|Empty_Chairs |Jonathan_Corley's_Blog|

(via crunchgear)

“Readers over at Broadband Reports are noticing marked differences between AT&T’s measurements and their own. One user found differences of several orders of magnitude. Now, if AT&T (and of course Comcast and others) are unwilling to allow for wiggle room in their GB caps (fees start the byte over 250GB), why should we allow wiggle room in their measurement? After all, we don’t let grocers use poorly (or maliciously) calibrated scales.

“If we’re going to be paying by the byte, we need real legal protections against being taken advantage of by companies that have their customers over a barrel. The average AT&T customer would likely recognize if their electricity bill was far more than they expected, and of course at the grocery store, they’d be surprised and concerned to find that a single apple tips the scale at ten pounds. But if they were told that they’d exceeded their bandwidth limit (uncommon today, but bandwidth use is growing as streaming video becomes more accessible), what could they say? Unlike the readers of Broadband Reports, they don’t know how to tell their router to track packets, or set up a software monitor — many would be hard-pressed to access the online meter provided by AT&T.

“Without a legally standardized, reliable, and understandable way to track the bandwidth we’re using, we’re completely at the mercy of the telecoms. There are legitimate questions as to how traffic should be tracked. Is it before or after the router? Should it require separate hardware? Will there be exceptions for “promotional” packets, overhead introduced by the service, bits we didn’t request, or wijacking? If the service is down, will we be reimbursed? At what rate, and by whose measurements?” (READ MORE)

(via salon - t. nagy)

“What I found seductive about the show (whose third season finale airs tonight on MTV) was the unadulterated innocence and willingness of its personalities to expose themselves. Do I dare admit that I admired their candor? While I often hide behind social convention and politeness in the public realm, these personalities unapologetically spoke their minds, either unaware or unconcerned with the consequences. The entertainment was so pure because they were being themselves in what seemed like a truly authentic way.

“But then fame happened. Their understanding of their popularity transformed what was once an untainted exposé into a self-conscious portrayal of characters. It was as if each person became a gimmick of his or her former self. Their innocence stripped, what was left behind seemed a pale version of what had made them so endearing; the people of Jersey Shore became shadow archetypes that we can relate to, but never want to embody…” (READ MORE)

(via: newyorker)

“Alec Baldwin, who stars in 30 Rock, the NBC sitcom that has revived his career and done nothing to lift his spirits, has the unbending, straight-armed gait of someone trying to prevent clothes from rubbing against sunburned skin. He is fifty years old, divorced, and lives alone in an old white farmhouse in the Hamptons and an apartment on Central Park West—feeling thwarted, if not quite persecuted.

“In conversation, he lets out an occasional yelping laugh, but he is often wistful, in a way that is linked to professional and romantic regrets, and to a period of tabloid notoriety last year, when an angry voice mail that he left for his daughter, who was then eleven, became public. He is very conscious of what is lacking in his life—a spouse, for example, and a film career something like Jack Nicholson’s, and the governorship of New York—and his rhetoric can sometimes bring to mind a scene from 30 Rock in which Baldwin, in his role as Jack Donaghy, a shameless but astute TV executive, stares at an equestrian painting by Stubbs and, in a growled whisper of longing, says, ‘I wish I were a horse—strong, free, my chestnut haunches glistening in the sun.’

“On a Friday afternoon in April, at the end of a week making “30 Rock,” in a studio in Queens, Baldwin was on a quiet suburban driveway in northern New Jersey, moonlighting on a low-budget independent film being made by friends of his. The production did not have the funds to produce Hollywood bustle: the loudest sounds were birdsong and a distant wood-chipper.”      READ MORE

Mountain Goats - 2011 Tour Dates

March
24 - The National, Richmond, VA
25 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
26 - Strand- Capitol PAC , York, PA
28 - Bowery Ballroom (SOLD OUT), New York, NY
29 - Bowery Ballroom (SOLD OUT), New York, NY
30 - Bowery Ballroom (SOLD OUT), New York, NY
30 - Green Space (2pm), New York, NY

