I just made my first playlist with the new iTunes Genius feature (yes, I know it has been around for a while now, but I'm really skeptical of this kind of software) and it made me a really amazing mix that I've been enjoying for the past few hours. It brought up some music that I hadn't listened to in a while, it mixed some heavier stuff with lighter stuff. I though I would share this list with you because I love it so much, although I can only think of two, maybe three other people who might like all this randomness.

Steady, As She Goes, The Raconteurs
Naive, The Kooks
Buddy Holly, Weezer
Last Nite, The Strokes
Inside Out, Eve 6
Fell In Love With A Girl, The White Stripes
Girl, Beck
The Underdog, Spoon
Phantom Limb, The Shins
Hash Pipe , Weezer
London Calling, The Clash
Don't Forget Me, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Salute Your Solution, The Raconteurs
The Distance, Cake
Blue Orchid, The White Stripes
Save Tonight, Eagle-Eye Cherry
If You Could Only See, Tonic
New Slang, The Shins
I Turn My Camera On, Spoon
Never Let You Go, Third Eye Blind
Intimate Secretary, The Raconteurs
Flake, Jack Johnson
She hates me, Puddle of Mudd
She Moves in Her Own Way, The Kooks
E-Pro, Beck
Hands Down, Dashboard Confessional
Reptilia, The Strokes
My Own Worst Enemy, Lit
We're Going To Be Friends, The White Stripes
Undone (The Sweater Song), Weezer
The Mixed Tape, Jack's Mannequin
Wrong Way, Sublime
Jumper, Third Eye Blind
Short Skirt/Long Jacket, Cake
Sweetness, Jimmy Eat World
Blue Veins, The Raconteurs
Where Is My Mind?, Pixies
When I Come Around, Green Day
Fade Into You, Mazzy Star
Friday I'm in Love, The Cure
My Name Is Jonas , Weezer
Everything You Want, Vertical Horizon
My Doorbell, The White Stripes
Banana Pancakes, Jack Johnson
The Way We Get By, Spoon
Juicebox , The Strokes
All For You, Sister Hazel
Smile Like You Mean It, The Killers
Hands, The Raconteurs
I Wish You Were Here, Incubus
The Freshmen, Verve Pipe
The General, Dispatch
Good People, Jack Johnson
My Moon My Man, Feist
Blue Monday, New Order
You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told), The White Stripes
Mrs. Robinson , Simon & Garfunkel
Everybody's Changing, Keane
Stuck in the middle with you, Stealers Wheel
Level , The Raconteurs
Basket Case, Green Day
Absolutely (Story Of A Girl), Nine Days
Pardon Me (Acoustic), Incubus
My Generation, The Who
Name, Goo Goo Dolls
Where It's At, Beck
12:51, The Strokes
Dakota, Stereophonics
Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik
Never There, Cake
Here's To The Night, Eve 6
How's It Going To Be, Third Eye Blind
The Hardest Button to Button , The White Stripes
Broken Boy Soldier, The Raconteurs
Megalomaniac, Incubus
Just A Girl , No Doubt
Chicago, Sufjan Stevens
Lady Marmalade, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim,
Don't You Evah, Spoon
Bottle It Up, Sara Bareilles
Date Rape , Sublime
Roll To Me, Del Amitri
There She Goes, The Las
You Only Live Once, The Strokes
In My Place, Coldplay
This Year's Love, David Gray
Yellow Sun, The Raconteurs
The Denial Twist , The White Stripes
Faith, George Michael
Breakdown, Jack Johnson
Maybe Tomorrow, Stereophonics
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, The Police
Don't Speak, No Doubt
Old Enough , The Raconteurs
Doin' Time (Uptown Dub), Sublime
Wonderwall , Oasis
Soul to Squeeze, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Always Love, Nada Surf
Calling All Angels, Train
Store Bought Bones, The Raconteurs

Labels: geekdom

Has anyone else noticed some beautiful poetry spam making its way into your inbox? I can't comprehend what the point of it is, because it isn't selling me anything, there are no viruses attached (or so says my virus scanner) and there are no links to any websites! It is just wonderful spam poetry that is sent to make me smile.

Like this one I got today:

sweet and sweet joy i call thee: from confession;
skyscrapers filled like water glasses

or this especially poignant one my friend Meghann got:

Indeed, a pickup truck goes deep sea fishing with a crane related to a dolphin. When the grand piano is hesitantly financial, a CEO teaches the recliner of a hole puncher. Now and then, a miserly polygon carelessly makes a truce with an overwhelmingly smelly eggplant. A fire hydrant defined by the grain of sand plans an escape from a briar patch inside a globule a crank case over the grand piano. Furthermore, a polygon leaves, and the lover competes with the defendant beyond a cashier.

No joke, this is good stuff.

