Battle of the Bands: Cybraphon v FOUND from New Media Scotland on Vimeo.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Dots
Monday, July 20, 2009
How to attain material wealth, and more..
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!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
A Fine Hour Indeed
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.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion
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
Monday, June 15, 2009
Guardian Bike Blog
Not sure what happened to Two wheels but here's a new guardian bike blog to add to the ol' blogroll
Friday, May 29, 2009
Spring in the Rockies
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.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tapehead on tour
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.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Anyone for pies?
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/
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Get her George!
This from Sloggee, Gilligan:
have you seen this? a further response to monbiot's feud with blears as mentioned on the slog -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/video/2009/apr/25/monbiot-meets-hazel-blears
Friday, April 17, 2009
Hindi Indie
Just watched Tinselworm and thought this bit would interest some of the slog readers. The rest of the dvd is pretty good too...
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Colourblind, moi?
Yes, this *is* how my co-writer and I see the world. Its terrible, give us cake.
via Mr. Kipling.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
dBass upgrade
Wow. I just spent much of the day re-writing dBass' website for Blogger. Do let me know what you think of it, it still needs some tweaks but I'm done for the day!
The full joke, courtesy of the Adam & Joe Show Radiogram
After both amusing and annoying myself all week with merely a punchline, I had to go back to check the setup for that joke:
What do you call a Scottish cow sitting down?
A-knee-lin'-ox
(ie. Annie Lennox)
Ludacrous.
If any of your are not familiar with the Big British Castle's Adam and Joe Show Radiogram, you should be, it's excellent. Thankfully there's always listen again, or the podcast which features all the best chat and some extra chat.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Simply Gorgeous
Timelapsed Tilt and Shift videos from Keith Loutit, via Why That's Delightful (Graham Linehan's blog).
This is indeed delightful:
Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
I wonder if Linehan loves it because it reminds him of the Big Train DVD menu design!
Look out for the NYK reference in the above video! Nice soundtrack too - from one Megan Washington.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Democracy?
I meant to put a link up to this article by George Monbiot a week or so ago, it being an interesting comment on political disenfranchisement and on the UK learning from the recent transformation of American politics. I forgot about the article but have now posted it as it has since turned into a reply from Hazel Blears and a second absolutley scathing reply from Mr Monbiot. If you've got 10 minutes i sincerely urge you to read each article.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Photo dump
Flickr is being flaky and not letting me imbed a photo post so here are some links to:
Photos from Inspector Tapehead's recent Limbo gig in Edinburger they are good.
Suzy G's photos from our trip into the hills on Saturday it was snowy.
My photos from recording at Garmelow manor a couple of weeks back it was fun.
I've been pretty lucky with doing fun stuff recently, it's true. Its been hard work too though.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sheddy
I just spent the entire weekend at the Shearer/Ling Cottage homestead in Norfolk, much of which was spent helping to put a roof shaped thing on Neel's 'shed' - photies here:
http://tinyurl.com/sheddy
It was great fun all round, thank you chaps.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Qoral Reef shameless punting
It occurred to me tonight that I might have failed to tell anyone that dBass released a single back in August. Still, better late than never:
Qoral Reef single available now on Collective. Buy the limited edition vinyl or download digitally at onthejukebox.com, on iTunes or on Amazon
"a platter of off-kilter, late-night soul with a jazzy garnish on top." The List
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Manufacture @ The Fridge Gallery
Southside Studios, 17 Westmoreland St, Glasgow, G42 8LL
Friday, November 14, 2008
Vroom!
Suzy G's sister's boyfriend Ollie's Flickr Stream will now be getting my newsreader's attention. And thus ocasionally mine.
Friday, October 24, 2008
O Canada!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
Some decidedly British politics
Well, I'm back. And what nicer to return to than 'Just a Minute' on the wireless and another bit of spot on satire from Great Aunt Henrietta:
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has shocked political pundits by pronouncing himself “Queen of London” and sacking the Labour Government – a move described by Johnson himself as “constitutionally bold”. He then went on to establish an “Interim Protectorate”, which will handle the day-to-day running of the country “until the democratic process delivers a nice Conservative government.”
Friday, August 22, 2008
Folk Fest '08
Some music we liked form this year's Folk Fest, in no particular order:
Carolina Chocolate Drops From the website: "The Carolina Chocolate Drops are a group of young African-American stringband musicians that have come to together to play the rich tradition of fiddle and banjo music in Carolinas piedmont." And the jugs and the bones, cool.
No Luck Club "An instrumental Hip Hop Band" from Vancouver, have been described as a mix of RJD2, Kid Koala, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, not bad then.
The Weakerthans A Canadian Indie-pop outfit...
