YOUR BRAIN'S CAPACITY IN GIGABYTES (ALLEGEDLY)

Kinda strange to think that technology is growing faster and bigger than we are..to think all of our brain can be put into 8 memory cards..

TWO Causes of Grief

INACTION

PERMANENCE

Red Rain Vs. Red Rain

One is an energy drink, one is a phenomenon that occurred in Kerala, India a few years back (and also has shown up other times and places)!

A sample taken of the red rain in Kerala...

Shark Going Into A Roof

On High Street in Headington UK there's a shark plowing into a roof like so:

Dart At The Map: Chamarel, Mauritius

Near Chamarel on the island of Mauritius there are naturally colored earth plains and waterfalls that are quite beautiful and inspiring to look at:

The Jaw Dropping Art Of John Jude Palencar

I'll be brief here and let the pictures speak more than the words. I've recently stumbled upon John Jude Palencar's art..and I'm very impressed! He's done work for National Geographic, J.R.R. Tolkien books, you name it! John seems to merge inspiration from masters past and present..and I see fusions of Corben, Giger, Royo, Escher, Dali, DaVinci, Fuseli, and more. From the sensual to the creepy, below are only a FEW of my favorites. Check out his website at http://www.johnjudepalencar.com 
I think I'll buy one of his books!

In A Band? Thinking Of Being In A Band? Steve Albini's Record Industry Math

 So if you don't know Steve Albini is, he's something of a legend. Steve's a very smart dude and has been a producer or sound wrangler on countless records. Most of these are for relatively obscure alternative bands however some have found their way close enough to the pop or widely recognizable realm, to name some: Nirvana, Pixies, The Breeders, Manic Street Preachers, Cheap Trick, Iggy and the Stooges, Scott Weiland, Bush, Veruca Salt, The Jesus Lizard. PJ Harvey, Urge Overkill.

 'Audio engineer'..that's the term he prefers instead of producer. He likes a band to be the real producers and have most of the control on where they want things to go. Still, he has something of a distinct or trademark touch in his sound. Not just a producer..ehm..I mean 'audio engineer'...he's been a musician in bands such as Big Black, Shellac, and Rapeman, all very underground (if you couldn't guess by the strange and unsavory names among other things). He's also a number cruncher. So, in some books about the music industry, sometimes Albini's record industry math appears and you begin to have a sense of how easily a major label (or even some mid size ones) can screw you. Here's how it tends to look:

Advance: $ 250,000
Manager's cut: $ 37,500
Legal fees: $ 10,000
Recording Budget: $ 150,000
Producer's advance: $ 50,000
Studio fee: $ 52,500
Drum Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": $ 3,000
Recording tape: $ 8,000
Equipment rental: $ 5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $ 5,000
Lodgings while in studio: $ 10,000
Catering: $ 3,000
Mastering: $ 10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses: $ 2,000
Video budget: $ 30,000
Cameras: $ 8,000
Crew: $ 5,000
Processing and transfers: $ 3,000
Off-line: $ 2,000
On-line editing: $ 3,000
Catering: $ 1,000
Stage and construction: $ 3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $ 2,000
Director's fee: $ 3,000
Album Artwork: $ 5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $ 2,000
Band fund: $ 15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $ 5,000
New fancy professional guitars [2]: $ 3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs [2]: $ 4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $ 1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $ 1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $ 500
Big blowout party for their friends: $ 500 Tour expense [5 weeks]: $ 50,875
Bus: $ 25,000
Crew [3]: $ 7,500
Food and per diems: $ 7,875
Fuel: $ 3,000
Consumable supplies: $ 3,500
Wardrobe: $ 1,000
Promotion: $ 3,000
Tour gross income: $ 50,000
Agent's cut: $ 7,500
Manager's cut: $ 7,500
Merchandising advance: $ 20,000
Manager's cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer's fee: $ 1,000
Publishing advance: $ 20,000
Manager's cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer's fee: $ 1,000
Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 =
$3,000,000
Gross retail revenue Royalty: [13% of 90% of retail]:
$ 351,000
Less advance: $ 250,000
Producer's points: [3% less $50,000 advance]:
$ 40,000
Promotional budget: $ 25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $ 50,000
Net royalty: $ -14,000
Record company income:
Record wholesale price: $6.50 x 250,000 =
$1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $ 351,000
Deficit from royalties: $ 14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution: @ $2.20 per record: $ 550,000
Gross profit: $ 7l0,000

The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.

