The Wrath Of Blog

My God...

2008-03-19T01:30:00.001Z

Monosyllabic Opinions In Discrete Categories

2008-03-16T19:59:00.002Z

Yay!
Portal (still)
Steve McConnell
Cathy Davey
Audiosurf + 65daysofstatic = bliss
Language Log
Juno
Reaper
Microkorg
Hello Saferide
Steve Pinker
bldg blog
Slashfilm
Cloverfield
Absolute Sandman
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Zeropunctuation
re: your brains
Sound Opinions

Meh...
Watchmen movie
Unexpected Falls
Rainydayz
1408
No Country for Old Men

Bah.
Clearcase
Cargo-cult programming
Clearcase
Dustin
Clearcase
This idiocy, especially when applied to software development

Portal...

2007-10-24T23:41:00.000+01:00

...rocks. The cake is a lie.

Almost forgot...

2007-10-10T20:40:00.001+01:00

...my new job:

Words...

2007-08-28T20:51:00.000+01:00

...fail me.

Darina Allen meets the Aphex Twin

2007-03-28T01:46:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, just sometimes, homemade youtube-ish videos are worth watching:
...like this one.

I'm trying to decide if this is funny or disturbing.

In theaters now: Sentient

2007-02-23T19:38:00.000Z

(Photo by jungle_boy)

…
Mr. Right: Hey man, is he looking at us?
Mr. Left: I think he is, man.
Mr. Right: Is that hairy, knuckledragging, lycanthropic motherfucker looking at us?
…

The Internet vs. the English lanuage...

2007-02-21T00:58:00.000Z

Based on the trailers, 300 is almost certainly going to be an unutterably stupid movie. A guy with a beard yells incoherently at the camera in what I guess is supposed to be a heroic manner. Various people get killed. Scenes keep speeding up and slowing down to let us know that exciting, important and violent things are happening. Heavy metal music blasts through the whole thing, but at random intervals it goes quiet so the bearded guy can pop up to yell "Sparta!" and kick the whole thing off again.

So, almost certainly rubbish then.

But. It has already spawned a piece of great literature. I give you the AICN Sparta review. It's like the real ultimate power guy was allowed write something longer than a list of why ninjas are cool.

Genius.

Once, repentance...

2007-01-31T01:13:00.000Z

I doubted. I repent. The trailer looks good, and the rest of the world seems to agree. If it's as good as people seem to think it is, then I exercise my right to claim I've always been a fan.

Mind you, he's playing a busker. In Dublin. How hard could it be?

Black Holes in the City (and Other Revelations)

2007-01-15T19:10:00.000Z

Firstly. Ticketmaster are utter, utter bastards.

Tickets for Arcade Fire's gig in the Olympia were due to go on sale last Friday at 9am. 8.55am Friday morning found me at Ticketmaster's website with my credit card poised and my mouse-clicking finger outstretched and trembling.

The very second the link to book tickets became active, I pounced. I then spent 40 seconds or so watching one of those wonderfully soothing AJAX loading animations that bear no actual relation to any sort of server-side activity. To be followed by a screen that told me curtly that tickets for this event were no longer available.

Back button. Refresh. Click. Wait.

"Tickets for this event are no longer available. What, you didn't believe me the first time? Now, fuck off and stop wasting my time. I've got Bryan Adams tickets to flog.".

This was 9.03am. No way do a thousand or so tickets sell out in less than 3 minutes.

But, hey, I think. There's a 2nd date. I'll just get tickets for that when they become available. It's mid-week, so maybe there won't be much demand. I wonder when the tickets for the 2nd date become available?

9.15am on Friday apparently. By the time I find this out (2 minutes later), they're sold out too.

WTF?

There are dark mutterings on some corners of the interwebs that Ticketmaster "forgot" to put their usual limits of 4 tickets per person on this sale - blaming a computer glitch. So, apparently, they were being bought by touts in batches of 50 (and there are those that allege that Ticketmaster employees get a cut). Since they're already going for 400 quid on ebay, I'm tempted to believe this.

Bastards. Utter bastards.

The only upside of this is that Neon Bible, the forthcoming Arcade Fire album, sounds like it might be even better than Funeral. Improbable, I know, but based on samples and streams available on their site and the extremely weird (flash heavy) Neon Bible site - they've managed to attract lightning a 2nd time. I might be biased, since they roped in an old church organ for Intervention (unfortunately not used in this rendition) and I'm a huge organ fan. Stop sniggering. And I can't be the only person who thinks that "Black Mirror" (the lead-off single) should have been the title song for the last Bond movie rather than the shapeless grungy mass contributed by Chris Cornell.

Anyhow. My other greatly anticipated album release of 2007 was Bloc Party's Weekend In The City. It's not going to be released for a few weeks, but I...er, encountered it providentially over the weekend and I've had a chance to listen to it a few times.

As before with Silent Alarm, it has all the hallmarks of an album I shouldn't like. It's a concept album based around a lost weekend in London. It aims to capture all that Ok Computer-ish alienation of modern life - but in a much less abstract way. "East London is a vampire/it sucks the life out of me" is a good bit more direct than "Kicking squealing Gucci little piggy". I've never been particularly fond of prosy lyrics. In the wrong mouths they always sound a bit heavy-handed (why yes, I do like my metaphors mixed).

Anyway, so it's a prosy concept album. Also, it's a more "mature" second album. Which, to me, is generally a euphemism for self-indulgent. And, sure enough, there's a string section. And all manner of electronica. And the whole thing is slower, and denser. Half the appeal of Silent Alarm was the stripped back bass/guitar/drums vibe and the frantic pace. I kinda like the wide-eyed innocence of Helicopter and Like Eating Glass. Slower, dense and mature is everything Silent Alarm wasn't.

Lastly, and this one's the kicker, the album is produced by Jacknife Lee - the guy who turned Snow Patrol from brittle buzzy indie losers into lush Coldplay wannabees (although, admittedly vastly more successful). I swear, I just can't see the appeal of Chasing Cars, although it seems to have every Irish radio station in a chokehold.

Well, I was wrong again. Weekend in the City, is a little slower to catch fire than Silent Alarm, but it really does work. It's still Bloc Party, although parts of it reveal just how surprisngly similar they are to Muse in many respects. They share an interest in arpeggiated guitar riffs, fuzzy bass lines, strange time signatures and tremulous vocals. Of course, Muse are barking mad (more about this later) and deeply unfashionable - unlike Bloc Party, who rival Arctic Monkeys for thing-of-the-whileness.

The kickoff track lifts its entire structure, tempo and more than a few riffs from Muse's NewBorn - softened with more textured vocals and better lyrics. The resemblance to NewBorn is uncanny though, verging on lawsuit territory. Apparently the song is inspired by a character in a Bret Easton Ellis book (yay!, literary pretensions). Still, it's very, very catchy and I like the chorus, "our parents suffered for nothing/live the dream/like the 80s never happened/don't be afraid to/merge on the freeway". You gotta admire a band who make lyrics like that sound even remotely poppy.

After that, we get the London bombing song, Hunting for Witches. This is more like it. It's the sister song to Helicopter and starts promisingly enough with "So, I'm sitting on my roof/with a shotgun/and a sixpack of beer". It's even more mechanized than Helicopter with choppy breakbeats and heavily processed guitar. Again, the chorus is puzzlingly catchy given that it revolves around the lines "I was an ordinary man with ordinary desires/I watched TV and it formed me". The more direct lyrics actually work better than the slightly strained lines on Silent Alarm.

The album stays catchy and intense all the way through the middle. The Prayer sounds more like a Kanye West song than anything else (which is no bad thing) and Uniform is another Muse referencing track - epic and weirdly similar in structure to Bohemian Raphsody. It's got about 6 separate sections building to the kind of driving riff that dominated Positive Tension on Silent Alarm. Again, I really like the lyrics. Although, I kinda wonder why someone wrote an epic song about hoodies and teenage goths with lines like, "No-one can be trusted under the age of 14" and "MTV taught me how to sulk and love nothing/And how to grow my hair long". Hilarious stuff.

"On" is Bloc Party's go at David Grey's Babylon. It starts off kinda dubby and soars towards the end. I guess no weekend in the city concept album would be complete without a drugged up Saturday night song. Again with the weird chorus, "You make my tongue loose". Indeed.

After that, things get a bit non-descript. This is probably due to the concept though. After six firey songs building to a drug soaked apex, there has to be a comedown. It's a little bit too close to Snow Bastard Patrol in some places for comfort though.

"Where Is Home?" is a jerky off-key protest song about the plight of 2nd generation immigrants in London. If you squint at it just right, you can kinda make out a fatter version of Radiohead's I Might Have Been Wrong. The lyrics are again bizarre, at one point he laments the fact that he can't break the fingers of judges and cut the feet off of ballerinas. I'm assuming (hoping) that this has some meaning I'm just too stupid to penetrate.

Kreuzberg seems to be about East Berlin in some way (and I'm a little hazy on how this connects to the London theme of the album...). It's kinda Auchtung Baby-ish and floats along pleasantly without making too much of an impression. But, for what it's worth, I have a feeling it might be a bit of a grower.

Then we get to the album's highlight "I Still Remember". It's got a new-wave 80's synth/guitar/bass thing going on which isn't a million miles from Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now (note: this is a good thing). It's insanely catchy. Musically there's an echo of Snow Patrol's Spitting Games in there somewhere too. It even covers similar lyrical ground - a teenage crush. But here it's a same-sex teenage crush. It's strange how startling it is to hear what is essentially the basis for every Ash song ever written - with 2 schoolboys instead of the usual star-crossed hetero lovers. Especially with Bloc Party's way with a lyric "And our love could have soared/Over playgrounds and rooftops/Every park bench screams your name...I kept your tie". I don't know why, but the tie line just gets me. There's a part of me that thinks that this song should be creepy - but it just isn't. Especially since I've heard a million songs sung by guys in their 30s about schoolgirls.

Anyway, after hitting that peak, things meander into full on Snow Patrol territory, but I guess I can forgive them that. They've managed to hold all the things working against the album at bay until track 10. Which is no mean feat, given how much the deck was stacked against them. All-in-all, it's not as energetic as Silent Alarm...but it is a good bit more interesting. Worth waiting for (even though I didn't).

Oh, and before I go. Muse's Black Holes and Other Revelations. Overwrought, bombastic, excessive and completely brilliant. I'm not a huge fan of Muse, but this won me over. It's massively silly and barking mad in places, but it's great. I highly recommend it. Much as I love the Bloc Party album, I've spent most of the last few days listening to this. Knights of Cydonia (horses, laser beams, Martians, trumpets, synths, massive riffing, choirs and christ knows what else) is the most ridiculously stupid thing I've heard in ages. And yet I keep hitting repeat...

Eiffel Showers

2006-12-15T00:30:00.000Z

So another of Oonagh's hats chose to visit Paris for a weekend and we accompanied it to take pictures of it in front of famous landmarks. Given the slightly soggy weather, the hat was in its element. Given my lack of familiarity with even the basics of digital photography, or - for that matter - taste, the pictures are woeful. Because they were so blurry, it was difficult to make out even basic details of people, buildings etc. Sooooo...I got to work with some filters and made them...em..."better".

They are available in all their blurred, processed glory from here. I'm sure if I've screwed up the file permissions, someone will let me know.

The pictures cover: the hotel, Paris by day, La Defense by night, pottery by Picasso, a Dali exhibition in Montmartre, Sacre Coeur, Paris by night and a visit to a local aquarium. There was a whole load of other stuff, but mercifully, I didn't try to take any pictures of it.

I think we agreed that La Defense at night and the Dali exhibition were the high points. The Dali stuff in particular was surprising. His most popular stylistic elements (melting clocks etc.) have been so overexposed - that you tend to forget just how weird his stuff is. And he's become so caricatured (largely, it must admitted, by himself) that I hadn't realised just how technically skilled and ambitious he really was. Picasso's pottery was interesting too, but largely because of its striking resemblance to my own atrocities against ceramics (which I must post pictures of, now that my collection is complete).

As for the rest of Paris. Well it was strikingly pretty. Wet, autumnal, heavily ornamented. We strolled around Tuilieres one evening, and it was hard to escape the feeling that we were trapped in a postcard. The sky was deep pink, darkening to purple. The Eiffel tower was glowing in the distance. Everywhere we looked there were monuments and landmarks. It got a bit...silly. It was all very picturesque, but it didn't feel very real.

So, while we enjoyed it, I think we both agreed that Berlin just felt "better", in some vague indefinable way.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

2006-12-10T14:17:00.000Z

...that is all.

Fun Fact of the day

2006-11-20T22:34:00.000Z

It took me the same amount of time to cover the distance from the checkin desk in Gatwick to the plane, as it took the plane to get from there to Berlin (including the half hour waiting for a takeoff slot).

But at least I was safe in the knowledge that noone on board had more than 1 litre of liquids in containers of 100 millilitres. And that even those were in ziploc baggies where they couldn't hurt me.

Conjugating Like Bunnies

2006-11-08T00:31:00.000Z

Since FilingFrenzy's output is greatly exceeding ours (and is damn funny to boot), I thought it was time to come up with some content. But I couldn't think of anything so here's another post about music...

Since the Frames' disappointing return, I've been casting about for someone else to worship and prosetylise for. Mogwai made a strong case with their recent Mr. Beast album - featuring Acid Food, which is easily the prettiest thing they've ever recorded and reveals an unsuspected talent for country and western miserablism (to add to the epic and brutal miserablism they've done so well in the past). Better yet, they've just released a soundtrack album for the Zidane movie which has all the rambling moodiness they used to be so good at before deciding that no-one wanted to listen to 30 minute tracks of Scotsmen abusing distortion pedals. Happy days.

But then again, lyrics are nice sometimes too. And given that Sigur Ros and Redneck Manifesto are still alive and kicking, the moody instrumental market is fairly crowded. I needed to look further.

So, enter Kate Bush. I've been tentatively poking at Aerial and I can see why she is regarded as a genius. The Pi song has obvious appeal, and King of the Mountain is funky too. The rest of the album is hard work though. I dig bird noises just as much as the next guy, but I have a limit. No doubt it will grow on me, but it never seems to rise very high in my playlist...so that might take quite some time.

Exit Kate Bush.

But, hey. Here comes Damien Rice with a new album. The anti-Glen. Salvation!

