Earth Date - 2012.348

The best Albums of 2012, 5 of 7: Ten$ion.

Before I begin writing this review, let me just say this group is NSFH (Not Safe For Humans.) That being said, this group is really the future of rap, rave, and the Internets. Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for "The Answer" - The answer to what? They don't even know.) I first heard them with "Enter the Ninja" back in 2009 and though they were one-offers, but a very creative group, nonetheless. I was wrong. Their new album Ten$ion, and it goes way beyond $o$ did, incorporating more beats and lyrics than I am able to comprehend. It has received mixed reviews and I am under no assumptions that a couple of tracks are weak. "Baby's on Fire," "I Fink You Freeky," and "Fatty Boom Boom" are some good choices but others like "Dj Hi-tek Rulez" miss the mark. The above video was taken at Austin City Limits music festival earlier this year and I was there (streaming it live, of course) and I'm still not sure what to think of them. I know this though: they have me hooked to it. Whatever "it" is. @.@

Video for Die Interwebz.

The best Machine successes of 2012, 5 of 7: Amazon Kindling a Fire.

When Amazon announced the Kindle for it's flagship e-reader, I was hesitant in getting one because I already read e-books via Amazon Cloud Reader and using Google Docs. However, after waiting six months to buy the Amazon Kindle Fire, the rekindle my view of what mobile computing could look like in the future. It was NOT a competitor to the iPad, but rather a door opening for other companies to exploit the iPad dominance using touch tablets. Sporting a 1-GHz Texas Instrument dual-core processor and using Amazon Cloud-based servers, it allowed the user to browse the web as well as Amazon's services and e-books. It was more of a consumption device, but even the guys at Ifixit could repair this device better than the Apple iPad. Based on Android Gingerbread (Version 2.3), it has a very simple outlay as the above photo from my personal Kindle Fire shows. It was never supposed to compete with the Apple iPad (Version One and Two) but its successor did, the Amazon Fire HD and HD 4G. Google entered the fray with its own, the Nexus. One thing is for certain though; the tablet market heated up with new addition of an advanced e-reader.