Posts
I really thought it wasn't going to work out. It seemed too good to be true, but the Flaming Lips show actually, really happened, and it was actually totally awesome. For Stardeath and The White Dwarfs, and Midlake, I mostly wandered the fairgrounds taking in the sights and sounds. I also helped myself to an enormous barbequed turkey leg. I haven't had one of those since I last visited Scarborough Faire, and I devoured it like it was the first meal I'd had in weeks. Eventually it started getting a little chilly, and The Flaming Lips started setting up. As it turns out, the huge ferris-wheel looking light-rack behind the stage contained a giant LED screen. I realized this when the seemingly empty space spontaneously turned into a huge image that looked like a test pattern from the dark side of the moon. Once they finished setting up, the show began and Wayne Coyne ventured out into the crowd in his trademark space bubble as orange and yellow confetti and humongous balloons flew out over the rest of the audience. It was a pretty amazing start to a show that will definitely go down in history as one of Denton's most legendary. The set list included all of the crowd pleasers, Yoshimi, The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, Do You Realize, and Waiting for Superman. There was also a lot of really cool, really weird new stuff from their newer albums, too. Here's the full setlist: 1. Intro 2. Worm Mountain 3. Silver Trembling Hands 4. Yeah Yeah Yeah Song 5. In the Morning of the Magicians 6. Watching the Planets (acoustic version) 7. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1 8. Wating for A Superman 9. See The Leaves 10. Convinced of the Hex 11. Do You Realize Because Wayne Coyne and the rest of the band are awesome dudes, you can listen to most of these songs on Official Flaming Lips Youtube! You will just have to use your imagination for the rest. Or buy their latest CD. After the show was over, the good people of Denton helped themselves to a few more turkey legs and filed out peacefully and quietly back to their homes. The concert was a total success and I can't believe it all happened about 200 yards behind the Kroger I buy groceries at every Sunday. Small world! PS - If you'd like to know more about the show, and the rest of NX35, The NT Daily Blog has a great write-up with awesome pictures.
This spring break was one for the record books. As many of you may know, last weekend was Denton's own Music Conference, NX35. From Thursday, March 11th, to Sunday, March 15th, musicians celebrated and demonstrated the staggering amount of musical talent and know-how Denton has to offer. The Schedule is already impressive enough to boast about, but that is only just the beginning! The plethora of shows and panels officially sponsored by NX35 only served to get the ball rolling, and the good people of Denton really grabbed on to the spirit of the event and made something amazing out of it. Denton was filled-to-bursting with celebratory parties, performances and picnics. My personal start to the NX35 festivities was an awesome house-show/picnic/chili cook-off with live screen printing. I'm not joking. The artists in this town don't mess around! The event took place at one of the many great houses in the Oak-Hickory Historic District with a huge yard. The owners put on a free show with nine awesome local bands right across the street from the campus. And they provided free brownies and drinks, three local artists, and live screen printing. I'm not sure why, but screen printing always seems to make its way into these events. There was even a screen printing going on at the Free Flaming Lips Show. Which brings me to the coolest part of NX35 2010: On Saturday, Midlake and The Flaming Lips played an AMAZING and FREE show at The North Texas Fairgrounds! I just happen to live a stone's-throw away from the fairgrounds, so my friends and I all met at my house and walked over to the fairgrounds. We got there about 15 minutes after the gates opened, and walked right in. There wasn't even a line! I convinced everyone to leave super early to beat the crowds and I pretty much felt like a jerk when there was no line at all. Fortunately that feeling didn't last long, because it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and the fairgrounds were full of amazing people. The sun was out, it was clear and warm but not TOO warm, with a nice breeze, and this show was basically the social gathering of the year! Interesting people were all over the fairgrounds, but my favorite of the bunch was a roving band of bohemian musicians. I have no idea what band (if any) they were a part of, but one of the largest groups on the fairgrounds was a big circle of people banging on drums and playing instruments together out in the middle of the field. They produced a really beautiful racket that was reminiscent of Animal Collective, unplugged, and it was amazing. They created the perfect soundtrack for a fantastic gathering on a fantastic day in this fantastic city of ours. And it only got better, from there! I'm afraid I've run out of room, but check out my next update for the rundown on the actual performances.
