Tuesday 31 March 2009

Protesting Times

Curiously looking forward to the G20 protests tomorrow.

Unfortunately, given that my colleagues and I start work at 7.00am, we will have already contributed half a day's work/tax to the economy by the time the protesters drag themselves out of their yurts and gather at Moorgate/Bank around 11.00am to make a bit of a nuisance of themselves.

Well, good luck with that; I've got a meeting...

Twalala (I'm Not Listeining)

Oh wow, this is what loads and loads and LOADS of people have been asking for on Twitter:

A web-based Twitter client (currently in early development) which gives you the ability to mute the people you follow if they’re getting a bit chatty. Or maybe you want to filter out tweets that contain specific keywords from your twittersteam. And don’t worry about missing your important @replies or direct messages; we’ve built in ways to let you define what twalala sees and doesn’t see. You can also use twalala to post and reply directly to Twitter.
I'm so on it...

Overheard #71

(Not technically 'overheard' as it was addressed to me personally, but too good not to share...)

Meeting my family off the plane from Dubai after their 10-day break; a period in which I took it upon myself to attempt to grow a beard, as one might. Out of the baggage reclaim area they come, blinking in the uber-bright all-glass Heathrow Terminal 5 sunlight. Freyja sees me and runs over to give me a hug with the following greeting:
"Hello, Daddy! Have you had your face painted?"
Classic.

Monday 30 March 2009

Fame At Last

It's happened. I have been carefully selected for a highly-prized invitation to the social network du jour that you don't choose to join. That's right - I'm on Google Street View! Well, my legs are, the rest of me is hidden behind a bloody road-sign. Proof, you say? Here you go:


That's Alex alongside, by the way, and it looks like we were headed for EAT so it may have been a Friday pie-day.

Anyway, I'd like to thank each one of you for your help and support over the years and reassure everyone that I won't forget you when the millions start rolling in and I buy one of the Cayman Islands to live on.

Go For The Juggler

OK, so Eduardo's cheeky volley was good, but this lot are incredible:



Pros: The opposition would never get the ball off them.
Cons: They'd spend the entire match in the centre circle.

(via the quite interesting qikipedia)

Saturday 28 March 2009

Front Of House

Found this interesting bit of London history via Google Sightseeing on Twitter: 24 Leinster Gardens

You Do The Math

As a kind of antithesis of the rap Excel charts, I really like these: All New Math

TweetStats

Pretty graphs: TweetStats :: for fourstar

Friday 27 March 2009

Edge Case

This made me chuckle, a lot.

Liliputing: Original Acer Aspire One hard
drives crash at the sound of Bono’s voice
The problem first reared its ugly head when a member of the Hardware Cult forums was playing U2 track “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me Kill Me.” While the problem isn’t related to this song along, several forum members seem to have reproduced the error with the sweet sounds of Bono’s voice.

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Four Once More (Slight Return)

Just catching up with Free Agents via 4oD last night when, just before the ad break, in comes personal fave 'Atlas' by Battles.

I am hereby happy to confirm that it is still officially genius and/or plain weird - as is Free Agents, as it happens. Mangan + Horgan + Head = Epic Win.

Team Player

I could play with this all day, albeit with the same outcome:


Arsene knows.

Friday 20 March 2009

Very Hungry Google

For Freyja - the best 'special' Google logo ever:


The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a children's book written by Eric Carle, originally published in 1969. It is highly popular and has been praised for its use of easy-to-read words which makes it good for teaching young children to read. The book contains 225 words and large, colorful illustrations. It follows a caterpillar as it munches its way through a variety of edibles such as ice cream, salami, watermelon, one slice of Swiss cheese, and a lollipop before it finally pupates and emerges as a butterfly. The story teaches the life cycle of a butterfly, counting to 5, the names of the days of the week, and about different types of food. It is one of the best-selling books of all time with over 25 million copies in print.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Had Your Phil Yet?

I am incredulous.
"Brown has questioned whether Fabregas should have been allowed on the pitch, adding that he thought his attire of jeans and a puffa jacket was unsuitable."
I'm sorry, Mr Fashion, but you lost. We are in the semi-final. Cesc's choice of outerwear had nothing to do with your Allardyce-esque, spoiling, time-wasting, anti-football tactics. And guess what? They came back and bit you on the ass. Now STFU and get back to the Championship where you belong, fool.

Overheard #70

In response to a breakfast conversation:
"Oh, that would be hideous. Like a Marmite clown."

Monday 16 March 2009

Out Of The Hat

Following Arsenal's win on penalties in Rome, myself and Jeremy at work had a natter about the possible outcomes of the Champions League Quarter Final & Semi Final draw this coming Friday.

He reckons the English clubs will be thrown together; I think they'll be kept apart (thus maintaining the potential Blatter/Platini hell of an all-English semi-final) but what do you think?

Go on, bung your predictions in the comments (and I'll pretend like there's a prize* for the person who gets nearest or something).

Format: winners of Q1 & Q2 meet in one semi-final; winners of Q3 & Q4 in the other.
Me:
Q1. Arsenal v Porto
Q2. Chelsea v Barcelona
Q3. Manchester Utd v Bayern Munich
Q4. Liverpool v Villareal
Jeremy:
Q1. Manchester Utd v Liverpool
Q2. Arsenal v Chelsea
Q3. Porto v Villareal
Q4. Bayern Munich v Barcelona
Alex:
Q1. Arsenal v Liverpool
Q2. Manchester Utd v Chelsea
Q3. Bayern Munich v Villareal
Q4. Porto v Barcelona
Rowan, sort of:
Q1. Arsenal v Barcelona
Q2. Manchester Utd v Villareal
Q3. Chelsea v Porto
Q4. Liverpool v Bayern Munich
* oh alright then, I'll stretch to a M&S pork pie (winner to collect)

Friday 13 March 2009

Kill (Slight Return)

OK, so I don't know what to do now; this Foamo* bootleg of the La Roux remix is even better!









