Friday, 22 January 2010



The Guardian Launches Search Engine for Government Data



The Guardian, ostensibly a UK newspaper, but also a major proponent for opening data held by governments to use by outside software developers, has launched some software of its own: a search engine that unearths datasets and pathways to data sets provided by governments around the world. World Government Data Search is now live. Yesterday the UK government released its new data site, data.gov.uk, to rave reviews (including ours). The new Guardian search engine searches across the UK, US, New Zealand and Australian governments' data sites. The company also offered up a gallery of the 10 best visualizations and mash-ups built on top of government data like this.
The Guardian quotes developer Ben Fry on the future of searching government data: "This is only going one way: there is no trend towards less data."
Following an era when the quantity of data available online increased in orders of magnitude, thanks largely to easy publishing tools for end-users like blogging and social networks, many people expect the next era of development online to focus on strategic moves to make the most valuable data available in standardized formats that facilitate innovation by 3rd parties independent of the original sources of the data.
If large, standardized data sets are a new language, then it's time for a new period of literature to be written.
 
Talking of (suppressed) government reports, read this and weep

Massive Attack - Live With Me

The Twilight Singers - Live With Me/Where Did You Sleep Laast Night?



Multi talented that girl Grey - fluent Deutsch too LOL!

Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street [Tommie Sunshine & Figure Brooklyn Fire Edit]

    

KIng Britt

Intricate Beauty is the final “conventional” dance album King Britt will ever make. And how fitting this final chapter also marks King’s first ever release on seminal house music label Nervous Records. This is the seal of quality.  Don’t worry, though, King Britt’s not going anywhere as an artist. He’ll be concentrating on more experimental based music and searching for new avenues to help push the live electronic improvisational end of performance. But for now, you have a real treat to behold with the Intricate Beauty. Eleven tracks of soulful rhythms constructed and mixed together like a grand jigsaw puzzle. Quintessential King.
 
Intricate Beauty pulls together the different sounds that have helped shape King’s dance DJ mind over the years. This is the story of what he loves to spin and how it all relates. In a sense, this is all the greatness of King Britt wrapped up under one disc. Like a physical incarnation of the intricate mind, the process of how this album was constructed is quite advanced. King based the album on tiny microsounds he procured from various random recordings and CDs. He then took all these tiny pieces and dumped them into Ableton Live where he sewed the puzzle pieces together. Once there were approximately 50 workable combinations of tracks he then constructed the songs musically. “In a few months I intend to release all the bits and pieces from Intricate Beauty as a “Live Pack.”  These will be sounds that people can use for inspiration and production,” King says
 
Beyond the album, this is a period of great change for King Britt. Not only is he working in a new studio but he’s also cleansed spiritually; something that has also enabled him to enter into a new creative space with his newest venture Saturn Never Sleeps with multimedia artist Rucyl (www.saturnneversleeps.com/about) “When you find your path and stick with it, you’re bound to hit a pentacle period of productivity.  I feel that in the next three years you’ll really see and hear many sides of me musically.  Mentally, physically and spiritually I have grown multitudes and have a very clear understanding of who I am and what I’m here for. Many of the lyrics on the album express some of these ideas.”  
 
It’s been 20 years on the music scene for King Britt and his projects, collaborations and affiliations are always truly mind-blowing. From his time as Silkworm in the groundbreaking, Grammy winning Digable Planets, to starting Ovum Recordings with Josh Wink, producing platinum remixes for Macy Gray, Solange, Donna Lewis and hundreds of others, winning the highest grant in the country as the first dj/producer, The Pew Fellowship or starting his empire, FiveSixMedia, King Britt still tries to live in the NOW and not the then. 

Haiti - Graphic images

The Tote Doco - sneak preview

God - My Pal


One of the best singles EVER!!!

Written and performed when they were what...16?
Coming soon:
And if you only buy one record this year, make it this one!
Track listing for GOD reissue - 2CD - 40 tracks
Here is the finalised track listing for the forthcoming GOD reissue:

DISC 1

FOR LOVERS ONLY LP
1. Gunk
2. Headin' For The Id
3. Golly Wolly Golly Wolly Hoo Hoo Ha
4. Sook
5. Snake Charmer
6. Talkin' Rude On The Telephone
7. Blistered Mind
8. She's Hungry
9. Half-Ass
10. Bone Dry
11. The Day They Buried Hemensley
12. Dominatrix
13. Life's So Hard
14. Love You To Death

MY PAL 7"
15. My Pal
16. A Man Without A Woman Is Like A Nun Without A Jackhammer

ROCK IS HELL Mini-LP
17. Rockin' Marky
18. Human Abbreviation
19. Magic Crayfus
20. Meat Cleaver Boy
21. Chockablock Rock 'n' Roll (unabridged version)
22. Rok Zombi
23. Wormsweat
24. Tommy The Toilet

DISC 2

COVERS
1. Real Cool Time (Stooges)
2. Strutter (Kiss)

LIVE (GOD's Final Show 30/9/1989)
3. Gunk
4. Headin' For The Id
5. The Day They Buried Hemensley
6. Rok Zombi
7. Talkin' Rude On The Telephone
8. Blistered Mind
9. She's Hungry
10. Half-Ass
11. My Pal
12. Meat Cleaver Boy
13. Human Abbreviation
14. Snake Charmer
15. Chockablock Rock 'n' Roll
16. Love You To Death

The Drones vs Joel Silbersher - My Pal


Last drinks at the Tote 

WTF? Rush Limbaugh says:

"There are a lot of people, when you say banker, people think Jewish. ... People who have a little prejudice about them. ... To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there."

Chris Carter's Gristleism mod blog




Hope I don't ruin your Australia day listening


Don't click to enlarge if you don't want to know 2010's Hottest100 #1!

Bill Hicks said

"A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here’s what you can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defence each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, for ever, in peace."