17 November 2003
[blogs] Technorati Growing Pains: ‘Right now, we’re adding 8,000-9,000 new weblogs every day, not counting the 1.2 Million weblogs we already are tracking. That means that on average, a brand new weblog is created every 11 seconds. We’re also seeing about 100,000 weblogs update every day as well, which means that on average, a weblog is updated every 0.86 seconds.’ [via Scripting News]
16 November 2003
[comics] After the 30-year Struggle, a Heroic Victory — interview with Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics … ‘It is easy to imagine the small-framed Levitz feeling like an outsider when editing a comic fanzine while he was growing up in Brooklyn. Not any more. “Popular culture has shifted,” he says. “It’s not just the function of the comic book movie per se. Look at everything from Men in Black to Lord of the Rings. This is the kind of material that as young men my friends and I loved, and we were rather at the edge of things. That material is now squarely in the centre.” DC sits in the shadow of the sleek, modern towers that will serve as the new head office of parent company Time Warner, an appropriate position for a business described by investment bank Thomas Weisel as a “hidden asset” buried within the Warner Brothers division…’
15 November 2003
[911] Operation Holy Tuesday — insight into the planning behind 9-11 … ‘The prisoner no longer recalls precisely when he heard these words and in which of the many hideouts in the mountains bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, this single sentence uttered by Osama Bin Laden has burned itself into his memory, this decisive sentence, spoken in a soft and silky voice, that would ultimately become a death sentence for about 3,000 people: “Why do you use an ax when you can use a bulldozer?”‘ [via Metafilter]
14 November 2003
[games] Jeff Minter interview by B3ta … ‘Q: What imagery was rejected from the Attack of the Mutant Camels games? A: I drew the line at exposing my innocent young gamers to images of Margaret Thatcher. Hallucinogenic imagery and implied bestiality seemed mild by comparison.’
13 November 2003
[party] UK Bloggers Christmas Party 2003 — Downstairs at the Well in London on Sat. 29th. November …
Thanks to the Church Sign Generator 12 November 2003
[blogs] Mom Finds Out About Blog … “God, my links alone contain unlimited fodder for Mom’s neuroses,” Widmar said. “She’ll have access to not only my life, but the lives of all my friends who have web sites. She’ll have the names of all the places in Minneapolis where we hang out, which she can — and will — look up. With the raw materials in my blog, she could actually construct an accurate picture of who I am. This is fucking serious.”‘ [via Anil’s Daily Links]
[comics] Brought To Book — interview with Posy Simmonds … ‘Not only is she the author and illustrator of five successful children’s books, but this feeling of being treated as a sub-species is also the lot of the cartoonist. ‘People often ask, “Who thinks of your ideas for you?” When you reply that you think of your own, they sometimes say, “Do you do the drawings as well?”‘ She relates this in a deadpan tone, but behind it you can see amusement rather than irritation.’
11 November 2003
[books] A Writer’s Life — an interview with Iain Banks … ‘At 14, he wrote his first novel, The Hungarian Lift Jet, which he wrote in pencil on a series of jotters. “The idea,” he tells me, “is that Hungary has invented this radical lift jet” – a sort of hovering warplane – “and the secret service had nicked it. It was just an excuse for vast amounts of mayhem. It all ended badly. Everybody died.” Meanwhile, Banks was developing “a really bad pun habit”. Pun habit? “Well,” says Banks, “say you’re describing a chandelier. You would have a character who was drinking shandy and leered at somebody. It’s that bad, I’m afraid.”‘
[comics] Howard Chaykin on American Flagg: ‘Twenty years ago I did a comic book about a twenty-first century America with endless reality shows based on public humiliation; a federal government secretly selling off pieces of the United States; and a citizenry so drugged out on media they colluded in their own betrayal. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
10 November 2003
[books] You Ask The Questions — Philip Pullman … ‘Q: Do you crave adventure? A: No. On the contrary, I crave dullness and routine – that’s when I work best. What I would really like is a fairly long period of imprisonment, in a reasonably comfortable prison with a good library. That would keep the outside world at bay. I have no desire to be out on the ocean again. It would give me inspiration, but I’ve got plenty of that. What I don’t have is time.’
9 November 2003
[murder] Terrible history haunts the Old Bailey — Poignant summary of the first weeks evidence at the Soham Murder Trial. ‘…whatever the outcome of this trial, I suspect that the three-day opening statement leaves us with a different sense of our own anonymity. If the story is big enough, the shock and outrage sufficient, then heaven and earth will be moved; history itself will give a shake, and come to life. Point by slow point, graphic by triplicate graphic, belt and buttons and braces, one week last summer was carried into court and had life breathed back into it, and a strangely unsettling experience it was, to realise how many thousands footprints we all leave, if someone starts looking hard enough.’
