Show some love for Camelback Music and Split Second

The music revolution is coming. Where Internet and underground music is coming together, great new music is being born. Two examples of this camelbackmusic.com and Split Second.

Camelback Music is a new music blog that provides great music to its readers. They specialize in indie rap, pop, and techno. They are usually about six months ahead of the curve of music. They found out about Chiddy Bang, Ian Carey, and Split Second before anyone had even heard of them. My friend Cam Mullen, who owns the site, showed me "Like a G6" about 8 months before anyone else was jamming out to it. If you want to listen to the music that your friends will be listening too in 6 months, go to camelbackmusic.com.

Split Second is a rap group with hits like Sundress, Lexi ft Cam Mullen, Fall from Grace, and my personal favorite New Hotness which sums up Prep School life fairly well, were all only possible through the internet. They were able to record in the closet of their dorm room, post their songs to the Internet, and gain a loyal following. Polos and Solos is one the best albums I have heard in a long time. Lead by Xavier Louis Reed (Taft), Douglas Profenius (Taft), and Jared D. Jackson (Trinity CT), this group is dropping a new album very soon.

The end of the story is that Camelback and Split Second wouldn't have been successful without the Internet. At most, they would have been regional busts from the Northeast; however, with the Internet, they have been able to share their success throughout the world.

Camelback Music

Split Second Blog aka The Upper Classmen

Split Second Youtube Channel

Now we have to create "Super Passwords"????

Skimming the news today, I "Stumbled" upon a very interesting article on cnn.com. The basic summary of the article is that researchers now want users of the internet to update their passwords up longer than 12 charters with multiple numbers and capitalization. The researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have stated that the 8 character standard on password  won't stand up to the high tech hacking that is occurring today. Now, I have two thoughts on this. 1. I remember when four characters was the standard and that was only six years ago. 2. If we have tripled the number of characters needed in six years, and the advancement of technology is exponential; in just a few years we will all need to have 36 character long passwords in only three years!

Their comes a point in time when convince is going to be more valuable than security of the information that you have on the internet. Trying to remember a 36 characters long password will be like remember a sentence. Now if you think that will be easy, think about this. With in the next 10 years, at this rate, a secure password will have to be about 75 characters long. Within 20 years, a secure password will be around 120 characters long. That's is the same as the space allowed for a text message!! When was the last time you could remember a text message character for character. Try it tonight and I bet you will find it very difficult to remember that structure tomorrow, or even a week from now.

If you don't believe me, you do your own math. Below I will post the article that I used as my source, and all the information that you will need to redo my own algorithm.

CNN Article:

How to Create a 'super password'

Formula Notes:

I used 2002 as my start year. It is the place where I had first real data. So 2002 = 0 on a graph.

Data points I used to create the formula: (-10,0), (0,4), (6,12), (9,24), (10.5,48)

Note: I had 1992 as 0 because internet password security was not a real concern for many users using the internet.

f(x)= (0.2037x)^2+(1.7953x)+1.2948

f(x) fits the data points very well, If anyone else has better data, just comment on the post and I'll try to rework my formula.

Ski Bumming

Sun Valley Idaho

My friend Michael Rogge posted this link today on his website. He works for Powder Magazine as a editor. Mike has lived the life I have always wanted to live. The life as a Ski Bum. Now before you panic and call me up to see if I have left for snow country, sit down, put your phone down, and relax. I'm not leaving college any time soon. I am loving college right now and have no plans to become a Ski Bum anytime soon. Even though I know I made the right decision of going to college and not taking a year off, the urge to drop everything and live in the mountains still rattles around my head from time to time. Seeing these photos brings these thoughts back to me. They make me realize the people in the photos were enjoying where they were in life. A place where their a less rules, less obligations, and time moves just a bit little slower.

As the world flies by you, always remember to take time to enjoy life. I already see my time in college flying by like it did at Taft. Hours blend into days. Days blend into weeks. Weeks blend into months. Months blend into years. Looking back on my time at Taft, I only regret one thing. The one thing I regret is the time I wasted either on the computer, or in my room while not exploring the world. I recall a quotation by Alan Lakein: Time is equal to life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.

This quotation is remarkably true with my generation. Their are many in my generation that would rather live their life on Facebook or on the internet than get to know their neighbor or go to a campus event. I will admit, I am the same way. I have to work up the courage every day to go out and be outgoing instead of taking the easy way out by staying in my room. My mother always would tell me, "You're just one of those people who can enjoy your own company." That might be true; however it doesn't mean it is a way to live. To bring this circle full circle, the people in the photos on the link below are enjoying life. Go out and do the same. Take the time out of busy day to slow down and enjoy the day. At the same time, realize the balance between work and play. If you are enjoying life as much as the people in the photos, then you're doing something right.

Link:

Old School Ski Bum

Note: If you would like to become a Ski Bum, the link below will open the Official Ski Bum’s

Guide. It is a PDF.

The Ski Bum's Guide

When society breaks down.

When society breaks down, our civil liberties become endangered. It is a fact that is repeated over and over again in our American history. From the concentration camps of Japanese American citizens during World War II to the illegal wiretapping under the Bush Administration, when we are in crisis, the American government time and time again tramples over our civil liberties. This is the same case in the book Zeitoun.

In Zeitoun, the main character is ripped away from his home and thrown into a make shift prison during Katrina. He was never charged with a crime, never read his rights, and never was presented with any contact to legal representation. These are all legal rights that are granted under the Constitution. The National Guard clearly ignored these rights during Hurricane Katrina. It is scary to think that anyone government agency with a gun can come into your home, and take you away to a prison camp for 40 days in a time of crisis. When reading the section on what happened to Zeitoun on the first day of his stay in the prison camp, it renewed my vigilance to keep a watchful eye on my government. If the National Guard can do that to Zeitoun, think what they can do to you.

On a funnier note, I posted below a a link on a "How to Survive a Breakdown of Social Order" This might be useful when 2012 comes around.

How to Survive a Breakdown of the Social Order