DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The Blue Man Group recently released their second CD, entitled The Complex. Following are four of the many highlights on the disc. Song titles link to mid-fi MP3 excerpts.

“Sing Along” features Dave Matthews on vocals. The lyric is deceptively simple, yet it makes me think; the Blue Man Group has a knack for packing lots of ideas into few words. Matthews’ performance is a perfect complement to both the lyric and the music. His vocal control allows him to inject the maximum amount of soul into a minimal vocal track.

The MP3 excerpt contains a line of scat singing, which is an inspired accompaniement to a band that’s essentially a percussion ensemble and a song that has few lyrics. That is, rather than sing more words when none are necessary, Matthews uses his voice as an instrument, providing the sound of a vocal without the baggage of text.

In the second half of the excerpt, Matthews takes the concept of instrumental singing a step further as he sings an ascending scale to introduce a harmony vocal part. The brilliant thing is the timing. He’s singing three-over-four (twice), so that the notes come on the e of 1, 2, a of 2, + of 3, e of 4, or in other words, every third 16th note. He starts the pattern one-sixteenth after the downbeat, so it resolves on the downbeat (15 16ths later) when the harmony vocal comes in. This is art!

“Shadows Pt. 2” features Tracy Bonham on vocals. Conceptually, this piece is similar to “Sing Along”; Bonham’s voice takes the part of a string section as she sings a high melody (with no words) above the groove. The second half of the excerpt showcases a surprisingly musical exchange between Rob Swift’s scratching and the Blue Men’s airpoles. I admit I’m a sucker for call-and-response, but even with that bias I think this passage is a lot of fun. I’ll also admit that I didn’t realize I was hearing two musicians playing off of each other until I saw the video (included on the CD), because the two instruments sound similar. It’s all white noise, created by black and Blue men, and it’s exceptionally cool.

“Persona” is a straight-ahead rock tune, with Josh Haden on vocals. The lyrics are simple and haunting, as is characteristic of the album. The tone of Haden’s voice matches the dark mood of the song; the result sticks in memory. It’s a Monday sort of song.

“White Rabbit” is of course a remake of the Jefferson Airplane classic. I believe the Blue Man Group stage show includes a few moments of this song. Hearing this full-band orchestration was shocking, though, because the build into that opening verse is one of the greatest musical passages on the record. This is a song you’ll play loud and repeatedly, assuming you have ears and a pulse.

There is a comedic aspect to a Blue Man performance, and although this is a serious album, in fact a somewhat dark and introspective album, there are moments of light which I won’t overexpose here except to mention that one of the videos on the enhanced CD made me laugh out loud.

All in all this is a rewarding, enjoyable CD. It’s different from their first release (Audio), although if you liked that one you’ll probably like this one too (even if the reverse is not necessarily the case).

See the Amazon link below for additional song samples.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon

Pictured is my favorite spot on the trail to Bullfrog Pond. The 180° wrap-around view reveals nearly no sign of civilization. Within California’s borders are millions of acres of local, state, and national parks; from this perch I can see several thousand of them.

Anyway this is an ideal spot to stop and inhale a processed-food bar.

This is my mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice how “recycle” comes at the end of the chain, implying that it is the least important of the three.

It is better to consume less, because everything you consume puts a strain on the environment: manufacturing, transportation, packaging, etc. For those things you do consume, it’s better to consume them completely than to use them once and then send them to the landfill.

But when all else fails, the minimum thing you can do is recycle. Think about the amount of paper you consume in a day: the morning newspaper, the carton of orange juice, the paper towels and napkins and toilet paper, the insulation ring around the cardboard cup of coffee, the sack your lunch comes in, the Post-Its stuck to your monitor, the stack of magazines and junk mail… You’re awash in paper products, and at the end of the day I bet you’ll have discarded 90% of it. Would you want the paper companies to chop down another tree to create the paper you’ll want tomorrow? Or would you rather someone found a way to reuse the stuff you threw out today?

So, anyway, I recycle just about everything because it makes sense to me to do so. I’m cognizant of the costs of recycling: machines sort the refuse… trucks haul sorted refuse to processing plants… more machines chew up the used paper or plastic or aluminum, etc., into small bits… chemicals are added; fumes are released… Recycling is not the best thing that ever happened to the planet, but considering our lifestyles, recycling is a sensible mechanism for coping with the enormous amounts of waste we produce.

Remember how far we’ve come. Why is it easier to recycle now than it used to be? Maybe it’s because people demanded it. Demand creates an economic force. At some point somebody invented more-efficient ways to recycle, so now it makes economic sense to do so. Now imagine what would happen if twice as many people were recycling their paper, plastic, and aluminum waste. Isn’t it reasonable to believe that new efficiencies would be discovered, costs would be lower, impact on the environment would be reduced?

