Nerd Cadre!

suddenly, a nerd attack!

2006-10-28T00:06:00.000-04:00

Ok, just a tiny nerd paper airplane flying your way. But this is just the best Halloween costume ever:

Hm, if I had a Surrealist costume, I'd love to go as the bride, though maybe more discreetly.

kareno decided to show you this image:

2006-08-08T03:18:00.000-04:00

DS Lite + Animal Crossing = I am six years old

^.^

A pairing of Brangelina proportions

2006-08-04T17:56:00.000-04:00

So two of my favorite songwriters, Spencer Krug and Dan Bejar, are teaming up for a band called Swan Lake. (via) It's a bit too bad that they had to include that screaming maniac from Frog Eyes, but maybe if he weren't there, they'd produce such amazing music that everyone who heard it would experience such a fit of ecstasy that they'd expire on the spot. Maybe. Anyway, their first album, Beast Moans, comes out November 21st. The blurb on their site makes it sound kinda weird:

Their full-length record features, among other things, beast moans, starling voices, cobra hi hats and arpeggiating pianos.

But I think that's all just a code word for "super fantastic".

Hm I wonder what they're brainstorming sessions must be like. I imagine Dan and Spencer tossing lyrical poetry at each other in a midafternoon haze while Carey sits in the corner banging on a drum while occasionally cursing himself.

Never wants to go, always wants to stay, iilllluminated
But I'm no horse, and you are no aaangel
All good things must come to an end, the bad ones just go on forever.
And I will mutter like a lover, who speaks in tongues, oh he speaks in tongues
Don’t make a sound
Don’t make a sound
Don’t make a sound...

sidenotes - a midsummerish reflection

2006-08-04T16:07:00.000-04:00

So was anyone besides me confused about the new Spoon album, or, rerelease rather? I saw this cover and I was like, that can't be Spoon, what kind of bizarre album art is that? I guess they just took the old art n smashed them together, but really, is that guy supposed to be an ugly Britt Daniel? For a long time I thought it was some other band, until I saw the CD on Merge's site. Really, all bands should maintain some sort of consistent design in their album art. i.e. Franz Ferdinand. They were going to have all their covers be the same as their first, just with a change of color scheme. So it'd be kinda confusing to name them ("the red, brown, green one"), but how modern and stylish would that have been! Their albums could've been lined up on the wall like Pop Art. But nooo, in the end they decided to have different covers instead. They could've had it so much better.

In terms of actual music, it seems there're no new hot bands breaking out this summer, no one hot single being crammed down everyone's throats. There's "Crazy", but in my opinion that's no "Hey Ya". I guess Beirut is sort of this year's Sufjan and Lily Allen is sort of this year's hot British import, but no one seems really...big. Maybe I've been reading too many mp3 blogs where bands have a shelf life of about 2 weeks.

"Some people might say the Polyphonic Spree aren't exactly a religious group, but I say that appearances are never deceiving."

2006-08-02T21:17:00.000-04:00

I love reading TinyMixTapes news, even if I couldn't care less about band X going on tour. TMT is like the Daily Show of music news. Exhibit A:

Philip Glass Scores Again; I Get Wet; You Have a Dirty Mind

Exhibit B:

An Open Letter To The Common Class From A Captain Of Industry

Dear Lower And Middling Sort,
I have noticed an air of dissatisfaction, a rumbling of disapproval, in the way I'm running my... our business. Now, I know that it seems like I am far removed from your day-to-day jobs on the factory floor. It seems like, "Hey, Old Man Garbo up there doesn't know his girders from his girdles," but I will have you know that every time you send in a small boy to unclog the furnaces and unkink the gears, it's like I'm sending in one of my own children whom I abandoned to the finest boarding schools on the eastern seaboard. I put my gilded leaf-lined pants on one leg at a time, just like you...

Mm I think that's enough to earn the site a bookmarking, no?

Paranoidal agents

2006-08-02T02:26:00.000-04:00

It is so hot and disgusting and I just spent the last 5 hours trying to fix my program for a pset before realizing I'd done such things like write "i + row1" "j + row1" when I meant "i + row1" "j + col1". *despairs* And there's little bugs flying around in my room and I'm kinda scared to turn off the light because I'm afraid they might mass reproduce during the night and take over my room.