Record company: $ 710,000
Producer: $ 90,000
Manager: $ 51,000
Studio: $ 52,500
Previous label: $ 50,000
Agent: $ 7,500
Lawyer: $ 12,000
Band member net income each: $ 4,031.25

The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never "recouped," the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won't have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.

 ---
THERE IS A MORE DETAILED VERSION OF THIS @ http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17
(COMPLETE WITH A MINI ESSAY BY ALBINI AT THE START)

How Invisibility Cloaks Work

 Check this out: 
HowStuffWorks "How Invisibility Cloaks Work" 

Testing Out My New Death-Trap

So I built this cool trap that like, kills people, and so far 1742 people have died. Not lit'rally, sillypants!
It's a psychological xperiment. See, you may notice a button at the top menu of this blog that says 'DO NOT CLICK'. Well, inevitably, many people click it. I was thinking, rhetorically wouldn't it be crazy if it was like a live situation with a real button and a detonator would go off or something and kill the person? So, symbolically, 1742 people have died. Hahaha. Sorry, I have this real macabre sense of humor, just in time for Hallowe'en. "Waitasec"..you may say. "This post is going to be outdated so fast as more and more people click it, no?" Well, that's one aspect of the beauty of digital journals, you can constantly change or update them. SO, once in a while (sorry prolly no daily updates)...where it says '1742'....I will change the number to the updated one!

PS. I really hope you are not one of the casualties, and you didn't click it. A toast to your good health and long life!

Don't Cross The Streams!

I woke up today and thought of a really funny Ghostbusters comic. After a second, I was like, hmm it's prolly been done before. Sure enough I've found it online as a tshirt design from tshirtbordello.com .
Here 'tis, haha:

Projective Truth

Projective Truth:
What you find depends on
What you are looking for, which depends on
Who you are,
And what you think you need to know..
The questions are always part of the answer.

"If I had known that they were going to do this, I would have become a shoemaker." -Einstein

Using a Mathematical Formula To Predict The Future?

It starts with having too much crap, and then a game. What I mean is, I was looking up prices for 1 800 Got Junk and there was some little thing called 'Junk Genie' to click on. It's a game where you pick a two digit number, then you subtract the individual digits from the original number. So I picked 11, that means I had to do 11 minus 1 minus 1, leaving me with 9.
Then step 2 involved looking at a grid to see what kind of junk corresponded with your number. In this case it was 'mattress'. Sure enough, the Junk Genie guessed a mattress! I tried this a few more times and I was shocked that the Genie could get it right every single time. Check it out here: http://www.1800gotjunk.com/genie/

I knew it had to be some mathematical formula or something. Some mechanism to how it worked. Keep in mind math is my weakest subject so I was out of my element. I searched online and found this: http://scienceblogs.com/dotphysics/2009/08/18/how-a-silly-online-guessing-game-works/

Being a math moron, it was still hard to understand. I had to do some of the legwork 'in my own language' and then I pretty much got the gist. So what is it? Basically no matter what number you pick, it'll always be a multiple of 9. All the multiples of 9 on the grid are listed as the same thing. If you tried the game many times and always would get the same answer (ie 'mattress' over and over again) it would seem less magical or less formulaic. SO what they do is they re-arrange the names of junk in the grid each time so it looks more random and chaotic. But as long as all the multiples of 9 on the grid are listed as the same type of junk, it doesn't matter what kind of junk is shown during a given round. For example, my original number was 9 right? Well, each time I looked at the '9' spot on the grid, whatever was listed there would be the kind of junk that was picked for the genie's answer.
In other words, play the game, and whatever you see under the 9 square (or any number that's a multiple of 9) will be the magic answer no matter what.

What this shows is that people playing this game are under the illusion of free will but it's 'rigged' so the outcome will always be the same, and the changing answers further camouflage the nature of it all. So if our universe follows formulas and laws in a similar manner, in theory we are probably bound by a certain fate or destiny, and could figure out the future by knowing the right interpretations of variables or formulas for the given moment. 

The next step is figuring the applicable formulas for that moment, and then using them for divination. This is the hardest part, though I do not think it's impossible. We know 2+2=4, pain hurts, cold makes us shiver, and other simple and obvious truths. If our perception and understanding could be  trained to simplify the most complex of layers into similar truisms, mastery is to be had. With my awful mathematical capacity, I'm at a severe disadvantage, though I'll update any breakthroughs that might come along...