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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 14 May 2005
[puzzle] Diamond Geezer on Sudoku: ‘…like all the best puzzles it’s fiendishly simple.’
[comics] Proud Member of Warren Ellis’ Holy Slut Army … Ellis: ‘It was one of the more genuinely disturbing moments of my life, seeing people walking around wearing them at Dragon*Con last year?’
12 May 2005
[comics] My Mom was a Schizophrenic — Chester Brown’s comic-strip on the history and medical classification of Schizophrenia …
[ipod] iPods Killed the Radio Star … ‘Arrow 93 — a classic rock station for as long as I can remember (my memory stretches back a decade or so, incidentally) — was now calling itself Jack FM. The change was more than nominal. “They’ve expanded their playlist, explained my wife, who knows all about these sorts of things. “So instead of just playing classic rock, they’ve got some pop music, some alternative, stuff from the ’90s. And they jump from one genre to another at random.” “It sounds like an iPod on shuffle mode,” I said. And apparently, it’s supposed to…’
11 May 2005
[ipods] Evening Standard: iPod Health Alert
10 May 2005
[comics] Stories, Drinking And The World — Warren Ellis on Stories, the World and Comics … ‘For me, writing happens on my own. It’s exactly the same as a ritual, or sitting down at a campfire, or initiating a vision state in silent darkness. It has to come from me and the spaces in my brain. And that’s one reason why I stay in comics. Any other visual narrative medium is hopelessly compromised by committees and executives and notes and queries. In comics, it’s just the writer and the illustrator and the editor. You only have to get two other people, at most, on the same wavelength as you. And you get to speak in a mass-communication medium — where the sales are still better than genre novels or indie music, in many many cases — without filters. You get to say what you meant to say.’
[ukblog] Walking the Streets — a weblog by a Traffic Warden … ‘There’s no rotation scheme, and how the streets are managed is very much down to the feet on the street. A place might not get any visits for two weeks for one reason or another, but as soon as the problems start to build up, we’re there. It is random, it is erratic; and the methodology varies from Enforcement Officer to Enforcement Officer, which serves to keep the wrongdoers on their toes.’
[comics] Ask Mefi: Who are the worlds greatest comic book artists? … ‘The fact that nobody has mentioned Kirby yet is inexcusable.’
9 May 2005
[life] That’s Enough Entertainment, Thanks — Armando Iannucci on “Choice Fatigue” … ‘I’ve suddenly sensed how much pressure we are under to view and hear everything. The constant thrum from the arts pages and review sections of the weekend papers, the non-stop shrill from monthly magazines and cultural round-ups on television and radio, insist that we simply have to see that film and order those CDs and set the video for the next 19 episodes of this unmissable drama. And yet, as those unread supplements pile up, as the VHS tapes filled with recordings of old but as-yet unwatched episodes of The Nazis: A Warning From History and Spaced form a mountain on the floor, what we are left with is an ever-expanding sense of failure to catch up with all the sensory experiences that have been made available to us.’
[apple] Apple’s HD Video Plot Thickens — Robert Cringley on Apple’s plans for iTunes: ‘[Tiger] gives us a peek at another evolution of iTunes, which is the inevitable expansion of the system to carry additional audio file formats. Looking at the unused iTunes icons that shipped with your new version of 10.4, you’ll notice icons for currently-not-supported ogg vorbis and Windows Media Audio (wma), as well as several others including a variety of video formats, too. With this new information we can make a pretty good guess about the evolution of both iTunes and iPod. When Apple feels that the success of iTunes is absolutely assured, which will be shortly, they’ll address the user complaint that iPod only supports AAC and MP3 audio by adding these additional formats, leading to increased iPod sales.’
8 May 2005
6 May 2005
[ukelection] Robert Kilroy-Silk. Not a happy man, really — A picture of Robert Kilroy-Silk losing the Erewash Election. He got 2,957 votes.
[books] Dracula Blogged — Bram Stoker’s Dracula published as a blog using the calendar in the book … Jonathan Harker: ‘I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt. I fear. I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!’
5 May 2005
[voip] Guardian Online on Skype — nice overview on using SkypeIn … ‘That SkypeIn should be so attractive shows that there is life in the public numbering system yet. For about £20 a year, a SkypeIn number connects me to the largest network in the world: the public-switched telephony network. (Before the launch of SkypeIn, Skype users could only receive calls from people who also used Skype.) SkypeIn also takes advantage of a geeky part of telecoms: regulation. Fixed line numbers are very cheap to call in the UK (and in many countries) because of the efforts of regulators in keeping costs down. So calling my SkypeIn number always costs the same as dialling London, regardless of where I am.’
4 May 2005
[comics] Preview of Desolation Jones #1 — from Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams III.
[wikipedia] Random Entry at Wikipedia — link to a Random Entry on Wikipedia.
