Year: 2005

• Together in electric dreams: statistical analysis used to determine hit songs
  “From unsigned acts dreaming in their garage, to multinationals such as Sony and Universal, everyone is clandestinely using a new and controversial technology to gain an edge on their competitors.”
• Mind Hacks: Review in The Guardian
  Mr Webb’s book gets a glowing review / regurgitation of the press release in Guardian Review. The book remains highly recommended!

• All of the net, all of the time… Warning – I’m about to be really scathing about this…
  Could this article on wifi access in bars and cafes be the most tedious article ever written by a human being?

• Pitchfork’s had an interesting redesign that pushes it widescreen and almost unbrands itself – pushing enormous amounts of content onto the homepage
  As ever with these things, you wonder if the obscurantism is partly intentional to make the brand zinelike or hipster. Quite beautiful, but maybe more suitable for a weblog layout?
• Foot-based mobile interaction with games
  Intriguing one this, and really up there in the embodied interaction stakes I guess. Putting bits of yourself into the game. Blurring digital and real. Intriguing.
• Creating and Marketing Your Own Podcast in 4 Hours..! What do Heineken and the BBC know that you might not?
  Really funny! Found via an Adword on Google. Now you too can set up your own podcast with help from our free video and opt-in newsletter! Or – I guess – you could read the page on Wikipedia instead…
• Big news of the day is Technorati’s new implementation of tags and hooks into del.icio.us and Flickr
  Don’t know what I think about this one yet – haven’t quite digested it. I think its success basically depends on SixApart moving towards something like a default tagging rather than categories interface for MT…
• Body-drawing communicator for distant partners
  And my point is: if this is the kind of thing that Media Lab Europe spent all their time on, is it really any wonder that they’ve had to shut down…
• Media Lab Europe to close
  “I imagine it’s similar to the atomosphere that the MIT Media Lab had at its inception: tons of space, enthusiastic students and an experimental attidude that assumes nothing is impossible.”
• The Independent pisses me off in two ways, first by writing something dumb about weblogs as online journals and secondly by suggesting I pay to read it…
  Twits. Anyway, I’ll say this again – a weblog is not publishing. Or at least, publishing and journal writing may be loss-leader, but the end result is weblog as communicative medium in public space…
• Composite image of the surface of Titan from Huygens’ descent to the moon
  At first glance it really does look like a coastline and some form of liquid sea. I love this stuff. I was gutted when the Beagle 2 failed. Totally gutted.
• A coloured image of the surface of Titan
  I don’t really understand this stuff – I don’t really see why you couldn’t take a colour photo. Surely people on earth want to see what it would be like to experience Titan directly?
• Paul Mison on the iPod Shuffle’s apparent disregard for podcasting
  Highly entertaining rant which I thoroughly agree with (except for the characterisation of amateur media as always shit)

• Clearing up confusion about the Mac mini…
  “Yes, it will boot headless, meaning with no display or video device connected, enabling you to have what I like to call an iServe.”
  (categories: mac apple macmini design computer computing server desktop commercial business technology)
• Apple’s Tipping Point: Macs for the Masses
  “The Sweet Spot. Until January 2005, Apple had no iPod or PC products that served the mass market. With the launch of iPod Shuffle and Mac mini they have finally converged two product paths with the mass market in mind. This will not only drive more iPod
  (categories: apple product productdesign marketing market business sweetspot infographics design elegant technology computers computer desktop small macmini)

I’ve been getting more hassle online for being gay in the last month or so than I think I’ve had in the preceeding couple of years. Mostly I’m deleting the nasty ones, arguing with the clumsy ones and ridiculing the stupid ones, but it’s starting to get me down a bit. Core problem spot at the moment is some idiot whose IP originates inside Manchester City Council who has been posting on this post: On Belle de Jour (he really should check out his employers discrimination guidelines). But also I’ve had the arguments about my hypothetical business card, been called a faggot a lot by American teenagers and just this morning found another happy little deposit from some idiot on my last Supplementary links post. It’s all so bloody depressing… I thought we’d started to move on from this…

• Awesome bizarre beautiful Java animation that you need to watch immediately (thanks Mr Webb)
  The rules are simple, each time a ball reaches a branching point it divides. When the paths converge and two balls hit, they cancel each other out…
• Harry says sorry for Nazi costume
  Oh Jesus Christ… As if people weren’t nervous enough about ultra-rich establishment types being a bit on the right-wing side…
• Awesome piece of iPod-related black surrealist British comedy by Arnando Ianucci
  Excepting the new series of Monkey Dust which sucks a bit, British comedy seems to have recently taken a real turn for the better. If by better you mean awesomely weird…
• Alice reposts some intriguing stats about users of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games
  Basically everyone gives up telly and hangs around online with their mates (quite right)…

• So yeah the Mac Mini is nice and all, but have you seen the size of the power supply!?
  I want a Mac Mini. It would make emigrating much much easier in the future…
• Vote for me as Best British Poof in the whole fucking world
  Because I am, you know. I’m a god. I’m a golden god.
• Blogger sacked for sounding off
  For God’s sake of course you get fired if you publically refer to your employer as “Bastardstones” and write rude things about your boss all the bloody time… You have to learn to sublimate your rage! Duh!

• Airclick remote control for your stereo-connected iPod, via Mr Webb
  “AirClick USB is a remote for Mac and PC computers. The receiver module attaches to any available USB port (including hubs) and receives signal from up to 60 feet away.”
• North Korea’s equivalent of Big Brother is entitled “Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle”
  The BBC doesn’t really have that many equivalents any more, but the rest of the UK media really does – How Clean is Your House? Too Posh to Wash?
• My first ever post to Usenet, back in June 1995
  This is back when I was trying to plough my way through a doctorate in Classics, before I threw it all away and ran off to the big city to make beautiful web things
• Winners of the “I Look Like My Dog” Contest
  There’s not an awful lot more you can say about this. They do indeed look like their dogs. In turn I think I’m started to look more like my Powerbook.
• ISAN (International Standard Audiovisual Number)
  “The ISAN identifies works, not publications or broadcasts. The ISAN remains the same for an audiovisual work regardless of the various formats in which the work is distributed (e.g. DVD, video recording) or the uses to which it is put.”