Arc Tangent

Long time betwixt updates. Time for some short form posts. So, some things!

Geckboard — Got in on the beta of this. A pretty slick web-based status board, automatically pulls in data from Google Analytics, Basecamp, and several other apps. Also supports custom pulls from RESTful APIs. Unfortunately, the colour scheme is not contrasty enough for our office plasma screen, so no dice. (We’re working on something custom instead).

Twitter moving to OAuth (via Wired.com) — Annoying for me, but a good idea in general. The blogs install at work is stuck on a PHP4 box until I can move it (later this week), blocking our upgrade path to a new twitter posting plugin that supports OAuth. So much to do!

Future updates will probably continue in short-form until I have some time to really write something. I doubt the few site-scraper ‘bots that visit this blog will mind overmuch. ;)

I managed to get my mitts on a pre-release leak of Pendulum’s newest album, Immersion (iTunes link). I’m about to launch into a track-by-track review, peppered with food analogies – if you’re feeling hungry, I suggest you make a sandwich now.

I did this interview simultaneously with @ruzkin; it might be intersting to compare and contrast our reviews.

Before I begin though, I’ll disclaim: this album is going to be disappointing to a lot of fans. It’s going to take a pretty broad mind to get a lot out of it, and if you’re after more of Hold Your Colour (iTunes) or In Silico (iTunes again) I suggest you listen to a few tracks first and get a feel for it before purchasing.

This is not what you’re expecting. It’s experimental. @ruzkin described it to me as “reminiscent of early BT”. It crosses a lot of genre boundaries and tries to cover a lot of ground. In my opinion, the album is fundamentally compositionally flawed; the wrong tracks in the wrong place, and some that should have been left off the album altogether. It is by no means perfect.

I found a lot to love in it; I’m a fan of electronic music in general, so I’m not wedded to the concept of Pendulum as a drum’n'bass act. I wager that at least 70% of their former fans won’t feel the same way.

Here we go, track by track …

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As part of my duties at SitePoint, I’m implementing a Google Custom Search Engine (Business Edition).

One of the neat features of Google’s CSE is Refinements. You can tag portions of your site – subdirectories, subdomains, or even separate sites that you’ve added to your engine – with labels. You can then create refinements that will either boost results from these tagged regions of your site, list only results from specified tags, or exclude certain tags altogether from the result set.

Unfortunately the means of using these programmatically are not so well documented – the API documentation doesn’t specify how to include or exclude certain labels (as far as I’ve been able to determine).

So! For the record, the solution is to use the strings ‘more:<label>‘ and ‘less:<label>‘ in your query string.

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I want to buy BT’s new album, These Hopeful Machines. BT is a rad dude and his music is excellently sweet. I’ve heard some tracks off this collation of musically arranged bits, and I know that it is something I wish to partake of more deeply. Sadly, despite the album being legally available in some places around the world today, I can’t buy it because I’m in Australia.

Now, Australia is not a large country, but we are fairly technologically advanced. We’re well connected. Sure we’re slipping backwards a bit in the sociopolitical sphere but we’re doing pretty well as denizens of the planet. We contribute. We get stuff done.

So why is it, in the era of the Internet, of cheap copying and digital distribution, a time of wonder and joy – why is it that I have to wait 10 more days than the rest of the world to buy these easily replicated bits? I want to give these people my money and they’re making it hard for me because I live in Australia.

They’re making it difficult for me to give them money.

Let those words sink in for a moment. It’s easy for me to acquire this album. I can go to any number of torrent tracking sites and get instant gratification right now. Today. It’ll take all of an hour, at most, for this album to download, and I’ll have what I want. The effort of doing so is virtually nonexistent.

Or, I can wait another 10 days for iTunes, Amazon and BeatPort to release this album to me in Australia. I can choose not to listen to the music, to be patient, and then hand over my $12 to have a digital copy of the album. In my imagination, I can see myself impatiently eking out my 10 day wait as a bitter second-class citizen, hopping from foot to foot to prevent the cold from setting in. Battered by advertising, I slouch into their digital stores, and weakly hand over my money.

Dear music industry: Do you even WANT my money? Quit your bitching and get with the program.

