Contagious Curiosity : Music

SoCalDevGal speaking at Mindshare LA on Oct 16th

llangit — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:08:00 GMT

What is Mindshare you ask? Efren from TechZulu interviews one of the Mindshare founders.

Doug kindly invited me to be part of the October 16th speaker line up in LA at the LACY Studio Lofts.

MindshareLA

Here's this month's speaker list:

William Kohnen / CEO, SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation - Submersibles in the 21st Century

Eric Gradman / Roboticist, Applied Minds & Circus Monkey, Cirque Berzerk - The Perils of Robotics!

Brent Bushnell / The Big Cheese, uWink Restaurant - Playing with your Food

Lynn Langit / Ringleader - SmartCare/Zambia - Sharing Brains and Saving Lives

Will Watkins / The Creator, FreakFurz - Creating a Species of Hedonistic Sodomites

The FINALE is a surprise group performance that's going to blow your socks off and singe your eyebrows! As usual, our resident DJ's, Android Cartel will be offering up some ambient tunes.

LIVE LINK: -- If you can't make it, you can see the LIVE video stream here

MURDER!! -- There will also be a murder at Mindshare this month - be sure to bring your detective skills to work out who dun it!

COSTUMES -- The event is MASQUERADE so wear a costume or a mask!

DETAILS -- Find directions, parking and MetroLink info here

Sounds fun, doesn't it? Well it is! I am looking forward to seeing you there. And yes, if you are wondering, I do have something special planned for my costume. But, then you'll be able to see it from the live stream (which I'll of course post on my blog after it's recorded) in case you can't make it to the live event.

Mindshare / Enlightened Debauchery / About

Things that Endure

llangit — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:48:14 GMT

So, I am stuck in cold and wet Seattle for a week (for internal company training), worse yet, in my hotel room since I came down with a nasty flu. Trying to recuperate, I am reminded of the idiocy of TV (which I don’t normally watch at all while at home), and don’t have my music collection to cheer me up. Normally when I am feeling down one of three things usually brings me out of it – music, reading or running. It’s too cold to run, I have no books, so I’ve checked around for some ‘comfort music’ online.

I first heard Keith Jarrett’s work many, many years ago (‘The Koln Concert’). It has always had a profound effect on me. Most of my first book was written to his music. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him perform live twice – in Munich and in Los Angeles. In our ever-eroding-attention-deficit world things that endure, whether written or lyrical, are important to me.

One of the most important problems: Data Visualization

llangit — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:13:11 GMT

Great article with interesting approaches. Given the volumes of data that we (should) be working with, this is a problem that I've been giving quite a bit of thought to lately. The reason I say 'should' is my bias toward data warehouse stores, given my work with Business Intelligence (or OLAP). What's even more interesting is that application of Data Mining algorithms to this data and these visualizations.

My favorite from this collection is the Shape of a Song. Below is Madonna's Like A Prayer. I'd really only thought of classical musical as having such a beautiful shape prior to this. I'd often actually tried to envision the geometry of some of my favorite classical pieces as kind of a relaxation exercise - Bach, Brahms, Rachmaninoff. This site gives a new perspective to that.

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches | Graphics

Music is essential, lately it's j-pop

llangit — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:01:00 GMT

Lately, I've been listening to Grapevine - picked this up in Tokyo. I really just couldn't even work if I didn't have music. It seems that my tastes are becoming increasingly eclectic. This year's finds includes the newest from Tom Waits, something extraordinary from a country singer (I normally can't stand country music), the always sardonic Sparklehorse, and the plain old fun Arctic Monkeys.