Anyway, here's something a bit more positive, sorta, to look forward to. A trailer for Satoshi Kon's next movie Paprika:

w00t, it looks cool! Neon parasitic organisms! Scientists! Spices! "Terrorists"!

Oh I stole the above from Jean Snow, who writes about "design and pop culture in Tokyo" for various magazines. Man I want that job.

Come on hide your lovers, underneath the covers

2006-08-01T02:10:00.000-04:00

Indie Blockedappella (why not Rockappella? copyright issues?) makes these cute acappella versions of indie songs like "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Be Gentle With Me". They're not the best singers, and sometimes brink on whiny and annoying, but it's nice just to hear something besides "She Will be Loved" be acappella-ized once in awhile. I couldn't figure out how to get direct audio links from their site, so you probably just have to subscribe to their podcast. Or visit their myspace. But I advise you subscribe, if only to avoid the visual monstrosity that is myspace.

Now they only need to make indie karaoke...

Watch me as I gravitate, ahahahahah

2006-07-30T23:06:00.000-04:00

Jamiroquai is a very god band.
Did I spell 'good' wrong on purpose?
YOU decide.

So my friend Kyle started has started a blog, and you really should read it, because it is just incredible, in more than one sense of the word. I can't really describe it adequately, you just have to read it.

ok last one i pwomise!

2006-07-27T21:03:00.000-04:00

Alright they're kinda typical boy band, but still, the beat is infectious!

Ok because this is just so easy

2006-07-27T20:49:00.000-04:00

Youtube really takes all the hard work outta blogging. So here's some videos ppl made to "Rich Girl", which I am obsessing over just now since I haven't listened to pop radio in like 4 years.

The good:

lol @ "the stuff is bananas"

And the inexplicable:

Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na naaaaa

When nerds get lazy..

2006-07-27T20:28:00.000-04:00

..they..don't...post much. *eyes dart around* *runs away*

I shall drop off this beautiful enigma of a music video, "The Audrey Hepburn Complex" by a Japanese group the Pizzicato Five. It's surreal, sixties, it has a ton of women's shoes, a rabbit, and a drummer carrying yellow maracas doing funky dance moves! Really, what more could you want from a music video?

Radiohead-hatin'

2006-06-21T22:52:00.000-04:00

Here’s a little bit of history, just in case you’re twelve years old or something: There once was a band called Radiohead who made two pop-rock albums, followed by a gigantic nerd opus called OK Computer that set the world’s population of dweebic collegiate brow-furrowers on fire like so many lighters at a Bon Jovi encore.

22% of the letters in Thom Yorke’s name are superfluous. Fuck him.

Heh, that was the best review of The Eraser. Granted though, this guy hates all bands.

Nerds of all shapes and sizes

2006-06-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

Mike and I went to see Wordplay yesterday, a documentary about crossword puzzles! It focused on Will Shortz, the current puzzlemaster of..the universe I guess (he majored in puzzles at college!). But it also had brief cameos of famous puzzle-lovers like Ken Burns, Jon Stewart, and Mike Mussina (!). The latter two were just icing on the cake of ninety minutes of dorky glee. They had profiles of the major competitors at the annual crossword puzzle competition, and while the people were a pretty diverse group, the overall tournament still exuded a distinct nerdly atmosphere. The rows of people with pencils in hand, the emcee with the mic and timer at the front, the talent show, just had math team tournament written all over it. Heh, nerds will be nerds I suppose.

The joy of the well-crafted sentence

2006-06-12T19:37:00.000-04:00

I have never been disposed with any particular favor toward cats. I have maintained an opinion of them like to the one they always seem to hold of me. I glare at them, and they glare back. They barely conceal their disdain for me, and I hardly keep mum on mine for them. Now and then, one of them will - if they still have their claws - succeed in a malicious hit-and-run upon my bared hand or too-near face. For my part when thus victimized, I take pride in a higher moral standard than that of the feline, and I turn the other cheek and think ill of them from the next room over. This is how I have coexisted with the feline order through the years.

- "Incidence with a cat", from the most wonderfully written but sadly defunct paper Three Weeks, via the eclectic blog of the Nonist.

