Country music for T.V. is usually reserved for award shows, music videos, and commercials. With ABC's "Nashville," country music is now reserved for fictional artists who may actually become real one day (here's hoping!) The soundtrack to this show is truly the gem of the current fall T.V. season and I cannot recall no other soundtrack that I fell in love with constantly. Rayna James (Connie Britton) and Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) and company (shout out to Scarlett O'Connor!) provide much needed vocals to a show that can front some current industry standard artists. Some of my favorites are 'Wrong Song,' 'If I didn't Know Better,' and 'Buried Under.' 'Fade Into You' didn't make the cut because of licensing issues, but not to worry; Executive Producer T-Bone Burnett has procured a $1 Amazon MP3 credit for those that bought the CD. I do hope Connie and Hayden actually cut an album under their own names. They have the talent to do it. Check more out below! Singing Country via ABC.
Warp and warp drives have been the imaginative visions of science fiction for decades. The General Theory of Relativity states that might be the case for infinitum. But physicist Harold White stunned the world of aeronautics that not only is faster than light speed possible but it is being worked on at his lab. His experiment is based on the 'Alcubierre Drive,' a concept developed by Miguel Alcubierre and dubbed by Michio Kaku as the "passport of the universe." A basic example would be putting a football in a circular ring and expand the space behind it while contracting the space in front of it. A fictional example would be the above photo of a Vulcan spaceship while imagining the space in front of it and behind it "propel" the craft at speeds that appear to be faster than light. This may involve energy that is equivalent to 317 times the mass of the Earth but as White pointed out the last 18 months of researched proved that curving the warp drive itself into a donut shape would be near the mass of the Voyager One spacecraft. This loophole would trigger traveling to the nearest star in weeks instead of centuries. Check out the link below for more info.
When one is creating music, that particular person may not be aware or even care about being a pioneer in music. Dido Armstrong, a British songstress that made fame when she first started voicing herself on Eminem's single "Stan" via sampling. Since then, the "add fluid-like female voice to very edgy-like male rap voices" have become the norm for more than a decade now. Dido is now paired with Kendrick Lamar, who admittedly am not familiar with at all, and it works - to a degree. It does start soft and then after the two minute mark Kendrick raps for one verse, but it does highlight the song to a different level. I rather have this style be more popular than the reverse that has crippled the rap industry. It would also encourage more female artists to include up-and-coming rappers like Lamar who may not be getting the radio play he deserves. Take a listen below:
When one is creating a mind, how does one go about it? In an interview with host Ira Flatow, Ray Kurzweil talks about how artificial intelligence, like IBM's Watson, can be re-created using the neo-cortex. Using the plasticity of the brain in low-level visualization of identifying objects. In his book, "How to Create a Mind," the near-end projection now of creating a mind would be combining the approach of IBM's Watson and using search algorithms as a mind unto itself. The far-end approach would be actually combining those search engines and using our own "modules" (or neurons) to upload information to and from our brains to the Cloud (or the internet.) There is enough information to know how the neo-cortex works, according to scientists and once these modules are able to connect to miniature computers, then by the 2040's; people may become machines. Listen to the link above.
The band Kells, hails from France, is not the Coneheads, nor am I able to find relevant English lyrics to their French songs. They are a nu symphonic metal band but they are like Avenge Sevenfold with a female singer (in my opinion.) They seemed to be on the fence between thrash metal and scream-core. I am not sure how I got this band but I assume it was my fascination with women and heavy metal music. I do not know much about this band besides their Wikipedia page and their official website, here. Their lead singer has bangs (they have superpowers!) and is called 'Virg.' I really do not know what their songs are about (so someone with French skills, help me translate! ^.^), but I do know that I will vaguely follow them until I find another hot chick from France that screams like 'Virg." Oh, wait. It's Eths. Next!
The last article I read: Hacking the Human Brain.
This article was briefly chilling until I realized that science fact is catching up to science fiction. Hacking the human brain has been long discussed in sci-fi circles but researchers have predicted that human-brain interfaces (HBI) will be the next wave of hackable devices. This "sixth domain" of conflict could not only affect civilian computer systems but military as well. DARPA, the investigative arm of the United States military are testing ways of combining neuroscience and military systems to enhance soldiers on the battlefield. those same ways can be used to also hack a soldiers mine to fire upon its own division, reveal secrets or become part of the enemy. This scenario closely mirrors that of Joss Whedon's series' "Dollhouse": Imaging a world where one could "hire" agents to do various activities, legal or not. Ultimately, there needs to be much discussion about safeguarding our brains to protect against viruses, similar to computers. Only then one can protect this "sixth domain" like they do cyberspace (but sometimes we don;t even do that well.) Brain Warfare.
A buzz in the electronic music genre is a little-known (at least to me, I know very little about her) Russian DJ name Nina Kraviz. Her single "Nina Kraviz" is like a lo-fo approach to electronica. Mostly minimalist in nature but add a remix to it and it fleshes out to a more dance-able beat. She normally does some breaks on the label ReKids and this particular mix of her song "Ghetto Kraviz" was mixed by Amine Edge. It made NPR's top 2012 list for best electronic tracks for 2012 and I think she will explode out of the underground next year. The below cut was taken from Heidi's BBC Radio 1 Residency show. One could classify Nina in the same vain as Mary Jane Coles or Luciano. This Siberian import is surely a low-key as her voice is barely audible at times but then again, it is lo-fi. Here a cut of her below:
A big buzz in the technology sector as well as other parts of media are talking about the recent addition of futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil. More than just a figurehead, Ray brings real ideas that can be used in conjunction to Google's products such as Android OS, Google Glasses (Project Glass) , and self-driving cars. However, the real benefit maybe the hiring of engineers as they are enough of them these days (Hire me Google!) Another one would be using Machine Learning and Ray's own Artificial Intelligence advancement in Google's Data Centers, networks and search engine algorithms; this also include natural language processing which can greatly enhance Google Voice as well as talking machines on Android-based products. Plus there is always the "sci-fi cred," whereby the fiction of Google is met by the science of Kurzweil. Only the future can tell.
It seems 2012 was full of surprises in music. One of the biggest this year in my personal opinion was Traci Lords (yes, THE Traci Lords) releasing a new dance single called "He's My Bitch" (what a title!) She did have some earlier releases with the label she is on, Sea to Sun Recordings - "Last Drag" - last year and some recordings scattered throughout the last decade (and don't forget 1,000 fires [Control!] But with this new single, she is putting together a new album called 'M2F2 (read here M2F2; it's to explicit to get into right now.) It was inspired by being in gay clubs, dance floors, and her musical past. Most of her music is in the electronic genre and "He's My Bitch" is no exception. Like most of her recent music, it is fun, flirty, and a little dirty. Also, I wonder who she is mentioning in the lyrics of the song?
When computers are able to achieve faster speeds, then the "bottleneck" of the processor, software, and memory can be reduced to the point of making supercomputers that are used in 2012, be used as computers you will use in 2017. IBM researchers have managed to shrink optics to 90 nano-meters and using a process called "silicon nanophotonics." Even through performance of processors have increased exponentially over the years, they still are caught in a bottleneck when receiving instructions from memory or from hard-coded software. This integration will allow a possible one exaflop in a few years time. By switching from copper-based wiring to optic-based wiring, IBM can shrink CPU's into an all-in-one die chip. Faster computers like these might be used in the realm of aerodynamics and neuroscience to advance these key disciplines that really heavily on access to information at high speeds.