New TV, why won't you work!?!

I just need to rant for a minute about TV reception. For Mother's Day this year I bought a small TV to put in the kitchen so the wife can watch NewsHour and reruns of Roseanne. Those shows are on channels 8.1 and 11.2, which are broadcast on the VHF band. Well, I first bought a cheapo "rabbit ears" antenna and was able to get all the UHF channels (14-64) with no problem, but no 8 or 11. Then I tried upstairs near the window, but no luck. So then I tried the nice antenna we have hooked up to our regular TV, but the only place I could pick up those two essential channels was by the sliding glass door out back (the absolute closest direct line of sight to the towers). This was of course unacceptable. So I bought a nice antenna with an amplifier from a reputable brand. Guess what? no channels 8.1 and 11.2 or any VHF channels! Under any conditions! I know the amplifier works because when I hook up that antenna to our regular TV I can pick up some channels that always come in spotty with no problems. So what gives?

The thing that bugs me the most is that I have no problem picking up 8 and 11 on our regular TV, so why can't this new TV? I guess it has to be something to do with the built-in tuner in the TV, but I don't understand how it can be so drastically different when picking up VHF channels when UHF channels come in relatively fine!

Lord of the Rings Subway Map

Sometimes I need to work on something creative other than my usual work. And sometimes something like this falls out of my brain. The idea was inspired by this and this, and I swear I had the idea before I found out about the Threadless t-shirt!

Best of ... 2009?!?

April Fools! The Best of 2010 playlist is coming soon. But for now, I made a playlist on Rdio for last years mix.



Missing songs:
Tilly and the Wall - Heartbeats
A Camp - Stronger than Jesus
Beirut - La Llorona
Balmorhea - Settler
Notorious B.I.G. vs. Miley Cyrus - Party and Bullshit (In the USA)
Miike Snow - Animal (Treasure Fingers remix)
Joe Goddard - Lemon and Lime (Home Time)
Beirut - Venice (Tom Croose City of Water edit)
Aphex Twin - Rhubarb (Addled edit)

Top Albums of 2010

I'm finalizing my annual "Best of" playlist, but I thought I'd post a couple albums from 2010 that I thought were stellar.


If I'm in the mood for something mellow and introspective, I pull out See You on the Moon by Tift Merritt. I've been following her for a few years now, but this album is a cut above her previous albums. It is more alt-country than straight up country, and gives it a more approachable, hipster-friendly feel. When I listen to it, it makes me want to take a road trip.


On the other hand, if I'm in the mood for upbeat pop/hip-hop, then I turn on the latest effort from Gorillaz, Plastic Beach. I had this playing on repeat for about a week this Spring. While there are no real standout singles, all of the songs are good and span a variety of modern electronic sub-genres (no doubt due to the wide variety of guest artists).

Honorable Mentions


I shouldn't like this album. It sounds way to much like 1970's post-hippie music, but it mesmerizes me. All the songs pretty much sound the same, which makes it difficult to pick out a track to put on the Best of mix, but it is definitely worth a listen.


And here is another quality album from Plants and Animals. Again, there are no standout singles, but the album as a whole is full of fun, jangly, indie rock. It probably would be great to listen to while cleaning the house.

Best of 2010!

It's that time of year again! I've put together a mix of some of my favorite songs from 2010. Instead of typing out the entire playlist like in previous years, this time I've made a playlist on Rdio, the new streaming music service I have been using for the past couple of months.

As always, send me an email if you want a hard copy of the mix.



You can listen to it on Rdio here.

Songs missing from the playlist (because they aren't available on Rdio):
The Radio Dept. - Domestic Scene
Ernest Gonzales - Dancing in the Snow
Yellow Ostrich - WHALE
Fences - From Roses
Ruth Moody - Cold Outside
Emeralds - Candy Shoppe
Pacific! - Narcissus (Alan Braxe remix)
Noddy - By Hook or By Crook
HEALTH - In Heat (Javelin remix)
Mount Kimbie - Before I Move Off
Gonjasufi - Candylane (Bibio remix)

Junior's First Mix by EVF

Even though it contains a Bon Iver song, I really, really like this naptime mixtape a friend made for Archie. I would listen to it on my own if I needed some good mellow background music. So I thought I'd post the tracklisting (or at least what songs were available on my streaming service).



