Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Fact & Truth

"Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it."

Charles P Pierce

?

Monday, July 26, 2010

If Britain decides to ban the burqa I might just start wearing one | David Mitchell

There's too much harping on about respect and banning. What about the huge gulf of toleration in the middle?
Tattoos and burqas are all the rage. One in five of us now has a tattoo and there are enough burqas around to invoke talk of banning them. Some people, presumably, sport both – but they're difficult to identify without causing an embarrassing scuffle. Especially if the person under the burqa turns out to be a woman.
Continue Reading....

Lloyd Miller




Here's some stuff I probably should have played at yesterday's party. Thrilling, wonderful music.


Read full review of A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz - LLOYD MILLER on Boomkat.com ©

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Lake/island fun: largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island.

Apologies if you've seen it before but this came back to me last night. Why? I dunno. Anyway, I wanted to pin it down here.

There's also this.

Bloody stupid IE6. When is my company going to upgrade?

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Free Music Archive: Karen Cooper Complex - Shinjuku Birdwalk (1981)

Free Music Archive: Karen Cooper Complex - Shinjuku Birdwalk (1981)

Entirely wonderful.

I write like....who?

J-Walk sends me to the I Write Like site which, once you've pasted into it a bit of your own writing, returns a result telling you whose style it most resembles. So I took a sample from one of my past entries here and this was the result:
 


I write like
H. P. Lovecraft
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!


'What fun' thought I, so I tried with another, and got this.

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
When I've found out who he is, I'll decide whether to be flattered or not.

Update: over at BoingBoing a lot of people are apparently being told they write like HP Lovecraft & David Foster Wallace. And Dan Brown.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Going to ground easily.

Now that the World Cup has ended and the best footballing team has rightly won, a thought from someone who loves the game. (Me). And it's this:


FIFA or some body now HAS to grasp the nettle and act to sort out the diving and injury simulation that is endemic in the game. In all the comments I've read on the web over the last few weeks this has been the number one complaint about the game from football newbies, and rightly so.

Is it too much to ask that tapes be reviewed after the match and cases of blatant diving and other cynical attempts to get opponents booked and sent off and/ or to gain an advantage be highlighted and exposed? It wouldn't change the result of that match but the cumulative effect would surely be salutary and force associations, managements and players to begin put a stop to it. It's dirty and is ruining the game.

In the world of real football fouls, Luis Suarez of Uruguay got the most flak in the tournament for his goalline handball, but his offence was FULLY PUNISHED: he was sent off, incurring a suspension, and the oppponents awarded a penalty. It isn't Suarez' fault that Gyan missed it. It's the great unpunished that concern me.

Players throughout the tournament, in match after match, from virtually every team bar North Korea (I most certainly CANNOT exclude England), disgraced the game with their ridiculous antics in throwing themselves to the ground and rolling around in simulated agony in the hope of gaining an advantage or of getting an opponent booked or sent off. Let's reserve especial vemon for players of real ability (I'm looking at YOU now Arjen Robben) who'll dive to the ground squealing like a child and then pursue the referee shrieking abuse if, just this once, he's not stupid enough to be fooled.

From my readings in forums such as REDDIT, for every "soccer" fan from the USA that the game has gained or confirmed in the last month, it has lost, or failed to persuade, just as many through an honest disgust at this behaviour. And frankly I can't find it in my heart to blame them, because it is cancerous to the game.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Afrirampo - Afrirampo

So you discover this great new band, only to find they've been around for years, and actually broke up in June. Fuggit.

Never mind, there's some cool free MP3 stuff here and here. After that we have to pay.


Carl Sagan: A Universe Not Made For Us - Carl Sagan - YouTube - callumCGLP

Carl Sagan: A Universe Not Made For Us - Carl Sagan - YouTube - callumCGLP: "
Thanks to Atheist Media Blog for the link

Original link






"Excerpts from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. More specifically, from the chapter titled A Universe Not Made For Us. I edited together the audio from the audio-book, and added the video from Stephen Hawking's Into the Universe and Brian Cox's Wonders of the Solar System. The music is Jack's Theme from the Lost soundtrack."

(Of course "I" didn't do anything except repost it here. It's almost a manifesto, which is why it is here. The end is a bit mush tho'.)

Manhole Covers

All those years ago I tried to tell you that manhole covers were interesting. I was Japanese at heart it seems. See?