From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V8 #127 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Wednesday, July 22 2009 Volume 08 : Number 127 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) [Dave Walker ] Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) [Markwstaples@aol.com] [loud-fans] Tris McCall has 25 favorite albums.... [JRT456@aol.com] [loud-fans] the cultural imperialist muses [Markwstaples@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) [Jenny Grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) On Jul 20, 2009, at 7:35 PM, Markwstaples@aol.com wrote: > I'm not saying we didn't go. I'm just saying it sure does give the > conspiracy theorists fuel for their fires. The only necessary response to moon landing conspiracy theorists: If there had been a coverup, somewhere around 400,000 people would have had to been involved. -d.w. who was lucky enough to do some work at NASA Goddard a couple of years ago, and can completely understand why Buzz Aldrin punched that idiot a few years back. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:46:31 -0400 From: Dave Walker Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) On Jul 20, 2009, at 4:46 PM, Andrew Hamlin wrote: > Memo to Mr. Walker: the band in question takes their name from a > Colorado area code. So the next question is whether they do in fact suck more or less than 311... Wish I could credit this one, but years ago some brilliant person came up with the "place name / band name" theory, to wit: Bands named after places are always terrible. The bigger the place, the worse the band. e.g. Boston was horrible, but Europe and (especially) Asia were much, much worse. > Took me a while to figure "acieeeed" is not related to "hayseed" > (morning glory seeds maybe), Anyone eMusic peeps who are mystified about "proper" 303 acid should grab the title track of this: http://www.emusic.com/album/Underground-Resistance-Final-Frontier-MP3-Download/10995742.html or track 6 from this: http://www.emusic.com/album/Hardfloor-TB-Resucitation-MP3-Download/10909767.html -d.w. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:39:35 -0700 From: "Brian Block" Subject: [loud-fans] Re: moon landings >The only necessary response to moon landing conspiracy theorists: >If there had been a coverup, somewhere around 400,000 people would >have had to been involved. No, because true conspiracy theorists don't find that a problem. My response of choice is that, if the moon landing was a fake, we'd've had Mars landings by now too (stages aren't that hard to build).

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http://www.Care2.com Green Living, Human Rights and more - 8 million members! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:47:39 EDT From: Markwstaples@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) In a message dated 7/21/2009 6:53:12 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, dwalker@freeke.org writes: - -d.w. who was lucky enough to do some work at NASA Goddard a couple of years ago, and can completely understand why Buzz Aldrin punched that idiot a few years back. I just love the name "Buzz Aldrin." It conjures up images of homes you'd see in Atomic Ranch magazine , guys with flattops and shot sleeved permanent press dress shirts smoking unfiltered Camels, huge cars with no safety features and no emissions controls and women with enough Final Net in their bouffants to make Michael Jackson's flaming Jheri curls in that '84 Pepsi commercial look like a candle. - --Mark, more convinced we went to the moon thanks to studing the contents from Andy's link--it's just hard to conceive us able to do such a feat with the computing power of a Commodore 64 and the communications sophisticaion of a rotary dial phone **************What's for dinner tonight? Find quick and easy dinner ideas for any occasion. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?ncid=emlcntusfood00000008) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:15:47 EDT From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Tris McCall has 25 favorite albums.... ...and he writes about them at the URL below in typically interesting fashion (including the selections that are just clearly wrong): http://tinyurl.com/m69prw ************** What's for dinner tonight? Find quick and easy dinner ideas for any occasion. