Kepler’s first images/Green rooftops/hipster grifter
April 17, 2009
Image via Space.com
The Kepler spacecraft took its first few images earlier this week, and NASA has released them. The one shown here is zoomed in on a small cluster of stars about 13,000 light years from Earth. Kepler has a 95 megapixel camera to take these images. 95 megapixels. Fuck.
An awesome new concept is emerging in some of the world’s largest cities- green rooftops. It’s a concept that I sincerely hope catches on quickly. Typical building rooftops are dark and dry; they absorb and then release much more heat than a natural plant-covered surface would, and the result is what’s called the “heat-island effect.” This phenomenon is what causes some large cities to be a few degrees hotter than the surrounding areas, and it’s a growing problem. But if we cover most of the city rooftops with gardens and grass, this problem would be virtually eliminated. Please check out this National Geographic article on the subject… not only for the story but for the awesome photography.
Will humans ever be able to travel beyond our solar system? Or will we just resort to armchair astronomy and send an army of intelligent robots to other worlds to explore them for us? The question is tackled in this great article by Luke McKinney from the Daily Galaxy. It’s a short and entertaining read, as all of McKinney’s witty posts tend to be.
The new Harry Potter movie comes out July 15th, and the trailer has just hit the interwebs. I first saw it on this io9 post.
Carles of Hipster Runoff had an encounter with the now somewhat-famous hipster grifter, who brought her cancer/pregnant/sex fraud scheme from Salt Lake City to Brooklyn scammed quite a few hipsters out of a lot of money.
As I said yesterday, I’ll be photographing Rites of Spring this weekend, but there’s also a TON of other great stuff going down, most notably National Record Store Day on Saturday, for which Grimey’s is hosting their Big Ass Outdoor Sale. Be sure to stop by between 10am-8pm and check out the great record deals and live music out in the parking lot. A list of some other stuff happening can be found at Nashvillest. Have a great weekend!
New mix/edge of space/honey bees
April 14, 2009
DJ Burgers (me) has posted a brand new mix for your dancing/listening pleasure. Click here to download the official DJ Burgers Spring MIXXXX 2009. Here’s the tracklist:
Leif-Timbs
Le Castle Vania- Trouble in Daylight (LA Riots Remix)
KUDU- 4 Let’s Finish (Sinden Remix)
All-American Rejects-Gives You Hell (Bloody Beetroots remix)
La Roux-In For the Kill (the Twelves Remix)
Jensen Sportag- Jackie
PNAU-Baby (Breakbot remix)
Daft Punk- One More Time (Radio edit)
Black Kids- Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance (Twelves Remix)
The Presets-Girl and the Sea (Cut Copy Remix)
Rye Rye- Bang (ft. M.I.A.)
If you want me to DJ at a party or something, email me at djburgers@gmail.com. Also I’m hosting another 8 off 8th at Mercy Lounge on May 11th. Mark your calendars, it’ll be a good one. Lineup is mostly confirmed but I’ll wait until I hear from everyone to post it here.
Ok now that the shameless self-promotion is out of the way, on to some music news… and there’s really only one thing that sticks out to me today. Phil Spector was found guilty of murder and could face life in prison.
From the department of “OMG THAT’S DISGUSTING!!!”…. A man in Russia had a 5 cm. fir tree removed from inside his lung. I don’t understand how it grew without any light…. In fact, I question the legitimacy of this story. Gross, nonetheless.
Scientists in Spain have discovered one potential cause of Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, Science Daily reports. No, it’s not lethal tree farts as M. Night Shyamalan would have us believe. They found a bacteria that was infecting a colony and successfully treated it with anitbiotics. This may or may not be the main cause of CCD. Let’s hope it is, because if they keep dying, it could be devastaing for the world’s food supply.
Scientists at the University of Calgary have come up with a new definition for the edge of space. According to them, it’s 73 miles above the Earth’s surface. But the definition is still pretty unclear, becuase technically an astronaut is said to have been to space after travelling only 50 miles above the ground. Furthermore, for the space shuttle the edge of space is defined as 76 miles becuase that’s where it switches from thrusters to using air surfaces (the wings) for control. But the atomsphere at that altitude is still negligible, the only reason the space shuttle can use air surfaces that high-up is becuase at that point it’s just beginning re-entry and thus is travelling at 16,000-17,000 mph. If it were travelling much slower than that it would still have to use thrusters.
