Things happening inside the brass knee of a gigantic clockwork robot -
September 30th, 2005
(title from here.)
Stephen Johnson, loud mouth American pop-psych dude du jour, is in the Times again, raving about how Lost is ‘smart, complex and many-layered‘ and therefore great. Is he watching the same program that I haven’t been since the third episode? Did the series sudenly turn into Gravity’s Rainbow after the first 4 hours or something?
I haven’t read his book ‘cos I don’t want to encourage him, but from the articles I’ve seen Johnson allways seems to simply ignore facts and ideas which may conflict with his thesis that pop culture is wholesome and mentally nourishing just like the high stuff. I’m not suggesting that this isn’t the case, my appetite for videogames, cartoons, disposable pop music and trashy sitcoms is up their with the best of them, and I think that some great things are overlooked because they have bubblegum wrapping, but it seems to me that Lost is the exact opposite of this; stylishly high production values covering up and making respectable a flapping and bloated ‘plot’ and a dearth of interesting ideas*. People watch it and think ‘gosh aren’t I clever, there are so many characters and so many apparently unrelated plots** I’m not wasting my time here at all, it’s like I’m reading a book or something***’ and the reason for Stephen Johnson’s popularity is that with all his pseudo-scientific complexity measures and assured tone, he reinforces the idea.
Also, in that Times article Johnson goes on about the structure of the show being the important thing and he pretty much acknowledges that the content of the show is secondary to the complexity, he doesn’t seem to care much whether the plot makes any sense or has any hope of being tied up or even whether we care about the character, all this is secondary to the complexity. Which is a stupid way to evaluate the quality of a TV show unless you’re a robot or something.
*Having talked to several Lost viewers it seems to me that the series pretends to have interesting ideas but doesn’t let the viewer know about them.
**none of which are tied up by the end of the series I’m reliably informed by our office bittorrent gang.
***Not suggesting books are inherently better for you than TV, but I think that that’s a fairly commonly perception.
Cool cheapo videos of the moment -
September 28th, 2005
This : In which a lonely Apple ][ recites a Grandaddy song.
And this : In which the Decemberists say what they think about US foreign policy, albeit in an achingly indie fashion.
It’s amazing that with budgets several orders of magnitude larger than these two efforts most video directors don’t manage anything nearly as compelling or affecting (I know, I’v been watching ‘The Hits’ on digital terestrial). Makes me want to buy a video camera, but for some reason I find video cameras inherently creepy and invasive (drunken middle aged men at weddings filming teenage girls on the dance floor &c.) so I’ll have to get over that first.
In the wake of box set purchase -
September 26th, 2005
Why are The Fall so consistently great? Is it becasue Mark E Smith looks like a 1970s shop steward? Maybe. On Peel session box set MES slags off Shaun Ryder (sort of) in ‘hey student’, does anyone ever slag of MES? I’m not sure it would be possible to do that and remain credible, for some reason he’s untouchable. Maybe people feel a bit sorry for him. Can they continue without John Peel, maybe they had a faustian pact and now they’ll start to age or something, that’s what it feels like to me (banana). Maybe they were protected by John Peels aura and now people won’t like them because they can’t borrow any of that avuncular media savy and you’re left with a paranoid man in cheap suit (head down when girls pass in the street).
Estonia was nice by the way. Glad we got out on Friday though, the hoards were descending, 150:7 ratio, male:female, arrived on the plane before we high tailed it out of there, I was sat next to an fat , ugly, evil c*nt talking on his mobile (bragging of macdonalds visits & prostitution and complaining that his wife was going to make him do gardening or something over the weekend, sickeningly evil basically). Easy Jet should show Lilja 4-Ever on the flight out there.
Also I’m sure I’ve put on about a stone and a half of weight, primarily comprised of things like elk and salmon and other northern food (couldn’t bring myself to try the bear, I still feel bad about those times in the 18thC and before when we’d make them fight dogs and stuff, as far as I know that never happened to guinea pigs, so even though they’re cute I ate one, take my advice, don’t bother, anyway, that was ages a go in a different country), also, dill is popular. Anyway it’s the bike for me this week (finished Norell and Strange the other day, so no excuses) thanks for once again confirming my decision to avoid the inferno, though the roads can be just as bad sometimes at least you feel like you can control your destiny to some extent even if you can’t, I could cycle somewhere that isn’t the office today, though of course i never do.
“OMG!!!!111 niteneod ist he LUS3rrrrrr !!!!!!111111111″ -
September 16th, 2005
That seems to be the Internet’s considered consensus on the new Nintendo controller pictured below…
(There’s a video and an only marginally crappy IGN article here.)
So in the true spirit of the internet here’s my own hastily constructed ill informed opinion:
My initial reaction is the same as the one I had for the DS, basically summed up as ‘Ng! Nintendo! what are you doing?!’. However now I own a Nintendo DS and love it, so what do i know? The most interesting part of the announcement for me was this bit…
Brain Training DS had a small development team, and took advantage of the new design. 10 people, and total development, was less than 4 months! Many have been concerned that time and money and risk for next gen is too much. Nintendo wants to provide a stage on which to showcase your ideas.
