All work and no play, makes VeeBot go something something...

Another record for me has been surpassed as of two days ago... It has now been over 45 days since I have seen any of the following:

 - Land -

 - A female -

 - A car - 

 - A gym -
- Any type of alcohol that is not an industrial strength solvent -

- Chocolate - 

 - Any form of plant life - 

-  Coca Cola -

Ahh the offshore life..... Eeeeeekkk.

On a positive note, 8 days till I am back in Australia for MeredithMusic Festival!!!! I wet myself every time I think of the prospect of being home for this... Also, it will be my first Christmas at home for four years now! So that is equally as exciting... I cannot wait to see all the family and friends again as well as hopefully get to play a game of cricket or do something that is NORMAL.

Albums of the Year - Thus Far

I recently stumbled across Triple J's poll for album of the year the other day and that got me thinking - how out of touch am I? So I got cracking....


Fortunately, my job has allowed me to do a lot of music listening this year and it has somewhat different to years gone past. While back in Australia I would listen to the J's for a couple of hours a day at least and then listen to the iPod while running - usually the same playlist updated with a few songs every month or so. Very rarely did I listen to albums in full unless they were outrageously good.

This year has been different with my work here in India in an offshore environment... I spend most of my time on the rusty rigs and most of them have no gym to speak of. So I have found myself cutting laps of the helideck for many hours upon end - iPod in tow. If it wasn't for these few hours of solitary reflection and music listening I believe I would have gone insane, although most of the Indian workers who see me doing this already think that there is something wrong with my head because I do not spend this time smoking biddis.

It has been this love of the helideck that has enabled me to listen to all of the following albums, (and then some) in full, several times over. So my list has been quite well researched by yours truly. I did struggle to cut some of the albums so I have mentioned my top 10 as well as the unlucky ones to miss out.... All in all it has been another stellar year of music thankfully... A life without music/iPod out here would be hell...

The Top 10 (in no particular order):

Beirut - The Rip Tide
Crystal Fighters - Star Of Love
Digitalism - I Love You Dude
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Don't Say We Didn't Warn You
Elbow - Build A Rocket, Boys!
Kills, The - Blood Pressures
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Sparkadia - The Great Impression
Yuksek - Living On The Edge Of Time

The unlucky ones:

Architecture In Helsinki - Moment Bends
Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See
Aston Shuffle, The - Seventeen Past Midnight
Ball Park Music - Happiness And Surrounding Suburbs
Beni - House Of Beni
Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind Of Fix
Chase & Status - No More Idols
City And Colour - Little Hell
Example - Playing In The Shadows
Feist - Metals
Foster The People - Torches
Givers - In Light
Grouplove - Never Trust a Happy Song
Hard-Fi - Killer Sounds
Jay-Z/Kanye West - Watch The Throne
Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
Kasabian - Velociraptor!
Kooks, The - Junk Of The Heart
Lupe Fiasco - Lasers
Manchester Orchestra - Simple Math
Metronomy - The English Riviera
Modeselektor - Monkeytown
Mutemath - Odd Soul
Nero - Welcome Reality
Noah & The Whale - Last Night On Earth
Owl Eyes - All Things Bright and Beautiful
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The - Belong
Peter, Bjorn & John - Gimme Some
Rapture, The - In the Grace of Your Love
Sebastian - Total
TV On The Radio - Nine Types Of Light
Vaccines, The - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?
White Lies - Ritual
Wombats, The - This Modern Glitch
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical

Soooo tired......................... But must work.....

 New albums that are on the download:

Florence and the Machine - Ceremonials
Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
Big Scary - Vacation

Albums for October

Above: Photo I took at Parc Guell in Barcelona in July: Favourite city outside of Melbs.....

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Another fantastic dreamy release from the French group as a follow up to the first album "Saturdays = Youth"

Feist - Metals
I don't need to say much about this. Her previous album "The Reminder" was a smash hit a few years ago - containing the likes of 1234 and My Moon My Man... This album is a beautiful collection of songs that is slightly less poppy than her last release, but none the less it is sure to be popular.

The Rapture - In the Grace of Your Love
It has been a while since the Rapture last released a compilation. In recent history I can only think of the "No Sex for Ben" song which was a release for the Need for Speed Soundtrack. Echoes about 7 years ago was a solid indie album and this is no different. The title track and also "How deep is your love" are sure to be party anthems in Australia this summer.

Gotye - Making Mirrors
A well put together and enjoyable indie pop album that will have you humming all day.


Beirut - The Rip Tide
Possibly a contender for favourite album of the year... I love Beirut and if you loved their first album you will love this also. I had the pleasure of seeing them live at Benicassim (Spain) in July and it was amazing. Santa Fe is truly a beautiful song.

Metronomy - The English Riviera
Neon Indian - Era Extraña
Hard Fi - Killer Sounds
Example - Playing in The Shadows
Ball Park Music - Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs
Grouplove - Never Trust a Happy Song
Clap you Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical
Modeselektor - Monkeytown
Beni - House of Beni
Mogwai - Earth Division (EP)
Kasabian - Velociraptor!
Bombay Bicycle Club - A different kind of Fix
The Kooks - Junk of the Heart
Mutemath - Odd Soul
Joe Goddard - Gabriel (EP)

Coolest thing ever!!! I want one for Christmas!