7 November 2003
[comics] The Saga of the Earth Pig — summary of Dave Sim’s Cerebus … [via ¡Journalista!]
‘Cerebus is unique among other comics for its length of story, depth of character, breadth of detail, and evolution over time. It exists in 4 dimensions. The series focuses on Cerebus, a 3-foot tall aardvark man, who lives in a pre-industrial medieval fantasy world. As the story progresses, Cerebus finds himself involved with people and events that change history. He becomes a politician, pope, houseguest, bartender, and prophet, in that order. He finds and loses love. He speaks with beings of great power and knowledge, including his creator, Dave Sim. And yet, he still cannot find happiness in day-to-day life. Cerebus has done it all, been everywhere, and seen everybody. And he still fucks up.’ 6 November 2003
[ukkblogs] Updated UK Weblogs — I’ve spent the last few weeks updating the list of Recently Updated UK Weblogs. There are plenty of interesting UK blogs to check out …
5 November 2003
[comics] The Books of Heaven, the Comics of Hell: The Graphic Novel in America — Stuart Moore on Graphic Novels … ‘It’s easy to see why writers champion the graphic novel. It’s very liberating to be able to craft a lengthy narrative and let the tension points fall where they may, instead of having to break the flow every 22 pages. But there are two reasons why the graphic novel format hasn’t taken over, despite some pretty zealous proponents. The first drawback is visibility. This is more of a problem for the artist than for the writer, because generally speaking, comics take a lot longer to draw than they take to write. That means that, for some artists, doing a stand-alone graphic novel can take them out of the marketplace entirely for six months to a year. […] The other problem is stickier: economics…’
4 November 2003
[history] At home with the Führer — nice summary from Simon Waldman about what happened when he posted a Hello-type article on Hitler from 1938 to his weblog … ‘As a result of this casual browse through an old magazine, I have struck up a friendship with an amateur historian in Louisiana, been involved in a copyright tussle with the UK’s biggest magazine publisher, been branded a Nazi sympathiser, been written about in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune and the Jerusalem Post, and become the subject of a petition from 60 Holocaust scholars as well as protests from David Irving.’
3 November 2003
[comics] The Superhero as House Guest — a profile of Alex Ross who is living the fanboy dream [thanks Kabir] …
‘To see the really cool stuff, you have to sneak into the room above the garage, which Mr. Ross calls “my fortress of solitude of collectibles.” Two lifelike figures — a 6-foot-3 Superman and a 6-foot-2 Batman sculptured in wax, resin and fiberglass by a British artist, Mike Hill — dominate the room. Action figures including one-of-a-kind pieces bought on eBay and cheap mass-produced fast-food favors are arranged museum-style in vitrines on every wall. A small jointed wooden Superman from 1939, bought for a song at a toy show, has its own shelf.’ 2 November 2003
[data] World Drowning in Oceans of Data — BBC News reports on a estimate of the vast amounts of raw data being generated worldwide … ‘US researchers estimate that every year 800MB of information is produced for every person on the planet. Their study found that information stored on paper, film, magnetic and optical disks has doubled since 1999.’
1 November 2003
[fim] Alien: the Director’s Cut — a review of the re-released sci-fi horror film …
‘It is a genuinely frightening movie which makes splatterfests like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre look juvenile. With style and intelligence, Scott absorbs the influences of Kubrick and Spielberg, together with movies like Westworld and The Stepford Wives, but makes a movie quite distinct from any of these. He puts together a white-knuckle intergalactic ride of tension and fear, which is also an essay on the hell of other people, the vulnerability of our bodies, and the idea of space as a limitless new extension of human paranoia. Alien also functions as a nightmare-parody of the Apollo 11 moon-landing, which had happened just 10 years previously, with all its earnest optimism about human endeavour. And perhaps most stunningly of all, this new version of the movie reveals how it works as a conspiracy satire about state-corporate complicity in manufacturing biological weapons of mass destruction.’ 31 October 2003
[redrum] 100 Greatest Scary Moments — Channel 4 were wrong. This is the greatest Scary Moment…
Come and play with us, Danny …for ever, and ever, and ever. Shining Script: ‘On another of his exploratory bike rides as he comes around a corner in his inexorable progression, Danny is petrified when he confronts the two undead girls at the end of a hallway blocking his way. In unison, they beckon to him in metallic, other-worldly voices with an invitation: “Hello Danny, Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny.” For an instant, Danny is horrified to “see” another slide-show flash with horrific images of the carnage of past murders – the two mutilated girls lie in large pools of blood in a blood-splattered hallway, with an oversized axe lying on the floor in front of them. And then they add as they appear to get closer: “…for ever, and ever, and ever.” He covers his eyes to shut out the deathly apparitions. As he slowly uncovers his eyes, it appears that they have vanished.’ 30 October 2003
[politics] From Tom Watson (a Labour MP) — 40 Things You Did Not Know or had Forgotten about the Probable Next Leader of the Tory Party Michael Howard:
‘Howard sacked Prison Service Director Derek Lewis and then (famously) failed to answer a direct question about it from Jeremy Paxman 14 times on Newsnight.
