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DSL Reports has a story about a Comcast Tech who abused his elite access to exact vengeance on a video game prankster. Twenty-year-old Mark Ribeiro of Canada used Comcast support systems to find customer information after getting his Xbox packet flooded by an Xbox Live gamer. Shortly after calling the customer to let them know what their punk kid was doing, Ribeiro began gloating about the situation on Internet forums, but was daft enough to use his real name. This has resulted in a public link to his MySpace, as well as a couple party photos that include the one up top. Remember kids: smoking pot only leads to hanging out with girls, playing video games, and becoming an Internet vigilante on a power trip. Hey, two out of three ain't bad. -- ASD Staff Report

Without this magical number, we'd never be able to find out the surface area of a cylinder. Show your appreciation today, March 14 (3.14, clever!) at the Exploratorium to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Pi Day. You get to listen to music, figure out equations and most importantly, eat pie. Just don't drill a hole in your head afterwards.That is, unless stock brokers and Hasidic Jews are trying to use your mathematical genius for their own agenda. -- ASD Staff Report

Happy trails, HD DVD. Toshiba Corp. will likely abandon HD DVD this week and officially lose the format war to Blu-ray, according to reports. This comes in the wake of Wal-Mart, Netflix and many other retailers announcing their discontinuation of HD DVD sales and rentals. In other news, HD DVD players make for excellent paper weights or drink coasters. -- ASD Staff Report

The Fisher Price PXL-2000, which records video onto ordinary audiocassettes, was dropped by the toy manufacturer not long after its appearance in 1987. Yet thanks in part to the undying efforts of Gerry Fialka, PXL's Johnny Appleseed, independent film artists continue to use this toy turned electronic paintbrush to this very day. Fialka and SF Cinematheque mark the 20th anniversary of the camera's introduction with An Invention Without a Future: Greatest Hits of PXL THIS, featuring an interactive workshop followed by a 90-minute compilation of the best PXL films of 2003-2006. Imagine a black-and-white kaleidoscope; imagine a Toto's-eye view of a Kansas as sparkly as the Emerald City. That's what the PXL image looks like.
More after the jump!

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Old fogies, you have a new spokesperson, and he hates music site Pitchfork.com. AdAge's Larry Dobrow wrote yesterday in an article entitled Pitchfork Sure Is Cutting Edge, and That's the Problem:

the turbo-snobs at Pitchfork, those deathly self-serious arbiters of all that is good and decent in the world of music ... don't seem to like music very much. ... The Comic Book Guy 'tude annoys the hell out of me. ... Snark is boring; give me the incredibly literate enthusiasm of these two sites over the trademark Pitchfork hoity-toityness any day. ... Pitchfork demands the assembly of a Federal Bad-Writing Task Force, complete with subpoena power and automatic weaponry. ... Pitchfork is a lost cause for advertisers

We maintain that two of the best things about SF involve the music we get, and all the tech we love. Hence, anyone who's in the know should drop by, The SanFran MusicTech Summit at the Hotel Kabuki, February 25th. All the cool kids will be there like reps from Apple, Google, Pandora, SF Weekly (heh-heh), Rolling Stone and the EFF. We'll be chopping it up all serious-like regarding: P2P tech, copyrights, streaming, iPods, and uh ... other cool conference-style stuff. Deadline for cheap, early-bird registration is today, Friday at www.sanfranmusictech.com. Do it. Or you'll make Jesus cry. More info after the jump. -ASD Staff Report

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Is the digital revolution really the renaissance for independent musicians that people say it is? Thoughts from Macworld and the San Francisco music scene, after the jump.

Words and photos by Tyler Callister

The Macworld Expo, Apple's annual software and gadget conference, tore through San Francisco last week, leaving some of us still wondering what exactly is so cool about a laptop that fits in a manila envelope. Macs are the music industry standard, so it's no surprise that music was a big part of Macworld's labyrinth of tech booths and presentations. It's also no surprise that independent musicians wandered amongst Macworld's tech nerds and Silicon Valley elite.

In case you haven't heard, the record industry is in major flux right now, and much of it is related to the digital revolution. Independent and unsigned musicians started utilizing the internet more than a decade ago, and the major labels are still catching up. Now, from MySpace to YouTube, the Web 2.0 generation has further opened the doors for unsigned musicians to reach an international audience without signing a single record deal. From the surface, it seems that all an artist needs to do is buy some home recording software, get a MySpace account, and join this new independent music block party.

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Is the home studio really the revolutionary tool for independent musicians that people say it is? Thoughts from Macworld and beyond, after the jump.

Words and photos by Tyler Callister

Macs are the music industry standard, so it's no surprise that music software and hardware was heavily represented at Macworld 2008. And musicians were there too (mostly the ones who don't still live in their mom's basement), scoping out the most cutting edge music gear, from music software to music video games.

