Slashdot Mirror
John Linnell of They Might Be Giants Talks Tech
harrymcc writes "We've published Benj Edwards' wide-ranging interview with John Linnell, one half of the 30-year musical partnership known as They Might Be Giants. He talks about his life as a technology user--from his first encounter with the Radio Shack TRS-80 to his mastery of Asteroids to the band's long-time use of Macs to its pioneering experiments on online music."
often referred to as "The Thinking Man's Drinking Band."
Nerds everywhere thank them for giving us intelligent music in a time when the soul of music has nearly vanished.
Not sure what your point is here. Are you saying it's hypocritical to advocate for "human rights" while purchasing/using (or even evangelizing) Apple products?
First of all, it's worth nothing that Foxconn factories make more than just Apple products. All the major manufacturers use Foxconn or similar factories with similar working conditions (actually, according to some reports Apple puts slightly more effort than other companies at insuring that worker standards are decent, but let's ignore that for now). So, basically, this isn't an "Apple" issue, this is a "technology" issue.
So, is it hypocritical to advocate for "human rights" while purchasing/using (or even evangelizing) technology? That's a tough question. Ultimately all aspects of our modern living take a toll on the environment, and, unfortunately, on other people. I suppose one could be blithely selfish and simply not care about other people's rights or standards of living. That would be less hypocritical, I suppose, but certainly not more moral.
There are also the usual progress-based arguments like: "it's better for those workers to have some kind of job rather than none", or "technology helps us be more efficient and helps us lift more people out of poverty", or "everyone is entitled to some luxuries, the key is being reasonable in one's impact", and many many others. What's my point here? My point is that there are some legitimate moral dilemmas here, and we should certainly be debating them, and figuring out a good path forward. But painting a caricature wherein "Mac users" are fundamentally and universally hypocritical (moreso than other tech users?) is a complete waste of time.
...is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace.
^my new favorite TMBG song
Good song. But not written by them. http://tmbw.net/wiki/Hy_Zaret_And_Lou_Singer On the other hand, "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)" was. "The sun is a miasma Of incandescent plasma The sun's not simply made out of gas The sun is a quagmire It's not made of fire Forget what you've been told in the past"
They get lost driving around...
Theme from The Daily Show, Grammy-winning kids' albums, a new regular album coming out next month (they do about one every three years), a tour just starting up with Jonathan "Still Alive" Coulton as the opener -- yeah, they're pretty relevant.
If "Istanbul" is your favorite, I pity you your ignorance and envy you your opportunity to still discover them.
Does it include an accordion? If so, that makes them awesome.
Some examples: TMBG, Weird Al, Moxy Fruvous (back when they were still together), MC Frontalot (listen to his backing tracks carefully, it's there).
I am officially gone from
Well, crud, all the good answers given to you are from ACs. I'm not answering to get cred, just so that people will see the good answers (for those that filter out the AC posts).
Yes, they are still around. My young girls basically learned to count from "Here Comes the 123s". "Here Comes the ABCs" and "Here Comes the Science" are both very good. The 123s really introduce some advanced information (0 is both big and small, 1 is everything and breaking it apart doesn't make sense in certain applications.)
They've done music for a lot of Disney projects, TV shows, and movies - Mickey Mouse House, Boss of Me, Coraline (a small ditty), and many others. They are currently going on tour for their latest release.
As one AC posted, "If 'Istanbul' is your favorite, I pity you your ignorance and envy you your opportunity to still discover them."
Back in their early days they used to run something called "Dial-A-Song". It was basically just an answering machine with one of their songs recorded as the greeting. They would switch out the song often.
One time the machine recorded part of a two-way conversation when a woman named Gloria called the machine to listen to it with someone else on the line. TMBG released that recording as an unnamed track on their "Miscellaneous T" b-side compilation album. There is a transcript here.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.