The Paranoid Agnostic

I discovered the music of Emiliana Torrini by accident. I was looking for places to go when a friend was in town and looked at what bands were playing at local clubs. Somehow, that led me to find a description of Emiliana Torrini. The description I found contained one of those totally useless descriptions that just throw out the names of three or four pop artists. She was compared to Bjork and Kate Bush. Everyone compares female singers to Bjork and Kate Bush when they cannot figure out how to describe them. But hey… somehow they got my attention. I said to myself, “Nobody really sounds like Bjork.” On a whim, I checked to see if my local public library had any discs by Torrini and, in fact, they did!

Despite the dubious path that lead me to her music, I don’t regret listening to the disc. Torrini does in fact sound a bit like Bjork and it is no wonder as they are both Icelandic.

The title of the album I listened to, “Love in the Time of Science” was interesting. The opening track was short but incredible. A+ for first impressions. The rest of the album is good and some tracks are better than good. Her music is smooth and interesting. Some of the instrumentals remind me of The Flaming Lips (just a bit, as on the opening of the track “Baby Blue”). There are a lot of influences that come out in this album. Some tracks reminded me of something that could be a theme to a Bond tune (just a bit). Some reminded me of the band Red Delicious.

This music is definitely interesting and just the right mix of “different enough” and “similar enough.” The titles of the tracks really made an impression on me too:

1. Sea People
2. To Be Free
3. Wednesday’s Child
4. Baby Blue
5. Dead Things
6. Unemployed in Summertime
7. Easy
8. Fingertips
9. Telepathy
10. Tuna Fish
11. Summerbreeze

I know a few consultants besides myself who aspire to be Unemployed in Summertime. And sandwiching Dead Things between that track and Baby Blue was intriguing…. perhaps more so in title than in the actuality of the music.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the lyrics: “Sad things have to happen… sometimes.” (followed by the sound of a telephone/computer like noise)

Robosapien quotes Andy Clark:

“The computational organization relevant to cognition is… literally spread across neural, bodily, and environmental elements.”
— Andy Clark from An embodied cognitive science?

The animated “documentary” titled Ryan, was shown at the Edmonton Public Library’s theatre on September 25, along with Alter Egos which is about the making of Ryan. I highly recommend seeing these films! However, not at all for the reason’s EPL describes:

Winner of the Oscar for best animated short, director Chris Landreth’s Ryan is an “animated documentary” based on the life of artist Ryan Larkin. Once one of Canada’s most influential animators, Larkin now lives on welfare and begs for money on the streets of Montreal. Employing stunning visual effects, the film traces Larkin’s descent into mental illness and addiction. Ryan will be shown along with the documentary Alter Egos – which gives further insight into Larkin’s struggles and examines the complex relationship between him and Landreth.

I have previously written about Ryan and I disagree with EPL’s description of the two films. Ryan is not based on the life of Ryan Larkin. It is based on an interview with Ryan Larkin. The visuals are interesting, certainly deceptive, but not stunning. The film does not trace Larkin’s descent into mental illness though it does attempt to blame him for not overcoming his mental illness and implies a false causal relationship between Larkin’s substance abuse and his illness/situation. I am not convinced that Landreth was as interested in having Larkin as the subject of the “documentary” as he was interested in becoming a part of Larkin’s life.

Ryan should not be seen without seeing the documentary “Alter Egos.” Alter Egos is about the making of Ryan and while it does not attempt to explain Larkin’s descent to the streets, it manages to provide more explanation than Ryan does. Alter Egos exposes Landreth for what he became by making Ryan and is a much more potent film.

You can get Ryan/Alter Egos from Edmonton Public Library. I was able to rent it at my local Blockbuster and you can order it directly from the National Film Board.

Many Shaw Cable-modem customers are having problems connecting to website at the University of Alberta using Internet Explorer. It is not clear what the problem is however there is a work around. One common symptom is that when attempt to visit a website that ends in “.ualberta.ca” you get a message that says “gateway error.” It is not known if this affects all of Alberta or just Edmonton.

If you are a Shaw Cable-modem subscriber, are using Internet Explorer, and are having difficulties access websites that end in “.ualberta.ca” or “.talonline.ca” try these steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. From the Tools menu select “Internet Options”
3. Click the “LAN Settings ” button
4. Remove the check mark next to “Automatically Detect Settings”
5. Click the “OK” button
6. Click the “OK” button

These instructions were provided by James Woodward at the UofA.

If you are experiencing this problem but are NOT using Internet Explorer, or are NOT a Shaw cable-modem customer, I would like to hear about it. Please post a follow-up comment here.

If you are running Mozilla, Firefox, or Netscape, you need to upgrade now due to the IDN URI Buffer Overflow. In short, internationalized domain name characters in URLs can be used to compromise your PC. While this vulnerability has been known for more than a week, exploit code has been made publicly available now so it just a matter of time before we start seeing attacks based on this vulnerability.

Don’t confuse that vulnerability with another new one that affects Unix only and also affects Thunderbird.

If you are running Firefox, Mozilla, or Thunderbird on Unix (Linux, OpenBSD, MacOS-X, Solaris) you need to upgrade now. According to The SANS Institute, “This vulnerability in Mozilla/FireFox browsers and Thunderbird email client can be exploited to execute arbitrary commands on UNIX systems.” More information is available at SecurityFocus.

Go to http://www.mozilla.org/ for information on how to download the latest versions.