Star Wars movies costumes exhibit debuts in Seattle

The EMP Museum in Seattle is the opening venue for "Star Wars and the Power Costume" featuring original costumes from all six films. The exhibit opened on January 31, 2015 and will end on October 4, 2015. It's organized by the Smithsonian Institution and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts. The 12-city tour across the USA will conclude in 2020.

The Darkest Hour (2014) novel: if Germany had won World War 2

Finished an absorbing first novel by British author Tony Schumacher called The Darkest Hour (2014). It's an alternate history where Germany won World War 2 and occupied much of England, including London. Set in 1946 in London, the work is very dark but compelling. It follows a former police sergeant and war hero, John Henry Rossett, who's being used by the Germans to round up Jews and deport them to the Continent. I thought I had the ending figured out, but I got fooled along the way as the novel took a different turn than I expected. Highly recommended for anyone into alternate  histories. This one also has movie all over it.

Freebase.com winding up

I see that Freebase, founded in 2007 with a goal of becoming a "Wikipedia for structured data" is being shut down by June 20, 2015. Users will be directed to Wikidata. I wrote about Freebase for the February 2008 issue of Searcher magazine, so kind of sad to see its demise.

Fun with timelines at Histropedia

Histropedia, powered by Wikidata, a data storehouse for Wikipedia and other sister sites, lets you make your own timelines of various events. The only catch of course is that the information has to be accessible through Wikipedia and Wikidata. It's pretty cool concept nonetheless and I hope to make some timeline contributions.

littleBits Electronics: DIY hardware kits and more

littleBits Electronics is a cool concept for hardware hackers and DIYers. The company was founded by Ms Ayah Bdeir, originally from Lebanon and Canada but now living in New York City. In 2014 Popular Mechanics named her one of 25 Makers Who Are Reinventing The American Dream.  Designed to be be plug-and-play and using solderless connections, the parts and kits are pricey, so for those who know what they're doing it would probably be less expensive to source from Radio Shack or The Source. littleBits Elections also has a section called BitLab where designers can submit their projects for the public to vote on and if accepted, littleBits will put them into production and the designer will share in the revenue.

Camera Workers is live again

The newer version of Camera Workers is live again. There was a disconnect between the hosting company and its billing system and my e-mail back around 2011, so I owed 3 years worth of hosting. I think the company was sold at some point as when I started with Webserve.ca in 2009, it was based in North Vancouver. Now it's in Oakville, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. When I tried to pay money I owed in December 2012 I was told an invoice would be sent, but it never was. After accessing the backend and generating a backup on August 31, I found the site was suddenly inaccessible the next day, both the public part and the backend. The bills have been paid. At least it's now less expensive to run than it was 5 years ago when I first started with Webserve.ca.

"Spaghetti Western Heaven Excerpt" uploaded to SoundCloud

Finished off a piece, my first real full-fledged song, this morning. Created entirely with the amazing compositional aid Rapid Composer along with some unusual software synth sounds from Modelonia and Kontakt. No music loops were used or harmed.

Have a listen to "Spaghetti Western Heaven Excerpt". The whole piece is just under 3.5 minutes, but due to the file size I couldn't upload the whole thing as a 320kbps MP3.