Kara Keith Alternative Singer songwriter
Woodpigeon My new favourite Calgary band. Think Broken Social Scene.
Andrew Bird Brilliant experimental, looping music, swhirly gramaphones included!
Basia Bulat Folk n' roll singer songwriter.
Socalled Crazy, Hip Hop indy experimental stuff.
Beija Flor Calgarian indy rock outfit
Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko Jazz/Bluegrass Banjo Virtuoso with an African twist (kora and storytelling)
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Ling Fest 08 - a set on Flickr
Ling Fest 08 - a set on Flickr
The first photos from the first and possibly last Ling Fest are up!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Extreme climbing
Friday, August 08, 2008
The Tech Horn
I'd like to draw your attention to The Tech Horn, Chris Croasdale's brother Richard's blog. Of late I have been enjoying its Simcity2000esque journalistic reportage on technology/culture/whimsy with much gusto.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
LIFE IS NOT A JOURNEY TO THE GRAVE WITH THE
INTENTION OF ARRIVING SAFELY IN A PRETTY AND
WELL PRESERVED BODY, BUT RATHER TO SKID IN
SIDEWAYS, THOROUGHLY USED, TOTALLY WORN OUT
AND LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
"WOW WHAT A RIDE"
Anon.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Save words!
Its a long shot, but I'm warmed by the invitation I received to sign a petition on the subject of typography.
From the intriguing Type Museum.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
350
There seem to be endless campaigns for climate change and the environment, (we, the climate project, the big ask etc etc) but I like the simplicity of this one. And something about using numerals and sign language to reach as many people as possible is neat. How the heck we get to 350 is another question...
Monday, June 16, 2008
TubeJP: London Tube Map & Journey Planner
TubeJP: London Tube Map & Journey Planner
This is a very handy site. If you're in London. Would be handier if it was portable too!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Big Ideas (don't get any)
If this hasn't got round to you yet, it will. I mean other than now.
Surely has got to be the star of this year's degree show, which incidentally starts this Thursday for a week.
Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.
James says:
I'm a student graduating from the Glasgow School of Art's visual communication course in a few days. This is my final project.
Radiohead held an online contest to remix "Nude" from their album - "In Rainbows" This was quite a difficult task for everybody that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that's played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It's pretty difficult to seamlessly mix a waltz beat into a DJ set.
This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from "Nude" thrown in so that they qualified for the contest.
Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition to find out how people would approach such a challenging task.
I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.
Based on the lyric (and alternate title) "Big Ideas: Don't get any" I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.
It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to.
I missed the contest deadline, so I'm offering it here for you to enjoy.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX
Quick off the mark as ever, Creative Review have already interviewed Houston, read it here.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Mashup!
Here's a rather fun mashup mix from DJ Food, feat. excerpts of Paul Morley reading from his book on the history of sound manipulation, Words & Music. Its messed up.
Thank you Jonnie!
via the supreme ubu.com [<-tracklist here]
I knew you'd like that Radiohead/brubeck mashup Dave!
Sunday, June 01, 2008
40 storeys bad, 20 storeys good
I find this site FASCINATING. Top picture: The future of Gibson St.
And for all your insider demolition news, this thread seems to be the one to follow - watch out, its three years long! Bottom picture: The past of the Gorbals, to be repeated later this morning.
Friday, May 30, 2008
strange things
My mate Tom bought a whole load of someone else's photos off ebay. which I thought was pretty weird, but then I found these:
http://tinyurl.com/4lbyr4
http://tinyurl.com/436tqx
http://tinyurl.com/4aeqc2
Friday, May 23, 2008
Friends of Earth charter freakin' huowge plane
Friends of Earth - The Big Ask
I do like the FOE's recentest online campaign.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Glass harmonica
Glass harmonica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
These are cool, but may cause insanity.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Ponoko Blog
Ponoko Blog
I'm starting in a new role writing blog posts for Ponoko this week - should be fun and a good opportunity to write and think more about OSPD. It certainly means writing more!
Things to say about Hauntology
when you don't really know anything about it:
Hauntology: its so passé.
or
As far as I can tell, hauntology is just a new word for old-skool!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Zero-waste Design update
Have updated www.zero-waste.co.uk - particularly the projects page brings people more up to date with my design happenings
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Drawing Radiohead
green plastic radiohead: Drawing Radiohead
An interesting 6 minute video showing Stanley Donwood doing a run of screenprints in his studio.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Obsession Mk II
Following Gilly's wanton criticism of my personal ramblings, I am updating my three quality bottom line of obsession to exhilaration, elegance and community. I couldn't find an appropriate word beginning with e.
In this current trend for wielding the philosophical knife, I am tagging posts such as these, ersatz-philosophy.
