I’ve been advocating Google Buzz as a blogging platform since its start early last month and posted a general example of a Buzz Blog about two weeks ago. After writing my first true Buzz Blog post yesterday, a review of the iPhone Buzz client Buzzie, I am even more convinced that Buzz is a powerful, real-time blogging platform.

For most people, I think the best way to get thoughts, shares and ideas noticed is to put them directly in front of the largest number of people in the places where they spend the most time. Today those places are the feeds at Facebook, Twitter and now Google Buzz — The Big Three. I should note that private posts in a Facebook feed are invisible to Google and don’t have as much value as public posts.  I use a Facebook Page, which Pages are now indexed by Google in real-time.

I will not argue that the traditional blog or that RSS is dead, just that people should be exposed to your thoughts, shares and ideas where the people already congregate.  The more influential folks can still elicit that crucial mouse-click to their respective blog sites, but for everyone else the best opportunity for exposure is in the feeds of The Big Three. I’ve previously laid out the reasons why I think Buzz is The Superior Sharing Network.

The ideal Buzz Blog should be less than about 800 characters — any more than that collapses the Buzz formatted text field into about four lines of plain text. Don’t expect folks to make that one extra click to expand and reveal your writing — format your Buzz Blog to appear in its entirety. See my quick primer on Buzz Blogging at Buzz. If you’ve spent the past few years distilling your thoughts into 140 characters tweets, don’t think of Buzz as a way to say the same thing in 800 characters.  A Buzz Blog requires the same economy with words, you just have room to say more. A Buzz Blog can be spontaneous, but should still be edited as carefully as a traditional blog post.

When I read that the first iPhone Buzz app was released yesterday, Buzzie [iTunes link], I immediately saw the opportunity for a Buzz Blog. I bought the app, went through each page, grabbed screenshots, explored its functionality and compared Buzzie to the Mobile Safari interface for Buzz. I could have written a blog post here, but expecting folks to click through and read it was simply too much to ask. I figured that putting a quick review with pictures right in front of my Buzz friends was likely to get more attention.

I think it worked.  I not only received Likes for the Buzzie Buzz Blog post, but a discussion emerged. I’ve only been blogging for about a year and have had very few discussions and comments here at starnes.com.

It’s great if your new blog post notifications are now broadcast in real-time across your social networks, but Google Buzz offers the opportunity to bring your thoughts, shares and ideas directly to the people.  Such a strategy, in my opinion, is more effective than trying to bring the people to your blog.

Finally, as I was thinking about how I would express my own thoughts this morning regarding Buzz Blogging, I came across this Buzz Blog post from DeWitt Clinton, who has quickly become Google’s thoughtful, intelligent voice on Buzz:

Buzz has reminded me how much I enjoy blogging.

In the year since my last actual blog post, I’ve sent several hundred Twitter messages, posted over a thousand comments on FriendFeed, and left several dozen or so comments on Facebook, Disqus, Blogger, and elsewhere. But no blog posts.

Yet since Buzz launched less than a month ago I’ve written 47 updates here, each one of them essentially a blog post in itself, averaging 208 words per update. That’s more than one post a day, which is far more than I ever wrote on my blog.

I’m not exactly sure why I post so much long-form content on Buzz, especially after I effectively abandoned my old site.

But I am doing it, so Buzz is obviously doing something right

Google _is_ doing something right with *Buzz* and I like it.

Despite the below information being widely distributed across the internet and residing within Facebook itself, I still come across folks on social networks, almost daily, who complain about Facebook game apps. Some even say they may quit Facebook because of the app messages in their Feed. This writing represents my effort to promote harmony between those who are annoyed by Facebook game apps and those who enjoy them.

It should be noted that today, March 1, Facebook officially ended app notifications.  Your Feed will still display app messages unless you filter or block them, but you should no longer receive notifications in your Notifications Tab.  This tab sits in the upper left-hand area of your Facebook and shows red numbers over an Earth icon.  If you’re still getting app notifications and don’t want to wait for your Facebook to get the new feature, simply click the Notifications Earth icon, scroll to the bottom and click See All Notifications and in the right column uncheck the apps you want to silence.  Apps you block using the methods explained below will also be blocked from sending notifications.

_______________________________________________________

Imagine if you could selectively block your friend or mate from saying anything that annoys you.  What if you could press a few buttons and keep an old flame out of your business?  Unlike relationships in the meatspace, Facebook does provide such tools which allow almost absolute control over what you see and what sees you on Facebook.  But if you desire absolute privacy, don’t put private information on the Internet.

You may not like Facebook games, aka apps, but your best friend may have just reached Level 32 on Farmville and may be flooding your Feed with updates and messages.  While these Feed messages may be worthless, nauseating, space-filling noise to you, they’re likely important to your friend.  For many apps, these messages alert other players to special prizes or rewards.

In addition to the Feed updates, Facebook game apps do another thing that may alarm you — they access certain information from you, even if you have not authorized the respective app.  That’s right, games your Facebook friends are playing have the ability to access your information, even if you are not playing.

According to Facebook:

All applications must respect existing privacy settings. For example, if an application creates a slideshow of your photo albums, and a certain album is set to “Only My Friends”, it may only display that slideshow to your friends.

Simply put, Facebook says they will not break your own privacy settings.  If your friend can see your relationship status, the app he/she joins can also see that status.

Take Control

1. Hide The App In Your Feeds.

This is simple.  Just find a message from the offending app in your Live Feed or News Feed, hover your cursor in the right column and click Hide. All future messages from that app will not appear in your Feeds.

To un-hide the app or see what apps you have hidden, go to your Top News Feed and scroll to the bottom of the page and click Edit Options.

2. Block The App At Its Source.

If you want to keep an app from accessing your information and from sending you invitations, you can go directly to the specific app and block it. Go to the Facebook Search field at the top of any Facebook page and enter the name of the app. In the search results, be sure you choose the game’s Application Page and not the game’s Fan Page — it will be labeled as an application in the search results.

