theSlog

Welcome to the future!

2012-01-01T18:16:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Murphy for reminding me of this xkcd.com gem:
Roy

This Is Why I'll Never Be An Adult

2011-12-05T21:19:00.001+01:00

This gem comes courtesy of Erika. Thanks Erika! (Therika)

Roy

Hair Of The Dog

2011-11-22T18:47:00.001+01:00

I've been helping Jonnie with his installation coming up this weekend, involving 8 Niftymitters.. Do come along, it is going to have to be good.

A full length album of material from Jonnie Common’s debut 'Master Of None' remixed by a talented bunch of his personal favourites. Available as a limited screen print with download. Featuring:

GEESE : DEMS : FOUND : BEN BUTLER & MOUSEPAD : ONTHEFLY : RIVER OF SLIME : GRNR : A LA FU : MIAOUX MIAOUX : THE JAPANESE WAR EFFORT : CAUGHT IN THE WAKE FOREVER

Nov 25 - 27 : Jonnie Common Sound Installation

Jonnie Common has worked with Zero Waste Design to produce an interactive sound installation at MONO that lets users mix the elements of his debut album with the added potential for lo-fi surround sound to be achieved.

If that’s not all, an exhibition by illustrator David Galletly will also be shown over the weekend featuring drawings and murals related to ‘Master Of None’.

Nov 27 : Exhibition Closing Party

live sets from: BEN BUTLER & MOUSEPAD + DEMS + GRNR
special guest DJ sets from: FOUND + THE JAPANESE WAR EFFORT

7.30pm : £4 : MONO : 12 Kings Court, Glasgow, G1 5RB

INFO + TICKETS: WWW.JONNIECOMMON.COM

Flux Pinning in Jazz

2011-10-22T12:58:00.002+02:00

This video is great for two reasons:

It demonstrates the faintly unbelievable
The soundtrack

Thanks to Carlo!
Roy

A Song of One Hundred Years, Adam Beattie

2011-10-13T02:42:00.001+02:00

A Song of One Hundred Years by adambeattie

I played as a consultant of Adam Beattie regularly for a couple of years after graduating, and have very fond memories of the experience. Indeed without Adam there would be no three headed Inspector Tapehead, seeing as Chris too was a consultant at that time, and Jonnie was unashamedly in thrall to Adam's croonings. It is fairly damning for us then that since he parted our close proximity, Adam has continued to improve without pause, revelling amongst a host of excellent London consultants. Of course we still meet occasionally and the meetings are all the more delightful for their scarcity. In a good way.

My favourite of his songs that we played together was Man Running, a track realised in boldly different colours on his second album We'll Wave From the Shore. When we played Man Running it was something of a heartfelt, rich, tearjerker, almost rubbery in its rubato (as was oft the way in that lineup, much to Adam's delight). It got me in the same way that pretty much any brass band playing Nimrod or Danny Boy does - when we played it at the Abu Bozy album launch in the Tron, I got pretty carried away with the old deep-sighing of the harmonium!

Anyway the point of this essay is that a couple of years ago Adam nonchalantly whipped out a song that has come to replace Man Running in my top spot of Beattie tunes, in the form of A Song of One Hundred Years. An astonishing bit of song writing, he has now put it into zeroes and ones and uploaded it to Soundcloud as a preview of his third album. In Adam's words, it is "A song I wrote for my grandfather George Craigie, who died last April 2010, at the age of one hundred years old." Listen to it above, and enjoy.

PS. As you can see, the effect of any dose of Beattie is acute sentimentality such as this!

Roy

The Cinematic Orchestra - 'Entr'acte'

2011-10-08T01:47:00.000+02:00

Kate Hartman on TED

2011-10-08T01:22:00.000+02:00

This excellent Ted talk by Kate Hartman, has almost all the things theSlog is interested in: design, glaciers, funnies..

JWC at the DBL

2011-09-29T17:47:00.003+02:00

One of two videos from a recent outing with Jonnie Common to the Diving Bell Lounge:

L@tDBL - Jonnie Common - Shogun from Precious Productions on Vimeo.

Jonnie's excellent recent album is listenable and buyable here.
I cemented a rock solid professional reputation by fucking up two takes royally before getting this, still ropey performance, improved endlessly by some delightful cinematography by Extreme Man, Richard. Eg. here is Richard filming himself kitesurfing.

Enjoy, Roy

PS.

I've just read the caption for this video on vimeo, presumably written by Richard or Jolene, with much amusement! If it is Richard, we are clearly regarding each other with similar suspicion, me of him being some kind of superman, and he of me being a potential architect and assassin. One of those accusations is true, and the other is sort of true, see if you can work out which.

Enez live video

2011-09-22T00:30:00.001+02:00

Stu put up this film recently from the Enez gig at St. Andrew's in the Square in May. For those that missed it, enjoy!
Roy

Jag tänker så titt from Stuart Macpherson on Vimeo.

Ph.D.

2011-08-24T00:37:00.005+02:00

Here's my thesis in a nutshell as provided by the lovely wordle.
Dr. g

Ian Shearer in Other Lives

2011-08-18T17:00:00.000+02:00

We put in a column to the Guardian about my dad earlier in the year and it got printed today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/aug/17/ian-shearer-obituary

Unfold

2011-08-17T16:23:00.000+02:00

May I recommend the Tru Thoughts Unfold podcast, such as this one? Why, Thanks.
Roy

Receipts from 1976

2011-08-03T19:00:00.002+02:00

Receipts from 1976, a photo by Spherical Roy on Flickr.