La Roux - In For The Kill (Foamo Skream Remix Bootleg)

Atmospherics from Burial, beats from Underworld, bassline chopped out of the Skream mix and Elly's soaring voice floating above it all. That's like someone (Sylar?) lifted off the top of my head, peered in and wrote down all the things that do 'the neck hair thing'. A win of epic proportions.

* straight outta High Wycombe, he did that 'Everything Cool' thing that was all over the place last summer...

RSS is FUBAR

One thing after another!


*twiddles thumbs*

Strangers

Very interesting piece; the logic is simple yet obvious once you notice it:

The Kindness of Strangers - WSJ.com

Blogroll, Schmogroll

It was pointed out to me recently that the 'blogroll' in my sidebar is currently not working. This is a direct feed from my Google Reader of other blogs which I mark as worth sharing with (both) the people who happen to read my website. So I looked into it and it turns out that if just one of the feeds in the list is not working for some reason, or has moved, or is malformed then the whole feed 'just fails'. Can't quite believe Google has let that bug slip through the net! So now I have to go and work out which one it is and de-list it.

Sorry about that.

Thursday 12 March 2009

Tune.

I love dubstep.

It has to be the ultimate genre. Where else would you find half-time reggae marching drums, 808 techno kicks, massive 90s anthemic basslines, delicate twittering hi-hats, rave stabs, speeded-up jungle breaks and soaring atmospheric vocal stylings thrown together with ice-cold production, whilst retaining modern urban credibility. And that's just the middle eight...

Anyway, lately I've been listening to a lot of dubstep producers' mixes: Benga, Shackleton, Joker & my personal favourite, Croydon-based flag bearer for the modern dubstep scene, Skream. I previously posted his reworking of La Roux but his mix for "Mischka Presents..." (available here at Discobelle.net) is awesome, starting out quite sparse and 'beaty' but moving more into vocal remixes/bootlegs by the last quarter of an hour or so.

Which is where I found this:








It's an unreleased bootleg of "Blinded By The Lights" by The Streets, a classic clubbing anthem in its time but the bass drop on this just sent the hairs on the back of my neck into overdrive ('Dark Train' by Underworld has the same effect when the synths come in). The blogs/forums seem to think it is by Nero, as does Mary-Anne Hobbs (who should know) but nobody has confirmed this yet, as far as I know.

Enjoy. And hopefully it might make its way onto a flat, round, black bit of vinyl in the not-too-distant future.

Wednesday 11 March 2009

Morning Has Broken

Today was the first day this year that I have awoken, showered, dressed and left the house to get my train all in some kind of actual morning daylight. Added to which, the first track that came on when I plugged in my headphones was this, which is beautiful (and given that I was about to get on a train in the light for the first time in months, somewhat apt).









Vector Lovers - 'Metrolux Forever'

Monday 9 March 2009

Fast Eddy

Brilliant volleyed goal from Eduardo in our 3-0 win this weekend; praise all over the blogs so I won't bother adding my 2p, except to put up this picture, which really demonstrates his fantastically cheeky technique, right off the beaches of Brazil:


However, one thing which did totally surprise me was the use of an embedded YouTube video of the goal on the Daily Telegraph website, here:


UPDATE: they have pulled the embedded version, now just a link to the YouTube page

In the current climate, where large organisations are frantically protecting their intellectual property and demanding even the briefest sporting clips be taken down from video hosting sites with frightening alacrity, I find this astonishing from a mainstream newspaper. Especially as it turns out that they didn't upload the clip - although I desperately wish they had. Anyway, by linking to this clip, uploaded by a random internet punter, they're seemingly giving tacit approval to the 'theft of copyright material', if you side with the FA?

Now I really want to see if it suddenly says "This content has been removed after a claim by the copyright owner" and what (if any) comment the paper puts out at that time. Anyone know if The Daily Telegraph is part of the same media group as Setanta or are they just pushing their luck? Interesting move.

That said, if the quality of the Setanta Sports satellite feed is anything to go on, they're not very technical over there so I suppose they might just never find out :)

Sunday 8 March 2009

Hit Me

Love it: Drum Set

Try typing your name, recording it and using it as your SMS text message alert. That should wake them up on the Northern Line...

Friday 6 March 2009

Lack Of Pirates Causes Global Warming

Favourite xkcd for ages: xkcd: Correlation

TwitFace

So I have been right all along :)


Although it seems like elements of FriendFeed are better thought out, Twitter is where all the action is. Hey, maybe they'll merge and we can all look forward to a brighter, 140-character future. Here's hoping...

Monday 2 March 2009

No Co.mment

Shame, this was one of the better thought out blog comment tracking systems:

co.mments - No more

I guess I shall have to look around for an alternative. Not coComment, tried that and didn't like it. YackTrack and BackType seem to be OK from a quick Google, will try them. Or has anyone used Commentful, seems to be part of BlugFlux? Suggestions, people?

And It Was All Going So Whale...

Somebody give me a good reason not to get everything on this page?

Hello Fail Whale

Confused? Try here.