From the Application Page

Dialog Box After Clicking "Block Application"

To view the apps you may have blocked, go the top right of your Facebook page and click the Account menu, then choose Privacy, then select Applications and Websites, then Blocked Applications. At this settings window you can also unblock Facebook apps.

Here is what that window looks like:

3. Block Specific Friends From Sending App Invites.

To block specific friends from sending app invites, go to the Account menu at the top right of your Facebook page, then choose Privacy, then select Applications and Websites, then Ignore Application Invites.

Enter in the offending friend’s name and your peace is restored.

Here is what that window looks like:

4. Modify What Info Apps Can Access.

This step will apply to all apps — it literally defines what information Facebook apps can access in your profile.

Back to the Account menu — click it and then choose Privacy, then select Applications and Websites, then What your friends can share about you.

Below is what you should see:

The above shows my Application Privacy Settings.  I’ve chosen not to share any of the information shown in this list with Facebook apps.  Remember, apps your friends use can access the information checked in the above list, even if you are not using that respective app. Also note that apps will always have access to your publicly available information: “Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages.”

If you wish to keep your information private from all Facebook apps, you basically have to remove all of the Facebook apps you may be using by first going to the Account menu then clicking the Applications option. On this Settings page you can view apps by Recently Used, Bookmarked, Added to Profile, Authorized, Allowed to Post, Granted Additional Permissions and Facebook Prototypes.

Authorized Apps is a good place to start cleaning up what is likely a surprising number of accumulated apps.  If you are on a determined mission to tidy up your current apps list, be careful you don’t remove an app you may be using!

When I first wrote this article I played many Facebook games, so I don’t mean to show any bias against the games used as examples above.  Farmville was actually one of my favorites.  For me, some of these games offered simple brain decompression after a hectic day.  My eighty year-old Grandfather still plays Farmville and I remain sensitive to letting the gaming folks enjoy themselves.

In a community now consisting of hundreds of millions of users, Facebook is wildly diverse.  Some folks like to use Facebook in different ways than you use it. Facebook has provided the tools to block what you don’t want to see and protect the information you’d like to try to keep private.  It’s up to you to apply these tools and create your own ideal Facebook experience, while letting other folks create theirs.

Note: Skitch for OS X used above for the screen captures and notations.  I think it’s a great OS X app.

Sharing well-crafted, media-rich posts in the places where people gather is an effective way to find others who share your interests — just don’t expect them to click to uncover your message. Complete posts which can be viewed in a stream offer the best chance for your shared items to be discovered. Today, most folks are convening on Twitter, Facebook and now Google Buzz.

This writing will examine the content sharing capabilities of The Big Three social networks — I’ve also included FriendFeed because it offers an excellent example of properly executed sharing features and very nice content presentation.  I will not delve into any other issues regarding these networks.  The way shared content looks, what information can be conveyed and ease of posting said content is the focus.

Each of the below examples shows my best effort to share the same content on each of the four subject networks.  The content consists of four photos, descriptions and some commentary.

Twitter

Click to link to tweet.

Twitter offers 140 characters of text to express your thoughts or share a link – wonderfully simple. Many folks also use Twitter for conversation, but I’ve mostly used it as a place to share links of things in which I’m interested.

The difficulty with Twitter is getting your 140 characters to stand out.

Tweets can’t display images so I’ve linked my images back to FriendFeed where the pictures and some commentary await. Of course, you can’t format Twitter text.

This is obviously the poorest medium for sharing compelling, media-rich content.

Facebook

Click to link to post.

Conventional shared posts to Facebook show just one very small thumbnail.  I needed to create a photo album to share all four photos and only three photos appear below the post.  This was not a quick nor simple task. Also, folks will need to be motivated to click to see more pictures.

I was able to add a brief description in the header text field, but no more than 420 characters will fit and any more than 320 will invoke a See More link — another click. Further descriptive text can be added in the comment fields or as a caption under each photo — I added captions.

There’s no way to format text in Facebook headers or comments.

The Facebook sharing bookmarklet doesn’t offer the ability to insert a text excerpt and only allows one tiny thumbnail, when it works.  You can copy and paste text into the content box that appears after Facebook has processed the shared link.

Facebook posts are ugly.

FriendFeed

Click to link to post.

I think the FriendFeed post looks the best, so far.  There’s enough character space on top to write a decent headline and some descriptive text, but not enough for a micro-blog. There’s no text formatting and no line breaks in FriendFeed. If needed, further descriptive text can be added in the comment fields, but if you’ve got a lot to say you can either break up your writing into many comment fields or create a big lump of words.

Please note that in the original post FriendFeed only displayed two photos, and a click is required to see all four.

FriendFeed offers the best bookmarklet for sharing web content, among the networks presented here.  Grabbing a text excerpt (which is then inserted into a comment field) and pictures is easy and it works.

Google Buzz

Click to link to this Buzz.

Google Buzz gets sharing right with almost 800 visible characters before the text collapses into a summary block and the ability to do simple text formatting — bold, italic and strike-through. And paragraphs.  When sharing a web article the visible text space is ideal for a title, commentary and a text excerpt from the shared article. This is Buzz blogging.

All four pictures display and I’ve tested Buzz up to ten photos, which all display without the need for an extra click.

Click to see full size.

When you upload photos to Buzz they are stored in your Picasa account and enlarge when clicked in your post.  I’ve heard some folks complain about uploaded photos going into Picasa, but I think it’s a feature — I’m glad all my posted photos will be archived.  You can also select photos from your Picasa albums to post.

To add shared content to Buzz you may post content directly from Google Reader, use the Share in Reader bookmarklet, paste a link into the Buzz post field or just input text.  For media-rich posts, I prefer to paste a link into Buzz as it offers the ability to choose pictures and excerpt text more elegantly than the bookmarklet.  It also provides the opportunity to add some text formatting and commentary, the latter being critical to set your post apart from ordinary shares and encourage folks to engage and converse with you.

