I Never Thought I'd Say It - but this is Good Rap!
I'm a music fan and my tastes are fairly eclectic, a trait I credit to my Grandpa Paulson's genes. His record collection (which I inherited) included everything from Balinese Gamelan music to Dixieland jazz to Broadway show tunes to Elvis Costello. There are only two musical genres I do not like: country & western and rap. But just through chance, I came across some rappers that I (shudder) actually like. It's an English dj called DJ Format. DJ Format and his MCs are clever, witty and literary and on top of being actual listenable rap, they have spectacular videos by a superb filmaker named Reuben Fleischer. In their song “We Know Something You Don't Know” they have lines like:
“We know something you don't know and if we don't share than we don't grow...
...dollar bills don't make feel me feel complete; only the oneness of God can repel and dispell deceipt...”
In the video the lines are delivered by folks in plush shark and tiger costumes--don't know why, no reason, it just works.
DJ Format works often with Canadian rapper MC Abdominal, who is the key to some of their best collabarations. Abdominal's rap name is a clever pun, because if you do a Web search for abdominal and rap, you find that “RAP” is a medical term which stands for “recurrent abdominal pain”--probably 99% of his fans never even get this connection. Anyway, this is (boy do I hate to say this...) really cool rap. Of course the fact that I like it means the kids will probably all hate it (although my teenage son does want their CD for Christmas). Take a look at their videos on Reuben Fleischer's site. They're just good.
[Via Andrew Trygstad]

The Bible in Legos
“The Reverend” Brendan Powell Smith, who is an atheist and a freelance Web developer from Mountain View, California, has created The Brick Testament, a retelling of the Bible illustrated with Legos. The work is magnificent and only on close examination is it apparent that Smith has put a bit of a “spin” on his retelling of the Bible, both from his selection of scriptures and the paraphrasing he uses. Despite this, the Lego work and the photography is just great and it brings the Bible to life in a very new and different way. Flak magazine has a good article about Smith and his creation.

Novell Joins the Linux Consortium
Novell has joined the Open Source Development Labs, an organization of major Linux vendors and the current empoyer of Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Read all about it in Network World.
[Via Information Technology News]

Scumware...
“Scumware is the generic term for various kinds of software that hides on your PC and displays ads and/or reports on your online behavior. Well, it looks as if the problem is going to get worse in the near future because a lot more marketing companies are starting to turn to this tool.” Read more from Mark Gibbs writing in Network World. This is why everyone who access the Web needs to run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy on a regular basis, and use the innoculation feature of Spybot S & D.
[Via Information Technology News]