Well, not quite. 9 isn't bad. It isn't bad at all. The lead single (9 Crimes) is great. But the rest of it sounds...a bit...well, like Damien Rice. Given the way his live shows were going, with songs like "Woman Like A Man" and "Me, My Yoke, and I", I thought he was going to piss off his record company by releasing a garage rock record. "Me, My Yoke, and I" makes an appearance, as does "Rootless Tree" (which is, for all intents and purposes, "Woman Like A Man, Part 2"), but both fall victim to Rice's increased recording budget. People with better hearing than me have already bitched about the tendency of modern recording methods to squeeze all the life out of music. One of the things I liked about O was the fact that it made full use of the recording's dynamic range. It certainly sounded infinitely better than the over-compressed muck that comprised the last couple of Foo Fighters' albums.

Unfortunately, Rice's record company shelled out for a production job that would make the songs stand out on the radio. So the ferocity of "Rootless Tree" is blunted by the fact that the enthusiastically yelled "Fuck You" chorus is only slightly louder than crooned verses. "Yoke" gets neutered by the same temptations that sunk the last Frames album. The tempo is downshifted from the live versions and the instrument pile-up at the end just sounds messy. The rest of the album sounds a lot like O. Which isn't bad. But I keep forgetting that I'm listening to it so I'm not polishing the altar for this.

Desperation leads me to remember my deeply unfashionable and embarassing taste for pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and Motion City Soundtrack. So, I take a deep breath and sample the delights of Fall Out Boy. Hey, a band named after a Simpson's character can't be all bad. Right?

My ears...the goggles do nothing!

So. Brief spells with the Deftones album (Saturday Night Wrist ...good if you're into screaming and massively textured guitars), Mew's Glass Handed Kites (ever wonder what Sigur Ros would sound like if their singer was even more effeminate and had a taste for prog rock and song titles like "The Saviors of Jazz Ballet"?) and Bjork's Medulla (pure unadulterated Bjorkness: bjork bjork bjork.)...all leave me wondering if there's anything worth worshipping after the Frames. I didn't find any comfort in achingly indie bands like TV on the Radio (too dense) the Thermals (too simple) and Of Montreal (crap, basically).

It's a long wait for the next Arcade Fire album. Too long to spend as a godless heathen.

But there is a band.

One who rose to prominence in the same wave that brought the world the tuneless horror of Franz Ferdinand and the excerable Kaiser Chiefs. A band whose music supposedly fuses dance and rock in a way not seen since the cursed heyday of Primal Scream and the Happy Mondays (both of whom I hate with a passion I usually reserve for things like Republicans and Adam Sandler). A band who were the most hyped band in the U.K. until the Arctic Monkeys left primary school and released an album. A band I seemed genetically predisposed to dislike without ever needing to hear a single note of their music.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Silent Alarm by the Bloc Party which has made a mockery of my carefully honed prejudices. Even with my notoriously truncated attention span, there is not a single track on it I'm tempted to skip. It has even sent me to the dark corners of the internet looking for remixes and b-sides. Remixes!

I could ramble on about how great it is. But there is already plenty of gushing about Silent Alarm on the web. It's taken up permanent residence on my mp3 player alongside my Motion City Soundtrack albums and it more than adequately fills my musical deity needs until Glen finally decides to cheer up.

Rational Shamanism and Mindless Link Propagation

2006-10-17T22:52:00.000+01:00

Having recently reconvened my commune with the deities that govern domestic broadband internet access, I have belatedly discovered the delights of YouTube. Passing over thinly veiled attempts to start viral marketing campaigns, dire video blogs and sub-Jackassian fuckings around with Mentos and Diet Coke - I found items like this condemnation of Cron's pedagogical manner of speaking and this interview with the man I wish was still leader of the free world.

However, more interesting still was video of the ever so reclusive (and ever so God-like) Alan Moore. Admittedly, he's a good bit crazier than even I had imagined. He's also clearly familiar with the recreational use of hallucenogenics. But hey, when you're a hopelessly obscure literary genius, you have to get your kicks somehow.

These collected interviews provide a wealth of information on the man himself, and if you have the stomach for it, I particularly like this examination of the nature of reality and ideas. Which forms an introduction of sorts for his even weightier musings on just about everything, starting with his work on the Ripper murders and spiralling outwards. While it is advantageous to have read From Hell in advance for context (especially at the beginning) it's not strictly neccessary.

If your head isn't quite up to hacking your way through countless pages of philosophical discussion interspersed with gossip about comics, then you probably won't want to read his thoughts on the mechanics of creative writing...

Sod it. Just watch the YouTube videos. These include his appearance on the BBC's Culture Show (where, oddly, he comes across as much more humourless than he does in print) as well as some really dodgy videoes about magic and Northampton that look like they were made for late night channel 4.

Like I said, he does appear to have gone completely mad. But he does it with such style...

Radiodread & Mates of State

2006-10-11T18:11:00.000+01:00

Following in the footsteps of Rodeohead's (slightly tongue in cheek) bluegrass reinterpretation of OK Computer, hard on the heels of the Knockoff String Quartet's version of the same album and breathing down the neck of Christopher O Riley's classical piano homages to Radiohead's indie masterpiece comes...(drumroll, deep breath)

Radiodread!

A song-for-song reinterpretation of Ok Computer done in a reggae stylee. What else?

The really, really sick thing about this is...it seems to work. In fact it works so well, I think I like it. And I don't even like reggae, normally.

That said, I'm basing this opinion on some samples from the album available here. But I defy you to listen to the samples of No Surprises, Exit Music or Climbing Up The Walls - and not at least admit to a piqued curiosity. What's truly weird is that Electioneering seems to have improved in the transition from bad-tempered political rant to Bob Marley style dub anthem.

Also, Mates of State are the greatest thing since sliced bread (or Fountains of Wayne, whichever came first). Imagine the White Stripes crossed with Low and They Might Be Giants...add a smidgen (well, ok...a dollop) of Ben Folds, mix thoroughly with a sprinkle of the Magnetic Fields - and you have a band that is almost scientifically certain to annoy Cron. You can stream entire songs from here(look for the jukebox link). I particularly recommend Parachutes and Whiner's Bio.

Disclaimer:
All opinions expressed above are based on 30 second samples or streams. Your mileage may vary. Stocks may rise as well as fall. Past performance is not an indicator of future returns. Available only with a perscription. Please read all product packaging carefully. If you have or suspect that you have a medical problem, promptly contact your health care provider. Serving suggestion only. Actual height may vary. Action figures and accessories sold separately. Batteries not included. Void where prohibited. If you are reading this in Texas, you have already violated several sodomy statutes. Homeland security officers will be arriving shortly. Have a nice day.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

2006-10-06T15:54:00.000+01:00

Since we already have nerd porn on the page, I thought it might be instructive to see what nerd horror might look like. Look no further than:
http://thedailywtf.com/
...for some truly mind-bending examples of the multifarious ways in which innocent (and not so innocent) information processing systems can be abused.

Particularly amusing are atrocities like the customer-friendly system and the strangely familiar client management module.

There's a good description of VB there too:
VB, much like generic beer and America's Funniest Home Videos is an enabling technology for stupid people. It allows stupid people to do stupid things on scale that they couldn't accomplish on their own. While using VB does not make you a dumb programmer, being a dumb programmer does make VB your weapon of choice. That is unless you really don't know what the fuck you are doing. Then it's PHP all the way.

Filing Frenzy

2006-10-04T17:55:00.000+01:00

It is with great pride (and some fear) that I introduce filingfrenzy, a blog devoted to Oonagh's musings about socks, filing and toes (though not necessarily in that order). Given the massive readership that the Wrath of Blog enjoys, I'm sure she'll be cashing large cheques from AdSense in virtually no time.

Counting the Cost

2006-09-25T16:11:00.000+01:00

So, predictably, Friday found me queueing in HMV with 20 euros clutched in one sweaty hand - and a copy of the Cost being lovingly caressed in the other. This is my 4th Frames related purchase in as many weeks - with the release of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irlgova's downbeat collaboration "The Swell Season", the Frames' own "Falling Slowly" single (precursor to the album), and a pair of tickets to see the band play live in Vicar St. next Sunday. My contributions to Glen Hansard's PRSA continue apace. But am I getting value for my money?

With a relatively short gap between this and Burn The Maps (2004), there is a case to be made that they are almost sister albums - especially considering the age of some of the songs on this record. Glen is quoted as saying that some of the songs written around the Burn The Maps sessions didn't quite fit the mood of the album, and were saved for a future album. Given that the mood of Burn The Maps was unremittingly and claustrophbically dark, I guess I assumed that The Cost would be a "happy" Frames album.

How wrong I was.

1. Song For Someone

Hey! 1.5 seconds into this album and we get our first Radiohead reference. After "drying up in conversation", Glen employs his cranky voice (last heard on Happy, the opening track on BTM) to make anguished appeals to the titular someone he was born to be with. Predictably, this is somone who has already dumped him and shagged off. Actually, this songs compares musically to Happy as well. It's stuck in the same manic depressive tempo, with a dry snare beat playing off some lazy spacey electric guitar. The prechorus is catchy enough, with Glen wrapping his vowels with a blues inflection and the drumbeat beginning to dig in - but he loses it completely on the chorus - stretching the vowels almost into a parody of himself - the echo turned way up to give an epic feel to the whole thing and the violin wailing away in the background. The breakdown harkens back to some of the minor key songs on Fitzcarraldo, before building up into a full band coda, with Glen muttering his way through some muted declarations of passion for...well, someone.

All in all, I'm not impressed. It's not bad enough to condemn the album, but there's a sense that they're just not really trying very hard. This is a small song that cheated its way to epic. It must be annoying to get compared to your back catalogue as much as the Frames do, but this just doesn't have the innocent charm of Your Face or Star Star, nor does it have the epic passion that drives Red Chord or Angel At My Table. It certainly doesn't invite singalongs like previous material. Maybe the Frames don't want to be that kind of band any more, but that doesn't mean they have to throw melody or charm out the window. It sounds lumpen.

2. Falling Slowly

Next up, we have the first single released from the album, Fake. Wait. Wtf? The opening of Falling Slowly lifts an entire section from the closing of Fake - complete with Glen's falsetto. Didn't anyone tell him that he'd already had this idea?

Anyway, this is one of the songs on the album that has appeared in another form, being one of the stronger pieces on the Swell Sweason. Its previous incarnation was marked by sweetly impassioned boy/girl vocals and a soaring chorus. Here it's considerably beefier, with the dynamics heightened by stealing the "Fake" formula. It's cheap, but effective. I didn't really like the single because it seemed overly dramatic, but like Fake, it sits better in an album context. The tempo is still fairly low, but the song surges naturally towards the chorus, helped along by excellent bass work from Joe Doyle (who carries quite a few of the songs on this album). The whole thing gets drenched in melody at the end by the string section, and it works.

All that said, I preferred it on the Swell Season, where the nautical metaphors worked better and the (really rather excellent) lyrics formed part of a larger picture. Anyway, onwards and upwards...

3. People Get Ready

Because if they'd left it off of yet another album, there'd likely have been lynchings. This song has been out and about in Frames-land for years. There are literally dozens of live bootlegs floating around the internet of varying quality. With its "Belfast Child" drumming and old-school Frames-style uplifting chorus, this was the song that confirmed Frames fans in their belief that Glen Hansard was Jesus/Allah/Bono all rolled into one. The knowledge that it was written and arranged, and not released is the sort of thing that makes you fear for the quality of the Frames' decision making apparatus. It seems possible (to me at any rate) that Glen realised that Burn the Maps simply didn't deserve this song. Maybe he didn't know how he was going to do it justice in the studio. It reminds me of Clint Eastwood sitting on the script of "Unforgiven" for 20 years, waiting until he was old enough to play the part of William Munny, and skilled enough to direct it. Every so often, taking it out and reading it, "like a gold watch that I'd take out and look at, then drop back into my pocket - happy in the knowledge that I had something truly beautiful in my keeping."

Well, here it is. It begins just like it does in all those bootlegs, with a bright insistent strum and gentle vocals from Glen. The key to this song is the slow rumbling build. It's pretty hard to fuck it up, but they make a bizarre attempt to do so with a Velvet Underground/Deus style violin scratch loop that prickles through the early build. Luckily, once the song hits its stride (all credit to Joe Doyle's bass again) it's less noticeable.

The climax, when it finally comes, is done perfectly. The band are firing on all cylinders, forcing nothing and surfing on the fine line between melody and dissonance. The thunderously distorted "God-stamps-his-feet" drums manage to kick the whole thing up a notch without making it unbearably heavy (last time I heard drumming like this was on a Sepultura album). Whereas previously, the band would lose focus in their noisier moments and drag things on for a few bars too long (Santa Maria, I'm looking at you), here they stay with the song and the instruments fight with each other under carefully controlled rhythmic conditions. Rob Bochnik's guitar wins and his broken distortion-pedal trails feedback into a Mogwai-style post-climactic breakdown. Very much a win. Can't wait to have my rib-cage interfered with by this song at the gig. Things are beginning to look up.

4. Rise

Wow. I wasn't expecting this. This song has been around even longer than People Get Ready. I vaguely remember hearing this as far back as 1999, so it may even predate the Dance The Devil sessions. Normally performed by Glen solo, it has features his trademark head-snapping switch from brooding menace to outright violence. It's one of those songs where you feel slightly disappointed if he hasn't broken at least 2 or 3 guitar strings in the performance. Like "Trying" from the last album it previously featured as the b-side to a single - produced by Steve Albini. Surprisingly, the Albini version managed to drain it of some its savagery - proving that the Frames are one of the world's most inept or unlucky bands in a studio setting. Again, it's a simple song. A moodily subtle folk strum hijacked about halfway through by a lunatic old testament preacher. How hard can it be?

Well, this time round we get a jazzy (!) piano lick curled around another lazy bass-line with jazzy (!!) brushed dumming and another guitar line lifted from the Fitzcarraldo playbook. Blasphemy! But...it works. Whereas the band squashed the life out of Song For Someone, this time they really add depth. The violin does its faraway ship in the fog thing through the second verse, and when the song breaks, unleashes a dramatic gypsy riff to let the instruments beneath gather volume. The violin then leads a headlong charge through the scales (reminds me a little of Radiohead's Just, or the summit of Fitzcarraldo) while the drummer struggles to catch the frantic pace.

Meanwhile, Glen finally throws his head back and does his time honoured Moses on the mountain thing. And does it very well. Another win. And proof that Glen occasionally needs the band. Hey, this is a pretty good album. I'll just try to ignore the fact that so far all the good songs are old ones.

5. When Your Mind's Made Up

Another refugee from the Swell Season album. With 2 songs on a 10 song album lifted straight from another 10 song album that was released only a few months ago, I'm tempted to accuse Glen of being a bit miserly with his talent. But hey, you don't question ginger deities.