The podcast that myself, @klepas and @chisa do together has finally got its own web site – so it’s not going to be posted here any longer!

The new site is: http://www.capitalpodcast.com/
The new podcast feed URL is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ACapitalTechTalk

A 301 redirect has been placed on the previous feed URL, so hopefully your RSS reader / iTunes will update automatically.

It’s been great having the podcast here on arwhite.org but it’s definitely outgrown this little blog. Long live the new site!

The photos below show you where I was for New Years Eve – Sensation White! A dance/trance event of about 40,000 people held at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne.

It was an awesome event. A personal highlight for me was getting a thumbs-up returned by Richard Durand (whose music, if you’re into dance/trance, is brilliant!)

The central stage was enormous and featured water fountains, flamethrowers, fireworks, lasers and dancers in an underwater theme (huge white jellyfish suspended from the roof completed the motif).

Only downside was the presence of a few unsavories who wanted to harass or intimidate others – cripes people, it’s a rave! Peace, Love, Understanding, Respect!

Thanks to my Canberra boys Jonesy, Pedro, Robbie, @klepas, Delbs, Will, Geoff, Truckie, Alex and Sean for a great night; thanks too to Melbournite amigo Elex!

Happy New Year everyone – hope 2010 is fantastic to you. (Yes the post is late, shush.)

EDIT: Cripes, forgot to mention Rohan! THANKS TO YOU TOO ROHAN! :D

The photos below were taken yesterday, as I drove South from Canberra to Melbourne. It’s about a 680km drive – only trance music and caffeine kept me going!

The first is The Dog on the Tuckerbox. Story goes something like: old drover orders his dog to guard his tuckerbox as he goes into town to wet his whistle at the local pub. Being the kind of man he is, he gets into a bit of a biff, and loses his life over something silly. The dog, ever loyal, guards the tuckerbox – howling and pining for her master – until she finally expires.

Gets me all misty eyed every time.

The second is a bloody great submarine in the ground. It’s HMAS Holbrook – which I guess is named after the town – and it’s a weird sight as you drive down the arid NSW stretch of the Hume Highway. The town styles itself ‘the submarine town’ and has a top-notch bakery in it!

So. My story. I’m now working for sitepoint.com, and just to make it clear, my opinions and expressions on this blog are wholly my own and do not reflect upon my employer, etc etc!

I’m in Melbourne. To live. Looking for a place to call home, camped out in some friends’ largely empty flat. It’s weird and exciting to think I’m living here now – not going home at the end of the week like usual.

Depending on the outcome of this week, the next month may end up being completely mad. I have a potential job down in Melbourne – not a bad one, by the seeming of it – and if it all pans out, I may have to be down there for at least a week or two in December (and then moving down there permanently thereafter).

I also have my Uncle Phil’s wedding to go to in a fortnight, so I have to work that in.

Then there’s the usual Christmas-period madness; parties, social engagements, trying to get enough contracting work done to make enough money to survive. It’s getting somewhat stressful already and it hasn’t even started.

Everything could work out magnificently (what a refreshing change that would make) or it could all go rather pear-shaped. I don’t know what to expect, but I’m deeply hopeful that I can make some big and positive changes.

Ruzkin pointed out to me today that I have now been blogging on arcwhite.org for over a year. My updates may have occasionally been patchy and sporadic, but I’ve managed to post something just about every month at least – I consider that a bit of a win.

So – happy birthday, arcwhite.org!

Coming up in the next few months: Some more big posts about grandiose subject matter, more travel retrospectives, big personal news, a change in theme and plenty more waffle.

To everyone who’s been reading, and commenting – and there’s more of you than I ever really hoped there would be – thank you!

We haven’t forgotten the podcast, fear not! We’re in the process of relocating to a new, dedicated blog. We’ll post details here as soon as it’s done, and redirect the iTunes podcast feed appropriately. We’ll also be scheduling podcasts a bit more regularly (we’re looking at a bi-weekly release cycle). There’s some pretty neat interviews coming up – stay tuned!

If you have any questions or comments, or if there’s something specific you’d like to see us discuss, please drop us a line.