If you share a lot, want to add value to your shares and want folks to completely and almost effortlessly see what you have to share, I believe Buzz is the best choice.

Of course, the highest impact shares are meaningless if there’s no one to look at them and no one to interact with you, so I’ll defer to Thomas Hawk regarding why Buzz will be a hit.

If you liked this writing or if you disagree, join me on Buzz and let’s talk about it.

Sam's initial conceptual drawing.

Luckily, Linea Del Cielo and La Gracia converge at the entrance to the RSF Village creating an ideal base for the peace sign.  The spine of the peace sign begins at the steps of The Inn at Rancho Santa Fe and runs northwest up Paseo Delicias, the main street of RSF.

I did my Buzz tagging with an iPhone and Sam used an HTC phone running the Android OS.  Android was much better suited for this task as Sam was able to overlay the peace symbol on his live Google map, which provided an accurate guide for proper Buzz tag placement. I was left with something closer to dead reckoning using only Sam’s location and a vague familiarity with the peace sign layout.  The HTC battery outperformed the iPhone battery by about two to one, which was not a surprise to me.

Buzz tags were dropped at the place from which we sent a Buzz — tags visible to anyone viewing a Buzz layered Google map of RSF.  After about three hours of tireless Buzzing, we had littered the RSF Village with over two hundred such tags.

We returned to my home to gather and consolidate our data and were distraught to discover that many of our tags had apparently disappeared.  We quickly learned that the Google Buzz map only shows around forty-five tags on the screen at a time.  So Sam and I went through all of the tags and whittled them down to the best thirty-two.  Most of my tags were discarded — many wildly errant.

Sam chose the best tags and the results are shown below at two different zoom levels.

If you’re on a location enabled device and logged into Google Buzz, you can view the Rancho Santa Fe peace sign live by clicking here.

We’re not sure how long these tags will persist, but we had fun making a personal, virtual statement on the community in which we live.

It should not be surprising that spending a lot of time with anyone in any setting can turn otherwise harmless and slight acts by one into a source of acute mental irritation for the other.  If you are married or have ever been married you are intimately aware of this phenomenon.  Remarkably, the person who initially turned you on in every conceivable way may become the one who sends you into a raging fit because they don’t close the cap on a shampoo bottle.

Social networks like Facebook are really just virtual extensions of the old-fashioned reality (“OFR”), therefore some issues in the OFR become issues in the cyber. This explains the large number of articles about “What Not To Do” on Facebook or Twitter.  Usually these articles are written by folks who have themselves become bothered by certain on-line behavior.  I suspect these articles are just about as effective at getting folks to stop posting about bowel movements as they are in getting people in the OFR to close the toilet lid.

What these “What Not To Do” articles really say about the authors and sympathizers is that they are helpless, lazy sacks of water and carbon.

While it can be a challenge to manage OFR friends, family and lovers, it’s a cinch on social networks.  On Facebook, stop complaining about your high school friend’s constant quips about their romantic relationship by taking control of your own emotional reaction or by simply blocking their updates — it just takes one mouse click.  This will likely preserve your on-line relationship and OFR friendship.

The one thing not to do on Facebook is tell people what not to do on Facebook.

Each of us use social networks in different ways.  Attempting to create a virtual world that suits your specific needs by demanding that others behave in a certain way is silly. Don’t be silly, take control.

The more clever of you will have already recognized the meta-irony herein.  For you, I recommend not reading this article.

I wrote my first, brief entry here about ten months ago with a plan to simply share articles that I found interesting and to comment briefly on them. Occasionally I did write some longer pieces which were mostly original content, but these have been rare.

Last night I started a Tumblr and experienced an epiphany; I need to write more from personal experience, not from content I find on the web.  While I will now let that Tumblr page die, I will generally and loosely incorporate its theme here.

An unchronological diary of personal photos and thoughts without any URLs or content aided by web search.

This realization has been emerging for several weeks but I was pushed to action by Louis Gray’s excellent write-up today, Growing Grumblings on Tech News Don’t Address Incentives.

One of the easiest things for tech blogs to do is repeat updates from the official blogs of interesting companies, add a few internal links to previous coverage they have done on that topic, add a paragraph or two of analysis, and hit the post button.

It’s not just tech blogs that do this, you’ll find this practice across many blog genres.  I’ve done it many times as well even though I’ve tried to offer sincere analysis and a thoughtful perspective on the items I’ve referenced.

The Starnes is now starnes.com and this site’s transformation began with the previous entry, Childhood Memories Of A Nudist Beach.

I will still cover some of my favorite subjects like space, physics, tech and the future of everything, but will also share some of the things I have learned over my brief forty-three years.  If I do it right, each post will offer something meaningful and maybe something you’ve never considered before.

Scripps Pier, La Jolla, California. 12.16.2009

When I was seven, my Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa and I walked under this pier headed for Black’s Beach. It was my first visit to a nudist beach. Low tide is the only time to get to Black’s by way of the beach from La Jolla Shores.

Over boulders, we made it, my Dad with a film camera hidden under a towel. While I didn’t show it, I was quite excited to be visiting such a beach. As expected, there were naked people of all shapes and ages. My opinion of humans changed that day, and it was good.

Unfortunately, when I returned home to Texas and waited in great anticipation for about two weeks for the film to be developed, almost all of the footage of naked folks had been removed by the film processor. This was a great let down.

The first television broadcast departed from Earth in 1928.  This and later broadcasts have spread out at the speed of light into space.

The graphic above shows the relationship of these broadcasts to known stars in our local neighborhood.  Should intelligent life exist around any of these stars, this life may have already received and continue to receive streams of our TV programming.

Our broadcast content may explain their silence.

Graphic via Abstruse Goose » Electromagnetic Leak.