The opening of this song is relatively unchanged from the Swell Season, with a little extra electric fuzziness on the guitar line (which is now noticeably similar to God Bless Mom's arpeggiated lines). This time round, we get some muscular drumming and bass-work, to go with the piano line that seems unchanged. As with most of the songs on Swell Season, it's part of a trawl through the wreckage of a broken relationship. Mood-wise, it's not a million miles from Sideways Down. I guess if I hadn't been previously exposed to the song, I'd be surprised by the prominence of the piano in the chorus. The Eastern-European inflected climax of the original (gypsy violins and whatnot) gets translated into dissonant Pixies style guitar abuse, courtesy of Rob Bochnik. Nice, but just as we're heading for a gleefully psychotic finish, someone uses protools to just drop the song straight into a gentle coda. Wtf? First of all, they've been doing this coda finish thing waaaaaay too often lately. On Burn The Maps; Dream Awake, Sideways Down, Fake, and Keepsake all had versions of this technique. God Bless Mom does it too (live, at least). So do What Happens, Friends And Foe and Headlong. It's all over the Swell Season. So far on this album, People Get Ready and Falling Slowly have done it. There's nothing wrong with it, but it can get a bit predictable. Secondly, with a band this experienced at handling song dynamics, why would you screw with them in the studio? It makes it all sound so...artificial.

Still, it's a pretty good song, and it keeps the band's needle (just barely) in the "worth worshipping" category. Mind you, troublesome times may be ahead with the album's second "new" song coming up...

6. Sad Songs

Or, to give it the full chorus: "Too many sad words make for sad, sad songs." Well, it's good that Glen is self aware. While it isn't quite as black as Burn The Maps, this album deals once again in shades of loss, regret, misdirected passion and all that familiar stuff. Thom Yorke once pointed out that writing harrowingly sad songs was easy, but writing genuinely happy songs requires enormous talent. It's easy to laugh at screamo bands like Linkin Park mining the Nirvana "I hate myself and want to die" seam for all the money that they can get from mildly unhappy teenagers - but at least they're reasonably honest about it. It's easy (for me, at least) to laugh too at the sad-sack me-too mopings of Colplay and Snow Patrol and a million other professional indie depressives - who try to wring every last inch of pathetic melancholy from their (presumably miserable) love-lives for mass market consumption ("I hate myself and I want to cry"). At least the Frames had higher lyrical ambitions - religion, mortality, family, etc. But, on Burn The Maps and this album, things have taken a far more love-lorn, introspective turn. Now, I'm all for Glen rummaging around in his love life for material - it's where we got Angel At My Table and Monument, but it's also where we got Your Face, Star Star and Headlong - which are, on balance, relatively happy songs. Nowadays, it seems, the Frames are venturing into "I hate myself and I want a string section" territory. Not good.

But anyway, this song starts well. The rhythym section is lifted straight from the Stills' Lola (a great song by the way, if you're gonna steal, steal well). Plus, we get this cool alt-country lead from Rob Bochnik. Glen is in a gloomy mood, moaning:
"there's no escape, but there's nothing I want more."
...but he does it well. The phrasing is catchy - and it's one of those songs that linger in your head for ages afterwards. And, for some reason, I'm reminded - in a weirdly good way - of Bon Jovi. I don't know why. Probably because Glen is trying to channel Springsteen and, well, so is Jon Bon Jovi to a certain extent. Actually, listening to it now, Glen actually refers to "Born To Run" in the lyrics. So maybe I'm not imagining this.

Anyway, this sounds like a track from Springsteen's "the Rising". Not tremendously original, but quality songwriting nonetheless. I'll even forgive the cliched coda thing that pops up on this song too. Onwards! Into the second half of the album...

7. The Cost

Oh dear.

After offering his apology for too many sad songs, Glen drags us straight back into misery and pain. With three distorted minor chords (reminiscent of Fitzcarraldo's In This Boat Together and Giving It All Away) welded to the funeral pace of A Caution To The Birds, Glen wheels out his cranky voice again, and it's clear what's on his mind:
"Love has been the cause of all this suffering..."

There's not a lot to say about this song. It surges in the middle, with a lukewarm retread of the glorious finale to Caution. There's no chorus to speak of, and it's all done in minor keys. It reminds me, for no particularly good reason, of Smashing Pumpkins' Heavy Metal Machine. Lots of pointless misery and whining - with no real hook or melody.

Eminiently forgettable.

8. True

Well, it starts promisingly enough...with a delicate arpeggiated guitar line (which I can't help noticing is a lot like Arcade Fire's In the Back Seat). But then the patented Radiohead hovering noise thing (see Sulk, and Bulletproof) heralds Glen, who is still massively cranky and is still finding more minor chords to strum:
"I find it so hard to be true/and all the secrets I keep from you/are like a blackness in my heart/that tears us both apart"

Jesus. Alanis Morisette writes better confessional lyrics than this. Maybe it's cathartic, but could he not have just sent this chick a tape and spared the rest of us?

The band is left in the background initially while Glen bares his all, putting the lyrics painfully front and center. Then a shaft of light with some Mellon Collie piano chords leading us to the chorus - and the band steps up to try and rescue the song - undermined by Glen's refusal to cheer up and introduce an actual melody. For the second chorus they try harder and enlist a string section - all in vain.

Finally, someone gives Glen a kick and he launches into a massively annoying Bono-style With or Without You wordless cry that finally tips me over into outright laughter. This song wasn't even half finished when it was recorded, and should have been left to rot in b-side obscurity. What the hell is it doing on a Frames album?

9. The Side You Never Get To See

Oh Christ. He's still cranky. At least this time we get a tempo. But we're still noodling about with Fitzcarraldo b-side minor chords. This song has a Deus feel to it, but Glen is still misreading the tone of his own lyrics, and he's still exploring the annoying register of his voice he found with Happy and Dream Awake.

The band do their best to make up for Glen's baffling descent into mediocrity by laying on the strings and the dramatic guitar. But just as they're pulling the whole thing back from the brink...Glen administers a final kick in the balls and delivers another "hey, let's repeat the chorus" coda before taking off on another "hey, let's sing along with the violin" wordless Mariah Carey impression. Since Glen is otherwise occupied and the song is pretty much fucked anyway, the band wander off into Bing Crosby musical territory. Another half finished song, and almost complete muck.

I'm beginning to see why this album was frontloaded with old songs. Glen has clearly mislaid his talent.

10. Bad Bone

Well. This song carries quite a weight. As the last song on a Frames album, it's up against standout tracks like Dance The Devil, Your Face, Mighty Sword and Locusts. Moreover, while those songs capped brilliant albums, Bad Bone has to rescue an album that has just seen the longest unbroken run of Hansardian excess and mediocrity in recorded history.

It's a big ask, and it's not tremendously surprising that Bad Bone doesn't manage it.

Which is not to say that it's a bad song. It strongly echos the pleasantly laid back "Neath the Beeches" from Dance the Devil. This is the kinda stuff Glen can knock out in his sleep. Again it's done at a funeral tempo, and again Glen is in full-on miserable confessional mode. But it has enough of the doomed romanticism of Red Chord in its DNA to make its case. Oh, and this time, he thought to write a melody. Which helps.

Admittedly, at the end, the band pulls out the same box of tricks they've used on almost every song on this album - but it sounds relatively natural here.

...and that's it. 44 minutes of new Frames material. I have to say, for the first half an hour, the album is pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. Taken with the unbelievably disappointing finish, it's just barely scraping a "good". It's a worrying sign. I was hoping that after the introspection of Burn The Maps, Hansard's songwriting would again turn outward - but it's still introspective, and it's taken huge nosedive in quality. The worst thing is...it's boring. The album just doesn't contain any real surprises, either musically or lyrically. There's no sense that the band is taking any risks, like they did on Dance The Devil or For The Birds. In one sense, it's what some fans have been asking for...a return to Fitzcarraldo style epics, with big climaxes and sweeping strings - with dissonant, minor key dirges thrown in along the way. But this album just doesn't have the charm that the earlier album had, despite the presence of big-hitters like People Get Ready and Rise.

Obviously, like all of the Frames faithful - I'm still going to go see them, and I have no doubt that the weaker songs will develop further in a live setting (or be quietly forgotten, like large sections of Burn the Maps). But it's frustrating to see talent like this go to waste. The Swell Season shows that Glen is still capable of writing great songs, and the band is still capable of amplifying his reach and pouring magic into the cracks in the songs. But they've gotten dangerously complacent with their skills.

All that said, they earned their right to my money long ago, and I'll probably continue contributing to Glen's PRSA until he cashes it in. And I'll keep my fingers crossed for the next album. After all, they still haven't recorded "Feeling The Pull"...

MLP: Nerd Porn

2006-09-11T21:40:00.000+01:00

First, we have some hot japanese incredible machine action, and then, for the real hardcore, 1 hour and 14 minutes of original 1968 vintage black and white, uncensored, full frontal, multi camera angle Doug Engelbart Demo.

6831 Laptop Batteries

2006-08-02T18:32:00.000+01:00

...and one Krispin Leydon, are all it takes to power the Tesla Roadster. It was actually revealed a few weeks ago, so here's all the press:

CNBC TV
NEW YORK TIMES
WIRED
NEWS WEEK
AUTO BLOG
SLASHDOT
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
CNET NEWS
BUSINESS WEEK
RED HERRING

Congratulations Kris. Do you get to take one home with you?

In the time of chimpanzees...

2006-07-28T17:19:00.000+01:00

...I was a jelly-filled doughnut.

Myself and Oonagh accompanied one of her hats to a major European city. Once there, we were met by a mysterious individual who insisted that we refer to him as "the build master" and bow reverently when in his presence.

We captured this strange being on film several times and have posted the photos to the internet in the hopes that others might help us identify him.

Fans of Oonagh's hat can send email to: OonaghsLostWoollyHat@gmail.com with sightings and any other information which might help us trace a much loved and sorely missed head covering.

Sing it with feeling:

2006-07-03T20:52:00.000+01:00

Our operation is satisfaction,
We assure perfection,
Quality with fair achievement we share,
For the sta—aff Intel cares.
All together now!

Come on lads, Craig Barrett wants to hear you!

Please make sure your microphone is plugged in, so the Intel U Voice Training and Singing Assistant can record your performance for inclusion in your Business Unit's Great Place To Work EB Target Metrics and Focal.

Brought to you by Intel China, allegedly.

Oh, sorry. Mine was out of date.

2006-06-27T19:09:00.000+01:00

The thing with the ships back in April was, of course, me changing jobs yet again. So, cron's newest job:

(image by Computer History Museum)

Coincidence

2006-06-27T10:12:00.000+01:00

Batgimp's new job:

(image by spreeblick.com)

Long Time Gone...

2006-04-20T20:48:00.000+01:00

This is a temporary break in the silence, and should not be mistaken for anything resembling communication. However, there are recent (tentative) indications that my reclusion may soon be coming to an end. We can only hope. In the meantime, I offer this:

I recently witnessed Edward Dixon removing a lady's garter with his teeth. Later, I saw him dance a tango. He is currently on his way to the Seychelles where he will very likely tangle with sharks.

There can no longer be any serious doubt that Ed is an agent for British Secret Service. I have photographs of the "garter" and "tango" incidents. If he doesn't want his alter-ego further publicised, he knows where to send the envelopes stuffed with cash...

Here endeth the break.

This week in cronland

2006-04-17T20:49:00.000+01:00

MP3s, Live, Radiohead.

2006-04-10T21:14:00.000+01:00

Over there.

Have you seen this man?

2006-03-29T20:32:00.000+01:00

The ~~Gardaí~~ UL Escapee Tracking, Monitoring and Begging Association have appealed to the public for information on the whereabouts of a number of individuals.

A bit creepy. Anyway, I felt it was only my duty to make use of their contact form and let them know that UL graduates continue to make a strong impression on the german tiled-fireplace industry.

10 read a$; 20 print "hello " a$

2006-03-16T18:16:00.000Z

Something just tried to post this comment on an ancient post, which actually mentions a yorkshire terrier:

Well now, ##NAME##, I'm holding you personally responsible for making me think today. I really wasn't planning on it! I was lurking around Blogspot for stuff on Yorkshire Terriers and I ended up on your blog. More specifically, on your post ##TITLE##. I figured I could get away with out thinking at all today, but along comes your post! Can't say I agree wholeheartedly, but against all odds you got me thinking! Thanks for the wake-up call ;o)

Way to make me feel productive.

cron's new job

2006-03-10T15:25:00.000Z

(image by spreeblick.com)

MLP: Irish ISPs ordered to disclose file sharers' names

2006-02-02T15:10:00.000Z

Making a list and checking it twice.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/26/irish_isps_court_order/

Happy Christmas to you and the horse you rode in on.

2005-12-23T22:43:00.000Z

The german language is a magical thing. By the application of mere tone-of-voice-over-matter, a fully qualified German can imbue the phrase "Frohe Weihnachten" with all the sarcasm, bitterness and pure self-righteous hatred of a bite on the thigh from a Nowwhattian Boghog. The things you learn shopping on the 23rd of December.

No comment

2005-12-14T21:49:00.000Z

Shock and Awe

2005-11-23T15:31:00.000Z

In which I expand slightly on yesterday's/this morning's review of the Berlin Frames gig.

The audience - I'm guessing ~150 people - was about 10% hardcore frames groupies, 70% civilians, and 20% people who thought they were in a pub to have a good chat. Why this last 20% went and presumably bought tickets to a gig, I have no idea.

Since quiet stuff was out of the question due to the talking of the 20%, and the fact that the 10%'s devoted singing along just got too many laughs from the 70%, the only thing to do was turn everything up to eleven and rock out. Which was not a bad thing, even despite some lousy, lousy speakers and it being a small club. My ears have already stopped ringing.

Songs played are mostly a blur, but there was most of Burn The Maps along with the mandatory older stuff. A lot of the songs on BTM feel too restrained to me, but that's definitely been sorted out live. When they got around to Revelate, it actually seemed flat in comparison to what the BTM songs have grown into.

About three of what I presume are new songs passed by in the blur. "Leave" is the only one I recall, sounds like it would be pretty cool with a little more work, or just an audience who'd stfu and give it some room.

In spite of the talking 20%, an attempt was made at Star Star, which mostly worked, although some ignorant Kraut shouting "Letz rrhock!" at the worst possible moment didn't help. Glen trying to get Your Face past the talking was downright miserable. Not a Two Little Boys kind of gig.

So they rolled out Revelate, Dance The Devil and Fitzcarraldo and went back to making lots of noise. Which they are ridiculously good at. And lots of fun to watch. And that see-through violin is the coolest.

Selected quotes:

"This song is called I'm Tired And I Want To Go Home." (Pavement Tune)

"This started as one of the worst gigs we've ever played, then it was
sort of pleasant, and now I'm enjoying myself."

