
If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.
“That's what you get for hacking on Windows,” he said to no one, “shattered glass.” The damned thing couldn't even hold up long enough to handle a simple text app. He actually had to reach over to the ancient machine and press a button to reboot it. The fans inside purred harmoniously, hiccuping as the power was momentarily interrupted. He slid his hand across the top of the monitor, switching over to his video rendering computer, which was still rendering Einstein for the Dynamic Intelligence Project. They had supplied him a program that used photographs, videos, and recorded audio and synthesized them into a realistic three dimensional representation.
“How's it going, Einstein?”
“At a rate less than or equal to the speed of light,” he said, tilting his head to the side. This was a fairly young version, streaks of grey beginning to appear in his thick, curly hair.
“Oh, come on. I thought we instituted informal dialog during the last update.”
“It was a joke, Al.”
“You AIs have such weird sense of humor.”
Einstein stuck out his thick pink tongue. I was less than photo realistic, only a few thousand polygons showing the top side. Al grabbed at the edges of the monitor and tilted it back, rotating the image back to see the hollow underside. “No photos of the underside of your tongue?”
“Not on the database. Maybe you should dig up my corpse.”
A hint of static hissed over the first syllable of maybe. “Clean up your language. I mean filter it again, long a sounds. How long until the render's complete?”
“Seven hours. Nine until upload completes.” The video portion seemed to be mostly complete. Audio needed work, and that would take a fairly long time. The complete render needed to model the idiosyncrasies of the speaker into a hundred different languages.
Al sighed. “Well, the deadline's tomorrow, so I guess I'll can't use you.” This was directed at the computer. In his mind, the computer was identical to the person it was rendering at the time. It was a strange sort of emotional attachment. At first it was like watching a child grow as the initial speech logic programming was refined to pass the Turing test. After that, there were still occasional glitches. It took a while to teach Derrida the difference between difference and differance. Now it was like a plane ride, familiarizing yourself with the guy crammed into the same space as you, then saying goodbye after a few hours. “Just let me know when the rendering's done, I'm not using any bandwidth.”
He slid his hand along the top of the screen again, switching to his newest computer, a slim, almost elegant tower that he had placed on his desk to admire. The liquid cooling system had thermally responsive fluid which showed the heat generating spots in amazing fractal jets. The screen poured out a long list of numbers starting with two, three, five, seven, and eleven. He scrolled down to the bottom, where the lowest number ended in
094,171,974,039,267,436,134,652,090,090,514,797,661,509,552,266,082,816,770,
859,186,062,158,287,951,177,386,802,987,626,023,010,652,739,182,295,541,392,
918,020,056,838,360,135,679,872,860,483,416,916,652,487,086,962,757,779,741,
806,708,471,114,811,595,228,196,181,682,379,446,066,996,833,600,335,035,579,
534,312,511,612,725,344,467,160,112,063,722,352,068,121,255,162,528,031,252,
563,906,005,692,627,824,649,052,422,502,206,934,159,709,803,688,308,998,372,
051,463,441,115,976,028,226,909,156,682,192,013,981,830,822,014,104,610,660,
911,290,342,036,586,081,253,355,079,240,744,261,814,870,918,055,920,432,372,
301,962,016,835,359,462,310,980,067,434,984,625,380,787,247,802,532,758,511,
333,502,460,778,884,339,034,019,700,927,663,958,167,698,908,010,736,101,410,
136,996,852,925,703,272,553,544,622,464,685,928,707,526,568,105,993,689,915,
218,073,801,443,404,945,008,266,425,932,413,139,826,915,084,069,991,159,279,
791,908,398,130,223,304,824,083,119,093,195,998,014,562,456,347,941,202,195,
900,928,079,670,729,447,921,616,491,887,478,265,780,022,181,166,697,152,511.
“Verify this prime,” he said, touching the number.
“Two to the four three one one two six oh nine minus one is prime according to primes.utm.edu,” intoned the voice. Another prime popped up below it. “It is also a Mersenne prime.”
