Bookmarks for September 24th through September 29th
Sep0
Links for September 24th through September 29th:
- World-Mysteries.com – How does the Piri Reis of 1513 so accurately depict the land underneath the ice of Antartica?
- Would this advert stop you filesharing? | Music | guardian.co.uk – Filesharing from the point of view of a yet to make it big welsh post-hardcore band.
Their album got leaked and the frontman wrote a blog about it in April. He was quite pissed off.I've had that album on rotation on Spotify in the last few weeks, might be enough to push me over and buy it.
This seems to be my modus operandi at the moment – find Spotify playlists of drownedinsound or similar, listen through them, add albums that include the tracks I like to a separate playlist, listen to that and then if I like it, i'll buy the CD.
- The Dataphiles: Machine Learning Protest at G20 – lol
- Matthew McConaughey Cannot Stand Up By Himself (PICTURES) –
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
Popjustice – “Let’s Sort out this Filesharing Thing”
Sep0
FIVE SOLUTIONS, ONE OF THEM’S BOUND TO WORK:
3. One minute’s community service for every one minute of illegally downloaded music. Good upshot of this is that it could mean the end of ‘the album interlude’, because people aren’t going to risk having to get up to their elbows in excrement in some mad old bat’s back garden for the sake of 60 seconds of Eminem pretending to have an argument with someone from his record label
.
Lily Allen / 50 Cent / Music Piracy
Sep0
There’s been a thing blowing up the last few days that’s been a little odd and got quite out of proportion.
Basically Lily Allen was commenting on something 50 Cent said about how for him piracy is a way of getting fans to go to concerts, clothes, etc and he’s accepted that people will steal his music. Lily’s point I think is that that’s fine for an established platinum artists like him but what about those who haven’t quite made it yet. She’s been saying this for a while and at most opportunities – Mandelson wanting to cut off connections of pirates (is that really the appropriate term, another story there I think), an artists coalition against piracy, whenever Radiohead talk about stuff…
I think that Lily has just not quite got her point across in the way she wanted to and didn’t go about linking to articles properly.
Then boingboing weighed in (usually my favourite blog, but goes a little heavy on copyright issues I think) saying for one complaining so hard about piracy she’s using scans from papers and copy/pastes of other people’s work.
The upshot of which Lily has reponded by closing down her blog. Which I think is a shame, not least of which because it means her article gets deleted off the net. It’s kind of a dummy spitting reaction really and I hope she’ll reconsider rather than deciding to pass the debate on to other artists to continue.
Music downloads means that it can be consumed on merit rather than what gets pushed to us, but it does also mean that those who can’t afford to have their material consumed in what’s becoming the mainstream method will lose out, will go broke and not make their music anymore, leaving only those that made their money before the download thing took off. Maybe this is just the process we actually need to happen to sort the mess out, it’ll hurt for a while and the music will suffer but maybe on the other side it’ll be much easier for everyone.
So for reference here it is:
It’s Not Alright: 50 Cent
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2009
50 Cent
50 Cent: Piracy Is A Part Of The Marketing
from the they-end-up-at-the-concert dept
Famed rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) was apparently on CNBC recently talking about his “business acumen.” I have to admit that having three different people all trying to interview him at once is rather annoying — as they almost never let him complete a thought. However, when they ask him about piracy, and whether or not it makes him angry (around 2 minutes), he responds that: he sees it as a part of the marketing of a musician, because “the people who didn’t purchase the material, they end up at the concert.” He says that people can fall in love with the music either way, and then they’ll go to concerts. He notes that you can’t stop piracy either way, so why try to fight it? He also talks about other business opportunities for musicians.this is particularly selfish in my view, he seems to only be thinking of how piracy effects him. What about the guys that work in the studio and the kids that run around town putting his posters up,the people that designed his artwork, the people that run his website. Is he giving them a cut of his live fee?
POSTED BY LILY ROSE ALLEN AT 3:29 PM
I’m not sure I believe the story that she’s quitting the business.
Bookmarks for September 14th through September 23rd
Sep0
Links for September 14th through September 23rd:
- Our online lives slowly leak away –
- CCTV shows bus crashing into Porsche Video – Yahoo! News UK – Just odd, why would the bus driver do that? I understand the overtaking a bus bit, but at that speed? Foot slipped?
- Popjustice: Farewell, Jo Whiley. We’re sort of sorry – Sort of sums up how I feel today listening to Jo Whiley and Edith Bowman's last daytime shows.
I don't mind Edith really, but over the years come to very much dislike Jo Whiley. I dislike the way she tried to present herself as cool and with it and a taste setter but frequently showing that she knows nothing. So annoying.