Today I gave the effort a tiny push. I picked a grocery item that I buy in quantity, and wrote a letter to the manufacturer requesting that they begin using recyclable packaging. The solution may be as simple as stamping the plastic bag with the appropriate resin code.

Next, I wrote a letter to the local warehouse chain — the place that sells probably 75% of the paper towels used in the state — requesting that they carry recycled paper products. This particular effort could have a huge impact, because the store has millions of customers, many of whom would happily pick the greener product if it was convenient.

If you have 120 seconds free, you could help with this effort by sending an email requesting recycled paper products to your local warehouse club:

• Request recycled paper products from Costco
• Request recycled paper products from Sam’s Club
• Request recycled paper products from BJ’s Wholesale

I need a new firewall. The one I’m using now works fine, which is a real credit to Linux, for the hardware is about 15 years old. It’s an IBM PS/ValuePoint, originally equipped with a 66 MHz 486. I’ve added a second disk, more RAM, and upgraded the processor, but the thing is still loud, slow, and ugly. It weighs about 50 lbs and makes enough noise to be easily heard over my office stereo, even though it sits 12' away.

The replacement is a Mini-ITX system, which is tiny, quiet, and cutting-edge. Here’s a complete hardware list:

• VIA EPIA ME-6000 mainboard and CPU
• 40 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 disk drive (p/n ST340014A)
• Mitsumi slim CD-ROM drive (p/n SR244W1)
• Morex Cubid / Casetronic 2699R case
• Mushkin “blue line” 512MB PC2100 DIMM (p/n 990856)
• additional flat internal IDE cable
• ps/2 mouse and keyboard

Total cost, shipped: $475. Sources: Shentech, iDot, Mushkin

The Mini-ITX mainboard is the heart of this system. VIA has managed to put a 600 MHz processor, 10/100 Ethernet, soundcard, video card, and no CPU fan onto a board about six inches square. See the Mini-ITX website’ projects page for all sorts of unusual applications.

My needs are much more pedestrian, so I opted for a standard case rather than a plush toy or motorcycle helmet. The finished machine provides USB 2.0, FireWire, CD-ROM, 40 GB storage, and fast ethernet in a box 11 inches square.

The system came together quickly. If you’re building your own, the following notes might help:

• Mini-ITX.com’s review of the (older) 2677R case serves as a helpful assembly guide.
• The Mitsumi CD-ROM drive I purchased came with the laptop-IDE-to-desktop-IDE converter preinstalled. This is fortunate because the 2699R case did not come with this converter, in contrast to what Mini-ITX.com’s store claims. For more info: notebook IDE converters
• The mainboard kit includes one internal IDE cable, which will not reach both the CD-ROM drive and a disk drive. You’ll have to supply a second IDE cable. Get a flat one; the round ones are too thick and inflexible to work well inside this small case.
• There’s probably a trick I don’t know, but I managed to get all the case connectors reversed. They were mounted to the right pins, but rotated 180°, so that the switches and LEDs didn’t work. If you find an LED or switch failing, try reversing its connector.
• When you order RAM, make sure the DIMM is 30MM or less in height. The helpful folks at Mushkin actually measured their PC100 DIMMs for me so that they could suggest one that would fit (see part number above). If you’re not adding a CD or DVD drive, though, DIMM height is irrelevant.
• The iDot store claims that the 2699R case’s power supply cannot simultaneously power a 3.5'' disk drive, a CD-ROM drive, and an M-series ITX mainboard. This is incorrect. The 2699R was designed for that combination of components, and I’ve had one running that way for over a week now.

The ME-6000 board is fanless and therefore silent. The 2699 case has two small fans that I attached to the mainboard’s SYSFAN connector. I have not verified this but I believe the power to this connector is regulated, so that the fan spins faster when the CPU is working harder. [Update 2005-07-19: it appears the sysfan header supplies constant, not variable power.]

The 7200.7 drive is fairly quiet. Apparently the 7200.7’s predecessor, the Barracuda IV, is even quieter. There appears to be a tradeoff: noise vs. performance.

In any event, the assembled system is very quiet. It’s not silent, but significantly quieter than that train-wreck 486 it will replace.

The software is taking longer to configure… more on that later.

I pulled up to an acquaintance’s house the other day to pick up something he’d been holding for me. I was amused by the collection of geek stickers on the back of his car: “NYC Wireless”, “Coding is not a crime!”, and “Linuxgruven”. “What a nerd!” I thought, reflecting that I had no such stickers on the back of my car.

And then I considered why I was visiting — to pick up a piece of a 24dBi parabolic grid (a wireless-networking antenna). And I considered that my trunk contained all the parts necessary to assemble a 600 MHz Mini-ITX server: case, fanless mainboard with CPU, low-profile DIMM, micro-size CD-ROM, IDE drive, cables, etc. I’m a nerd, too; I just don’t advertise it. In fact, I hide it. Maybe someday I’ll work up the courage to announce my nerd-dom to the world — to come out of the [network] closet.