My dad kept receipts from seemingly the most significant purchases since around 1970. I've uploaded some of the ones that are most interesting to me, seeing as they document things that I have seen or used all my life.
The full set is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/royshearer/sets/72157627348481212/

Roy

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world

2011-08-03T13:20:00.001+02:00

Another great TED talk, this time about algorithms, man/machine interaction, terraforming.. It's got it all! Thanks to Carlo. from Roy.

Cumbrian Cake Criminals Cautioned!

2011-07-16T16:01:00.001+02:00

Via Pa Johnson.

Geordie Bees on the web

2011-07-02T15:55:00.007+02:00

Ahoy! My mate and loyal Slogger, Dave, is a paid up bee fanatic, and, having persuaded Culturelab at Newcastle Uni to get him some bees and a hive, now has webcams online! Brilliant. I've added the live feed from the front door of the hive to the sidebar of theSlog. Thanks Dave!
Honeybees are of course in danger of dying out, so as well as being an interesting things to do, keeping bees is actually a very socially responsible thing to be doing. There are a few campaigns to save bees, such as this one.

Roybee

Flickr update

2011-06-30T00:49:00.002+02:00

Massive photo dump over at flickr from one half of your listeners. December 2010-June 2011.

Inspector Tapehead Duress Code Tour Video, BOSH.

2011-06-16T00:29:00.003+02:00

Back in September, just after Duress Code's release I went on tour with Inspector Tapehead, and the tour video is now online, in not one, nor two, but three acts. Count em.

Now, Youtube stats show that for every 30 people that view act 1, 1 switches off after that, and a further 7 don't make it to act 3. So you better buck up folks, as I know readers of theSlog have approximately 50 percent more time on their hands than blogs with better employed readerships..

Duress Code is out on Song, By Toad and available here. We are playing at the Caves, Edinburgh on Friday evening and Brel, Glasgow on Sunday afternoon.

Roy Tapehead, enjoy... we did.

Lack of Entropy

2011-05-24T01:12:00.000+02:00

I am listening to Radio Magnetic's alleged jazz show, Entropy, notable in its absence from the feed for about a year. It is good though, so I wish it was on more! Well worth a listen if you're interested in a variety of jazz beyond the limited one which is generally meted out in Glasgow. As myself and I dare say my dBassian colleagues are.
What exactly would it take to get more jazz on Radio Magnetic, beyond the annual excitement of the jazz fest? [NYK would have had this sorted, but we won't go into that].

One of the many enjoyable features of Entropy of course is Andy Watt's rather forgetful/shambolic delivery/technical operation which I'm sure is down to merely the infrequency of his shows!

I can see I've sold this really well, so am going to stop before you change your mind. Entropy is a podcast downloadable here or subscribable here.
Roy

Grampian Mountains

2011-05-21T17:02:00.000+02:00

Grampian Mountains: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Tasty new site from Craig..

Roy

N'awlins

2011-04-24T02:27:00.002+02:00

Last weekend in New Orleans.

A Disappointed Radiohead Fan

2011-04-18T00:13:00.002+02:00

rather good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZsrnRVQDFU&feature=player_embedded

via AtEase
Roy

Enez gigsss

2011-04-17T23:35:00.002+02:00

Hello. I am 33% of the way through a run of Enez gigs. The first one got a rather good review in the Scotsman last week, although they spelt Tristan wrong.:
http://living.scotsman.com/music/Music-review-Diego-Laverde-Tistan.6750043.jp

And the subsequent ones are bound to be better, given that Tristan should be able to use both hands for em. The first is this Saturday at Ceol's Craic, the Gaelic club at the CCA. Ticket info here:
http://www.cca-glasgow.com/page=236B7D10-868E-4F86-A306909B378E5655&eventid=02AFC0CE-930E-4F16-974FAC647562E9F0

And then we are playing at St. Andrew's in the Square in May:
http://www.ticketsoup.com/tickets/tristan-le-govic-harp-jazz-2011-12688/default.aspx

We've got a rather old myspace here, which sadly was prior to Lise's joining on vocals:
http://www.myspace.com/eneztrio

Spherical Roy

Open Source Ecology

2011-03-02T01:00:00.000+01:00

Gareth astutely pointed me in the direction of this inspiring open design project with some of the furthest developed results I have yet seen! Apparently springing mainly from one team in Kansas at what they call the 'Factor e Farm'. Impressive stuff.

More at openfarmtech.org

In other news, I also love the Guardian

2011-03-02T00:31:00.001+01:00

Beady Eye
The Roller (Beady Eye)

You might not recognise this three-and-a-half minutes of what future generations will see as a massive leap forward in our culture. But mark this day in your diaries, because this song – which sounds like will.i.am has travelled to the year 3098 and collaborated with aliens – will change how we see music forever. Not really. It's just standard Oasis from 1996, and over the guitars, we think we can hear the faint sound of Damon Albarn laughing.

Issy Sampson for The Guardian, 19th Feb

Roy

I love Liam Gallagher

2011-03-02T00:29:00.000+01:00

"I heard that fucking Radiohead record and I just go, ‘What?!’ I like to think that what we do, we do fucking well. Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand year old tree? Go fuck yourself! You’d have thought he’d have written a song about a modern tree or one that was planted last week. You know what I mean?”

Roy

The Foghorn: A Celebration

2011-02-28T00:52:00.000+01:00

BBC iPlayer - The Foghorn: A Celebration: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

For theSlog readers in the UK:

I can thoroughly recommend this Radio 4 documentary about foghorns.

That is not a joke, it's a really interesting programme!

Roy

Ditto vid

2011-02-25T23:05:00.000+01:00

Andy Gangadeen talks

2011-02-15T01:57:00.000+01:00

BBC Music Showcase - Musicians' Masterclass 2011 - Andy Gangadeen on working with Chase & Status and The Bays: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

For anyone interested in drums, programmed or live, these shorts with Andy Gangadeen of The Bays and sessioner for all sorts of pop acts, are essential. Well I liked em anyway.

cheers Jonnie!

