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Posts published in “Life”

Has it ever occurred to you that we live in the future?

May 10, 2010 |

Thoughts

I was reading an article on Ars.Technica about some progress being made in the methods by which data are written to a hard disk. Currently, hard disk manufacturers have hit a plateau in data density on a disk. That is, because hard drives are physical objects, data require physical space on them. There’s a reason you can’t fit hundreds of billions of petabytes on the 2.5″ hard disk in your laptop: there just isn’t enough physical space. A few years ago, they developed perpendicular writing which resulted in a jump in hard drive capacities as manufacturers figured out how to work with it and to utilize it fully. But things have slowed down again, so science is looking for the next thing.

Some super smart scientists recently published a paper outlining various methods that could increase data density on a hard disk from a few hundred gigabits per inch to a terabit per inch. That’s a hell of an increase, with the assumption that “few” is more than two but less than five. And remember, bit ≠ byte. 8 bits is 1 byte. So a terabit is really only 128 gigabytes. Powers of 2 for the win.

I know this is all riveting stuff for you guys, and, really, I’m not going to spend time explaining how a hard drive works or what the methods they’ve described are. You can read the article if you want that.

No, the whole point of this arose when I read the next passage.

The next front runner in data storage density and type is far from clear—for example, a method that involved electron quantum holography was able to store 35 bits per electron, and various solid state technologies continue to vie for attention—but this combined bit-pattern and thermally-assisted magnetic recording seems sufficiently close to current hard disk drives to be viable.

What the holy hell? Electron Quantum Holography? Thermally-assisted Magnetic Recording? Storing bits of data as ELECTRONS? If you have ever wondered before, we live in the future. It is now and it is awesome! It makes me think of Clarke’s Third Law that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

> Continue reading...Has it ever occurred to you that we live in the future?

You know what’s weird?

May 5, 2010 |

Thoughts

How quickly babies grow. Remember this adorable little peanut?

Of course you do. She’s adorable. How could you not? Well, just look at this photo sent to me this morning by my brother.

What, is she dressed up for a night on the town? Gonna take the Beemer out for a spin, are ya kid? Where the hell have I been? Although the growth of babies has got to be one of the most mundane things in life, consider my mind blown.

> Continue reading...You know what’s weird?

Meet my friend Tessie, who I hope to be able to address as my Tony Award Winning friend Tessie soon.

May 4, 2010 |

Thoughts

This is my friend Tessie.

Tessie and I went to high school together in California and reconnected a couple years ago here in New York when we discovered we both lived and worked here. She is a costume designer working on Broadway in various musicals and theatrical productions. She works hard and has done well for herself. I am constantly impressed. Currently she’s working on a show called Lend Me A Tenor. Sweet pun.

So, upon hearing of her Tony Nomination this morning, I felt tremendous pride in my friend. For those of you who don’t know what the Tony Awards are—and, really, what the hell?—they are the theatre’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. It’s a big deal to be nominated for a Tony Award.

Here’s a screencap of the nomination.

See her show there? I know you do. So do I. Great, right?

The awards aren’t until June, so we’ll all have to wait until we find out that they won for Best Costume Design. Not “if”, mind you. That.

Good job, Tessie!

> Continue reading...Meet my friend Tessie, who I hope to be able to address as my Tony Award Winning friend Tessie soon.

The Insane Clown Posse interviewed by The New York Times.

April 30, 2010 |

About Music, Music and Thoughts

It’s the interview you’ve been waiting your entire life to read. A few days ago, David Itzkoff interviewed the infamous Insane Clown Posse about all this attention they’ve been receiving lately. He delves right into all the fun that’s being made of them by basically the entire internet.

And you know what? They’re surprisingly good natured about the whole thing. When asked about Saturday Night Live’s lampooning of the Gathering of the Juggalos, they responded:

Shaggy 2 Dope, Insane Clown Posse: How can you be mad at “Saturday Night Live”? That’s what they do. They make parodies. They’re funny. That’s flattering, that you’re a large enough player in the game that “Saturday Night Live” even recognizes you.

Violent J: It felt incredible – like, wow, man, we’re on the radar.

You kind of expect them to be all pissed and up in arms about being made fun of so directly. But again, when asked about SNL’s Thrilla Killa Klownz parody of “Miracles”, they come right back and play the high hand.

Shaggy 2 Dope: I remember back in the day when Weird Al Yankovic did “Amish Paradise,” off Coolio’s “Gangsta Paradise.” Somehow Coolio got mad. If Weird Al wanted to do one of our songs, I’d be like, “Hell yeah.” To me, it’s the same thing with “Saturday Night Live.”

Violent J: When they did it again, I called my mom about that. It’s awesome.

And then again, when asked about my favorite question of theirs, “Fucking magnets, how do they work?!” they come back with an entirely reasonable, if not exactly enlightened, response.