"This club doesn't seem to encourage quiet, but you're doing very
well"

"Mein Kamerad, kannst du die Butter geben?"

Fraaaaames! Wheeeee!

2005-11-23T00:15:00.000Z

Oh. Fuck. Yeah.

Best slides evar?

2005-10-12T21:39:00.000+01:00

OSCON Keynote by Dick Hardt (Hur hur, Dick). 15 minutes long, 1 slide per second, no bullet points. Funkycoolness.

Oh, it's about the future of identity management on the intarwebnet, which is cool stuff too.

No excuses, batgimp (Teasing the Netless)

2005-08-26T19:56:00.000+01:00

pandora is a little like last.fm, except that the matching is by analysis of music content, not user profiles. The result seems to be much better in terms of mood-consistency. Also, you can listen for more than five minutes without a Radiohead track coming up.

I'm sorry, was I teasing again?

I'm a blog

2005-08-12T22:29:00.000+01:00

...a friersh gust of wind came in the back door causing the palm pipes in the hall way to play a version of Britneys "Hit me baby one more time" causing me to run and slip falling on a plank of wood which had a bag of bolts on the other end which lanched into the air falling on my laptop typing out http://mapsand... etc... so not knowing what to do with the back door I went to my laptop to google it and there was IE displaying http://mapsand.... etc... so just as I tried to close IE a bolt that had been stuck in the ceiling just fell hitting me on the head and my face went crashing into the keyboard and the next thing I was logged into http://mapsand... etc... . <- full stop ->. I think it's called HicksSyndromn.

Well I'm still "mov8 d0, #yetAnotherProtocol"'ing, cron I guess is in the motherland larging it up and batgimp is sluming it in curry beerin.

Ive been listening to alot of bill hicks's's's stuff in the last while, good stuff. (youse was probably listening to that dude back in the day).

dintel dshannan is busting at the seems, 50 dudes are moving across the road into a shed.

I catched a heap of fish dudder day, stacked them up in the freezer, was ez, just throw the line with the trace on the end in the watee and pop the fishes out, then try for more. Mackerel.

Now due to an unbelieve chain of events I'm logging off.

What'll we get Shane for Christmas?

2005-08-02T00:03:00.000+01:00

How about a nice pig's head "harvested"¹ by James Hetfield?

¹ It's unclear whether this involved a shotgun or a combine harveshter. There are rumours that the pig in question was in fact an early adopter of mp3 who made the first ever rip of the black album.

Why must you tease me so...

2005-07-14T17:30:00.000+01:00

Do you not know that I no longer have broadband with which to idle away the hours downloading random garbage from the inter-web-nets? I now live in idyllic, disconnected tranquility in 7, Curragh Birin.

Needless to say, Jeff got a brand new widescreen TV the day I moved out. And new kitchen furniture. And he painted my room. And fixed my shower.

Then again, 7 Curragh Birin has a finished back-garden and some nice views of our gangster neighbours...so 6 of one, etc. etc.

Marian recently had a series of going away parties before moving to the other side of the world. The event was recorded for posterity by me, and the pictures are available in the all new, updated photo index:
http://www.skynet.ie/~scooby/photo/

Continuing with the gossip column theme, our glorious new PSA president, Maria McHale was also there. Rumours of an impending violent overthrow of the ULSU are completely unfounded, as are those of public executions for all business students. You are not required to fall to your knees and touch your forehead to the ground while screaming "viva el presidente!, viva el presidente!" whenever Maria enters the room, and she knows nothing about the disappearance of several prospective opponents in the run-up to the election. She travels with duct-tape, three shovels and cattle-prod in the boot of her car for personal reasons.

On that note, you may have already seen the open apology to the nation of Iceland.

MLP from Outer Space

2005-07-09T17:16:00.000+01:00

Based only on the secret testimony of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal! Let us punish the guilty, let us reward the innocent!

Plan 9 from Outer Space downloadable from archive.org

Oh my rofl, it is so bad :-)

Name this Movie

2005-06-30T12:47:00.000+01:00

http://www.spreeblick.com/2005/06/29/videoratsel/

The answer's in the comments, so watch the video first.

We need more pink bubblewrap

2005-06-23T21:35:00.000+01:00

The death ray is almost complete. Just a few final adjustments, and some materials issues... Thanks to my DeathrayCam^TM I was able to identify and fire the guy who kept eating the bubblewrap, but not before he went through five rolls of the stuff. Keep an eye on the guy with the check shirt for me, would you? I think he's a spy.

Ah, work - you could watch it all day.

Obligatorycounterramble

2005-06-20T14:34:00.000+01:00

Wow, three full years of integrated non-destruction. It was integrated, right? Good to see you got at least a new appreciation for Radiohead out of it. Although Doon and I seemed to get the same result in less time at our particular daycare institution. But we didn't get iPods, so it all balances out.

What's this "no more batbroadband" talk now, Ted? That kind of stuff leads to madness! Next thing you know, you'll be getting work done.

The Radiohead cover stuff sounds intriguing, so I headed for amazon and used some blunt instruments to pry a few sample clips out of the site and play them using the bizarre OS that some lunatic commie installed on this PC.

After three notes of No Surprises, I had a most disturbing flashback of a hotel elevator outside Boston. It even brought back the shiny brass sign with the words "Shoes and shirts required in lobby". Luckily the clip was over before anyone could tell me what kind of day to have, sir.

Probably not the best choice of track, given that the point of that one is that it's an elevator music melody. Talk Show Host, for example, seems to work much better, afaict through the mushiness of the clips. Lemme screw around with my interwebnet for a bit and drop a mail.

RIAA Radar even suggests it would be defensible to buy one of the two CDs. Why yes, now that you ask, I do happen to have a greasemonkey script for integrating that with amazon.

String quartet Weezer I can do whithout, though. Or any kind of Weezerage, for that matter. I can't think of any Coldplay track that wouldn't happily flog dairy products. Just add some smiling kids, a sunrise, and leave to stand at room temperature until sickly. These are things we must agree to disagree on. (Did I see the word "intelligent" associated with Blink-"Santa Claus will rape your dogs"-182 back there? And don't give me any of your irony crap, either..)

The Discovery of Slowness is one of the very few books I'd gratuitously read again and again. Perhaps not in English, though - I do remember that translation being so bad it made me want to do one of my own. Hey, wouldn't it be neat if I could do that without being sued into the ground? Who knows, maybe I'll live long enough to see the copyright expire. Unfortunately for the DoS-induced Nadolny fan, there doesn't seem to be any more where that came from.

The God of Impertinence is good in theory: Take Hermes, send him out into the world after being locked up for 2000 years, let him run around commenting on stuff and causing trouble in sundry amusing ways, then run into a couple of other gods, one of whom happens to be the guy that locked him up 2000 years ago, and throw in a love interest who may or may not be a goddess herself, and may or may not know this, and may or may not be in a coma and dreaming the whole story. In practice, it doesn't work. At all. Occasional nuggets of coolness buried in piles and piles of randomness and shredded splinters of plot. I'm willing to admit the possibility that the book makes some kind of sense if you know a _lot_ about greek mythology and whatnot, but to me it looks like he just gave up halfway through and published his notes.

There's a thing called Netzkarte in German, which is ok, but that doesn't seem to have been translated. It's a slightly autobiographical quarter-life-crisis thing, about a dude who aimlessly rides trains around Germany while he figures out his life. Entertaining, but nowhere near DoS. I think Netzkarte was his first, followed by DoS. After that it was the Hermes mess, and Er oder Ich, which rehashes the theme of Netzkarte with an older guy, and falls down in a heap in pretty much the same way as the Hermes thing.

So as not to be completely negative, and speaking of string quartets, let me add An Equal Music (spoiler warning on the Publisher's Weekly review) to your pile of recommendations. Tortured violinist in tragically doomed love affair, with interesting stuff about music and musicians thrown in. It's a big improvement on A Suitable Boy - the fact that it's about one third the length pretty much sums up the difference.

Nice hat.

Pretension and melody

2005-06-19T20:23:00.000+01:00

I haven't rambled about music in a while, so here's what's currently cool. If anything grabs your attention, send me a mail and I'll arrange its transfer. Be quick though, I won't have broadband for too much longer.

I finally got my hands on Slint's Spiderland, having heard it described as an overlooked masterpiece by dozens of critics and hundreds of musicians. It's not bad. All rumbling and threatening and discordant with the occasional fractured build-up. Mogwai were definitely ripping them off for Young Team. But, while I'm sure it was startlingly original and cooler than Jesus in the early ninties...it's been done better since by (among others) Mogwai and GYBE! So the verdict is a slightly interested "meh".

I've been listening to a lot of latter-day Radiohead lately and I think I'm finally starting to get it. I always appreciated it and possibly admired it, but I never would have sought it out to listen to. I threw Hail To The Thief on the iPod before going to France and it started making more sense by the time I came back. The poppier stuff (a relative term, I guess) like "2+2=5" and "There There" had always appealed...but I finally saw the point of "Sit Down, Stand Up", "Sail To The Moon", "Where I End..." and "Wolf At The Door".

This may have been influenced by two albums by a guy called Christopher O Riley I've been listening to, "Hold Me To This" and "True Love Waits". He's a classical pianist who does solo reinterpretations of Radiohead stuff. And not just the easy stuff either. He covers "Like Spinning Plates" (originally weird electronic noises), Talk Show Host (a four note melody over four minutes) and 2+2=5 (something like a 17:5 time signature). Worth seeking out, and they definitely have more than novelty value.

In the same vein, I tracked down a few "String Quartet Tribute To..." albums. This is basically a work for hire string quartet that does not for note covers of popular albums. They've done Radiohead, Coldplay, Evanesence, Foo Fighters, Weezer etc. etc. It's not too bad, and it's easy to listen to. However, Oonagh described their version of "In My Place" as "butter ad music"...which is about the most perfect description of it.

Speaking of the Foo Fighters, their new (double) album was supposed to be a massive return to the form they had on the Colour and the Shape. Hardly. It's not as dreadful as One By One (three singles and a whole load of badly produced filler), but it's not a whole lot better. If Dave Grohl really thinks this is some of the best work he's ever done, then he's sadly mistaken. It's a pity, cos they're a fairly inoffensive band, and they seem like nice people. What's more, they're occasionally capable of making interesting music. Unfortunately, this isn't it.

And speaking of Weezer, Christ is their new album bad. I don't just mean bad, I mean gut churningly awful. I thought it might be a joke when I heard it first, but apparently they're serious. Believe it or not, Beverly Hills is probably the best song on the album. There's a song on it called "We Are All On Drugs", and it's tempting to read a little too much into it. Like everything else on the album, it's musically boring, overproduced, and the lyrics are just indescribably terrible. I really can't overemphasise how embarrassingly bad the lyrics on this album are. Really, really, really, really bad. I mean, it sounds like the lyricist is a lobotomised four year old. I swear, for once I'm not exaggerating. Absolutely pitiful. Immediately distrust any outlet that gives this album a good review.

Y'know, I'm still not entirely convinced the whole album is not just some elaborate postmodern joke.

I don't know if I've mentioned the Great Southern Rock Opera by the Drive-By Truckers before. Inspired stuff. A 3-guitar 70's blues rock concept album about the rise and fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the mysterious duality of the "Southern Thang". Eats the White Stripes and Kings of Leon for breakfast. Check out the song "Three Great Alabama Icons" if you need convincing. (I'm getting the strange feeling I've already mentioned this to you before...if so, I apologise...all my recent memories are of aircraft maintenance).

The new Eels album. Double album. Same 'ol, same 'ol. Meh. If I wanted to listen to Tom Waits I would. There are few things I'm certain of, but one is that the world needs only one Tom Waits.

Speaking of Kings, I started listening to the Kings of Convenience album (parallel lines) lately, and I actually didn't fall asleep straightaway. It's nice, inoffensive gentle acoustic folk. But it's got some funky melodies and interesting harmonies on it. Worth digging up.

Auf Der Maur. Melissa Auf Der Maur spent years as a bassist in bands like Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins, and finally got around to releasing a solo album. It's pretty good, if you like melodic heavy metal. It sounds exactly like Belly crossed with the heavy side of the Pumpkins. It's not bad at all.

Blink 182 split up! No!!!!!! Just when it was beginning to be less uncool to like them. Bastards. I've been trying to fill the void they leave with other intelligent melodic punk bands like Alexisonfire (crap), the Used (crap), Finch (screamy crap), My Chemical Romance (whiney, screamy, crap) and Motion City Soundtrack (cr...no, wait a minute, they're slightly ok. they have a long way to go, but they have the right idea.)

Bell X1 have a new album coming out soon, which I'm cautiously looking forward to (thye haven't exactly been knocking it out of the park in live shows lately). Damien Rice must surely have recorded a follow-up to O by now. The Frames promised a new album this year, and I don't believe them for a second. The Arcade Fire are still the coolest thing since sliced bread. Biffy Clyro should have a new album out soon too.

So that's music in the last few months covered.

The Discovery of the Discovery of Slowness

2005-06-19T20:15:00.000+01:00

Finally got around to reading it during the last INDeT trip. It's funkyness alright. I can see why you liked it. Very cool concept. I can't help wondering if anything got lost in translation (like references to Franklin's "Fixed Look"...I imagine it has a cooler analogue in German). Am now a Nadolny fan.

I haven't finished it yet, and it's on a pile of books that have been accumulating for ages while INDeT got finished off. Said pile includes:

100 Years of Solitude
Logic, Design and Mathematics
Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour (Liam Clancy's book)
The Unequalled Self (bigoraphy of Samuel Pepys)
The last few chapters of Stephenson's baroque thingy
The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood, I think I have Oryx and Crake somewhere too)
Gravity's Rainbow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A few Iain Banks books

...and many, many others. Oonagh has a whole bunch of stuff she's been pushing towards me.

In requiem...

2005-06-19T20:01:00.000+01:00

I wasn't a pretty sight by the end...

World's most useful webcam (in lousy haikus)

2005-06-14T22:09:00.000+01:00

This is a web cam
Google sees many like it
But this one is cool.

A number to call
A phone that noone will answer
But the train will run.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

2005-06-08T06:15:00.000+01:00

Colonel Sweeto:

Mittens:

Curly:

...and lots more at the archive.

Wow. First post in ages. Quiet round here.

Clarke's Second Law

2005-04-15T17:29:00.000+01:00

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke.

Corollaries:

"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
- Pratchett

"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
- Benford

"Any magic, sufficiently debased, is indistinguishable from technology."
- Rosenbaum

"Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic."
- Sterling

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device."
- Langford

MLP

2005-04-10T11:36:00.000+01:00

Apparently these have been out for ages, but just in case: HG2G Trailer, Another.