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?ncid=emlcntusfood00000009) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:15:37 EDT From: Markwstaples@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] the cultural imperialist muses Having my coffee earlier, it occurred to me how imperialistic I've been about making judgements with 2009 values and perspective about decisions made in another time with different values. As much as it makes my intestines twist thinking about NASA reusing tapes of the fricking most important event since the first atomic bomb blast, or the BBC almost wiping Monty Python (OMG) I didn't work at NASA in 1975 (in fact, thinking about it, that's about when the Space Shuttle made its debut--a cost-saving measure for NASA, as it was a reusable craft, so it makes sense they were in thrift mode) or at the BBC during the very economically depressed 1970s Britain, when expensive videotape would be reused. In college, my work study job in the University Archives kind of instilled in me a mindset to save everything, and that simply isn't the way it was--the mores up until about 25 years ago were, it's old, throw it away (the "*uck it, chuck it" attitude that sends shivers down me spine). I simply forget that current conservation attitudes that are mainstream now were in fact pretty left wing until that time. Sorry for being such a cultural imperialist. Now back to the music. - --Mark np Au Revoir Simone STILL NIGHT, STILL LIGHT **************What's for dinner tonight? Find quick and easy dinner ideas for any occasion. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?ncid=emlcntusfood00000008) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:23:32 -0400 From: Jenny Grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) Dave Walker wrote: > If there had been a coverup, somewhere around 400,000 people would > have had to been involved. Including my dad. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:31:55 -0400 From: Jenny Grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) Markwstaples@aol.com wrote: > it's just hard to conceive us able to do such a feat with > the computing power of a Commodore 64 and the communications sophisticaion > of a rotary dial phone > Just remember, Mark, it was smart people doing math, working hard, engineering complex things that gave us PCs and home phones to start with, not the other way around. Spiffy computers make things faster and easier, especially for us regular Joes and Janes, but it's people who really figure things out. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:36:48 -0400 From: outbound-only email address Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half moon Mark wrote: > it's just hard to conceive us able to do such a feat with the computing power of a Commodore 64 and the communications sophisticaion of a rotary dial phone < Perversely, in some ways it may be easier with less sophisticated equipment, because it's easier to get all the bugs out of a simpler system. I'm a huge fan of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity ... but the kinds of software issues those and other modern probes have just weren't possible in 1969. np a great version of GBV's "Atom Eyes" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:15:24 -0700 From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half moon The company I work for designed the software that runs those rovers. You're right - there were some software concerns early in the mission. Luckily, our support staff were up to the challenge. On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:36 AM, outbound-only email address wrote: > Perversely, in some ways it may be easier with less sophisticated > equipment, because it's easier to get all the bugs out of a simpler > system. I'm a huge fan of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity ... > but the kinds of software issues those and other modern probes have > just weren't possible in 1969. - -- Joe Mallon jmmallon@joescafe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:25:05 +0000 (GMT) From: Richard Blatherwick Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) Just to drag us momentarily back to terra firma, or whatever level we listen on these days, I checked my playlist and could hardly find anything from this year that I'd listened to that much. Of course this is kind of thing usually says more about lousy memory for things I've bought rather than lack of good stuff that I have. Anyway, a very brief list would go as follows; Dinosaur Jr. - Farm. These guys seem to get better as the reunion goes along. Beyond was good, Farm is better. Soon they'll be knocking on the door of You're Living All Over Me levels again. Wilco - Wilco (the album). Simply more tunes of a higher quality than they've produced for a while, maybe since Summerteeth, my personal Wilco high spot. White Lies - To Lose My Life. VERY Killers a lot of the time, but every time I listen to it I enjoy it, more so than any Killers album since Hot Fuss. The Rifles - The Great Escape. Nothing particularly complicated about this. Good guitar-driven pop/rock. Johan - 4. Not their finest hour, but still damn good. They always remind me of a cleaned-up Straitjacket Fits, or a slightly faster/ poppier Pernice Brothers. If you haven't come across these guys before I'd try Thx, their last album, first. Vids for the singles are on the usual sites. Richard np New Adventures in Hi-Fi - the last time REM were REALLY good, imho. - --- On Fri, 17/7/09, Brian Block wrote: From: Brian Block Subject: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) To: loud-fans@smoe.org Date: Friday, 17 July, 2009, 8:16 PM So this is the year my interest in keeping current took a plunge: my toddler is a precocious music geek but couldn't care less about release dates, while my baby probably loves music but it's hard to tell. But I'm still able to generate a top-ten list from '09-so-far made entirely of albums I care about. Top eleven, not yet, though the New-Wave-pop revival of Sissy Wish was awfully impressive on first hearing ... 