The Blog




So farewell then. Frankie Knuckles has left this thing we call House Music. And the piano looped over and over.

Frankie Knuckles Boiler Room NYC DJ Set


[from: Google+ Posts]




So farewell then, last.fm radio. I used to be a big fan and contributed code to make it possible to stream the radio into winamp. But using the radio though the API was dropped a few years ago and I always disliked the official player so I haven't used it in quite a while. I even had a subscription once making last.fm one of the very, very few things on the internet I've ever paid for. And way back when they operated out of a loft above a Whitechapel sweat shop and lived in tents on the roof, I even went for an interview for CTO. I've now got 112492 plays since I joined in 4 Apr 2004 (just coming up on 10 years). So I take last.fm's life and future a bit personally.

I'm sure I'll go on using the unofficial scrobbler for winamp and will still use last.fm for music discovery but even there, discogs is generally more useful these days. There is huge value in the audience generated wiki-style tags, artist descriptions, scrobbling, events and so on, but other people now do each piece of the puzzle better. 

CBS doesn't appear to know what to do with the property. Perhaps like AOL and Winamp they should put it up for sale. I kind of wish CBS would sell last.fm to Google but they would probably kill it. If there is some kind of future, then last.fm should go out of it's way to link to and partner with other services like Google Play, Discogs, Songkick and so on. But I suspect that just like AOL, Apple and a few others, corporate pride means they're unable to work with others. Google play especially really should have an official scrobbler for all the different platforms where Google Play Music is available.

http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/2226535/1
http://www.last.fm/user/jbond
 Changes to Subscriptions 26 March 2014 – Feedback and Ideas – Last.fm »
The world’s largest online music catalogue, powered by your scrobbles. Free listening, videos, photos, stats, charts, biographies and concerts.

[from: Google+ Posts]




Nice little round trip on the bicycle in the sunshine today. I've now checked off the River Ching so only a couple of minor Lea Tributaries left to do. Enfield Lock, High Beech to the source of the Ching. Connaught Water, Woodford, Highams Park. Then just North of Banbury Reservoir to the Old River Lea, And then the Lee navigation towpath home. Almost all of that is off road with some good mountain bike trails following most of the Ching's course.

None of it's that hard to follow given a map, though I did get a bit lost in Epping Forest. Which way is South?

I can recommend the Lea Side Cafe, just here 
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.610429,-0.041019,3a,37.5y,93.83h,86.94t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sgBZtj7pFlhrLw067rf1PcA!2e0
by the towpath. One of the best bacon sarnies and coffees I've had in ages. Not entirely sure what nationality they and they're customers are but I'd guess Turkish.

[from: Google+ Posts]




So farewell then, Lucius Shepard. RIP.
http://boingboing.net/2014/03/20/rip-lucius-shepard-gone-too.html

Huge fan of his all the way back to The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter. Life During Wartime and Kalimantan also stick in the head in the same kind of way as Samuel Delayney's Dhalgren. There were lots of short stories too, Delta Sly Honey for one and the collection, Eternity and Other Stories for another.
 RIP, Lucius Shepard, gone too soon »
Lucius Shepard, one of science fiction's great writers, has died. He was 66. I had met Lucius on several occasions and found him to be just as you'd hope from his novels: smart and witty (but lots of writers are smart and wit...

[from: Google+ Posts]

The Aeropress. Not only better coffee and just as easy as single shot systems like the Nespresso, but more environmentally friendly as well. Do you recycle your coffee pods? Even if you do, there's the oil used to produce disposable polymers, using a finite resource to create garbage because it's convenient. Coffee pods are not exactly the worst use of oil but they're symptomatic of the first world approach to resources. 
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/03/coffee-k-cups-green-mountain-polystyrene-plastic

Meanwhile, the Aeropress needs a small redesign to make it a travelling companion. It needs a stainless steel re-usable filter (already available from 3rd parties[1]) and the plunger turned into a sealed compartment for coffee grounds (also already available[1]). And finally, a way of protecting the rubber bung without fully fitting the filter cap.
[1] http://ablebrewing.com/collections/products/
 Your coffee pods' dirty secret »
100 percent convenient. 5 percent recyclable.

[from: Google+ Posts]

Happy Equinox day!

March Equinox: March 20, 2014, 16:57 UTC (GMT)

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/march-equinox.html

And no, it's not the last day of Northern Hemisphere winter or first day of spring. That was Feb 28-Mar 1. Take a look around the UK and Spring is clearly in full flow already with loads of Blackthorn, Cherry and Magnolia blossom and the first green leaves on the early trees.
 March Equinox: March 20, 2014, 16:57 UTC »
The March equinox, which marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere, will be on March 20 in 2014.

[from: Google+ Posts]




Do you ever have days when life makes you despair and you want to just mash a Burger King Whopper into your face while sobbing uncontrollably to the sound of death metal?

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of burger king that makes unhappy marriages

No, neither do I.


[from: Google+ Posts]




Do you ever have days when you feel like this.
scrape mess


[from: Google+ Posts]




Such commentary. Much thoughts.
From http://corydoctorow.net/post/78171742952

Is Red Bull the new CocaCola or Disney of imperialist aggression symbology?

[from: Google+ Posts]

First world problems seen on a G+ comment. Ugh! So much fail here.

I've been thinking for a while about how to give homeless people money on the street now that I don't carry cash anymore. I think there can be a device of since sort that everyone would carry for that purpose. Of course, those of us with smartphones would use our bitcoin (or whatever) wallet app.
[from: Google+ Posts]




The first day of Spring is here. Since Winter was cancelled and we got an Endless Autumn instead, expect snow and blizzards any day now.