Also sooo last week, but just in case: google maps has integrated the keyhole satellite imagery they bought. Scrolling west across the map gives 3 screenfuls of blue, then wraps around to the US Pacific coast -- creepy. But now you can switch over to satellite to check that the rest of the world is still there. Europe is mostly low-res land, but Greenland is nice for sightseeing.

I can see through time!

2005-04-08T19:32:00.000+01:00

Eleven straight hours of Plastikman. Even when I take the earphones off, I can still hear strange wriggly sounds and the entire world seems to be pulsing gently. That might be the coffee though.

Cool quote from the link above:

The sensory weight of a unit is affected by its proximity to other units, their centres and their boundaries. Metaphorically, sensorially, every observed particle of energy, whatever its form, has a gravitational field or, better, each seems to bend the space in its vicinity. The significance of any event is not constant; it varies with location, with circumstances. It is relative. Therefore, when apparent duplication occurs, there cannot be sameness but only similarity.

If a musician sounds three brief notes, perhaps repeating middle C upon a piano, the three notes cannot be the same. The first will have surprise, even shock if unexpected. The second note, anticipated or not, will produce some resonance in the listener who is carrying a memory of the first note. Whereas the first note was a sound and, if brief and staccato, not fully comprehended as a note, the second note can be savoured, studied and recorded in its fullness. This applies even more distinctly to a third note, which becomes confirmatory. Timing, the relative length of notes and intervals to the intrinsic time of the audience, perhaps their very heartbeats, will suggest whether the third note is a repeat, an echo or a full stop. By inversion, current (published 1980) experiments in the fine arts are exploring the subdivision of a current experience, such as a sustained musical note, a sheet of color, a 'wrapped' landscape, into the discontinuity of the observer's timescale: his beginning, his middle, and his end, which is all one. Ultimately this becomes a passive vehicle for audience participation and is not unrelated to traditional programmes for meditation, both philosophic and religious.

Ya. Right on.

From the book, Logic & Design in Art, Science, and Mathematics by Krome Barratt. Sounds a bit like the software patterns book mixed with GEB and a hefty dose of mysticism. Hmmmm, where's my credit card...?

More from the Department of Productivity and Bright Colours

2005-04-05T08:53:00.000+01:00

1. Put on the Wilco album.

2. Load up this swishy piece of javascript and watch the pretty patterns.

Hours of fun.

Sheepiezapper Recharge!

2005-03-29T20:23:00.001+01:00

Think of Rez. What if it was written not on a PS2, but on the barely-post-VGA PocketPCs that were the next big thing at the time? And not by a japanese multimedia artist type with a big games company behind him, but by a welsh dude with a thing about sheep? You know you want it.

Am I unemployed yet?

2005-03-07T22:44:00.000Z

(Needs Javascript, tested in Firefox, others may work)

Ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more

2005-01-28T11:32:00.000Z

For those of you who care, and still keep vigil by the remains of this long-deceased blog: I have once again taken steps to make myself unemployed. As per last time, I haven't a clue what I'll do next, but am sure it's a good idea.

The Sound of Silence

2004-12-22T14:03:00.000Z

Well. This has gotten rather silent lately.

Another scattered update seems to be in order. First, music.

I saw Biffy Clyro in Dolan's a few weeks ago with Oonagh. Since they're still fairly obscure, there weren't too many people there to see them. The music is tricky to describe. They're a Scottish three-piece and their early stuff owes a pretty big debt to Bleach-era Nirvana - with a fairly large dollop of Idlewild thrown in for good measure. Loud guitars and big singalong choruses.

Live, they tend to play their more recent stuff which is heavier on screaming and guitar abuse. With song titles like "Glitter and Trauma" and "Strung to your Ribcage" you can sorta imagine what they sound like. One song in particular seems to be just 3 minutes of formless screaming and detuned guitar grind, which morphs into a huge chorus with pretty three part harmonies and what sounds like a disco beat. Very peculiar stuff but I reckon they'd be worth seeing again.

If I haven't mentioned the new Green Day album (American Idiot) here somewhere before, then consider it mentioned now. I quite like it. The new REM is still rubbish. The new U2 album is same old same old. I'm still trying to work out if the new Wilco album (A Ghost Is Born) is any good. At the moment, I'm inclined to say Being There is still the best thing they've ever done.

Being slightly busier than usual lately, I can't think of any films/books that I've come across recently. I've heard the Incredibles is fantastic. Roll on Christmas.

For anyone that didn't get the email, the pictures of the CB7 Xmas party can be found here.

Cron, you returning to the auld sod for Xmas?

Here's cron with the weather

2004-12-20T18:54:00.000Z

De-sign by committee

2004-11-27T20:10:00.000Z

"Alright folks, we have a tough assignment. We need to design a visual communications device to convey the following information: 'The train station is to your left, the airport is to your right.' Nothing like this has ever been done before. We have to complete this design in six months, so let's get started!"

ook!

2004-11-19T18:32:00.000Z

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Random psychedelia

2004-11-04T20:24:00.000Z

And now for something completely different. A random list of Flaming Lips song/album titles. There is a planet somewhere where this all might make sense:

Clouds taste metallic.
Staring at sound, with you.
Oh my Gawd!!...Everything's Explodin'
One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond On A Sunday Evening.
A dream for evil Knievel.
The ceiling is bending.
Love your brain.
Drug machine in heaven
The Hari Krishna stomp wagon.
The Redneck School of Technology.
The spontaneous combustion of John.
It's raining babies.
Five stop the Mother Superior rain.
The day they shot a hole in the Jesus egg.
In a priest driven ambulance.
Halloween on the Barbary Coast.
Christmas at the zoo.
Talking about the smiling deathporn immortality blues (everyone wants to live forever).
Hit me like you did the first time.
Magician vs. headache.
Moth in the incubator.
Transmissions from a satellite heart.
Pilot at the queer of God.
Oh my pregnant head!
Chewin' on the apple of your eye.
Be my head.
This here giraffe.
Guy who gets a headache and accidentally saves the world.
Lightning strikes the postman.
Kim's watermelon gun.
Psychiatric explorations of the fetus with needles.
A spoonful weighs a ton.
The spark that bled.
Suddenly, everything has changed.
Battle hymn for wounded mathematicians.
In the morning of the magicians.
Ego tripping at the gates of hell.
Approaching Pavanis Mons, by balloon.
Yoshimi battles the pink robots.

...I wonder if they ever took drugs?

The Death of Wishful Thinking

2004-11-03T20:21:00.000Z

Then again...

The last post might have been a bit optimistic.

2000 was more of a popularity contest than a policy debate. After 8 years of Clinton, the economy was in good shape and the world was a relatively peaceful place. The voters were apathetic towards political issues and far more interested in entertainment. Without doubt, GW was more entertaining than Gore. Gore lost a seemingly unlosable election by refusing to acknowledge that no-one cared about political issues...and were far more interested in how good the candidates were at kissing hands and shaking babies.

When Bush won power in 2000 (well, that's debatable..."when he took power" would be more accurate), he ran on a platform of "compassionate conservatism". He appeared to America as a lovable doofus, prone to making speech errors. Not too bright (certainly not an intellectual), colourful. A hick cowboy made good. An earnest born-again Christian and former alcoholic. An average Joe, despite his priveleged upbringing. His policies were fairly tame, run-of-the-mill conservative policies. He certainly didn't espouse the lunatic fringe religious causes he backed in 2004. He didn't really have views on foreign policy (where they could be made out, they seemed remarkably similar to John Kerry's policies...mild isolationism and international concensus building to solve problems). He favoured scaling back federal power and ceding more control to individual states. Above all, he championed small-government...with less interference in the private lives of citizens. He championed cutbacks, balanced budgets and privatisation.

After 9/11, the entire tenor of the administration changed. Suddenly there were unilateral interventions in foreign states, an abandonment of international concensus building, and law was given sweeping powers to infringe the rights of the individual. Bush babbled about crusading against evil. He went to war to ensure peace (which some people compared to "screwing for virginity"). It was "us" versus "them", and all US citizens would have to sacrifice personal freedom to ensure safety. Military spending went through the roof. Corporates like Halliburton and the Carlyle group got massive no-bid government contracts with almost no accountability. Social security was raided to present some semblance of fiscal rectitude. Voodoo economics reared their head as Bush signed in massive tax cuts for the rich in order to stimulate the economy (how this was to be done is a mystery, trickle-down theory having been thoroughly discredited after Reagan's enormous deficits). Voodoo accounting was rife in the corporate sector as Bush cut funding to regulatory bodies like the SEC and defanged anti-trust watchdogs.

With John Ashcroft as attorney general, the administration abandoned compassionate conservatism for savage evangelical fundamentalism and prudery. Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" was seized as an opportunity to launch a crusade against "indecency"...backed by new powers given to the FCC (one of the few regulatory agencies to get more funding rather than less). Bush starts rambling about how he was chosen by God and is guided by His hand.

So, election 2004. A bloodthirsty regime of religious puritans and hopelessly corrupt and venal corporate whores (hello, Dick Cheney) is in power. A completely unneccessary war that has been mismanaged from day one. Terrorist organisations all over the world benefiting from enormous anti-American sentiment. New vigour injected into the Islamic fundamentalist cause (which in 1998 after failures in Algeria and Egypt had been on the point of dying out completely). All the European goodwill built up by Clinton completely squandered. Massive financial scandals in Enron and Worldcom...both with close ties to the administration. Oil prices skyrocketing and an economy teetering on the brink of collapse. Pension funds decimated. The US completely divided.

2004 was an election on the issues. For once, personality was a minor concern.

Bush ran on fear. In some campaign ads he literally cried "wolf". He ran on morality; painting a picture of a decadent liberal society of homosexual marriage, single parents and indecency - that he was going to take back for "God's constituency". While John Kerry was struggling to come across as a personality, GW was talking about politics. He wasn't really enunciating policies, but he was saying the words "terror", "911", "Al Qaeda" and "security" an awful lot. John Kerry lost a seemingly unlosable election by not realising that the American public was terrified and no longer cared about personality.

After a bloodthirsty 4 years in office; Bush offered a vision of continuous war, religious intolerance, bigotry, wasteful military spending and massive curtailments of individual liberties in the name of "freedom". A million miles from the compassionate conservativism that got barely got him elected the last time.

On this platform Bush got re-elected with a larger majority than last time. And took the senate and gubernational races. America has endorsed his Presidency.

This was a mandate. If this was a referendum on GW Bush, he won it convincingly. America wants this leader, believes it needs him. What does this say to those seeking political office?

Those who appeal to fear, bigotry, intolerance and puritan impulses can command a much stronger vote than those who propose moderate policies. America is now run from the fringes, and it likes it that way.

What's going to happen now? Several Supreme Court justices are nearing death or retirement. Currently the Court is split 5-4 between Democrats and Republicans. With 2 exceptions the Republicans are old-fashioned moderates. Bush might potentially make 3 new appointments to this bench. With no election looming, control over both houses of parliament, and a solid mandate from the people - Bush has every reason to install die-hard neo-con judges in these positions. These appointments cannot be rescinded by a more moderate regime. The current Supreme Court justices were appointed back in the 70s and have helped shape American life since. With a neo-con majority in the Supreme Court, the Bush administration will leave a lasting, untouchable legacy for future generations of Americans. Almost certainly, the Roe vs. Wade decision which legalised abortion in the US will come under review from a new Supreme Court. Free speech, intellectual property, personal liberty and gun issues will be decided by a conservative court for decades to come. This does not bode well for the liberal agenda. There is the frightening prospect that the Supreme Court will become a rubber stamp for whatever laws the Bush administration finds convenient.

Colin Powell (one of the few moderates in the Bush cabinet) is probably going to resign (or get a shove). Most likely, he is considering a run at the Republican nomination for President in 2008, given how disaffected he is with the neo-con agenda of the current administration. In the absence of any serious competition in the Republican party...he is likely to get it. The neo-cons (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perl et al.) can counter this threat from Powell by grooming Condoleeza Rice for candidacy in 2008. It will make for the unusual spectacle of two black people battling for the Republican presidential nomination. As a black woman, she would be a powerful weapon against the spectre of Hillary Clinton making a Democratic run. Rice as President will ensure a further 4 years of neo-con government.

There is no reason to believe that America will warm to a moderate Republican like Powell. John Kerry was basically a moderate Republican (despite the fact that he was labelled as a dangerous liberal by the Bush campaign), and he was rejected in favour of Bush's terror and puritanism.

Now unfettered by the prospect of an election in 4 years time, Bush can do what he wants. Normally when incumbents win elections, they do so by slim margins. They begin to mellow out and become bipartisan - reaching out toward the other side and trying to unify the US. But Bush just fought a bitterly divisive and extremist campaign, and won big. His twisted world-view has been confirmed. By dragging the country further to the right, he can ensure that the next election will be fought his terms. The members of his cabinet who have a "plan for America" will get to keep their jobs. Hillary Clinton, should she choose to run, will face a Hobson's choice between appealing to the centre (where she is either hated or ignored) - or moving to the far left (where there will not be enough support to win). If Bush continues to prosecute his War On Terror with his customary savagery, disregard for freedom and rank incompetence...he can be more or less guaranteed another terrorist attack on US soil in the next 4 years. Hillary won't stand a chance against Rice or someone else from the neo-con side who has "experience" fighting terror.

Americans truly belived Bush deserved another four years. Bush will spend the next four years continuing his policy of lying to his citizens via the broadcast media - instilling even greater terror. Long-lasting damage is being done to American politics and society and by extension, world politics and security.

So maybe there isn't a brightside to Bush getting elected after all.

Alright, second rant over (can you tell that I'm annoyed?).

[edit] Apparently, Jeb Bush is seen as a likely contender for the 2008 Republican nomination. I guess that figures, but he's dismissing speculation. People are ruling out Hillary on the grounds that another North-Eastern liberal would be just repeating past mistakes. The preferred Democratic candidate would be from the South, like John Edwards. Edwards himself would be an interesting choice, but isn't seen as having enough experience for the presidency. Plus, after Tuesday...he's got a pretty big L on his forehead. [edit]

4 More Wars - Mission Accomplished

2004-11-03T17:28:00.000Z

Kerry seems to have conceded. Bush is re-elected with a win in the popular vote as well as the electoral college. The maps showing which states went which way are amazingly clearcut. When the US has its next civil war, it will be the edges against the middle.

Given how convincing the win was, it seems unlikely that it was due solely to fraud (unless you regard the entire system as fraudulent...with rigged debates and insane winner-takes-all voting).