On this day in 1970, the famous words “Houston, we have a problem” came across the radio from Apollo 13. If you’re interested, you can read the details of the incident on the National Space Science Data Center website.
Update to yesterday’s post- the tornado that hit northern Murfreesboro was upgraded to EF4 intesity. It briefly reached EF4 status around Highland Park Drive and again near Tomahawk Trace, but was at EF3 strength for most of its duration. The total path length was also extended to 23 miles.
South Park may have pulled off the impossible: putting Kayne West’s ego in check. This Billboard.com article reports that last Wednesday’s episode “skewered the famously self-important rapper… painting him as a narcissistic figure so out of touch with reality he couldn’t even take a (very politically incorrect) joke.” Well done, South Park. Check out Kayne’s blog post here.
Stephen Colbert is a smart guy. The most brilliant thing he’s done recently is rally his fans to vote on an open NASA poll for the name of their next node to be added to the International Space Station. They had some suggestions- Serenity, Earthrise, etc… very typical-sounding names for stuff like that. But they had an write-in option, which Colbert exploited. The result was that the name “Colbert” won the contest for naming the node, and NASA has been scratching its head as to what to do about it ever since. Tomorrow night we’ll find out their decision in a clever way- astronaut Sunita Williams will be on the show to unveil the name. Will it really be Colbert? Only time will tell. It’ll be an interesting episode for sure…
The CIA and USAF have finally declassified a project that was based at the mysterious Area 51 base in Nevada. The LA Times interviewed 5 former employees of the facility who disclosed details on a top-secret spy plane code named OXCART. This plane allegedly has an odd shape, and was capable of flying at Mach 3. This could explain a HUGE number of the UFO sightings in that area, because according to this article there were 2,850 test flights of this thing, all conducted from Area 51. This is a bigger deal than it may seem, because up until now, the government didn’t even acknowledge that Area 51 existed. By declssifying this project they’re now admitting that it does exist. A big step forward if you ask me. I’ve always been fascinated by the place, and really want to go out there just to walk up to the signs telling you that you’ll be shot if you try to break in. I’m quite sure that there are some crazy things going on there involving technology that we haven’t even dreamed of yet, but I won’t say or believe that they’re reverse-engineering UFO’s and keeping aliens in freezers until proof of such a claim exists. Via io9.
Friday’s tornado outbreak was pretty devastating, though the vast majority of the damage was from an EF3 twister that hit nothern Murfreesboro. The official NWS survey has determined that a total of 4 tornadoes hit middle TN on friday- three EF1’s and one EF3. The report actually says “at least EF3,” so there’s a chance it may be upgraded to an EF4. One of the things that made this particular tornado so devastating was the fact that it was a multiple-vortex tornado. I will leave you with this absolutely amazing video footage shot from a tall building in Murfreesboro. (Probably the bank building.) You can easily see the smaller funnels inside the main vortex. The first few seconds are jittery but he sets the camera down and you get a long, clear look at this monster. Watch closely at about :45, 1:15, and 1:30 where you can clearly see a smaller vortex to the right of the main one.
I’m a little behind in posting this, but if you haven’t been to We Own This Town in a while, I highly suggest you head over and check it out. Joe Baine Colvert and Michael Eades (aka Yewknee) have been doing a great job of keeping it updated and active (especially the show listings). They have a new podcast featuring all artists from Theory 8’s roster, including some yet-to-be released material. Good times for all!
Some other exciting news recently posted on WOTT- The Features have a song in a trailer for the new Mike Judge film Extract, slated to release this fall. It’s got a pretty star-studded lineup, too- including Ben Affleck, Mila Kunis, Jason Bateman, and J.K. Simmons. Watch the trailer. Let’s hope they actually end up in the soundtrack!