[politics] Wherever You Are on Oliver Letwin: ‘So that’s my vague attempt at a political justification for loathing him. But really, it’s just because he comes across as such an objectionable, toadying, upper-class prick.’
29 October 2003
[politics] Reporters’ log: IDS faces crunch vote — BBC journalists (kinda, sorta) weblog the downfall of Iain Duncan Smith … ‘I don’t think Ian Duncan Smith is going to be “humiliated”, in the word of choice that so many people were using yesterday. But the lobbies and the corridors are crammed with people who assume already that he is gone and are running and organising campaigns for future conservative leaders – Michael Howard’s people are very active and so are those for David Davis.’
[spam] Spam Pitches Are Mutating Faster — Wired News on the Arms Race between Spammers and Anti-Spammers. ‘…no spammer has yet to fool every Bayesian filter, some tricks work better than others. One recent spam employed a trick that misspelled almost every word in the body, but was still coherent enough to get the gist through. The idea, supposedly uncovered by researchers at Cambridge University, holds that readers can still read long sentences of misspelled words as long as the first and last letters of words are in the correct place. Ironically, the junk e-mail, which included 21 misspellings, was selling diplomas, including master’s degrees and doctorates, both of which were misspelled.’
28 October 2003
[politics] Down in the Snake Pit, the Party Plots — Simon Hoggart on the Conservative Party Leadership Battle … ‘Gerald Kaufman arrived and sat alone. What a tragedy: possibly the finest all-pro plotter in the place, and stuck in the wrong party! Then in came IDS himself. He smiled up at the sketch writers, and was right to do so, since we want him to stay on. He’s more fun than any of his successors might be.’ [Related: Hoggart on Byliner]
[movies] Scarface Soundboard … ‘You Wanna Fuck With Me? Okay. You Wanna Play Rough? Okay. Say Hello to my Little Friend!’
27 October 2003
[confession] Grouphug.us — I feel guilty about continually reloading this site …
I like my girlfriend, but I’m dying to go date other girls. I know I could do a lot better than her.
[comics] Operation: Get Your War On — interview with David Rees (creator of GYWO) … ‘At that time my web host said I owed them tons of money, and I was considering abandoning my site. I had to go out of town and, hoping not to think about that situation or the strip, my girlfriend called me and said, “I know you don’t want to hear about this, but the Village Voice is trying to get a hold of you; they want to run your strip.” Then my friend, who was monitoring the website hits, told me that the site was getting five million a week. It got really crazy.’ [thanks Stuart]
25 October 2003
[film] You Do Have To Be Mad To Work Here — review of Mike Judge’s film comedy Office Space … ‘Everyone who’s ever worked for a corporation will feel the chill of recognition: “Hawaiian Shirt Fridays”, miserable gatherings where the whole office mournfully sings Happy Birthday to a boss they despise, parking space wars, vanity license plates, traffic snarls, ID cards, swipe-cards, moronic corporate pep-rallies, performance evaluations, receptionists who bleat the same company phone-greeting hundreds of times a day, temp wage-slavery, credit-theft, blame-delegation, and the upwards redistribution of all initiative and decision-making power.’ [Related: Office Space Soundboard]
24 October 2003
[comics] Philip Pullman interviews Art Spiegelman at the ICA on the 4th. November …. ‘Best known for the Holocaust narrative, Maus, Spiegelman is also co-founder and editor of the avant-garde comics magazine, RAW, and edits Little Lit, a series of comics anthologies for children. He is currently working on an opera, Drawn to Death about the history of comics, and has recently published a series In the Shadow of No Towers in several papers and magazines.’
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