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Joe Satriani - too skilled

Motorhead - too uncompromising

Celtic Frost ahhh....yes.

"Microsoft Money," as you put it, has done some very interesting and beneficial things. The X-Prize isn't the exception to the rule, it's pretty much the standard practice.

If anyone has been to Seattle's Experience Music Project (assuming the outside appearence didn't scare you away), this could be used as a replacement for the MEG devices that they provide. I could see using this to point at an exhibit and getting bluetooth audio streamed to your phone. Might be useful for museums that don't have Paul Allen's deep pockets.

At least it's not as bad as the EMP in Seattle - which, depending on how you look at it, looks like either a big crumpled bag of Doritos, or a large pile of garbage gently glinting in the city.

You can have interesting architecture without it being a completely formless asymmetrical structure.

I don't know many composers who can ignore melody or rhythym and end up with anything other than noise. Once you have noise, you have nothing - you may as well have a chimp writing the score by bashing keys on a piano with a banana... the same applies to architecture.

Sheesh.

It's an ugly mess that looks like it was made by a cartoonist on acid.

That may well be the case... but at least it looks better than the EMP in Seattle, which looks like either an empty bag of Doritos or just a plain pile of trash depending on which way the sun is glinting off it.

I'm all for interesting looking buildings... but come on... you can have interesting architecture that doesn't look like an eyesore that was sketched out by someone on hard drugs.

"Presented on a PDA (personal digital assistant), the Concert Companion's key feature is the "loser's guide to the music" that updates you with information about what you're peeing on, in real time. As the music plays, a computer hidden in a corner of the hall uses wireless technology to transmit signals to your T&A..."

The EMP in Seattle uses this mechanism and it works rather well.

Considered by many to be an effective satirisation of those who post comments consisting of a linked article's text (invariably reputedly in case of the Slashdot effect) for positive moderation, these are arguably some of the most creative and entertaining found on Slashdot.
These trolls consist of the linked article's text, copied into a comment, usually accompanied by a subject line indicating that the site has been slashdotted. One or more words, phrases, or paragraphs are covertly inserted or modified to form a subversive or offensive message not present in the original article.
These can be in the form of film or book spoilers, words changed to produce sexual innuendoes, amongst other things. Often moderators will 'mod-up' an article or post based on its title and the overall appearance of the text without reading it - the aim of the troll is to make a comment which contains a subtle modification to be modded up as +5 Informative or +5 Insightful.

Go talk to Paul Allen...this would've been a much better project than his Ode to Jimi Hendrix...

In Seattle:
Boeing Museum of Flight: F-18 simulator, Air Force One, B-29, Sopwith Camel, SR-71 cockpit, air traffic control tower exhibit, etc.
Take the Monorail to the Space Needle and Experience Music Project. (Seattle Science Center is redundant if you'll visit the one in L.A.)

Portland:
McMenamins Edgefield: brewery, b&b, Tie-dye golf tournament for Jerry Garcia's birthday, galss blowing, etc.
Saturday Market(also on Sunday), great local arts&crafts&music event.
Powell's books, one of the nation's largest bookstore sprawling over an entire city block, with another store down the street full of technical books.
Authentic Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden and a friendly Zoo with a good concert series.
Indie music from Music Millenium, offbeat movies from Movie Madness, the Church of Elvis, various other wacky things geek create after six months without sunshine.
You might not be able to get into the Pittock Internet Hotel unless you're a TCP or UDP packet.

The post with L.A. suggestions was excellent, at Caltech be sure to visit the gravity wave detector if possible.

Another cool Boeing thing to do is the factory tour. You can tour the largest building (by volume) in the world where they make different Boeing planes.

The Experience Music Project is another fun thing to do. The have all kinds of music exhibits enhanced with technology. The place is largely funded by Paul Allen, so most of the computers use Windows (but you can't see their interface). Actually, I have seen some of the demonstration computers have a BSOD :). They have lots of memoriblia. A section called Northwest Passage details the history of music in the Pacific Northwest. All along the exhibits they have relavent music and videos playing. They also have a new section following Jimi Hendrix's life. A really cool place is the Sound Lab where you can learn instruments and other music things. They have keyboards, drums, guitars, vocal rooms, mixing boards, DJ equipment, and record scratching gear that you can learn to use. All of these includes video screens that give step by step instructions on how to play. Once your are confident, you and your friends can get together in a jam room consisting of multiple instruments and just play around. You can also be your own band in another section (I don't remember the name). You go onstage and have your choice of songs. The songs play and you play along on your instrument of choice in front of an "audience." Finally, you can chill out in the Sky Church which is a very tall room with tons of lights, fog machines, jellyfishes on the ceiling, video projectors, and other things. Plus, half the room is covered by a huge LED screen.

If you wait long enough before coming here, you can see the scifi museum that is set to open in a year or two (talked about here on /. a while back). Also funded by Paul Allen and in the same building as EMP.

For hiking, I would suggest stuff over by Lake Chelan and Glacier Peak. They have a bunch of trails there which are away from civilization and have great views.

I know someone who owns an airport in Walla Walla. He took us up in his small plane. He flew my brother of the wind farms which is really cool.