Of course when your husband's a band manager you just wonder how these people get this kind of influence? Like this article says, I admire her passion and that she's come up through radio and is a broadcaster, rather than an ex-kids TV presenter who just likes music a bit.
'Landfill Indie'. Now it's probably true that 90% of all music from any era is dross, but why does the last 10 years feel more so? - Eleven Things I’d Do If I Ran a News Organization « Mediactive – 7. We would replace certain Orwellian and PR-speakish words and expressions with more neutral, precise language. If someone we interview misused language, we would paraphrase instead of running direct quotes.
9. Our archives would be freely available, with permalinks on every single thing we’ve published as far back as possible, with APIs to help other people use our journalism in ways we haven’t considered ourselves.
10. A core mission of our work would be to help people in the community become informed users of media, not passive consumers — to understand why and how they can do this. We would work with schools and other institutions that recognize the necessity of critical thinking.
- Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store (robinsloan.com) – Lovely story,
Quick thought we have news sites, blog,s galleries & more – but what's the defacto standard way to display a short story online? Is it not a bit ugly just to dump the text on a page? Or should you do that, put a cover image at the top and ereader links – pdf/opf/kindle/pdb?
District 9
Sep0
Very much enjoyed this last night. It’s been a while since i’ve seen an original premise in a Sci-Fi film (although I did miss Moon unfortunately). I’ve enjoyed the promo campaign for it too, recently all promo’s have been quite boring and uninvolved – I actually even looked at the website for this film which for me is rare and it was so involved in the elements from the movie itself rather than simply telling you about who’s in it, when it’s out, etc (yawn).
Of course one of the things that sets the film apart is it has no stars. What? How can a film make money without stars? Well have a story for one.
Space Shuttle
Sep0
Did you know that the UK has an abort landing site for the Space Shuttle? RAF Fairford.
If the Shuttle ever had to land there it might be carted away like this:
Discovery on a 747
Paper Anniversary
Sep0
Kate and I celebrated our One Year wedding anniversary yesterday and I had such a lovely day. It’s been creeping up, the big one-year. The first 10 months or so flew by and then we realised that it had nearly been a year since we got married and of course it slowed down a little!
But it’s been a great year. We’re very settled and content. We wondered what it would be like once we got married and it’s weird but I didn’t think it would be much like this. We wondered what would we do? Would we run out of things to say to eachother? But I can safely report that it’s not actually that different to before – of course it isn’t, why would it be? People worry about such silly things. I think it’s actually better, you don’t have anything to worry about and I think people see you differently as a couple if you’re married and I know that that’s one of those things to say and why should they see you differently and it’s their problem, but you tell the guy on the phone that your wife will be bringing in the car to do the MOT and he’ll understand it differently to if you say that your girlfriend is – it’ll be why isn’t he doing it himself? People frame things differently, shared possessions, money.
We woke up and gave each other cards that we’d each successfully hidden from the other. I’m not sure but I think Kate had spotted my hiding place but she’d done the fake-out and lead me to believe that she’d not got anything – “oh no I’ll have to make you one on Saturday”. But I was completely surprised when she brought out these massive frames she’d bought and had carried all the way home. She’d been saying her arms hurt the day before and now I know why. I stuck with tradition and went with paper tickets to go see Biffy Clyro at the Apollo in November, which handily is just before her birthday (but there may some fixture clash with Wales playing Rugby, but i’m sure we can find a pub with a screen beforehand).
I’d been unsure as to what to do for the day and read somewhere that it’s a good idea for your first anniversary to be low key so we stayed in and caught up on some of our favourite programmes (we’re both obsessed with The Sopranos at the moment). Kate’s parents were on the way down from her sister’s in Scotland so they came by at lunchtime while we listened to the noise from all around of the Manchester Derby going on and then later Kate and I went up to Pilton for a nice meal out and a movie (what we call Dinema).
There being a few films at the moment we’re keen to see I’d been wondering which was appropriate to see we talked to a friend last week who said that (500) Days of Summer might not be appropriate but we went for it, and you know what? I thought it was completely appropriate. The films saying that when you know, you just know and I agree completely with that. The clever thing about the film was that the protagonist just didn’t realise that she didn’t know. Hey everyone’s been jilted, hurt and not clicked with someone, just because there might be a spark doesn’t means it’s it – both people are involved and have to feel the same way. You might say that sometimes Men are just too self-obsessed to be able to see what’s actually going on and that might be true, but I also feel that sometimes people don’t communicate enough, they don’t reveal what’s actually going on with things and that can cause a breakdown that may never have needed to happen. There was a good soundtrack (lot’s of British Indie) and a powerful visual style – I love it when music video directors start making films as they a very good at little motifs.
