Music to watch spools by
By daithi ~ February 3rd, 2009. Filed under: Music, Uncategorized.
Mistabishi - Printer Jam.
And just after I run out of toner, too. Perfect.
By daithi ~ February 3rd, 2009. Filed under: Music, Uncategorized.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago!
By daithi ~ January 25th, 2009. Filed under: Music.
I appreciate that by publishing this post, I may be playing into the hands of a clever viral marketing strategy, but I’m prepared to take that risk.
Microsoft Songsmith scares me. Lots. I’m glad that someone else has pointed out (in the comments here) that this lives up to the ideas of the great prophet that was Wesley Willis, as that’s just how I feel about it. The software, developed as a project by staff at Microsoft Research, allows (nay, encourages) the user to sing some sort of a melody, to which various types of backing tracks are added. Due in part to an unusual advertisement (featuring the apparently straightfaced line, “Microsoft, huh? So it’s pretty easy to use?“), which the New York Times assesses today with help from Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp (!), it is attracting a lot of attention. Not least from Graham Linehan, who points out the similarities between it and Trapped In The Closet (the world-renowned hip-hopera). Me, I particularly like the fact that front and centre in the ad is a MacBook - with a sticker over the Apple logo. And it’s a Windows-only product. (Yes yes, Macs run Windows too. I know).
The icing on the cake, though, is the quickly-developing meme of taking the raw lyrics-and-tune of a song and using that as the input, and seeing what terror emerges. So for example, we have the Songsmith-assisted Creep and Hotel California. Yikes.
More: Jack Schofield of the Guardian, Robert Scoble’s video demo, the original news article from Seattle, Ars Technica’s review.
Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it now
By daithi ~ January 12th, 2009. Filed under: Music.
I wants me a Tenori-On. Little on the expensive side though.
In the video: BBC ‘Sound of 2009‘ (and author of a thesis on Jamie Cullum), Little Boots (myspace).
Books of 2008
By daithi ~ January 5th, 2009. Filed under: Books.
Happy new year!
With thanks to LibraryThing, where I’m still working on my catalogue, here are the (non-law, non-media, non-thesis-related) books, from my own collection rather than real libraries, that I have read since New Year’s Day 2008.
Click for a bigger picture. Those interested in the full bibliographic information can find it here.
Zero multiplied by PR is…
By daithi ~ December 15th, 2008. Filed under: Uncategorized.
…journalism, apparently.
Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science column in the Guardian is usually entertaining, but this weekend’s column is a genuine LOL. He highlights this article from The Sun, drawing upon the ‘research’ of author (and chess player) William Hartston. Now given Harston’s background I can only assume that he has either been misrepresented or was offered a lorra lorra cash by Britain’s silliest newspaper.
Anyway, as Goldacre has followed for some time, one of the easiest ways to get your PR ’story’ into the paper is to come up with some sort of daft formula. It’s certainly not science journalism but it’s not as dangerous, perhaps, as some of the other things that he has exposed. However, this story is deserving of particular attention, as the supposed ‘formula’ is a special one:
O=NP(20C+B)/75 (where O is the ‘naughtiness rating’, N is the ‘number of nipples exposed’, P is the ‘percentage of exposed frontal surface area’, C is cup size and B is bust size)
Applying this formula to someone known as Britney Spears, we get (according to the Sun and Mr. Harston):
O = 0×70x(20×5+32)/75 = 123.2
Hopefully you’ll have figured out what is wrong. If not, read on at Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science site, and shed a tear for the future of maths. And journalism, too, while you’re at it!