April
1 - Paradise (SOLD OUT), Boston, MA
2 - Castaways, Ithaca, NY
3 - The Opera House, Toronto, ON
5 - The Vic, Chicago, IL
6 - The Mercy Lounge, Nashville, TN
7 - The Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA
8 - The Cat’s Cradle (SOLD OUT), Chapel Hill, NC
10 - The Grey Eagle, Asheville, NC
11 - The Wexner Center, Columbus, OH
12 - Mr. Smalls, Pittsburgh, PA
14 - Ottobar, Baltimore, MD
15 - Theatre of the Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA

all March/April shows with Megafaun

May
22 - Whelans, Dublin, Ireland
24 - Coalition, Brighton, England
25 - KOKO, London, England
27 - Academy 3, Manchester, England
28 - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, England
29 - King Tuts, Glasgow, Scotland
30 - Cluny, Newcastle, England

June
25 - Part of Plan-It-X Fest (SOLD OUT), Bloomington, IN

“Music today can feel a bit overwhelming. Choosing from the plethora of music festivals, all with their own merits? Overwhelming. SXSW? Overwhelming on so many levels. Record Store Day? With upwards of 240 must-have releases announced thus far for the April 16th happening, yeah, that’s pretty overwhelming (even RSD co-founder Eric Levin thinks so!). Not that we’re complaining, really; hell, we love this stuff. After all, where would CoS be without this constant musical deluge? Might as well get ready for more, because we’ve got a handful of solid additions to the Record Store Day lineup…

– Nirvana – Hormoaning EP: Only available during the bands 1992 Australian tour, the EP features two originals (“Aneurysm” and “Even In His Youth”) plus covers recorded during a 1990 BBC Peel Session. The covers include Devo’s “Turnaround,” The Wipers’ “D-7,” and The Vaselines’ “Son of A Gun” and “Molly’s Lips.” This rare six-track collection is limited to 6,000 copies.

– Sonic Youth – Whores Moaning EP: Yes, it’s a play on the title of the Nirvana EP. Yes, it was released during Sonic Youth’s own Australian tour in 1993. Yes, the cover artwork is a photocopy of Kurt Cobain’s doll and the back artwork is a Cobain original drawing. Yes, the tracks include a radio edit of “Sugar Kane,” instrumentals of tracks “The End of The End of The Ugly” and “Tamra,” and covers of the New York Dolls’ “Personality Crisis” and Alice Cooper’s “Is It My Body.”

– The Rolling Stones – “Brown Sugar”/“Bitch”/“Let It Rock”: To celebrate the release of their The Complete Singles (1971-2006) box-set three days after RSD, the Stones will release 5,000, individually numbered U.S. copies this 7” vinyl which replicates the original single. The first two tracks hail from Sticky Fingers, while “Let It Rock” is an ultra-rare cover of the great Chuck Berry.

(via xkcd, newyorker)

“A row of six aging nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant lost their cooling systems, as well as their “backup backup” protections, in the words of one nuclear expert. The prospect of radiation introduced a threat all its own, as invisible as the tsunami was vivid, and throbbing with history.

“Initially, the Japanese government downplayed the possibility that the ailing plants could leak any significant radiation, but survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the revered generation known as hibakusha—stepped forward to plead for “more sense of crisis.’’ Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared the crisis the worst since the end of the Second World War, and Emperor Akihito delivered his first televised address, an event so unusual that it was compared to the radio broadcast given by his father, Hirohito, announcing the country’s surrender, on August 15, 1945. Hirohito had called upon his people to “endure the unendurable, bear the unbearable.” On Wednesday morning, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, carried a story on symptoms of radiation sickness (“damage to lymph tissue, the intestinal tract, and bone marrow, among other organs”) and an article headlined “FAQS ON RADIOACTIVITY EXPOSURE, SAFETY,” which included advice on what to do in the event that you were separated from a shelter by an area contaminated with radiation (“Wear a hat and cover your nose and mouth with a wet towel or a mask”). Tokyo is a hundred and forty miles from the damaged plants. By nightfall, Britain, France, Italy, and Australia had urged their citizens who weren’t required to stay in the capital to get out.” (READ MORE)

(via: mashable)

South by Southwest may be heaven or hell, depending on your point of view, but now with a new site, you can see how close you are to either.