Violent J: I know the stuff isn’t really miracles. I think we might have misused the word miracle. I think that might mean something that has happened with no explanation. These things we mentioned in the song, they can all be explained. But what we’re doing is appreciating them. Even the infamous line, “Magnets, how do they work?” I mean, yeah, we know how magnets work. But they’re still incredible. You can push something across the table without touching it. And as a kid, I found that fascinating. I still find that fascinating. [laughs]

Shaggy 2 Dope: Come on, a rock that pulls metal towards it or pushes it away? Yeah, it has to do with the magnetic polar caps and [stuff]. But for real? Come on, man. You’re just holding a U-shaped thing that pushes metal away or attracts metal or something. The North and South Pole makes a rock magnetic, and if you touch a piece of metal with it, that becomes magnetic? That’s crazy.

Amazing. Fucking amazing. Giraffes?

Of course, then there’s this gem.

Violent J: Songs like “Miracles,” they’re not new to ICP. We don’t restrict ourselves to just making murder songs. When we’re talking to the Juggalos, it’s not always about chop-chop, kill-‘em-up, you know? We’ve always done songs that we attempt to be meaningful and deep over our career.

You owe it to yourself to read the whole article here: Fools’ Gold: An Oral History of the Insane Clown Posse Parodies

> Continue reading...The Insane Clown Posse interviewed by The New York Times.

The Extraordinary Book Binding of Philip Smith

April 29, 2010 |

About Writing, Thoughts and Writing

Speaking of books, I recently stumbled upon (without the help of StumbleUpon) the work of a British artist named Philip Smith who works exclusively in the bindings of books. As you know, a book is really just a stack of loosely connected papers until someone or some machine comes along and binds them all together. Usually a books binding is utilitarian at best, and shoddy at worst. Hard bound books are nice, if expensive, and then you have your mass market paperbacks which fall apart after 5 years because of cheap paper and cheaper glue.

Then you have artists like Mr. Smith here who not only return the craft of bookbinding to the highly-skilled artisanal place it held for centuries but add a surprising new dimension to it.

Here are a few favorites of mine from his site. See if you can guess which book each of these is. I promise there’s nothing esoteric here; these books can be found anywhere. Except maybe on Mars. For now.

Cool, right? I would LOVE to have one of these in my house on display. Talk about amazing art that would fit right in with my weirdo collection of things I like.

Head on over to the site to see if your guesses were correct. They’re all in the galleries.

> Continue reading...The Extraordinary Book Binding of Philip Smith

The Mysterious Phenomenon of “Yeah, Du’!” and its Ramifications in the Real World.

April 27, 2010 |

Thoughts

Recently, I’ve been spending quite a lot of social time with Mike Fiduk and Charles Vestal, two worldly, handsome men. And, as conspiring gentlemen do, we egg each other on in all sorts of situations. It’s a good time. Somewhere along the way we started saying “Yeah, Du’!” as a way to express our approval of a situation. Like this:

Mike – Man, I think I’m going to go home and nap.
Charles – I think you’re going to come with us and drink.
Mike – Ok!
Joe – Yeah, Du’!

Charles – Let’s eat Polish food!
Mike – Yeah, Du’!

Joe – I drank too much and spent the night hitting on a lesbian.
Mike – Awesome! Yeah, Du’!
Charles – Yeah, Du’!

And so on and so on. It has become a celebratory cry used for basically anything. It’s a verbal high five. And, it has a very specific pronunciation. Listen.

[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/yeah-du.mp3|artists=Joe|titles=Yeah, Du’!]

Now listen again. One more time. Got it? Good.

Yesterday morning I was having my customary Monday morning chat with Mike where we bitch about the coming week and catch up on things we might have missed. I worked all weekend, so I only had a couple of fun stories, but he spent the weekend in New Jersey for some reason that I’m not sure I want to know. Either way he told me about how he went dancing and spent some time dancing with an old lady who was ripping it up on the dance floor. Then he send me this GEM.

Lovely, right? Right.

I immediately thought, “Yeah, Du’!” and then inspiration hit me and I told Mike I had to do something that I would be back later. This is what I had to do.

Beautiful, right? Mike loved it. I love it too. I was thinking of saving it for my 500th post which is rapidly approaching, but then even more inspiration hit me. I’ve got the layered Photoshop document, why not apply it to more photos of my friends and see what sort of hilarious magic I could create? Right? Right. So that’s what I did.

Click the damn link and enjoy The Black Laser’s more specific sister site! I only intend to use photos of friends and friends of friends, so if you have any really great party photos, send them to me at joe at yeahdu dot com and I will make them famous! Well, internet semi-famous. YEAH!

> Continue reading...The Mysterious Phenomenon of “Yeah, Du’!” and its Ramifications in the Real World.

“Ode To Spot”, the finest piece of poetry I have ever experienced.

April 26, 2010 |

About Writing, Thoughts and Writing

Here it is. For you to enjoy.

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

Bonus points if you can name the source without Google. Mikey, I’m looking at you.

> Continue reading...“Ode To Spot”, the finest piece of poetry I have ever experienced.