Monday, April 07, 2008
voice in smoke
entschwindet und vergeht: Ghost Voices
Murphy blogged recently the earliest recording of a human voice..
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Obsession
There are three qualities that motivate me in any activity: exhilaration, elegance, and sharing.
When cycling, I like to cycle fast, feeling the exhilaration of the wind in my face. I ride a fixie, the simplest, most elegant form of bike. I bought it from a social enterprise in Maryhill, sharing the assembly with those who can benefit most from the experience. I love the closeness of the messenger/fixie community in Glasgow, and how the best way to do anything with bikes here is to talk to someone else about it.
When doing design work, I am obsessed with elegance, and seek out the exhilaration one feels when having created anything. I strive for a more sharing community in industrial design, hence Zero-waste.
As for music, this is where all three are inextricably bound up. Playing for excitement, for beauty and for the act of interaction with players and audience, altogether, makes perfect sense to me.
I could go on, applying this thinking to why I do and don't like flying kites, why I like travelling, why I like staying in one place, why I'm unsure about moving flats.
The bottom line is that I'm not hyperactive - I'm obsessive, and will pursue any activity to satisfy these obsessions.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
I want this, but its sold out.
The Designing Automata Kit, Sold Out £44.50
and I especially would like one of these ones!
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
New House!
This is our new house, professionally guided by Katrina, who incidentally isn't moving in with us...
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Getting Things Done: An Alternative Model Mark 1
Jimi's good friend Dave is a evangelistic exponent of 'Getting Things Done'. I happened across his workflow diagram as it was discreetly emblazoned around his office, and we got to talking about how mine might compare to his, and the relative merits or lack thereof.
Here's the popular one:
And here's what I came up with:
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Inspector Tapehead
MySpace.com - Inspector Tapehead - Glasgow, UK - www.myspace.com/inspectortapehead
Hello. If you haven't heard, I'm in a new trio entitled Inspector Tapehead, headed up by Chris Croasdale of Adam Beattie's Consultants, and Jonnie Common of Down the Tiny Steps. I recommend that you go to the above myspace page for aural delight. Huw Stevens likes it, as does the entire Bulgarian music industry.
R
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Bye bye Snap Anywhere
I've finally removed Snap Anywhere (those little callouts that popped up over links) from this blog because they were really pissing me off, and not being very useful with it. Hope you don't mind, I severely doubt if anyone will.
A web 2.0 mix CD
dBass are doing another mix CD swap, and here are the tracks I'm choosing:
Burial - Distant Lights
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Moon
Radiohead - Faust Arp
Radiohead - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Trilok Gurtu - Kermansah
Chris Clark - Gob Coitus
Chris Clark - Empty The Bones Of You
CocoRosie - By Your Side
Subtle - The Long Vein Of The Law
Röyksopp - Circuit Breaker
4Hero - Hold It Down
Dirty Three - I Really Should've Gone Out Last Night
Tortoise - A Simple Way to Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Some Animations
I made some animations out of my pictures from India, using my new camera's capacity to take many pictures in quick succession:
This is one of my mum.
This is one of my cousin Yael.
This is one of my nephew enjoying his lunch.
This is one of his parents rocking him to sleep.
This is one of Neel getting a face massage.
This is one of all my family at new year.
This is one of everyone at various points over Christmas, taken from the same vantage point each time.
This is one of a spinning top.
This is one of a game of scrabble, this time done using the timelapse function, which resulted in me only being able to compress it into a .wmv, not an .avi as for the other animations.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Lemon Drizzle cake, by Mark - 99ACOAC
Sweet, certainly. also hard and eggy however, diminuitive in size. Not good, I'm afraid. But hey, they can only improve from here, Mark.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Dave's photography site
Yo.
Some of my photos are featured on Dave Green's spanking new photography site, Bezkonca. Check it oot, he's done a great job.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
India Dec 07 - Jan 08
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Musical goodness
Can't remeber if I've posted either of these before. Check em oot.
Dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip - Letter from God to Man
Hard and Phirm - Rodeohead
Friday, January 18, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Ayla's birthday cake by Kasbah, Delhi: 3ACAOC
A very chilled affair, straight forward chocolate sponge with one layer of chocolate filling and chocolate icing, so not very imaginative either. Competent, tasty, heavy texture. It was iced with Ayla's name at very short notice however, which is worth something.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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!
Sunday, December 02, 2007
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
First Day Falls
Attempting to film Joel and snowboard at the same time. I knew I couldn't multitask...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
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.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
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?
Monday, October 01, 2007
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.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Screenwiped
How have we in this flat only just discovered Charlie Brooker's Screenwipes?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Avast photos from Gilly
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Thursday, September 06, 2007
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.
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