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October 2006

Sweet music? The sound of a swedish sugar refinery



How does a swedish refinary sound? And why should sugar in any way
be connected to a science fiction-forum? Well, recently I read this:

"This is a conceptalbum and also the example of a new music-genre, Industrial Cool.
The images reveal large factory- and machinecomplex and the music
is 100% made of sampled industry- and factorysound (one artist per track).
Very, very different; very, very suggestive; very, very machineindustrial; very, very futuristic..."

A link was also offered: pleazure.org/ic1/ and there I read:
"C1 - The birth of Industrial Cool, an international compilation of tracks
based around the given theme of sounds from a Swedish sugar refinery."

The site also offered lots of samples,
and as I was in the mood for something new, I gave it a try.
Indeed, very strange, and also "very, very futuristic". Try listen...

September 2006

Valley or wall - An art expedition



Yesterday one of my friends suggested an art expeditition,
to an exibition with the promising theme: the real and the fantastic.

I wasn't sure what to think or say most of the time,
but then I turned around a corner and was really impressed:

A wall? A fall? It was called "The Valley" I discovered, but I have never seen a valley like this;
a paper installation, many meters high, many meters wide, and incredible etherical...


"The Valley" was created by Marianne Therese Grønnow in 2006.


Coot Feet - Why do they have such strange toes?



Coot feet

This is how they look. But why..?

Feet of coot
May 2006

How much is a trillion?



Opinions may differ and political discussions may run forever, unresolved.
Especially if the point is a president still in power. But numbers count.

How much is a trillion? It is 1.000.000.000.000. What is a trillion dollars? A lot of money, even for a superpower like USA. Even more if you have borrowed that much - and have to pay it all back, somehow. We have all heard what Bush believes. And what he promises (although that's hard to believe...). But how about a dry, but inevitable aspect like economy. I read this recently (and wondered):

According to the Treasury Department, the forty-two presidents who held office between 1789 and 2000 borrowed a combined total of $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions. But between 2001 and 2005 alone, the Bush White House borrowed $1.05 trillion, more than all previous presidencies combined.

Of course, debt is not necessarily a problem, if economy is healthy,
if prospects are good. But I really wondered when I also read that:

Having inherited the largest federal surplus in American history in 2001, he has turned it into the largest deficit ever - with an even higher deficit, $423 billion, forecast for fiscal year 2006. Yet Bush - sounding much like Herbert Hoover in 1930 predicting that "prosperity is just around the corner" - insists that he will cut federal deficits in half by 2009, and that the best way to guarantee this would be to make permanent his tax cuts, which helped cause the deficit in the first place!

There's still 2 more years to go. But a growing number already wonders
if Bush might prove to be the worst president in history...

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Modem farewell



Yesterday it finally happened. Broadband arrived. More than once it had been just 'around the corner'. But each time people failed to agree or make a final decision. Too bad, I would have preferred a collective solution. Probably simpler, cheaper - and more in the spirit of the net itself. Even if every surfer is another cyberindividual, the internet is still a collective effort, a co-production...

Originally I imagined that the new broadband box could coexist with the old modem, but no. The old had to go. Of course I won't miss the (much) higher rates of dial-up every time. Yet I felt strangely nostalgic about it. The first phase of the internet is now behind me: from now on I'm always on. The net is no longer 'a new world', an exotic place, an exception. Instead it's just another facet of modern life, a thing in the background. One more anonymous box.

One aspect I don't mind at all: the economy is reversed. Before it was expensive, and the more you wanted the more you payed. Now I pay a small monthly sum, and the more time I spend the cheaper it gets. Flat rate is also quite predictable, which is also quite nice. I noticed the same reversion when I acquired the digital camera in 2002. From then on photography was free (except for the occasional print). A month ago I finally took the time to create a second, external backup of all digital photographs: I was amazed at the number: in a few years I had taken more than 17000 photos, probably more than I ever made with the old analog camera.

Still, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, looking at the now (and forever) unemployed modem. I know it was expensive. And noisy too. I never discovered how sound could be turned off. But the screeching sounds the neíghbours heard, were sweet music to me. They signalled: here we go, to far and exotic places. Let's see it all...

Before I'm overwhelmed with nostalgia, I could compare this with my first computer (not a pc). Sure it was fantastic, but also had serious limitations. The speed: 0,004 Ghz. Memory: 0,000032 Gb. I wouldn't be surprised if a common refrigerator could outrun it today. And I dare not even think of the toaster...