[LMG]LMG RSS Feed 
[Search][Projects]A Moment Of MooreMe and Belle de Jour TimeMachineGo Evening Standard Headline Pictures [UK Bloggers]
London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 20 August 2002
19 August 2002
[lmg] An RSS Feed of LinkMachineGo is available here.
[blogs] Living in the Blog-osphere — Steven Levy on weblogs. ‘…most coverage of the so-called Blog-osphere (the name given to the collective alternate universe consisting of all active Weblogs) seems to focus on A-listers like pundit Andrew Sullivan, gadfly Mickey Kaus or former MTV veejay Adam Curry. Even the various computer-generated lists that purport to probe what’s happening on Planet Blog don’t go beyond the 10,000 or so most popular ones, rated by the numbers of links to and from the various sites. But the bigger story is what’s happening on the 490,000-plus Weblogs that few people see: they make up the vast dark matter of the Blog-osphere, and portend a future where blogs behave like such previous breakthroughs as desktop publishing, presentation software and instant messaging, and become a nonremarkable part of our lives.’ [via Scripting News]
[books] Meet the Parent — interview / profile of Tony Parsons. ‘…Man and Boy seems unstoppable – it does that very rare thing, it reaches people who don’t normally buy books. The trouble is that when Parsons talks about it, there is no glimmer of the vision thing – he sounds almost like Jeffrey Archer, harping on about his sales figures. So, back to my original suspicion. Did he sit down one day and see the Nick Hornby bandwagon rolling past and think ‘I’ll have some of that’? Did he decide, cynically, hackily, to switch from smartarse to sensitive?’
18 August 2002
[war] The Search for Osama bin Laden … ‘CIA officials have highly reliable reports that al-Qaeda’s leader managed to cross into northwest Pakistan and is hiding in or near the city of Peshawar, where he commands the loyalty of local tribes and is protected by thousands of armed men. Bin Laden has managed to elude capture by one of the largest concentrations of special-operations forces, airpower and satellite surveillance ever mustered. Blunders at the U.S. command level, lack of coordination between coalition partners, poor intelligence and the unreliability or outright treachery of local allies have contributed to the failure, which now threatens to unleash civil war in Pakistan as al-Qaeda gears up for another attack on the United States.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
[tv] 24 Dreaming … ‘Right now, prawns are plotting to send love letters to a loud albino. My window and leg are raging, and salads that I work with may be rudimentary. I’m Federal Agent Jack Bauer, and this is the most minty surfboard of my life.’ [via Sore Eyes]
17 August 2002
[mobiles] Cell Biology — the Washington Post on mobiles phones and swarming … ‘The very fabric of their time has softened. Remember arranging to meet at a specific time, like 8 p.m., at a specific location, like Connecticut and K? Forget it. The new hallmark of squishy lives involves vaguely agreeing to meet after work, and then working out the details on the fly. A time-softened meeting starts with a call that says, “I’m 15 minutes away.” It’s no longer unforgivable to be late, as long as you’re in contact.’
[tv] The Long Day Closes — Media Guardian on 24 as the last episode is screened on BBC2 tomorrow … ‘To say that Jack Bauer has been having a bad day is like dismissing the second world war as a little local difficulty.’
16 August 2002
[war] Mock Cyberwar fails to end Mock Civilization … ‘We’ve seen cities immobilized for days by natural events like blizzards, the severest of which are often accompanied by power and communications breakdowns, financial inconveniences and failures of emergency response teams to function, and yet life goes on. Human beings simply aren’t as fragile and narcotically-dependent on state authority as the government desperately desires them to be. We shift for ourselves rather well for moderate periods of time when the infrastructure of state paternalism lets us down and the life-giving commercial heartbeat flatlines. People are remarkably good at solving problems, both individually and in small ad-hoc groups. Thus we survive earthquakes, floods, blizzards, depressions, epidemics, hurricaines, foreign occupations, famines, plagues, slavery, volcanic eruptions, sustained V-1 and V-2 bombing campaigns, and the like. If we couldn’t, we wouldn’t be here now.’
