10 December 2004
[photos] Found Photobooth Photos: Is this You?
[film] What Stanley Didn’t Say — The Inside Story Behind a Fake Interview with Stanley Kubrick … ‘After Stanley’s death the volume of [press] clippings doubled, and tripled, then quadrupled. There were obituaries, memorials, recollections, assessments and so on. These were too important merely to box, so I decided to file them in date order in Swedex four-prong binders (always a favourite with Stanley: “Those Swedes sure know how to make a functional, sexy binder!”).’
9 December 2004
[firefox] Paste and Go — a really useful Firefox extension to ‘…paste an URL from the clipboard into the address bar and load it as a single step, either via the adress bar’s context menu or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-V.’
[ipod] Troubled Diva: 16 things which piss me off about my beautiful, bouncing new iPod … ’10. Click-wheel fatigue. Ooh, I’m just in the mood for some Yo La Tengo. Well, don’t give yourself RSI of the thumb in the process. And are you quite sure you wouldn’t rather listen to Air instead?’
8 December 2004
[comics] The thing is, the Thing is Jewish — great article about religion in Superhero comics. ‘…it turns out that Jack Kirby, an active, synagogue-attending Jew, had a faith in mind for at least one of his characters. Mr. Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzburg) was an irascible, cigar-smoking, wryly funny product of New York City’s tough Lower East Side. So was his co-creation, Ben Grimm. Mr. Kirby died in 1996, but members of his family and many of the folks who worked for Marvel Comics over the decades say they knew that Mr. Kirby always thought of the Thing as a sort of alter-ego – and Jewish. In fact, Mr. Kirby once drew the Thing wearing the traditional Jewish skullcap and prayer shawl and holding a prayer book…’ [via Progressive Ruin]
[retro] b3ta: Hey Hey 16K … ‘old skool rampaks are much better’
6 December 2004
[bbc] Tales from the Morgue — an anonymous BBC Management Insider’s Blog likely to cover the staff losses and reorganisation … ‘Walking past TV Centre there was a Union rep handing out leaflets about tomorrows announcements…’
[blogs] New kids on the Blog — behind-the-scenes profile of Nick Denton’s blog-publishing company … ‘Most of his nine blogs attract well over 100,000 unique users a day. Gawker traffic increased to 300,000 when it was the first to show a picture of B-list actress Tara Reid after she suffered a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and exposed a nipple at a red-carpet event. When Paris Hilton revealed she wasn’t wearing underwear at the same event, the accompanying photo brought in 255,000 unique users. That’s about a million unique users visiting the site each month. Denton has a handful of full-time staff, no office and everyone else – up to 20 employees – works part-time. Some industry estimates have put his gross earnings at as much as $100,000 a month.’
3 December 2004
[web] A Del.icio.us Interview — interview with Joshua Schachter the man behind del.icio.us … ‘Q: I’d like to nominate del.icio.us for “Best Use of a Non-Dot-Com Name” — is there a deeping meaning to the name? A: Not really. I’d registered the domain when .us opened the registry, and a quick test showed me the six letter suffixes that let me generate the most words. In early discussions, a friend referred to finding good links as “eating cherries” and the metaphor stuck, I guess…’
2 December 2004
[books] Digested Read: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe … ‘The cleverest girl ever to leave Sparta, North Carolina felt crippled inside. Her roommate was so posh. “So here we are in our fuck-pad,” grinned Beverley. “Can I use all the cupboard space? You don’t have any clothes.” Charlotte bit her tongue. “I am Charlotte Simmons,” she said to herself.’
1 December 2004
[ipod] Troubled Diva: 17 things which I love about my beautiful, bouncing new iPod … ’16. The surprisingly intense surge of paternalism which I experience before leaving the house each morning, as I squeeze my iPod into its bendy “skin” in order to protect it from the ravages of the outside world. “Come along, my lovely; let’s wrap you up nice and warm in your matinee jacket. Easy does it. There’s a good boy.” Followed by the corresponding evening routine, as I gently prise off the matinee jacket (or is it a Babygro?) and place my baby back into its cradle.’
[blogs] Getting Fired From Weblogs Inc. — some interesting comments from behind-the-scenes at a couple of Blog “nano-publishing” Empires … ‘It’s probably every blogger’s dream: one day, they will achieve blogging nirvana and someone will actually pay them to blog. Despite the fact that people pay me fairly regularly to write for magazines, I admit that I, too, indulged in the blogging nirvana dream. And on the 18th of October, the absolute weirdest thing happened: Nirvana knocked on my door. Twice…’
30 November 2004
[internet] Penny Arcade: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad
29 November 2004
[descaler] On eBay: CILLIT BANG – New and unopened [via Tech PR blog] … ‘YES – it does exist – but very difficult to find!! This is an excellent product and does everything that it says it does – great for kitchens and bathrooms and for shiny new pennies!!!’
25 November 2004
[descaler] Cillit Bang FAQ — everything you need to know about the much blogged household cleaner … ‘Q: How does Cillit Bang work? A: I’m not sure. Any Chemistry gurus out there? Is it a surfactant? Oxidant? Acid? What would happen if you necked a shot of it?’