But maybe it's not such a bad thing.

The Democrats seemed to believe the way to defeat Bush was to move even further right. They passed over Howard Dean in favour of a centrist like Kerry. Admittedly, this worked for Clinton and Blair, but then they weren't up against the far-right...it was centrists battling centrists. Since the Bush administration has dragged the entire political discourse in the US on moral issues and foreign policy far to the right, the centre is now somewhere around where Margeret Thatcher used to be. Weirdly, the Bush adminstration is the very opposite of conservative on economic issues...boosting corporate welfare, spending their way into a record deficit and imposing trade barriers right, left and centre. Instead of minimising government intrusion into private lives (the way conservatives are supposed to), they have given the government even wider powers over the individual (Homeland Security, Patriot Act, Gay Marriage Amendments). Whereas conservatives usually fetishise the US constitution, the declaration of independence and bill of rights - the Bush administration (and John Ashcroft in particular) are busily ignoring the bits that don't suit them.

With an administration restricting personal freedoms, ignoring supposedly incontrovertible laws, breaking away from international accountability, and seemingly bent on occupying countries prior to "installing" friendly democracies (how exactly do you install a democracy?) - they seem to have gone beyond simple right and left and begun moving into fascism. When you add in the fact that dissent is ruthlessly quashed (free speech zones?) and that the whole thing is based on a twisted version of patriotism and nationalism (it's unpatriotic to question our great leader during wartime)...it becomes even more worrying. With the invention of the War On Terror, the neo-cons have hit upon one of the greatest political strategies of all time. The "war" is almost by definition unwinnable. The "terrorists" and their aims are so nebulous (they want to kill us cos they hate freedom), that they can become proxies for anyone that stands in the way of US hegemony. In addition, an attack every few years won't do too much damage...but will keep the populace terrified. A scared populace is willing to give up freedom for security...however illusory both are. Fear of terrorist attacks was one of the key factors in Bush's re-election.

Terrorists much better than communists, because they are unlikely to embarass you by suddenly collapsing (like the USSR) and revealing that you've been lying about their capabilites all along.

So, an administration that is moving towards fascism and can blame every problem on a group that is hated by everyone.

And the Democrats put John Kerry forward? I'm actually impressed he got as close as he did.

This is why the loss mightn't be such a bad thing. There is little that John Kerry could have changed if he attained office. He might have scaled back some of the more egregious excesses of the neo-cons. But the War On Terror would have to continue, as would the war in Iraq. Much of the machinery that Bush created to limit freedoms (the DHS, the Patriot Act) would have remained intact. With an enormous deficit, he couldn't have done much about the pitiful state of the economy, and cutting back on military spending would have gotten him crucified. His stance on moral issues is fairly far to the right, and aside from dismantling some of Bush's Faith-based initiatives (as opposed to reason-based) - he wouldn't have done much else to keep America from the dark ages of religious fundamentalism. He would have been a lame-duck president and by struggling to hold the centre, he would have gifted the next election to rabidly right-wing conservatives - looking for revenge for Bush Jr. and a return to the glory days of terror, patriotism and corporate welfare.

Perhaps the loss will force the Democrats/left-wingers/liberals to radicalise in the same way that their opponents have. Maybe next time they will present a candidate who has clarity of purpose (the way Bush undoubtedly has - destructive as it might be) and easily distinguished views on policy. A genuinely left-wing liberal candidate.

Or perhaps they will push for changes in the horribly broken electoral system, recognising that the cosy two party system is rapidly turning into a terrifying single party system. Championing instant runoff voting would ultimately weaken support for the Democratic party as votes went to Greens and Liberals...but it would allow the extremists on the other side to splinter as well. The moralists and small-government conservatives are unlikely to want to share a platform. The fiscal-conservatives must be extremely uncomfortable with Bush's economic policy.

If the extremists can be bled off, the traditional parties can return to the centre.

Ultimately, Bush winning a 2nd term might be seen as the point where the bipartisan system broke apart in the US.

...Or that might all be wishful thinking and we're condemned to a constant War On Terror and a US President in thrall to the corporate interests that got him there. And an opposition party that is too damaged and dispirited to care anymore.

Ok, rant over.

Well that worked ...

2004-10-19T01:24:00.000+01:00

Apparently links are NOT designed to be clicked on ...

Invitation only worked after I copied and pasted the link rather than clicking .... Ah well

Might want to add that bit of info to any invites ye may want to send out ...

Cheers for the efforts Steve!

The Koolness Of Google

2004-10-16T13:53:00.000+01:00

Yis have probably seen this somewhere else but google have released the google desktop which, once installed and indexed, lets you search your wagon. The search is mucho better/faster than the windies search plus it also searches your mail.

Kafka in his Pockets

2004-10-14T18:08:00.000+01:00

Today's crap joke: "Did you hear Cian O Connor's horse tested positive for grass?". This is up there with "How do you kill a circus?" (go for the juggler), the difference between a Snickers and a Marathon (Paula Radcliffe can finish a Snickers) and Paula Radcliffe being the first English woman to go to Greece and not go all the way.

Thank you Marian Grealis.

Marian dragged a bunch of us along to see Stones in his Pockets in the LIT Millenium theatre last night. The play (which has been extremely successful) is set among the extras for a movie being shot in a small town in Kerry. The gimmick is that there are no props, no costume changes and only 2 (male) actors, playing 14 different characters (2 of which are women). This takes advantage of the fact that it is rare in a play for more than 2 characters to be talking to each other at any given time. Still, with only accents and body language to disambiguate the characters, the actors did an incredible job. With scenes set on a busy movie set or in a funeral home, with characters coming and going all over the place and three-way conversations happening - the whole thing is seamless. With clever use of subtle music and lighting cues, they even manage to drop in scenes from the movie they're filming.

The play is billed as a comedy, but with a suicide at the centre (hence the title), it covers some pretty serious terrain. Since it's Irish, these are the typical big-dreams/small-town stuff, but it's done fairly well. In fact, they make explicit at one point that this is supposed to be a universal thing. Sorta like the Fight Club idea that we are not all beautiful unique snowflakes, we can't all be rockstars or filmstars - and at some point everyone has to grow up and accept they will never be famous/rich/beautiful/powerful. They didn't hammer on this too much though.

At least there weren't any nuns, abusive priests or unwed mothers (which must be a first for Irish theatre). I thought the ending was a little bit sudden and weak...nothing really gets resolved. But then, I guess that's the point of the play.

The comedy part of it is ok too. They take on some obvious targets (Oirishness, self-obsessed filmstars, rural gormlessness vs. urban sophistication...and vice versa), but they have reasonably wide range.

The part that puzzles me, is would I have liked it as much if it had been done with props and a full cast? I can count the number of plays I've seen in the last decade on the fingers of one hand (and I wouldn't need the thumb) - so it's hard to make an objective judgement about the quality of the acting/writing and all that stuff. I give it about 2 years before RTE ruins it by making a lavish 3-part mini-series out of it.

Oh, and today's cool link is this one. The Sims2 meet Kafka. It's too long, but it is funny. The social bunny stuff is just plain surreal.

And last thing, Cron, if you're reading this before you leave on your epic journey, I may have exaggerated slightly when I said there would be a bed available for you here. What I meant to say of course was sofa. Slip of the tongue, sorry.

[edit] Apparently you have a bed after all. Jeff is going to California for a couple of weeks and you get your old room back.

Tales from the Empire...

2004-10-11T22:40:00.000+01:00

...the barbarians lay waste to suburbia...(well, ok...Krispin's front lawn. But it sounds more dramatic this way).

I like Mrs. Leydon's reason for leaving the sign as it is: "it shows how desperate the local Bush supporters are."

In a stupid sort of way, it reminds me of the Northern Irish habit of spray painting politcial slogans and murals onto the sides of houses. Not that the USA is anywhere near as divided as that (yet!), and I say stupid because it appears that the Bush supporters in question lack even the artistic ability to use black spray paint to obscure white text on a sign.

The Coolness of Gmail

2004-10-09T19:31:00.000+01:00

After GmailFS, a gmail filesystem for Linux, comes Gmail Drive, a windows shell extension that supports drag and drop for files.

Oh, the coolness of it all.

It'll be interesting to see if Google allows these things to live, since they're not going to make them any money.

Thwup, Thwup, Thwup, Phzzzzz, Bang!

2004-10-08T11:48:00.000+01:00

...the last sounds my monitor made before dying. A smell of burning plastic and a sad little column of smoke accompanied it on its way to the monitorial Valhalla (a skip somewhere in the college, I have a feeling I can't just throw it in the bin at home).

This is a fitting end for this monitor, given its origins (dust to dust, skip to skip). But it was a nice (19") monitor and I'll be sad to see it go.

More interestingly, given that this happened two days ago, has been my reaction to its loss. My room seems strangely quiet without the constant humming of computer fans. I tried to sit and watch some TV last night, but my heart simply wasn't in it. I was overcome with the urge to type something (anything). I yearned to check my email. Eventually, I wound up sitting at my desk, playing guitar and listening to music (on my CD player rather than the PC...which is the first time in ages). I tabbed out some of the new Frames album by hand, which also felt strange.

I'm trying to sort out a new monitor today. But the temporary loss of computer facilities has been unnerving. I might try leaving it off in the evenings in future unless I really, really have work to do. It'll be interesting to see what I do with all that extra time.

Scattered updates

2004-10-04T01:13:00.000+01:00

Nothing that warrants a full post to itself, so a few things gathered together.

Music:
BellX1 in Trinity Rooms last Thursday. TR is a surprisingly decent venue. BellX1 rocked, although I'm not sure about their new material (sounds like they're going for a Franz Ferdinand vibe...definitely not a good thing. I just don't understand this obsession everyone has with FF.). Even more surprising than the venue was the support act, Life After Modelling. A support act with charisma, decent tunes and a soundcheck. Say it ain't so!

The Frames in UCH a few weeks ago. Meh. I realise this may be shocking to those who know me, but I do possess some objectivity when it comes to the Frames. And this was a distinctly underwhelming gig. The first half of the set was predominantly new songs, which didn't really go across all that well...with the crowd talking through most of it. Hardly surprising, since they hadn't gotten the album yet, and catchy it ain't. About halfway through, the band kicked into Setlist mode and played familiar stuff. The crowd of mainly 18 year old girls went nuts, and clapped and cheered every note played (literally) and head movement Glen made. They wouldn't shut up, cheering and clapping through stuff like What Happens... and Star Star. The drummer was clearly getting pissed off as this continued through every single song. The band played for 65 minutes (having showed up late), a far cry from the glory days. They also didn't try and engage the crowd, playing song after song with barely a word. Not that anyone wants a return to the dog stories of old, but a bit of charm or levity wouldn't have gone amiss. The Frames on a bad day are still worth seeing...but, meh.

New Redneck Manifesto album. Incredible. Cron, you want?

Josh Ritter's albums (Golden Age and Hello Starling) are seriously growing on me. Cohen, Dylan, Neil Young and Ryan Adams all mixed up without sounding horribly derivative. I actually prefer Golden Age (probably cos I've had it longer) despite the fact that Hello Starling got all the rave reviews. It's definitely music that grows on you.

New Strokes album. Same old, same old. New Green Day album. Great if you like that sort of thing (and I do). Blink182 obsession ongoing, which is slightly disturbing. New Sigur Ros album (() - is the title) is interesting.

Movies:
Michael Cooke (fellow IDC-er) has the Herzog/Kinski boxset. Lucky bastard. Went out to his place today and watched Voyzcek and My Best Fiend. Voyzcek is another strange mood piece. It reminds me a lot of Nosferatu, slowly building to a fairly obvious conclusion. Kinski plays a man who is exploited by everyone around him...slowly losing it. The entire film is yet another descent into madness (like Aguirre), although interestingly, judging by the way Kinski is presented in the documentary My Best Fiend, he was holding back his own madness for most of the movie. I sometimes suspected that his infamous rants and erratic behaviour were an act that he used to create mystique. But no. The guy was practically certifiable, and thoroughly unpleasant to work with. Herzog, I'm less sure of. There's something slightly unsettling about the way he seeks out actors with fairly glaring mental problems and then exploits them in the name of "art". Herzog seems quite sane, but then again...he did plot to kill Kinski on a number of occasions (not that I blame him).

Books:
Why is it when I'm busy at work/thesis that books seek me out and demand to be read. The System of the World, the final part of Neal Stephenson's epic Baroque trilogy is being released shortly. I've already gotten 2200 pages into this, so the finale had better be worth it. Apparently, according to early reviews, the ending is standard Stephenson...ie, there is none. The book just stops. Ah well.

Oonagh has just torn through Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon and is highly impressed. I'm toying with the idea of offering her Quicksilver...but I fear for her sanity.

We've also got a beautiful hardback copy of Jonathan Strange and Dr. Morrell, which has gotten rave reviews and shocked everyone by not making the Booker shortlist. It's unusual for something that is essentially a fantasy novel to get such acclaim, but apparently it's a very unusual book. Oonagh is currently hacking her way through it's 1000 plus pages and likes it so far.

I keep flirting with the idea of picking up Umberto Eco's Baudolino...but sanity keeps intervening.

I remind myself that I simply won't have time to read any of these books, since we have a project deliverable in 5 weeks (in Naples, wheeee!) and I'm trying to get a draft of my thesis out by Xmas, with a few months to follow for corrections and rewrites. But it's nice to dream.

What else? Well, Shane's birthday is coming up in two weeks, and he's coming to Limerick to celebrate. The Divine Comedy are playing in Dolan's that Friday night. There are unsubstantiated rumours that Cron is planning a visitation in the same period. Are the rumours true?

Oh, Ticktockman has been reclaimed by Brendan. Which sucks. We'll miss you, Ticktockman. I expect to hear of Brendan and Dave's house burning to the ground any day now.

Shane has been fitted with a new Gmail account and has been invited to this blog as a contributor. We await his acceptance with bated breath.

Any rssness for this blog?

2004-10-02T01:06:00.000+01:00

That is and RSS feed.

Insulted by a database

2004-09-27T21:31:00.000+01:00

"Similar people to you are listening to these artists: Weird Al Yankovic, Leonard Nimoy"
-- audioscrobbler analyses my taste in music

“What are you saying, that I’m a Taco Bell sort of guy?”
-- Iggy Pop in Coffee and Cigarettes

Uh, Steve?

2004-09-23T17:42:00.000+01:00

http://hometown.aol.com/jewls47/

Wedding Picture Extravaganza

2004-09-20T18:36:00.000+01:00

And so the camera had it's first serious test, Jamie and Michelle's wedding.

Lots of blurry, out of focus pictures were taken of the backs of people's heads, and they have been recorded here for posterity.