If you are an Rdio subscriber you can listen to it here.

Best of 2009

It's that time of year again. The cherry blossoms have fallen, and I've finished my Best of 2009 playlist. Some songs on the first disc may sound familiar if you subscribe to the KEXP Song of the Day podcast. As for the second disc, I heard many of those songs for the first time on the ISO50 blog. Initially I started following it for the inspiring design posts and the awesome Obama poster. But I quickly found it a great source for discovering electronic artists. This is also the first time I've included a mash-up in the playlist.

As always, let me know if you want a copy of the CDs.

Disc 1:
Freeland - Mancry
Sufjan Stevens - You Are the Blood
Sufjan Stevens - Blood, Part 2 (Buck 65 remix featuring Serengeti)
Engineers - Sometimes I Realise
Iran - Buddy
Califone - Funeral Singers
Tilly & The Wall - Heartbeats
Sarah Jarosz - Shankill Butchers
Dead Man's Bones - My Body's a Zombie for You
Glee Cast - No Air
A Camp - Stronger than Jesus
Heartless Bastards - The Mountain
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - The Giant's Causeway
Brandi Carlile - Dying Day
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home
T. Nile - The Cabin Song
Beirut - La Llorona
Balmorhea - Settler

Disc 2:
Patrick Wolf - Hard Times
Kid Cudi - Soundtrack 2 My Life
Fuck Buttons - The Lisbon Maru
Röyksopp - Happy Up Here
Notorious B.I.G. vs. Miley Cyrus - Party & Bullshit (in the USA)
Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind (featuring Alicia Keys)
Miike Snow - Animal (Treasure Fingers remix)
Wale - 90210
Little Dragon - Feather
Röyksopp - Vision One
Kaskade and deadmau5 - I Remember (Vocal mix)
Joe Goddard - Lemon & Lime (Home Time)
Beirut - Venice (Tom Croose City of Water edit)
The xx - Shelter
Aphex Twin - Rhubarb (Addled edit)
Röyksopp - Happy Up Here (Marching Band version)

Top Albums of 2009

I'm hard at work on my "Best of 2009" playlist, but I thought I'd take a moment and post a couple albums that really stood out last year:

Röyksopp - Junior
When I found out about this, I basically played it on repeat in my car for weeks. It's just that good. Even if I had a shitty day, I had a smile on my face by the time I got home.













Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon
Although pretty much everything else released in 2009 pales in comparison to the new Röyksopp, this album is pretty good. Kid Cudi isn't the best rapper, and the production isn't the best either, but it's different enough and the whole project finds this groove that sits very well with me. Also, I recommend the Deluxe edition because the bonus songs are pretty good.









Brandi Carlile - Give Up the Ghost
Those who know me know I like Brandi Carlile. If anyone is interested, I definitely recommend picking up her debut. However, this is quickly becoming my second favorite album of hers. It's a nice mix of alt-country and pop, with a few honkey tonk jams thrown in for good measure.

The Vast Back Catalog

When Kirsten and I were preparing for our nuptials, it became apparent that, although I love to put together music playlists, she should be in charge of our wedding mix. The reason is apparent from the chart above that I just made. It shows the number of songs in my music library sorted by release date. The majority of my music dates in the 1990s or later, after grunge hit the music scene. Most of the typical generic feel-good party hits, from motown to the 80s, are missing. Luckily this is Kirsten's specialty, so she was able to supply most of the good music for the wedding. And she did a great job.

Now I've decided to go back and try and find all those "oldies but goodies" that I know I like. Stuff like that one Lionel Richie song that I can still stand, and some REO Speedwagon, and Journey, and some Bill Withers. There's a lot out there that I know I like, but I just wouldn't be caught dead having for some inexplicable reason. Now I'm old enough to just enjoy the pure pop of Eric Carmen without embarrassment. Well, maybe still a little.

Ikea + Paper Source = Awesome!