Unhealthily obsessed

2006-06-07T21:45:00.000-04:00

..with The Superficial. For some reason when I tried to access it a few weeks ago, I kept getting a page not found error. Perhaps the Internet gods wanted me to study for finals instead. In any case I have been soaking up all the tabloidal energy the past few hours like a middle-age housewife at the supermarket. Mmm stupid celebrities:

Tom Cruise dancing (working Youtube link here)

Jake Gyllenhaal being stupid

Britney's horrid poetry

David Spade and Heather Locklear are together?

long time no nerd

2006-06-05T01:40:00.000-04:00

Apologies all around. The Cadre members are now unfortunately separated across 1000+ miles, so our nerdly strength has been reduced. But fear not! Our eyes and ears are still avidly probing the atmosphere for signs of geeky intelligence.

Anyway, here're some jokes (from the SA Post Your Favorite Nerdy jokes thread):

e^x is walking down the street when he notices all sorts of variables running back at him from the other end of the street. The variables are shouting "LOOK OUT! A DERIVATIVE IS COMING! IF IT GETS TO US WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" But e^x isn't afraid of derivatives, and he's kind of a cocky son of a bitch, so he keeps walking. He gets to the end of the street and sees the derivative standing there, and he goes up to it to greet it.
"Hello, you must be the derivative. I'm e^x."
"Yes, nice to meet you. I'm d/dy."

I was having lunch with that Gary Kasparov [sic] the other day. We were eating on a checked tablecloth. It took him three hours to pass me the salt.

What do you get if you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor.
What do you get if you drop a piano on a parade ground? A flat major.
What do you get if you drop a piano on a Chinese gangster? A diminished triad.

Phineas Gage walks into a bar...

Tee hee.

name a: sofia coppola film about tokyo

2006-05-23T20:19:00.001-04:00

It's been brought to my attention that my lit theory professor's oddball teaching methods have gained some notoriety in the Italian press. The Corriere della Sera recently wrote an article on our class, and yours truly got a brief mention in the section about our section's "dress-up-in-drag" day:
"E così Irena Wang, studentessa del secondo anno, si è presentata col grembiulone che indossa al bar dove lavora ‘part-time’. "

Of course, I myself haven't a clue what the quote translates to, but here are some expert opinions:

Jeremy (from WHRB): "And so, Irena Wang, a second-year student, presented herself with the big apron that she wears at the bar where she works part time."

Chris (WHRB): "And then there's Irena Wang, a second-year student(ess) who presented with a grumble the 'part-time' industries of the Bar Dove Lavatory."

Kareno (next door): "miss irena wang, a sophomore student, has been
working as a barista in a curious work situation known as "part-time".
we think she should fully embrace the italian heritage and extend her
hours to a more respectable range, say five hours a day. in any case, we
drink five sips of cafe to her health!"

p.s. #1: Yay! I'm done with exams! My short-term goal w/this blog now is to return the K:I post ratio to its rightful state: 4:3

p.s. #2: eye candy

I have to move to Japan

2006-05-21T00:18:00.000-04:00

Seriously, everything they do is sleeker, sexier, and better than everything here. I'm pretty sure they have all the flying cars and robot butlers that people here dream about in their vision of the future. Check out their version of Flickr, Fotologue:

Too pretty!

The (second) best nerd blog

2006-05-19T18:55:00.000-04:00

Clive Thompson has the coolest, nerdiest blog ever. His finds are a nice blend of the esoteric, the amusing, and the intriguing. Nerd Cadre salutes thee, sir Thompson! You shall be enshrined in our soon-to-be NC Hall of Fame.

psy-che-de-lic

2006-05-19T00:34:00.000-04:00

A cool audio-visual , music-theoretical flash thingie.

The best show on TV

2006-05-18T00:41:00.000-04:00

As recommended by McSweeney's:

The American version of The Office
This show really snuck up on us. At first, we were maybe a bit dismissive, suffering from the vertigo that comes from comparing it with the original, but the recently aired season finale demonstrated that this is not only the best comedy on television (RIP, Arrested Development) but one of the best dramas as well.

And..

Jenna Fischer's blog
She plays Pam on The Office and gives inside scoops and anecdotes about what is rapidly becoming our favorite show. Just as charming in print as you'd think she'd be, which is very charming.

(Since McSweeney is God, all of this is true)

Quick cuts

2006-05-18T00:01:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile the albino monk, whose name is Silas and who may be the first character in the history of motion pictures to speak Latin into a cellphone, flagellates himself, smashes the floor of a church and kills a nun.