Roy

Tapehead Live at the Diving Bell Lounge

2011-02-10T00:23:00.001+01:00

Live at the Diving Bell Lounge (MUSIC) on Vimeo: Last week Jonnie and Chris and I went along to Marcus' beautiful east end studio to record these tracks for Precious Productions, with some quite flattering results:

Live at The Diving Bell Lounge - Inspector Tapehead - Fillet of Bozo from Precious Productions on Vimeo.

Live at The Diving Bell Lounge - Inspector Tapehead - I am your pedigree from Precious Productions on Vimeo.

Enjoy, Roy.

SICK

2011-01-29T14:03:00.003+01:00

SICK

Theatre Modo's acclaimed production, Sick, starring official theSlog clown Suzie Ferguson, is on in Stirling on Feb 4th. Highly recommended by this blogger.

Roy

Ditto

2011-01-21T00:14:00.002+01:00

I'm currently doing percussion for a show in Edinburgh, entitled Ditto. The List had this to say:
http://www.list.co.uk/article/32023-ditto-explores-how-8-12-year-old-children-listen-and-respond-to-music/#

It's on at the Traverse on Saturday at 13.30 if anyone fancies a skeg.
Roy

Loops Haunt

2011-01-08T02:19:00.000+01:00

Chatting about music I love today I couldn't help but include Mr. Loops Haunt, whose set of elaborately soulful glitches at the decidedly botanical N_ilk in September had me writhing with glee, as many will attest. Only I realise I've never paid him the courtesy of a link from theSlog so here goes. But best experienced loud, on a grassy dancefloor.
Enjoy.
Roy.

Delapidation

2011-01-02T11:06:00.005+01:00

A fascinating photo essay on the Guardian site today from Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre in Detroit, Michigan.

Roy

Information is Beautiful go animated

2010-12-31T14:29:00.005+01:00

I gave my pops the Information is Beautiful book for chrimbo, so we had some fun perusing it, finding fault with things we know a little about, and being flabbergasted by those of which we know nought. It's a great book to have around and very engaging - I think its interesting and valuable to see the myriad ways in which datasets can be visualised and interpreted, and that this can be as subjective as any other artform. But as data becomes increasingly open to all we need more and varied 'information designers' interpreting that data.

Anyway, David McCandless, author of said book has just posted some rather good wee animations that make the topic of UK spending yet more interesting, if that's possible..

Happy New Year When It Comes!
Roy

Go Team

2010-12-03T17:58:00.002+01:00

There's a new Go Team album out in the new year and they've been playing the first track (T.O.R.N.A.D.O) on 6music the last few days. The sample was bugging me, then I realised today it's an Antibalas track. Check it out!

g

Inspired.

2010-12-02T02:01:00.001+01:00

Inspired.
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

Craiglinn, Cumbernauld

An evening in

2010-11-29T00:51:00.005+01:00

A rare thing currently, and I have learnt three things:

I am a hopeless and unashamed Radiohead nut. And there are millions others out there, some of whom assemble pages full of amusing 'head philosophy. And despite having the whole catalogue to choose from, I increasingly tend to go back to half-known tracks off How Am I Driving and Pablo Honey (namely Thinking About You). What a sentimental fool.
The Metropolitan Police seem unable to grasp that the nature of the web makes denying that you charged at protesters on horseback, pointless. And not knowing that your subordinates did, inexcusable.
And finally, without Bad Science keeping a keen eye out for statistical pitfalls, I may have missed the survey that found that on average, as people get older, they get older. Priceless.

Royhead.

Shaun Ryder/Grandpa Simpson?

2010-11-21T21:03:00.002+01:00

Via Guy Garvey on 6music. Is Shaun Ryder actually Grandpa Simpson? Listen here about 40 seconds in.

g.

Oh to have co-workers to kill.

2010-10-26T21:46:00.005+02:00

Which might seem like a harsh title for a post were it not in response to this:

Flying Lotus - Kill Your Co-Workers from Warp Records on Vimeo.

Alternatively: "What happens when one of my fave animators makes a video for one of my fave musicians? A CGI bloodbath in this case."

I was gently chastised yesterday by Brother Neel (as only brothers can) for writing that he described as 'terse': In my mind I have simply been reducing the mass of information we are increasingly expected to deal with, but I concur that this may have been at the cost of quality entertainment here at the Slog. Thankfully Dr. Dawg (that's right, DOCTOR) is reliably verbose (when he's not writing theses).

So, some further nuggets:
1. Kill Your Co-workers to me is another installment of wonderfully confident video game tinged upstep from Flying Lotus, whose faultlessly well appointed album Cosmogramma has been on repeat in the studio before and will be again.
2. I have complained to the unresponsive ears of the Facebook feed before about 6music's inability to count the members of Flying Lotus (one).
3. I am unreliably informed that Mr. Lotus is the great-nephew of the late Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane.
4. Beeple first came to my attention for drumming reasons with this CG folly.
5. I suspect Mr. B. Eeple may have come across Kritchard's robotic kreations before, and if not, should do.

To return to the title, a large part of the reason I have stopped blogging in general so much is that I have been in search of co-workers, indeed work of any kind, but co-workers in particular would be nice. I have come across some in Dundee, in Brian and Hamish, and indeed at the Studios, but would still on the whole prefer to be one of a full-time design team and to have a more steady, sensible working routine. This is such that I can a) preserve my sanity, b) actually make a living rather than scrape a survival, and c) have more time for making things and not talking about making things (or at least talk about it in the sense of analysis rather than marketing). The whole reason I'm in this untenable position is due to the addiction that is semi-professional musicianship of course. But I think a happy life/work/music (NB. music = life NOR work) balance is still possible with the support of the right others.

owzat?

this has been a post by ROY and took MORE THAN AN HOUR. geez.

