31. August 2008 by admin.

In case you haven’t yet seen photos of this beautiful concept car shown by BMW in May of this year:

You can read more about it here.

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31. August 2008 by admin.

Unless you have lived in a musical cave for the last 25 years, you know that David Byrne is the co-founder of Talking Heads and one of the creators of popular World Music, and that Brian Eno is one of the great musical producers (U2, Peter Gabriel, etc.) and performers (Roxy Music, numerous solo ambient albums) and the creator of the 6 second ‘Microsoft Windows 95′ startup sound. 

Their first collaboration resulted in a brilliant early 80s albums, "My Life In the Bush of Ghosts" which was the first (or at least one of the first) albums to fuse 1st and 3rd world musical rhythms.  Paul Simon is credited with being the pioneer here, but it was really Byrne + Eno.

Well, Byrne + Eno have come out with their first new album together since "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts", and, while it’s not as innovative as this earlier album, it’s definitely worth listening to.  In particular, there’s a song "I feel my stuff" which is very good–evocative of previous collaborations between the two on late 1970s Talking Heads songs.

Anytime two artists of this caliber get together and create an album it’s worth listening to, and such is the case with this one.

By the way, the two artists are currently touring in support of this new album.

Now, all we need is for Talking Heads to re-unite–please, David, please!

You can check out a track from the album in the player below:

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31. August 2008 by admin.

In a previous post, I mentioned the documentary about the subversion of the Presidential election process.  Here is a good blog about what is/what is not being done to improve this situation for the upcoming November elections.  Here is a New York Times editorial about how long voters in Ohio had to wait (10 hours or more) to vote in the 2004 Presidential election; here is the opening paragraph:

Everyone complains that young people don’t vote, but consider the experience of students at Kenyon College in Ohio in the 2004 election. Officials in Knox County, Ohio, provided just two voting machines for the school’s 1,300 voters. Some students waited in line for 10 hours, and the last bleary-eyed voter did not cast a ballot until nearly 4 a.m.

Also, here’s a clip from ‘Uncounted’:

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31. August 2008 by admin.

French neurosurgeons used a laser to remove a cancerous brain tumor from a patient who remained fully conscious during the whole procedure, and went home the same day.  Pretty amazing stuff, and cause for hope among many people.

You can read more here.

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30. August 2008 by admin.

With the party conventions taking place, the appointment of vice presidential running mates, and political posturing, there is a lot of discussion going on.  However, none of it matters if, when election time rolls around and people try to vote, either their votes are never cast or, once cast, the votes are tampered with. 

The documentary, ‘Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections’, a film by Dave Earnhardt, which has now been released on DVD, examines how the voting process has been sabotaged in 2000 and 2004 in particular.  The sabotage manifested itself in a number of ways (and may very well do so again, come this November): insufficient number of voting machines in key Democratic precincts in various States, like Ohio; purposeful disqualification of ballots based on what is called ‘Undervoting’–something which typically occurs in 1-3% of ballots, but in 2004, supposedly occurred 40-70% in some key Democratic precincts; the use of Diebold (an overtly Republican-affiliated company that makes highly accurate ATM machines, but can’t seem to make accurate voting machines) electronic voting machines that, in 2004, exactly reversed the results of the exit polls in some key precincts/States.  It is almost uncontroversial at this point, that the electronic voting machines are easily hackable, and purposely lack paper records which would allow voters to ensure their votes were counted.

Most people I know, who saw the results of the 2004 election, scratched their heads in puzzlement over the results of the election.  Most people said or implied that it just didn’t feel right.  And, guess what? If this documentary is accurate, there’s a good reason why it didn’t feel right: Bush didn’t actually win re-election based on the vote count; he won based on fraudulent manipulation of votes.

Now ask yourself–if the principles of a representational democracy are so important to our current government, why doesn’t the government create a version of the TSA focused on honest, high-integrity election process?  Why would there ever be a lack of sufficient voting booths, precinct personnel, etc.?  People in 2004 in key Democratic precincts in Ohio were waiting as much as 12 HOURS to vote, because the precincts didn’t have sufficient electronic voting machines, or the machines were down for 2 hours or more.  Why was this allowed to happen if our government cares so much about free and fair elections? 

There is no better time to watch this documentary than now.  I commend the people who made this documentary–it is an important piece of work. See it and tell others to see it.

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10. August 2008 by admin.

If you, like me, use FasTrak, this article from the Hack a Day site should give

you pause.  Turns out that, like our new RFID U.S. passports, our FasTrak

transponders are also very easy to tap into and for even lazy hackers,

gives access to personal information, among other things.

Keep you transponder in its mylar bag when not in use, or in tinfoil…

http://www.hackaday.com/2008/08/06/black-hat-2008-fastrak-toll-system-completely-broken/

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10. August 2008 by admin.

Just in case you didn’t see this strip in the comics today, I thought I would relay it to  you. Pretty funny…

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5. August 2008 by admin.

I’m pretty happy with this image, so decided to post it.

Let me know what you think…Click on it to see bigger version…

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2. August 2008 by admin.

It’s called "Ode to Carle".  Click on the image to get a window where you can see it fully.  Let me know what you think.  Check out a gallery I recently posted

at www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk/user/eisnerdigital.  Have a great weekend…

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