If 90%, or 33,535 deaths, of the number of 2008 US highway deaths could be eliminated only if 100% of all drivers participated in a computerized smart highway, smart car program, but 3,728 deaths, or the remaining 10%, would result from random computer errors, would you participate in such a program?

Data visualization of McDonalds' locations in the US.

So, I set out to determine the farthest point from a Micky Dee’s – in the lower 48 states, at least. This endeavor required information, and the nice folks at AggData were kind enough to provide it to me: a complete list of all 13,000-or-so U.S. restaurants, in CSV format, geolocated for maximum convenience. From there, a bit of software engineering gymnastics, and…

via Where The Buffalo Roamed « Weather Sealed.

This picture is certainly deep with meaning through many levels.  According to the research, the farthest point from a McDonald’s by car in the US is 145 miles.  Click the picture above for a larger version.

Last year’s winners included bacteria that could produce electricity, e.coli that could hunt and kill other pathogens, and yeast that could give beer high levels of resveratrol.

Synthetic biology has been called the science of the 21st century. Rewriting the genetic information of micro organisms can allow scientists to create new genetic machines that can perform extraordinary tasks. You remember MIT’s Registry of Standard Biological Parts we discussed? iGEM teams are given access to that database in order to come up with useful, interesting, or just plain cool genetic machines for the competition. MIT is allowing these undergraduates access to some of the most advanced synthetic biology tools of today in the hopes of developing students into the best genetic engineers of tomorrow. That’s exciting stuff.

via iGEM 2009: Synthetic Biology Competition Bigger than Ever this Halloween | Singularity Hub.

Nothing like a good, old-fashioned synthetic biology fair. It probably won’t be too long until a synthetic life competition transpires in a similar, festive atmosphere.

I bought the app for $2.99 at the now inappropriately named iTunes Store [iTunes link to Best Camera app].

Here is the first example of a Best Camera app enhanced photo – a box of King Crow cantaloupes.

King Crow Cantaloupes Box, Von's Market

Obviously the original source image is on the left and the Best Camera filtered image is on the right.  Best Camera has twelve different filters which are displayed as circular icons which resemble lens openings.  The icons are not labeled, but most are fairly easily recognized for what each respectively does, i.e. a warming filter is yellowish, cooling filter is blue, lightening filter is white and darkening filter is black. Multiple filters can used on the same image and the same filter can be layered onto an image. The Jewel, Paris, Slate and Candy filters require some testing to see how they affect the image.

The King Crow image has two layers of vignetting and the Candy filter, which adds saturation.

Here is the second example of a Best Camera app enhanced photo – boxes of It’s-It ice cream sandwiches on the frozen desserts aisle.

It's-It ice cream sandwich boxes, Von's Market

This shows the single mode cropping of Best Camera. Cropping can not be done more than once and this function simply transforms a rectangular image to a square image – one can’t select a specific area to crop.  I also applied vignetting as I tend to go for a Holga look whenever I shoot with the iPhone.  Since the iPhone 3G has a 2MP sensor, it seems easier to make toy camera quality pictures, based on the source image.

This is certainly not a comprehensive or critical review of the Best Camera app and the images above have been compressed significantly for the web, but I like this app a lot.  It provides for almost endless tweaking using the twelve filters which can be layered and/or combined.

So far, CameraBag remains my favorite iPhone camera app for its simplicity and results. One just picks one of several filter themes and applies – different filters can be combined, as well.

Next, I’ll write up a quick review of CameraBag and share some of the images I have made with it.  I can see Best Camera as a post CameraBag tool to do the finer detail work which CameraBag just can’t do.

Storefront signage in Carmel Valley, CA

Back when I was a kid we called them shoes.

Just saw this upon starting up TweetDeck this morning.  Looks like some folks are getting a virus which then sends out DMs saying “rofl this you on here?” regarding an alleged funny video featuring the recipient.  The link leads to a spoofed Twitter site where unknowing folks may enter their Twitter credentials and where the instigators can then gain access to more Twitter accounts and perpetuate the ploy.

If you get such a DM, don’t enter your Twitter log-in data on the spoofed site! If you’ve already done so, try to change your Twitter password as soon as possible.

This one almost got me, and I am typically wary of such things.

Google results for the spoofed Twitter page address, http://videos.twitter.secure-logins01.com/,  are growing quickly.

Best Camera [iTunes link] is a collaboration between professional photographer Chase Jarvis and iPhone dev firm Übermind. The app gets its name from Jarvis’s book “The Best Camera is The One That’s With You,” a collection of photos taken all over the world by Jarvis with his iPhone.

The US$2.99 app features 14 useful filters and effects that can be stacked; in other words, you can take a photo with the iPhone camera, then apply several filters and/or effects before sharing your handiwork. The filters and effects are on a side-scrolling “dock” at the bottom of the screen, and you apply them by simply tapping on the icons. Sharing includes saving the photo on your iPhone camera roll, sending it out via email, or blasting it to your Facebook or Twitter account.

via TUAW First Look: Best Camera App for iPhone.

I am a sucker for a new iPhone photography app – currently using NightCamera, CameraBag (my favorite), ArtCamera and TiltShift.

I’m downloading this one now and will report back here with my thoughts in a couple of days.

Image by Jimmy Westlake

Every now and again, biologists turn up a bonanza of new species deep in the ocean or in remote corners of the Earth. But astronomers usually have to make do with a trickle of new discoveries, spotting a rare supernova here or a couple of backwards planets there.

Now, researchers in Canada report finding an incredible 62 new meteor showers, displays of ’shooting stars’ that recur every year when Earth passes through the trail of debris left behind by a comet or asteroid.

via Found: 62 meteor showers new to science – space – 23 September 2009 – New Scientist.

Quite a find and a testament to how little we know about our own local space neighborhood.