From A.O. Scott's review of The Da Vinci Code. He seemed to have a lot of fun writing it.

Here's a great interview with Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Art School Confidential). They have close-up shots of him drawing! He seems as tortured and angst-filled as Chris Ware.

And, the cool artist of the day.

What could be more nerdy than a Rubik's Cube?

2006-05-16T02:11:00.000-04:00

Just then, one of those guys who usually sell batteries or bootleg DVD's came walking through the car. Except this guy wasn't selling batteries or DVD's. He was selling Rubik's Cubes. I'm serious. This is true. And this other guy, sitting kitty-corner from the original cube guy, stopped the vendor and bought one. He unwrapped it and started messing around with his new Rubik's Cube. And then what ensued was this kind of Rubik's Cube-off on the subway.

A Rubik's Cube-off! (The ending's kinda disappointing but the story is still great)

And I just love when people attach "-off" to words in creative ways. Like in Rome section when someone described the Minerva vs. Ariadne spinning competition as a "weave-off". Too cute!

procrastimanation

2006-05-14T17:47:00.000-04:00

Hm, so I was just gonna post about my horrid online gaming addiction but instead I'll turn this into a link-san (Yay Irena for the new concept!).

So I spent the last two hours playing Wicked Junior, this rebus-puzzle game whose counterpart Wicked is a derivative of other stuff such as

Dumb: the Game

and the original masterpiece notpr0n, which occupied me for a good portion of last summer. I got stuck around level 50 and haven't returned to since. It's really well-crafted though, and pretty much each puzzle is different.

Now, I should return to those phase planes that need plotting...

A floury adventure

2006-05-12T23:08:00.000-04:00

So we decided to have dinner at Flour tonight, a bakery/cafe in the South End, which was a neighborhood of broken walk signs and geographically misappropriated pizza places ("Chicago Pizza", "New York Pizza"). Overall the place exuded an aura of Brooklyn with a dash of ghetto.

First though, we stopped at a Japanese supermarket for Pocky and other snacks. There were some products of fame:

..and others that were just inexplicable:

We then got to Flour:

And had some sandwiches. Mine was a grilled chicken with avocado, Irena's a lamb with goat cheese.

Innards!

A Venn Diagram of our thoughts on our respective sandwiches (Irena is green, Kareno is red):

Dessert was pretty good. A chocolate chip cookie, tartlettes, an "Oreo", and a coconut macaroon:

On the way back, we stopped at a Sushi/Wine bar. The decor was walls of wine bottles with the pervading smell of sushi vinegar. Stranger still was the bathroom decor:

which they decided to leave unfinished:

And then, back home on the Orange line!

From Nerd Cadre's R&D headquarters...

2006-05-12T22:19:00.000-04:00

In an effort to impose some structure onto this blog, Kareno and I are debuting our first official blog feature: the link-san!

link-san (LINK'sahn)
an unordered set of 3 links, all falling under a common theme

If you're of the asian persuasion, you probably understand the etymology of the above neologism. If you aren't, here are 2 clues (oh the irony!):
#1
#2

************************************************************************************

I love all things fibrous-- all-bran, unripe mangos, figs...
But in my ongoing search for the ultimate in jaw-breaking, tooth-chipping, denser-than-a-black-hole goodness, the holy grail has always been to find a really great, fiberlicious loaf of bread.
This was my inspiration for the following link-san:

"The Grainy Breads of Paris," with accompanying food porn

David Lebovitz is a Parisian pastry chef. His blog posts never fail to induce either self-hate or general rage at the injustice of a world in which I write papers and do problem sets while he taste-tests truffles all day, but the pron keeps me going back.

Pertinent thread started by a like-minded chowhound

Review coming soon of Sel de la Terre's famous fig & anise loaf

"Poilane is my favorite living Frenchman!" --Salvador Dali

Paris' legendary Poilane bakery, then and now.
(Apparently, they're doing overseas delivery now. I know what I want for my birthday... :o)

The daily browse

2006-05-12T21:29:00.000-04:00

Oddica is a new t-shirt site, in the vein of Threadless but focusing more on "artists' rights" (which I take to mean, higher prices for the rest of us). A lotta YH people are contributors. There's nothing amazing for sale yet, but I'm looking forward to Audrey Kawasaki's designs (above).

