Dec 312011
 

At the mentioning of Icelandic music, most music lovers will probably think either Björk or Sigur Rós. If their American album release in the spring goes well, Of Monsters and Men may potentially be added to this list. I first heard this on Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current, which is perhaps the best music radio station in the US. Their album is available in Iceland right now, but nowhere in the US. They recently signed with UMG, so expect a wide release and more albums in 2012.

May 152011
 

When Death Cab said in a Stereogum interview that their upcoming album “represents a departure of sorts for the band,” I was worried. I perhaps liked their most recent album, Narrow Stairs, the least, and to hear them speak of diverging from their earlier sound even more was disturbing news. However, with their first single out, I couldn’t be more excited for the release of their full album. It is a new sound, but still distinctively Death Cab, and very catchy. Listen: Get: CD Album Pre-order/mp3 single

Feb 022011
 

What a great day today in terms of Unix shell discoveries. Early in the morning, I bought iSSH for iPad and was blown away by how functional it was. The iPad is actually useful now besides being an overpriced e-reader. In the afternoon, someone pointed out ack to me instead of using grep. Faster search, here I come. Finally, just a few minutes ago, I discovered “cd -“, “pushd” and “popd”. No more need to set temporary aliases when I bounce back and forth between directories.

Jul 072010
 

Almost all Windows power users use the command prompt from time to time. cmd.exe can execute precision commands, browse, and filter very efficiently if used correctly. However, for Unix users, the command prompt is just plain weak, prompting many to install Cygwin. But just today, I discovered that cmd.exe has some awesome keyboard shortcuts. They have again made the daily experience of using Microsoft’s command prompt bearable again. Even interesting. Here’s a summary of my discoveries: F2: Pastes whatever is in the cmd buffer up until the character you type next, and advances the cursor there. F3: Pastes the rest of the buffer from the buffer’s cursor. F4: Deletes from the current cursor to the specified character you type next. [more . . .]

Aug 142009
 

I’m constantly annoyed with how difficult it is to schedule a meeting time with people outside of work. At a company or organization with a decent IT backbone, there’s usually Exchange or Google Apps or some other servers set up so that you can easily see other peoples’ busy/free schedules. However, outside of that company or organization, scheduling becomes a huge chore, especially if you have many people to invite. Sure, it’s possible to share busy/free information with Google Calendar, but that quickly overflows your “Other Calendars” section, and is annoying to navigate because many people tend to use the same generic calendar names–“committments,” “schedule,” “classes,” etc. There are three solutions to this that I have come to use regularly. [more . . .]

Jan 202009
 

This is an amazingly addictive video. It just shows one plain book cover after another, to a semi-computerized voice reading each title, and some semi-spooky music. It’s amazing!  If you can’t see the embedded video, the link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUgjlJ5hEbw The books “Bayesian Approach to Image Interpretation,” “Finite Commutative Rings and Their Applications,” and “Music Cognition” actually looks rather fascinating.

Jan 142009
 

A new WikiLeaks leak reveals “over 600 United Nations investigative reports, over 70 of which are classified ‘Strictly Confidential.’” These include anything from weapons trafficking, to rape of refugees by UN peacekeepers, to fraud, to corruption. See here. If you have not heard of WikiLeaks, it is a site dedicated to open information and anonymous whistleblowing. Hence, it serves as a safe place for individuals to share sensitive information with little fear of retaliation. It is censored in many countries, and has received numerous lawsuits in many countries, and was even shut down for a short time in the United States.