A ball with 36 cameras installed that takes a a single Panoramic snap of everything in all directions (images spliced by the ball itself).... It is programmed to be thrown into the air and when it reaches the pinnacle (the point where the force of gravity has reduced the balls upward momentum to zero) all cameras simultaneously take a snap. The images, although not highly detailed (2MP each), are still extremely stunning.... Some seriously cool stuff could be implemented with this....

Check the video below and see their website for more information: http://jonaspfeil.de/ballcamera

Siri Hacking...

I am slightly worried about this hole Apple Siri thing...

Now I am not normally the kind of guy that gets all paranoid about a company or government entity having detailed information about me online, however the human voice is something very unique to each individual.

If you have been living under a rock recently, Apple has just released its newest iPhone creation - the iPhone 4S. Essentially the 4S is a souped up version of the iPhone 4 with a better processor and camera. The most talked about feature however is a new piece of proprietary voice recognition and communication software called Siri. Now, it has been widely published that Siri was initially developed by the US government's top secret technology arm known as Darpa. This was then spun off into the Stanford Research Institutes hands and then became a company of its own before being swallowed by Apple a few years ago. That background alone could put some enthusiastic conspiracy theorists into a state of pandemonium.

What the software purports to do is to learn how the user talks - picking up on accents, phrases, and general grammar and language usage. To me this sounds amazing and truly is a remarkable step... The fineprint that got my attention though was the disclaimer on Apple's website that says Siri does this by recording the voice of the user and using this to 'learn' obviously through some kind of historical comparison algorithm.  The processing power is immense and it is assumed that a lot of this would be performed in the iCloud, a collection of mass servers that house immense amounts of data for access by users around the globe. Essentially your hard drive would be on the web and this hard drive would contain clearly recorded phrases that you have input to Siri.

I have two issues with this:

1. Siri as a software over time would establish a huge mass of recordings of the user's voice. If the software proves to be as popular and as good as what it sounds, the tool could become as common place as 'googling'. Therefore the software could theoretically come up with a library of words you have said that covers most of the dictionary. Now, where I am going with this is similar to those movies where they take a tapped phone call, rearrange the words and make it sound like the person is saying something completely different. This in reality is hard to do because we enunciate differently for words that can have alternative meanings and that can be positioned in different locations of a sentence. However, Siri should have theoretically learned how you would say a certain word in a certain context. So it is not to unreasonable to expect that the software after some time of use could string a coherent sentence together using proper grammar, word placement and verbal control such that it sounds exactly like you said it, even though you may never have said that sentence in the real world. In addition, if the software is good enough - even if Siri has not heard you say a certain word - it should be able to construct words (with the user's perfect voice and verbal control) by implementing algorithms that compare the user's implementation of certain syllables, vowels and consonants to that of a default recording of a word (eg. from other online recordings or voice softwares). It could theoretically construct sentences that you have never uttered! And all this in the cloud!

This could be useful in some ways I believe... For example, f it learns how to talk like the user when the user is sick... The user could tell the phone to dial his or her boss and tell them (in a sickly, but distinctively correct voice) that they are unable to come into work, thus leaving the user free to go play golf or do whatever...

But what if this fell into the wrong hands? What if a file became available that enabled anyone on the planet to be able to emulate the users voice over a voice only communication connection? There either could be a hell of alot of pranks going on or there could be a lot of issues with identity theft.

2. Apple has a tendency to patent anything... I am not so sure how they might go on this one, but I know that recordings of any kind, when original, are protected by copyright. Siri, for many millions if not billions, would be the first and only place where that voice is recorded. And the owner of the copyright? I have a funny feeling that Apple would argue that there software / cloud made the recording for the benefit of improving the software alone. The user did not have the intention of making a voice recording when asking 'where is the nearest pizza place?'. Consequently, for the next generation of iPhone users, Apple could theoretically own the copyright to pretty much any recording of every word you have input to the program. This could have massive complications!!!! Phone companies could be in breach of copyright in the future for recording a voicemail you leave, if you are ever interviewed by a news program they would be in breach of copyright and heaven forbid if you so desire to take on a role that requires you to speak publicly - everyone would have to pay Apple royalties just to hear your voice!

Hmmmm. I don't know if I want to buy an iPhone now... Mainly because I do not want to have to pay royalties for talking when I become President of the World. :p

Fave of the Day

From their new album, Blood Pressures:

"My Heart is a Beating Drum"

Bands with a Split Personailty.... I love it...

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Does it Offend You, Yeah's first album in 2008 (You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into) was an extreme mix of edgy electro, new wave rock contrast against some beautiful indie pop... A recipe I loved....

Their latest is no different (Don't Say We Didn't Warn You) and goes a long way to matching the first for mind blowing sounds combined with classic easy listening thrills...

Case in Point:

Off 2008's You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into:
Aaron, aka personality no.1:  "Dawn of he Dead" , "Being Bad feels Pretty Good"
Roy, aka personality no.2: "We are Rockstars" , "Attack of the 60ft Lesbian Octopus"


Off March 2011's Don't Say We Didn't Warn You:
Aaron: "Broken Arms" , "Pull Out My Insides" , "Wrong Time, Wrong Planet"
Roy: "Yeah!" , "The Monkeys are Coming"
The rest of the new album is just as brilliant!!!!!!!!!



Playing at Splendour in the Grass in Queensland this year.... eeeeek... If I cant get to that then I have to see them somewhere!!!?!?!?!?!

Mega Mystery Band

Courtesy of u sique.......
Yuksek - On a Train

Song of the Week

Love it:

Lupe Fiasco - I don't wanna care right now (youtube)