Nashvillest has a really nice post about dining out on the cheap in Nashville. Nice work, ladies! They also posted a link to a City Paper story about a new local law being proposed that would hold venues directly responsible for illegally posted concert fliers. This has to be the most RIDICULOUS idea I’ve ever heard. We already know it’s technically illegal to post fliers on telephone poles/light poles/any pulblic property. But nobody gives a shit because it’s impossible to enforce unless a cop actually sees someone doing it. But fining a venue because some band’s fanclub posts fliers for their upcoming show? How on EARTH could a venue possibly control this kind of thing? That’s right, NEVER. It’s IMPOSSIBLE for them to do such a thing. They can’t cancel the show (as some dumbass commenter on the City Paper story suggests), what good does that do anyone? The shows are the venue’s business! Futhermore, the bands will be pissed, especially if they’re a touring band, because once again, playing shows is their business. They make their money from it. Then no bands will ever want to play there, thus the venue ends up closing and the whole live music process just implodes. I guess if you want to take the “Music” out of “Music City,” go right ahead and pass this. I have a suggestion for Mr. Tygard- WAIT. It’s quite clear that the internet is becoming a far easier and cheaper way to promote concerts, and that means less and less printed fliers. It’s only a matter of time before this very MINOR problem fixes itself.
Off the soapbox, onto some more interesting stuff…
Hipster Runoff examines Billy Corgan and Tila Tequila.
Remember Line Rider? Well if you enjoyed that, you’ll want to check out BallDroppings. Just go try it. Absolutely addictive and it could easily consume hours of your day if you aren’t careful. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Via Yewnkee’d.
Just one science-related tidbit for the day- the Kepler space telescope popped its lid and is now starting to look for earth-like worlds orbiting other stars! That was the last major milestone in the mission, aside from when it eventually does discover the first earth-like exoplanet. Go Kepler!
I’ll leave you today with this awesome Man Man video featuring my favorite SNL cast member Fred Armisen. Werewolves!
I hope everyone enjoyed yesterday’s tomfoolery. Everyone seems to hate April Fool’s but I enjoy all the jokes. I always look forward to what kind of ridiculousness Google will cook up each year. Here’s the Wikipedia page with a history of their pranks.
Photo by Steve Cross
Shoot the Mountain have been getting a lot of buzz lately and playing a lot of shows, but everyone’s been wondering when their first release would happen. Well, it’s finally happening on May 16th on Theory 8 Records, and it’s an EP (presumably self-titled?). A release show will happen on that date at the Basement with Totally Snake (WTF?!?) opening. They’re also playing on April 9th at the End opening for Appleseed Cast.
The Features just released details of their upcoming tour with The Dexateens. They’ll be hitting clubs all over the southeast, northeast, and midwest later this month and into May. Oh, and they’ll also be featured in the July issue of Nylon Magazine.
More comprehensive local music news coverage can be found at We Own This Town and Out The Other.
Four Russian cosmonauts and two European astronauts volunteered to be locked up together in a simulation of a spacecraft for 105 days. This is part of an experiment to study the psychological and physical effects of being stuck with 5 other people for an extended period of time in cramped quarters. The experiment will help scientists and engineers plan for an eventual manned-mission to Mars. This will be very interesting to monitor.
I’ve been reading a few different posts and articles over the last week or so regarding a recent vote on science standards for the Texas Board of Education. The board held a vote on several standards for science education and it was mostly a travesty, the biggest of which was the deletion of the statement that the universe is “roughly 14 billion years old.” Sure, there are several different numbers out there that vary by a few million years, but everyone in the entire scientific community agrees that it’s pretty damn close to 14 billion years. A variance of a few million years is NIL when you look at the big picture, and is definitely covered by term “roughly.” There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise! One faint glimmer of hope is that the board voted down a proposed change that would allow the teaching of “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. If this had passed, it would’ve been just one more way for Creationism to creep its ugly way into the scientific classroom. This article on the NewScientist blog sums it all up very well. I suggest reading it. I cannot get over the quote of board chairman Dr. Don McLeroy, who is quoted as saying, “I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts.” HA! Yea, you tell ’em Dr. McLeroy! Tell those experts that they don’t know what they’re talking about! Afterall, they’ve spent the majority of their lives studying REAL science, FACTS and EVIDENCE… how could they possibly know what they’re talking about? I find it amazing that this man (a dentist) was able to get through medical school with such anti-scientific beliefs. I sure as hell wouldn’t want someone that dumb working on my teeth.
Ok enough ire for one day. I’ll leave you with this hilarious video clip from a 50’s sci-fi movie. I really hope this is how they dance in the future.
