New Pink Floyd album: The Endless River

Richard Wright, keyboardist for Floyd, passed away in 2008. This album, probably their last non-Greatest Hits album, was assembled and re-worked from material when they were experimenting with what would become The Division Bell.

18 tracks, 53 minutes, and only one song with vocals. Very atmospheric. To me it seems to run from the Wish You Were Here period onward. The material seems very familiar, and very comfortable. Like I said, very atmospheric. This could be a good album for background music for a dinner party.

Anyway, recommended. It's available as vinyl, a CD, a CD with a video disc, and of course all sorts of digital download. The physical editions are in an interesting booklet that's very nicely produced with session photos with Wright.

And for whatever reason, I can't post the image of the cover, so just follow the link to see it on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Endless_River

No ego here!

"Ted Cruz Saves America"
—title of a new kids' coloring book, whose publisher claims "Millions of citizens believe Obama Care is worse than any war"

Two statements. (A) You seemingly don't like millions of your fellow citizens having some form of affordable health care, and (B) I think you really don't appreciate what war is and what it does to people. I suggest marathoning Band of Brothers and then enlisting in Army Infantry, and we'll see where your opinion is in a decade.

I think Ted is perhaps the most dangerous idiot in Congress because he perverts the system by effectively running the House Tea Party Caucus, which negates any attempt that John Boehner makes to try and get anything done. If Cruz was in the House, fine. But he's not, he's a Senator.

Up in the air, Junior Stingrays!

I've written about Stingrays before, they're surveillance devices that force all of the cell phones in an area to connect with them, thus conducting yet another form of mass surveillance. And usually they're deployed without warrants.

Well, now they're in the air. The U.S. Marshall's Service have five Cesnas around the country that carry them. They're more powerful and sensitive, which means they're sweeping up a much larger area than a ground-based unit.

WHEEE!

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/feds-motherfng-stingrays-motherfng-planes/