If you know anyone with a boat, have them take you out on Lake Washington so you can see Bill G's house.

EMP is supposed to be fun, too. I've never been, but I've heard good things.

The rest of the state:
Washington state is very ecologically diverse. You've got rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula, more temperate climate in the Seattle area, the mountains (which are beautiful), and then the central and eastern parts of the state are desert. The San Juan islands are an excellent destination, especially if you wanted to do some sea kayaking.
There are some good wineries in the south central part of the state, and one of the biggest wind farms down by Walla Walla.

I went to the Expenience Music Project in Seattle about 3 years ago, and they had a similar system.

They rigged you up with a little PocketPC-type computer and a set of headphones. As you walked through the music exhibits (there was some pretty cool stuff), you could point the PocketPC thing at "icons" that were next to the exhibits. A short write-up would come on the screen you were carrying, and you could listen to audio commentary or music that was based on the exhibit. It was some pretty cool stuff for 2000.

Of course, it wasn't networked at the time. They had you carry around a little case that the PocketPC was attached to. I think the case had a PC with a DVD drive in it or something like that, but it was still a cool demonstration of this type of tech.

Disclaimer: the EMP is very Microsoft-oriented, since it was founded by one of the MS guys (can't remember who it was). It was still a pretty cool place to visit in Seattle.

As a former resident of Seattle, all I have to say is please dear god, Seattle doesn't need another Experience Music Project (One of Mr. Allen's other attempts at a "shrine" in Seattle). That thing is the ugliest eyesore there ever was.

Hey maybe they should put all of the music stuff in a better looking building, and turn the EMP into the Sci-Fi shrine? At least then he could justify the hideous, cat-just-coughed-up-this-technicolor-hairball-of-a -building-its-not-ugly-its-art look of the thing.

This Sci-fi thing will be part of a project that goes back three or more years. - The Experience Music Project.

It'll clear your head, and remind you what's at the core, here: music and musicians.

Executive Summary: It's absolutely fantastic; Highly Recommended!

I went with my kid and her boyfriend; it's not cheap: $20 for adults; $16 for high school kids; $15 (?) for younger kids.. Allow *lots* of time; we had about four hours and didn't even scratch the surface.

If you're not familiar with the story behind the EMP it will seem to be an odd collection: some groups were missing entirely from what little I saw: the "Milestones" exhibit had no reference to the Beattle or the Stones, but covered Britain through the Yardbirds, the Cream, Blind Faith, Derick and the Dominoes, Steve Winwood, and Eric Clapton.

Janis Joplin is very well covered; as is Bo Diddley, BB King, and the very early country/R&B/rock genesis.

There's the hint as to what's going on: this is an entirely personal collection on display here, from someone who loves music and musicians and bands and the guitar particularily.

But there's a lot of depth that you wouldn't expect and couldn't get from a publicly funded "museum" about rock: one fabulous display goes into tremendous depth about the New York grafitti scene of the late 70' and the '80, right down to having actual sketch books from some of the artists involved..

And this segues into hip-hop, and the DJ/mixing scene, and punk, and on and on..

It's fabulous!

I didn't get into the Jimi Hendrix Gallery; I did see "RIAA" once: on the actual gold album award Jimi received for "Axis Bold as Love".

Geek note: the MEG (Museum Exhibit Guide) is a device about the size of, and a little heavier than, an early cassette recorder. It sits down on your right hip and has a strap that goes over your head and onto your left sholder; battery powered; 3"x4" LCD display; headphones; touchscreen and cursor buttons and a numeric keypad; you point the keypad at (sometimes hard-to-see) infrared xmitters at each display and you press "Select" and the MEG reads where it is from the xmitter and "Loading" appears and A LONG TIME later the narration begins and a menu that accesses specific exhibit details comes up...

A LONG TIME is about 5-7 seconds: it's hard to picture *what* is taking so long, and that confuses guesses about *what* MEG is: I'd guess it's got an hdd in it, but what kind of OS takes so long to read in it's location and find and display the relevant naration had me puzzled.

It's not obtrusive at all, but it kept me mildly curious as to what was in it; there's absolutely *no* markings of any kind on the case to give you a clue: it looks as though EMP builds 'em themselves.

I suspect the weight and size of the thing are merely anti-theft: there's certainly no reason it couldn't be a lot smaller...

The MEG was pretty cool, too: when I went off to get in a line for the Hendrix Gallery, I was still able to bring up the narrations for all the specific objects on display at the last place I'd been: the LA punk scene, and listen to stuff as I was waiting.

Many adults seemed baffled by MEG; kids (of course..) took right to it..

Anyway, the EMP is pretty cool, if you *really* *like* *music* - if you live in Metro Puget Sound, Go!

If you're travelling into Metro Puget Sound on business or pleasure, Go!

If you can't think of any other excuse, fly in, see EMP, and then leave ;-) -- and be sure to tell everyone how much it rained.

t_t_b

(* Paul Allen)
--

Umm, how about some waves with Bill G playing a strad? C'mon, there must be tons of people from EMP twiddling their thumbs now that the not-so-long lines at the Space Needle have gotten really short.

Just crank it into Adobe and push it out!

Other ideas?