Parents say that honesty is the best policy, but they regularly lie to their children as a way of influencing their behaviour and emotions, finds new research from the University of Toronto and the University of California, San Diego.

via sciencedaily.com

This may be another case of a study reflecting the obvious nature of humans. When I was a kid, a popular myth was that eating raw cookie dough somehow caused worms. It seems like it would have been sufficient for parents to simply explain basic nutrition and the empty calories of such foodstuffs, and then allow an occasional cookie dough treat.

I make an effort to not use such methods in the raising of my child, but it is tempting to create a frightening tale to engineer the desired behavior. But, if some behavior is bad or unhealthy, the best method, in my opinion, is to explain the obvious and maintain the trust between parent and child.

Cassini Equinox Mission: A Feast for the Eyes.

Click the above link for a most impressive multimedia presentation of images from Cassini’s five year tour of the Saturn system.  Thanks to the folks at JPL!

JPL on Facebook just stated, regarding these images:

One-way speed-of-light time from Saturn to Earth during orbital tour ranges from 67 to 85 minutes.

I first found this video in my Facebook feed and shared it with my group there. One of my friends commented, “Worlds within worlds . . . the things that are in front of us all the time,” which I found thoughtful and deep. I hope you enjoy this, too.

It might not seem like somebody with such ostentatious tastes would crave privacy, but along with these expensive toys, Ambramovich has installed an anti-paparazzi “shield”. Lasers sweep the surroundings and when they detect a CCD, they fire a bolt of light right at the camera to obliterate any photograph. According to the Times, these don’t run all the time, so friends and guests should still be able to grab snaps. Instead, they will be activated when guards spot the scourge of professional photography, paparazzi, loitering nearby.

via wired.com

Click through to Wired to see a brief discussion on the likely legal issues regarding shooting lasers at people’s cameras. It would certainly be a problem in the US, but perhaps not so much in Russia if you’re Roman Abramovich.

But, the initial focus of KAMR was too narrow.  I discovered that I was sharing much more music info, beyond just live video performances, at FriendFeed, Facebook and Twitter, which really belonged here, first.

So, starting now, KAMR will feature not only excellent live performances on video, but video debuts, audio tracks, music news and concert information from some of the best alternative bands and performers anywhere.

If you like what you see and hear, you may subscribe to a once daily email which you will only receive when new content is added at KAMR.

Also, you may contact me if you there’s something special you’d like to see or hear at KAMR.

Thanks for listening.

Posted via web from Kurt’s Alt Music Repository

TRIBUTES were paid today to Echo and the Bunnymen keyboard player Jake Brockman who died in a motorcycle accident on the Isle of Man.

Mr Brockman, 53, joined the cult Liverpool band as a full-time member in 1989 after touring with them during the 80s and playing on their 1987 Echo and the Bunnymen album.

I send my deepest sympathy and condolences to Jake Brockman’s family and friends.

Echo And The Bunnymen’s upcoming album The Fountain features Brockman’s work and the single, Think I Need It Too, can be heard in its entirety at The Bunnymen’s MySpace page.

Echo And The Bunnymen’s Official Site.
Follow Echo And The Bunnymen on Twitter.

via Liverpool Daily Post.co.uk

• BBC Story on Brockman’s death.

Lyrics below Brockman’s photo from The Game, a track from Echo And The Bunnymen’s eponymous album released in 1987.

Cryptic Terrain Type B

Russell Crater Dunes

Seasonal Haloes and Fractal Patterns

Richardson Crater

South Pole Residual Cap Monitoring and Change Detection

Above are a few images I selected from the full collection of 1512 stunning images gathered by the MRO, released on September 2, 2009.  Click on the images above to see telemetric and other data as well as additional images from which the respective posted image was derived.

Credit for all the above images goes to NASA, JPL and the University of Arizona.

The bottom image looks inspired by Keith Haring.

via HiRISE | PDS Release: September 2009.

Here is a fascinating interview with the late Michael Talbot, who died of leukemia in 1992 shortly after this video was made.

While I remain skeptical regarding a potential relationship of paranormal phenomena and mysticism with quantum mechanics, Talbot’s ideas are certainly thought provoking and his book, The Holographic Universe, is on my reading list.

via Michael Talbot – The Holographic Universe (Thinking Allowed).

Film and Music by James Hedberg Produced by the WOW Lab, McGill University.

via The Awesome Levitating Train | Cargo GSA NETWORK.

I’ve been using Reynolds aluminum foil since I was old enough to open a kitchen drawer and for as many years I have dealt with the loose, sometimes unwieldy roll.  Tonight at home, my dear Mom solved that problem by pointing out push-in tabs on the ends of a box of Reynolds foil.  Apparently this properly labeled feature has existed for several decades.

Based on the feedback I have received tonight from my social network friends, this attribute was previously lost on many other folks as well.

Sometimes the little things do make the difference.

The Mad Revisionist lays out the case against the existence of the Moon.

This is no lie. Until recently, I, too, believed in the traditional, establishment view of the moon. But any thinking person, untainted by the biases imposed on us by the controlled media, will have no choice but to reach the conclusion I did once faced with the facts described in this account.

Excerpt:

But don’t all qualified scientists and astronomers agree that there is a moon? Indeed, but shouldn’t one be suspicious of such unanimity, when universities are supposed to be forums for open debate of controversial issues. Even a layperson like myself knows that scientists are not supposed to approach issues with preconceived notions. Yet this principle is cast aside when the moon is at stake. You will never see the revisionist perspective on the moon being taught in institutions of higher learning, even as a controversial opposing view. In fact, in order to even become a recognized scientist in the current atmosphere of academic repression, one must pay lip service to the establishment’s orthodoxy. Could you imagine a student who argued the revisionist viewpoint on the question of the moon being awarded a degree? He would be hounded out of the university in an instant! How can one explain such behavior from institutions that are supposed to serve as forums for the free exchange of ideas, except to conclude that the establishment has something to hide?

via The Mad Revisionist.

Bob Dylan has confirmed the release of a charity Christmas album to be released this October.

