1 August 2011
2 August 2011
[movies] Ask Metafilter On The Shining … ‘In my opinion the thing that really makes the movie is the payoff of the scene where Shelly Duvall is backing up on the stairs while Jack Nicholson terrorizes her, and she slowly, bravely and desperately crosses over from trying to keep the reality of the situation at uncomfortable arm’s length (by appeasing him when he gets scary and/or distant), to finally giving in to it and accepting it, fighting back as best as she can, even if she might not win. While the book is a heartbreaking story of a family falling apart, that scene in the film portrays one person’s descent into madness and evil, and another person’s defeated but brave decision to slowly but steadily escape from it so brilliantly. It’s painful and captivating to watch.’
[comics] Go Look: Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!
3 August 2011
[music] Joyless Divisions: The End Of New Order … ‘New Order, of course, are frequently cited as a band who really weren’t terribly wise with money, and who were not well advised about what to do with it. Everyone knows the myth of how their Blue Monday single lost money despite being the best selling 12in of all-time, because of the cost of its sleeve. They once decamped to an expensive studio in Ibiza only to find their work being constantly interrupted by coachloads of holidaymakers who had bought tickets for BBQs with the band. “One of them vomited on the table-tennis table,” recalls Gillian Gilbert.’
4 August 2011
[funny] Go Look: ‘We Start With The Number Of Children Born To Billionaire Parents Each Year… ‘ [via Sore Eyes]
[hackgate] Tom Watson: ‘Phone hacking is only the start. There’s a lot more to come out’ … Profile Of Tom Watson …
At one point, he says, a senior editor at the Sun made a point of sending him a message via another Labour MP: “Tell that fat bastard Watson we know about his little planning matter.” This, he says, was a reference to his application to put a conservatory on his family home in the Midlands: a typical “non-newsy, low-level thing” that played its part in making him “start to think like a conspiracy theorist”.
5 August 2011
[books] Graph A Story With Mr. Vonnegut … a way of visualising stories from Kurt Vonnegut … ‘An American Indian creation myth, in which a god of some sort gives the people the sun and then the moon and then the bow and arrow and then the corn and so on, is essentially a staircase, a tale of accumulation…’
8 August 2011
9 August 2011
[web] DO NOT POWER DOWN!! … close up of a label on the first ever web server. [via Unreliably Witnessed]
10 August 2011
[hackgate] How Bad Is News Corp? … more From Michael Wolff On Hackgate … ‘In London, there have now been 10 arrests. While British law does not provide for the kind of U.S.-style plea bargaining that can easily flip a co-conspirator, there is, ever-more apparently, no where else to turn. There will be no News International safe haven in terms of cash or comfort. While the company continues to pay legal fees, and, in the case of Rebekah Brooks, apparently continues to keep her on the payroll (despite representations otherwise), this is a last gasp of the company’s ability to buy dedication. There are too many questions now. In other words, the value of loyalty is fast running out. In the end, it will be a human drama, as all scandals are, about lives and careers upended and the necessity to save yourself.’
[books] Library Sign: I Like Big Books…
11 August 2011
[movies] Go Look: ‘This shot is the most expensive shot in silent film history.’ … ‘It was filmed in a single take, that had to be perfect, with a real train and a ‘dummy’ engineer (notice the white arm hanging out the conductors window).’
12 August 2011
[books] Forgotten Bookmarks … a lovely blog from a bookseller posting the bookmarks and the odd thing found in second-hand books. On his most common and unique finds: ‘Pressed leaves are by far the most common. I’ve actually stopped saving them, they are too fragile to keep and I don’t think there’s much interest in 100-year-old maple leaves. Sometimes I find money, like an old crown, but that’s rare. The most unique was a suicide note from the 1930’s, but I decided not to post that one.’
15 August 2011
[funny] Ineffective Pick-Up Lines for the Modern Internet Persona … ‘My Klout score is an 83, which makes me a Thought Leader. There’s a lot of pressure to stay relevant and forward thinking, when you’re that influential. A few sub-par tweets and I could be downgraded to Specialist. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with being a Specialist… you’re not a Specialist, are you?’
16 August 2011
[life] The Digital Storage of Analog Memories … how to let go of keepsakes and tchotchkes … ‘Do you have a bunch of physical items stuck in storage? Objects you’ve kept over time that you can’t get rid of because you have a set of memories attached to them? Objects are keystones of memory, but pictures of those objects are still adequate keystones…’
17 August 2011
[useful] Super Remove Dead Tracks … ‘Surveys iTunes for tracks whose files are no longer available (so-called “dead” tracks, as indicated by a “!” next to their names) and removes them.’
18 August 2011
[life] Tetrapharmakos … Epicurus’ four-part cure for leading a happy life …
“The fundamental obstacle to happiness, says Epicurus, is anxiety,” writes D. S. Hutchinson.
19 August 2011
[web] Google’s Official List of Bad Words … ‘boob, boobs, booobs, boooobs, booooobs, booooooobs, breasts’
20 August 2011
[web] TinEye Reverse Image Search … this is a useful way of searching for images – especially if you want to credit the creator of an image you’ve found on the web … ‘TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.’
22 August 2011
[tech] Gizmodo: Unedited Thoughts About Technology Better Left Unposted … On Nerds:
You know more about technology than anybody else, and anybody who knows less than you is a total dipshit. I love you for that. But normal people deserve wonderful technology too. And half the shit you call computing-running custom ROMs, reinstalling OSes, fucking with network settings-is like a chef sharpening his knives over and over and calling that cooking. Real computing is the actual stuff you do-cutting videos, editing photos, writing. Or at least it should be. Not the shit people do to make all of that work.
23 August 2011
24 August 2011
[funny] Go Look: Herbert West, Data Entry Specialist … ‘REAL MEN DON’T USE MENUS.’
25 August 2011
[comics] A post on Scans Daily revisiting the first issue of ROM Spaceknight from 1979 … ‘ROM SPACEKNIGHT issue 1 gives us all of the pieces of the story that will span nearly 80 issues. It starts out like a 50s sci-fi monster movie, only the strange being from outer space is actually here to help humanity, but because of his foreboding appearance and the ambiguity of his actions (and the general suspiciousness of folk in the Marvel universe), he’s believed to be a rampaging monster. Meanwhile, the enemy he has hunted for two centuries appears to be regular people, due to their shapeshifting abilities. An everyman human meets the “alien monster” and the beginning of a friendship is formed, and we learn the broad strokes of ROM’s origin: a highly advanced culture, with little to no martial presence took a great chance on an untested and dangerous technology, leaving its defenders with diminished “humanity” that they will always pine for.’
29 August 2011
[comics] Grant Morrison on the Death of Comics … a non-standard interview with Morrison – well worth reading if you follow his work …
With comics, the quality now is better than it’s ever been, there are more people now who are really good at what they do, doing what they do. Everything’s available for free, I think that’s the real problem, nobody wants to buy it anymore. One comes out, you see it immediately online and you can read it. That’s the way people want to consume their information, the colors look nicer. I think that’s more the problem, but that’s a problem for everybody, it’s not just for comics, everyone’s going to start feeling that one.’ — Morrison discussing the death-spiral of superhero comic books
30 August 2011
[wordpress] Take 5 Minutes to Make WordPress 10 Times More Secure … If you’re running WordPress you probably should take the time to read this.
31 August 2011
[comics] Masked Anonymous Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Profits … ‘The mask resonates with the hackers because it was worn by a rogue anarchist challenging an authoritarian government in “V for Vendetta,” the movie produced in 2006 by Warner Brothers. What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask.’