March 2008
26 posts
The Myth of the Media Myth
There are six of us around the table, and the conversation turns to what I do for a living, also known as “my field of study” in academia. “I’m a game designer and a professor,” I say. The dinner had been arranged by a third party in order to connect academics from various institutions for networking purposes.“You mean videogames?” one of the teachers...
Forty years after the shot rang out... →
…race fears still haunt the US.So begins a piece in today’s Observer describing the changes that have happened since Martin Luther King was shot, but also highlighting the fairly massive racial divide that still exists.This is the bad side of black America since King died, and it exists in cities across the country. In Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, Kansas City, St Louis...
Life Processes →
A review (fairly positive) on ¡Forward Russia!’s soon-to-be-released second album:So it’s a second album, and it’s certainly difficult. But it’s also an album peppered by moments of brilliance and not held back by its few brave failures and one that no one can have reasonably expected the talented quartet to have come up with. It’s not the instant adrenal injection some were hoping for, but...
This side of the truth →
Ricky Gervais is writing/directing a film (“a comedy set in a world where no one has ever had the ability to lie. Until now.”) and is blogging about, well, everything really. The Office (UK) was pretty good, Extras was a bit rubbish but the christmas special one was hilarious. His standup isn’t anything special, but the podcasts he, Steven Merchant and Karl Pilkington have...
“I’ve realized that the conference talks/presentation that have...”
– swissmiss on an interview with a Michelin-starred chef at the PSFK conference last week. I think she might be on to something: At the London PHP Conference last year, the day’s closing talk was given by Bill Gaver of Goldsmiths College and had nothing to do with PHP, or programming, but was a...
Graphjam
In the same vein as song charts. Oh, and: see more funny graphs
Christopher Brookmyre
He is, according to Wikipedia:a Scottish novelist whose novels mix politics, social comment and action with a strong narrative. No mention of the humour though, which is a pretty vital element of his writing. I recently finished reading A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil that alternates, pretty much chapter by chapter, between the events of the present and a series of glimpses at the...
WatchLets you create mixtapes, like this one. (via)
Goosebumps →
Every year at primary school the Library Van would turn up in the playground and two pupils from each year-group would be allowed to go and choose books that would go into the class-library (a bookcase) for the next 12 months. I remember that one year one of my friends came back from book-picking with a set of very brightly coloured books from the Goosebumps series, each with dripping-blood style...
Lots of music →
Some nice person has put together a download containing a song by 700+ different acts who are playing SXSW this year. That’s a lot of music. The Morning News have published reviews of each and every one, albeit it devoting just 6 words to each. Worth skimming for the box-outs:Many people don’t write songs for an audience. They write songs for Gray’s Anatomy, for Zach Braff, and for Apple...
Eliot Spitzer
It might have been the dream of American tabloids, But what really snared Spitzer was a money laundering investigation that was flagged by suspicious activity reports (SARs) that banks have to file with the Treasury to surface everything from money laundering to terrorist activity. This network has been around for a while, but its importance escalated following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist...
Strange Maps →
What if New Amsterdam never gave way to New York? How would Russia have gone about invading the USA? Where is Büsingen am Hochrhein, and why are only 10 Swiss Police Officers allowed there at any one time? Where abouts does Ludacris have hoes? These important questions, and more, answered through a collection of unusual maps.
nerdfotainment →
Rands discussing how entertainment that is hard work keeps nerds happy - Lost; Star Trek; the amount of content and discussion regarding the original series, which hasn’t seen production in FORTY YEARS is mind-boggling. Yes, we’re still arguing about whether Captain Kirk could actually build a cannon to kill that lizard-guy . “In a battle between the Enterprise and a Star Destroyer, who would...
Saving: money and penalties
When it comes to choosing what to do, sometimes the best thing is nothing.More on economic psychology.
I fell in love with a female assassin →
They met on a train and fell in love. Then Jason P Howe discovered that his girlfriend Marylin was leading a secret double life – as an assassin for right-wing death squads in Colombia’s brutal civil war. With their story set to become a major Hollywood film, he recalls an extraordinary, doomed romanceAn incredible story, I look forward to seeing what they do with the film.
50 Most Powerful Bloggers →
An article in the Observer magazine today listing their top 50 most powerful bloggers. The only one I read regularly is Kottke (at #4), but sites like Boing Boing, Engadget and Techcrunch are up there along side the gossip and politically focussed sites such as Gawker, the Huffington Post (at #1) and The Drudge Report - in the news recently for its publishing of Prince Harry’s location.
Do we need to be exact?
When asked to add 2 and 2, he answered “three.” He could still count and recite a sequence like 2, 4, 6, 8, but he was incapable of counting downward from 9, differentiating odd and even numbers, or recognizing the numeral 5 when it was flashed in front of him. From an article in the New Yorker about “the Approximate Man” who can tell that 7 is less than 8, and that the word...
Trading with Aliens
The green, multi-headed kind: First of all, the vast distances between solar systems would probably prohibit the transportation of tangible goods. (Though, as Hickman points out, transatlantic trade probably seemed just as fanciful to traders in renaissance Europe.) There may however be potential for trade in non-tangible goods such digital entertainment, or scientific information with newly...
2008 Tournament of Books →
Today saw Tree of Smoke take on Ovenman in the first round of the tournament that will decide which new novel is awarded the coveted Rooster prize. You can also gamble on the results, all for charity.
“If they don’t care about the integrity of the original, why call it Spaced? Why...”
– Simon Pegg on the American remake of Spaced
Indexed (again) →
Jessica Hagy, author of the Indexed blog and book has a different outlet for the clever and amusing hand-drawn graphs and diagrams this week, a perfect introduction if you’re not already a follower.
Gravitation →
From the maker of Passage, another really involving and clever little game.
