So if you are interested, it is SiteGround. I don’t know when the sale ends, but I’m sure it will probably coincide with the 25th of this month, or maybe the 31st.

The astute reader might ask “What about media such as DVDs, CDs and flash”, or for that matter, system memory(aka RAM).  They report their listed capacities, but once again this isn’t technically the issue.  They continue to use metric prefixes, but they do so erroneously and it has no real bearing on why a hard drive of 500GB only shows up as ~465.66GiB.  Notice the prefix on the latter value: GiB.  This is the correct binary prefix, as defined by International Electrotechnical Commission, based on value 1024 instead of 1000.

So why all the hubbub over base 2 vs base 10 math?  Recently, Apple decided in fairness to consumers(and by definition of metric prefixes) to treat a kilo as 10³, a mega as 10⁶ and so on and so forth. This has caused some to question their motives instead of reading information readily available on the matter.  They make it out to be some nefarious ploy by Apple to make their systems appear more attractive by seeming to offer more space through the use of ‘fake’ math.  I wasn’t aware that base 10 was considered fake math, but I am thankful that I have been enlightened and can now proceed through the rest of my life relying only on base 2(’real’ math).

Not to make light of the situation, I can understand where the author is coming from and admit some initial hesitation in Apple’s claims that Snow Leopard was leaner(space wise) than Leopard and the true amount of reclaimed space.  I mean, on a 500GB hard drive, you are gaining nearly 45GB by switching from GiB to GB, right?  Well, not really as all storage is now calculated in base 10 so my music collection, apps and everything else grew by an appropriate amount to compensate for the new(not fake) math.  Case in point, VLC list the Mac, intel only, download of VLC at 17.8MB – that should be 17.8MiB for anyone keeping track – but Finder list the same file as 18.7MB and for the universal binary the difference is 28.7MiB vs 30.1MB.  Apple isn’t pulling a fast one on us and the reported space you gain is an actual gain.  There is nothing nefarious in Apple reporting a kilo as 1000 bytes, as the prefix dictates, and Apple isn’t even the first to do so.  When you purchase a drive of 500GB or 2 TB, you are getting just that, 500×10⁹ bytes or 2×10¹² bytes and to expect to get anything more is ludicrous. By the author’s accounting, we should be getting anywhere from 7–10% more free space because we insist on using improper calculations for properly labeled merchandise. Now if other OS vendors would properly calculate metric prefixes on base 10 instead of base 2, we could get on with our lives and not be bothered with frivolous law suits or misguided stories on how Company X is using ‘fake’ math to swindle consumers.

Todays take home lesson:

Note: That should technically be base 1000 and base 1024, but hopefully you get the point.

A few months back Blythe geeked out over this free track, by the two aforementioned bans, by the name of Orange Shirt.  I didn’t pay attention at the time because I am a creature of habit and I had heard of Vampire Weekend and thought that any collaboration they did with another band(Ra Ra Riot being unknown to me at the time) would be more of the same indie type rock that I wasn’t in the mood for.  I was very wrong in my assumption and quite ashamed of myself for having brushed of the collaboration so callously.

The Discovery LP is thirty minutes of listening pleasure, filling a void in my music library that has remained mostly baron due to my own listening habits.  If I had to critique anything on the album, it would be the fact that it is only 30 minutes long(29:55 to be exact).  It starts off with Orange Shirt, a catchy tune that is fun and upbeat in the same way as the Postal Service with delightfully somber lyrics that are easy to miss given the driving, and sometimes ethereal, beats.  The mood is continued with Osaka Loop Line, a track that is quickly becoming a favorite bested only by their cover of I Want You Back and Carby.

Discovery has a more robotic sound than the typically clear crooning of Ben Gibbard, but unlike many pop and R&B acts –Kanye?– the sound is intentional and not the by product of software and/or hardware trying to keep a tone-deaf musician in tune.  The vocals are shared between Wes Miles(Ra Ra Riot) and Rostam Batmanglij(Vampire Weekend) with an occasional guest appearance.  This is something that I would like to see more of in a new Postal Service album, should it ever come out, as the harmonies and arrangements are refreshing treat in an era that I feel is being defined by bland vocals, uninspired lyrics and autotuners.

Knowing that Vampire Weekend is solidly in the rock realm, I did a bit of research into Ra Ra Riot to see if their music made heavy use of synths.  I was more than a bit shocked and a little pleased when I found the answer to be know.  If you are a fan of either Ra Ra Riot or Vampire Weekend and purchase Discovery expecting to get more of the same, I warn you that you will be let down as their is nary a sound, other than the vocals, that wasn’t generated by some cold, unfeeling, hunk of machinery.  For that matter, there are only a few tracks in which the vocals haven’t seen treatment by a vocoder or other digital effects processing of some sort.  This is not a collaboration like Temple of the Dog where you get more of the same, only with increased artistic talent and vision.  Discovery is a whole new entity, one that I hope doesn’t follow the same course as Postal Service, another collaboration project in the same vein.