Ikea furniture is great for several reasons--it's cheap, it's stylish, and it's modular. But it is also ripe for modification. We have a couple of plans for personalizing our current Ikea furniture, and Kirsten finished the first of them this weekend. This is a Billy bookcase in red, with clear glass doors. Ikea suggests lining the inside with one of their designer papers, but, to be honest, they are all pretty ugly. Instead, we picked up two rolls of designer wrapping paper from Paper Source. Ikea supplied cardboard inserts for the glass doors and plastic tabs to hold it in place. All we (meaning Kirsten) had to do was cut the paper to size and tape it to the cardboard inserts. We're both really happy with the results.

Geoscience Education

During lunch I read an interesting article in a recent issue of EOS, the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union. This particular article was written by several geoscience education researchers and psychologists and talked about how geoscientists view the world differently than most people, and how we can train new students to think this way. Basically, the article identified several key concepts that geoscientists implicitly understand:

1. The Long View - Geoscientists think about the Earth in terms of millions and billions of years. The majority of individuals never have to think about time in this way, since our active lifespans are measured in tens of years. This kind of thinking relies on things like exponential numbers and proportional reasoning. I honestly admit, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of a billion years.
   
2. The Complex Systems Approach - Take a look at a typical diagram of the water cycle, and you'll get an idea of what this means. And that is a simple example!
3. Professional View - This is basically the distinction between how I experience a place like the Grand Canyon now compared to how I experienced it as a kid. Then, it was just this really neat place with tough hikes. Now, when I look at the Grand Canyon, I see billions of years of Earth history, the entire evolutionary history of Life on Earth, and the erosional power of water. I feel that in some part I "understand" why the Grand Canyon exists, even though I don't know all the particulars.
4. Spatial Thinking - This is the ability to read and understand maps and to be able to mentally manipulate objects in three dimension. It involves understanding the orientation of rock layers underground and visualizing geologic structures like faults and folds.

Unfortunately, many students have difficulty in these concepts, mainly because they aren't stressed in traditional science education. Luckily, the article also has some suggestions on ways to integrate these concepts:

1. Use a Narrative Approach - By teaching or explaining things sequentially, the students' minds can better understand the Long View of things. This is in contrast with the typical way of teaching timescales simply by dates and numbers on which events are attached (think of a typical history lesson). Instead, teach the events first and add the timescale later. I like the idea of using a reverse timescale. Begin with the modern day and work backwards, explaining how things got the way they are.
2. Teach the Feedback Loop Concept - This is almost never taught in schools. I don't ever remember hearing the term "feedback loop" until college, but it is a very important concept. But this is one of those ideas that opens up the world for students and becomes the basis for understanding Complex Systems.
3. Fieldwork - Understandably, this is where geoscientists learn their Professional Vision. By making disparate observations about the world around them and combining them into a single worldview. But teaching this to students involves a two-prong approach. First, there must be mentoring. If you just let students out in the field without providing instructional support, they won't make much progress. They need to make their own hypothesis, but then they need advice and suggestions in order to refine them. Second, the students should make a map. This helps them learn to look at the real world and abstract the geology from it.
4. Practice Spatial Skills - This is another thing I never learned in school. Everything I learned dealt with processing numbers, not 3D objects. One good and practical way to rectify this is to have students read and annotate maps. Another is to build and interpret 3D models. I think I learned to be really good at this by doing lots of visual puzzles as a child. Also, I had a penchant for creating maps. When everybody else in kindergarten were painting houses and flowers, I was painting a treasure map!
   

I think there are ways to incorporate these things all the way to kindergarten. But for me, these ideas will help me if I ever need to teach another Introduction to Geology class in the future.

A little rock action

I understand how people can feel that Mogwai is pretentious, but their music really resonates with me. It's moody and intense and emotional. And they were, for me at least, all that last night at the 930 Club. I had chills several times during the performance, and what was so great about it was that they only played 2-3 songs from their new album. Most of the songs they played were older. When they started playing a really old song, Mogwai Fear Satan, I knew it was coming, but I was still surprised by the aural onslaught at the end of the song. For the encore, they played their epic My Father My King (Part 1 2 3), which was frickin' awesome.

Gunner in the Wild

I finally developed some rolls of film I had lying around, and I wanted to post some really great photos of Gunner up on South Mountain.

