I've been published!

Well sort of - in a very roundabout, lazy way. Schmap.com is a tourism site with info about Glasgow that they cull from various commons repositories, hence tehy came across my Flickr photos. Its nice to get some recognition!

Guinness Cake by Dave Green, 1ACAOC

I am hearby restarting the cake reportt in blog form, having been inspired by Dave's cakular offerings last night. We shall have a strict protocol to any cake report, that is:

Title must begin with the official cake title, followed by attribution to the cake author, whether it be man or corporation. Following a comma the cake rating will be displayed according to the official cake rating scale as we pioneered in NYK, where we shall use the Chocolate And Orange Cake from Peckhams as our benchmark against all other cakes are judged. Hence the use of the acronyms ACAOC (after chocolate and orange cake) and BCAOC (before chocolate and orange cake). These are to be used as if one were reading the cake chart as a list, BCAOC signifying a cake that is better than chocolate and orange cake and ACAOC signifying one that is less good. The number signifier preceding said acronym relates to what degree the cake in question is better or less good than the CAOC.

So, as an example Dave's Guinness Cake, which I have given a 1ACAOC is approximately 1 less good than the CAOC, so nearly as good, ie. in the chart it would be somewhere just below the CAOC. Got it? good.

The Guinness Cake was a pleasure to eat, bringing with it to the table the same wholesome quality of Guinness, combined expertly with a dense chocolate sponge quality. In fact quality is the one word that sprang to mind with this cake, which was topped with a luxurious cream cheese based topping - something that were I told it before, I would surely have baulked at, however it weass a resounding success and perfect compliment both in tazste and texture to the cake. The one area where I think there may be room for improvement, and hence why it has to come after the CAOC is in the main cake texture - just a little to homogenous in comparison, I think with the addition of some variation in the form of chocolate chips or something, maybe pork scratchings (on the alehouse theme), it could triumph. But an excellent offering and it did inspire me to file the first cake report in about 3 years, so can't be at all bad.

First Day Falls

Attempting to film Joel and snowboard at the same time. I knew I couldn't multitask...

Hecq

Ayla pointed me in the direction of Hecq who has an uber-cool myspace here. Thanks for that Ayla!

Model Railways in the ghetto.

gallery | TRAINSET GHETTO

Flight of the Conchords

That's why they call them Business Socks.

dBass gig this Friday

dBass jazz bar flyer nov07.jpg (JPEG Image, 756x560 pixels)

YouTube - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Letter from God

YouTube - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Letter from God
A crackin' song, (to be expected from the sac v pip combo) with excellent choice of beats.

In Rainbows

If you haven't already done so, you should probably go here - but here's the killer question: how much is it worth?

But where's the recorder?

I was listening to The Decemberists' song The Crane Wife part 1 and I couldnt help but notice the similarity to a certain West End denizen's song about a boy with an arab strap...

Uncanny.

entschwindet und vergeht.

entschwindet und vergeht.: May 2007

I have discoveered that Murphy (Dougie) has a blog. It even shows some of his architecturally concerned meanderings. And he has also been doing some performance. Excellent stuff.

Screenwiped

How have we in this flat only just discovered Charlie Brooker's Screenwipes?

Bench

Bench
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

Some new pictures on Flickr, from a couple of trips.

Avast photos from Gilly

tattooing
Originally uploaded by gillyroche

Gilly has put up some photos from Friday night's shenanigans, which also at the last minute featured Mr. Harry Wilson AKA H-Bomb. which was nice. there are also some pictures of me on a tiny bike.

Weird Bikes, episode III

Avast!

Avast!

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Do come along if you can - Friday 14th Septemeber at the Captain's Rest, featuring Wake the President, Atoms for Peace and Tiago Andrade.

In celebration of Mark's borthday, Gilly coming back temporarily and mourning Lu going away temporarily.

SpokePOV, Freddie Grubb & Spherical in racing action

Originally uploaded by selimski

a whole load of great photos by selimski in this set.

