I honestly have two posts waiting in the queue that are far more substantial than a simple list, I just haven’t edited them. I figured a fun little post would be good, in between social critiques. The following list of albums are ones which I can listen to in their entirety, where every song is good, and the albums are a cohesive body of work. They are my favourite albums. Without further ado, and in no particular order, number one:

Dark Side of the Moon — Pink Floyd. The Wall is arguably a better album. It tells a story, it’s captivating and it’s Pink Floyd’s magnum opus. However, it’s long. Really long. It’s an extremely difficult album to listen to in a single sitting; one must listen to the first half, then take a break before plunging into part two. Dark Side is a perfect length. It’s less than fourty-five minutes long and every moment is crammed with perfect instrumentation, beautiful sonic textures and colourful imagery. Every square inch of vinyl glass and plastic is used, and no playing time is wasted. It’s one of the very best.

The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place — Explosions in the Sky. Despite the novella of a title, Earth is a masterpiece. It’s arguably the band’s best album, and despite having merely five songs, it runs for slightly longer than the Pink Floyd album above. True to the band’s style, and indeed their genre, much of the album is spent in suspense, waiting for the perfect sonic climax in each song. Every song is a little gem. Every song is precious, and every song captures a certain subtlety, yet every song is breathtaking.

Sing the Sorrow — AFI. AFI’s signing to a major label was met with an amount of disdain by longtime fans, who were certain they were about to lose the precious punk stylings that made their mark. But with larger production budgets and a different studio, AFI cranked every knob to “11.” Fast became faster, hard became harder, quiet became eerier. The style that the band perfected on their previous two full-length albums reached its peak on Sorrow, before they turned a bit screamo (and now alt-rock). This album, though, is magnificent.

The Downward Spiral — Nine Inch Nails. If ever there were a true Nails concept album, this is it. Over the course of its one-hour runtime, we experience the slow self-destruction of the protagonist, introduced with the perfectly sadistic Piggy: “nothing can stop me now, ’cause I don’t care anymore.” The album was recorded at Sharon Tate’s former home, and listeners can almost experience the effect it must have had on Reznor. The album is often violent, occasionally sinister and even distressing, with the melancholic A Warm Place and the classic Hurt. 1999’s The Fragile may be a more musically mature album, but for pure, unadulterated listening pleasure, nothing beats Spiral.

Beggars — Thrice. Every so often, an album comes along that truly moves me, with both the passion infused into the songs and the sheer technical and musical abilities of the band members. I’ve loved Thrice for a long time, and I’m still a massive fan of The Artist in the Ambulance. But no other band I can think of has matured to the same level Thrice has. Music reviewers go mental for Radiohead, but I’d argue that Thrice is better, and not just by a little bit, either. Beggars proves that. Every song ties together, and each are crafted not to technical perfection, but to emotional brilliance.

The Beatles — The Beatles. Earlier, I argued against two prominent double-disc albums (The Wall and The Fragile), instead opting for their single-disc counterparts in the pantheon of great albums. It may seem weird, then, that my favourite Beatles album is the White Album. Like the others, though, I have a very good reason: every song is good. That’s not to say Revolver had a bunch of bad tracks, but White has always seemed to me to be the most cohesive body of work they ever recorded. From “Back in the USSR” all the way to “Good Night”, it’s thirty songs of sheer wonder. Well, twenty-nine — I’ll excuse the existence of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” because of the huge influence “Helter Skelter” has had in the last 40 years.

Allow me to start this entry with an apology: I should keep this updated more often. Two-and-a-half months is far too long. Without making too many excuses, I’ve been studying hard and writing papers, and after writing 1,500 words on the Byzantine aesthetic, the final thing on my mind is writing an opinion piece for my blog. For that, I’m sorry.

Thank you for the comments on the previous entry. There are some wonderfully insightful issues that were brought up with regards to wireless power. However, time is precious, so I’ll move on.

Have you ever set foot into an art college? No? Pardon my wit, sharpening by the day, and let me paint you a picture of the culture within. The students are able to be classified in just a few distinct groups: punks, hipsters, miscellaneous hippie-type counterculture folks and normal people. The first are an established subculture that have been a core independent offshoot since the 1970s, and the penultimate group in that list is too easy to pick on. The final set of normal students is a rarity at art college, and almost all of them are typically found in the design studies and not fine arts. That leaves hipsters, arguably as easy to mock as hippie-types, but more fun in the process.

