February 2008
106 posts
Problems with middle class writers
riazm says:
Listen, you can’t make someone working class just by putting “Mate” on the end of everything they say. Furthermore, you don’t define the character as a stoner by making him say “Dude” all the fucking time.
Add: you can’t make a character British by making “bloody” or “jolly good” the only descriptions they ever use.
Bloody funny Riaz!
“Find a problem that’s not solved and try to solve it in a way that’s profitable....”
– Ricky Van Veen (via marco)
This quote should form part of my life manifesto; I’m gonna stick it up on my wall. All the more interesting that it didn’t come from Steve Jobs or Winston Churchill, but the co-founder of College Humor. Clever bloke.
Coming across gems like this is my...
zachklein says:
I have a bible-length list of things to do this morning but I can’t stop hanging out on the Internet. How can I possibly have time to consider your ideas when I have so many of my own to think about?
And there in lies the core dichotomy behind all the time I spend on Tumblr, Google Reader and Reddit when I should be doing some bloody work!
fatmanatee replied to my previous post:
It was my way of making a joke about how describing a manatee as fat is redundant and trying to fit it as a header. Fat Manatee was the two-word encryption I needed to type when I first signed up for Facebook. I explained it all the way back on the first post, I think, so I’m guessing that it looks pretty goofy now. I’ll probably change it when I get a...
fatmanatee says of his Tumblr name:
Because redundancies built into the Facebook registration process make for fun tumblr URLs.
Huh?
Jonathan says "Whisky Tango Foxtrot Lima Oscar... →
Man in Bradford nailed to 'wooden cross' →
I don’t know if this incident was as crucifixion-like as the headline and article make out. Admittedly it’s only a very brief fact piece. But surely, if you’re going to write about a man nailed by his hands to a wooden cross, you would at least mention “there is no word on if this is religiously motivated” or “police do not believe that this is religiously...
NPR podcasts are for cool kids
sneakyjane says:
All of my pocasts, except for one, are from NPR. Does anyone else listen to it as much as I do, or am I just that big of a nerd?
(via asprettyasasong)
Don’t listen to a single one. But I do subscribe to a hell of a lot of BBC podcasts. Which I guess is the UK equivalent of being a National Public Radio fanboy.
I guess the non-profit broadcasters just make the best...
Coldplay
I’m not a huge fan of Chris Martin and co, but it must be said that the question of which is their best song makes an excellent pub conversation topic.
Me? Shiver. Anyone who says otherwise is WRONG.
greatwhiteshark says:
Dear Internet, You probably don’t care, but I just came up with a very unique and, I’m a little ashamed to say, somewhat marketable idea for a book. A novel. I’m not going to tell you about it, but hopefully this will be the kind of thing I can write a “chapter” of every night.
[…]
Regards, Sarah Mogin Aspiring Novelist
Go for it! Let us know how you get on -...
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done...”
– Good ol’ Peter Drucker, about whom I have often written in management papers, as quoted in Free Culture
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-2-24) →
Moritz “mo.” Sauer / Phlow.net
Moby
Love
Sonic Youth
Robert Miles
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
Plants that Twitter when they need to be watered →
*sigh* It’s true
“There has never been a time in history when more of our ‘culture’...”
– From Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture I’m barely a chapter in, but already it’s fascinating. And very much reflects the Tumblr mindset :-)
"Churnalism" →
Nostrich says:
“Churnalism” was coined by a member of the National Union of Journalists, [I]t signifies ‘the practice of regurgitating material, rapidly and under pressure, from outside sources without checking’. By that logic, given the very definition of a tumblelog, would it be safe to call tumbleloggers “churnalists”?
Logically, yeah, tumbleloggers are “churnalists”. But...
How do bigots/morons like this still hold... →
From BBC News: “an Israeli politician has blamed parliament’s tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently”.
“At least [it’s] not desperately trying to find a thousand ways to preserve...”
– No Rock And Roll Fun on the Chinese music industry
This makes me feel like my opinion is vaguely...