Endangered Machinery

Endangered Machinery :: Industrial and Industrial Heritage Photography :: Haiko Hebig

I do like this.

See here too, for more industrial beauty.

via Core77

Latest Google Toy

Okay, its probably not the latest (i think that must be the Google Sky application which is a whole other post) but this is very very cool. Geo-referenced 3D rendered buildings... Just follow the link above and click on the '3D warehouse network link' then open the kmz with google earth...

News of the bizarro

275 Wilton St
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

275 Wilton St, post collapse.

Another weird bike

Cart Bike - Instructables

New pictures

MGM
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

Mainly from a couple of recent visits to Whiteinch.

Calgary Folk Festival

Some bands we loved at this years folk festival in alphabetical order. Those we really loved have an asterix or two:

Neko Case

Folk, Singer-Songwriter lady from the US.

City and Colour*

Lead singer from Alexis On Fire (Dallas Green) solo project. Kind of indy alt.

Brett Dennen*

Acoustic, Singer-Songwriter in the vain of Jack Johnson but MUCH better...

Eccodek

Canadian dub with african flavours.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

From the folk fest programme "Acoustic, Bluegrass, Folk, Funk, Jazz". Cool electronic banjo and drumitar to boot!

The Hummers*

More Canadian Dub, Funk, Jazz.

Paul Ubana Jones*

Blues/Rock, Kiwi Caribbean Londoner.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Classical Funk/Soul/Gospel with a James Brown esque stage production.

Leo Kottke*

Amazing 6 and 12 string gutiar picking, simply beautiful music.

Nathan**

Possibly my newest favourite band. Alt-country from Manitoba.

Jon-Rae and the River

Alt-Country, Gospel, Rock, Soul...

Squirrel Nut Zippers

Fun, almost Divine Comedy, Cabaret/Big Show band.

TOFU*

A three-piece spoken word/hip hop beat box outfit from BC. Amazing, thought-provoking, at times hilarious, poetry.

Rufus Wainwright

I think hes pretty big at home so you probably know the score, but i was very impressed with his performance, he has a great voice, and he wore lederhosen!


Overall a very enjoyable weekend, see flickr for a handful of pics. The festival is set on an island park in the bow river and you feel a million miles from the city. If anyone has plans to visit calgary you could do worse than to time it to coincide with the folk fest...

Japanese Sewers

Crooked Brains by Venus

For anyone who watched Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles back in the day..

Newly painted living room

Pictures of the newly painted living room, Rupert St:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/royshearer/tags/flat/

200th Post is Black

This is the 200th post to theSlog, and it comes via Padraig!

When your pc screen is all white (like a word page, for example),
your computer comsuption is about 74 Watt. When it's all black, the
average ist about 54 Watt.

Because of this, a few month ago, Mark Ontlush wrote an article
about the amount of energy that could be saved if Google had a black
background instead of white.

Considering the high popularity of the website, according to
Mark, the energy savings would be about 750 MW-Hour per year.
Answering to this post, Google created a black version of it's
search engine named Blackle.com ( http://blackle.com ) , that works the
exact same way as the original version but uses less power.
Pass it on to friends, family and discussion list...let's all
give our support to Blackle!!

Lawn Mower Bike

Lawn Mower Bike

I like these bikes, they're weird, but strangely logical!

Consumption without consuming too much

Zero-waste Design now has a shop. Its an etsy shop, which means it was easy, but everythings priced in dollars.

I love map

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches

I think this is quite interesting. An article about information representation on the web.

Smile and Say Thanks

Harry + Chris' + Cat + David's play is on at the Bedlam theatre, venue 49 from 13 Aug to 25th Aug, Edinburgh Fringe.

New photies

Salon Lights
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

I now have a cameraphone..

Questlove on worldwide

I can thoroughly receommend listening again to last night's worldwide, featuring an interview with Questlove:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio1_aod.shtml?radio1/peterson

You may also like to check out:

Ben Westbeech (Dave McCormick know him, y'know)

and

The Heritage Orchestra

Jo on the gogglebox...

fast forward to about nine tenths of the way through to see Jo.