The hipster subculture was born from the roots of punk, hip-hop and indie musical followers and put in a sort of counterculture smoothie with a sprinkling of a disheveled, deliberately uncool dweeb factor. Hipsters will carry a carefully decorated notebook, rife with poetry painstakingly plucked from a thesaurus, in a canvas bag made from an old potato sack and sold at Urban Outfitters for $38.50 in a measured aesthetic of uniqueness. The hipster will point out irony like Alanis Morisette, which is the true irony they fail to see – their counterculture of individuality results in a ubiquitous landscape of bad hair and ill-fitting shirts. When presented with the reality of a song called “Isn’t It Ironic” not containing a single instance of it, Morisette went on the defensive and claimed that it was her intention all along. An obvious defense, and one which not a single person believed, yet one which your average hipster will be quick to use.

Imagine, if you will, your cell phone. It looks the same, costs the same, and connects to the same cell networks. But you never have to charge it, and it weighs 50% less than it did before. Imagine the same for your laptop, your iPod and your video camera. This would be a boon to anyone who’s owned an electronic device and forgotten to charge it the night before (pretty much everyone). And I have some ideas and questions. First, however, a bit of background information.

In 1820, a French physicist by the name of André-Marie Ampère discovered that electric current produces a magnetic field. He described this in his theory, and as a result of its groundbreaking status in the study of electricity and electromagnetism, the SI unite of current (the ampere) was named after him. Eleven years later, Michael Faraday described his law of induction. Fast forward to 1894, when Nikola Tesla lit a series of lightbulbs wirelessly, as if through magic and wizardry. Since then, the idea of transmitting electricity wirelessly has had one proof of concept after another, but the technology isn’t really available to consumers in a meaningful way.

There are two main types of WiPow (I’m going to abbreviate as such): near field and far field. The first type is already available to consumers in a variety of ways, but since they have to be used in such close proximity with the power source, they’re not exactly massive hits in my mind. A good example would be Palm’s Touchstone dock for the Palm Pre. You set it up on your desk, attach the backplate to your Pre, and you’re ready to charge it wirelessly. Except, it’s not exactly a stellar experience. To charge wirelessly, you have to pull the phone from your pocket/briefcase/coat and attach it to the Touchstone (it’s magnetic). It will then charge. This obviously eliminates the extraordinarily complex procedure of attaching a USB cable. You can’t even keep the Pre in your pocket as you’re sitting at your desk, having it charge while you’re playing Tetris. I see the proof of concept in this, but is it really worth $70 to avoid plugging in a cable?

These near field WiPow systems are also used in RFID applications. In all cases, the near field devices don’t require too much power. These applications are more about unnecessary hyping over insignificant details than the fantasy world I described earlier. Which segues nicely into the next step — far field WiPow, where the action really heats up.

For years, you’ve been telling me that the policies of the Democrats are pushing the United States ever closer to socialism. As a Canadian, I found this interesting.

In 2008, when President Bush (R) laid out the bailout, it was American. It was patriotic for him to give the auto companies, the insurance companies and the banks a leg up, to the tune of $700 billion. Obviously, the business owners couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong, so they deserved the money. Interesting, because I recall banks lending money they didn’t actually have to people they knew couldn’t pay it back, and were shocked when exactly that happened. But I digress.

In 2009, when President Obama (D) continued the bailout and expanded it, it was un-American, and unnecessary, apparently. This wasn’t because most of right-wing America disagreed with the bill itself, it was more about partisan politics than anything. They called it “socialist”, yelled at their TVs in disgust, and went to wash up for dinner, made with USDA-certified ingredients and water from a public source.

In 2001, President Bush decided to drop into an elementary school classroom, and read a book to the kids there. I, for one, supported this. I like it when a leader encourages kids to stay in school, and sits and chats with them. That’s good for everyone. In 2009, President Obama is about to deliver a televised speech to kids in classrooms to encourage them to do the same thing. Again, I fully support this. Yet some parents are in an uproar. They’re under the impression that Obama will show the kids all the things Lenin did in order to mould them into agreement with his “socialist doctrine.”

More concerts should be this visual.

3:15 to 5:50 from Nick Heer on Vimeo.

I should make it absolutely clear, before I begin to tear modern pop music apart, that I am not one of those indie hipsters, who can’t stand to listen to anything in the Billboard Top 200 for fear of appearing uncool, for lack of a better term. Nor do I object to pop music in general. I posted a short, actually fairly poorly written entry professing my love of decent pop music. But, I’m afraid, I fear that my brief fling with pop has been ruined by three things. Just three.