3 May 2005
[tea] Software for Tea-Making Duties — Wired News on Teabuddy … ‘Teabuddy lets co-workers create office groups online to record rounds and requests, complete with personalization options like milk and sugar preferences for individual colleagues. Before leaving for the kitchen, responsible brewers log onto Teabuddy and check a box next to the name of those for whom they are making a cuppa. Teabuddy tallies the total cups made and consumed by each employee, keeping a history that lists the date each user last poured forth — it’s “objective, factual proof of who’s done what and when,” according to a message on the site.’
2 May 2005
[tv] Cannes to screen BBC’s Nightmares — the BBC documentary Power of Nightmares is to be remade as a film … ‘The BBC Two series questioned whether the threat of terrorism to the West was a politically-driven fantasy, winning a Bafta TV award among other prizes. Its three one-hour episodes are being edited into a single two-and-a-half hour movie by producer Adam Curtis after the festival asked to screen it.’ [via Haddock]
1 May 2005
[weird] Can This Black Box See Into the Future? — can a network of random event generators predict the future? ‘… then on September 6, 1997, something quite extraordinary happened: the graph shot upwards, recording a sudden and massive shift in the number sequence as his machines around the world started reporting huge deviations from the norm. The day was of historic importance for another reason, too. For it was the same day that an estimated one billion people around the world watched the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales at Westminster Abbey. Dr Nelson was convinced that the two events must be related in some way.’
29 April 2005
[election] In the Eye of the Storm, it’s Blinking Tricky — Simon Hoggart watching Tony Blair and Gordon Brown: ‘[Nick Robinson of ITN] asked “Are you saying that you would have behaved in an identical way to Tony Blair if faced with the same circumstances?” There was a pause which might have lasted two seconds, but seemed to go on forever. [Tony Blair’s] right eye turned to stare malevolently at Mr Brown, like some Oriental jewel that has the power to turn men’s minds. The eyebrow above it arched in a V-shape. Finally the chancellor spoke, or rather barked: “Yes!” The right eye suddenly relaxed and even seemed, just for a moment, to gaze fondly on Mr Brown. Applause broke out from the businesspersons. “Well done!” said Patricia Hewitt, sounding, as always, like a doctor congratulating a small child on surviving a jab without crying.’
[web] The Archivist — update on the Internet Archive and Brewster Kahle … ‘[Kahle] wanted to back up the Internet. There were only 50 million or so URLs back then, so the idea only seemed half-crazy. As the Web ballooned to more than 10 billion pages, the archive’s main server farm — hidden across town in a data center beneath the city’s other big bridge — grew to hold a half-million gigabytes of compressed and indexed pages. Kahle is less the Internet’s crazy aunt — the tycoon who can’t stand to throw anything away — than its evangelical librarian.’
28 April 2005
[numbers] The Conet Project — Mp3 recordings of Numbers Stations. ‘…a 1998 article in The Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesperson for the Department of Trade and Industry (the government agency that regulates radio broadcasting in the United Kingdom) as saying, “These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are. People shouldn’t be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption.”‘
27 April 2005
[funny] Wanted: A tall well-built woman … ‘But please only read lines 1, 3 and 5’
26 April 2005
[ads] London Review of Books Personal Ads … ‘The LRB’s own Son of Jor-El, stuck in the Phantom Zone of the personal ads for three years now. Reckon I could still lick anyone of you wusses. Man, 36. Alone. Tonight, and very possibly forever. Box no. 07/12’ [via Yoz]
[comics] Graphic Novels for Snobs — Ask Mefi discuss Graphic Novels … ‘People keep telling me that certain graphic novels are masterpieces, but when I read them, I don’t like them. I keep wondering what their criteria are for judging a book a work of genius. Do they mean “it’s a masterpiece compared with other comic books” or “it’s a masterpiece compared with any work or literature”? Because I don’t care how something ranks within the comic-book world. I just want to read good stories. I’m convinced there MUST be good stories in graphic novel form.’
25 April 2005
[comics] Classic Comic Ads … ‘These ads are as much a part of the history and lore of comic books as the stories themselves. What kid did not order or dream of ordering such classics as Sea Monkeys, Polaris Subs or X-Ray glasses that we saw in the comic books.’
24 April 2005
[comics] Planetary Preview — PDF of the preview comic that Warren Ellis and John Cassady produced for Planetary.
[ebay] eBay Feedback Generator … ‘Skillful quality! Packaging was desirable. Optimum delivery.’
[movies] Sin City Expands Digital Frontier — Wired Reviews Sin City … ‘While [Sin City] could induce nightmares, it is also, in its own way, sweetly nostalgic. This is a film that loves artifice the same way that Singin’ in the Rain did. Singin’ in the Rain, along with many films noir and various other stage-bound Hollywood movies, used two-by-fours and gallons of paint to build its glorious unrealities. Sin City instead uses pixels…’
[advert] Singing in the Rain Remix — MP3 remix using the music from the VW advert.
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