The Blog
07 Aug 2014 It's pronounced "gnod", actually.
My turn now. http://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk/ Also quite looking forward to Hacker Farm, Death Shanties, Anji Cheung and John Doran's DJ set.   Supernormal Festival | 3 day, experimental arts and music festival at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire »Supernormal is a festival like no other, providing a powerful antidote to the current malaise of festivals-as-big-business. Blurring the boundaries between art and music, performer and audience, it champions the iconoclastic and the experimental, allowing risks to be taken and leaps of ... [from: Google+ Posts] [ 07-Aug-14 6:11pm ] A coffee puzzle.
Go into a cafe in any provincial French town before about 11am and you'll be able to get "un petit café créme avec un croissant" and consume them standing at the bar. If you're greedy you can have "un grand café créme" and a pain au chocolat. But look on the internet, even in wikipedia and all discussion of coffee is by Americans and trying to find recipes for the authentic café créme is impossible. The Petit is typically in a large/double expresso cup. The Grand is often served in something more like a small soup bowl. They both involve expresso and hot milk. But they are both emphatically NOT a latte, capuccino, flat white, Cortado or any of the other hundreds of white coffees. And they would never involve cream or that horrible American concoction, Half''n'half. It's quite likely that the milk is skimmed and may even be UHT. So how do you make them? I think, as follows. Un petit café créme: One shot of Expresso, slow pulled into a large expresso cup, usually brown outer, white inner, with a saucer. Add approximately equal quantities of warmed semi-skimmed milk that's just been hit by the steam pipe to get it hot but before it starts frothing. Un grand café créme: Two shots of Expresso, slow pulled into a giant coffee cup or small soup bowl. Roughly two to one hot milk to coffee brought to a point just before it boils and froths. [from: Google+ Posts] 04 Aug 2014 [ 04-Aug-14 4:02pm ] [ 04-Aug-14 4:02pm ] 03 Aug 2014 We used to talk about this stuff. Now it's too easy to simply quote the comments after the article in lieu of offering any actual criticism or commentary on the article oneself.
http://thequietus.com/articles/15673-pop-politics-art-socialist-realism-internet And here's the copy-pasta. Ideology and totality are still here. It's just that they have become commodified to the point of appearing so natural that we no longer notice them, like fish that don't pay attention to the water around them. People have bought into the idea that ideology and totality no longer exist and thus they have allowed themselves to be disenfranchised from creating their own cultural narrative. It's more than a little embarrassing when the replies to an article are more profound and well written than the original piece.   The Quietus | Opinion | The Quietus Essay | Fictions Built Upon Fictions: The Decline Of Totality In Pop »Robert Barry examines how pop culture's impulse towards totality has crumbled during the past two decades, and finds traces of that decline in the fall of communism in Europe, the UK government's crushing of rave, and the rise of the internet [from: Google+ Posts] [ 03-Aug-14 8:49pm ] 02 Aug 2014 I really want to like what the Long Now project is doing, but I keep coming across things like this.
http://longnow.org/seminars/02006/mar/10/long-term-trends-in-the-scientific-method/ "“Science is the way we surprise God,” said Kelly. “That’s what we’re here for.” Our moral obligation is to generate possibilities, to discover the infinite ways, however complex and high-dimension, to play the infinite game. It will take all possible species of intelligence in order for the universe to understand itself. Science, in this way, is holy. It is a divine trip." And it makes me want to throw up. Are Americans unable to discuss anything without invoking the sky god? Dig a bit deeper and there's only two ideas here. Enough to generate a book and lecture tour though. 1) Exponential growth is awesome 2) The Shapers will beat the Mechs. So Bio-tech is where it's at. The first is obviously true but there's a refusal to look at the implications as though 3% PA growth in global GDP is some kind of immutable and inevitable law of the universe. The second is just personal opinion treating one branch of science as more interesting than another.  [from: Google+ Posts] [ 02-Aug-14 8:56am ] 28 Jul 2014 [ 28-Jul-14 7:30am ] 27 Jul 2014 Today's neologism: "Accelerationista". Who are they? What do they stand for?
I've also told the stories of accelerating change. Especially in the run up to Dec 2012. And I'm still fascinated by the implications of exponential growth with short doubling periods. But as I get older I wonder where the change is. In many respects 2014 doesn't feel that different from the 1974 of my youth. 2054 could easily be more like 2014 than different. But that presupposes continuing 3% growth in global GDP with sufficient available energy to fund that growth. And that's something I increasingly doubt is sustainable for another 40 years. Found here. http://www.electronicbeats.net/en/features/columns/pattern-recognition/pattern-recognition-vol-9-cold-forecast/ Incidentally, this is a most interesting essay. It touches on something I've been vaguely aware of. And that's a move in music towards a very cold, clean, antiseptic version of electronic maximalism. It's not just people like Rustie, Logos, Lone, Jam City. But also in erstwhile dirty dubstep producers like Shackleton of Skull Disco apparently recapitulating the kind of ultra clean synth programming of the German Kosmische Musik groups of the late 70s like Tangerine Dream - Neu! - Faust - Amon Düül II. How are we supposed to react emotionally to musics that make one think of climate change refugees breaking down CCTV secured border fences and then being bombed by drones. Are we closing in on a future where we are all Palestinians and this music is just reflecting that? That's a pretty dark view. Previous music that provided a commentary on war tended to emphasise the dirt and messiness of warfare. This music is emphasising the cleanness of drone warfare waged from cubical farms in air-conditioned offices with water coolers, office hours, powerpoint and donuts.   Pattern Recognition Vol. 9: Cold Forecast »This month, Adam Harper—the premier writer on new, underground music—considers musical futurism and finds a paradox in its chilly anti-humanism. [from: Google+ Posts] Why is the colour of the digital future predominantly blue?