2 tornadoes confirmed on Saturday/T.I. makes Rites of Spring appearance just before jail
March 31, 2009
Apparently Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber is on the list of TIME magazine’s candidates for the 100 most influential people. You can vote to rank each individual’s influence on a scale of 1 to 100. Seriously? Everyone’s heard of the “Pitchfork effect,” but I think it has become less relevant over the past 2 years or so. It just seems to me that people start regarding over-hyped “blog-buzz” bands as “Pitchfork bands,” and rightfully so, because most of the bands they’ve hyped over the last couple years have had little staying power. Ex.- Vampire Weekend, Deerhunter, TV on the Radio, etc… Hipster Runoff has a take on this issue.
Rapper T.I. has been confirmed as the “other” headliner for this year’s Rites of Spring, and it will probably be one of his last performances before starting his 1-year jail sentence. Kinda weird but kinda cool at the same time?
In other festival news, the 2nd All Points West lineup has been announced, and it includes Nashville/Bowling Green act Cage the Elephant. These guys have a very festival-friendly live show from what I’ve heard, so it’s really no surprise, especially since they’re also playing Coachella and Bamboozle.
It had to be invented eventually… shoes that grow with children’s feet.
President Obama signed a very important environmental bill into law yesterday called the Omnibus Public Land Management Act. This protects wildnerness areas in California, West Virginia, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Utah, Virginia and Oregon. It also protects a thousand miles of rivers. This act has been in the works for many years, so one can only credit Obama with the final push to make it law. Still, a big win for our country’s natural beauty. Via the Daily Galaxy.
NASA unveiled a mock-up of the Orion Crew Vehicle yesterday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. For some reason I can’t find any photos of this in the public domain, but it basically looks just like the Apollo modules from the 60’s. Technologically, though, it’s vastly more advanced than the Apollo modules. The new Constellation project (of which the Orion Crew Vehicle is a part) will carry astronauts to the ISS beginning around 2015, to the moon in the early 2020’s, and hopefully to Mars in the mid 2030’s. I really hope that I’m still around when that happens.
Finally, the National Weather Service in Nashville has completed their assesment of the storm damage from this past Saturday. As you probably know if you’re from here, a tornado warning was issued for western Davidson and eastern Cheatham Counties around 5:30pm. The storm that prompted this warning did indeed drop an EF1 twister that hit northern Cheatham County. Also, another storm that hit Rutherford County dropped an EF1 twister that hit very near downtown Murfreesboro. This tornado was orginally thought to be and EF0, but further damage assesment prompted the NWS to upgrade it to an EF1. They have very good aerial survey methods that can determine whether damage was caused by straight-line winds or a tornado. The Enhanced-Fujita scale uses damage to estimate the wind speeds in the tornado. There is still no direct way to measure the wind speeds inside the actual funnel, unless the tornado happens to directly hit a wind vane and it somehow miraculously survives. But the chances of that happening are slim to none. If you know me I’m sure you’re wondering whether I chased either of these storms, and the answer is yes, I did attempt to track down the one in Davidson County, but chasing in TN is very difficult, mainly because the roads are not laid out in nice, easy-to-navigate grids like they are in the plains, and also because the storms around here tend to be High-Precipitation Supercells, rather than Low-Precipitiation Supercells which are more common in the plains. This means that most of the tornadoes in TN are shrouded in rain and thus very difficult or impossible to spot from a distance. So no, I was unsuccessful in seeing/documenting this tornado.
Parking/Privates
March 30, 2009
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve really REALLY wanted to do just this:
Ok, now that’s out of the way. One of my favorite bands from our great local rock scene here in Nashville is The Privates. Their last album Barricades was phenomenal and still recieves regular play in my iTunes despite being over 2 years old now. The guys recently finished up a new EP at Battletapes, which is a departure from their long history of recording at Lake Fever Productions. I’ve written about this before so I’ll say no more about that. Just enjoy the title track “Motion,” and be sure to catch their EP release show at the Basement this Friday April 3rd, along with Hotpipes and the Garland Sisters (Caitlin Rose and Tristen).
If you read this blog or know me at all, you could probably infer that I’m a fan of the History Channel’s series The Universe. Thus I was quite intrigued by this article on io9 that talks about the Discovery Channel’s new rival series, Stephen Hawking’s Universe. Is the Discovery Channel at war with the History Channel?
Today I’ll leave you with this nice bit of space porn from the last space shuttle mission: It was taken as Discovery moved away from the ISS in preparation for landing. Even better than the last pic I posted of the ISS.