‘Christmas In The Heart’ features covers including ‘Winter Wonderland’, and is released on October 12. Dylan is donating all of his royalties from the album to charities including Feeding America.

Other songs featured include ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’, ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and ‘Must Be Santa’.

Well, this will be something to hear.  Sounds like a worthy cause and if Dylan singing ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ doesn’t put a smile on your face, you’re not human.

via Bob Dylan confirms charity Christmas album | News | NME.COM.

Posterous is a good example of what the so-called Web 2.0 is about.  It meshes with networks like Facebook and Twitter and one’s activity can easily be fed into one’s FriendFeed stream. To launch your own Posterous page, just send an email to Posterous. Go ahead, start your own blog now.

The videos at Kurt’s Music Video Repository represent what I think are the best live performances of some of the finest alternative bands, from the late ’70s to today.

Check it out.  I hope you enjoy the music.

If the above scenario occurs, then all of the standard rules of good and proper blogging apply for achieving fame in 3009. Construct good headlines, build and promote your personal brand and site, manage your presence and info-flow across social networks, befriend those who might like and plug your writing, and even work on creating compelling content.

But, what if your country is hit with a superconducting E-bomb or a world-wide neo-luddite revolution leaves the burned-out hulks of servers strewn across the landscape – a destruction of the Library of Alexandria type event?  What if the data is lost?

Assuming a doomsday or near-doomsday scenario, here’s how a blogger in 2009 can achieve fame, or at least be remembered in 3009.

First, distribute your writings, comments and anything created by you as far and widely as possible.  Back-up your blog in the data centers of many different, historically neutral countries. Back-ups should not be password protected, encrypted or compressed so that they will be more easily readable in a thousand years.

Convert your blog and all personally created content to microfiche.  Reading the microfiche will require something that can magnify the writings, but this will be much easier to do than resurrecting binary data on magnetic media if the computers are gone.  Make multiple copies of the microfiched content and snail mail them to friends and family – the more copies and the wider the distribution, the greater your chances of being famous in 3009, especially if all of the really famous bloggers’ electronic content is erased.

Finally, commit your best work to granite or marble slabs and distribute these slabs broadly across the planet – caves are good.  Google headstones for leads.  You may be the future’s Homer or Hesiod if the next catastrophe wipes out all the machines and your content is etched in stone.

Being remembered or even historically famous in 3009 may be more about your blog surviving than about your blog being good.

In a world where text communications are scrutinized and corrected by machines, it has become refreshing for me to find signs of humanity in imperfect writings. The products of high technology will increasingly intercept and erase these soon to be archaic signs of biological fallibility.

Perhaps the future world of sterile, computer-perfected missives might be improved by error-algorithms? Such scripts would need to be moderately sophisticated not to make too many mistakes or absurd misspellings. Letting by an occasional your for you’re or misuse of lay and lie might suffice to add a human flavor to a machine-corrected writing. This technique may already be employed in any one of the many Turing Test bots.

Current programs seem particularly clumsy with usage rules and I am not even aware of a program that tries to correct style errors – machine language translation can be funny. As computers start to get these things right, I suspect I will miss the charm of the vintage machines, too.

Update 07.23.2009: Xiomara Z. Mujer has translated this blog post to Spanish and posted the translation here – special thanks to Xiomara!

kurtstarnes on 12seconds.tv

• New machine gets the most out of gemstones – via EurekAlert!
  June 26, 2009
  Via: EurekAlert! – Breaking News
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “”We were astounded when our customer, Markus Wild, approached us and we were not at all certain whether mathematics could offer a solution for the very complex problem of volume optimization of gemstones,” says Dr. Anton Winterfeld from the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM. Jointly with his colleague Dr. Peter Klein, he will receive one of the 2009 Joseph von Fraunhofer prizes for the development of GemOpt, a new industrial process for the volume-optimized utilization of colored gemstones.”

• Huge Underground Chamber Found–Early Christian Refuge? – via American Scientist
  June 26, 2009
  Via: American Scientist Online
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “The largest human-made cave in Israel, the 1-acre space is thought to have begun as a quarry. In subsequent centuries it may have served as a monastery, hideout for persecuted Christians, or Roman army base, experts say.”

From the Rolling Stone:

Exactly 15 years ago today Weezer released their supremely goofy debut single “Undone – The Sweater Song,” off their self-titled disc fans call the Blue Album. Produced by Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, the tune got loads of MTV airplay with a bizarre Spike Jones-directed video featuring the band playing the song in slow motion while a pack of dogs run amok. Along with Green Day (whose major-label debut Dookie came out three months earlier), Weezer would become one of the biggest bands of 1994. Later in the year Rolling Stone caught up with the quartet for a piece in which Rivers Cuomo says, “I don’t think what I do is original at all.”

I made a small error in this video – did you catch it?

• Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to do rare solo perfromance at U.K. Latitude festival – via NME.COM.

• Wow! Bees Kill Three Dogs In Spring Valley, San Diego – video story – cbs8.com.

• These guys sound great. Wilco – “You Never Know” on Conan 6/24 via YouTube.

• Bird Migration: First ‘transmitter Godwit’ Back To West Africa In One Go – via Science Daily
  June 25, 2009
  Via: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “The bird, nicknamed Heidenskip, appears to have flown from Friesland via Spain and over the Sahara in one go. The distance, over four thousand kilometers, was covered by the bird in two days of nonstop flying. Her average speed was nearly eighty kilometers per hour.”

• Tim Finn is 57 today – that floored me. Happy Birthday! Here’s Persuasion live via YouTube.

From The New York Times archives:

For instance, one serviceman who crashed in a test balloon 10 miles northwest of Roswell suffered an injury that caused his head to swell and resemble the bulbous cranium of the classic science-fiction alien, the report says. This secretive 1959 mishap, it adds, apparently led decades later to tales of a crashed extraterrestrial that walked under its own power into a military hospital.

