Slicer's Slivers of Being

It Seems to be Music, but is it Art?

The Ramones have featured in some posts on this site, and I Robot got a mention in another post. Here's where the two converge. How cool is this?!! 

 

Just gotta work on Joey's voice then...

But are they punk, or are they techno, or are they metal?

How To Avoid a Pain in the Ass. Will these pants catch on?...

Slicer has touched before on matters electrical. However, it seems that there have been further developments since that post.

It seems that sometimes fidgeting is good for you and, if you're not able fidget for yourself, there are some technological aids. Still, if you're still doubtful that it's the sort of thing you'd go for note that

"The researchers said the pants were popular with nurses and patients..."

You can read the full bum-clenching story after the jump.

However, some questions remain unanswered... and some will be more important than others clinically. For example, "Does my bum look big in this?" should take second place to "Do big bums require bigger shocks than smaller bums?" Either way, "shake that ass" seems to be a new clinical maxim...

So... what's the soundtrack to this story? Given Slicer's musical proclivities, did ya have to ask?!
 

 

Still, these days patient choice is paramount; treatment can't be enforced - so there is an alternative:

  

The Dark Secret of CERN: parties, pantos & cross-dressing

When Slicer posted before about revelations from CERN, he didn't have this kind in mind. There has been a trend lately - attempting to use art to communicate the wonders of physics. However, it has come to Slicer's attention (thanks to @WilliamCrawley on Twitter, and to Motherboard) that a link between music and physics is not a new phenomenon. As evidence, he offers the first photo that was ever uploaded to the World Wide Web.

Well there have been some high-profile announcements from CERN, but did you know that physicists had been keeping the most important secret to themselves? Were you aware what LHC really stood for? Did you know that there was a girl band at CERN?! Well if you didn't, you do now... You can read the full story here

It is Slicer's habit to quote lyrics, and this band has some classic ones:

"I gave you a golden ring to show you my love

You want to stick it in a printed circuit

To fix a voltage leak in your collector

You plug my feelings into your detector

You never spend your nights with me

And you don't go out with other girls either 

Waa-Waa-Waa-Waa... You only love your collider"

 

And, in another song:

"Call me on the web

I'll open my Windows to you..." 

How you could you say no to that?! They do seem to have the field all to themselves...

'though they appear to be associated with partners with more mass:
 

and who seem to have some superficial characteristics reminiscent of other exotics:

but they may be of lower energy than the group collectively known as DEVO.

Don't miss the vid of LHC performing "Hey Mr Higgs" after the jump, where you'll also find out about the cross-dressing... Quite a drama...

Slicer is pleased to see that it's not just subatomic particles that interact at CERN but, able as the LHCs seem to be at songwriting, he suggests that they consider a few covers:

"Oooh Baby, I hear how you spend night-time

Wrapped like candy in a blue blue neon glow

Fade away and radiate...

...The beams become my dream

My dream is on the screen."

 

and in a world plagued by decay:
 

"Love is Love, and not fade away."

Wanna shred guitar in an instant but you've never played? Step this way...

Slicer has become aware of a new way to play guitar which doesn't need lengthy tuition or the buying of a big amp. Thanks to modern technology it relies on techniques that are second nature to all of us (or half of us anyway). Traditionally guitarists used their fingers or a pick, tho' a few talented ones like Jimi could manage it with their teeth. He even set his guitar on fire. This new technique comes from another school entirely - one that's sometimes used to try to put fires out (usually unsuccessfully).

 

Ditch your PS3 and your Wii (geddit??) - Guitar Hero is so passe.

Maybe it's a new genre of music entirely. We've had house, we've had garage, what should we call this?

OK, perhaps it's not so much shreddin' as goin' for a slash (as they say round these parts) - but both are close cousins of Slicin'... (not THE Slash obviously)

Once you've got the, er, bare essentials covered, you'll no doubt want to form a band... Slicer sees no reason why the tech couldn't be extended to keyboards and drums but for the moment it seems it's strictly solo... 

Slicer always found hitting a few power chords to be a great sense of release when stressed. Now everyone can have that sense of release... That's what I call streaming music...

 

 

Infinitives & Infinity... and a glaring omission from Starfleet training.

Before we get to infinitives and infinity, we should cover affinity. Slicer is a sucker for objects bearing his name, or his function. Whether it's a precision instrument for shaving bacon, or a cool guitar pedal, he feels a compelling urge...

 

He has posted before about pizza (a recording of an embarrassing phone call) and now has the opportunity to link it with another 'indispensable' tool. The precision of this one is highly dependent on how well it's used. Slicer did laugh out loud at the unabashed nerdiness of this latest trinket for sale over at Space.com, and also the ongoing tolerance, nay celebration, of the split infinitive:

Whilst vigorously resisting any nerd-like tendencies himself (:-D), Slicer still has fond affection for the original Star Trek series of his youth, and in adult life he has an ongoing passion for better understanding of the universe (or multiverse, if it exists), and the challenge of grappling with infinity. From the time of his own childhood to that of his kids, it seems that the attraction of "to infinity and beyond" still holds sway (for both children and adults).  Slicer has often been struck by some areas where science fiction of his youth has become science fact as an adult - orbiting space stations, interplanetary travel (OK, not yet manned), flip up mobile phones & solid state data storage being some examples. As C S Lewis wrote, “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

 

However the writing has to be good, and prophetic. It must be believable. One place where Gene Roddenberry & Co slipped up badly was the regular addition of a guy or the girl that you'd never seen before to the membership of a landing party visiting a potentially hostile planet. As if the fact that you hadn't seen them before wasn't a big enough clue as to their eventual fate, they always wore a red jersey.... and in all those lectures they had to endure at Starfleet Academy on interspecies etiquette, Klingon body language, and phaser safety, no-one thought to tell them, "DON'T PUT ON THE RED SHIRT!" It would seem that such practical training could have made a substantial difference to crew mortality when they went to "explore strange new worlds." Whilst technologically advanced, they're clearly not all that bright in the future...

 

The nice folks over at Space.com have ingeniously turned this flaw into a merchandisable feature, complete with the appropriate text font:

As they point out on the site:
"The Red Shirt is a sci-fi idiom for the anonymous, the expendable, the smoking boots behind a boulder.... Just don't stand next to us when you wear that thing."

Slicer thinks the Space.com  folk might be forgetting the distinction between fiction and reality - There is another reason why your mates (if you have any) might avoid standing near you if you go out in one...

If you buy one, best treat it like the pizza slicer - keep it the drawer and only bring it out as a novelty to make people laugh... and laugh with you rather than at you.

And with that important life lesson delivered, Slicer hopes that you will indeed "live long and prosper."