Archive for October, 2008

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Show Tonight In Baltimore!

Okay, so this is pretty damn last minute, as in, three hours before I play, but I’ll be playing a benefit show tonight for the RNC arrestees. These are the folks who are being charged as terrorists for organizing anarchist responses to the Republican National Convention, and whether you can come tonight or not, they [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Accordion, Events by Magpie

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

I Can Give You Nightmares, Part 3

The headline alone is enough, really: Military Investigates Amnesia Beams. The short of it is that scientists have finally figured out how to selectively zap certain memories out of mice, and the military is quite interested. Apparently, since the 80s, they’ve known how to erase about the last 4 seconds of a rodents memory, but [...]

3 Comments » - Posted in Science by Magpie

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Everyone Hates “God Hates Fags”

So there’s this group that you’ve probably already heard of, the Westboro Baptist Church, who run godhatesfags.com (ooh, and even more interesting, godhatestheworld.com, an interactive map that lets you find out why god hates everywhere). Basically, these people go around and picket other folk’s funerals for being gay, or even more bizarre, the funerals of [...]

6 Comments » - Posted in Activism, Art, LOL by Magpie

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Big Dog Beta

A few weeks back I posted the video of the mortifying Big Dog, a scary bipedial robot that is destined to destroy the human race. Today, however, thanks to Jake, I’ve run across Big Dog, beta. It’s embedded above, but if you go that page you’ll find out more about it.

2 Comments » - Posted in LOL, Tech by Magpie

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

My New CD

With the recording help of Nathaniel Johnstone and the photographic help of Libby Bulloff, I’m happy to say that I’ve got a demo of my music together. Unlike the last demo (2 years ago), this one is mostly songs with lyrics, and I’m actually happy with the way that it turned out! So hop on [...]

3 Comments » - Posted in Accordion by Magpie

Monday, October 27th, 2008

What Is A SteamPunk? A Definitive Answer.

I’ll ramble more about Eccentrik Festival in the near future. In the meantime, I would like to share this groundbreaking revelation that swept over me during the set of Hellblinki Sextet (due to a intelligent comment by their bassist Brad): we can, in fact, define what a steampunk is. A steampunk is someone who curb-stomps [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Steampunk by Magpie

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

No Media Kings

I’ve been buried 10 tabs deep into No Media Kings, the self-publishing resource site run by Jim Munroe, an anarchist sci-fi author from Canada who I am embarrassed to have not heard about before now. There’s tons of information on here about self-publishing and writing, from a really awesome perspective. (including a freely downloadable how-to [...]

1 Comment » - Posted in Anarchism, how-to by Magpie

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Playing At Eccentrik Festival - Chapel Hill, NC

Sorry about the short notice, but it looks like I’ll be on stage with a few bands tomorrow night at Eccentrik Festival in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I’m pretty excited, despite that I’m taking a bus tonight instead of sleeping. I’ll also have copies of my new demo there, which excites me, and if the [...]

No Comments » - Posted in Accordion, Events by Magpie

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

what I’ve learned from MythBusters

I’ve been watching too much mythbusters recently. Anyhow, a recent episode taught me things I’d always wondered about (for no good reason, of course): how to get past a trained guard dog, and how to evade a bloodhound.

with the guard dogs, they tested two things that worked: distracting the dog with raw meat, and distracting [...]

2 Comments » - Posted in Activism by Magpie

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

the real news usually isn’t on page one

So I found out today, after sorting my way through election nonsense, that illegal immigrants swept up in ICE raids are facing ridiculous charges.
The illegal immigrants arrested must plead guilty to lesser counts or face indictment on charges of aggravated identity theft and possible mandatory two-year prison terms.
That is to say that immigrants, who often [...]

1 Comment » - Posted in Activism, Anarchism by Magpie