http://goo.gl/GLmE9r  [from: Google+ Posts] 26 Jul 2014 Stay Awake
http://boingboing.net/2014/07/24/alien-autopsy-william-barker.html Schwa merch, original and recreated on etsy. https://www.etsy.com/shop/AlaVoidDistribution   Alien Autopsy: William Barker on Schwa, two decades later »Twenty years ago, William Barker's Schwa artwork revealed a world of alien abductions, stick figure insanity, conspiratorial crazy, and a hyper-branded surveillance state. It's now more relevant than ever. [from: Google+ Posts] Burn the witch! Burn him with fire!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28464009 Frankly unbelievable that there's a Conservative MP on the health and the science and technology parliamentary committees who thinks that Astrology should be incorporated into Medicine.  [from: Google+ Posts] [ 26-Jul-14 5:43pm ] 25 Jul 2014 Apocaloptimism. Try to imagine a desirable future in 2114 (100 years) that you would want to live in. Because we need some more hopeful narratives to counter all the dystopianism.
https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c93c6 "Population 4 billion; 85% urban. Climate change adapted" Getting from here to there would be, ahem, interesting. Quite a lot of Californians in there hoping for a future that's all "graphite and glitter" in some http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gernsback_Continuum Of course the 100 year future will be messier than that and more like today than like Startrek. But what about the 1000 and 10,000 year futures? ;) Try and imagine an Earth economy in 10,000 years that can support 5B people. 100% recycling but no Helium. And of course the 10 year future in 2024 that you would want to live in.  [from: Google+ Posts] [ 25-Jul-14 7:13am ] 24 Jul 2014 Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are universal characteristics of the human condition.
http://guerillascience.org/book/ Were it not for our supposedly ‘base’ impulses, we never would have achieved many ground-breaking scientific discoveries. Hedonism has been integral to intellectual progress.   Sex Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll – Guerilla Science »Guerilla Science create events and installations for festivals, museums, galleries, and other cultural clients. We are committed to connecting people with science in new ways, and producing live experiences that entertain, inspire, challenge and amaze. [from: Google+ Posts] [ 24-Jul-14 3:06pm ] 21 Jul 2014 Apparently the CMax II is for sale.
http://bikeweb.com/files/images/cmax%20leaves%203%20small.preview.jpg Sale details here. http://bikeweb.com/node/2909 Bike details here: http://bikeweb.com/image/tid/114 T-Max III, Volvo seat, occasional 2 seater and large luggage area. Faster (maybe!), safer, warmer, more comfortable than a conventional T-Max. Not sure I can afford it. It's likely to be priced to reflect the work rather than cheap because it's unusual.  [from: Google+ Posts] 19 Jul 2014 “It was the year they tried to Immanentize The Eschaton.”
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/immanentizing-eschaton.html   Immanentizing the Eschaton »“It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.” With those words Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea kicked off their brilliant parody of American conspiracy culture, the Illuminatus! trilogy. When I heard last... [from: Google+ Posts] [ 19-Jul-14 9:12am ] 18 Jul 2014 I hate it when good services on the internet go dark and disappear.
There used to be a wonderful tool for exploring music space at http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/ It gathered data from last.fm and Discogs about related artists and presented it in a Java applet spider diagram. Now it redirects to an EMI Hosting holding page and that sucks. There's analternative one here http://www.liveplasma.com/ that's not bad but it's not the same. [from: Google+ Posts] [ 18-Jul-14 5:43pm ] 16 Jul 2014 Well, well. So the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless, unscientific bullshit. There's a surprise! I wonder how many other cod-psych tests are the same and have about as much 2014 relevance as astrology or palm reading.
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless via http://boingboing.net/2014/07/16/myers-briggs-personality-test.html   Why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless »It's no more scientifically valid than a BuzzFeed quiz. [from: Google+ Posts] [ 16-Jul-14 6:14pm ] 12 Jul 2014 John Doran (TheQuietus editor) playing DJ in an open air car park just off Old Street. Wed evening, 16 July. I think it's free but not sure.
http://thequietus.com/articles/15674-red-market-subject-wednesdays-dj-programme https://www.facebook.com/events/298139427021855/ http://www.subjectyourself.co.uk/ http://www.redgallerylondon.com/  The Quietus | News | Red Market: S U B J E C T Wednesday »The Quietus' John Doran and more announced to play open-air venue [from: Google+ Posts] Utopia returns on UK Channel 4 on Monday and Tuesday (14/15 July) next week. Don't miss it.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/utopia   Utopia - Channel 4 »When a group of strangers find themselves in possession of the manuscript for a legendary graphic novel, their lives brutally implode as they are pursued by a shadowy and murderous organisation... [from: Google+ Posts] 08 Jul 2014 [ 08-Jul-14 9:26am ] 
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