Illuminating, on Type

2010-10-17T14:11:00.001+02:00

A good Guardian read, extracted from Just My Type: A book about fonts, by Simon Garfield

Roy

N_ILK!

2010-10-06T01:59:00.002+02:00

As they say, if you weren't there, you missed yourself (which doesn't make any sense as a saying I know, but it's not for the first time).

N_ILK: Loops Haunt - Radiohead refix, Hurache and Rubber Sun Grenade remix from Paul Gault on Vimeo.

N_ILK: Inspector Tapehead - A Fillet of Bozo & WCMJ from Paul Gault on Vimeo.

Roy

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole

2010-09-29T14:34:00.001+02:00

For all you typography geeks.

by Gareth via Steve W.

Ahoy me hearties

2010-09-03T00:10:00.001+02:00

Follow Pa johnson on his round britain sailing adventure here... In his words:
"Since my unfortunate M.I. earlier this month, I’ve decided to complete my rehab by sailing non-stop around Britain, anticlockwise, leaving tomorrow (Tuesday 31st August). My friend, Keith Patrick and I, will leave from Dunoon marina in the Holy Loch at about 5pm and expect to take around 17 days.
We will publish a blog at http://yewdap283.blogspot.com as and when we have a mobile and internet connection – please feel free to leave comments there or to my alternative email address johnson.iain@gmail.com if you wish.
The passage plan takes us down the Irish sea, around the Scilly Isles, up the English Channel, the North Sea to above Shetland, out to St. Kilda and, depending on time & weather either back through the North Channel or round the south of Eire and back up the Irish sea to Whitehaven."

David McCandless (Information is Beautiful) on TED

2010-08-29T20:47:00.003+02:00

TheSlog favourite David McCandless gave a TED talk recently - its great to hear him explain some of his visualisations and how he got into doing them. Thanks to Georgey for first pointing out his blog.

Inspector Tapehead's album crawls into the ether!

2010-08-16T02:24:00.003+02:00

But where can I buy it?

Here!

Will it come with any hand crafted Roy typography?

Yes!

What's it like writing the numbers 1 to 300 and the number 300 300 times in 2 hours?

Surprisingly OK!

So what's the album like?

Surprisingly OK!

Is there an expertly timed video for promotional purposes only?

Roy is in good spirits.

Garden EP by dBass - you got yours?

2010-07-29T02:22:00.005+02:00

Just a wee reminder that the dBass EP is available now via Bandcamp..

If it was my home

2010-06-07T18:04:00.002+02:00

A scary tool that shows you how big the gulf oil spill would be if it was centered on your home.

gareth

New pics up

2010-06-03T02:09:00.004+02:00

Have had an evening of sorting through photos and as such have updated my Flickr for the first time in a while! Too much to talk about but shall list the sets:
Homegame, Whitehills windfarm, Edale, Scope, Love Calculator, Dundee, Dumfries and Galloway before Christmas, and even Paris!

Here's one at random:

I am Roy.

Haarfest announced.

2010-06-02T11:36:00.001+02:00

Fence Records News � Haarfest!

Fence's Haarfest festival has been announced for Monday 16th to Saturday 21st of August, and as a pleasant surprise confirmation to me, features both Inspector Tapehead, and a certain Jon Rogers and pals of Product Design in Dundee. Good times.

Roy

Allotment tonight

2010-05-30T11:39:00.004+02:00

This is very late, having done one of these gigs already, but allow me to publicise tonight's performance of Allotment 4 at least.

NTS say:

Produced by Angie Bual and Caroline Newall, the final Allotment offers an alternative night out by embracing cyberspace and the phenomena of social networking. An artistic take on websites including Facebook, MySpace and My Single Friend, Allotment will bring virtual networking experiences to life. Through live music, art and performance, the final Allotment experience will enable punters to reclaim the art of conversation, make new friends and take part in some dating games. As the night unfolds, three secret locations will also be brought in to the mix.

I say, I would never dream on basing a piece of musical work on a website, so can't really back up that statement! Fergus and I are, however, interested in the social dynamics of immprovisation, and as such we are putting on a version of Scope, the jam session where visual and musical improv coalesce. Following the practices we did last summer, this idea has come to fruition in a modified form, with Inspector Tapehead forming the core band. There are three 20minute sessions throughout the night, each time with the lineup including a different guest musician and visual artist. So at Allotment we can offer you:

Fergus Dunnet
Inspector Tapehead (Jonnie Common, Chris Croasdale and me, Roy)
Stuart Macpherson (dbass/JSS/formerly of Engine)
Justin Eade (Glimpse)
George Murray (dBass/One Ensemble/GIO)
Aby Vulliamy (One Ensemble/Nalle)
Jenny Soep (Drawing the experience)
and last night we had the percussive prowess of Peter Kelly (Moon Unit/ formerly of Galchen).

Check out this link for the event info, it's in Govancross Shopping Centre from 8pm tonight and last night was a corker.

Roy

Mr. Murphy on the Shanghai Expo

2010-05-30T11:35:00.001+02:00

entschwindet und vergeht: Shanghai Expo - Armchair Review!

I think it is safe to say that Murphy is the only person capable of writing an architecture review that makes me laugh out loud.

That might have been read as it being the quality of his writing that is laughable, but I must stress that is not the case: it's purely the wit. Read it, chump.

Roy

A picture of my favourite pavilion follows..

Hoho. Seriously though, the Danes win hands down:

Janelle Monáe - Tightrope - Late Show with David Letterman

2010-05-28T20:32:00.002+02:00

This just has to be seen to be believed! I wish I was in her band..

