For anyone who has followed this blog in the past (hi Aryn and Greg!…and, well, Mom!), you might remember a post I made awhile back about the old classic song “Tonight You Will Belong To Me”. The song — written by in 1926 by Billy Rose and music writer Lee David — is perhaps made most famous by Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in The Jerk, but has been performed by countless others over the years.
Adding to the list now, (thanks to a tip off from Aryn, via Boing Boing) is author, humorist, actor, Daily Show Resident Expert, and PC, John Hodgman, who sang the song with internet-acclaimed musician Jonathan Coulton.
Not sure why this song seems to have had a revival in recent years and become one of the staple duets but its such a great song, so I can’t complain. Take a listen here:
So I was just perusing our spam that had been caught in the ol’ filter and came across this one.. Its basically a bunch of cleaning tips.. :
GUM: To remove chewing gum from kids clothing - harden the gum on the garment with ice; it will become brittle, and can be chipped off, wash thoroughly to remove any sugar.
CANDLE WAX: Place the stained area between paper towels, or pieces of brown paper, and press with a warm iron to absorb the wax.
PERSPIRATION: Soak the stain area in a warm white-vinegar water.
INK: Do not use hairspray on ball point pen ink. The oils and lanolin in the hairspray can cause more stains. Bring it to us.
General Tips
Never iron fabric with a deodorant stain, as this will permantly damage the fabric.
Be very careful not to get suntan oils on garments as many of them will permanently stain.
Do not attempt to remove cosmetic stains yourself, as the color in cosmetics runs easily and enlarges the stain.
Never wash an egg stain in hot water - this will cause the stain to set.
The safest form of mild bleach for whitening all natural fibers is white vinegar.
A common fatal error is the use of acetone in home stain removal. Acetate fibers will dissolve in acetone - Don’t attempt your own stain removal.
Some water spots on fabrics such as taffeta or silk can be removed by holding the fabric over steam (as from a kettle) and then ironing gently while damp.
If the stain is still wet, do not rub it, or you will spread it. Simply try and absorb excess moisture with paper towel or cotton towel….
And it goes on like this for a long long time… intermixed with links to various other pages that I didn’t care to click on.
I was forwarded this story from a friend just now about a Jersey City, NJ councilman, Steve Lipski, who was arrested from Washington D.C.’s very own 9:30 Club for urinating (yes, URINATING) off the balcony during a concert.
Says the press release:
“… 44-year-old Lipski was removed from a place called the Nightclub 9:30 on Friday night.
“That’s after club staffers saw him relieve himself onto the crowd from a second floor balcony during a concert by a Grateful Dead tribute band.”
This story is wonderful from so many angles:
1) NJ Councilman.
2) 44 years old.
3) Grateful Dead tribute band?
You would think a man of his supposed age and “stature” would be able to hold his shit enough at a Dead cover band show. Seriously man, keep it together.
The band apparently according to my skill in surfing internet was the Dark Star Orchestra, who are known to recreate full legendary Dead concerts song for song based on the band’s official set lists. The show that night for anyone who cares to imagine what song he started peeing during…
Show: 1604 • 11/08/2008 Nightclub 930, Washington, DC Setlist: 10/30/73 - Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO
Set 1: H. C. Sunshine, Me & My Uncle, Ramble On, L. L. Rain, Deal, Mexicali, TLEO, El Paso, Row Jimmy, Jack Straw, China Cat> I Know You Rider, Playin
Set 2: Half Step, Big River, Dark Star> Stella Blue> Eyes> WRS Prelude> WRS Part 1> Let It Grow, GDTRFB> Johnny B. Goode
Encore: Saturday Night
“Filller”: Mighty Quinn
I’m guessing it was probably during that totally groovin’ segue of China Cat> I Know You Rider. That would make me piss myself too.
Here’s a simple use of the touchOSC app and Pure Date to turn the iPhone/iPod Touch into a Theramin of sorts. Feel free to download the Pure Data patch and try it yourself! Some basic instructions to get it up and running:
-You need to download and install Pure Data (free) and touchOSC (a few bucks) on your computer and iPhone
-Get your computer and iphone on the same wi-fi network.
-Open up the Pure Data patch on your computer and make sure the audio is turned on under the menu “Media” >> “Audio On”
-Open up TouchOSC and make sure the accelerometer setting is turned to “On”
-In the Host IP Address menu, you have to enter your laptop’s IP address. To get this, go to your computer’s Network Preferences and choose your wireless connection, click “Advanced”, choose the “TCP/IP” tab, and you should see the IP address there. Enter this number on the TouchOSC “Host” entry box
-Choose any of the layouts, and click Done
Now you should hear the Theramin from your laptop speakers, and you should see a stream of accelerometer data printing on the PureData screen…
Give it a shot and mess around with the numbers 20 and 440 to adjust the scaling (20) and center pitch (440, A). To edit the numbers, you have to be in Edit Mode, which you toggle on and off by pressing command-E.
Wow- it’s been a long while since my last post, but I’m back to present the first post in a new series: hello.build. This is where we’ll track our progress on some hardware projects we have in the pipeline. More on that soon…
I recently picked up an Arduino, which is an open source microcontroller platform created to make it easy for people to enter into the world of physical computing. Just do a quick You Tube search for Arduino, and you’ll come across tons of really great projects. With a few easy-to-follow tutorials from Make, you can really do a lot of cool stuff.
Tonight, my goal was to get a servo motor up and running, controlling its position with a potentiometer. Here’s the code:
—————
//Hello World, Servo Style!
#define SERVO 9 //The servo is hooked up to PWM output 9
int pot; //Pot is an analog potentiometer input
int servo_position; //This is what value is going to get sent to the servo
void setup(){
pinMode(SERVO, OUTPUT); //Set the servo as an output
Serial.begin(9600); //Open up a Serial Communique so we can see data
}
void loop(){
pot = analogRead(0); //Read in the value of the knob
servo_position = pot/4; //The analog input reads between 0 and 1023, and the PWM
//output needs values between 0 and 255, so divide by 4.
Serial.println(pot); //let’s print what we read in to the computer screen
Serial.println(servo_position); //lets see what value we are going to send out
analogWrite(SERVO, servo_position); //send out the position to the servo
}
