Stilgherrian » techno

Links for 06 May 2008

del.icio.us — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:01:59 +0000

Here are the web links I’ve found for 06 May 2008, posted automatically.

Detroit Digital Vinyl | Submerge Digital E-store: Classic Detroit techno vinyl converted to 320kps MP3 with (generally) no DRM protection. Detroit Digital vinyl started out as collaboration between legendary Techno label Submerge, Underground Resistance and Electrofunk Records.
Latest T-Shirts | Royaltech by Benn Glazier: If you like techno, real techno, you may well like these t-shirts.
Tony Abbott - Friend of the Long Nosed Bandicoot | First Dog on the Moon: One of the funniest cartoons ever from First Dog, though you do have to know who Tony Abbott is. (He's an Australian politician.)
Alison Young BarCamp Twitter Talk | SlideShare: "What the heck is this Twitter thing about? The why & how for max fun." Alison Young's presentation from BarCampSydney, April 2008. Eight slides, real quick.
Chips, gravy & cheese FTW! | BrightKite: So this is the future? "Here's what I had for lunch." With a location map. This WILL become normal.
Mark Pesce's "The Nuclear Option" | YouTube: "Our social networks, now so accelerated by hyperconnectivity, allow the perfect meeting of message and audience. Oh, and some stuff about how cool Twitter is! From the Walkley Public Affairs Conference on Social Media, Sydney, 5 May 2008."
Bill Bailey Kraftwerk Tribute | YouTube: The Hokey Kokey sung live in the style of Kraftwerk.
Enterprise 2.0 - What is it good for? | CIO: "A 12-step guide to getting the most out of Web 2.0 tools and making it safe-for-purpose." excellent sound bits from Stephen Collins.

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Vale Tristram Cary, 1925-2008

Stilgherrian — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:27:44 +0000

The godfather of British electronic music, composer Tristram Ogilvie Cary OAM, died on 24 April 2008. He was aged 82.

Cary’s story is told in his Wikipedia profile and the Times Online obituary. If anyone outside the “serious music” world knows him, it’s usually for writing the soundtracks for early Doctor Who episodes and films (which he hated talking about), or the Hammer Horror movies Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971).

However Cary was also a pioneer of music synthesisers. Trained as a radar technician in WWII, he co-founded Electronic Music Studios (EMS), which created the first portable synthesiser, the VCS 3.

I worked briefly with Cary one summer as a programmer. He was director of the electronic music studio at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide. I wrote a digital filter in PL/1 (!) for what I think was the Synclavier synthesiser — though it may have been something else, because as a hardware hacker Cary was well wicked. In his studio, it was difficult to see where one machine ended and the next began, they were so cross-linked.

I remember he was particularly fascinated with the sounds of bells, which then were starting to become achievable through digital synthesis. It was the first time I’ve ever found my applied mathematics knowledge of Fourier Transforms to be even remotely useful.

If you enjoy any kind of electronic music, you should take an hour of your day to learn more about Tristram Cary. He made your world.

[Footnote: I found out about Tristram Cary's death from a most unusual source: the end credits to Shaun Micaleff's program Newstopia. The more I discover about you, Shaun, the more I think my initial assessment of you as an arsehole was a mistake.]

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I need a hand…

Stilgherrian — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:21:25 +0000

I don’t have time to learn and understand everything. Who does? Me and my business need various skills to make things happen more quickly — now. So if you know anyone who can help, put them in touch.

I need a telephone geek to get my Nokia N80 and 3G network stuff working more efficiently. A workflow from the phone through to WordPress and Flickr would be nice.

I need another telephone geek to re-organise my business phones. Telcos are useless — they just want to sell products. Maybe someone who knows Asterisk is the answer?

I need a web developer who can work in XHTML/CSS code (no Flash or Dreamweaver muppets!) with excellent attention to detail and, ideally, a knowledge of WordPress and proper object-oriented PHP. We don’t do complex work, but we do want quality. I’ll be advertising this soon.

I’m still looking for a good technical support human who’s actually human. This is a full-time job.

A junior systems administrator wouldn’t go astray. This would suit a student who’s familiar with Linux, has run a website or two and needs a few hours paid work a week.

A techno producer who can work in a minimalist German style for a crassly commercial music project.

A graphic artist/designer who can do finished artwork for print as well as basic web stuff. We sometimes end up doing a full corporate image for clients. We need someone for the grunt-work, like doing ten newspaper adverts to a pre-existing style, or preparing fifty product shots for a website.

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Great Techno, and Check My Patch

Stilgherrian — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:23:29 +0000

The Solstice begins with a chance pleasure. Extraordinarily fine community broadcaster FBi has just put online the audio and video of “Blackness of the Sea”, a cruisey tune from Deepchild who, as they accurately put it, is “one of Australia’s most respected producers of leftfield dance music”.

Download. Listen. Enjoy. You’ll also see my local patch, because the video was shot in Newtown in Sydney, same postcode as me here in Enmore. I can spot about 50% of the locations so far.