I love that a couple of music reviews I wrote ages ago about Enter Shikari (in early 2005, before anyone had heard of them) and Son of Dork (Jan 2006; they were the new band of former members of Busted) still to this day receive angry comments from teenyboppers upset that I disssed their heroes.
Although the fact that they receive more traffic than any new post I write is still slightly...
“Setting out to prove that TV can match the web, Lily Allen and Friends proves it...”
– Interesting Guardian piece on the BBC’s new chat show hosted by UK pop star Lily Allen
Gimado.com →
Nifty MP3 search engine. Apparently, it’s just received $300,000 funding, but God knows how they’re gonna monetise it. Especially seeing as they’re basically searching illegally-hosted files (even if Gimado doesn’t host any music themselves). Add to that things like the fact that Yahoo is even removing things like Pirate Bay from search results, and you begin to wonder...
“Remember when Facebook was the future and supposedly worth $15bn? Stand back,...”
– The Register
If Barack was on South Park... →
…it would be a great episode, if nothing else. Nice work, jessicagoldharalson.
Facebook adds "block requests from this... →
Along with a load of other anti-spam measures. Phew!
Two-thirds of Americans think nanotechnology is... →
WTF?! This isn’t stem cell research people…it’s making stuff tiny an’ that.
“Excuse me, sir, I’m writing about my time here in San Francisco, and in...”
– Moby’s journal
Wishing a hole in the ground would swallow you up...
Etrangere says:
This is probably the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read — this was an email my sister Lori received from her former roommate that Lori then forwarded to me, adding, “If you ever feel embarrassed ever again, just think of this story.”
I won’t steal Etrangere’s thunder by re-blogging the whole thing - but YOU MUST READ THIS.
Makes me wince just thinking about it.
Pepsi Raw
From the description:
Pepsi Raw has only natural ingredients like apple extract, caramel coloring, coffee leaf, tantaric acid from grapes, gum arabic from acacia trees, cane sugar and sparkling water.
(via Vasta)
Only available in a select bunch of cities, including Liverpool. What an honour. Will be interesting to try this, but I still can’t help thinking it’s gonna be an...
Relaxation and meditation in video games →
The Kotaku blog says of the Healing Rhythms game: “a little hippy-dippy for my taste, something along the lines of scented candles in the bathroom and sage smudges”.
Sounds like just the sort of thing I like, but I’d rather actually light some real-life incense and actually relax than pretend onscreen.
“When my staff members come to me and say: ‘Guess what? My boyfriend, now he’s a...”
– The founder of PETA, in a New York Times article on “vegansexuality”
Great idea from The Guardian's Tech Weekly podcast →
One of the presenters is going to the Brits tomorrow (UK record industry awards shindig, equivalent to the Grammys), and planning on wearing a T-shirt dress with either “FILESHARER” or the Limewire logo on the front.
Wish I had that idea. (And was going to the Brits, so I could use it.)
BBC DJ Grooverider gets 4 years in Dubai jail for... →
I usually like to be more eloquent than this, but FUCKING HELL!
In drum ‘n’ bass terms, this is like Amy Winehouse getting a life sentence for having half a paracetamol in her pocket.
EDIT: Not to condone drugs of course. I just found it a bit shocking how something that wouldn’t even really be prosecuted here can be a huge deal elsewhere. But I know Dubai has a different...
Tech-pocalypse
Justin says:
Does anyone else worry that in the event of a utility-wrecking global apocalyptic event (such as a pole-reversal, meteor stike, etc), all the tech skills so painstakingly honed over the years will become immediately and obviously worthless?
Seriously, so very much you wouldn’t believe. It’s a genuine source of existential angst, which leads on to even deeper questions...
Two things that worry me slightly
i) I’ve just spent half an hour tidying up my Google Reader (weeding out blogs I no longer read, putting a better folder system in place etc.)
ii) I found it hugely satisfying
Am I a bit of a saddo?
Cookthink →
Pandora for recipes!