Author: Chris Barrus

Bruce Sterling on the post post-Internet collapse environment…

Graying cyberpunk that I am … all carpal-tunnel and bifocals … I can well remember some weirdo pals in the Information-Wants-to-Be-Free contingent, idly wondering what would happen if the business world ever “discovered the Internet.” Obviously they would buy up every machine in sight and try to make a profit at it. That much was dead obvious, for that was the period’s Reagan-Thatcherite modus operandi. Clearly all us artsy cybergoofballs would have to find some other place to chatter and swap our lies, like, say, faxes or CB radio.

But one scenario was way too far-fetched and idealistic, even for the likes of us. What if it turned out that the Net was just plain too much for business to handle? That it was downright toxic to free enterprise?

500 billion tons of Antarctic ice disintegrates in less than a month. Yup, just keep telling yourself that global warming doesn’t exist. And if it does, it’s your fault for consuming not the fault of MegaCorp, Republicans, etc. [via bottomquark]

Written specifically to counter the book “The Lorax”, by Dr. Seuss, our industry believes “Truax” more closely represents todays forest management than the scenario described by Dr. Seuss.

I am so utterly offended, I don’t know where to start.

Remember the Pioneer anomaly? This was the unexplained slow-down of Pioneer 10 (and Ulysses apparently) that was causing folks to conclude there was a trans-Neptunian planet or some sort of unknown electromagnetic effect that we didn’t understand. Turns out the answer is a little more ordinary – the slow down is caused by radiation of waste heat from the spacecraft’s power generators. [via 2012]

Business Week, of all places, has a clear-headed analysis of the dead-end that the music industry has driven itself into. [via Scripting News]

Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is the Mt. Everest of industrial noise records. Other records may be more violent, more atonal, maybe even more noisy, but nothing comes close to the power of MMM’s unstoppable racket and hallucinatory paranoia. Naturally, it’s one of the most polarizing works of art in the world. Genius? Shit? You be the judge.

Naturally, MMM was the subject of many a high school dare for us – how much of it can you listen to before you either smash the record, smash your head, or both? The mere mortals among us dropped out immediately, but a couple of us could last past the initial clatter and settle in to some sort of addled haze through the rest of sides 1 and 2. My stopping point was a couple of minutes into side 3 when some high-frequency combination comes on that makes my head feel like it had been invaded by aphids. We actually did find the legendary 8-track tape version of MMM at a Barstow, California truckstop in 1983, but I don’t know what happened to it.

Remarkably, a German avant-garde group called Zeitkratzer accomplished the impossible by transcribing MMM and scoring it for strings, winds, piano and accordion. Sort of like Bang On A Can‘s take on Music For Airports and In C. Anyway, Zeitkratzer is performing it this weekend with Reed. I wish I was there.

When it was still an independent market before destruction at the hands of the Ralphs supermarket behemoth, Hughes carried some wonderful Armenian flat bread from a local bakery as well as some of the higher-end La Brea Bakery bread. After the takeover of course, the yummy, local breads were tossed out in favor of Ralphs own miserable in-house bakery. Or so I thought…

The entertainment industry isn’t the only hive of scum and villianry. Check out this testimony from a Independent Bakers Association spokesperson on the practice of “slotting fees” — bribes that supermarkets demand from manufacturers who want their products highlighted in the store. Change the name of the products and this testimony is identical to the problems that small records face if they want their releases to be in a decent spot in a record store.

A New England supermarket chain was purchased approximately five years ago by an individual who used the proceeds of slotting fees to cover a portion of the equity for the purchase. A “pay or stay” slotting fee was required for each item in the supermarket

A New York area supermarket chain regularly charges $20,000.00 for each new item introduced by a food manufacturer, as well as “requesting” annual contributions to the purchasing manager’s Christmas party.

A West Coast supermarket chain was solicited and paid a one million dollar fee to change from one food manufacturer’s products to another’s. The justification was cost of computer reprogramming.

[via bOing bOing]

Yet again, the current news reads like the Stark Fist Of Removal… According to Bush Jr., the Sept. 11 attackers got the idea that the United States is weak from watching Jerry Springer.