1. Tori Amos, Abnormally Attracted to Sin (her most musically varied/adventurous album in 11 years, her most band-oriented ever) 2. Cheer-Accident, Fear Draws Misfortune (fast, heavy, angular prog-rock) 3. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca (never expected to see something this modern-composery, Wayside/Cuneiform-ish, or complexly vocal-harmonized hit it big with the Pitchfork crowd; my infant also seems quite fond of this album) 4. Camille, Music Hole (complex vocal harmonies, but jaunty and/or blusey and/or monkish and/or silly and/or sexy and/or just plain lovely) 5. Regina Spektor, Far (piano-pop; my wife and toddler guarantee it will be played more here this year than any two other new albums) 6. Amy X Neuburg, the Secret Life of Subways (cello, tuned electronic percussion, highly expressive and pitch-accurate vocals, and wryly insightful studies of relationships and of city life; likely to rank higher later) 7. Decemberists, the Hazards of Love (I didn't know I wanted them to be the world's cuddliest hard-rock band, but it's fun hearing them try) 8. Cary Judd, Goodnight Human (the synths and guitars sound very 2009 and i like that, but i'm not certain he isn't Howard Jones in disguise) 9. U2, No Line on the Horizon (split between songs where they aren't trying and songs where they're trying much too hard, but i like the latter quite a bit) 10. Five Hole Band, Tales of Hockey Erotica (the title isn't lying, and this folk/rock/poetry/whatever mashup is rather a weird destination for my favorite old Rheostatics songwriter, but it's charming)

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http://www.Care2.com Green Living, Human Rights and more - 8 million members! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:17:44 -0400 From: outbound-only email address Subject: [loud-fans] once more to the moon Joe: > The company I work for designed the software that runs those rovers. You're right - there were some software concerns early in the mission. Luckily, our support staff were up to the challenge. < Not picking on you or your company! FWIW my employer does mission-critical high-availability software. Don't think I made my point well ... guess what I really meant was that the engineering problems of the Apollo missions could be solved well by 60s-ish computing technology, and if we could have somehow had 2009 computing technology available in 1969 it would not have been purely helpful. Modern software is far more flexible, but more complex and less robust. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:46:04 -0700 From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] once more to the moon I totally understood that you were complimenting the software - just wanted to get that plug in! :) On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 1:17 PM, outbound-only email address wrote: > Not picking on you or your company! FWIW my employer does > mission-critical high-availability software. Don't think I made my > point well ... guess what I really meant was that the engineering > problems of the Apollo missions could be solved well by 60s-ish > computing technology, and if we could have somehow had 2009 computing > technology available in 1969 it would not have been purely helpful. > Modern software is far more flexible, but more complex and less > robust. > - -- Joe Mallon jmmallon@joescafe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:56:50 -0700 From: Andrew Hamlin Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re:At the half (plus etc) > Bands named after places are always terrible. > The bigger the place, the worse the band. > > e.g. Boston was horrible, but Europe and (especially) Asia were much, much > worse. Ah, but the band Earth is pretty darned good (if you like that sort of thing). And, while they're more "not for everyone" than Earth, Mars sounded interesting. So, there goes that theory. And I'm sure we all remember Black Sabbath's original name! Andy Bird Dream Of The Olympus Mons Speed leaving without warning i need some place to sleep tonight blowing in the rocking of the pine speed leaving without warning the sunlight is going into the mountain i will crawl into the mountain sun shines in the rusty morning skyline of the olympus mons i think about it sometimes sun shines in the rusty morning once i had a good fly into the mountain i will fall. - --written by Black Francis, from the Pixies' last studio album to date, TROMPE LE MONDE ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V8 #127 *******************************