Solstice Coil
New engine, same skin
After a few days of work, we have migrated our web site to run the Drupal content management system. This will allow us to add dynamic content more easily than we could using the previous, proprietary system that Opher and myself developed.
Hopefully, in the upcoming future you can expect to see new and exciting stuff on the Solstice Coil website, such as picture galleries, videos and sentient intelligence trapped inside silly graphics scripts.
Cheers to the awesome people developing and maintaining Drupal and the contributed modules that we've used.
New music online
As you may or may not have noticed, we have uploaded 7 songs from our demo recording for the second album. A few of them have been online for a while on the player at the main page of the website, but now some new ones are online. All music is now available for download or online playback at the music page. Lyrics are coming soon.
Enjoy!
Introducing Slauth - our new anti spambot solution
A while back our site started receiving a slew of spambot comments, eventually forcing us to take down the comment option for blog posts. I didn't want to place a regular Captcha solution, and after little sleep and much thought I came up with a new idea. And since every new technology needs a catchy marketing acronym:
introducing Slauth - Sardonic Lore Authentication
So what is Slauth?
Slauth is an anti spambot solution based on sarcasm, pop culture and cognitive deduction. It's meant to differentiate between well meaning humans that honestly just want to post comments and evil spam bots that want you to buy v!a@ra.
How does it work?
The user views an image and is required to complete a sentence\answer a question relating to that image. Since bots don't understand sarcasm, and have never seen Star Wars, their image reading algorithms aren't going to be of much use.
Why is it better than regular Captcha?
First of all, Captcha is annoying. It requires you to enter letters and words that sometimes even as a human you might fail to distinguish. Most importantly, Captcha is not fun. It feels like a chore and gets really frustrating when you don't get it right
Where can I see it in action?
Right here! Try to add a comment to this post.
Since we moved to Drupal, Slauth has been deactivated. It was a fun experiment while it lasted :(
Now for the fun part -
What I need from you is ideas for more images (questions and answers). The question has to be interesting and amusing, while the answer must be unequivocal and not too hard to spell. Just add your idea via a comment to this post. The good ones will get integrated into the system with credit to the contributor. Not only that but - the funniest\wittiest idea will win a free copy of our album!
so go ahead and send your suggestions.
Won't you come (and wash away the rain)
So yesterday I've bought my ticket to the Chris Cornell concert on June 17th. Over the last couple of years I've seen several performances of world class artists here, among them Opeth, Blond Redhead, Incubus and Evanescence and there are many others that I didn't attend: Roger Waters, Supergrass, Tori Amos and more. Several years back few musicians bothered to come here, even despite of massive request and anticipation from Israeli fans. Several artists even canceled shows at the last moment, even though I really can't complain, seeing as how those bands were Depache Mode and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Honestly, I don't know what allowed for this change, but it's definitely one for the better. After all, it's not that Israel become any safer, but if the people abroad are under the false impression that it is, I won't be the one to tell them otherwise.
At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I believe that Cornell is truly one of the best rock singers out there and a personal favorite of mine. His voice is so unique and textured in a way that just envelops you with every line he delivers. While I do appreciate his work in Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog, I think he shines the most on his solo album Euphoria Morning (also a favorite of mine). The songs are kind of poppish, but woven so well and constructed so intricately that you simply can't be apathetic to them. His last album, however, is a bit weird. The best and worst part about it is a 6/8 time blues cover to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Does it work? Sure it does, but it doesn't have that addictive moody atmosphere of his former. And if we're already tackling the issue of Jackson -
If anyone was wondering why no new comics are up, rest assured they'll return during the next couple of weeks and on a weekly basis. It's not that I'm dead, just indisposed at the moment.
Also, we've set a new gig on the May 9th at the Koltura - don't forget to bring me birthday presents.