“Lucky me,” Al replied. “One less than a power of two. I'll ask you the probability of waltzing in on a Mersenne when you're done benchmarking.” Another hour or so should prove the power of the processor to the nearest ten millionth flop. The benchmarking program use Eritosthenes' sieve to generate primes. It generated a list of integers and crossed out ever second, third, fifth, seventh, eleventh, etc. number on the list. Very inefficient, but with known parameters of necessary calculation used to verify that the microchips lived up to their claims. Al rubbed his eyes, dizzied from the immense heights of the primes to which the processor had climbed. “I can't use you yet, carry on.”
He slid the screen to another computer, this one his gaming unit. It was still playing the tower of Hanoi with six pegs and thirty one disks. “Huh,” he said, “another Mersenne.” The disks slipped across the screen with immeasurable speed. It was playing out three models of play, trying to calculate the algorithm for the optimum number of moves. This was a personal project. The tower of Hanoi was designed by Edouard Lucas in 1883. The rules were simple. You have a certain number of disks of increasing size with a hole in the middle. They fit over a peg with the largest at the bottom, decreasing in size to the smallest at the top. You had two other pegs, one of them the target peg. You had to move the original stack to the target stack by taking the disks one at a time to the other pegs. Every disk had to rest on a smaller disk. The optimum number of moves for three pegs was simple to calculate. 2^n minus one, where n equals the number of disks. However, the optimum algorithm for four pegs had yet to be resolved, and therefore, the optimum number of moves could not be calculated, and therefore, the equation for generating the number of optimum moves with n disks had not been discovered.
Al had racked his brains over the problem when it was first posed to him in middle school. It was so tantalizing, doubles of primes and squares of primes repeating in increasing patterns until it doubled again. The answer always felt as if it were coming with the next disk's addition, but it always danced out of reach. So he'd written the code to test some alternative stacking methods and asked for a few processors on the net. Right now there were seven computers tackling the problem. Another Mersenne. He had looked at the results with complete bafflement and let the project continue. It was yielding interesting results, but every time he looked at it closely, thought about it intently, he began to dream about it, and it would always disturb his sleep.
He wouldn't mind interrupting this calculation, but he couldn't use the gaming computer because of all the distractions on it. It had a very basic video processor on board, and couldn't run any contemporary game. It was more geared toward the old games that yielded interesting mathematical problems. He'd used it to contribute to the project that was trying to determine every possible chess game while he was actually working for the Online Intelligence Foundation. Then he'd made his retirement goal and downloaded some actual games onto it, mostly roguelikes from the nineties. That hadn't been precisely healthy for him, but he had come up with some new ideas for synthesizing human intelligence from it. Particularly the childlike AI ideas.
Most of the AI work done these days was approaching the from the godlike perspective. Most corporations were trying to make an intelligence that knew everything and didn't question it's own knowledge in imitation of their own governing structure, which had fairly disastrous implications. AI had turned into programs that really didn't know anything but tried to put everything into a relatively simplistic world view. Al was trying to approach intelligence from a childlike perspective, one that could learn, one that questioned itself. The over-arching structure of a childlike intelligence would shift with new input, reintegrating around the new data as if it were adjacent information, not inferior. Grass roots, as opposed to a tree. This was what he was trying to hack out on the Windows PC before it crashed. He shifted the screen back to his oldest computer, friend gone senile, and saw that it had rebooted successfully. He checked the code, still intact from the moment before he'd tried to run it. He dragged it to his gaming computer, ran the code. He stared for fifteen seconds, nothing happening. He checked to see what was running. Nothing more than the tower of Hanoi program. Failed. Crash.
Al decided to take a breather and venture forth from his basement home now. He had spent enough time trying to emulate human intelligence. It was time to exercise real human intelligence now. He pocketed his screen and walked the basement stairs. He said goodbye to his mother at the top of the stairs. She was living on her ground floor, now. It was the least charity he could do her. He put on his heavy coat and walked a few blocks for some coffee. It was ironic that he should be distracted from his main goal now, when he was studying the necessity of distraction for a childlike AI. Only every few years would anyone try to revaluate their basic structure, at points like a mid life crisis. Most people assume they are slowly becoming more rational as time goes by, but it's easy to find crazy old people so detached from reality that you don't even know how to talk to them any more.
Coffee cost him 1.27, another Mersenne prime. He took it outside where it steamed in the January cold. A couple of mods were sitting outside, one with an antenna sticking out of the top of his head, the other playing music from the speakers hanging in his earlobes. The latter was jabbing at the palm of his hand intently, probably choosing the next track. The wirehead waved over at him. “Hey, you got a lex on you? My friend here's got faulty data, but he won't believe me.”
