October 2011
2 posts
facebook timeline cover photos = the twibbon of...
a big huge space for a user to upload a prominent photo, without futzing with their profile pic proper? definitely going to see loads of charities (and let’s face it, brands) trying to convince people to put custom images up there.
i’m sure we’ll see it for meta-campaigns too…
4 tags
great minds design their timelines alike
Loving the new Facebook timeline. Rargh!
But then…
So now…
April 2011
2 posts
Theories of International Politics and Zombies
Read this the other day after I saw it mentioned somewhere and just loved the idea. What do the competing theories of international relations have to say about a zombie apocalypse?
“Realism posits an eventual live-and-let-live arrangement between the undead and everyone else. Liberals predict an imperfect but useful counter-zombie regime. Neoconservatives believe that an aggressive and...
Godspeed You! Black President (The Making Of)
I made this Godspeed You! Black President streaming ambient apocalyptic audio thing. Here are a few notes on it.
Back during the 2008 U.S. election, which I followed obsessively, there was a fellow user of the Something Awful politics forum called “Godspeed You! Black President.” I thought this was a good pun (basically all my ideas are just puns) and put it in my ever-expanding...
March 2011
3 posts
Crustacean, crustacean, crustacean
Kirsty & Phil’s next spin-off?
Harris Tweed Nikes
Fashion is confusing and I try to dress in the most non-descript manner possible. One exception is these rather fancy Harris Tweed Nikes that my girlfriend bought me. People I meet consistently go nuts for ‘em, it’s great.
Some people went on a field trip to see how they’re made. I liked this close-up of the fabric itself:
The first time I went on the internet
I remember the first time I ever went on the internet. It was at the “Information Superhighway” exhibition at The Science Museum, back in 1995, when I was 8. That’s right. An exhibition about the internet.
I was reminded of this formative experience thanks to a tweet the other day:
I even managed to find some photos!
And there’s a write-up of the exhibition in the...
February 2011
3 posts
Stretch Hummer.
“Hummer” by Foals, slowed to 1/8th the original speed = Stretch Hummer. Nightmarish soundscape ahoy!
Stretch Hummer (Hummer by Foals timestretched 8x) by vexappeal
Sun says no
The 3D wiggle effect in action. (It turns out if you want to make your own, well… there’s an app for that. I must get around to actually downloading it.)
Another one I found:
The Story 2011
I went to The Story conference in London last Friday, where twelve (or so) people told us about things to do with storytelling. It was a great day - here are some of my notes. (I’m grateful for and inspired by the notes of others in this regard.)
Best image:
…from Mary Hamilton.
Stories as constraints. Matt Adams quoted Edmond Jabes as saying “A story limits the life of...
January 2011
1 post
That was 2010
I created a rollocking multimedia review of 2010, and then accidentally deleted it.
What I listened to in 2010. From Lastgraph. Top artists: Why?, Jay-Z, The Hood Internet.
I buried my last grandparent, became an uncle and watched 86 episodes of The Sopranos. I watched 34 films, discovered the meaning of life twice, and forgot it twice.
Films: Star Wars I, II & III, Up, Up In The Air,...
December 2010
6 posts
Protests are cathartic but useless
UPDATE: I would like to give credit to the fine citizens of Tunisia & Egypt, who have exposed the post you are about to read as the poorly conceived and clumsily argued bit of claptrap that it really is. Cheers guys.
Turn on the television news at the moment, and you’re likely to encounter some breathless reportage on the latest anti-cuts protest. I know lots of people who feel...
1 tag
On Wikileaks
“When I was a little kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once, when I was six, I did.”
My view is that the arguments of Assange et al are really opportunistic disguises for the baser human pleasures of gossip, nosiness, curiosity and destruction. I think it’s a particularly modern, digital, post-everything mindset, and it’s no surprise that...
Minimal cereal packets
On the internet, everyone likes minimal things, like these muppets. I might have dropped out of art school before I learned to use Illustrator, but that’s not enough to stop me joining in the fun:
RICE KRISPIES (Snap, crackle & pop.)
COCO POPS
FROSTIES
CHEERIOS (Cheery corn, cheery oats, cheery rice and wheat)
I made this last one by pouring a bunch of cereal onto my...
1 tag
The only girl in the world.
If you saw Matt Cardle’s duet with Rihanna during the X Factor final, you’ll know all too well that her smouldering sexuality can, in the wrong hands, generate unbearable levels of awkwardness.
Alas, it’s something I’ve had first-hand experience with:
Running the wrong way
A few months ago I started using the Couch to 5k app on my iPhone. The idea of the Couch to 5k programme is to slowly improve your running ability from “crap” to being able to run 5k without stopping. Each week, you spend more of your routine running and less of it walking, and the app gives you audio reminders of when you should do each.
Anyway, it’s a good way to start out,...
November 2010
5 posts
How do you feel about the interrogative tone?
I recently read a review of a book called The Interrogative Tone? The gimmick with this book is that every sentence is a question? Would you like to read an excerpt from the book?
Are your emotions pure? Are your nerves adjustable? How do you stand in relation to the potato? Should it still be Constantinople? Does a nameless horse make you more nervous or less nervous than a named horse? In your...
How to fix Boot Camp on Mac OS X if you just get a...
So you’ve got a Mac and you’re hoping to install Windows on it, using Boot Camp.
You use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a disk partition to install Windows on. Then you pop your Windows CD in the disk drive, and tell your Mac to go ahead, boot up using the CD, and install Windows.