Click to enlarge
ISS nearly gets whacked/weekend stuff
March 13, 2009
You’ve probably already seen this by now, but the astronauts on the International Space Station had to prepare for a possible emergency evacuation yesterday as a piece of space junk flew with 3 miles of the station. It was all over by the time it hit news headlines. It did not hit, thankfully, and everything is back to normal. Apparently the debris was about 5 inches, and traveling at over 20,000 mph, and was part of spent satellite rocket motor, not a piece of the two satellites that collided a few weeks ago. The crew has a Russian Soyuz capsule constantly attached to the station that they can use as a lifeboat should they need to evacuate the ISS.
Well-known music blog Largehearted Boy mentions Nashville’s own The Non-Commissioned Officers today, and has a link to download their free EP, which is part of the soundtrack to the locally-made film Makeout With Violence, which has 3 showings at SXSW this year. (None of which I can make, unfortunately…)
Another cool link via Largehearted Boy is the Top 10 Most Overlooked Band members on Spike.com. This is probably the only thing I’ll ever read on that website, as it’s mostly geared towards douchebag bros.
It’s friday. The weekend is upon us. Here’s where I’ll be:
Tonight: King Khan & the Shrines at Exit/In. I saw KK with BBQ show back in Nov. and it was amazing. Can’t wait to see him with “big” band. There’s also a lot of other shit going down tonight. Too much to mention here.
Saturday: Superdrag album release for Industry Giants at Exit/In. The 90’s powerpopsters are back in full effect, original lineup and all!
Sunday: I’m DJing (as DJ Burgers) at the Rock Swap in East Nashville. I’m doing the “after party” segment starting at 6pm after the official events/bands are over.
Kepler mission launch a success!
March 7, 2009
Just a quick weekend update: NASA’s Kepler Mission launched successfully last night aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket! It’s now headed toward its final orbit where it will trail earth’s path around the sun hunting for other worlds like our own. Read full details at Universe Today. Happy Hunting!
New hope for life on Mars/Robots on the moon
March 6, 2009
Olympus Mons is the largest volcano on Mars (though no longer active), and is also the largest volcanic feature we’ve ever discovered in our entire solar system. It’s so big that you wouldn’t even know you were on a mountain if you were standing on it- it would just look like a vast gently sloping plain, as far as your eye could see. Well, not only is it the most badass volcano ever… it’s also the latest location to exhibit the possibility for life on Mars. According to this Universe Today article, a couple of scientists from Rice University have found evidence that liquid water may be trapped in clay deep underneath the giant moutain, and is the only explanation for its assymetry. The only life that could survive there would be heat-loving microbes called thermophiles, much like the algae that lives in the thermal pools at Yellowstone.
NASA is seriously considering sending a fleet of robots to the moon to do some preparatory construction on what will eventually be a manned moon base. There are some who think going back to the moon is pointless, and that we should just shoot straight for Mars, but I tend to agree with the government that we should take our expansion into the solar system one step at a time. Yes we’ve been to the moon, but we haven’t built a base there, and I think we need to build a base somewhere close before we try to build a base on Mars.
Speaking of robots, The Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” has a series of awesome robot photographs. My favorite is the very last one, which shows NASA’s next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory. The cool thing about it is that there’s a woman in the photo, giving you perspective on the actual size of the thing, which is much bigger than anything we’ve sent to Mars before.
Now for some music-related news…
Wired.com reports that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are running into some problems with their proposed merger (thank god). In a recent hearing they were unsuccessful in convincing Sen. Herb Khol (D-Wisconsin) of the legality of the merger. One of their biggest arguments for the merger is that it will result in lower ticket prices. I’m no economic expert by any means, but even I know that the only thing that really keeps prices low is competition.
Check out this Rolling Stone blog post with a clip from Michael Jackson’s “comeback announcement” yesterday. I wonder just how many shows he can make it through… I’m betting not as many as he promised.
Lastly, if you’re in Murfreesboro this weekend, be sure to check out the YEAH benefit show at the Vine, featuring JEFF the Brotherhood and And The Relatives, and then head over to the Grind for a FREE show featuring the Tits, my band Tigers Con Queso, and Mean Tambourines. Have a great weekend!
steve cross loves music and science 