The following comment thread on the A.V. Club review of the Sims 3 game almost made me shoot tea out my nose!

Gay
TV Dinner
8 June 2009 | 12:32 AM CDT
This looks pretty gay.

Spinner
8 June 2009 | 12:44 AM CDT
Such a good review of the game, in depth and literate. Way to bring something to the conversation pal! Good job!

ocean of cats
8 June 2009 | 1:07 AM CDT
Why yes, you can create a gay character, thanks for the contribution!

Juror nr.3
8 June 2009 | 7:42 AM CDT
If anything, it doesn't look gay enough.

Raymond Luxury-Yacht
8 June 2009 | 7:50 AM CDT
Should have saved this comment for the upcoming "Taste Test: Penis"

Jenny Lewis

Kirsten and I saw Jenny Lewis at the 930 Club last night. Even though I don't really like any of her new songs, she is an outstanding performer and has a really great backing band. Luckily, she did play all of my favorite songs from her first solo album, which I absolutely love. Here's hoping that I get a chance to see Rilo Kiley proper before they become too big and have to play stadium and pavilion shows.

Dollar Redesign

Catching up on my newsfeeds, I came across the Dollar ReDe$ign blog. It's about time the US joined the rest of the world and started using truly colorful paper money. And we've been using the same design template for far too long.

It's Anatase, Beotch!

Here's another figure. This one should be self explanatory!

Data Figures

A friend was talking last night about a coworker blogging at work, and it reminded me that I haven't posted in a while. I'm been mostly spending my time writing papers, so here's a figure I just made yesterday.The squiggly lines underneath the image are EDS spectra showing the rough composition of the bright material. Contributions from the background support film and the surrounding fluffy silica aerogel (containing silicon, oxygen, and carbon) have been subtracted, which is why there are inverted peaks in some spectra. I'm not necessarily convinced that this is the best way to process the data, since I think it tends to show that the bright areas are depleted in carbon. Actually there is a lot of carbon in the bright areas, but only surrounding the mineral grains, while carbon is homogeneous in the aerogel.

Best of 2008

It's finally here. I've previewed the mix on CD and it sounds pretty good to me. 2008 was a bit of a strange year for music. It started out very strong with the Vampire Weekend debut album in January, but the latter half of the year seemed full of mediocre indie releases. But I've found a number of good songs in all the audio chaff. Still, I have the feeling when I redo this playlist in 10 years (or even if I redid it next year), it would be very different.


Best of 2008

101 Amanda Palmer - Astronaut
102 Anathello - All the First Pages
103 Marco Benevento - Bus Ride
104 Glasvegas - Flowers and Football Tops
105 Vancougar - (I Hope Your) Money (Keeps You Warm)
106 Shearwater - The Snow Leopard
107 The Silent Years - Open Up Our Eyes
108 Jack Johnson - Go On
109 Dido - Quiet Times
110 Peter Broderick - Below It
111 Crooked Still - Undone in Sorrow
112 Leona Naess - Leave Your Boyfriends Behind
113 Plants and Animals - Bye Bye Bye
114 Catfish Haven - Ready to Die
115 Tilly and the Wall - Tall Tall Grass
116 Weezer - Heart Songs
117 Slow Club - Christmas TV

201 Air France - No Excuses
202 The Submarines - You Me and the Bourgeoisie
203 Pendulum - Propane Nightmares
204 We Are Scientists - Ghouls
205 Mux Mool - Night Court
206 The Very Best - Hide and Seek
207 Santigold - L.E.S. Artistes
208 M83 - Skin of the Night
209 Coldplay - Lost!
210 Shiny Toy Guns - Season of Love
211 The Notwist - Good Lies
212 Cloud Cult - Everybody Here is a Cloud
213 Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
214 Alias - Well Water Black
215 Lullatone - The Bathtime Beat
216 Ratatat - Mirando
217 Portishead - The Rip
218 Son Lux - Stand

Ratatat

Last night Kirsten and I went to see Ratatat play at the 930 Club. They were pretty darn good, to say the least. It was fun to watch all the youths get excited from the balcony. I would definitely go see them again sometime, and I heard they have a new album coming out soon!