Randomness for a Thursday Morning

I love this version of this song...

The Naked and Famous are so listenable and this is just another reason why everyone should go to Austin at some point.

Both Nirvana and the Strokes have tribute albums out right now. I have been effusive in my praise for Newermind and I am giving the Strokes tribute album a chance over the next week or so.

From the NYT:

Despite its abbreviated career, Nirvana was the most important rock group of the 1990s; all the while this Seattle band — especially Kurt Cobain — expressed nothing but reluctance. The Strokes, young, beautiful, fashionable and from New York, appeared to crave fame in a way that Nirvana didn’t, and yet “Nevermind” is the album that went platinum 10 times over, nine more times than “Is This It.”

Paying Tribute to Nirvana and the Strokes



I came across this piece on the Awl yesterday (Was Aaron Swartz Stealing?) and it was great. Maybe it was great because I did not know anything about it, even though I understood the players and the game itself, and it made me think that I have been spending too much time on the wrong type of media since I stopped being a full time professional geek. I wonder if it would have had the same effect, since I am a big fan of the CopyLeft movement as well as the belief that "information wants to be free" even when we are required to pay for the delivery system. It is worth the time to read it, even if you are disinterested in the topic.

On Facebook, I linked to a number of articles but these two stuck out, and made me think when I was in a bout of severe insomnia last night...

From the always funny The Onion: Obama: Debt Ceiling Deal Required Tough Concessions By Both Democrats And Democrats Alike which was funny because it is true. More to the point, it has been one of the long time failings of the left to compromise to the point of not being true to their beliefs in the hope that the right will give a little. Though the policies advocated by the left often succeed as the reactionary conservatives die off.

And then there was this from the NYT as well...

Teaching Kids How to Break Up Nicely

Late last month, 200 teenagers from Boston-area schools gathered to discuss the minutia of Facebook breakup etiquette. Should you delete pictures of your ex after splitting up? Is it O.K. to unfriend your last girlfriend if you can’t stop looking at her profile? And is it ever ethically defensible to change your relationship status to single without first notifying the person whose heart you’re crushing?

My quip about this was, "Interesting...also why I plan to keep my relationship status hidden from now on...at least until they add "Is Hopelessly Self Involved" as a setting."

When someone asked if it was not a standard setting, I had to respond with, "Not yet, but I keep lobbying for it...someday I hope that mainstream America will recognize my love for myself as a valid choice and that I will be entitled to all the benefits that people in "couple love" have."

It is about Singles Equality folks, it is a basic human right.

And then, while I was reading, I returned to Bon Iver, which I had not listened to since it first came out a couple of weeks (longer than that, surely) ago...such great music with such painfully sincere lyrics.



Have a great day, everyone. Hopefully, today will be as interesting as yesterday was.