Meanwhile the new leaf, buds and blossom seem to be only days away. And the animal life is going at it in full noisy tilt with all the mating rituals as everyone pushes, shoves, shouts and sings in their quest for a mate.
[from: Google+ Posts]




Friday cocktail: Savoy Hotel Special Cocktail #1

- 50ml Gin (robust like Beefeater)
- 25ml French  Vermouth (Noilly Prat)
- 5ml Grenadine (or Pomegranate syrup) (2 barspoons)
- 2.5ml Absinthe or Pastis (1 barspoon)
Shaken, Cocktail Glass, Lemon peel squeezed (or flamed)

I'm guessing the grenadine and absinthe quantities as the Savoy Cocktail book is fairly vague on proportions. 2 and 1 dash respectively to 2/3 Gin and 1/3 French.

Beautiful colour, not too sweet, complex flavours. The delicate pink makes it look like a girl's drink but it's not. Think of it as more like a lilac shirt worn with a suit!
[from: Google+ Posts]




I'm trying to find a UK source for this honey but failing. It used to be carried in large M&S but they've stopped stocking it. Anyone know a good French Deli in SE UK or London that might carry it? Or an online delivery service that doesn't charge ridiculous postage costs?

Bernard Michaud, Miel L'Apiculture, Miel De Provence in 250g or 500g cartons.

http://www.mielapiculteur.fr/miel-de-provence.html 
 Miel de Provence »
Miels régionaux · Miel de GASCOGNE · Miel d'AQUITAINE · Miel de BOURGOGNE · Miel des PAYS de LOIRE · Miel de POITOU-CHARENTES · Miel de la CHAMPAGNE · Miel du GÂTINAIS · Miel de Provence · Miel de Provence 250g · Miel de Provence 500g · Miel de Provence 1kg · Miel de montagne ...

[from: Google+ Posts]




Just coming up to 20 Years since the release of Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol II.

Which reminds me that I freaked out my 8 year old daughter by playing it loud in the room below hers after she'd gone to bed.

Little known fact. In late 1994, the Japanese anime series Macross Plus debuted. Set in a future time, in its first episode there's a moment when a rotating video ad at a bus stop promises the release of AFX's Selected Ambient Works Vol. 23 2038-2040, complete with that first ambient collection logo.

http://thequietus.com/articles/14552-aphex-twin-selected-ambient-works-volume-ii-review

And by the way. It's not ambient music to fill in the spaces behind whatever else you're doing. It should be played loud and given attention.
 The Quietus | Features | Anniversary | Lingering Memory: Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II, 20 Years On »
Two decades since the release of Aphex Twin's second collection of Ambient Works, Ned Raggett revisits an album whose enigmatic internal logic remains as intriguing and beguiling as ever

[from: Google+ Posts]

Just another test for the Google Plus API.
https://soundcloud.com/ghostek/shackleton-you-bring-me-down

It appears that G+ embeds a live player for soundcloud in the post, but none of this turns up in activities.list. This issue is logged in https://code.google.com/p/google-plus-platform/issues/detail?id=407 but there's been no progress.
[from: Google+ Posts]

Tor Books (2014), Kindle Edition, 624 pages
[from: Librarything]

Tor Books (2014), Kindle Edition, 569 pages
[from: Librarything]




Re the floods. ‘For all the community spirit on show, when people feel under threat it’s not the 'big society' but big government that they long for.'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/14/floods-washing-away-founding-logic-david-cameron-government

So what do we want central government (or even local government) to do in the long term to manage our environment? We live in a managed landscape that has developed over thousands of years of occupation. One way or another that has to continue. If that management is done collectively it will have to be paid for collectively. So how do we want to be taxed and our taxes spent to pay for it? We're getting dangerously close to political ideologies when we ask these questions. 
 These floods are washing away the founding logic of David Cameron's government »
Jonathan Freedland: By announcing that 'money is no object', the prime minister has performed the last rites on the notion of inevitable austerity

[from: Google+ Posts]




The Wire meets NSA and the War on Terror meets New Aesthetic meets Design Fictions

First article in Greenwald's new journal 'The Intercept' https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/
vs
James Bridle's art project "Under the shadow of the drone" James Bridle - Meet The Artist

Wondering if the US would like to take humans out of the loop completely. Here we have NSA Sigint leading to geo tracking cell phone SIMs then calling in a drone strike on the cell phone's last known location. So no humint checks on the intelligence side. The humans controlling the drone are on the other side of the world so no body bags. And no human checks on the fall out. It's assumed that the phone is held by an "unlawful enemy combatant" no matter where in the world they are. The other side responds with a kind of Russian Roulette where they have SIM swapping parties. If they've worked that out, you'd expect them to be using large quantities of 'burner' phones. Or just reverting to paper.

Here's a member of the team talking,
“People get hung up that there’s a targeted list of people,” he says. “It’s really like we’re targeting a cell phone. We’re not going after people – we’re going after their phones, in the hopes that the person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy.”
 The NSA's Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program - The Intercept »
The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

[from: Google+ Posts]




Woosh. An hour's lecture on the Critical Design movement.

Critical Exploits - Tobias Revell
via
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2014/02/design-fiction-tobias-revell-critical-exploits-lecture-lighthouse/


[from: Google+ Posts]

Yes, but is it art? Well, is it? Is it? Really?

What if? ... Then what? Laugh. Ah-hah. But so what? What happens next?

How do you measure success? Did it change the world?

Via http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/critical-exploits and

http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/

seeAlso: Under the shadow of the drone. James Bridle - Meet The Artist

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