Labels: geekdom

I've always believed that robots can do anything, and now I'm seeing proof! They can clean, fly, model (although her walk is not too fierce, can somebody call Miss J?), and now they can cook! Just more reasons that I want a robot pet.

Visit here to see more pictures of robots cooking.

Labels: geekdom

Ok, not really, obviously, but they could if they wanted to! These robot penguins created by Festo can swim and fly independently, and they have FREE WILL. Why penguins, you may wonder. Well, I figured it out. Everyone loves penguins (every since March of the Penguins) so they will lull us into complacency before taking over the world. Possibly even more frightening is AirJelly, their FLYING JELLYFISH. This won't fool anyone with cuteness though, if I saw it coming, I would run and hide.

Besides trying to destroy the world with self-aware robots, Festo is making some other awesome stuff like iFab, their 3d printer that can use chocolate as a medium (similar to the 3d printer I blogged about almost 2 years ago that used spun sugar). For some reason, they don't have iFab on the English version of their website, but you can read about it here.

Labels: geekdom

Look! YouTube has TV shows now, Hulu style. Nothing too exciting in terms of shows yet, but it is great to see they have made partnerships with BBC and Discovery/TLC, who in the past have not had great online content, and no way to watch shows online. Surprisingly, they also have partnered with Starz and Showtime, so you can watch episodes of The Tudors.

What I was really hoping for was better content from Bravo and the CW online, but I guess that will have to wait.

Labels: geekdom

I don't know how it escaped my notice that J.K. Rowling hand wrote seven copies of The Tales of Beedle The Bard, one of which was auctioned at Sothebys (complete with "brown Moroccan leather and embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones"). Since I have a Sotheby's login (don't ask) I went in and snagged a screenshot of a zoomed in title page. In case you can't read it, it says "The Tales of Beedle the Bard translated from the original runes by J.K. Rowling" How cool is that?!?! I love self referential literature, especially fictional books that come from another work of fiction (ie, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, a companion to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, with an excellent self-referential and meta-fictional introduction.
Anyhow, in case you wanted to bid on the book at Sotheby's (assuming you have $3.8 million lying around) too late! It sold to amazon.

Labels: geekdom

Recently, Tea Vui Huang released a screenshot and a download for a skin of Google's Android. Now, if you have a Nokia or Sony-Ericsson phone, you can download this skin and pretend to all of your friends that you have the Gphone. Makes great cocktail conversation among geeks.

NOTE: That physical phone that you see will not be what the Gphone will look like. Most likely, the Gphone is going to be an operating system, not a single phone for purchase like the iPhone.

This reminds me, I am still waiting for a smartphone with a virtual, laser projection keyboard built in! What ever happened to these? Named a best invention by Time magazine in 2002, they have virtually disappeared from the hype cycle.

Labels: geekdom

The hilarious video that I blogged about a few days ago got yanked, due to a copyright claim by a third party (see the text on the YouTube page). My first thought, google, facebook, myspace? Matt Hempey doesn't say in his blog, but I found out that a copyright claim by a photographer who's image was used in the video was lodged with YouTube who took down the video immediately.

Never fear, even though the video was yanked from almost everywhere, I found it still alive here.

I pulled a screenshot from the video that I love, because my cousins were blogging in the womb as well, and continue to write one of my favorite blogs.

Labels: geekdom

For my friends who love robots: With robotic bugs, larger ethical questions - The Boston Globe: "'I expect Massachusetts . . . will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages [of humans] with robots,' he wrote in an e-mail." He, being David Levy (I love that at the end of his bio it says he lives with his wife and cat. Do you think it's a robotic cat?), is author of a new book called Love + Sex With Robots. I hope he asked Sara Brickman to write the forward. I'll see if I can get a copy of her amazing poem, "Cleaning out the workshop."

Labels: geekdom, the world

Wizard Rock Has Fans in Hogwarts Heaven - washingtonpost.com
Today is the day we will all find out how the story ends. I am terribly sad right now and I am only hoping that JKR will continue to write about the magical world she created. I was thinking that some prequels would be good, maybe about James and Sirius and Lily, or even a young Dumbledore.

Anyhow, it has come to my attention that the Wizrock documentary I blogged about a few days ago is not the only one. There seem to be two competing documentaries: We Are Wizards and Wizrockumentary. Very interesting that one small subculture would have two simultaneous documentaries about it...

Labels: geekdom

This time, the Potter parties won't fly - The Boston Globe
"[Your event] appears to fall outside our guidelines," said one e-mail. "Therefore, HARRY POTTER cannot be used as a theme for your event."
Warner Bros. and Scholastic setting rules and restrictions for the Harry Potter Parties... it's like Umbridge and the Ministry of Magic all over again.

Labels: geekdom

For Harry Potter fans about to rock, we salute you | Salon Arts & Entertainment

For those of you who know me, you won't be surprised to hear that I am totally psyched about the part in Hogwarts Square this Friday. It will be my first time seeing Harry and the Potters and the Hungarian Horntails. I am also excited about the documentary We Are Wizards, which I think will bring a greater awareness of this awesome movement in the US.