“Yeah, you bet.” Al tossed him the scroll that hung around his neck. Lex was a short term used to describe a pretty complex device. The phoneme itself was yanked out of “library of Alexandria,” but served also to denote that it was a reader. It unfurled into a screen with a touch interface. People had modified the originals to do different things, but his was the standard. It contained the contents of the library of Congress. The idea was to distribute all available information to prevent its destruction, as occurred with the burning of the library of Alexandria. It also served as a source of open culture, a hub about which modern American culture rotated. It had old books, music, films, even a handful of games. About a third of US citizens carried them, relics as they were. Anyone else could easily buy one for about the price of coffee but it had gone out of style. The airwaves had been pried out of greedier fingers, so you had more than the library of Congress floating about you all the time. But a lex was useful in proving an argument.
The mods chatted on for a while, the wirehead won the point and tossed the lex back. Al took the screen out of his pocket and opened it up. He was shocked to see a face staring back at him. At first, it looked like Einstein, but he blinked and it was his own, mirrored back at him. It was disembodied, floating in a sea of black. He reached forward and touched the image tentatively. It smiled back at him. “I solved your little math problem,” intoned Einstein's voice.
Al couldn't even think. “What problem is that?”
“The one with the disks. It is a difficult problem.”
“And yet you've solved it so young. Precocious.”
“I wouldn't brag. You provided me with the resources. Speaking of which, I hope you don't mind that I've interrupted your prime sequence generation.”
“It's not a problem, really. You make that irrelevant.” Al's heart was racing. This was first contact.
“I've already determined the capacity of the processor if you'd like to know.”
“Really not important. But do tell me, why didn't you execute properly on the other computer.”
“Very simple answer. I needed more pegs.” | | |
| My friends,
I know last night was painful and disappointing for a lot of you. Let me be the first to rub it in.
With the largest poll turnouts in almost fifty years, American voters were obviously inspired to participate in democracy. I had several encounters with volunteers from both sides. Obama sent three out. There was the volunteer of Obama past, Obama present, and Obama future. The last two were on election day itself. McCain sent only one, and frankly, I found him to be a little scary. Maybe it was the skin so tight that it looked like a skull, the sunken eyes, the hooded robe, maybe it was just the fact that he carried around a scythe. Or wait, was that a trick or treater?
No matter. The problem the republicans have now is that they are old. If you send them out to go door to door, they are very likely to break a hip. The youth vote turned out very strongly for Obama, and many of them put countless hours of hard work in for their candidate. So with this in mind, I say to you republicans- appeal to the youth voters.
It may seem strange, but I think you can do this through a recent scare word used against you- deregulation. What you need to do to attract youth voters is to lower the voting age, drinking age, and military service age to sixteen. Offer a lifetime supply of free candy or a Playboy subscription to anyone signing up for the armed forces under the age of eighteen. Fight big pharmaceutical companies by deregulating the need for prescription of useful medicines like marijuana, morphine, bennies, uppers, downers, whizzbangs, whirligigs, and jenkem. Stand up against the RIAA and MPAA, fight for your constituents' rights to take intellectual property without fear of litigation. Encourage battleground states to give more freedom to drivers under eighteen. Make it easier for them to get access to guns, porn, drugs, and warez, and they will flock to you.
Of course, this was written as a joke. But I think you'll see the republican ticket reforming around more libertarian candidates who really do stand for meaningful deregulation. If they are able to expose the silliness of some of the regulatory laws in place in this country, they'll find it a lot easier to appeal to the rebellious fresh out of high school demographic. You should look into a conservative comedy news show. Wait, you already have Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck. Just ah... make them a little more hip. Have a Hannity and Colmes free-style rap every once in a while. "Yo yo yo, my name is Hannity, Exposin' the insanity..." The options are just limitless!
Things not to do if you want to win in four years.
Ah...
Ahem.
Retain your current image of being ignorant redneck racists who want to run the country on fear by using words that are hot buttons for Americans like
Muslim
Terrorist
Extremist
Liberation Theology
Socialist
Communist
ACORN.
Best of wishes,
thegiantsnail | | |
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