January 2010
89 posts
Watch
Watch
failin.gs (great name, thanks) is the worst idea on the web. Ever. In the entire history of the internet. Really. Trust me on this one. What is it? Well, it’s a service whereby your friends can anonymously leave “constructive feedback” about what’s wrong with you, in an effort to “improve your personal character”. It’s in beta at the moment, so one can...
“I worry sometimes that he wasn’t a happy recluse, but I like to think he...”
– Dave Eggers’ tribute to the late JD Salinger, in The Guardian.
And I couldn’t agree more. Salinger’s body is hardly cold, and yet I’ve already heard that his reclusive life was the behaviour of a “crank” or because he had mental health issues or because he...
Autolux: Capital Kind of Strain
Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing... →
WatchGentle Friendly: Lovers Rock
It’s Burns Night. In this recording, Robert...
Woman Uses iPhone App to Get Pregnant →
Is anyone getting disturbing visions in their head as a result of reading this particular headline? No? Oh, just me then. (Reports that the parents gave their new offspring the charming name of iBaby could not be confirmed. But I hope they did.)
Measuring Type →
Garamond is officially the most ink-efficient of common typefaces, Impact the least. My favourite, Helvetica, is somewhere in the middle. Oh, and Comic Sans is fairly ink-hungry, so if you’re still using it, you not only lack any sense of good taste, but you’re also environmentally unfriendly. Or something. (Yes, you do need to know this stuff. It’s important. Wake up at the...
Goldman Sachs UK partners cap their pay at £1m... →
“One executive said they wanted to be seen to be exercising the restraint which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has sought from all bankers.” Such self-sacrifice in these recession-hit times is too admirable for words. I’m on the verge of tears. Is there a hotline to donate money, just to make sure that millionaire bankers don’t go hungry this winter?
Eyeless in Gaza: Kodak Ghosts Run Amok (1980) -...
The Train of Terror →
As Adam Curtis says, an “extraordinary piece of film” from the BBC archives - “a live outside broadcast of a British army simulation of an attack on a train in Britain”. All too credible today, maybe. Except that this exercise took place in 1956 [via Adam Curtis]
Will journalists of the future need to know how to... →
It’s a long time since I’ve been quite so annoyed by a casual piece of journalistic commentary. Step forward, Mercedes Bunz, for you are the cause of my intense irritation on an already irritating Monday morning.
It’s a misguided enough piece of journalism in itself, but for a piece that is about her actual trade, it’s highly ironic that it’s also written with all...
WatchThese New Puritans: We Want War
Based on this and the last video, I have decided that this is going to be Unsettling Music Week on Unreliably Witnessed. Of course, that’s all relative. What I really mean is ‘more unsettling than normal’.
WatchFormer Ghosts: Flowers
SarcMark →
“The official, easy-to-use punctuation mark to emphasize a sarcastic phrase, sentence or message. Once downloaded to your computer or cell phone, it’s a quick key-stroke or two to insert the [SarcMark] where you want, when you want, in your communications with the world.” Yours for only $1.99, apparently. Please God let this be a joke. Civilisation is surely doomed if we need an...
Wirebonics: A Mathematical Approach To Dialogue →
Or: How To Talk Like Characters in The Wire.
“I like my job. Oh, I like it a lot. And I’m not depressed by it. And I don’t...”
– The always striking profundity of Lieutenant Columbo [via acceptanceworld]
THE NY TYRANT GUIDE TO NOT BEING A HORRIBLE WRITER... →
For once, I think the screaming uppercase is necessary. Includes such gems as: “If you are more aware of your own dick or vagina than you are of what your breath sounds like when you are asleep, please go get a job in marketing instead” and “Don’t try to ‘write what you know.’ You don’t know anything. Me either”.
ABCing: Seeing the Alphabet Differently →