And now, for some nerdy links! Yay! Our theme today will be Math Origami:

Origami by David Huffman, the creator of Huffman codes! I wish there were more photos out there, his forms are really works of art.

Robert Lang's gallery of animals and tetrahedra (via David Pogue)

Folding theory from Erik Demaine of MIT

Coming up: our very first food outing post! With lots of photos! Get excited!

From the land of the stars, comes a message

2006-05-12T00:21:00.000-04:00

epiphany - n. a sudden appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being.

Yesterday, at 8:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, a message came to me from across the ether. A message from a being so beautiful, who exudes the most brilliant radiance, that I hardly believed it to be intended for me. This man's – nay – this god's ravishing image is the altar upon which rests this humble blog. Amidst the millions of bytes of chatter, dreams, and prayer that flit across cyberspace, the words of this divinity came unto me, and even as I transcribe them my entire being shivers from his majestic grace:

Winthrop!
Good luck w/ the paper!

In other words, I got a little crazy last night, registered on Myspace, and PMed B. J. Novak. And his reply is now forever engraved into my soul.

Next week: Kareno confronts the heathen creatures of the kingdom of Partial Differentiation. Will the sacrifices to the Gorgeous Hot Men of the City of Angels be enough to grant her safe passage through these lands? Tune in to find out!

7-3 b*tches!!

2006-05-10T23:58:00.000-04:00

Thank you Moose for making my day! You make me want to pay for MLB TV. ^.^

How to have an absurd afternoon:

2006-05-10T22:00:00.000-04:00

Announce the only 2 hours of air devoted to "music once attributed to Mozart, but now known to have been written by someone else" in a 200-some hour Mozart orgy. Force yourself to come up with a different phrasing of the above to repeat at every break.b
Pay a visit to the level-3 maximum security prison that is the Widener library's lost and found. Wonder to self how the hell people can get away performing a complete sexual act unnoticed in here. Giggle aloud...what the hell are you looking at mr. walkie-talkie man?
Only have conversations that sound as if they've been lifted out of a Robert Altman film.
And if you could, you know, just throw in some light drizzles for good measure...cool.

Mother died yesterday...

When nerds and designers collide..

2006-05-10T20:16:00.000-04:00

The result is not pretty.

"Dr Spock's Baby Care is a best-selling owner's manual for the most complicated 'product' imaginable -- and it only has two levels of headings. You people have 8 levels of hierarchy and I haven't even stopped counting yet. No wonder you think it's complicated." - Edward Tufte on the Sun Answerbook.

addendum to...

2006-05-09T15:25:00.000-04:00

"AN OPEN (LOVE) LETTER TO TACO BELL'S CRUNCHWRAP SUPREME."

P.S.
And darling, how could I forget the mouthwatering hexagonality of your shape? With you, I feel safe in the knowledge that, should the urge to tesselate ever strike, you will always be here for me, side by side by congruent side.
But never fear, my polygonal bundle of yum: I will never tesselate you--I would never stray. For you are unique in my love, just like a snowflake (in fact, uncannily like a snowflake...)

Love always,
Irena

My camera never lies anymore

2006-05-09T03:40:00.000-04:00

The gorgeous photos of Mark Seliger in his brick walled studio.

Sunset letdown

2006-05-09T01:28:00.001-04:00

Hi, folks. I'm the cranky overcaffeinated/underrested other half of nerd cadre, back from the land of 10-page lit theory papers to bring you the news that,
if the fact that hot temp Ryan went to Harvard was the best discovery of the week, his indisputable unattractiveness in golf attire is definitely one of the worst. Behold:

who is your god now, nerdcadre??

Oh wait, that's right:

wolfman dan!

Are Asians less happy?

2006-05-07T01:17:00.000-04:00

A brief excerpt from the new book Stumbling on Happiness.

(I'd try to get the book and read more, but I have these awful psets to do. Natch.)

More discoveries (of a musical nature)

2006-05-06T02:54:00.000-04:00

Asobi Seksu - "Thursday"

Beirut - "Postcards from Italy"

I also got Sunset Rubdown for Spencer Krug's beautiful tortured voice. You should too! ;)

The best discovery of the day

2006-05-06T01:44:00.000-04:00

Was that this man:

..went to Harvard!!!!

*swoon*

He could be my temp any day of the week.