May 2008
Tuneage Loses its Podcasting Virginity →
Tuneage fans rejoice! We have a podcast now.
Look Ma, I’m podcasting! I’m quite excited about this. I’ll post more about it in the future (I think I should make at least one post gushing about how great GarageBand is for podcasting). For now, enjoy, and let us know what you think.
April 2008
How to buy a dictionary →
Grant Barrett on what to look for when buying a dictionary.
Falindrome.com →
This has been all over the web by now, but as if I wasn’t going to post this. Falindromes — though I think whoever does this dropped the ball by not calling them failindromes (and we have stupid internet memes to thank for that) — are fake palindromes. That is, sentences that look like palindromes, but are not.
So far, they’re quite clever — it’s not actually that easy to come...
Tuneage Loves Cover Songs →
Tuneage’s Muxtape is full of cover songs we love at the moment. I considered reblogging it yesterday, but did not. However, it now includes Giant Drag’s cover of “Wicked Game” (Chris Isaaks), and I highly recommend it.
Prince sings Creep →
Dude, Prince singing Radiohead? That’s kind of, well, creepy. Get it? Anyway, this was recorded at Coachella ‘08, where I am not, and hating myself for it. (Warning: camera phone recording.)
MEET IN →
Here’s a cute little game, if you have about 5 minutes to kill.
The vanishing personal site →
Jeffrey Zeldman on the “outsourcing” of personal content to services like Flickr and Twitter.
Instant Print Stylesheet Tip
Need to print a webpage that doesn’t have a print stylesheet (or has an existing one that’s rubbish, or just want more control on how documents are printed)? Here’s a way to make it painless.
Use this tool for making your own user style bookmarklet and paste the CSS of the Hartija CSS Print Framework into it, and hey presto, instant printable format with just one click.
One...
Remix Foals, Get Released →
Foals — a band I went crazy for when their album came out — have teamed up with Last.fm to offer a competition to remix “Electric Bloom”, with the best one to be released with a future single.
I don’t know how long this has been going on, but there are already a lot of submissions, and the closing date is May 25th.
When Language Can Hold the Answer →
I don’t suppose this argument will ever get satisfactorily answered, in a way that satisfies those on both sides of the Whorfian debate, which is fine really; it makes for interesting reading.
Does language shape what we perceive, a position associated with the late Benjamin Lee Whorf, or are our perceptions pure sensory impressions, immune to the arbitrary ways that language carves up the...
“Ghoti” before Shaw →
The word “ghoti” — a respelling of “fish” that demonstrates ambiguities in English spelling — is usually attributed to George Bernard Shaw. But this blog entry on Language log discusses a letter that has been found that cites a source from 1855 using the word, which is an antedating of over 80 years before the last known source of the word, and 1 year before Shaw’s...
Indie Music's Hipster Heaven →
A story on Pitchfork, which says they pull in at least $5 million a year. Impressive. [Via Fimoculous.]
Tumblr Pro Features →
Webware reports on pro features planned for Tumblr. On one of them, at least; they report that there are 10 features currently in development.
In short, it lets you add a submit button to your Tumblog that lets anyone and everyone write something for you to put on your blog.
You know what keeps surprising me about Tumblr? They keep coming up with these features that no one really asked for, or...
Two Dots Too Many →
Bill Poser on Language Log talking about how the failure to localize cell phones led to a man’s wife, her father, and her two sisters, attacking him. He ended up getting stabbed in the chest, then stabbing his wife in retaliation and escaping, only to kill himself in jail. His wife died from the wound, too.
All because of a misinterpreted text message, due to a lack of localization. The...
While My Memory Gently Weeps →
Excuse the self-linking. You know you like it.
Learning what makes Facebook tick →
A persuasion psychologist at Stanford University (this is roughly the point where you ready your cynical “only in America”) has founded a course on studying the psychology of Facebook (deploy!).
“When Facebook came along I was one of the developers at the launch and what struck me was how there was this new form of persuasion. This mass interpersonal persuasion.”
Nat...
Kids' Book About Tummy Tucks, Nose Jobs →
Talk about finding a hole in your niche. A plastic surgeon from Florida wrote a kids’ book about plastic surgery to explain it to kids, “an issue with which he says many of his patients struggle”.
“My Beautiful Mommy” focuses on a mother explaining an impending nose job and tummy tuck to her young daughter, who is scared that her mommy may look different.
Get...
Sundays
What do people do on Sundays? I’ve always wondered. Exactly what do people do to entertain themselves in that limbo period where you don’t need to go out and find someone to have sex with you, but don’t feel like just jerking off or cutting your nails either. That bit between Last Night Was Wild, I’m So Hungover! and Tonight, when you plan on getting an early night,...
Band Marino - American Patriot
Band Marino are...
Spooky Perfection →
A nice review of Portishead’s Third in the New Yorker; excellently written (of course) by Sasha Frere-Jones. “Spooky perfection” is a pretty good summation of the album.
Mrs Geller →
Reminiscing about an old schoolteacher, and her fantastic breasts.
She taught my Music class; not one I particularly excelled at, nor a subject I enjoyed very much, but one I looked forward to nonetheless. At that age, I was beginning to find myself interested in the female form, and had been paying a friend my 50 pence lunch money most days in return for a grope of her boobs. So when Miss...