Roy

Eyjafjallaj�kull and Maths Sculpture � Maxwell’s Demon

2010-05-15T15:06:00.001+02:00

Eyjafjallaj�kull and Maths Sculpture � Maxwell’s Demon

On the topic of that volcano..

Found this great image while surfing on the topic of hexayurts: mathematician Edmund Harriss, who has an interesting blog here, and has done some new layouts for hexayurts.

What the real big society means for the economy, charities and copyright

2010-05-15T14:39:00.003+02:00

Two excellent mini docs just posted to the Guardian videostream from Heydon Prowse and William Pine:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2010/may/11/ethical-living-diy-big-society

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2010/may/12/ethical-living-real-big-society-two

These make essential viewing in my opinion, if only to come some some way to understanding where I'm coming from: ie. spending my time and earnings on the sometimes seemingly pointless area of open design. Its the empowerment stupid.

Roy

the coalition on CCS

2010-05-12T16:20:00.007+02:00

What do certain sloggers make of this extract from our new government's new manifesto?

• The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient CCS to meet the emissions performance standard

• Continuation of the present government's proposals for public sector investment in CCS technology for four coal-fired power stations; and a specific commitment to reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months.

We are agreed that we would seek to increase the target for energy from renewable sources, subject to the advice of the climate change committee.

Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided they are subject to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new national planning statement) and provided also that they receive no public subsidy.

We have agreed a process that will allow Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the government to bring forward the national planning statement for ratification by parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible.

This process will involve:

• The government completing the drafting of a national planning statement and putting it before parliament

• Specific agreement that a Liberal Democrat spokesman will speak against the planning statement, but that Liberal Democrat MPs will abstain; and clarity that this will not be regarded as an issue of confidence.

My questions: is this wildly different to current policy? And what on earth do the last paragraphs mean in practical terms??

Roy

Maps!

2010-05-11T18:54:00.003+02:00

Delightful exhibit on at the British Library until September: Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art. For those that haven't figured it out yet, yes I am a map addict, but bias aside, I love this map. Click through to explore...

gareth

Enez myspace up

2010-05-02T03:47:00.002+02:00

The demo for Enez is now up on myspace here, we'll be doing our second performance ever at Moniaive Folk Festival on the 8th May. All comments welcomed..

Climate Tricks - Update

2010-04-25T23:20:00.006+02:00

Well 2009 is truly over so I thought I'd update that image from the post I made pre-christmas without dropping 2009 data. Doesn't help does it? Dang. Perhaps this will become a yearly effort, that way, every new year of data I post in isolation of any trend, the greater chance I have of proving global warming stopped after 1998. Come on Eyjafjallajokull I know you want to help me out in 2010.

How do you cut UK emissions 80%?

2010-04-22T20:40:00.003+02:00

Nice interactive on the guardian website that allows you to play being the PM by dragging sliders to try and cut UK emissions by 80% by 2050. It also demands that you balance the electricity demand from different sources (though it is not exhaustive: no gas/coal/biomass with ccs). Anyway, I tried to do it without limiting consumption and travel. Answer, impossible. And as for flying, I'm going to climate hell...

Another fine graphic

2010-04-19T18:39:00.001+02:00

From Mr. McCandless, brought to my attention by George, another great infographic on a rather pertinent topic..
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

Aural Dispatch

2010-04-16T22:35:00.003+02:00

Some new Canadian indie finds from a recent Jason Collett gig. Collett was good but I was equally, if not more, impressed by sometimes Feist band-member Afie Jurvanen recording as Bahamas and the Collett backing band in and of themselves, Zeus, were a joy to listen too.

Good gig.

gareth

Malcolm's Missives

2010-04-16T22:30:00.003+02:00

Is anyone reading Malcolm Tuckers Election Briefing over at the graun? Singularly the best take on the election I've read...

With props to the real Malcolm: Jesse Armstrong.

gareth

three happenings in three days

2010-04-15T03:47:00.003+02:00

1. Love Calculator @ The Forest Fringe @ The Arches, Glasgow.

- Fergus Dunnet and Angie Bual present a machine that *will* calculate
your match, as part of this microfestival in The Arches. I'm providing
the sounds for it!
Friday and Saturday from 7.30, £10/£5. flyer here.

2. Ganghut @ GI @ Southside Studios, Glasgow.

- The southide's opening for the Glasgow International Festival of
Visual Art, with Dundee's Ganghut presenting their musical/
environmental/ performance based endeavours along with the usual
southside shenanigans.
Saturday from 7. Featuring homemade pizza, all free.
Exhibition open everyday until the 30th, when there will also be a
closing party.

3. Inspector Tapehead @ The Gentle Invasion @ The Roxy Room (formerly
The Bowery), Edinburgh.

- It's a gig. With Inspector Tapehead, Nathalie Stern and the Japanese
War Effort, Tapehead premiering some new stuff ahead of the album
release this summer.
Sunday from 7.30, £5.

Love Calculator at Forest Fringe

2010-04-12T13:12:00.001+02:00

I have built a few wee noisemakers for an interactive piece of theatre to be part of The Forest Fringe microfestival at the Arches at the end of this week. I shall actually be in it too playing said instruments. The piece is called the Love Calculator and is amongst a whole host of other wee happenings in the festival - flyer above, tickets here

Roy

Openthing revamp

2010-04-09T12:27:00.005+02:00

Have given Openthing a bit of a revamp this week, from the comfort of my home and the discomfort of a stomach bug. Any comments welcomed, whether they be on the site, niftymitter or open design in general.
Roy

>> Sorry, have fixed that link now. That was a bit embarrassing.