I know I spend too much time raving about infographics. I promise that is not what this update is about… but I am going to lead off with this one. It's an interactive graph that plots companies based on their reputation and performance with regards to their environmental impact. There are a lot of surprises—particularly Whole Foods being worse for the environment than Ebay (what!?)—but I was most amazed by the mention (and performance) of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. (Hint: You can filter the infographic to "food & beverages" to make them a little easier to find.) If you've ever visited Discovery Park, you might remember these guys: they're the coffee shop right outside of the cafeteria. They also have a bigger shop on the main campus in the University Union. It's actually a little bit strange for them to be seen this far south. I can't prove this conclusively, but according to Google's Map and the Company Website, UNT's coffee shop might be the only time Green Mountain ever dips its toe below the Mason-Dixon! I've always known they were purveyors of organic coffee, because the nameplates on every pot of coffee say so, but I didn't know that the coffee is also 100% Fair Trade as well. On top of that, Green Mountain's award-winning ecotainer™ coffee cups are completely biodegradable because the inside is lined with a biopolymer instead of the "traditional" polyethylene. In spite of all of this, the coffee still somehow costs about the same as any other cup of coffee I've ever bought. I have no idea how this is possible. They also find the time (and funds) to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to coffee-growing communities all over the world. That's probably why CRO ranked them #1 in the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2006 Suddenly I don't feel quite so guilty about buying a raspberry scone and a cup of their delicious Wild Mountain Blueberry Coffee every morning!
What makes them so green, anyway?
and 2007.
I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I write all of my updates on a little, tiny netbook. Its screen is about ten inches across, and its resolution is a teensy 1024 by 600. It's small. Very small. Earlier today I read an article on this very screen that suddenly made it feel a whole lot smaller… The article was about the UNT Research and Visualization Environment (RAVE). RAVE provides powerful and HUMONGOUS computing resources to faculty and students to help them visualize and understand the impossibly large amounts of data computers are capable of coagulating these days. Before today, I thought the 24" wide-screen monitors in the GAB Lab were preposterously large, but this array of monitors (pictured above) could adequately display the contents of almost 70 screens the size of my laptop, and the cluster attached to them guarantees they won't even stutter when they do it! Writing an article on a tiny screen is not so bad, but when I was trying to design a box diagram the other day (for a project in Digital Systems Design) I would have done almost anything for 40 megapixels to move around in… This article also answered a question I've been wondering about for some time. The walls at UNT are papered with huge posters summarizing undergrad and graduate student projects, and I never knew how they managed to print something so enormous. Now that I know about the visualization environment, I'm pretty sure that beastly printers like this one are responsible: Now I know, if I ever need to tackle a problem that is making my laptop burst at the seams, I've got all sorts of gigantic resources available to me at UNT. 
The other day I mentioned watching a thought-provoking documentary in the media library on campus. The movie was called Flow, and it was (mostly) about the water supply in developing areas. The gist is, healthy people require healthy water. There are a lot of ways to provide this, but my personal favorite was Ashok Gadgil's ultraviolet water-sterilizing contraption. Bacteria is extremely susceptible to ultraviolet light, so exposing incoming water to a UV light is an easy and efficient way to disinfect water. Many of the diseases common to developing countries begin with infected water supplies, so this simple contraption has made a humongous difference in the way people live. Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation is not a new concept to the modern world, but it is a revolutionary one in developing countries. This sort of application of technology really appeals to me, so when I heard about "Engineers without Borders" I was very excited. You might have heard about "Doctors without Borders" (or "Médecins Sans Frontières" if you're from outside the states). "Doctors without Borders" is an organization that sends doctors all over the world to help developing countries with medicine, nutrition and sanitation. "Engineers without Borders" is a newer idea. There is no official, national group (yet!), but the intentions are very similar. The University of North Texas' Engineers without Borders group met for the first time just last week, and discussed all sorts of ideas for improving the world around us. There are a lot of opportunities nearby and abroad that could use our help. If the fundraising goes well, an adventure in Mexico might be in our future!