DO312 What to Do in Chicago

Do312 is a website and social networking community built around all of the amazing events – like live music, street festivals, and other cultural happenings – going on in and around Chicago every day. When you sign up for Do312 – which is free and easy to do – you can discover, promote, and create event listings. You can also buy tickets online, get venue and event details, and share them your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

But wait, there’s more! Do312 also lets you customize the types of info, like specific artists or venues, you want to track. Plus, you’ll get the inside line on hot ticket on sales and other can’t miss Chicago happenings.

via DO312 About Page

They also have a DO312 Facebook and a DO312 Twitter account, sign up and follow along, and groove till dawn!

A while back I talked about how the City of Phoenix was having to make some serious cutbacks to a lot of its programs. One person responded asking if the Phoenix Summit Challenge was still on for 2010.

As of right now the Phoenix Summit Challenge for 2010 appears to still be scheduled for Nov 5th to 7th of 2010. Registration opens August 7th 2010. Stay tuned!

As I posted a while ago Massive Attack has a Youtube channel and you should listen to it often to see where modern electronic music evolved from. One album in particular had and continues to have a lot of influence is their third one: Mezzanine.

Mezzanine is the third studio album by English trip hop group Massive Attack, released on 20 April 1998. It was produced by Neil Davidge along with the group. The album was released on Virgin Records.

The entire album was provided on their website for legal download many months before the physical release was announced. It was one of the first major uses of the MP3 format by a commercial organisation.

via Wikipedia

Released in 1998 it marks a significant departure from their other albums in that it focuses on the dark sound that the band always made present. It has made many appearances in pop culture from the Matrix, to West Wing, and even the TV series House.

If you want to support this music I have supplied you with an Amazon Affiliate Link below with full disclosure that any purchase with such link may help me purchase a soda pop sometime next year, maybe.

Rogue Columnist: Second time around?.

Solution ideas:

Repeal SB 1070.

Elect Terry Goddard governor.

Throw out the Kook majority in the Legislature.

Raise taxes on the rich and, if the Growth Machine ever revives, enact a real-estate transfer tax and a tax on long commutes.

Stop all residential development outside existing urban footprints (and the extravagant planning maps of Buckeye, Surprise, Maricopa, et al, are not existing footprints). For one thing, there’s not enough water.

Establish a real state commerce department employing best practices to attract high-wage jobs.

Build out the Phoenix Biosciences Campus on a speedy schedule to include a hospital, large med school, pharmacy school and private-sector research facilities. Add a full-court press to lure biomed manufacturing from California.

Eliminate GPEC. Let the cities go their own ways.

Fund the public schools and universities to compete at top levels.

Establish real infill incentives along the light-rail line.

Put a premium on shade, including enhancing and reclaiming the shady oases in central Phoenix.

Reform the tax structure so cities aren’t so dependent on sales taxes.

Create a climate-change emergency plan now and begin acting by, for example, building intercity rail, commuter rail, light rail, streetcars and an integrated, easy-to-use transit system.

I love the last point. Its for our own safety that we litter every aspect of our city with advertising space. Why can’t you people see that? Sheesh. (sarcasm starts with an ‘s’)

Martin Aronson, attorney for CBS Outdoor, said he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

In a letter to the Board of Adjustment, he makes the following arguments:

• In 13 previous cases, exceptions have been made along newer freeways. for billboards. Four of the billboards have been granted height variances.
• There is no potential impact on residential areas.
• The city needs access to an electronic sign in the northern portion of town for emergency and public-service messages.

via Billboard company hopes to overturn ban along Loop 101 in Phoenix.

If you don’t know who Massive Attack is thats cool, but you most certainly have heard their music. Check out their Youtube channel - YouTube – madoties Channel.

Had a great talk with my buddy Greg Taylor last night about Desert Bloom Phoenix and the Phoenix Music Scene. We ran a little long for YouTube so I had to cut out his shout out to the folks at Gangplank:

• Derek Neighbors
• Josh Streble
• Jade Meskill
• James Archer

The Desert Bloom Phoenix Crew:

• Nicolas Dibiase
• Brandon Franklin
• Desert Bloom Phoenix
• Flickr Pictures for Desert Bloom Phoenix

Here is some info about the bands and venues he talked about:
Kinch
Dry River Yacht Club
Black Carl
What Laura Says

Sail Inn
Yucca Tap Room
Long Wong’s
Rhythm Room
Trunk Space

Music Matters Project

There is a lot of marketing talk out there about how the iPad is going to take over. The thing that the naysayers are missing is that the iPad is a remote control, that is also a computer, but still a remote control. WIth that in mind take a look at this video.