Wes and Rostam clearly enjoyed making this album and had a great deal of fun in the process.  It is evident in the music, the vocals and the lyrics and comes through in tracks such as I Wanna be Your Boyfriend, Swing Tree and It’s Not My Fault(It’s My Fault), the latter of which sounds like it could almost fit in beautifully on a Fischerspooner album.  The CD is worth a purchase if you enjoy synth-driven music and once again, the only complaint I have is that the album is too short, frustratingly short and I’ve yet to figure out how to enable repeat on my iPod Touch.

During that time, I hope that what few readers I have will visit and enjoy the view from my living room window.  If you notice that anything is broken, please leave a comment here and I will try to address it as soon as possible.  Commenting should be open, so there is no need to register.  You’re comments might not immediately appear the first time, but once I approve them then you should be good to go from now and until eternity.  Let me know what is broken, how the site looks in whatever browser you are using.  If something is off, could you try to do a screen capture and post it here for me to see along with your browser name and version.

I admit, if you use IE then things will probably look horrid.  I am a Mac and linux user and I’ve viewed the site primarily on webkit/khtml and gecko based browsers only. I have tried to stick to standards and there is some CSS3 thrown in – mostly for @font-face support – so as long as your browser is well behaved, the site should be well behaved.  In the case of IE lte 7, your millage may vary.  That being said, even with IE 8 something things might not look as I expect them to.  As it stands, the site on my MBP looks almost identical in Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.  When I land in Phoenix tomorrow, I’ll check things and try to post screenshots of what the site should look like.  I’ll also be posting more pictures of a younger Oppie that were left on Blythe’s machine.

Update: Commenting should now work, I hope.  If not, send me an @ msg on twitter or find me on fb.

Links:
Safari 4
Firefox 3.5
Opera 10

I know, Britney Spears?  What must I be thinking?  Honestly, I can’t provide anyone with a satisfactory answer other than I have been oddly attracted to the song Toxic ever since hearing it in 2004.  But back to the story at hand.  I now have tablature for the song Toxic, as played by Molly Lewis, and the opening is hard as f*** to play on my poor Lanikai.  Molly’s Fluke has some sustaining power or I just really suck at hammer-on/pull-offs because I can’t get it…yet.  I haven’t given up, but in the mean time I have taken to trying out some of the easier tunes available at Ukulele Hunt such as Take On Me by A-Ha.  As soon as I get better, I may put up a clip for your listening pleasure.  Now I just need to find a way to keep Oppenheimer from trying to play with me while I practice.

¹ Jake Shimabukuro playing As My Guitar Gently Weeps

² Molly Lewis playing Toxic

But I digress.  This isn’t to be a diatribe against Blockbuster, but a reflection of my thoughts on Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.  Admittedly, I chose this movie in hopes that I would be so bored I’d have no choice but to fall asleep, but it proved to be far more engaging than I had anticipated.  Having no intentions to actually pay attention to the movie, I missed a portion of the beginning, only catching the fact that Nick made mix CDs for someone and they were somehow acquired by Norah.  For me, the movie didn’t start in earnest until the club scene with some unknown local band playing.  I later came to discover that it was Nick’s band with his trio of gay friends.  I mention that only because it came up several times later in the movie as The Trio, Nick, Norah and Caroline attempted to track down some group named Fluffy.

In their quest for Fluffy (and love), Nick and Norah are carried along a chain of events that include finding Caroline, Norah’s drunk friend, who escapes from the back of a van after awaking from a drunken stupor and believing herself to have been kidnapped,  confrontations with Nick’s ex, drag shows and an interesting scene where Norah’s orgasm is recorded in her father’s studio.  Along the way Nick realizes that he is over Tris, his ex, Norah realizes that he man-toy is using her for free drinks and the hopes of landing a deal with her father and they both realize that they like each other.  I believe Norah came to this realization much sooner than Nick, but in the end they skip out on Fluffy (and their respective ex-flings) to begin their new lives together – with Norah deciding to go to Brown to be closer to Nick.

It isn’t a great movie and I don’t regret not having seen it in theaters, but it is an entertaining way to waste 100 or so minutes.  In typical romantic comedy style, they do end up together, but it is all about how they get there.  I particularly enjoyed the Trio’s attempt to hook Nick – the only straight member of the band – up with Norah and some of the music selections.  Nick bailing on Tris as she was doing a tease to You Sexy Thing and Dev head-butting Tal at the end, after a few too many slurs, definitely made my evening (and failed at putting me to sleep).

Submission 1

Submission 2

Lastly, a report from the Huffington Post that reported the mishap on 28 July 2009.

Safari 4

Snow Leopard

“Find My iPhone” phone-locating service

TomTom to bring “real” navigation to iPhone

ScrollMotion’s Iceberg in-app bookstore

Line 6 and Planet Waves brings guitar and amp control to iPhone

iPhone OS 3.0 hits devices June 17th

iPhone 3G S announced: $199 16GB, $299 32GB, June 19th

White MacBook last MacBook standing

Apple’s new MacBook family: non-removable batteries, lower prices

iPhone Guided Tour

iPhone 3G S TV ad

Apple WWDC 2009 Keynote Address