http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter a mix of black and white Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:31:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Albums added in June: 13,347 RIP George Carlin Featured Selections Azure Ray, Azure Ray (11) -, Burn and Shiver (12) It's hard to pinpoint just what stands out about the darkly evocative work of Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor, especially without reference to their following album Hold On Love and its standout "The Devil's ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/07/15/emusic-picks-june/ Anything pertaining to the Guitar Hero/Rock Band duopoly garners exhaustive attention nowadays. So it's no surprise that Neversoft's major follow-up to Guitar Hero III is bigger in most every way in a bid to unseat Rock Band with its immersive group play. IGN: Guitar Hero World Tour PreviewBut under the ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/06/21/ign-guitar-hero-world-tour-preview/ I have never watched The Sopranos, and my knowledge of plot points is mostly limited to examples given in a lecture from The Sopranos and Philosophy (specifically about Tony Soprano as an ethical manager). Yet I still found this exhaustingly detailed argument about the final moments of the series finale ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/06/19/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-%e2%80%9cthe-end%e2%80%9d/ Albums added in May: 13,572 Featured Selections Aphex Twin, Classics (13) Early works by Richard D. James are more emblematic of his AFX moniker than later squelch-hop compositions as the Twin. While we wait on Warp to release those later works, this is a welcome addition to the Selected Ambient Works collection ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/06/15/emusic-picks-may/ John Timmer reports on studies from the journal Science which suggest that ineurotransmitter levels influence perceived fairness:Exploring the neurochemistry of fairnessFirst, consider the notion of innate fairness. People who participated in a experimental transaction called the Ultimatum Game (a simple 2-party example of game theory) tended to reject offers they ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/06/12/ars-technica-exploring-the-neurochemistry-of-fairness/ Remember the instant photo? Almost four months ago, Polaroid announced that they were no longer planning to make their trademark instant film, following the end-of-life status for their instant cameras last year. instant film stocks are projected to last only through 2009. They have also shut down their other film ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/06/06/polaroid-pogo/ Clay Shirky, previously featured here for his book Here Comes Everybody, has provoked a lot of interest through another proposition. Adapted from a conference talk related to Web 2.0, Shirky knit together a surprising combination of elements identified in the title: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus His first contention is that ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/05/16/clay-shirky-gin-television-and-social-surplus/ Albums added in April: 10,769 I hope you got your Rolling Stones fix last month, since they've now been stripped out of the catalog for "events outside of our control" according to eMusic. This reversal is part of a larger issue affecting eMusic's catalogue, which invisibly loses some portion of its ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/05/15/emusic-picks-apr/ Apropos for the previous post (on Darwinian adaptation among malware), the article itself attracted one of those keyword-matching comments from an apparent spamblog (somewhat different from straightforward splogs). I had not previously heard of these before operating this blog in other than stealth mode, so here's how I infer they ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/05/15/an-interesting-post/ A fascinating microcosm of technical Darwinism is the ceaseless escalation of sophistication between malware authors and anti-virus vendors. Formerly solo practitioners acting out of bravado or malcontent, malware developers are increasingly dedicated professionals bankrolled by organized crime syndicates or even governments in areas like Eastern Europe and Asia. With the ... http://www.stormlight.org/gray/matter/2008/05/15/the-register-botnet-agent-plays-lost-sheep-to-avoid-detection/