[blogs] You’ve got Blog — another ancient article (2000, from the New Yorker) about blogging … ‘Because the main audience for blogs is other bloggers blogging etiquette requires that, if someone blogs your blog, you blog his blog back. Reading blogs can feel a lot like listening in on a conversation among a group of friends who all know each other really well. Blogging, it turns out, is the CB radio of the Dave Eggers generation.’ [via plasticbag.org again]
[memo] This Afternoons Events in the Restroom — a classic email from Internal Memos … ‘I understand from some of you that my recent indecency related arrest in Thailand seems to have clouded your judgement to illegal acts. Let me warn you that I am innocent and will prove so soon. This does not mean the office is a free for all.’ [via Haddock]
15 August 2002
[blogs] Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Man — old (2000) profile of Jorn Barger … ‘…Barger felt something was missing — a context for his postings, some frame of reference that would fill in the contours of his Net persona, now badly fragmented across the boundaries of his various newsgroups. His Web log, in the end, was born to fill that need. It was conceived less as the quality news digest it has become (frequented by thousands of the Net’s most knowledgeable) than as a portrait of Jorn Barger, rendered in the medium of his own daily, unexpurgated curiosities. ‘ [kinda via plasticbag.org]
[books] Pullman Lays Down Moral Challenge for Writers — Philip Pullman discusses morality. ‘…his real bugbear was with the “propensity of human nature” to use politics or religion to set up one unquestionable truth – “it could be the Bible, it could be the Communist Manifesto” – and to then knock down all that went against it. “This is what I am against. Not Christianity, but every religion and fundamental organisation where there is one truth and they will kill you if you don’t believe it.”‘
14 August 2002
[blogs] Tom reconstructs We’ve Got Blog … ‘If you were interested in reading – but uninterested in paying for – the collection of articles printed in the book We’ve got blog (which includes an introduction by the esteemed Rebecca Blood), you may be surprised to realise that almost all of the pieces within it are freely available on the interweb. And don’t worry – most of them are just as interesting online as they are squirted onto paper.’ [Related: We’ve Got Blog]
[911] The Mystery of Flight 93 — The Independent’s view on the unanswered questions and conspriracy theories surfacing about Flight 93 … ‘Everything is speculation — that is the problem with the story of Flight 93. And unless the US government reveals more of what it knows, provides a detailed account of the last 10 minutes in the life of Flight 93 and the 44 people who were aboard, there will not only be scope but sound reasons for the conspiracy theorists to continue to speculate as to what really happened in those last few minutes before the plane plunged into the earth; to cast doubts on the soft-focus legend that the traumatised American public has seized upon so gratefully.’ [Related: Mefi on Flight 93]
13 August 2002
[lizards] David Icke’s Media … ‘I do read the Daily Mail, because its politics stink. In fact, so much so that I have to read it at arm’s length with a peg on my nose.’
[comics] This is Information — a page from Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s 911 Tribute comic-strip …
 ‘This is what Entropy looks like. Not much Energy. Not much information. The Kinetic Energy bound up inside the structure is released with its collapse, a single Pulverising Burst. Complex information is reduced to dull simplicity. Rubble, for example contains little information it all looks the same. This could be London, New York, Baghdad, Belfast, or Kabul. Or Anywhere.’ 12 August 2002
[bb3] The voice of Big Brother — interview with the narrator of BB3 … ‘”Chickens.” It is quite a thrill. Say it again, I ask. “Chickens.” For some reason, this pleases me no end. As an added bonus, he continues in familiar Geordie tones: “Day 44 in the Big Brother house.” I clap my hands. I am having a conversation with the voice of Big Brother. And I can see his lips move.’
[comics] Comic-Book Confidential — Mark Millar dishes up loads of gossip about comics … Now I wonder who… ‘The freelancer who indulged in a little cyber-sex with a reader (the transcript of which is now doing the rounds in the female comics community).’ is?