If the new Nintendo console means more simple games, more Vib Ribbons, more Ouendans and more Monkey Balls, then I’ll be happy. (Given that it’s inevitable I’ll buy one)
So anyway, the controller itself, I’m glad the motion sensors turned out to be more than just baseless speculation, the scope for controlling flying things and alleviation of thumb RSI is a good thing, plus I love that they have old people conducting classical music on the video. The fact that it looks like a TV remote is kind of off-putting at first but a nice big D-pad is welcome. Unfortunately the analogue stick has a convex top unlike the XBoxes concave top c.f. this old post on the interim weblog. Why people don’t just take the best bits of each analogue stick I don’t know.(XBox concave top, Gamecube accuracy and octagonal housing, Playstation… er … less said the better I think). Anyway, Nintendo’s controller inovation record is pretty much flawless* so I don’t think they’ll drop the ball here. Also the statement “Mr. Naka really likes this controller.” makes the Sega fan boy in me very happy.
*The D-pad itself, shuolder buttons, analogue controll**, rumble packs and trigger buttons are all Nintendo inventions. Other significant developments: Analogue triggers (Sega) and that sort of handle bar design to adjust your holding angle (Sony).
**Not sure about this, did the NiGHTS controller come out before the N64?
Ouendan!!!!!… -
September 15th, 2005
…That’s the anguished cry that that precedes the action on each level of Inis’ (of Gitaroo Man ‘fame’) new DS based benevolent cheerleading extravaganza. The name of the game also has the word ‘Ouendan’ in it but as all the writing is in Japanese I can never remember what the game is actually called.
Above: The punk/pirate/ss officer themed cheerleading squad that you guide through the game are seen here helping a secretary to efficiently make tea.
Here’s a review:
- I love rhythm action games +50%
- Not as thumb cripplingly difficult as Gitaroo Man +10%
- No shark level style difficulty spike +10%
- The level where you help a secretary do her job well so she can get asked out by her boss +2%
- The level where you help a race horse foil a burglary +2%
- The level where the old sculptor goes to an aerobics class +2%
- The level where you have to help a dead guy manifest as a ghost to prove to his girlfriend he still loves here (yeah, i just got some dust in my eye, OK?) +2%
- The redemtive power of cheerleading +5%
- Think it might be quite annoying for people sitting next to me as I tap those infectious JPop rhythms out to the DS’s touch screen whilst sitting on public transport (though at least I wear headphones that don’t leak) -5%
- Those infections JPop rhythms +10%
- Sound quality crap even through headphones, probably compression related -1%
So… 87%
Typing ‘ouendan’ into google image search reveals that these militaristic cheerleading squads actually exist in Japan, though they are mainly pictured supporting baseball teams rather than orchestrating the citizenry of Japan in order to destroy incoming asteroids through the power of co-operation and positive thinking.
Guardian science -
September 12th, 2005
One of the decisions they’ve taken in the much discussed Guardian redesign is that they’re getting rid of the science suplement. The editor assures us that this will actually mean MORE science coverage a whole page apparently, illustrating some basic numeracy problems at the paper as well as their usuall sub-editing issues, given that the suplement used to have 8 (sometimes more) pages (6 issues a week, 1 page per day =6 pages, 6<8). Ben Goldacre’s occasionally misguided* rant which appeared prominently in the last science supplement made me think that we might get some high quality science reporting on this promised page, unfortunately we get the same old crap and not even a page of it, unless you count the mammoth AOL ad that dominates the page as science (because it has something to do with computers and that’s science).
*Do we really need quite so many ‘humanities graduates’ digs?
Rhetorical brilliance -
September 12th, 2005
You know how everybody’s always going on about about paperless offices and stuff and all these people with their digital paper replacements, tablet PCs, palm pilots and this really cool foldable persistant state screen* blah blah blah, well some colleagues and I were discussing whether we would ever replace paper having seen a flurry of stories on the subject in the last few weeks. This web log post kind of sums up the reasons why people think it’s a good idea to replace paper with other stuff and links to an article that reminds me why I hate Wired magazine (I also dislike Nicholas Negroponte for similar reasons, though I’m sure he’s a lovely man in real life).
Anyway I think I won the argument for the ultimate superiority of pen and paper by drawing a moustache on a photo of Shane Warne scrunching it up into a ball and and throwing it at the head of one of my fellow iterlocutors, from where it bounced entertainingly and harmlessly into his lunchbox. When you produce a paper alternative that allows you to childishly deface photographs before hurling them amusingly at peoples faces without risk of causing anykind of damage (except for massive argument winning deathblows, natch) then you’ll be able to replace paper, until that point I’m not sure there’s much value you can add. Basically, that kind of disposability and flexibility is what paper is all about (IMO etc) and any attempt to reproduce it isn’t going to be up to the original unless it’s made out of paper.