Stephen Fry and The Machine That Made Us →
The Gutenberg Press documentary with Stephen Fry I linked to a few days ago is available on Youtube now, in six parts.
New Lily Allen →
Lily made some new music for us! And, what do you know, it’s not so bad. She seems to have taken a more synthy direction, and it sounds pretty good. (Though she’s very careful to note these tracks are just demos.)
I Don’t Know sounds like it has Summer hit potential. I’m not so sure about I Could Say, but it would be rude to judge too harshly just yet.
University Application
Just heard back from a university I applied to.
The tutor has looked at your application and congratulations you have been successful on the condition of obtaining your Access course, however the offer will only be for Linguistics as you do not have the necessary qualifications for the Linguistics with French.
Equal parts awesome and suck.
I’m going to be studying Linguistics at Sussex...
Me Translate Pretty One Day →
I stumbled across this fairly old (December 2006) Wired article earlier. It’s about a company called Meaningful Machines that are developing a machine translation system that rivals all others. It’s a fascinating read, that contains a lot of information.
Quoted from the article:
WHEN MEANINGFUL MACHINES first tested its Spanish-English engine on the BLEU scale in spring 2004,...
The ampersand →
History of the ampersand.
Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press →
This excellent documentary aired on BBC Four on Monday, and I missed it, but it’s on the BBC’s iPlayer (unless you’re British, or know how to use a proxy, you won’t be able to watch it).
In this revealing documentary, Stephen Fry investigates the story of one of the most important machines ever invented - the Gutenberg Press.
Stephen Fry is one of my favourite people in...
London teen orders 'cab, innit' →
This sounds almost too good, and too unlikely, to be true — it actually reads a bit like a PR stunt — but it’s rather funny nonetheless. The gist of it is a 19-year-old South London girl orders a “cab, innit”, and gets a cabinet.
Monocle: Design Notes →
An excellent — and thorough, at over 8,000 words — post on how the Monocle team designed and executed the Monocle brand online. There’s a lot of information contained that could be useful for just about anyone attempting to put media on the web — from the site design and advertising strategy, right down to presenting their broadcasts on iTunes and designing their video players. An excellent...
Mating Season
From here.
Yesterday was the first sign this year that summer is on its way. So with the sun beating down on my face, and not a cloud in the sky, I decided to walk into town for my job interview instead of getting the bus.
The scenic route into town — instead of the straight walk down the main road — takes you down a lovely mile-long canal path, punctuated with graceful swans, moored barges,...
Funny Thought of the Day
A Geordie speaking in RP.
Pitchfork.tv →
About time.
Pitchfork.tv went live at last. Looks like a solid launch, too. They’ve got, among other things, the Liars playing tracks from their 2006 LP, a whole Jay Reatard live set, the Pixies’ documentary loudQUIETloud, and lots of music videos, including an exclusive live recording of Radiohead’s Bangers & Mash. This might be worth keeping an eye on.
The best thing about the site is...
You Have To Burn The Rope →
Firefox 3 vs. Safari 3 →
I don’t usually bother linking to articles on Daring Fireball; as high quality as most are, half of the Internet has already linked to it. But this one outlines just about all the problems I had with Firefox 3 when trying it out.
When I click the mouse in the middle of a URL, I just want to place the insertion point. I don’t want to select the entire URL. If I wanted to select the entire...
Infochimps: Free Redistributable Rich Data Sets →
This could be immensely useful.
The infochimps.org community is assembling and interconnecting the world’s best repository for raw data […]. Built by data nerds, used by data nerds, it’s a central source for the information you need to power the projects the world needs.
More parents using txt language to make their... →
I’m not even adding commentary to this. The stupidity of some people just speaks for itself sometimes.
As well as Ikea, recent girls’ names have included Paprica, Caramel, Bambi, Fire-Lily, Skylark and Tame – which apparently stands for The Apple of My Eye.
Forvo →
Forvo is a nice idea. To quote the website,
Forvo is the place where you[‘]ll find words pronounced in their original languages. Ever wondered how a word is pronounced? Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you.
An excellent idea if ever there was one. Of course, it’s unlikely to succeed, or become a particularly useful resource. Immediate problem:...
It's Not As If It's Carved in Stone →
Nancy Friedman (Fritinancy) describes the catapostrophe of the Chicago Cubs’ statue of Ernie Banks, that for some months had the quote “Lets play two!” on it (sans apostrophe, for the not-quite-so-eagle-eyed).
The Sun-Times reported that it took a stone carver “about 30 minutes” to insert an apostrophe into “Let’s.”
“Thanks Facebook, now I have to think up a fake name as well as a fake phone...”
– Anonymous. Ok fine, I’m quoting myself.
Straightest Freehand Horizontal One Pixel Black... →
I can remember spending more time than I care to admit to doing this.
Flying Penguins →
Here’s an April Fools’ Day joke that doesn’t suck as much as the rest do. (Seriously, rickrolls were the best you could come up with, internet?)
The BBC’s iPlayer has an advertisement today hyping a forthcoming documentary on a colony of flying penguins found in the Antarctic. The joke itself isn’t great, or even believable, but the footage is quite well-done and,...