[politics] Impeach Tony Blair? Not this Crazy Gang — Simon Hoggart on the attempt to impeach Tony Blair … ‘Some of us had gone along in the hopes of hearing Harold Pinter, a keen supporter of the move to impeach the prime minister. Perhaps he would read one of his poems: “‘ Bombs hurtle down. They split open the skulls of babies. George Bush fills the skulls with shit, the shit of shitty shit-covered damnation’. Thank you.” Or words to that effect. Sadly, Mr Pinter was not able to attend…’
24 November 2004
[london] B3ta interviews London’s “Are you a Sinner or a Winner?” Man … ‘Q: Daddy or chips? A: Both. If your chips are down you need your Daddy (points skyward).’
22 November 2004
[tube] Blood on the Tracks — article about suicides on the London Underground … ‘How the tube got its reputation as a good spot for suicides is a mystery. It is a completely stupid choice. A large number of jumpers don’t die immediately and plenty don’t die at all. Those that are successful often manage because they get themselves crushed between the far wall and the train, instead of on the rails. It is very far from clinical. At the first “one-under” I attended, the woman was still alive underneath the train, screaming and trying to get up. The image stayed with me for years.’
21 November 2004
[wifi] How To Steal Wi-Fi — a useful guide to using your neigbours wi-fi access point without asking from Paul Bouting… ‘Every techie I know says that you shouldn’t use other people’s networks without permission. Every techie I know does it anyway.’
19 November 2004
[royalty] Prince Charles: ‘What is wrong with people nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far above their capabilities? This is all to do with the learning culture in schools. It is a consequence of a child-centred education system which tells people they can become pop stars, high court judges or brilliant TV presenters or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having the natural ability. It is a result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically engineered to contradict the lessons of history.’
[buy sell] eBay Pulse — find out what’s selling on eBay. [via BingBangBosh]
18 November 2004
[comics] The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy — nicely done unofficial website for the much missed artist best known for his work on Judge Dredd and frequent collaborations with Peter Milligan … ‘Will he ever return to drawing a full comic strip? He has been quoted as saying, “Of course I will produce comic books in the future, but first I want to make sure I have enough money behind me so that I can self-publish the material I choose. I’m getting too long in the cock to have silly people telling me how to produce my own work. There’s just too much crap to put up with and quite frankly, I can’t be bothered with it”‘
17 November 2004
[web] Portable Firefox 1.0 — useful adaptation of Firefox … ‘Portable Firefox is a fully functional package of Firefox optimized for use on a USB key drive. It has some specially-selected optimizations to make it perform faster and extend the life of your USB key as well as a specialized launcher that will allow most of your favorite extensions to work as you switch computers. It will also work from a CDRW drive (in packet mode), ZIP drives, external hard drives, some MP3 players, flash RAM cards and more.’
16 November 2004
[lard] Lard Crisis: Mince Pies Threatened As Supplies Dwindle … ‘Demand in east European countries for cheap cuts of pork has led to a shortage of meat suitable for rendering into lard. New members of the European Union, including Hungary and Poland, are buying within the union to avoid a levy on non-EU imports. Supermarkets such as Morrisons have been forced to display signs on shelves apologising for the lack of lard’ [Related: Mefi on the Lard Crisis]
15 November 2004
[spam] Trial Shows How Spammers Operate … ‘As one of the world’s most prolific spammers, Jeremy Jaynes pumped out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the help of 16 high-speed lines, the kind of Internet capacity a 1,000-employee company would need. [..] In a typical month, prosecutors said during the trial, Jaynes might receive 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, thus making money on perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails he sent out. But he earned $40 a pop, and the undertaking was so vast that Jaynes could still pull in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead, McGuire said. “When you’re marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there” who will be suckered in, McGuire said in an interview.’
[books] Dark Star of LA Noir — long profile of James Ellroy … ‘For many, his ostensibly shocking claim that he had “figured out how I could use my mother’s death, reduce it to sound-bites and sell books”, might have seen him tagged simply as a grotesque opportunist. But then, in a bravely imaginative departure, he complicated matters further by addressing head-on the nature of that exploitation in his ground-breaking 1996 book My Dark Places, which was part memoir and part, ultimately doomed, attempt to identify her killer, who has never been identified. The more one finds out about the man, the more his title of the essay in which he claims novels are mislabelled autobiography makes sense: he called it “Where I Get My Weird Shit”.’
14 November 2004
[games] Spacewar – Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums — a profile of Spacewar (one of the first computer games) and the personalities behind it by Stewart Brand from Rolling Stone magazine in 1972 … ‘Spacewar as a parable is almost too pat. It was the illegitimate child of the marrying of computers and graphic displays. It was part of no one’s grand scheme. It served no grand theory. It was the enthusiasm of irresponsible youngsters. It was disreputably competitive (“You killed me, Tovar!”). It was an administrative headache. It was merely delightful. Yet Spacewar, if anyone cared to notice, was a flawless crystal ball of things to come in computer science and computer use…’ [via del.icio.us]
12 November 2004
[quote] Kurt Vonnegut Quotes … ‘I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.’
|