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Trent Reznor’s newest minimalist instrumental album is an amazing feat. The music is beyond the grasp of most of the public. Yet, Reznor, with his early rock-death-metal-electronica releases in his career, made himself so well known and thus made it possible for him to release such an abstract instrumental album. This is one of the most substantial minimalist electronic albums - maybe, of all time.

But, the coolest thing about the album, is the artwork. Aside from the tons of extras you get by just paying $5 for the CD, each song has it’s own high-res image to go along with the song. The artwork is really spectacular. Definitely pick this album up, even if it’s just for the cool wallpapers.

Wordpress 2.5 is out! It’s one of the most significant releases to date, in my opinion.

The nightly releases have made it significantly easier for me to blog. Thanks Automattic and everyone (which is a ton of people, including one line of code from myself) who contributed!

And, on top of being just plain awesome, one of my favorite design studios ever, Happy Cog, (who redesigned the admin section of the app) did a killer job with the interface design.

Having trouble getting your CSS rollovers un-glitchy? Pre-load them, easily… If HUGE can learn from me, so can you! ;) (I’m saying this jokingly.)

Yes, this a real email I sent HUGE. They fixed the problem by doing exactly as I said. And they didn’t even say THANK YOU!

I’ve sent this same sort of email to lots of people - including some pretty great designers and developers. All not preloading their rollovers. So, for the sake of helping to spread the gospel of the css preload, I’m just going to email everyone the link to this article from now on…

Some of you asked for a video (okay, one person). I love clusterflock, and they don’t have non-semantic HTML (despite putting H2s before H1s), but they’ve got the same problem with CSS rollovers: clusterflock rollover (144KB) (Did you catch the glitch?)

From: noel@eight6.com
Subject: Attention, you have a website bug…
Date: February 20, 2008 12:27:29 AM GMT-05:00
To: nameremoved@hugeinc.com
Hi HUGE!

-
noel jackson
founder eight6 | http://eight6.com
noel@eight6.com
+1.734.642.9187

I go topless, that is, sans-iPhone, sans-computer, to all of my meetings and meals. I like to use more tangible objects to illustrate any ideas, or take notes and I think that even one subtle distraction from a ill-timed txt message can ruin the mood fast. Sometimes I still sneak a laptop around with me, but I’ve broken the habit pretty well.

Breaking Bad is like Weeds (the TV show), Kansas, and the Wire all wrapped up in one. It’s quirky, and makes me laugh, but has a really touching plot. I think Bryan Cranston is a genius. Despite being only 7 episodes long, this shows first season was really great. Can’t wait till next season.

I met Hugh MacLeod at SXSW for the first time–it felt like meeting a long-lost cousin. He’s such an absolutely awesome dude, on paper and in person.

I’ve been reading gapingvoid for ever. I don’t think I would have survived NYC without the backlog of cartoons Hugh has put online.

Hugh drew me this card, that will be cherished forever. Frame is on its way.

Hugh, thank you my friend!

BTW, be sure to check out this post over at Hugh’s site. He’s great.

Profane band name, Fuck Buttons, has a great experimental electronic album out entitled Street Horrsing. A sweet 6 song spinner, with most tracks striking the 10 minute mark.

After attending the AMODA Digital Showcase while I was t SXSW 2008, I saw a guy named “Madison Effect” perform live. I checked him out on his MySpace page immediately afterwards and found two very amazing albums for free. Highly recommended.

My company, eight6 is going to match up to $1000 worth of bets, to buy a ton of books for underprivileged kids.

I love good causes. And, this one is fun! Get on over to the Making Book page and place your bets. Skip the casino, and gamble to buy books for kids!

From coudal:

Each bet costs $10 and all the money bet will go to First Book, “a nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.”

SXSWi (South by Southwest Interactive, for my Mom). There were 9 million 7,500 people, and I was one of them. I was the one that looked half his actual age.

Some notes:

• With all the commotion, I found it frustratingly hard to meet my web heroes. However, I did manage to squeeze some face time in with some new and old friends. I also, found it irritatingly bizzarre at how celebrity-like the whole web game is getting. The line between intrepreneur [sic] and dedicated interactive designer/developer became blurred. Maybe, it was the invention of Valleywag? (I just want a little RESPECT!)
• Overall, I think it was worth going, despite not getting to see some of my best pals. I’m hoping this will spark a better way to connect next year? Twitter is so popular, and the usage was explosive, but was it the best way to gather friends? Maybe so. But I think we could do better, especially with that shiny new iPhone SDK.
• I picked up a “Brain Machine” (PDF Link) at the MAKE magazine booth, while I was there. In it, a kit with some swanky infopr0n and a kit to make a brain machine.
• At SXSW, I broke my YEAR long dedication to being vegetarian by eating a Cheeseburger. Then promptly being ill for the next day afterwards.
• Naz made the most kick-ass infographic I’ve seen since Khoi’s daily activity graph at An Event Apart in 2006.