Except it doesn’t work.
You just get a black screen, with a blinking white cursor. And no...
You work it out.
This:
Then this:
In short, California is invading Scotland. I say we let ‘em have it.
3 tags
A year of faces
Every time I login to my computer, it takes a photo of me through the webcam. It’s been doing this for about a year. These are the results. If you’d like to do something similar, I’ve explained how to do it below.
AVERAGE FACE
This is the average of all the photos from the past year.
TIMELAPSE FACE
;
That’s all the faces from the past year or so. Sadly I...
A better letterhead
I saw that Style Deficit posted Charles Atlas’ letterhead:
And commented:
More people’s letterheads should feature shots of them in pants. I fail to see how a letterhead could not be improved in this way.
I decided to put this to the test.
Pretty pimpin’, but maybe a little retro. Let’s bring it bang up to date:
Brilliant - the perfect way to make my cover letters...
October 2010
11 posts
Nowdays everybody wants to talk
Professor Layton… Layton… Ladytron?
...
"Bomb squad finds kittens", comic interpretation
Or what really happened:
“Birdhand” by Þverfellshorn.
My old...
Business cards for cats
I share my flat with a cat called Mr. Jinx. He thinks a lot of himself, and can be aloof around guests, so I made him some calling cards.
That bit on the back is his catchphrase.
And here he is, looking suave as ever:
Made with Moo.
Cakes & Crunk
My girlfriend’s been doing a bit of cake-making recently, under the banner of Cakes & Crunk. There’s a whole psychedelic, Day Of The Dead vibe going on, and they’re in the W&K London offices this week.
Mighty fine, eh? If you want an amazing cake made for you, then just ask!
Pash the system
French teenagers sure know what protesting is all about…
.
They raised the retirement age anyway.
Original:
Gameification, a play in two parts
A & B realise there are some THINGS.
A: Look at all these things.
B: It would be good to have them.
A: Yes, I would like these things…
B: And then, more things still.
A: More things! Better yet… more things than other people!
B: They would be jealous.
A: They would.
B: Perhaps some of these things are better than the other things…
A: Perhaps. I would very much like...
3 tags
Twitter thing #1: @thehumidity
Confession time: Occasionally, I pose as a meteorological phenomenon, find those afflicted by it, and taunt them.
A couple of weeks ago, someone, somewhere humid, posted a fake retweet:
I thought this was genius, and immediately registered @thehumidity so that it actually worked. Next to heat, wind and rain, humidity is comparatively harmless, so the idea of it gleefully mocking the...
X Factor Drinking Game
I’ve always been a grumpy X Factor hater, convinced it was stultifying, brain-murdering dross designed to sedate the ignorant, drooling masses.
It turns out I was wrong, and it’s actually fucking brilliant. Now I find the smug Twitter-enabled bleating of those “too cultured” to enjoy it indicative of a certain mean-spiritedness: what precisely do these armchair critics...
WEEK 1234
A week too numerically significant to go un-noted - my 1,234th attempt at impersonating a functioning human being for seven consecutive days.
This week, there were some productive meetings as regards Gillespie, and it looks like Latimer might finally be ready to wrap up.
Words With Friends: I am to be feared. Chess With Friends: I am to be pitied. Angry Birds: I played it a lot. I became a...
March 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Tuesday tune: XX Gonna Give It To Ya (The XX vs...
5 tags
4 tags
T(h)u(r)esday tune: The Fall Of Mr Fifths by Why?...
3 tags
February 2010
7 posts
"The frogurt is also cursed..."
Found after my party:
So:
A-ha:
Some time later…
Success:
Another mystery solved!
WatchThe state of my room here in Peckham got a leetle bit out of control. I decided that it was both time to tidy up, and time to film myself doing it in stop-motion. Enjoy!
[the idea, i stole three-and-a-half-years ago from plasticbag.]
Chat Roulette
So I checked out Chat Roulette the other day. It’s the place where you’re randomly connected to an endless stream of other people’s webcams. As you gaze into the abyss, so the abyss gazes into you. It’s like looking at Youtube commenters, bored guy after bored guy; the occasional swearing sociopath, middle-finger raised, exclaiming “FAGGOT!”; the endless cocks...
November 2009
2 posts
WIKIPEDIA FOREVER!
Check out the fundraising banner at the top of Wikipedia at the moment:
Awesomely totalitarian, eh? I like it.
All hail our glorious[citation needed] wiki overlords!
camel/mouse
A camel is a horse designed by committee…
and this is a mouse designed by an open-source development team.
Awesome.
(via df)
October 2009
3 posts
2 tags
music as autobiography
In Phil Gyford’s great blog post “The £10,000 Playlist” he muses on the value of having a personal iTunes library rather than purely relying on cloud-based services like Spotify:
There are differences, that help make my library worth spending on… my library has history, layers, a gradual accumulation over my life. It’s not just a playlist but a timeline that in itself is...
3 tags
The Second Hand Marching Band - Dawn Raid...
new house, new job
All change, please…
pre-unpacking
First of all, I’ve moved the 47.5 miles from my home-town to sunny south London, with some friends and friends of friends and so on. That’s very exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing friends a bit more, doing some culture, living well, and generally pretending to be a Grown Up.
Secondly, I’ve just started a super-good new...
September 2009
15 posts
1 tag
Single Ladies by Pomplamoose (orig. Beyonce)...