Theo Jansen

I'm not going to apologise for this video: enormous wind powered walking machines, anyone?

There are more details here too.

Antibalas

from Gaz

I feel I must apoligse for my last 3 posts being exclusively from YouTube. I shall try and be less dumbed down in the future..
R

Beatboxin' Bush

YouTube - London Calling - Bike Messengers Race

This is quite fun, although I advise you to turn off your sound before hitting play...!

Malcolm and Jamie...

The following post contains strong language, expertly used:

Scene. Interior of Malcolm Tucker's office.

Malcolm: He loves Al Jolson

Jamie: The guv'nor

Ollie: Mamee!

Jamie: You take the piss out of Al Jolson again and I will remove your iPod from its tiny nano-sheath and push it up your cock, Then I'll put some speakers up your arse and put it on to shuffle with my fucking fist. Then, every time I hear something that I don't like - which will be every time that something comes on - I will skip to the next track by crushing your balls.


Armando Iannucci's The Thick of It

Musical things I liked at Sonar

Kazumasa Hashimoto
Black Galaxy
Chris Clark (obviously)
Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators
Dizzee Rascal
Kode 9 & the Spaceape
Oris Jay
Skream
Spacek & Benji B (basically all the dubstep)
Mira Calix
C2C (great fun)
Flying Lotus
Bubbz & Deadbeat
An On Bast
Tiago Andrade!

some design stuff about my recent trip

Set out to write an update on the zero-waste blog about my trip and got a bit carried away. Was going to post here too but i think a link would be better in light of its length!

Sadly not going to be many photos from the trip and evry few audio recordings too. Guess I was having too much fun catching up with folk - disappointingly little to report anecdotally unfortunately anyway. Will just say that I'm glad I went, and its hard to go back to work 9-5!

Dancin'

Courtesy of Mr. McCormick , who has a new location for his blog...

Front page news!

Calgary made front page news today on Guardian Unlimited. For all the wrong reasons...
It's a fair comment, but after being here 9 months and seeing a little of what Calgarians can and are doing in regards to climate change and sustainability issues, I'm a little more optimistic that things wont be as bad as Klein makes out. I may however have just caught the Cowtown bug. Yeehaw!

MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

japanese contraption - Google Video

japanese contraption - Google Video

Engrossing ball runs from the Japanese childrens' program, 'Pythagoras Switch'.

Living on the Edge

Urban spread is like no other i've seen in Calgary right now. This is a wonderful collection by the 10 cent designer on flickr that i think describes the spread better than i could ever put into words.

Lost America

Amazing photos and a guide on how to "lightpaint" at this site.

Image: ©Troy Paiva / Lost America

Kitchen Diaries

courtesy of Kath

Eerie view at Dungeness

Eerie view at Dungeness
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.

I've uploaded my latest film - pics from Dungeness in October 06, new year at Gilly's, and Neel, Kath and Rowan's recent visit to Glasgow.

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Donald Rumsfeld

loo in progress

loo in progress
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.

I've posted some photos of the flat renovations, as many have requested. Its hard taking photos indoors - my flat doesn't fit in my wee camera..

The collection is here [link might be below photo]:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/royshearer/tags/flatrenovations/

Toutes les autos de Tintin

Toutes les autos de Tintin

Testament to Herge's attention to detail, via Core77.com

Frightened Rabbit: Sing the Greys: Pitchfork Record Review

Frightened Rabbit: Sing the Greys: Pitchfork Record Review

The Ol' FR get a respectable review at Pitchfork, something thats not always easily achieved. Hooray for the Rabbit! Hooray for Glasgow!

The role of Governmental websites.

I have always thought that progressive, democratic societies are built upon fundamental ideas such as freedom of speech and the right to a decent education (amongst many others). Considering both of these points makes me think about the internet.