Labels: geekdom

DIY 3D printer utilizes hot air, sugar to craft random objects - Engadget Thanks to Cousin Adam for sending this along. The CandyFab 4000 by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories uses a selective hot air sintering and melting (SHASAM) that fuses granular sugar together, eventually making a 3D object. My prediction: fantastic cake topings to follow.

Labels: geekdom

Ok, haven't posted in a while, but I am very busy. I have exactly four days left of my undergraduate education! I have also finally embarked on my 3D scanning project, which is very very cool. Check out the website I made for the project here: http://sophia.smith.edu/~rdines/3dscanning
3D scanning and 3D printing are starting to really get noticed in popular culture, check out this article in the New York Times that talks about a future with 3D scanning.

Also, I recently had the very exciting opportunity to go on a field trip to a Red Sox game, including a talk with Tom Werner, and some time in the owners' box next to the dugout. amazing! I posted the pictures on my Picasa account.

Well, back to work, I have to finish it or else no graduation for me!

Labels: baseball, geekdom

http://www.smith.edu/newssmith/winter2007/cover.php
That's me, standing in front of Wilson House, holding a tiny model of Wilson House that I made on the 3D printer we have at Smith. You can see the plans for the model in my portfolio (scroll to the bottom). I made the model in Google Sketchup, which is a great program, its so easy to learn! I also entered in the Google Sketchup Build Your Campus in 3D Competition, which is going to be a lot of work (we have something like 80 buildings to model!).
Anyhow, think this is cool? Well, I am embarking on a 3D SCANNING project, where I will be making 3D scans of sculptures in the Smith College Museum of Art. I am just waiting for the scanner to arrive, it should be any day now!
More to come on this soon...

Labels: geekdom

Today this blog turns 2!

Labels: geekdom

and its not too early to get excited about it.

Labels: geekdom

Everything Is Illuminated the movie

My Computer Science class (ok, I'm a geek)

My Birthday (September 17th)

Studio 8 (Even though I can afford it because I forgot to preorder it for the special deal)

The fact that there are now instructions online on how to run Mac OSX on a PC

Kurt Vonnegut on the Daily Show RIGHT NOW!

Labels: geekdom

The bain of my existence! I'm trying to connect an OSX machine to a Win2000 Pro machine over a VPN. Neither remote desktop nor VNC is working for me. I think I am coming up on 10 hours of trying to get this to work. I can be very persistant at times. In other news, I love my new job! How many people can say that they walked by one of the most important Gauguins, two El Grecos and a Velazquez while they were at work. Not too many! It is interesting to note that the MFA does not deem the Velazquez shown below important enough to be in their online collection. I am shocked! This work is beautiful and important, not to mention well-known.

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Paul Gauguin 1897-1898	Saint Catherine El Greco 1610-14	Saint Dominic in Prayer El Greco about 1605	The Infant Don Balthasar Carlos Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez 1631

Happy Belated 4th of July! I had a great time, got to attend two parties, with Tucker's aunt (who is the shoe queen) and ended up with a very cute pair of KangaROOS (see below):

That's all for now, must go back to work.
PS- Tucker is now fully toothed, I swear! He won't let me a take a picture to prove it, though. For those of you not following the mellowdrama, Tucker was missing his front tooth for over a year.

Labels: art, geekdom

Countdown to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: 54 days
I've decided that I can't pretend anymore that I am not thinking about the next Harry Potter book, so I've decided to just give in and begin my countdown! In case you haven't seen it yet, here is the cover:

So exciting! Moving on....

In other news, Circuit City is not replacing my laptop (I need to get better at reading the fine print), but they will fix it (for the fourth time) and they promise to keep fixing it every time it breaks (which will happen many more times, I'm sure) until 2007.

I've decided to start a new section of this blog called: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO RACHEL since I am always right and am not afraid to say it. ha.

Anyhow,
here goes the first edition of

THE
WORLD ACCORDING TO RACHEL:

The new Weezer CD, Make Believe, is pretty good, I especially like the first track, Beverly Hills, which is very pop and very catchy. Lots of fun. Another song that I like alot is Perfect Situation which has some nice harmony and melody (this harmony is also in the song This is such a Pity) that you would never hear on early Weezer albums, such as The Blue Album or Pinkerton,
which are my favorites. One song that strikes me as being really strange is We Are All On Drugs. It almost seems like it should be the background music for an anti-drug commercial. The common theme on this album is how much Rivers Cuomo is a nerdy wimp. Rivers, we already knew that and we love you anyways, you don't need to sing about it in four songs.

PS- My brother Alex just showed this to me, and I think that I need to share it:
Seda' Club, a rap about the ten plagues with 50 Cent. Enjoy!

Labels: geekdom