July 2009
73 posts
Bombastic '80s synthesizers are go! →
I know that you’ve all been excitedly and indeed breathlessly awaiting my first publicly available Spotify playlist, whilst wondering what was taking a musical trendsetter such as myself so long to satisfy your aural cravings via the cool tool that all the kids are apparently using. Well, fret no more, because here it is: an exhausting twenty-seven tracks which go to prove that keyboards and...
Question: Why on earth is that odious little creep... →
“On the old Internet, nobody knew you were a dog. On the new targeted Internet,...”
– Ads Follow Web Users, and Get Deeply Personal - NYTimes.com [via]
The Wedding Present - My Favourite Dress (1987)
“Convicted cult leader Charles Manson has reached out to convicted music producer...”
– Phil Spector’s biggest fan: Charles Manson | guardian.co.uk
I would be first in the queue for that album.
Men waste more time on YouTube than women →
I beg to differ with the findings of this new piece of research. For instance, surely women of a certain age (mid to late 30s) spend just as much time as men watching grainy, shaky YouTube uploads of pop videos by one-hit wonder bands of our misspent youth recorded off the telly sometime in the early to mid-1980s? Don’t they? Hello? Anyone? Where are you going? Come back! I’ve found a...
Urban Dictionary: email courier →
“An individual who approaches someone’s desk or workstation in a work environment almost immediately after sending them an email, usually to confirm that the email has been received.” If I had a pound for every time I had met one of these idiots who clearly don’t understand the concept of email, I would have … a number of pounds.
WatchAnd another mesmerising building projection - this one by Urbanscreen, using the Galerie der Gegenwart in Hamburg, Germany [via]
WatchTetragram for Enlargment was an architectural video installation performed against the walls of a castle by Italian artists Apparati Effimeri at the Itinerario Festival in June 2009.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, some of the source code behind the on-board guidance computers on board both the Command Module and the Lunar Module has been placed online.
Now I’m no programmer, but I decided to experiment with trying to apply this code to my toaster. As expected, the bread wasn’t even slightly browned. Clearly a sign of how much...
“Even its author admits that a 20-page strategy paper for government departments...”
– Government releases 20-page guide to using Twitter
A bit over the top, you say? Oh, I think you’re being too modest, sir.
The Horrors: New Ice Age - The new and much-hyped...
Watch“When you send emails full of misspellings and errant apostrophes, people judge you - and by people, I mean me.” [I could do without the advertisements for male grooming products at the beginning and end of this clip.]
“When I get a manuscript or see a sign that misuses its and it’s and...”
– Seth’s Blog: Am I the only one distracted by apostrophes and weird “quoting”?
I think Seth Godin is being too fair. They’re not stupid about apostrophes. They really are just totally stupid.
Shy Friendly Shopping →
Some suggestions for stores and restaurants on how to best serve shy people. “9. Do not sell your services by telephone. Do you seriously think i answer it?” Though I would also point out that for us shy people - and us disabled people, as a matter of fact - shopping in stores is a thing of the past thanks to the internet and a debit card.
“For the time being, avoid anything labelled Salford Toccata by Harrison...”
– The indie kid’s guide to classical music | The Guardian
“One morning (and it will be soon), when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age...”
– Milan Kundera (via rejecter)
Adam Curtis: It Felt Like a Kiss - The Film →
“When a nation is powerful, it tells the world confident stories about the future. The stories can be enchanting or frightening, but they make sense of the world. But when that power begins to ebb, the stories fall apart and all that is left are fragments which haunt you like half-forgotten dreams.”
Antichrist (Parent And Baby Screening) →
Hmm. Now, I’m not the sort of law-abiding prude who thinks that underage children should not glimpse even one flickering second of an 18 certificate movie. Far from it. Give the kids a bit of sex and violence to toughen them up and put some ideas in their heads, that’s what I say. But … parent and baby screenings in London of Lars Von Trier’s utterly terrifying and none...
D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y →
A one-stop site for people who can’t spell ‘definitely’.
Roxy Music: Same Old Scene - Ah yes, a remix by...
Shiny Media goes into administration →
Putting my business-like web journalism hat on for a moment, this is sad news. Whilst Shiny Media’s portfolio of blogs taking in lifestyle, sport, fashion and showbiz weren’t exactly my cup of sugary tea, I appreciated what they did - mainly in the hope that it would kick-start the growth of blog networks on this side of the Atlantic. It didn’t (much).
In the US, if the numbers...
Urban Dictionary: Writer's crap →
“Derived from ‘writer’s cramp’, writer’s crap refers to a stage when one is only capable of writing utter crap.” And once again, Urban Dictionary gives me the verbal tools by which I can describe my life. Er, thanks, I think.
Professions 'reserved for rich' →
“Top professions such as medicine and law are increasingly being closed off to all but the most affluent families, a report into social mobility will say.” And apparently, the profession of Pope is closed off to anyone who isn’t a Catholic. Who knew?
“6. i open a new package of napkins | and in the middle | are 3 napkins with what...”
– 3:AM Magazine ยป Friend Helmet by Blake Butler
“So there are plenty of reasons to be depressed about the blogosphere. It...”
– BBC - Digital Revolution Blog: The Blog Is Dead … oh no it isn’t, oh yes it is …
“And what of the rare and the obscure ephemera that captured the imaginations of...”
– BBC - Digital Revolution Blog: what’s become of the blogosphere?