The other point we talked about afterwards is how people talk about fate and destiny and ‘the one’. Kate made the connection between it and how Richard Dawkins describes life on earth only seeming to be too good to be true with a 1 in a Billion chance, hey here’s the living proof of that chance. If we hadn’t both studied in Manchester, if Kate hadn’t met Ben who convinced her to do a Radio Show with him. If I hadn’t sat in on their show if we both didn’t already have tickets to see the Beta Band the next month. Lot’s of small chances any of which could easily have not had happened and we’d never even have met.
Bookmarks for September 3rd through September 11th
Sep0
Links for September 3rd through September 11th:
- Just How Good is the "New" Hubble? Let’s Compare | Universe Today –
- Last Exit to Nowhere – I hardly ever want clothes, but I do want this.
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- Mike Davidson – The Amazing Color Photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii – woah, colour photography – in 1911!
Essentially, three separate shots are taken, each with a different color filter over the lens: one red, one blue, and one green. The shots are then composited to form incredibly lifelike color portraits. - Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review – Ars Technica – There are no other reviews of a new OS X release other than John Siracusa's worth reading. You can if you want. But he will have covered it. *tech stuff inside*
Alan Turing
Sep0
When I signed this petition I didn’t actually think that the Prime Minister would respond. As the petition’s originator said, it wasn’t really about that it was about getting recognition in the public’s eye about what Alan Turing did and the sad story of how he ended his life.
Some years ago I read his biography by Andrew Hodges this was at the height of my fascination with Enigma and how it was broken.
His contribution is worth recognising, the University of Manchester recently named a building after him, there is the Alan Turing Way that passes by the City of Manchester stadium and there is the fantastic statue in Whitworth Gardens, between the Gay Village and the North Campus of the University (which I and many others will always call UMIST).
Government response to petition ‘turing’ Inbox X
Reply
from 10 Downing Street
to e-petition signatories
date 11 September 2009 10:33
subject Government response to petition ‘turing’
mailed-by petitions.pm.gov.uk
hide details 10:33 (11 minutes ago)
Thank you for signing this petition. The Prime Minister has written a
response. Please read below.Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for
Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who
came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred
in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British
experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to
honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which
have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take
up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am
both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists,
historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and
celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on
breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that,
without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could
well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that
he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross
indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he
was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical
castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own
life just two years later.Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing
and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt
with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his
treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance
to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted
under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more
lived in fear of conviction.I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this
government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT
community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long
overdue.But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to
humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united,
democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once
the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in
living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by
anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices
– that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European
landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls
which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is
thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism,
people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war
are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely
thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved
so much better.Gordon Brown
If you would like to help preserve Alan Turing’s memory for future
generations, please donate here: http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/Petition information – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/
Radio News
Sep0
There’s a few big stories in Radio at the moment, Terry Wogan’s retirement, Steve Lamacq leaving Radio 1 and the numerous other shuffles at Radio 1 and also Chris Moyles breaking Tony Blackburn’s record as the longest serving Radio 1 breakfast host.
I hold Radio quite close to my heart I think sometimes in an alternate universe I would have gone for it as my career. It’s a fascinating thing and I do miss doing it a lot. Making jingles, listening out for music that would be an interesting bed, dreaming up features… But I digress.
I was wondering about the near future at BBC radio and what it might have in store. There’s a lot of talk of Radio 1′s audience being ‘too old’, same with Radio 2. I like to listen to 6Music a lot but at the moment there’s not much to draw me to Radio 2. Which makes me wonder ‘what if?’. What if Chris Moyles moved to Radio 2? Ideally a talk show would suit him I think – don’t let the music get in the way or 2 songs every half hour or so.
Could he follow Simon Mayo to Five Live (Mayo being an ex-Radio 1 breakfast host), or become a Howard Stern kind of figure on his own commercial station?
It seems likely that Mayo himself will fill the gap left by Chris Evans on Radio 2 which makes good sense seeing as he didn’t want to move to Manchester with the rest of Radio 5 – but what will become of the Film slot on Fridays with Mark Kermode (who himself would probably be fine with the move to Manchester having graduated from it’s university), that would be sorely missed if cut.
Who knows really. I’m sure it’ll all work out, probably Chris Moyles will do another 5 years on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and then replaced by Fearne Cotton or someone and i’ll know it’s time to move on.