Get ready to make some wicked tunes on your iPad! We created a custom Touch OSC templates designed for the iPad. 16 Sample drum pad, and two 26 key keyboard layouts. Each note and pad has been pre-programmed to work with your DAW. You’ll get three custom templates along with the accompanying OSCulator template. Works right out of the box once you connect it to OSCulator. Includes rotary dials and multifaders for using them as MIDI cc’s to control your live effects. Page One 16 Sample Drum Pad. 4 Rotary controllers. 3 Multi-Faders and 1 Pitch Bend. Page Two 26 Key Midi Layout. 6 Rotary controllers. 3 Multi-Faders, 1 Pitch Bend and 1 XY Pad. Page Three 34 Key Midi Layout. 6 Multi-Faders

via Making music with iPad | Pixil.info.

Sierra Club Arizona Legislature 2010 Environment Report Card – PDF

Give this a read if you care about doing anything outside of a hermetically sealed room with filtered and chemically treated water. If you believe in science and care about what comes next these are the issues you need to keep at the forefront. This is long term planning for the place we live. If we dont have drinking water there is no point.

Here is how the officials in my area did on the Sierra Club Arizona Legislature 2010 Environmental Report Card:

• Senator Ken Cheuvront (AZ) – Biography – Email - Website - A
• Senator Barbara Leff (AZ)- Biography – Email - Website - F
• Representative Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- Biography - Email - Website - A
• Representative Eric Meyer (AZ)- Biography - Email - Website - A
• Representative David M. Lujan (AZ)- Biography - Email - Website - A
• Representative Adam Driggs (AZ)- Biography - Email - Website - F

• Governor Janice Kay ‘Jan’ Brewer (AZ)- Biography - Email - Website - F

Way to go Ken Cheuvront for most improved!

Senator Ken Cheuvront (D-15) improved from a “D” on the 2009 report card to an “A” on the 2010 report card. Senator Cheuvront helped point out the silliness of the light bulb bill and stood up for parks and clean water. His grade improved considerably this session, because he missed very few votes. We appreciate his support for environmental protection over the years as leaves the legislature after 16 years of service.

by aloshbennett

So Cateye has a new product called Cateye Commute. Its a cyclometer that helps you measure your ‘Greenness’ and stuff and it sounds pretty cool. You can read the Wired review of the Cateye Commuter here. I am more interested in the social network that they built to go along with this device – WorldCommute.com.

The basic concept is not new, there are a number of excercise and carbon offset tracking websites out there. However this one seems to combine them both and acts like a Nike+ for bikes. Unfortunately it is not going anywhere.

There are a few basic reasons for this:

• Publicity
• Networking

Publicity – External and Internal

No one is talking about this site. How do I know this? Yahoo is currently showing 7,000 backlinks. That is sad. Whats worse is that the top result on Yahoo’s list is cateye.com. In voodoo SEO terms this means the strongest link Cateye is getting for their Social Network is from Cateye. Nice outreach. For a topic this hot there is no reason they shouldn’t have government and educational sites linking to them as a way to take resposibility for your energy use. Send Obama a computer and get him to blog about it on the Whitehouse blog or something…

How commited is Cateye to this project? From looking at the Cateye website and its lack of a mention or link to worldcommute.com I would say not very.  Currently a search for “site:cateye.com world commute” gives a total of 7 results, on a site with over 1400 pages. The product page for the Cateye Commuter has no link to worldcommute.com. (As a side note there is no link to a Youtube video of how to install the Cateye Commute Cyclometer, or how to use it.)

Networking – As in Social

Cateye knows about Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, but for some reason it doesn’t want to connect its own Social Network to them. This is perplexing to say the least. Considering the Privacy issues that they bring up during signup, I really don’t want to give you my birthdate, it makes sense to take advantage of the info that people have already given to their existing networks. Also its a pain in the ass to send an individual invite to each of my friends to get them to join me at WorldCommute.com. With all the latest stuff going on at Facebook and connecting sites together this is a major mistake.

Is there a way to sync the info from the Cateye Commute to my computer for upload to worldcommute.com? I assume no as there is no mention of this on the product page. This is a big miss as well considering the rise in various tracking methods on iPhones and Blackberries like Nike+ and AllSport GPS.

Conclusion

Cateye is taking a good direction here in terms of broadening their audience and message but in the end no one is going to use worldcommute.com as it is currently setup. There are 105 groups on the site but each one that I scanned over had less than 5 members. Cateye can make this a success if it can link their Cateye Commute Cyclometer to the site and connect worldcommute.com to the rest of the internet better. If you are running the show at Cateye I would love to talk further on this and help make it a success in exchange for some cash.