About half the shots (the good half) were taken by Oonagh.

Cron, where are all the pictures from Berlin?

Be safe, be seen - UL's road safety initiative

2004-09-19T23:01:00.000+01:00

With the dark winter evenings approaching, UL is to be congratulated on taking steps to protect its research staff, issuing them with safety equipment ranging from simple reflective-bordered cowls to full high-visibility cloaks, depending on importance.

Is there an interaction designer in the house?

2004-09-19T22:48:00.000+01:00

I can recall a certain batgimp of my acquaintance once expressing the hope never to have to use any interface designed by me. An understandable aspiration, given my preference for muscle-memory keyboard shortcuts and/or complete programming languages in a UI, combined with my extremely low patience or empathy with those less me than I.

Nevertheless, it would appear that this very fate is about to befall some 200-odd unfortunates, who will be attempting to manage subsidised childcare through a cron-designed web interface.

A UI designer I am not (see above), but I do appreciate that there are good and bad UIs, and that the good ones don't happen by accident. And I have no intention of designing another bad UI. So I could use some advice.

As I said, this is going to be a web app. My requirements are defined by a set of reasonably detailed usecase descriptions for the system, derived from the crappy fat-client app it will be replacing. The question on my mind is - what next?

What I'd like to do next is fill in the details of how these usecases will work at the level of webpages - What does my user do to kick off the usecase, what information do I need to put on the screen, what data do I want the user to enter, how do I deal with errors, etc. In fact, it appears I want to design some interactions.

So how? How do I describe all the crazy shit a user might want to do, and find a way to do it all in an efficient, consistent and reasonably obvious way? Then, how do I accomodate the twenty-five other things the user wants to do, that I find out halfway through the development cycle, without breaking that efficiency, consistency, and obviousnessness?

I've never been able to figure out what it is interaction designers do in the afternoons, but I suspect that thinking about such problems might be part of it. At least in between naps and Kermit-abuse. So it stands to reason that there are Ways Of Doing These Things. Some kind of meta-model for the structure of an interface and the paths through it, maybe? Any pointers to this kind of stuff would be most gratefully received. Heck, I'd even read it!

European car free day

2004-09-19T21:39:00.000+01:00

... in Berlin translated into 5500 people on bicycles taking a leisurely tour around some of the more traffic-clogged arteries of the city. Yay bikes, boo cars.

If one of the people on bicycles shown here seems familiar, you probably remember his cameo appearance in Pizza Stack The Movie.

On my way home I spotted these dedicated individuals queueing to get into the MoMA exhibition, which is open 24 hours for the last few days of the exhibition.

From their position at the end of the queue, I estimate they got into the museum around dawn this morning. Very impressive. Especially considering that they could have a) flown to New York in the amount of time they spent in the queue and b) got in with 1-3 hours of queueing anytime since the exhibition opened in February :)

Gender Confusion in Corbally

2004-09-17T20:11:00.000+01:00

From the incomparable Limerick Post:

In case you can't make it out, the text reads:

Politicians and residents in Corbally join forces to lobby for greater security measures, policing and pubic lighting in the area.

The mind boggles.

Burning The Maps

2004-09-15T20:06:00.000+01:00

Yay! My signed copy of Burn the Maps has finally arrived!

And I've hammered out a track-by-track review for it (done at great speed, while listening to the album itself, so ignore spelling/grammar mistakes)...

1. Happy

Well, if ever a song was mistitled...

Happy begins as a heavy acoustic dirge, with spooky "whooooooo" choral sections...like Clannad being tortured by Goths. I'm not sure I'm crazy about the way Glen's voice is mixed on this. It sounds very delicate, with all the bass taken out of it. Brittle...I think that's the word I'm looking for. It suits the slowly creeping menace for the verses.

The falsetto chorus is only slightly more upbeat, introduced with major piano chord and embroidered with a spidery lead line. I definitely remember the chorus being far more joyous in live incarnations of the track.

Special mention goes to the twisted Pacman arcade cabinet solo new guitarist Rob Bochnik pulls off in the break. For comparison, think of the end of Giving Me Wings or Radiohead's Let Down. This is followed almost immediately by some completely mood inverting orchestral stabs by Colm MacAnIomaire. And yes, that's very cool. The lyrics are the complete antithesis of the title, maybe a reference to the storytelling excesses of their live albums:

"Come help me out, I'm sick from the fight. From inserting a laugh where none should be. Show me where this joke got tired, cos you know I'm slow catching on."

It doesn't get any more cheerful as the song winds to a close:

"Why are you building divides? Is it some failing in your life?"

The song ends with a rushing sound, a bit like a tamer version of the end of Early Bird. This warps into the intro for Finally, the second track and first single from the album.

2. Finally

"Did you fall on your way. It's a long way down. Welcome back to your place, hope you know it now." Ya, this isn't really partying music. At least this one is more uptempo, being propelled by an offbeat snare. The drums drop out for a modest bridge section, before winding up again for a scenery-chewing chorus. An orchestra surges through the later sections of the song. The whole thing dies down into that bridge section again, with the word "finally" being repeated like a mantra. It catches fire again at the end with Glen screaming "I love it so far" over and over to the last bar.

3. Dream Awake

This begins with a quietly pulsing guitar riff, accented with some angular lead lines (a bit like Giving Me Wings from For The Birds). The vocal is far more intimate than the previous songs, produced to sound like it's being sung about three inches from your ear. It works.

It begins in a very traditional Frames-ish way. It's quiet, sedate, serious...bringing to mind Disappointed or Friends And Foe. That was one of the things I didn't like about For The Birds...the songs seemed very static. There was one good idea in each song and it was executed brilliantly...but they didn't really go anywhere else.

Dream Awake turns into a train wreck about 2 minutes in. A military drumbeat builds up out of nowhere, with some swelling organs (stop sniggering). When the bass kicks in the drums scatter into double-time randomness. Meantime, the violin and a few guitars wind up in the background. Whale sounds appear. It starts turning into a Sigur Ros song, but they pull it back just before it spills into white noise for a downbeat acoustic coda (a little like What Happens...).

4. Caution To The Birds

This was a song recorded solo by Glen with Steve Albini, years ago. It was never my favourite song. It was too raw/unadorned. It sounded like a demo.

Well, this is the real thing, and Christ...it's heavy. The deep bass sound from Happy is back. It sounds like a Low track, with the tempo practically non-existent.

The chorus rescues it from becoming a dirge, though, with Glen doubletracked and yelling "sound, there's order in the sound" over pleasantly crunchy guitars.

After the second chorus, it dies into an almost painfully slow picked guitar. With long. yawning. pauses. stretched. between. each. note.

And then someone drops the hammer and the whole thing explodes into an Ennio Morricone widescreen sci-fi epic soundtrack (yes, it's hard to describe). The guitars are suddenly galloping across the pounding drumbeat. A few seconds later, the whole thing is lit up even further by high volume distorted guitar lead that just burns its way to the front of the mix, accompanied by howling chorus in the background.

Then it all disolves to leave the violin scraping out the lead line. You can pretty much see the Frames taking out their to-do list and scratching the word "epic" off it.

5. Trying

This was a b-side to the Fake single, so it's nothing new. It begins as a pretty little acoustic song, sung in a falsetto and again in tempo nicked from Low. The tone of the album has been fairly well established by now, it's thoroughly miserable, and this song is no exception. The mix is a little different from the b-side, with the trebly white noise that overwhelms the song at the end being given more shape. It finishes with some violin scraping before the drums thunder into Fake.

6. Fake

The song that divided Frames fans, with some claiming that this simple-minded, radio-friendly, top 5 hit had sellout written all over it.

Well, it makes sense on the album. The whole thing has been re-mixed and re-recorded, to better suit the mood (which, for those who aren't paying attention, is dark and miserable).

The intro pretty much redeems the song. Instead of the overproduced guitars on the single, the guitars here have been sandblasted and moved right to the front of the mix. Think Pixies meet Siamese Dream era Pumpkins. The verses have been left alone, although the vocals sound a little more bitter.

The guitars overwhelm the chorus, and the vocals are no longer doubletracked. The whole thing sounds a lot more frantic and the bridge section is heralded by Glen screaming "what are we crying for? I don't even know anymore..."

It does fit on the album, particularly in view of the songs before and after it, which seem to be companion pieces lyrically.

7. Sideways Down

Another quiet beginning, aping the tight muted clean sounds of the quieter passages in God Bless Mom. Bits of Rob Bochnik lead line weirdnesses float around the edges of the song. When the drums kick in, it almost sounds like a Pavement song. It's a little like Perfect Opening Line in tone until we get to the chorus, which pops up out of nowhere - surfing along on a chugging guitar with Glen delivering lines in a resigned air while the orchestra swirls around him.

After the second chorus, things get a bit weird. The Pavement style guitars chop along next to soprano choirs and Lisa Hannigan (from Damien Rice's band) doing her thing. The violins on this track are just plain strange, verging on the Divine Comedy at times...before remembering that this is supposed to be a "dark" album and diving into weirdness again.

This one has single written all over it. It's certainly nothing like any Frames track I've ever heard before.

8. Underglass

The sister piece to Another Love Song, delivered 14 years later. This is pure Pixies homage. The bass line is taken straight from Tony's Theme, the high pitched wailing from Velouria. The chorus though, is pure Frames. This is the first straightforward "rawk" song on the album. After lashing through two verses the whole thing collapses in on itself, with what sounds remarkably like someone dropping a guitar and kicking it across a studio floor. The drums scatter and then gather again for one last race through the chorus, which is screamed the whole way through. The whole thing is over in 2 minutes and finishes with a feedback hum.

Two things to notice here. Firstly this is track 8 and we still haven't heard anything which could be played on daytime radio by any DJ who wanted a job the next day. Secondly, this song only shifts the mood from downbeat to frantic, without doing anything to alleviate to darkness in the album. I can't really see it sitting next to Busted and Westlife in a teenager's CD collection. But then again, I figured For the Birds would be a massive failure, so who am I to say?

9. Ship Caught in the Bay

Ever wonder what the Frames covering Bjork would sound like? Well, here's your answer. This opens with a tape loop, like a track from Vespertine or Deus' "Let's See Who Goes Down First". It reminds me a little of Pearl Jam's "Who Are We" from the No Code album. This being the Frames, Glen switches back to his intimate over your shoulder singing style, quietly delivering lines like:

"and what is it that we don't do well enough, that we're constantly afraid?"

It trundles along peacefully in this vein for a while, doing nothing in particular. I had already tagged it as a standard, static For the Birds song, with a bit of tape looping to make it more interesting.

And then it comes over all Radiohead. It starts with cut up drums (think Airbag or Packt Like Sardines). Then some of those spacey synths enter and make whale noises before being cut up into vicious tape loops...like Idioteque. The whole thing ends with a Karma Police-style bleeding guitar noise.

The whole Radiohead thing is over in about a minute, and it's hard not to think that it's all a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it suits them surprisingly well.

10. Keepsake

Back to lush, acoustic, and depressing.

"I'm keeping this as a keepsake, and everything else I'm burning".

The verses trickle along pleasantly, with barely strummed clean electric guitar, clicking drums, and the by now signature glassy guitar lines from Rob Bochnik. A lone violin keens through vocals, wringing every last bit of melancholy from the lyrics.

The song has nice "anti-chorus", where things slow down and all the instruments drop out except for the guitar.

After the second chorus, things get...strange. It starts as a traditional, Fitzcarraldo-era spookathon...like Evergreen or Angel At My Table. The guitars play slightly off key and bass sounds random. But the whole time there's a guitar gathering dust in the background, getting louder and louder...like Santa Maria. The white noise keeps growing and it's reined in by new guitars which are added to the pile-up playing sensible rhythms, until they too degenerate into noise one-by-one. The violin saws away at a manic line while guitars are ascending into dog-frequencies in the background. Someone's definitely been listening to Mogwai (Ratts of the Capital, if I had to guess). In the meantime, Glen's been listening to Radiohead, muttering lines like:

"they're hunting me down like an insect"

The whole builds and builds until it resolves into one guitar strumming slowly into a fadeout.

11. Suffer In Silence

Another one that begins like a traditional folky Frames ballad. Solo acoustic, and Glen at his most depressing.

When it finally winds up, it reminds me a lot of Radiohead's How To Disappear Completely. But just before it floats away on keening guitars and murmuring vocals, you get stabbed in the ear by an orchestra. Really. It's a very unusual feeling.

12. Locusts

This is an old, old song. It was written in the wake of Mic Christopher's death, so it's not exactly cheery. That said, it's not quite as miserable as some of the other tracks. It's got a strange country vibe going on. It's another downtempo acoustic crawl, but it's leavened by some hovering violins and some strange birdcalls from the lead guitar. The tune really takes off with a cute little piano riff at the end of the second chorus. I don't know why, but it reminds me of Christmas bells. This stretches into another slow burning mix of violins and high pitched guitars swooping off over the horizon.

The whole thing finishes on a heavily processed organ riff, to the point where it almost sounds hopeful. Almost, but not quite.

MLP: Curta

2004-09-10T18:26:00.000+01:00

First marvel at all the little biteens, and the bravery of the guy who took it apart.

Then, play with this nifty flash simulation. It doesn't have the gear-crunchingy ratchety sound and feel of a real adding machine, but it's still cool. And I actually figured out what all the controls are for :=)

Children's Books You'll Never See

2004-09-03T20:09:00.000+01:00

...saw this somewhere on the web. Funny enough to reproduce:

"You Are Different and That's Bad"
"Dad's New Wife Timothy"
"Pop! Goes the Hamster.... And Other Great Microwave Games"
"Testing Homemade Parachutes Using Only Your Household Pets"
"Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence"
"The Boy Who Died from Eating All His Vegetables"
"Start a Real Estate Empire with the Change From Your Mom's Purse"
"Things Rich Kids Have, but You Never Will"
"The Care Bears Maul Some Campers and are Shot Dead"
"How to Become The Dominant Military Power In Your Elementary School"
"Controlling the Playground: Respect through Fear"
"Strangers Have the Best Candy"
"The Little Sissy Who Snitched"
"Some Kittens Can Fly!"
"Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her"
"The Attention Deficit Disorder Association's Book of Wild Animals of
North Amer- Hey! Let's Go Ride Our Bikes!"
"All Dogs Go to Hell"
"The Kids' Guide to Hitchhiking"
"Why Can't Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical Outlet Be Friends?"
"Bi-Curious George"
"Daddy Drinks Because You Cry"
"Baby Bop's Barney"
"Daddy, the Nanny, and You"
"Bastard's Have Feelings Too"
"Living with Ringworm"
"Lice - Intimate, Loving, and Clingy Pets You Can Learn to Love"

Depends on where you are...

