Xmas from Hell

For your listening pleasure, the esteemed DJ Hell provides a fantastic 3-hour live set for your ho-ho-holiday. Simply click here (Real Player required). Thanks as always to Christoph for the scoop.

Build your own barcode on-line

People are wondering about a commercial that's being played in theaters before The Return of the King movie for a too-good-to-be-true robot called the NS-5, and their website, iRobotNow.com. A quick check of the WHOIS registry reveals that the site is registered to Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. It's probably just a stealth marketing campaign for I, Robot, Fox's new movie based on the Isaac Asimov novel that is due out next year (the references to the Three Laws are a dead giveaway). Thanks to Gizmodo for the scoop.

Now research robot reportage with the click of a button. I finally managed to get the site's search feature re-indexed and working properly.

Feeling a little ho, ho, ho, hum? Get your glitch on tonight by stopping by the Hemlock Tavern to see Programmer extraordinaire Kit Clayton as he drops digital dub science, followed up by SF's own Gold Chains rocking the mic. Get more info here.

shit.

Election results

Mayor
Gavin Newsom 118,651 52.57%
Matt Gonzalez 107,030 47.43%



You're a Post-Punk. You know 70s punk was cool, but it was mostly just a stepping stone for the greater intellectualism of what would come after. The 80s were amazing. You quite possibly have huge hair, and may wear lots of black. Snare drums need reverb. Lots and lots of reverb.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
brought to you by Quizilla (Thanks to Mr. Goodman)

How Indie are you?

Just launched! Bush in 30 Seconds, a political TV ad contest to help find the most creative, clear and memorable ideas for ads that tell the truth about George Bush's policies. You don't have to be trained in the art of filmaking to participate, you just need to be ready, willing, and able to turn your clever ideas into a real 30 second ad.

And speaking of politics, if you're in San Francisco, don't forget to get out there and vote tomorrow, Tuesday, December 9th! Go Matt!

Cybrid, 2002. Photo by Bitboy

Head out this Friday to the new and improved Up & Down club and groove to Electro, Ghetto-tech, minimal techno, tech-house as Tokyo Electric goes head to head with Audio (a.k.a Cybrid). It's NOT to be missed.

Friday, Dec 5th - Tokyo Electric vs. Audio
10pm to 2am
21+ w/ID - $8
Up & Down Club
1151 Folsom (between 7th & 8th)

With:
Julian Destrukt (Tokyo Electric)
Caltrop (The Clap, E.D.M)
Seraphim (Sister SF, Bad Kitty)
Audioel (Cybrid, Zero)
Dave Aju (Context, Circus Company)
Bloom (Freerange SF)

Good grief, is the holiday weekend really over? I hope yours was as good as mine, I spent low-key style, in the Northern California countryside with friends and family. I also had a chance to catch up on some long overdue reading. Already highly suspicious of our fairly-elected leader – oh, assuming I lost most of you there I meant our President in a tongue-in-cheek way – anyhow, I had the privilege of being further enlightened by Al Franken’s genius piece of political satire, Lies And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. It was provocative and funny but mostly a well-researched, infuriatingly frustrating look at Bush, Bush’s cabinet and the lying reporters who knowingly distort the truth before the American public. I consider it a must-read for anyone who claims to care about this country, regardless of their political affiliations – as one Amazon reviewer put it, “Read it and enjoy being an American again”.

On the car trip home, I also started listening to Michael Moore’s Dude, Where’s My Country?, which is beginning to paint even a darker, more sinister picture of the current American political landscape. And finally, I was able to crack two great design books, Problem Solved!, a designer’s look at contemporary advertising, and The Art of Looking Sideways (pictured above), a fantastic book (and value at under $30) from Phaidon Press that, as on the Amazon website states, is an absolutely extraordinary and inexhaustible "guide to visual awareness," a virtually indescribable concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images, and bizarre facts that offers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life. Worth checking out.

Thankful for German Techno



Just a little over a month after Ellen Allein graced us with her amazing set at Mezzanine, you've got another chance to experience some of the most extraordinary, sophisticated in electronic music available today right here in our very own San Francisco. All you have to do is get over to Club Six tonight and see Michael Mayer from Cologne-based label Kompakt. Opening for Michael are our very own Broker/Dealer and their unique brand of electronic syncopations.

Not convinced? Check out this excellent SF Weekly article, and Mayer's refreshingly genuine comment, "it's serious, not ironic," affirms Mayer. "We still stand behind our history. We don't think it's wrong if we used to listen to Pet Shop Boys. We think it's great music, so there's no reason to transform it to the club universe in an ironic way." After two-plus years of tired clich� and oh-so-clever irony on the dance floor, Mayer's genuine love of the genre and masterful skills could make this the year's premiere San Francisco nightclub performance.

Regretably, I'm out of town for the holiday weekend, so I'm relying on you, faithful robots, to get out there and send a message that San Francisco is ready to rock, Kompakt style. Tickets are available at Blasthaus, and thanks as always to Christoph for the tip.


Also, don't forget the weird and wonderful TAMALA 2010 opens this weekend at the Castro Theater and is not to be missed!

Get a life, people. I mean, really!

Playlistism, Aubrey explained, is discrimination based not on race, sex or religion, but on someone's terrible taste in music, as revealed by their iTunes music library.

...Sounds entirely reasonable to me.

Weekend plans?

Friday get down to the sounds of Hollertronix at Club Six where you'll hear them deftly combine dirty South hip hop beats, electro, and '80s tunes all into one mix.

