Boreta

Just a quick one. I mentioned previously that I hadn't listened to anything by Boreta of the Glitch Mob. I've remedied that problem and can report that Boreta is, as the kids are saying, off the chain.
Check this out;

Sick. As. Hell.

On linux

I've successfully made the transition from Mac to Windows to Linux. I'd have stuck with OSX if not for the horrible expense of replacing my failing macbook.
I'm considering replacing its battery and harddrive but I'm not sure how much longer the actual processor etc will last so I might avoid the unnecessary expense for now.

At the moment my newish tower is dualbooting Mint, a recent variant of Ubuntu, and Windows7. Given the graphical and logical clusterbomb of Windows8 I figured I would stick with the familiar for running Solidworks and a few games.
The version of Mint I'm using uses the MATE UI but I'm contemplating switching that for the slightly more eye pleasing Cinnamon UI.

The reason for this post was to detail some of the problems I encountered during the Mint install in the hope that people in future might find this post useful. Alternately I might need to refer back to it.
You can find the rest below the cut here as it's not terribly exciting unless you have a definite interest in linux and the pains of installing it.

The Glitch Mob...

Ok so saying I wasn't going to talk about music so often was apparently patently false. Clearly I still very much have the soundbug and I don't think it's ever leaving.

For the past year or so I've been obsessively listening to The Glitch Mob's debut album "Drink The Sea". I think this might just be the greatest electronic album ever made. It's a bold claim I know and there are plenty of worthy competitors but this is the one I just keep coming back to over and over again.
The best description I can manage is rhythmic bass driven electronica with a hip hop edge. I'm aware that that's perilously close to nonsense but have a listen below and you'll see just how accurate it is.
They translate a lot of the agressive rhythms of rock and metal into glitching funky breaks without any of the posturing of musicians like Pendulum or Skrillex.
Few other musicians manage to make their music soaring, epic and completely dance-able as well. They're also seemingly appealing to a vast cross section of music fans. I've yet to meet anyone who's not into them once appropriately exposed to their music.

One thing I've found particularly interesting is their remixes and mix-tapes. They have a fairly prodigious output, possibly from their hip hop and breakbeat roots. While they only have one album they remix other artists extensively and have several incredible mix tapes (all of them available on their soundcloud page).
They succeed in remixing a wide variety of artists from rock to pop to indie to hip hop with the same level of dexterity and flourish that they pepper their own work with.
Further to this, they seem to be almost unremixable themselves. I've heard a few remixes they've done of their own work which are typically amazing. However, other musicians remixes of TGM seem to lack the same qualities and oomph that make TGM so appealing to me.

The Glitch Mob themselves are all accomplished musicians with the 3 core members edIT, Ooah and Boreta all having a background in hip hop, breaks and electronica. edIT I believe got his start as a DJ and jingle composer before moving toward creating his own work with his first major album Crying Over Pros For No Reason.
Released on acclaimed IDM/breakcore label Planet Mu, Crying Over Pros is another of my all time favourite albums from the first moments I heard it a few years ago, radically changing my perceptions of electronic music.
Ooah's Get Primal EP with LoBounce is another gem of a record that I've only recently discovered. More conventional in style but just as catchy and ear-worming as anything by TGM or edIT, it's definitely worth checking out.
I'm embarassed to say I know Boreta by reputation only but once I've churned thru all of Ooah's back catalogue I'll be sure to check him out as the aforementioned reputation is stellar.

I should get back to studying. Hopefully you'll find something you like here!

Moon crash

I'm not sure if you guys have been keeping up with space news but last month a lunar orbit satellite was deliberately crashed into the surface of the moon. It was at the end of its life expectancy and NASA wanted to monitor what would occur when it was slammed into the lunar surface.
In the past couple of days they've released some excellent footage from shortly before the crash landing showing the lunar surface in incredible detail at just above 9km from the surface.

Make sure you watch it in HD:

The actual GRAIL designs and mission spec is some interesting reading as well.

Animals as Leaders

I know I said I was going to talk a lot less about music and that's still broadly true but I just cannot get over these guys. Animals as Leaders is the project of Tosin Abasi and represents some of the most interesting technical metal to come out of the US in the last 5 years in my opinion.
Tosin used to play lead guitar for technical metalcore band Reflux (who're also awesome) but was approached to do a solo album shortly before Reflux broke up. AaL have released two albums so far and their latest, Weightless, is one of the best albums of 2011.

What particularly appeals to me is the complexity of the guitar tracks and the fusion of traditional progressive drumming with IDM elements. If this got any more glitchy I don't know if I could deal with it.
Tosin manages to maintain a heaviness I've not come across before without degenerating into the heavy metal circus music of Dream Theater or the classical wankery of Yngwie Malmsteen.
Partly I'd say this is simply because he's a younger guitarist and thus has been exposed to a wider range of heavy music growing up but there's probably a multitude of complex reasons which I can't hope to guess at.

They're playing here in a week or two and unfortunately thanks to my exams I don't have time to go. Really really disappointing. Oh well, education comes first.

Big thanks to Jeph of Questionable Content for recommending these guys.

Check out An Infinite Regression;

I want a helicopter...

Further to my last post on using quad-rotors/any-kind-of-rotors as pixels in a 3D screen, I've just seen this;

There's talk of apparently using these to patrol Queensland beaches for sharks and to drop life-preservers to people in trouble (since they can carry around 7kg). 
It's gotten me thinking, how difficult would it actually be to put something like this together from scratch? Presumably fairly difficult since these sorts of things are being commercialised all the time.
But similarly, there must be a software package out there that you could use to run some sort of rotor based flying device? You wouldn't need to use some sort of embedded system, surely you could drop it onto a rasberry-pi or an arduino?

Anyone got any ideas on the matter?

In unrelated news there's some suggestion that it might be possible to make an Alcubierre drive with a reasonable power demand (rather than the previous estimate of 3 times the output of the sun...). So that's pretty fucking exciting!

3D imaging

This video depicts 49-50 quad-rotor's all working synchronously to make patterns. What if we could scale that down, and have each rotor just a few cm or even mm across, each carrying a single colour changing LED, acting as a pixel. Imagine the 3D images you could create! Imagine the 3D images you could walk through.

I think I may have to dig a bit deeper into this.