Also you can make these cute little Advance Wars units out of paper. I think that invalidates your warranty if you do it with a Palm Pilot.**
Also on a sort of related note someone has been drawing purile pictures of naked people on random pages in my bosses bosses note book, apparently this has lead to a number of embarasing moments in meetings with senior management.
*Seriously, this was cool, but not as a replacement for paper, wish i could find the link; anyway they use
this technology.
**If you don’t know what Advance Wars is you have 3 options
- Buy it for your Gameboy Advance as it’s awesome and you won’t regret it.
- Play it online here thanks to some clever people (not tried this myself)
- Use the paper to make some rare animals instead.
Now that it’s over this weight is off my shoulder… -
September 9th, 2005
AKA the problem with ipods (using it as a generic term here)
You know how my ipod got magically wiped the other day (suspiciously the same day I got a pre-pay Oyster card the use of which has revealed that on a totally non cycling week I spend about £20 on public transport)? Well, it magically resored itself the next day. Strangely I found myself wishing it hadn’t, there’s such a load of rubbish that I never choose to listen to on there, downloaded from various mp3 blogs (do I have to start calling them podcasts or something? God what an ugly word and also in some ways an ugly concept but that’s another thing) untagged albums that I thought I might like ripped at friends houses after a visit to the pub &c. &c. I was actually quite pleased that I would have 20-gig of crisp virgin hard drive to neatly populate with just my absolute favourite fully tagged albums that I’ve ripped onto my computer over the last year, hey I could finally get round to listening to that new Gravenhurst record that Nick ripped for me (Don’t worry Nick, I’ll buy it too, I don’t think I have the final version and I’m generally into the physical thing still*) rather than haphazzardly stuffing it full of things just because it’s convenient way to get things home from the office.
Now that it’s over I love you more and more…
Basically the whole thing made me realise that whilst Napster in it’s original form caused me to buy loads of new records having an ipod permenantly stuffed with things I sort of like in my back pocket had decreased my interest in discovering new music, there was allways something coming up on shuffle that was good enough. Luckilly the Death From Above record has reopened my eyes to the joys of getting completely engulfed in a record and listening to it over and over and over and over again. And this is my new listening philosphy: I’m sure I’ll be sick of the DFA1979 record soon, and at that point I won’t listen to it, it won’t just slide down the long tail of my music listening and get subsumed into the iTunes morass. It’ll live, perfectly capturing the last few weeks in my memory, and when I listen to it it will be because I choose to do so not becuse I don’t choose not to.
So ‘yay’ too old school album listening in an entierly non-rockist** way, now i’m off to make the decidedly old school (year 2000) Friday night journey by tube from Shepherds Bush to Old Street.
*has anyone ever bought a track from itunes or bleep or anything? I don’t really get that, luddite that I am..
**Rockism and it’s opposite ‘popism’ are actually just the same thing anyone who knows the word rockist is a rockist, you can’t escape by postmodern trickery.
Mutants -
September 6th, 2005
Just finished Armand Marie Leroi’s Mutants. I’d seen the last episode of Leroi’s documentary series so I kind of knew what the punchline was, and in a way I was frustrated that the ideas which are brought up towards the end of the books (basically; when is a mutation a polymorphism and a polymorphism a speciation and stuff about inherited characteristics which aren’t subject to natural selection) weren’t touched on earlier, but I suppose that keeping the philosphical debate to the sidelines for the most part is understandable as it allows a clearer exposition of the current state of the art wrt our understanding of genetics and avoids having to get involved too heavily in the somewhat dodgy ethics of some of the research under consideration (not saying it’s not a topic worth talking about you understand, just that it would have been distracting here). Anyway, well worth a read, and I espescially enjoyed the glimpses of how the place of mutants in our mythology has changed over time, there’s a whole book in that I reckon.
Mr Leroi aslo wrote this
In related news, this is going to be pretty cool.
Meanwhile in the richest country in the world… -
September 2nd, 2005
Bad things are happening.
A police car drove through with an announcement on its megaphone: “Buses are coming over the bridge now.” No buses came in the next hour — though a state police armored car drove through without stopping, eight officers on top with flak jackets and assault weapons staring impassively at the crowd.
Reporters and photographers saw at least four dead. Others in the crowd said several babies had died. People desperately called for help, chasing after reporters, sometimes pleading and sometimes threatening. The crowd briefly chanted “Help us, help us” before the words faded away.
So what’s the best thing to do in such a desparate situation? Well obviously when people are starving to death the first thing they need is free WiFi to play with amongst the corpses and human faeces. And if that fails to quell the anger survivors might feel at losing everything they owned, losing loved ones and generally being abandoned by the world at large you should probably just shoot them (esp. if they try to feed and clothe themselves).
They have M-16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will,