Commentary on the Peer Review Process

Ah peer review…

Just in case there is confusion about why Hitler is appearing on the blog, please consult our newest blogroll member, Know Your Meme.  They did a wonderful job explaining Autotune to my parents over the Thanksgiving weekend (featuring Weird Al!).

Bunton’s Winter CD: Track 9

Every so often I make up a mix CD of my favorite songs at the moment; mostly new songs, but with some old songs sprinkled in for flavor. I thought it’d be a neat feature of this new blog to go through, song-by-song, and explain a little about why it appeals to me.

I first encountered Iron & Wine on the soundtrack to Garden State (thanks, Brian). I didn’t realize that “Such Great Heights” was a reinterpretation of a Postal Service tune, and hearing it first I actually prefer it. In any case, I was taken with the singer’s unique voice, but I wasn’t moved to act on it.

Soon after I moved back to South Carolina, I discovered the KEXP Song of the Day podcast. Every weekday, a free mp3 selected by the staff at one of the arguably few “real” radio stations anymore, KEXP out of Seattle. One of the first songs I downloaded was “Boy with a Coin” (video) by Iron & Wine, from his album The Shepherd’s Dog. It’s addictive and glorious. Two years later, it’s still the most-played song in my iTunes. I still haven’t found a single thing he’s sung that I haven’t enjoyed, but for some reason I haven’t purchased any of his albums.

Next time: perhaps the most over-played song in recent memory

Bless His Heart

When they get you, they get you. Though it pains me as a Duke fan to post this, it’s pretty darned hilarious and the production values are awesome:

Life in Technicolor II

The video for Coldplay’s new single “Life in Technicolor II” is the best video I’ve seen in a while… I might have to revise my Top Five list. (I should publish that sometime…)

Bunton’s Winter CD: Track 6

Every so often I make up a mix CD of my favorite songs at the moment; mostly new songs, but with some old songs sprinkled in for flavor. I thought it’d be a neat feature of this new blog to go through, song-by-song, and explain a little about why it appeals to me.

Sara Bareilles was another discovery through VH1 You Outta Know, months before she had her brief popularity with this track, “Love Song“. I admit, I haven’t had occasion to hear any of her other work, so any impressions I have will have to stand on the strength of this one track.

11-10?

A safety early, lots of field goals, and decent defense set up a first in NFL history tonight: out of 12,838 games played, the match between the Steelers and Chargers is the only one to have ended with a final score of 11-10. The score was 10-8 in the waning seconds, but Jeff Reed kicked a beauty of a field goal that left six seconds on the clock after the ensuing kickoff. San Diego had one chance for a Hail Mary pass or some trickeration. They chose the latter, trying the usual tactic of a series of laterals. One of the passes went awry, however, and the Steelers’ defenseman Troy Polamalu picked up the ball and ran it back for a touchdown, making the score 17-10 with no time left on the clock. The play was reviewed, however, and the touchdown was overturned because LaDainian Tomlinson had made an illegal forward pass instead of a lateral. The game was announced over by a referee with a final score of 11-10. A few minutes ago, however, the NFL stated that the TD should have counted after all. What’s the big deal? Other than history only us stat geeks could love, presumably millions of dollars of sports bets in Las Vegas hinged on the ruling. As someone who’s made one or two (or twenty) sports bets himself in Vegas, I’ll be quite interested to see if anything comes of it.

Being Trendy

So my sinus headaches have progressed into an eye infection requiring that I now get antibiotic eye-drops just like Emil (Ann’s cat).  I guess he made it look cool and I sub-consciously wanted in on the trend.

Apparently epidemiologists work may be similarly replaced by simply monitoring the frequency of search terms using Google Trends (awesomeness previously discussed). Lunchtime’s unwilling blogger Ann reports (by forwarding a New York times article) that Google Flu Trends is having remarkable success at correlating the flu incidence reported by CDC and the prevalence of flu-related search terms:

Correlation between trends in flu-related searches and incidence

I know it’s been a long time since I last posted, but I have become a massive Digg addict and if you care what random web-pages I’m looking at you can follow me there.  Last week I finally replaced my computer (purchased in 2001) that died this summer.  It has a mere four cores, so Brian’s cyber-manhood is safe for now).  The upshot is that in a few weeks I will be blogging more regularly.  In the mean time I am playing some games I have been waiting on for, oh, four or five years.  I started with Gears of War, which is a lot of fun but not as awesome as Gary Jules’ cover of Mad World for Donnie Darko.

To UK or to US?

I often find myself telling people I don’t watch a lot of TV.  That is technically true; you don’t find me channel surfing often, and about the only shows I catch when they air are Lost and The Office.  The real truth is that I do watch quite a bit of TV via other means.  Let’s call those other means “Netflix”.

Bunton’s Winter CD: Track 3

Every so often I make up a mix CD of my favorite songs at the moment; mostly new songs, but with some old songs sprinkled in for flavor. I thought it’d be a neat feature of this new blog to go through, song-by-song, and explain a little about why it appeals to me.

As I mentioned on the Summer CD, Bloc Party’s A Weekend in the City was my favorite album of 2007. Here I include “I Still Remember”, and all I really have to say about the song itself was already covered in that earlier post on “The Prayer”. So here I’ll talk about why I think I like the band so much.

Dry Times Ahead

And so it begins… after what seemed like, for North Carolina, an unusually chilly Spring (and commencement), summer has tipped its hand a few weeks early and we are now looking at at least four days in a row near 100F. Now it is time to start really sweating the drought again. We’re still on water restrictions here (try growing tomato plants when you can only water twice a week!) and according to the University of Nebraska’s handy drought monitor, “abnormally dry” conditions are already rolling over the research Triangle while the mountains are still under extreme drought conditions.

But it could be worse, as Radiohead’s new video for “All I Need” argues. No, it’s not just that the video is from Radiohead that’s the downside (Brian B. and Brad usually would rather have a toothache than listen to them). In fact, I was hoping that Prof. Bunton might find this one a bit more accessible. Of course, part of its accessibility is that it’s not quite as melancholy as some of their songs, a fact more than made up for by the video’s message: