Category: Musicology

  • With one lobe tied behind my back

    In New York my work laptop starting shutting itself off without warning. With the help of savvy Mac users at Yahoo I determined that it was a known bug with aging G4 Powerbooks wherein the trackpad falsely reports a severe temperature spike (“overtemp” according the log) and the system initiates a shutdown to protect itself…

  • Can I blog from my iPhone?

    Since I started at Yahoo my workaday routine involves riding a shuttle from Oakland to Sunnyvale with a big laptop computer crammed on my lap so I can work, browse the net, or as I’ve been doing lately, blog.

  • Invasion of the *funny* snatchers, you mean

    Our survey of the zany madcap futuristic scenarios of the 21st century takes us now to the year 2055, where we will learn from “a post-apocalyptic workplace situation comedy” called Mankind’s Last Hope who conquered the human race, why, and what they’re keeping the remnants of our ragtag band of homo sapiens alive for (hint,…

  • In the year 2000

    Friends and cow-orkers alike have heard me make the now clichéd quip about being disappointed not to have a jetpack yet, living as we do in the year 2000. Jetpack has in fact become a sort of shorthand for some awesome feature that probably won’t get included in a final design. I still remember some…

  • How you say I Know You Rider en Francais?

    Earlier this year a friend on the Deadwood Society mailing list sent around this video excerpt from a French film called Gimme shelter, l’Airplane et les Stones à Altamont. The first half of the clip shows the Dead playing “I Know You Rider” in Hérouville in 1971. I love the band from that era. Lean,…

  • A corridor of flickering light

    The Illuminated Corridor meets the Internet Archive. What does that even mean? To find out, I went to the source, Oakland artist, musician, and impresario Suki O’Kane: wake up!: What is the Illuminated Corridor? Suki O’Kane: The Illuminated Corridor is a next step in outdoor cinema: a nomadic public art installation that creates site-specific illumination…