So, too, dummies were routinely dropped from balloons to test parachutes and were sometimes lost in the desert and disfigured in suggestive ways, their hands often missing a finger. A distinguishing characteristic of the aliens supposedly sighted near Roswell, the report notes, is four fingers.

• Song from Pavement’s Scott Kannberg aka Spiral Stairs new album due October 20 “Maltese Terrier” MP3 via Pitchfork

• Elvis Costello live on Conan/Tonight Show last night performing “Sulphur to Sugercane” – via YouTube.

• We are the robots – via Cosmos
  June 24, 2009
  Via: COSMOS magazine – Features
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “My own view is that things will unfold very differently. I do not claim that any specific assumption or extrapolation of theirs is faulty. Rather, I argue that an artificial intelligence could evolve in a much different way. In particular, I don’t think there is going to be one single sudden technological ‘big bang’ that springs an AGI into life. Starting with the mildly intelligent systems we have today, machines will become gradually more intelligent, generation-by-generation. The singularity will be a period, not an event.”

• Richard Marx (!) attacks RIAA after $1.92M Thomas verdict – via ArsTech
  June 24, 2009
  Via: Ars Technica – All Ars Technica Content
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “. . . Richard Marx this week has partially redeemed himself for the album’s [Paid Vacation] creation (and for the $11 I must have spent on it back in high school). Marx issued a strong statement against the “greedy actions of the major labels” after hearing about the $1.92 million Jammie Thomas-Rasset verdict.”

• Vatican’s Celestial Eye, Seeking Not Angels but Data
  June 24, 2009
  Via: American Scientist Online
  Kurt’s Notes: I thought the Catholic Church deserved equal time after my OTDIH video re their mistreatment of Galileo 300+ years ago. Can’t forget that they accept evolution, too!

• NASA Moon Impactor Successfully Completes Lunar Maneuver – via Science Daily
  June 24, 2009
  Via: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “LCROSS and the Centaur separately will collide with the moon at approximately 7:30 a.m. EDT on Oct. 9, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are targeted to impact the moon’s south pole near the Cabeus region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and observatories on Earth.”

• Dinosaur Jr announces fall tour – via NME
  June 24, 2009
  Via: NME.COM – News
  Kurt’s Notes: November 6 at Solana Beach’s Belly Up Tavern – great place.

• Rolling Stone Tour Tracker: Elvis Costello, Slipknot and Arctic Monkeys
  June 24, 2009
  Via: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily
  Kurt’s Notes: Elvis Costello in Austin on my birthday, September 1 – have to figure out a way to see that show!

• Wow! Plant communication: Sagebrush engage in self-recognition and warn of danger – via EurekAlert!
  June 23, 2009
  Via: EurekAlert! – Breaking News
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “The sagebrush communicated and cooperated with other branches of themselves to avoid being eaten by grasshoppers, Karban said. Although the research is in its early stages, the scientists suspect that the plants warn their own kind of impending danger by emitting volatile cues. This may involve secreting chemicals that deter herbivores or make the plant less profitable for herbivores to eat, he said.”

• Brain represents tools as temporary body parts, study confirms – via EurekAlert!
  June 23, 2009
  Via: EurekAlert! – Breaking News
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “Researchers have what they say is the first direct proof of a very old idea: that when we use a tool — even for just a few minutes — it changes the way our brain represents the size of our body. In other words, the tool becomes a part of what is known in psychology as our body schema, according to a report published in the June 23 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.”

• Dad’s early connection with child ‘writes script’ for later school involvement – via EurekAlert!
  June 23, 2009
  Via: EurekAlert! – Breaking News
  Kurt’s Notes: Can’t argue with this: “”If we want fathers to be involved in school, we need to focus on men building close, loving relationships with their children in the preschool years. When fathers do this, they’re writing a script that says they’re involved in their child’s life, and their expectation is that they’ll go on being involved in that child’s life,” said Brent McBride, a U of I professor of human development.”

With the help of two partners, Sholes, a printer-publisher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, perfected his typewriter in 1867. After receiving his patent, Sholes licensed it to Remington & Sons, the famous gunmaker. The first commercial typewriter, the Remington Model 1, hit the shelves in 1873.

See Wired for more detail on Sholes’ history changing invention.

• Pitchfork reviews Dinosaur Jr.’s Album Farm – Gives It 8.5/10
  June 22, 2009
  Via: Pitchfork: Best New Albums
  

• Radiohead/Wilco/Marr/Finn Supergroup Benefit Album To Be Released on June 10 – Via NME.
  June 22, 2009
  Via: Pitchfork: Latest News
  
  Kurt’s Notes: Excerpt: “NME says that the album, titled The Sun Came Out, will be a double album, and it’ll feature the singing debut of Radiohead drummer Selway. And according to NME, Marr collaborated with Wilco on the song “Too Blue”. The tracklist, via NME, is below.”

The following is the first paragraph of the Papal Condemnation of Galileo handed down on June 22, 1633.

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled “On the Sunspots,” wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this divers propositions are set forth, following the position of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture . . .

From the pioneering folks at Scaled Composites:

The world witnessed the dawn of a new space age today, as investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and Scaled Composites launched the first private manned vehicle beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The successful launch demonstrated that the final frontier is now open to private enterprise.

Under the command of test pilot Mike Melvill, SpaceShipOne reached a record breaking altitude of 328,491 feet (approximately 62 miles or 100 km), making Melvill the first civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere and the first private pilot to earn astronaut wings.

Photo by Jim Hu

Only in America – privately funded SpaceShipOne is towed back to the hangar by a pick-up truck.

From Wired:

When he finally received a patent for the telegraph itself, it came first from the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid in Constantinople (now Istanbul), who personally tested it and gave it his blessing. Others, notably Englishmen Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, had patents on similar (and some say, superior) hardware, but Morse eventually triumphed in the legal battle. His adept promotion, one-wire transmission system and simple software — the Morse code — won the day.