2004-08-29T18:14:00.000+01:00

...relative to the international dateline. In some places, it's already yesterday.

Anyhow. A random selection of pictures were heavily compressed and resized and flung at skynet. They can be found at this place.. Skynet seems to be suffering lately, so it might be a tad slow.

When I have more than ten minutes together, I'll take this down again and throw up some decent pictures.

Woo-hoo

2004-08-27T19:27:00.000+01:00

This is not an update, that'll happen tomorrow.

My camera arrived. Praise be!

A pic-tastic post will be written tomorrow. For now, I leave you with this:

The line keeps getting longer

2004-08-09T20:32:00.000+01:00

RSS Equalizer: "As a webmaster, you've got more than enough work to do. So why spend even more time writing fresh new web content?"

The revolution has been postponed while we build a longer wall.

one-handed typing

2004-08-07T12:03:00.000+01:00

United States Patent: 5,288,158

Patented keyboard layouts. And why wouldn't they. Software implementation of this is all but trivial but can't be done, because the patent-holder would rather sell a hardware implementation for 600 dollars a go. Blergh.

interaction design

2004-07-29T17:26:00.000+01:00

“The command-line tools of Unix are crude and backward,” he scoffed. “Modern, properly designed operating systems do everything through a graphical user interface.”

Master Foo said nothing, but pointed at the moon. A nearby dog began to bark at the master's hand.

Master Foo Discourses on the Graphical User Interface

Rodent Issues

2004-07-29T00:44:00.000+01:00

My (enormously expensive optical) mouse has gone nuts. It has trouble distinguishing between single-clicks and double-clicks. About 70% of the time, it will interpret a single-click as a double. It wasn't until it started doing this that I noticed how much I use the damn thing for text selection and editing. It's driving me crazy.

It seems to be a hardware problem, cos I've reinstalled the drivers and tried other mice. Apparently Intellipoint optical mice are prone to this problem, when a tiny bit of metal cracks inside. I haven't been mistreating it much though (not half as badly as my keyboard at any rate). I'm sorely tempted to crack it open and have a look around (not gonna be easy to do without breaking it though...no screws), but I think it might still be under warranty. If I'm really unpleasant to the folk in Dixons, they might give me a new mouse.

The other thing nettling me at the moment is that my internet access has gone flaky. No-one else in the house has any problem. The data-rate has slowed to a crawl, and it fails DNS lookups every second page. It's peculiar. Some sites (like work mail, skynet) I can reach without trouble...but clicking on links almost never works. Instead I have to paste the link into a new browser window and hit refresh a few times and it may (if I'm lucky) load up. It took a hell of a lot of refreshing to get here. I might try Firefox (or whatever it's called these days), if I can find an installer somewhere.

It's funny how two relatively minor issues with my wagon can distress me so much. That's probably not a good thing.

I sense an almighty windows reinstall coming up.

Have some juice.

2004-07-19T21:54:00.000+01:00

Half-glass apple juice with shot of vinegar for more attractive (to fruit fly) smell. Shot of washing-up liquid for (I assume) reduced surface tension.

So they drown. Layer of dead flies forms on surface of juice. Corpses slowly become water(juice)logged. Sink to the bottom slowly, one by one, joining layer there.

The funny thing is, there's still just as many of them around the kitchen, so they must be breeding faster than they're drowning. I suspect natural selection is right now in the process of creating a hyperintelligent species of fruit fly that doesn't like apple juice.

So today I went after them with the hoover. If that doesn't put a sufficient dent in their population for the apple juice traps to finish them off... ...well then god help us all.

(Transmission cuts off. Fade to black, roll credits.)

Guilt

2004-07-15T01:43:00.000+01:00

ummm...well, I'm still around, but feeling terribly guilty about the lack of updates. Normal service may possibly be resumed soon. Have been busy(ish), staring at screens and trying to compose thesis-worthy sentences. Very soon, I hope to be composing thesis-worthy paragraphs. Within a few months I should be capable of pages. Chapters are looking good for sometime this decade. At the current rate, my thesis should be mostly complete by 2024 (except for proper footnotes, obviously).

Since this isn't a proper update, I'm just gonna list out a whole bunch of things with no links. This is really just a glorified email.

Fahrenheit 911 is pretty good. I've watched a rough cut downloaded from the web (which Michael Moore sanctions apparently) and I fully intend going to see it in a cinema, so as it gets the ticket sale (apparently nefarious Republicans went to see it in the states, but bought a ticket for Garfield the Movie and snuck into the theater to deny Moore the sale). The movie focuses more on emotion than facts...but that's not neccessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of facts in there too, and they're not anything tremendously new. Moore understands that many people already know the facts in the abstract, but they've lost their capacity for outrage due to overexposure. F911 is very effective at getting the anger going again.

Turns out that Ross, one of the guys who moved in a few months ago, is something of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. He believes that the US had foreknowledge of the attacks, but allowed them to happen for "geostrategic" reasons. The US needed a war in Afghanistan to secure the Unocal pipeline and to balance power in the region. He has a movie called "Truth and Lies of 911" which outlines the evidence for this thesis, and it's fairly persuasive. It didn't entirely convince me (the guy presenting the film is a bit of a nutcase), but there are a lot of interesting facts in it.

Oh, and I watched Matchstick Men last week. It's a good movie, despite featuring Nicholas Cage. I recommend it if you're looking for a DVD to rent.

Music-wise, I'm still rambling through Ross' enormous mp3 collection. The Avalanches, Mew, the Killers, Bic Runga, Tori Amos. "Lola Stars and Stripes" by the Stills is a kickass song. I'm still listening to DJ Shadow's first album and Sigur Ros.

Allmusic has gotten an updated interface. It looks pretty cool, but they're having some teething problems. Probably the only web resource as cool as Google.

I went to go see Rodrigo y Gabriela in Dolan's last week. Ok, this is the 3rd time I've seen them and I guess their stuff is a bit samey...but it's still amazing to watch them beat those guitars into submission. They have a new live album out which I'm thinking of getting.

The Frames are releasing a new single in August, to precede their album due in early September. Highly anticipated, I can tell you. Hansard ran through the single (called Finally) in Dolan's 2 weeks ago. I'd heard the song before, and thought it was pretty good, but they've gone and added 2 or 3 whole new sections to it - which fit perfectly. It's always interesting to hear how the songs develop as they go on.

They're playing in Marlay Pk. (where we saw REM last summer) at the end of August, along with Idlewild, Supergrass and Bell X1. It'll be the biggest gig they've ever headlined. Will I be there? Wild horses...

Preparations are gathering momentum for an enormous house party here on Friday night. It's Marius' 36th birthday, and judging from the amount of beer that's been bought...it may very well be his last. It's kind of a meta-party, with everyone inviting everyone they know, for no particularly good reason. In stark contrast to many student house parties I've attended, this one has been meticulously planned. The entire house has been cleaned, beer bought, an itinerary composed (the Mill Bar, the Lodge, the house) and finger-food was mentioned. I await the outcome with interest. It has all the makings of a complete disaster.

Oonagh is planning a paintballing session sometime in August and is trying to enlist everyone she knows who might be handy with a gun. She got first dibs on Finbar, Jeff and Marian G. I get Alex, who's a pacifist. As her ex, I'm considering investing in some groin protection.

What else? Well, my camera hasn't arrived yet. Apparently the shop is still ordering it in. Serves me right for buying so cheaply I guess.

Eventually I will come up with a proper update...

foobar2000 - a good-enough mp3 player for windows

2004-07-13T17:52:00.000+01:00

It doesn't take up half your hard drive or have more shiny buttons than a 747 cockpit, so it's obviously not in a position to compete with dbPowerAmp. But for luddites like me that are still using a pre-AOL version of Winamp, it might be worth switching to.

Some good things about it:

Gracefully handles large (thousands of files) playlists, caching tag info.
Tab-based interface for multiple playlists. Reasonably clean UI throughout.
Saves playlists & player state on exit.
ReplayGain. Calculates the "perceived loudness" of an mp3 and saves a gain value in the id3-or-equivalent-tag of the file. Adjusts the volume accordingly when playing. Simple. Effective. Took a while to do the initial gain calculations, though - about 6 seconds per file on my machine. Fortunately it wasn't written by an untrained ape, so it can continue to play music while it's doing the calculations.
CDDB support. Select a CD's worth of files, press one button to get nice correct track info by using the track lengths to identify the CD, press another to write it into the id3 tags. Shweet.
Support for every file format I care about.
"Playlist builder" to make playlists from simple search queries.
No skins. No visualisations to speak of. Yes those are good things.
"Stop after current" command. Select a track in a playlist to skip to it after current.
No bugs evident in the last 2 weeks of use.

Some bad things:

No convenient volume control. Strange.
"Current Track" indicator in the playlist view is a little hard to see.
I have to write use-case documentation. Oh wait, that's nothing to do with the mp3 player.

In other words go download it already.

Happy Birthday DJ Doon!

2004-07-04T20:24:00.004+01:00

Oh, you want content? Try this rant, and remember you asked for it.

...but the memory management sucks...

2004-06-30T20:27:00.000+01:00

...about to leave the house for my religious experience, but I spotted a quick review of Spider-Man 2 on Penny Arcade. Looks like Akawaka will be a very happy (and rich) guy. Time to start planning a 6 month holiday in California...

Content tomorrow, promise. Includes meeting Matthew Chalmers from Glasgow, who gave a kickass 90 minute presentation on his design work today. Will discuss more fully tomorrow.

And kudos to Wick.

And now to balance out the previous post

2004-06-30T18:26:00.000+01:00

... I'm going to post a link to a flash game.

It's a little bit like trying to ride one of these at low speed.

My current record is 103 metres, almost doubling the paltry efforts of the bunnypeople.

Just queue here for a MoMAnt

2004-06-27T23:17:00.000+01:00

And now, content.

Today I finally got up off my ass and dragged myself to the MoMA exhibition. I've been threatening to go for a while, but always had more important things to be doing (which usually involved sleeping).

I'd been vaguely hoping that the crowds would thin out a bit, but it seems the problem with a city the size of Berlin is that you can't really wait until everyone's been to see something. There's just too many of everyone.

So instead, I joined everyone in the queue (about half of which is shown above), and spent a merry two hours eating sandwiches, admiring the Potsdamer Platz skyline, and reading Die Megabit-Bombe (which is heavy going, but worth it for some interesting ideas).

Due to the fact that people were only being allowed in to the gallery at the rate that other people were leaving, it was one slow-moving queue. I made a brief attempt to determine the likely visitor-per-hour throughput of the gallery, but I never could follow those multicoloured Communications Theory slides (sorry Kevin), so I decided to just give up and wait.

Someone must have done the maths right, though, because we got there in the end, and things were only mildly crowded inside. There was a small amount of moshing around the more popular paintings, but no serious problems for any sensibly-tall person.

Anyway, after all that -- yes, I did like it. As my ability, and probably yours, to write or think coherently has long ago been lost to excessive PowerPoint-exposure, there follow Cron's Highlights of the MoMA Exhibition in Bullet-points:

Favourite painting that wasn't Starry Night: The Dance. This doesn't look like much in a small print, but in all its seven-foot-tall glory, it really took me by surprise.
Favourite four-foot shiny thing: Bird in Space. I do not, in general, get sculptures, but this one I can dig.
Favourite non-shiny flying-related thing: Giacomo Balla's Swifts.
Most surprising thing: The Persistence of Memory is only 33cm across, which explains why every large print of it I've seen looks a bit gammy :-) The real surprise is that being so small actually makes me like it more, because it's so insanely intricate.
Least surprising thing: Seeing a load of Pollocks "in the flesh" did not make me transcend my ignorance and recognise them as great works of art. Same goes for lots of other stuff, usually involving rectangles of almost the same colour.
Favourite abstracts: Agony by Archile Gorky (<daphne>I don't know why...</daphne>) and The Vertigo of Eros (brilliant depth and, wheee... swirly colours!)
Favourite animal: Paul Klee's Cat and Bird
Favourite dog in a supporting role: the Three Musicians'
Favourite Goat: another Picasso. Maybe you have to know some goats personally to appreciate this one. Shut up, Steve. If you don't, just trust me - this sculpture is 100% perfect goatness.
Most moving: Gerhard Richter's Baader-Meinhof cycle. I know nothing about art, and I wasn't born at the time (in fact, I was born exactly one year later), but this is the part of the exhibition I won't forget.

Incidentally, most of the abovementioned moshing was being done by people wearing "audioguides". They appeared to be wandering around following the directions on the tape, oblivious to the world around them. Since this already had a kind of Snow Crash flavour to it, I reckon there's an interesting potential in fitting the "audioguides" with a radio and some kind of location device.

People could then be directed to different paintings under the control of some kind of anti-moshing traffic-management software that automatically prevents them all from converging in one spot. And then when some guy with a Katana tries to steal your paintings, your mindless droid security force is already in place.

A loud bang and a long walk

2004-06-27T18:50:00.000+01:00

Inflating an old bicycle tyre to almost twice its rated pressure is not a clever idea :)
It appears that a special form of Murphy's law dictates that the tyre will hold up to this pressure until it is located at the exact point in any given city that is the maximum distance from the nearest bike shop, at which point it will suddenly and violently decline further service. Applications for this law (other than deciding where to open new bike shops) are still under investigation.

counterstrike video

2004-06-24T21:43:00.000+01:00

It's a 65 meg file, but well worth it for such classics as the lunchbox bomb and the toilet roll grenade.

Yes, this blog is turning into pure MLP. There'll be some real content along any day now.

Was für ein Pokemon bist du? Uh. Uh. Uh yeah.

2004-06-22T19:12:00.000+01:00

Maybe it's the singing nine-year-old bouncing around the flat that's turned me a bit childish, but I think this is well cool.

And I can't wait to see what this does.

Make your own Kung Fu movie credits

2004-06-22T18:57:00.000+01:00

I know where Bruce Lee lives (flash)

American Gods

2004-06-21T21:33:00.000+01:00

...by Neil Gaiman. American Gods rips off one of Pratchett's most interesting ideas...that gods are sustained by belief.

In American Gods, every god who was every believed in by someone who wound up in the states still has a physical instantiation (in various states of decrepitude). In the meantime, new gods are created as Americans find new things to worship (media, technology, automobiles etc.).

It's got some interesting ideas...and some nice set-pieces...but it doesn't actually go anywhere with them. What you wind up with at the end is a big messy Pratchett-like denouement, which takes far too long to finish.

I can't really recommend it.

...btw, I like the funky buttons at the top. Ooohing and aaahing will commence shortly.