Map Envelope

2010-03-31T19:00:00.001+02:00

A wee bout of beeb hate

2010-03-30T00:41:00.002+02:00

Linuxcentre

We here at theSlog are very fond of the BBC, but frankly, they seem to be putting every foot wrong these days. The latest being BBC Online coming down squarely on the 'closed' side of the open source debate. Basically their stance is, 'we like to make use of open source software but we won't give any back, and more than that, we will block anyone else from doing it for us' - and hence the excellent GET iPlayer is no more. For now at least.

Between dangling the dagger over 6music, the Asian Network, BBC Online, and now the means by which we can access most of it, I can't see how they will soon be able to claim to be a public service provider and not a commercial media network like any other. Well, at least it leaves things open for, I don't know, more open TV networks perhaps?

a cheesed off Roy.

beeple - the work of mike winkelmann

2010-03-10T11:09:00.001+01:00

beeple - the work of mike winkelmann

via Make, some charming wee videos, firstly this one, then that one and finally the other.

Point to C on Solid Steel

2010-03-09T01:12:00.002+01:00

May I thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend this most recent Point to C mix for Solid Steel? Ta:

Ninja Tune - Solid Steel Radio Show 5/3/2010 Part 3 4 - Point to C & Neotropic - SoundCloud

Roymo

Typeface

2010-03-08T23:53:00.002+01:00

Roymo

Robin Friend, photographer

2010-02-26T19:52:00.006+01:00

Mr. Murphy links in his most recent post to photographer Robin Friend, with some beautifully haunting pictures such as this:

Apparently Murphy has reviewed his work in Hotshoe magazine but I can't find the article on't web on the first search, so must keep an eye out. Its so much more expensive, the whole magazine world, when you can't stand in Borders shamelessly dog-earing the periodicals. I guess that's why there are no more Borders (the shops, not the boundaries)..

Roy

Grampian Mountains

2010-02-26T18:39:00.006+01:00

The newest link on theSlog blog (from whence these posts come, for those of you viewing this on facebook) is Grampian Mountains, the blog of Glasgow based graphic designer and disc jockey Point to C, whom I had the pleasure of meeting recently. Very tasty photos and compositions alike.. checky:
http://grampianmountains.blogspot.com/

Roy

Southside Studios opening this weekend

2010-02-24T01:35:00.003+01:00

Merlin James / Andrew Taylor / Tom Varley

Preview - Saturday 27 February 2010 - 7pm

Southside Gallery, 17 Westmoreland Street, Govanhill, Glasgow, G42 8LL

www.southsidestudios.org

The Show will run from 2nd March till 16th March 2010.
by appointment only, please call 077927 39788

Fun Occult - Recoat opening on Friday

2010-02-24T01:25:00.002+01:00

Sent to you by Roy via Google Reader:

Fun Occult

via recoat by Recoat Gallery on 19/02/10

Things you can do from here:

Subscribe to recoat using Google Reader
Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favourite sites

The Do Lectures

2010-02-20T00:27:00.002+01:00

"The Do lectures are all about getting a handful of speakers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do something. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about."

Inspector Tapehead in album completion shocker.

2010-01-24T23:10:00.004+01:00

Reuters:

Glasgow, UK

Hello everybody

Just writing to say that we have well and truly and utterly finished our debut album 'Duress Code'. We have given the tracks we had up [on the myspace] before a rather thorough remixing and also worked away at the fresher stuff, before getting the whole lot (ten tracks altogether) mastered by Jon Astley. We are now putting it about with some hope of getting it released in early summer. Those who have picked up an album sampler from us at a gig, containing early mixes of the first three songs we recorded, may recall us printing an original release date of 'Summer 2008'. Let us assure you all that we will never be this optimistic again.

Anyway, to mark the occasion we are putting up three tracks from the finished article. We hope that you enjoy them and we will keep you posted on any developments regarding the release.

Over and out,

Insp. Tapehead.

Gie us a shot on yer wee friendly indie label mate!
www.inspectortapehead.com

How I Met My Wife

2010-01-22T20:19:00.002+01:00

Linked by g, words by Jack Winter.

Brilliant piece of writing on that subject of words that don't have an antipode as prompted by a tomasky blog.

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate...

Stirling Engine

2010-01-13T19:18:00.007+01:00

Words by Gareth, patent by Roger Stirling.

I was introduced to the Stirling Engine last autumn and was amazed that I'd never heard of one before. What have the slogistas heard? I'd like to think there's scope for microgeneration from waste heat in many homes. How about the self sufficient fridge, computer, kettle, air conditioner? Where's the main limitation? Batteries? kwh produced per engine size? Thoughts anyone?

By the way, the image is from: stirlingengine.com where you can procure said engines...

Inspector Tapehead Vid #4 and NEWS

2010-01-05T17:34:00.003+01:00

I'm catching up with a few things here: Forgot to post Mr. Common's latest Tapehead video, from our sojourn to Stoke Newington (LDN) / Borough (LDN) / Withington (MAN):

That brings the total number of tapehead vids to 4, all viewable on Inspector Tapehead's channel here.

and NEWS:
Chris rang not but an hour ago, fresh out of a day's mastering of the album, Duress Code. Things are sounding very tasty indeed, let me tell you. I don't think the others will let me publicly announce a possible ETA for the album given that we're 18 months past the first estimate already. But soon.

East West Quintet

2010-01-05T17:28:00.003+01:00

Just listening to some East West Quintet, courtesy of Mr. Johnson. Not sure if he's linked already, but if not, well worth checking out.

A pleasant melding of sax/piano/drums with something of a rock flavour, and all the jazzy noodling one would hope for. Kinda reminds me equally of Employee of the Month and the more visceral moments of EST.