For more on Morse, check out the Library of Congress’ exhaustive collection of images and papers from this American renaissance man.

Regarding Alexander Graham Bell, from Virgin Media:

June 20, 1877: Alexander Graham Bell installs the world’s first commercial telephone service in Ontario, Canada. Credit for inventing the electric telephone remains in dispute. Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis and Elisha Gray, among others, have all been credited with the invention.

The Library of Congress also offers a vast, searchable collection of information and images on Alexander Graham Bell which is certainly worth a long look.

Mrs. John B. Dodd, of Washington, first proposed the idea of a “father’s day” in 1909. Mrs. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. William Smart, a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife (Mrs. Dodd’s mother) died in childbirth with their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state. It was after Mrs. Dodd became an adult that she realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent.

The above sourced from Holidays.net.

Dr. Ride was a mission specialist on STS-7, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 18, 1983. She was accompanied by Captain Robert L. Crippen (spacecraft commander), Captain Frederick H. Hauck (pilot), and fellow mission specialists Colonel John M. Fabian and Dr. Norman E. Thagard. This was the second flight for the Orbiter Challenger and the first mission with a 5-person crew. During the mission, the STS-7 crew deployed satellites for Canada (ANIK C-2) and Indonesia (PALAPA B-1); operated the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) to perform the first deployment and retrieval exercise with the Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS-01); conducted the first formation flying of the orbiter with a free-flying satellite (SPAS-01); carried and operated the first U.S./German cooperative materials science payload (OSTA-2); and operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System (CFES) and the Monodisperse Latex Reactor (MLR) experiments, in addition to activating seven Getaway Specials. Mission duration was 147 hours before landing on a lakebed runway at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on June 24, 1983.

The above from Dr. Sally K. Ride’s official bio at NASA.gov.

The last member of the rarest species known to us. He became blind in one eye, became old for a sparrow, and yet he persisted as if he knew his sole task was to sustain the bloodline as long as possible. I wondered if he felt sorrow or excruciating panic at the thought of his oneness. On June 18, 1987, a Washington Post headline said “Goodby Dusky Seaside Sparrow.” Orange Band, blind in one eye, old and alone, was gone.

The above is excerpted from an article titled “My Name is Orange Band” written by Robert J. Waller, and found at Earth Witness Community.

The below citation comes from The Monthly Weather Review and was originally found at andthensome.com.

For thirteen minutes, commencing at 2:45 p.m., the largest and most destructive hailstones fell that were ever seen at this place. The hailstones measured from one to seventeen inches in circumference, the largest weighing one pound twelve ounces [794 grams]. Washington park was literally covered with hailstones as large as lemons, and large basketballs could be gathered in a few minutes. They exhibited diverse and peculiar formations, some being covered with knobs and icicles half an inch in length; others were surrounded by rings of different colored ice with gravel and blades of grass imbedded in them. The foreman of the Novelty Iron Works, of this city, states that in two large hailstones, melted by him, were found small living frogs. A number of persons were severely cut and bruised by the falling hailstones. The damage inflicted is estimated at $5,000 [1882 dollars]. One florist lost 2,387 panes of glass. Hundreds of windows of south and west exposure were broken, including twenty windows of heavy French glass. Railroad men report that hail fell at 2 p.m. at McGregor, forty miles to the northwest. No hail fell on the eastern side of the Mississippi [river], or at Julien, six miles west of this city.

See page fourteen, left column, from this PDF document from The Monthly Weather Review, June, 1882 for the actual hail report quoted above.

Regarding The Monthly Weather Review:

The Monthly weather review first began publication in July 1872. It was issued by the Office of the Chief Signal Officer from 1872 until 1891. In 1891 the duties of the Signal Office transferred to the new Weather Bureau where the Review was published until June 1966. From Aug. 1966-Oct. 1970, it was published by the United States Environmental Science Services Administration. When the Bureau became part of the newly-formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Review was published by NOAA until the end of 1973. In 1974 publication was turned over to the American Meteorological Society which continues publishing it as a subscription.

From the IBM archives:

Incorporation of C-T-R, which had acquired Computing Scale Company of America, The Tabulating Machine Company, International Time Recording Company of New York, and the Bundy Manufacturing Company. Only the first three businesses were represented in the C-T-R name. There were also a number of other companies formed after 1889 which had been acquired by the various C-T-R units prior to 1911.

I originally sourced June 15, 1911 as the date of incorporation from Wikipedia and various other web sites, but have since discovered this information is likely wrong. IBM says the actual date is June 16. IBM again states the June 16 date on page twenty-eight of this PDF document. I’ll go with IBM. I regret this error.

The Archer family got a shock when a meteorite hit their home in Elleslie [sic], Auckland, at 9.30 am on 12 June 2004. The meteorite punched a hole through the roof and bounced around the living room before coming to rest.

The above sourced from The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, where you will also find a video interview of Brenda Archer.

Ross placed Sir Barton in the hands of trainer H. Guy Bedwell and jockey Johnny Loftus. At three, he made his season debut as a maiden in the Kentucky Derby. He was supposed to be the rabbit for his highly regarded stablemate, a horse named Billy Kelly. (A rabbit is a speed horse set up to wear out the rest of the field, thereby allowing another horse to win.) However, it was Sir Barton who led the field of 12 horses from start to finish, winning the race by five lengths. Just four days later, the horse was in Baltimore and won the Preakness Stakes, beating Eternal. Again he led all the way. He then won the Withers Stakes in New York and shortly thereafter completed the first Triple Crown in U.S. history by easily winning the Belmont Stakes, setting an American record for the mile and three-eighths race, the distance for the Belmont at the time. Amazingly, Sir Barton’s four wins were accomplished in a space of just 32 days. He was voted the 1919 Horse of the Year, American racing’s highest honor.

The above excerpt sourced from Wikipedia.