11 August 2002
[food] Grease is the Word — Nigel Slater makes Elvis Presley’s Fried-Peanut-Butter-and-Banana Sandwich … ‘I have known about this sandwich for years but felt that, along with deep-fried Mars bars, monkey brains and fugu fish, this was territory that I did not wish to explore. The fact that the peanut butter was sometimes mixed with strawberry jam, and that the whole heart-stopping snack was then fried in butter, put the seal on it. Still, what the hell. It can’t kill me. So here I am, standing in the kitchen, debating whether this legendary recipe really is the crack cocaine of the sandwich world, and whether I am going to get out of this alive. I so want to just say no, but I like bananas, have a sneaky fondness for white sliced bread, and absolutely adore peanut butter.’
10 August 2002
[blogs] How we’re spending our time at Pyra — what’s happening with Blogger … ‘Sometime later this month, the first public, large-scale, non-Pyra-run installation of Blogger will go live.’
[comics] Moore Morality — Dylan Horrocks on Alan Moore. ‘…he’d taken all his own grief and the lessons he’d learnt from it and had distilled them into this crazy little comic about superheroes and interdimensional travel. He’d given us a gift, carefully copied from the scars on his own heart. That’s what I mean when I say that what really makes Alan Moore’s work special is its morality. His work is pure and sincere. And utterly, deeply humane.’
9 August 2002
[comics] Censorship of The Authority — Panel by Panel analysis of censorship in the Wildstorm / DC Comic … ‘At left, a selection from the bottom panel of page 6 from The Authority #27 as it was printed. At right, the same area of page 6 as Arthur Adams originally drew it. Note the nipple in Adams’s original.’ [via Boing Boing]
[net.love] The Bot who Loved Me — just how low can internet marketing schemes go? … ‘Perhaps the most extreme is the Crush007 site. Based in Malaysia, it sends a fake crush e-mail to an unsuspecting stooge. The site then goads the sucker to reveal all kinds of personal facts, including “how many times does she/he masturbate a week?” and “names of his/her biggest crush.” The homepage makes no secret about its motives: “We have developed this website just to help you find out who your friend’s crushes are, and also not to mention, their biggest, most well kept secrets.” Fear for the dorkiest kid in the class, thrilled that someone actually has a crush on him, who is about to be the victim of an Internet humiliation machine.’
8 August 2002
[cartoon] Steve Bell on Saddam and Gaddaffi … ‘If you wanna get ahead get a hat like Tommy Cooper.’
[life] Why Me? — A psychologist tells why he is sick of self-pitying patients … ‘Everywhere we look, our culture is sending us the message that if we comply, we will be spared anguish. I have bad news. A brief study of history shows that we have put ourselves behind the cosmic eight ball. Mass extinctions, the growth and contractions of empires, sudden evolutionary leaps, even our children’s growth spurts, all show the same thing: If you live on this planet, you will experience periods of calm broken up by periods of intense crisis and radical change. No life is spared.’
7 August 2002
[terrorism] How to make a Dirty Bomb — Jon Ronson attempts to make a Nuclear Weapon … ‘The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists writes: “Producing either uranium-235 or plutonium-239 in the quantities needed to make nuclear weapons is extraordinarily difficult and expensive. [Nuclear-bomb makers] must be prepared to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions.” I consequently downgrade my ambition to building a dirty bomb – a conventional bomb mixed with radioactive material – instead. I am a novice in this matter. Not only is my knowledge of the necessary physics sketchy at best (I got 9% in my mock physics O-level) but my resources are extremely limited. The Guardian has told me not to go crazy with the expenses. I don’t even have a garage or a basement; those things are pricey in north London.’ [via Sashinka]
6 August 2002
[war] One Hell of a Big Bang — Studs Terkel interviews Paul Tibbets the man who piloted the Enola Gay …
‘ST: One last thing, when you hear people say, “Let’s nuke ’em,” “Let’s nuke these people,” [al-Qaeda] what do you think?
[comics] Punching Holes Through Time — absolutely fab Sequential Tart interview with Grant Morrison. It’s so good, I can’t decide on a quote so you’re getting three …
At an important time in my life, between the ages of 12 and 19, I was practically autistic at home. I had a lot of fun at a boys school during the day but evenings were grim beyond Morrissey’s most rueful yodellings, spent huddled in our flat above the Finefare, drawing my own homemade comic books and writing fantasy novels with cock in hand (see Flex Mentallo #3 ). |