Everyone has the right to write anything they so wish (as I am doing right now) and publish this on the internet, a freedom of speech that is incredibly difficult to restrict. Educationly, the internet has also enlightened many, even with a crappy 28.8k connection one could imagine that access to material (granted some of dubious educational quality) never before available to some has improved vastly. Corporations, NGOs, Universities and National Governments have all used the internet to their advantage, to inform and to educate the general public in whatever way they wish.

There is the problem however of institutional bias. What an NGO and a Corporation say about the same situation could be hugely different. This, I think, is unavoidable and it is up to the reader to decide who they believe. However, should this be the case when it comes down to websites operated by national governments? Should spin be allowed? I think not. I think there is a responsibility on governments, as the bastions of progressive, democratic societies, to provide the 'decent education' as I mentioned above.

Which is why when I recently checked out the Government of Canada's official Climate Change website I was so sorely disappointed. To be fair, you can eventually get to some musings on climate change after following a bunch of links from one government department to anothers website. But I was honestly shocked that one could simply declare an issue as huge as Climate Change a closed book, one that this government has decided simply to not provide any easily accessible information on. Could you imagine if they decided to not provide any information on HIV/Aids or simply had a page for a website instructing the reader that the site is 'temporarily unavailable'?

Perhaps there is no responsibility on any government to provide free and accessible information on any issue. One could argue with the reams of information on everyone elses website that this would be pointless. Perhaps that is what institutions like the UN are for, but at least, if you have an official page on an issue, maybe it should have a link to that institution?

It's a thinker...

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Adam Buxton but no Joe

Adam Buxton

Well, having spent about the last five days with the flu, I now have a long line in stories of sweating profusely for no reason, and whats good on On Demand. One of the latter is three series of the Adam and Joe show - you know what that means: three opening episodes that you have to pay absolutely nil for! (they're free). So they're the ones I watched, but I know the rest are there for me in moments of boredom, of which there are sure to be many seeing as I am living in one room with an armchair opposite the TV, which is on the fridge. (The builders have started).

Anyway, have had fun reading Adam's blog, which Jonny Greenwood linked to on Dead Air Space. Speaking of whom there was a Late Junction special last night dedicated to, from what I could tell, 'some tunes Jonny probably likes' seeing as they never actually talked to him. Still, it was good.

Useless Dog

What a Useless Dog... But lovely to have around the place no doubt.

'Compared to this, Iraq was easy'

'Compared to this, Iraq was easy'

Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh reports from Afghanistan, embedded with the 10th US mountain division, in a series of narrated slideshows. Good stuff.

Flickr distraction

DON'T OIL MACHINE WHEN RUNNING
Originally uploaded by equipeowen.

This is from the Stick Figures in Peril group.

Also, Dave Gorman's Interesting Flickr Coincidences set is quite, wll, interesting.

Soviet bus shelters

Polar Inertia, a photography site has an interesting gallery of Soviet bus shelters, of which this is one.

via Core77

Magischer Garten: nach acht und vierzig Stunden

Magischer Garten: nach acht und vierzig Stunden
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy.

You asked for it: the Magic Crystal Garden, documented in Flickr glory..

Thank you Anneka!

Tatooine

Tatooine
Originally uploaded by chartno3.

Haven't been there for a while, but Jonathan Percy is still posting photos for Chartno3, now at Flickr..

Sandy

Strangely, I've never visited Sandy's website before - it's rather good

Dead christmas tree

Dead christmas tree
Originally uploaded by Jennifer Louise Taylor.

Jenny has astutely moved onto Chrimbo trees...

The Guy Dawg

yessir
Originally uploaded by gillyroche.

Gilly has posted some photos from our new year in Milnathort. Thank you Hurly Burlys!

It's Dave!

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/students/profile/573
Wow, you really liked that course, eh Dave?

And here he is again, this time at Culturelab:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab/people/profile/david.green

Dead umbrella

Dead umbrella
Originally uploaded by Jennifer Louise Taylor.

Jenny is documenting all those deceased umbrellas that tend to pop up in Glasgow every winter...