Roy

Fergus ont' web

2010-01-05T16:04:00.003+01:00

Meant to post this a while back - Fergus has updates his website with some pics from Allotment back in November - or was it October? Good times, and a great looking website.

http://fergus-dunnet.weebly.com/

Climate Information is Beautiful/Terrifying

2010-01-04T11:59:00.004+01:00

George sent me a great link:

David McCandless, a London-based author, writer and designer for the Guardian and Wired amongst others, has been putting together some very good graphics on the subject of climate change of late. They are over on his blog, Information is Beautiful. The corker is this post depicting typical arguments and counter arguments between skeptics and the science - would be very interested to hear people's / Gaz's views.

Not the Gaz ain't a person, but you know what I mean..

Roy, and thanks to George!

A Euler massage

2009-12-14T18:28:00.008+01:00

UPDATE - it turns out that the diagram I previously posted is a Euler diagram, rather than a Venn diagram. Apologies for my ignorance. Here's another handy one to make up for it:

from hand of Roy:

Wyn [of Reith days, from whence NYK first sprang] sent me this extremely useful diagram, having fallen foul of my pedantry:

It's amazing how a good diagram can ease one's understanding. I thought I was pretty up to speed on the whole issue of British borders, but this brought added clarity to the whole thing - it'll will make good recommended reading the next time I have to explain to any newbies how I can be British and English, whilst also coming from Scotland.

It doesn't however help explain why I sometimes have to edit that description depending on the company I'm in. Or how I'm at once one half Scottish, one half Indian and one whole English, yet am just one Briton! I need my own Euler diagram.

Climate Tricks

2009-12-03T20:53:00.011+01:00

By Gareth. i.e. verbose entry warning...

I watched a debate the other night between amongst others George Monbiot on one side and Lord Nigel Lawson on the other (Maggie's chancellor of the exchequer) and something Lawson kept bringing up that was not properly refuted by Monbiot bugged me. It was this: "Global warming has stopped in the last decade". Monbiot's refutation was that 8 out of 10 of the hottest years on record have been since 2001. Which is absolutely correct, but argued Lawson, using an analogy, if population growth stopped in 2000 the last few years would still have the highest recorded number of people on the planet (ie growth stagnated). So, with that in mind I thought I'd get hold of any evidence Lawson had to prove his point then look at the data which exists in the public realm to try and back that up. With a little help from a timely Guardian article I found that Lawson is Chairman of the board of trustees of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and that their website hosts the image I've added below showing an apparent cooling or end of global warming on the header of each page (sorry it's small go to the website to see it more clearly). So here it is, Lawson's evidence for the end of global warming.

Next step, try and reproduce it using any of the global datasets that exist. I.e. the ones from the UK Met Office (HadCRUT), NASA (GISS) and the National Climatic Data Center in the US (NOAA).

I've attached another two images. The first is the entire record of temperature on land and ocean for the last 100+ years (depending on dataset, e.g HadCRUT goes back to 1850) for all three datasets. This is no small piece of work, it comes from multiple measurements and many stations around the globe and has nicely been hosted for us all to look at at the above websites (who said we couldn't get access to this stuff?!).

The first thing to point out is that any monkey could tell you that the overall trend here is 'up' ie warmer and that if you took any one ten-year section you could probably find a decrease in temperature and conclude that global warming had stopped when the overall trend is still, our monkey tells us, UP. In other words we have natural variability in the climate. But let us ignore that for it is not convenient in my search for something to back up the claim that global warming has stopped in the last ten years. How best to do this? Well, the best way I can think to do this is pick the hottest year on record (that has the biggest positive anomaly from the baseline), from the one data set that works best for us to be our starting point, then see the decline from here on in. To do this we have to ignore the NOAA and GISS datasets as they have 2005 as the hottest year and it's quite tricky to claim global warming has ended when the hottest year on record is within your frame of reference. No, much better would be to pick the the HadCRUT data (red line on above figure) as this has 1998 as the hottest year, and well, it's British so it must be better. Now, what else can we do? Well, 2009 so far is looking pretty warm on the grand scheme (see that awkward upwards tick at the end of the red line above), and you know it's only December, so we don't have a full years record yet so let's drop that point and just use 1998 to 2008 and have a look at the beautiful decline like on Lawson's website header.

Wait, what's that? Even when I do that (last image) I STILL get an upwards trend on all three datasets. Bugger. Oh well, maybe I'll just re-draw my own image with fictitious points to match my argument (you'll note that as the Guardian article above points out this image has 2003 and 2005 level pegging for temp on their image, they aren't, and 2006 and 2007 warmer than 2004, again they're not) and put that on the top of my website, much better.

UPDATE: I just noticed, after having written this, that real climate beat me to it a few months back. Still it's good to do these things for yourself every now and then huh?!

Reel to Reel

2009-11-17T00:50:00.001+01:00

IMG_5185
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

Some photos from Forth St, specifically a lovely reel-to-reel tape machine Gal has there, uploaded to Flickr..
Roy

Woohoo!

2009-10-20T22:38:00.001+02:00

I'm not sure quite why this excites me so much, but it does..

Roy

Streetview!

2009-10-09T01:22:00.001+02:00

Now available in Calgary...

Walkability

2009-09-24T00:47:00.003+02:00

Cool tool assessing the walkability of where you live. I.e. how many destinations can you get to without the need to get in a car. It's not perfect (uses as crow flies distances) but certainly gives you a flavour of how walkable a place can be.

p.s. our house gets a "very walkable" 71 whilst the old rupert street pad scores a "walkers paradise" at 93. Unfortunately the comparison tool only works for US cities, maybe they'll get on that and we can see how we rank compared to our urban neighbours....

