Category: Web

Gnarls Barkley Revealed

NY Times magazine has put up an excellent profile of Danger Mouse: The DJ Auteur
You know what? You can kind of hear the fact that he digs Portishead in his music.
I remember telling M’s boyfriend (self-declared “biggest Jay-Z fan in the world”) via long distance call to Canada that my favorite Jay-Z album was the Grey Album. His reply (he hadn’t heard it yet): “Even better than Blueprint 2?”
Oh, hell yes.

Free 80’s Music

A digg user has posted 100 free 80’s mp3s over on his blog.
Go download some and relive the glory years of commie-fearing, plastic neon superconductivity.
By the way, I noticed they had G-mans new favorite karaoke jam on that page, Cutting Crew’s I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight. His semi-faithful rendition of that horrible song at the Big Echo in Umeda a couple months ago had me blowing beer out my nose.
Legal note: Piracy is bad. I do not advocate swilling rum while raping damsels on a dead man’s chest. On the other hand, YOHOHO BIOOOTCHES!

Kyorisoku – New Mapion Feature

Mapion is my favorite map site for Japan because of its huge-resolution BB (broadband) maps and excellent GUI. I was on the site today looking up directions when I noticed a new feature – distance measurement! Basically, you plot a course on a map by drawings points with your cursor and the distance between each point as well as the total are calculated in a handy little table, which also shows estimated time and calories burned if you walk, jog, ride a bike, or drive the route you plotted.
For instance, this is what it would look like if you walked out of the men’s restroom of Jusco (Sumoto branch), crossed the parking lot, ran to the nearby Sumoto river, and walked over water to get to the nearest Mobil gas station:

(click to see full size)
Unfortunately, there’s no info for performing that last miracle – but remember, IT’S STILL IN BETA. Let’s see if Mapion can include that, plus wind resistance, blood-type factors, and gravitational pull of passing delivery vans in the next version, k? Until then, you can see just how long it takes to get from my corner (where the nearsighted old man and his wife attempt to hawk wilted cabbage to all who pass) to anywhere else in Japan…
I think this new feature will be damn useful for planning bank heists.

-phagy

One of the most interesting things I’ve read in a while:
Eat Me: The Soviet method for attacking infection that we can learn from
Favorites passages:
– “You send your bacterial sample to the lab, and it’s either matched up with an existing phage or a phage is cultured just for you.”
– “Phages are also sold over-the-counter in Georgia. People take the popular mixture piobacteriophage, for example, to fight off common infections including staph and strep. These phage mixtures are updated regularly so they can attack newly emerging bacterial strains.”
– “One company recently tried to open a phage center in Tijuana but was deterred by the Mexican government. Phages might be offered someday at clinics on Native American reservations, as a casinolike quirk of legislative autonomy.”
I like the fact that you can legally procure heroin in TJ, but a sure fix for an infectious disease? No, senor.