Suggestions for the Improvement of Hipster Music

Modest Mouse reminds me of the Pixies, but without any of the goodness that flows from Kim Deal. Maybe they could build a robot Kim Deal! Or call in a guy with a bass saxophone! Or Zombie Billie Holliday! Or put some duct tape over the lead singer's mouth, leaving a hole just large enough for a kazoo!

yami · 16:00 · 9 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Music

Friday Rock Blogging: Schist

schist from the Riverside MountainsDon't'cha hate it when you have to do work at work? My style, it is the severely cramped!

Here's a lump of schist. Also, check out the magma party at Revolving Duck!

yami · 15:47 · 8 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Friday Rock Blogging

Only Terrorists Go to Canada

Department of Homeland Security Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative - to require that Americans without passports stay the fuck home, and Canadians on vacation without passports stay the fuck away. (Mexicans without passports will still be welcome to crawl across the Sonoran Desert, provided that they don't complain when they die or almost die or the people-smugglers break their children's kneecaps.)

The language in this cute little Homeland Security FAQ has blown past even my elevated barriers of cynicism and growing distaste for the word "Orwellian":

  • Preventing us from re-entering the country on the only form of ID we routinely carry around will "facilitate entry for U.S. citizens".
  • travel document options - so okay, that's not Orwellian, it's Marketroidy.
  • The advanced notice of proposed rule making will allow these affected publics to voice concern and provide ideas for alternate documents. - I like how voicing concern isn't tied to any suggestion of actually altering the policy if the public deems it necessary.

Wired recommends wrapping your future passport in aluminum foil. Incidentally, my current passport has a little page where you can enter your address in pencil. What on earth is the point of coding an address in an RFID chip on a document that lasts for ten years? Even normal people change addresses on that kind of time scale!

Bleah. [from Rana]

yami · 16:00 · 5 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: USian Politics

Special to Fellow WordPress Blogtinkers

From here on out, I intend to document everything snazzy I do to this blog on my Codex user page. Tonight, that means writing a bit about how to rename wp-comments-post.php (it's really not that tricky). Readers who are interested in this sort of thing are encouraged to hop over there and join the fun!

Also, I killed off the two alternate themes. They were crap and it wasn't worth even the five minutes it would take to change all the comment script references in them. But the theme competition has ended, and it has all kinds of awesome new themes, some of which I've downloaded. I'll soup up and install 'em any day now, really.

So consider this an open thread with emphasis on blogtinkery.

yami · 20:13 · 4 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Code, Design, Announcements

Links to Daylight’s Rescue

This year, I'm actually happy about Daylight Savings Time: I've been waking up half an hour before my alarm, due to the excessive sunlight, and it's time for that to stop. So this morning I woke up abruptly to loud beeps, instead of gradually to the dawn; cha-CHING! As a result, I'm feeling all linky today.

Music!

The Air Force Wind Ensembles have free mp3s, including Johan de Meij's Lord of the Rings symphony (which I've been chasing for quite some time) and a whole buncha other stuff I remember (fondly or not) from high school. Thus far I've only really heard this stuff performed by the kind of band that was willing to have me as a member, it's nice to hear it done by professionals. Via MeFi.

Unions!

They're in trouble again, says Henry Farrell. This time, from a set of regulations designed to make it difficult for them to operate as a political force and behave more transparently, where "transparent" will certainly be taken by the current administration to mean "smushed to ineffectiveness by any means necessary". I find myself in partial agreement with some commentators that unions should be subject to extra scrutiny iff membership is a condition for employment, and regulations to that effect could plausibly be a good idea... but (1) I don't know enough about such wonky shit to judge yet and more importantly (2) what kind of fool trusts the Bush administration to act in good faith when regulating a classic stronghold of the opposing party?

Henry argues that [i]f blogs can organize a boycott against Sinclair Communications, and can play an important role in pushing back against efforts to destroy Social Security, then they can certainly do something to help fight against this. - which is a pretty fuckin' ginormous "if". I don't expect blogs to do more for the labor movement than they did for Kerry's campaign. In fact, I expect less, because the big-name liberal bloggers are still too busy puffing up their place in Social Security wonkdom to give labor issues more than the briefest of occasional nods.

What have I read recently on labor issues that hasn't filled me with cynicism and ennui? The story of the Coalition of Immolakee Workers. Operating without federal recognition, they organized (and won!) a boycott against Taco Bell, to get tomato suppliers to increase tomato-pickers' pay. Rad Geek People's Daily has a good account of the effort (with special coverage for libertarianistes). If The Powers That Be want to render conventional labor organizations irrelevant and ineffective, well, it behooves us to start looking at unconventional organizations.

Friends with blogs!

Tiny Purple Elephant is now one such, and with super fabulosity!

yami · 12:14 · 4 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Links, USian Politics

Friday Rock Blogging: Hypertufa

hypertufaMost geologists are familiar with tufa, which is a type of calcium carbonate. Tufa is precipitated from calcium-rich water in low-energy environments (lakes, ocean-bottom sediments, etc.) - and if you're anywhere near California, it's worth driving up to Mono Lake to check out the fabulous tufa towers.

Hypertufa is similar to tufa, but it's precipitated from high-energy environments, like mountain streams and rocky intertidal zones. In such a turbulent depositional setting, grains of sand and silt, along with miscellaneous bits of debris, are often mixed in with the carbonate deposits.

[Update, April 2: Why yes, this was an April Fool. No, it wasn't a tremendously funny one. Hush, you. Anyway, hypertufa is a popular type of fake rock made from peat, perlite, and Portland cement.]

yami · 8:06 · 1 Apr 2020 · #
Filed under: Friday Rock Blogging