Cybraphon and Found

2009-08-28T19:57:00.000+02:00

Battle of the Bands: Cybraphon v FOUND from New Media Scotland on Vimeo.

Dots

2009-07-25T15:12:00.001+02:00

Dots
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

I did a recording for Aby on Thursday - have uploaded some photos to Flickr, plus a load of other random ones from this summer so far - turning out to be a good un!

How to attain material wealth, and more..

2009-07-20T01:24:00.002+02:00

This is the protocol that I am increasingly using whenever I decide that I need something:

borrow it (added bonus: interacting with humanity) - friends and hirers are a wonderful thing! NB: you can't google for friends, you can google for hirers. I mean you can google for friends, but you shouldn't need to.

make it (added bonus: interacting with your brain) - google for how tos or look on instructables/makezine

get it for free - look on freecycle/gumtree free stuff, check the streets the night before bulk uplift day

get it second hand - look on gumtree/ebay, check the charity shops/bulletin boards

get it cheap - froogle it, or look on amazon marketplace/buy online

get it expensively (added, debatable, bonus: interacting with the physical world) - go to an actual shop!

Obviously it depends what it is and why you want it, but it's amazing how often this can be applied to a want!

A Fine Hour Indeed

2009-07-19T23:54:00.003+02:00

I must say I have been enjoying Guy Garvey's Finest Hour on 6Music of late. Almost makes me think that the British implementation of digital radio has been worthwhile. No, hang on, nothing will make me think that.

NYC from the point of view of street furniture

2009-07-08T16:59:00.001+02:00

via Why, That's Delightful!

How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion

2009-07-03T00:02:00.006+02:00

Brilliant paper in this week's Science (which you probably can't read unless you have a subscription) dealing with our inability to avoid the things (thoughts, actions, comments) we actively wish to avoid. Or in the words of the author:

"... the precisely counterintentional error. This is when we manage to do the worst possible thing, the blunder so outrageous that we think about it in advance and resolve not to let that happen."

I can't help but to think of certain scenarios I've experienced where this is exactly the consequence of suppression of thoughts. 'I couldn't be more embarrassed right now' said the friend who's skirt promptly fell to the ground in a room full of people. And as for the spilling red wine example, I honestly don't think I spill many liquids at all in my life, but give me a glass of red wine and a white carpet to walk over and it's almost a guarantee.

I'll leave you with an urge to read the paper and one of my favourite lines from it:

"Ironic lapses of mental control often appear when we attempt to be socially desirable, as when we try to keep our minds out of the gutter."

Wegner, Daniel, M., 2009. How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion. Science: Vol. 325. no. 5936, pp. 48 - 50 DOI: 10.1126/science.1167346

Guardian Bike Blog

2009-06-15T20:42:00.002+02:00

Not sure what happened to Two wheels but here's a new guardian bike blog to add to the ol' blogroll

Spring in the Rockies

2009-05-29T21:53:00.007+02:00

Mount Indefatigable
Originally uploaded by ofreflection

Dumped some photos over at flickr from some great camping/hiking last weekend. We headed out to Kananaskis for Sean's birthday and our first summer outing to the mountains for the year. Camping in the shoulder season can always be interesting given the amount of snow still on the ground, but thankfully we're a little older and wiser and have some pretty kick-ass camping pads to take the edge of the chill. The best part of the weekend though was the amount of wildlife we saw. Sadly not many photos of said encounters due to general flightiness of the wildlife or the scarediness of the photo-takers... Ignoring the marmots/ground squirrels, jays, deer, elk and sheep, because, well, they're just not that interesting, we had a very near encounter with a Grizzly, what we probably think was a Moose and a not so near miss with a Black bear. All of which neither of us have ever seen in our 2.5 years here so far. The Grizzly was spotted about 50m up the ridge from us, before disappearing into the woods. Seems he didn't want to see us either. We made a hellova noise clasped our bear spray and pushed on when we thought he'd gone, but not 100m further on strange noises were emanating from the trees beside us. At this point, we're almost literally in between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the cliff off to our right and the hard place the noises from the trees to our left. With the assistance of Sean's penchant for photographing shit (literally) and a handy 'identifying shit' card in the campsite we came to the conclusion that we'd had a near miss with a Moose. A Moose is probably more dangerous than a Grizzly and so the hike was aborted. Grizzly plus Moose was enough for one hike. We moved off and did another hike to a frozen lake where we were all jubilant that the snow was still on the ground and thus we could see any prints - there were none. Jo reported the bear sighting and was then told that not long after we'd seen the Grizzly it (assuming it was the same one is probably fair) had popped out of the woods on some unsuspecting fishermen below the ridge we'd been hiking. Apparently they weren't too happy we'd scared it off the mountain... To top the weekend off, the next day we saw a Black Bear running across the ice on the half-frozen lake we were lazing around by. This time we were much more pleased to see the bear, we had about 300m of open water between us and a car parked not 10m behind us. Even in my decrepit state i figured i could make that 10m before he swam his 300 but thankfully we didn't have to race. Instead we watched from afar and played on the beach. Good times. You should come visit.

Tapehead on tour

2009-05-26T21:19:00.003+02:00

Not really, but we went to Manchester and Jonnie, though rather irritatingly at the time, beautifully documented the whole affair in this handy video, which contains one rude gesture, one reference to a dog's penis and much hilarity.

Anyone for pies?

2009-05-15T15:37:00.001+02:00

Mr. Kipling has posted a fine set of his early mixes, before he got into all this techno rubbish..

http://trombonesintechno.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/mr-kipling-selection-pack/

Skye

2009-05-12T21:27:00.002+02:00

IMG_4682
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

Images from my weekend in Skye with Naeeda, Nyrika, David and Shiraz are up at Flickr.