The first culprit are Disney’s pop princes and princesses. I am, of course, talking about Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers and the High School Musical series. And I don’t want to sound like I’m beating a dead horse here, but it isn’t that they’re bad, per se. I can find you truly terrible music, if that’s what you’re into, but at least bad music has something curiously charming about it. Disney pop somehow manages to out-do this with music that is as interesting as listening to Ben Stein explaining the Austrian business cycle theory. It’s almost as if they’ve made a list of everything a successful pop song should be and passed it around to their pop acts. The Jonas Brothers got this list, scribbled some clichéd lyrics on a napkin, learned a few power chords and got to work. This is what they came up with:

Next time I see you
I’m giving you a high five
Cuz hugs are overrated just FYI

I wish I could say I’m making that up, but those lyrics are so uninspired and dull that it’s embarrassing (I should point out that those are actual lyrics from their song “S.O.S”). I also wish I could say that I went and clicked on several songs to try to find the worst lyrics. Surprisingly, I didn’t do that. I merely searched for “Jonas Brothers lyrics” and went to the first link that came up. I then clicked on a random song title on that page. Simple. It isn’t just the lyrics though, it’s the delivery. The Jonas Brothers are a soulless pop machine. They are a mass-produced, family-friendly, Tupperware brand of pop. Perhaps it’s just those three brothers though; perhaps another Disney act has had more luck. How about one that’s also the descendant of a musician? This should be a walk in the park:

There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose

I get asked, literally some times every so often, the best way to integrate your latest tweet into Wordpress. There are a few ways of doing this, but the way I’ve come up with is, I think, pretty nifty.

The first way is using Twitter’s profile widget creator, which displays tweets in a little box which you can change the colours and dimensions of. It’s actually not bad, but it’s a bit generic. It looks the same, despite colour differences, on everyone’s website, and it probably wouldn’t work with a site design similar to mine.

The next solution is using one of Twitter’s other widgets, which are hidden a little on the Twitter site (you need to go into Applications on the Twitter goodies page, not Widgets — it’s linked above for your convenience, though). You can choose between a Flash or HTML widget. The Flash version is similar to the previous widget, in that it looks pretty much the same everywhere, despite colour options. The HTML one is much, much better though. It allows for simple, easy CSS styling. I liked this method so much that I used it on the previous version of nickheer.com

The problem with the HTML widget is that, for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to work smoothly 100% of the time. I think it’s a Javascript/Wordpress/Safari 4 issue, but it doesn’t matter. In addition, if you want to style it in-depth, it can be a royal pain.

I do not believe I have ever used this blog to communicate my love of espresso. My love of mochas, lattes, cappuccinos, correttos, Cubanos, ristrettos and affogatos. It is difficult to convey exactly why I adore these drinks so much, but I’ll try my very best.

It began when I was fourteen. I was in a little coffee house in the beautiful town that is Banff, and I was reading the list of all of the coffees one could have. It struck me that, obviously, these were not based on plain drip coffee, but rather based on a very strong coffee I’d heard of called “espresso” (or “expresso”, for those who are French, or incapable of comprehending the lack of an ‘x’). This ‘espresso’ coffee was right there on the board — for a mere two dollars, one could have a single ounce of pure, high-pressure extracted coffee. And for just a little more, one could have virtually unlimited permutations of milk, syrup and shot options. What a fantastic idea!

When I was sixteen, I fell in love with the cappuccino. I’d tried lattes, but found them a little weak — it was a higher proportion of liquid milk — and I wanted lots more of that wonderfully luxurious foam. I also became more selective (read: picky) about which coffee shops I frequented.

While many criticize on end about Starbucks’ questionable business practices, their trade ethics and their environmental impact, I can only be up in arms about their espresso, which is roasted until it has burned off all flavour leaving only ash. It’s sad, because the same ingredients in a mocha, for example, can yield a much better drink changing only to a better bean. And thus, with a better espresso machine at home (our Solis Crema had crapped out long ago), I began the search for my favourite kind of coffee. One I can drink day in, day out, and not have it grow tiresome. One which can be savoured with or without syrup, hot or cold, with milk, or just plain and unadulterated. The hunt was on.

I am extremely proud to unveil the newest incarnation of Nick Heer.com. Many, many hours of work have gone into this, and I’d like to touch briefly on just a few of the redesign rationales.

The previous generation layout (linked at left) was a curious one for me. I rather liked the interplay of the light grey and dark red, but I found it to be lacking some sort of soul, some personality. It also looked dated, with the use of more basic typography and simpler lines.

The object of the new design was to add some personality while still making it look very much my own. I wanted to use some more interesting typography and use brighter colours to make it feel lighter and more fresh. Lastly, the content needed to be of the highest priority, and the most visible part. I was afraid of over-designing it, so I kept things simple and clean.