Digital advertising agency R/GA has developed Social Media Hell, a site that catalogues SXSW-related tweets and Foursquare checkins based on the seven deadly sins.

For instance, for the “Lust” section, the site lists “what people are loving in Austin this week” and lists “Austin,” “fb,” and “tech.” The “Debauchery” level, meanwhile, is based on Foursquare checkins at area bars.

A rep for R/GA describes the site (which he says is mainly designed for mobile use) as “part game, part data visualization experiment” and “an opportunity to poke fun at ourselves.”

Analyzing tweets, of course, has become a major preoccupation for marketers, who hope to see trends and brand perception in the data. Twitter itself is also marketing such data with a partnership with Gnip.

Colour Revolt just announced a bunch of shows in April, including a couple Georgia shows w/ Dead Confederate…

03-11 Tulsa, OK – Fassler Hall
03-12 Fayetteville, AR - Rogue
03-13 Denton, TX - 35 Conferette Festival Tickets
03-15 McAllen, TX - Moderately Priced Music Festival Info
03-16 Austin, TX – High Road Touring presents SXSW party at Lamberts (401 West 2nd Street) @ MIDNIGHT
03-17 Austin, TX - Buzzgrinder Party at Valhalla (710 Red River) @ 3:45PM
03-17 Austin, TX - Do512 Lounge (2208 S. Lamar) @ (7PM)
03-18 Austin, TX - Sea Now! at SXSW @ Annie’s West (706 W 6th St) @ 1PM
03-19 Austin, TX - 40 Watt Party at Side Bar (602 East 7th Street) @ 3PM
03-29 Iowa City, IA - Mission Creek Festival Tickets
03-30 Rock Island, IL - Daytrotter session
03-31 Champaign-Urbana, IL - Canopy Club
04-01 Chicago, IL - Schubas Tickets
04-02 St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway w/ Sebadoh and Richard Buckner Tickets
04-07 Starkville, MS - State Theatre
04-08 Shreveport, LA - Riverside Warehouse
04-09 Oxford, MS - The Lyric
04-21 Chattanooga, TN - JJ’s Bohemia
04-22 Athens, GA - 40 Watt w/ Dead Confederate
04-23 Augusta, GA - Sky City w/ Dead Confederate
04-28 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge
04-29 Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone (Beale St. Festival After Party)
04-30 Norman, OK - Norman Music Festival @ Sooner Theatre

(via: techcrunch)

A couple of hours ago, Paramount Pictures launched the trailer for SUPER 8, the new film from director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg, only on and in partnership with Twitter.

Notably, the movie trailer is being seeded on TwitVid, a video upload site created by a small startup that was launched back in August 2009. Should be a boon for them.

According to the press statement, this exclusive trailer premiere marks a first for both the studio and Twitter. People can follow the account @Super8Movie to stay abreast of news updates and a first look at the trailer, and also use the hashtag #Super8Movie to share information about the movie with their friends.

Facebook isn’t completely out of the picture, though – Paramount Pictures is syncing its Twitter account with Facebook to connect the conversation between the two platforms.

Said Amy Powell, Paramount’s EVP of Interactive Marketing Strategies & Film Production:

“With Twitter, fans are able to foster a real time conversation in a communal viewing environment and we wanted people everywhere to have the chance to discover the SUPER 8 trailer here first.”

SUPER 8 will be released by Paramount Pictures nationwide on June 10th.