Between the hectic end of session rush, the loss of several key
team members, and the holiday season, it's been hard to free up the
mental space to write here. But here are a few of the fruits of my
efforts: an interactive earmark
database (with a fully-browseable version in development), another
map on immigration
patterns, a look
back at the 111th Congress for Roll Call, and of course, our live midterm
election coverage. Unfortunately, things show no real sign of
settling down.
This is a slow month for dance jams, but my teachers at Urban
Artistry put together some videos as introductions to the different
types of urban dance, and I think they're really well-done. Check out
breaking with Emily and Russ:
And popping with Ryan:
As a journalist, I'm generally pro-Wikileaks (although not
necessarily pro-Assange--the distinction is important). More interesting
than the releases, I think, are the reactions to them, and the questions
that they raise: are activists endangered by a mostly profit-driven
Internet? (Yes.)
Should we consider denial-of-service attacks a kind of civil
disobedience? (Probably.)
Were the actions of Anonymous legitimate protest, then? (Good
question.) When it comes to the organizations I lump under "New
Protest," Wikileaks and Anonymous rank prominently due to their
effectiveness, not to mention their eccentric, decentralized, and
anarchist tendencies. Having them acting in concert (such as it is) is
fascinating.
It turns out that if you examine Ray Kurzweil's claims, he's
usually wrong--or at least, right in a way so vague as to be
meaningless. Perhaps he should enter the business of political
punditry.
Wheat linked the other day to
this tutorial
on using Mobius and Ableton together for live looping, by bassist Russ
Sargeant. I had almost forgotten how awesome the combination--it is no
small endorsement that a free plugin is better than Ableton itself for
this kind of live instrumental performance.
It may be hard for non-musicians--or even non-loopers--to understand how
big a deal Mobius can be. You have to understand that, much more than
other effects (and I've tried my share), looping is like learning a
whole new instrument, and each looper brings its own set of constraints
to the table that you have to learn to work around. For years, the gold
standard was the Gibson EDP, but it was A) expensive, and B)
discontinued. Then along comes some guy with a complete software emulation
that anyone with a decent soundcard can use for free. Oh, and
it's scriptable, so you can rewire the ins and outs to your heart's
content (I made mine control
like my beloved Line 6 DL-4). That's no small matter. Every now and
then, I almost talk myself into picking up a netbook just to run Mobius
and a few pedal VSTs again, it's that good.