Help me!

Stephen Moss in the Guardian.

Can anyone tell me why I agree with this guy yet will be returning to a British university next year? This is by far the most pertinent argument I've heard relating to the fees debate and highlights that even if grinning Tony gets his precious bill, it means nothing unless people are willing to pay through the nose for a low quality education. The people have a choice!

This is just lovely. See if you can find the alien in the top left of the space area, its really worth it!

The creator's website seems pretty cool too - the ideals of pixel art take me right back to Deluxepaint II eh Neel? before the days of all this photoshop rubbish. Nice to see some creativity and thinking outside of the software package box. :)

Googlewhacking update:

grievously thingamajig

A weight off my shoulders I tell you. I now have much more time to do something more productive. Like making my own dominoes. I did that in the workshop yesterday. Cue two days of serious domino playing in the studio. Darn. If its not one thing, its something else...

My quest for a googlewhack continues fruitlessly. Dave Gorman and his whacking friends make it sound so easy! No such luck.

-40 in NY, 30 below in Canada, and, well quite barmy (or balmy?) at times here - nothing on which to fret mother. In tribute to my first ever prolonged experience of snow, I debuted on a ski slope on Friday. Roy was my name, snowboarding was my 'game' but you have to take it seriously if you're gonna be the best. ahem, anyhoo, I feel pretty proud of myself having, after 4 hours, begun to look pretty darn experienced in scooting down the piste, as long as no one notices that I can't turn. I can turn of course, to be let loose on the slope without skill would be criminal, but in snowboarding you should ideally decide on one foot to point down the slope and stick with it, which means to cross the slope left to right, you have to turn your back slightly to the direction you're goin, which my mind didn't have a problem with per se, but my body just wasn't having it. stubborn thing.

In other news a weekend was spent in this cabin and much fun was had in the snow. Perhaps pictures will follow.

Minority Report was seen once again and doubly enjoyed, especially Tom Cruise chasing his eyeballs down a drain. I tried to fault the plot in this film because it seems so potentially flawed but could not. The concept and imagery is simply genius: 'Howard Marks'' (wasn't he someone else in real life?) Georgian housing and lifestyle, the Andertons' seaside home, John's memories on haphazardly labelled glass 'disks', Danny Witwer's braces and his slightly bizarre Irish-borne quirks... Why can't I have a computer interface like John Anderton's? Why can't we all? That's what the world should be like. Perhaps we are getting closer to that day.

That 'computer interface' link came from Chris Rusay's site, which appears to be quite nice.

theSlog's News of the weird, part 1...

Monday January 19, 10:40 AM

Farmer finds diamonds in the rough

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - It's not quite the goose that laid the golden
egg,
but an Indian diamond merchant's prize cow is producing bejewelled
dung.

Dilubhai Rajput had stashed a bag of more than 1,700 small diamonds,
worth
almost $900 (503 pounds), in a pile of hay at his home in Gujarat
state,
famous both for its dairy and diamond-cutting industries, but hadn't
reckoned on the risk of a hungry cow, the Economic Times newspaper
reported on Monday.

Now he's feeding the animal a diet of grass, grain, fruit and
laxatives
and has so far recovered 300 diamonds in three days.

"I am sure within a week I will retrieve all my diamonds,"
the paper
quoted Rajput as saying.

It was unclear why he chose to hide the stones in the hay.


Neel. (theSlog's newest contributor - thank you Neel!)

Alink. Can't kick your addiction to retro electronics? maybe you don't have to.

I'm loving blogs now. Ah weeel, no work for me this year i guess...

Some highlights from the guardian's blog awards or whatever they're called:
Lurking on the London Underground on your way to work you scour the floor for lost photos, possibly pinhole black and whitesof London, the last of which is nice in design but begs the question, as does the slog, "What's it all for?" Why are these bloggers blogging, what do they hope to achieve, superstardom? Why am I writing this? Its a deep desire inside many to publish to the world, speak your mind for all to hear, yet ultimately remain anonymous for fear of humiliation. Sadly everyone here knows me donæt they? darn. Am i right? At least these people snapping photos, finding photos, travelling underground have some purpose, some mission. Me and gilly are just lost i guess. At least we can take inspiration from these blogging pros and perhaps, one day, people will say, "Roy? Isn't he the guy who said something once?"

Hello there.

So the site slowly morphs once again, and should be online soon.
This redesign was brought to you by about 3 months of chin scratching deliberation at various times - on busses, in trains, queuing in the supermarket, and now finally by having pretty much a whole afternoon to devote to the reorgansiation of 3 years of hecticly posted data.

I shall soon be venturing out into the snowiness and skidding my way to another reunion with friends here. Changes in Trondheim? not so much. Noticeably less people in the studio, still the same comfortable atmosphere of very slow work.! Just the typical slow winding up of courses and my deliberation on what to take to do.

Godt nyt år! is how they say it here, and it is indeedy with too dancing gifts from the Dawg:

Numero uno: Coldcut's '70 minutes of madness' CD wihch might not be overrated when referring to itself as ' the best DJ mix album of all time. Sorry, 3 millenia ad infintum, it just aint getting any better than this! hm. It darn good tho

Numero, er, two: Dave Gorman's Googlewhacking adventure. The man is loveable! so imperfect, so cringeworthy at times, so well meaning, so obsessive! Great, cos i like to think his devotion of half a year to the art of getting one hit with a two word search in google will be enough to prevent me doing the same! hopefully. WARNING: googlewhacking can lead to serious time wasting. Reading Dave's book however adds the human dimension which is infinitely more attention worthy.

THANK YOU Gaz! you can be my friend forever.