But...

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Newman played a politically charged song following Steve Jobs' keynote speech at Macworld today and SF Weekly was there.

Randy Newman on the jumbo screen during the Macworld keynote presentation.

Story and photo by Tyler Callister

Steve Jobs' keynote presentation at the annual Macworld computer conference took a political turn today when he invited Randy Newman to play a couple songs. Newman, known best for...

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The WSJ has this today:

Based on evidence collected in a 2006 raid on the offices of The Pirate Bay, Swedish prosecutors say that by the end of January they expect to charge the individuals who operate the file-sharing service with conspiracy to breach copyrights.

Here come the Google Heads! This December 3-6, head to the Palace Hotel and drink the Google Kool-Aid at "Voices That Matter: Google Web Toolkit Conference." The forum of software engineers and GWT team members aims to help developers build AJAX applications while avoiding the steep learning curve of JavaScript and CSS. What exactly that means, I haven't the foggiest. Prices range from $250 to $1,295, and in an added twist, you must be at least 18-years-old to participate.

-- Brian Bernbaum

If Black Friday didn't dent that bulletproof wallet of yours, the Exploratorium recommends their 10 neatest toys. All of them are both fun and educational, much like hip-hop statistics. These items are surefire ways to either unlock your child's wonder and imagination, or get them really pissed about not getting that ridiculously cool Optimus Prime figure. More than meets the eye:

Science Gift Guide 2007 Top Ten Holiday Picks from the Exploratorium Store

Build, experiment, cut, color and light up the holidays with new gifts that go beyond the everyday. Chosen by the staff of the Exploratorium, the world’s first and foremost hands-on science museum, these ten toys and gifts make science facts -- whether familiar or new -- come alive in fun ways. All gifts are found at www.exploratoriumstore.com , or call (415) 561-0393 for phone orders.

All proceeds from the Exploratorium Store support the activities of the Exploratorium. Stop by often — in person or on the web — and take a little science from the Exploratorium home with you for the holidays. Among them are:

Ball of Whacks
A must have for all future multi-millionaire entrepreneurs, Ball of Whacks is the latest incarnation of Roger von Oech’s creativity enriching products used by millions around the world. By dividing one of nature’s most beautiful shapes -- the thirty-sided rhombic triacontahedron -- into 30 pyramid pieces, the Ball of Whacks is in fact a fun set of magnetic building blocks that can be reshaped into a virtual kaleidoscope of beautiful forms. ($29.90)

--Oscar Pascual

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There's something just a little anti-climactic about a laptop battle, considering all the awesome types of battles there are. You've got breakdance battles, lightsaber battles, the Battle of the Bulge, Battles the band...the list goes on and on. This year's Laptop Battle might just qualify to be among that list of sweet radness. That is, if it isn't just a bunch of dorks playing World of Warcraft against each other. CTRL+ALT+more info:

WHAT IS THE LAPTOP BATTLE? THE ELECTRONIC MUSIC'S NEW CULTURAL PHENOMENON, from SEATTLE to EVERYWHERE The laptop battle is a competitive event for laptop musicians to match their skills against one another. Battles are chosen randomly and conducted in 3 minute rounds. A panel of judges decides which contestant advances to the next round, single elimination style. It's a fusion of sound design, composition and stage performance, and a chance for laptop (computer) musicians to prove their skills in battle and develop techniques and strategies.

Glavin! ASD doesn't rightly know what synesthesia's all about, but we think it's the reason why a delicious horchata from El Farolito tastes like Christmas. So we're leaving it to experienced scientists to explain. I mean, they've invented flubber and robots. Listen to the voice of authority:

Wednesday, November 14th, 7:00 pm

Topic: Synesthesia

How does violin music smell? What color is Thursday? To most people these questions might seem completely nonsensical, but to people with synesthesia they sound perfectly reasonable. (I've known for as long as I can remember that Thursday is a fuzzy, light olive green. Isn't it?) Synesthesia is a perceptual condition in which there is an involuntary blending of one or more of the senses. The most common form is chromagraphemia, the associating of colors with numbers and letters — but the sense-mingling can get a lot weirder. A synesthete might see moving blobs of color when tasting foods, or taste specific flavors upon hearing certain words. Some savants with computer-like math skills describe their ability in terms of being able to see the shapes and colors of the numbers they're calculating! Once dismissed as a product of an overly active imagination, drug use or even just craziness, synesthesia is finally being recognized as having a biological basis. UC Berkeley's Lynn Robertson will tell us about the current research on this intriguing condition.

Speaker: Lynn Robertson; Professor of Psychology & Senior Research Scientist, UC Berkeley

Location: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) San Francisco

This from Dueling Analogs:

If you have to ask, you're wayyy late on the bandwagon. --David Downs