Saturday, head over to see Mute/Kompakt recording artist T. Raumschmiere, plus Ghost Orchids, Tussle (scroll down for details). Or if you're looking for something more sedate, but equally heavy join Dave Eggers and Ben Ehrenreich join Vollmann at a book release party and reading for their abridged version of William T. Vollmann's 7-volume, 3298-page opus, Rising Up and Rising Down at Cellspace on Bryant St.

Our President's State of the Union address, courtesy of Warp records. Thanks to Mr D. for the link.

The San Francisco Sushi Finder.

Ghost Orchids, New Year's Eve 2002 - Photo by Bitboy

Head out to San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill this Saturday, 11/22 and catch brilliant Berlin punk-glam-techno by Mr. Kittin. That would be none other than Mute/Kompakt recording artist T. Raumschmiere, plus Ghost Orchids, Tussle and special guest DJ Chris Orr. This is an incredible bill, and probably the last chance to catch Ghost Orchids until next year. More information can be found here. Only $12 bucks, doors open at 8pm. Thanks to Christoph for the tip.

Doing grown up things this weekend. House hunting, realtors, mortgages. Ugh.

Carnegie Mellon University has put together a Robot Hall of Fame, inducting two real and two fictional robots as the first honorees: NASA's Sojourner robot, GM's Unimate assembly line robotic arm, R2-D2, and the HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001. Thanks to Gizmodo and Slashdot for the info.

For those of you who missed Friday evening with Ellen Allien and Ritchie Hawtin, you missed one of the best shows in months. But don't worry, you can catch a couple of glimpses of the lovely and talented Ms. Allien here. Just be warned, there's a small sound loop that plays in the background, so if you're goofing off at work you may want to turn your speakers down.

Don't forget, Ellen Allien tonight at Mezzanine. If you're in LA, she'll be at The Echo on Saturday.

Pictures and detailed commentary on the new Prada store in Tokyo, from ARCH'IT.

Well, I just got word that the aforementioned Re-Volt and The Clap shows at Amnesia were canceled due to some licensing issues, so apologies to any Robots who ventured out to find out the event was canceled.

However, I do have some exciting news. Mark your calendars for November 20th, when San Francisco will play host to a special Ghostly International event. More details to come. Stay tuned.

Party like a rock star

Slash and Deborah Harry, photo by BitBoy

Several robots reported an unusual sighting Thursday night - a massive white stretch limo crammed with 12 legends of rock on a barbaric rampage through the bars, clubs and streets of San Francisco. Indeed, this hell on wheels was none other than a twisted celebration of Axl Rose's birthday, otherwise known as Paradise City Tour - Part Mutha F*ckin' II. Celebrities who came out to wish the wiry metal star a happy birthday include Slash, Deborah Harry, Madonna, Joan Jett, Tina Turner, Duff McKagen, Nikki Sixx, Jam Master J, Pat Benetar, Pink, Justin Timberlake and more. After meeting up with the tour at SF's newest trendy watering hole, Fluid, I managed to finagle my way onto the limo and partake in the debauchery, as well as snap some great pictures, which I will post more of soon.

And, if you’re looking to party like a rock star yourself, our friends at Re-Volt and The Clap have an evening of techno and electro that will rock your body. Just head over to the newly painted Amnesia tonight and Sunday night and tell them BitBoy sent ya. Cover is a Measly $3 on Saturday, and FREE on Sunday! Also, check out Smoking Gun design & code. They're the the mad geniuses behind all the great flyer artwork for Re-Volt, The Clap, Tokyo Electric and more. Nice work!


Also, Sacramento area robots. Don't forget tonight, and every first Saturday of the month is Vicious at Old Ironsides. Tonight, you can partake in their ghoulish Disco Bloodbath and get reduced admission of just $1 when you show up in your favorite sick and twisted costume. Check out clublipstick.net for more information.

Robot Report from the Future

Ah, the not-so-good ‘ol days. Remember when you actually had separate computers at work and at home? Or when “mobility” was defined by carrying around a “laptop” which in some instances included a power supply, keyboard and 17” flat panel screen? No wonder bad backs were so commonplace in the first half of the 21st century.

Of course, that all changed when Antelope Modular Computing launched their Computing Core halcyon days of late 2002. Despite all the haters who said it'd never come out, the Antelope MCC arrived on the scene and revolutionized the entire computing industry. For those of you who have a hard time remembering the days of yore, the MCC was about the size of a deck of cards and was a full fledged 1GHz computer with 256MB of RAM and a 10 or 15GB hard drive (substantial horsepower for its time) that ran a full version of Windows XP (before the mass exodus to Linux and Unix based operating systems, like Mac OS X, windows was the dominant OS in the marketplace). The revolutionary idea sparked by the MMC was that users would simply pop the MMC into a wide variety of docking stations with a screen and keyboard if you want to use it like a desktop, or into a smaller PDA-type shell if you need something more portable. The rest, is of course, history.

More about the Antelope Modular Computing MMC can be found here or here.

A pumpkin carving robot? You bet. From BoingBoing.

Electrical engineers Sigurd Wagner and Stephanie Lacour at Princeton University have developed a kind of connector incorporating broad metal strips that, unlike wires, can stretch up to twice their length and still conduct electricity. They think it will be ideal for use in robot skin. More here.

For your listening pleasure, DJ Hell's Tokyo set (Real Audio required). As always, thanks to Christoph for the link.

Satellite photography of the raging Southern California fires here.

Kung-fu robots and a new Siouxsie site, from Mr. D.

Don't forget to buy your tickets for Richie Hawtin and Ellen Allien at Mezzanine SF on November 7th. You can buy tickets at Blasthaus via Paypal here.