The first thing that strikes you when you go and see Godspeed You Black Emperor! live is that there is a heck of a lot of ‘em – 9 in fact; 3 guitarists, a cellist, a violinist, 2 bass players and 2 drummers. Most of the material they played was from their latest album ‘Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven’ and the sounds rippled then swelled into a cacophonus wall of noise as each song followed a repetitive pattern of quiet then loUD! I enjoyed the gig but I wouldn’t say I was massively entertained by it. I can’t quite pin point why I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would… they certainly made an incredible noise, but if there’s 9 musicians on stage, there’s always going to be an incredible noise made of some description.

Another giant of comedy, Dudley Moore, has died after a long battle with PSP.

Not Everybody’s Autobiography, Katherine Parrish’s interesting critique on the perceived democracy of the web:

‘But when a group of nearly exclusively white, male, middle class American web designers starts to talk about the fact that anyone has access to the online world, I get a really queasy feeling in my stomach.’

The PowerMate is a computer peripheral designed by Takahiko Suzuki, a jewelry designer from Japan. Its main function is simply to adjust the computer’s volume control, but it can be configured for other purposes such as acting as a jog wheel for video editing.

This film is both a comedy and a bleak portrayal of depression; about that fuzzy line between genius and madness. The story follows the father, Royal Tenenbaum [Gene Hackman], as he attempts to right some wrongs and get back together with his family. The prodigious children – one a playwrite, one a successful businessman and the other a champion tennis player – have grown up twisted by their own genius. The playwrite daughter Margot [Gwyneth Paltrow], spends all day in the bathtub watching a portable TV which is secured to the wall so it doesn’t fall in the water. Chas [Ben Stiller], successful businessman and widower, brings up his two children to be just like his track-suit clad neurotic self. Richie [Luke Wilson] spends all his time hanging around on cruise ships, having been a world champion tennis player who has spectacularly flown off the rails. Perhaps the sanest member of the family is the mother, Ethel [Anjelica Huston], she’s the one trying to keep the balance in the family, but she is also a victim of the madness surrounding her. The soundtrack includes the song ‘Fly’ by Nick Drake. Drake was a reclusive figure who died as a result of depression, he is also posthumously hailed as a genius. Chas’ pet dog is called ‘Buckley’, and I can’t help but think that this is in reference to Tim Buckley, a singer/songwriter who’s life/death was just as inspired/tragic as that of Drake. The Royal Tenenbaums is a film about what genius does to the self; it’s a comedy in the same way that One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a comedy, we find humour in other peoples’ illness. I think the team of writer and director Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson (who plays Eli Cash in the film) are a partnership to look out for. I haven’t seen their previous films Rushmore or Bottle Rocket, but I want to now.

pixelised.com returns with a fresh new design and some L’espion joiner images; an application of the match-box camera I hadn’t previously thought of.

Microcontent News: ‘Can a pseudo-religious organization muzzle the Web’s favorite search engine?’. Somehow, this article led me on a bizarre hypertext journey which ended up here: Battlefield Earth: The true story behind this movie. Thank goodness it’s Friday.

<The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, or Google for short.

I turned on the TV and slumped into a chair after a long day at work to find myself jaw agape at BBC1’s new series Weird Nature. This week, the programme explored how different animals move around and it contained some absolutely stunning camera work and special effects. Definitely a must-see: Weird Nature, Thurdays at 8.30pm on BBC1.

Sonomu is a music zine and online radio channel from the people behind the excellent motion.

It looks like Apple are up to their usual hype-mongering tricks again: What’s Behind the Apple Curtain ? Update: My mistake, it seems that MacWorld Japan has already taken place [I forgot about that small technicality of World Time Zones]. Apple have increased the price of the iMac by $100 [I thought computers usually come down in price], introduced a 10Gig iPod and have added Bluetooth support to their products via a USB Bluetooth adapter. There’s also the 23-inch Cinema HD Display… yeowch.

Twenty Billboards. As I walk from the bus to work, I pass twenty Greggs Bakery shops.

‘We are holding Chimera 0.2 for Quartz rendering and plugins. After all, a browser just isn’t a browser until you can view the Star Wars Episode II Trailer in all its glory inside your window (and have it surrounded by pretty antialiased text at the same time). ’- Dave, one of the developers of Chimera, an OS X web browser with great potential.

It’s a great shame that a large percentage of people in the UK are carrying around an internet enabled device but don’t feel compelled to use it because WAP is unusable. I used my phone to post this entry; the potential is unrealised. Addendum: OK, it took me a while to post that, not because it took ages to type, but because of constant disconnections; I’m lucky if I can get it working 50% of the time. This site isn’t WAP enabled but you can access it through a google search.

James Bachman brings forth his new site, Gas Giant and very nice it is too.

Stu links to a piece by Simon St. Laurant on Macromedia Flash MX as well offering some interesting thoughts on the subject from the perspective of a professional Flash Actionscript programmer and XHTML / CSS designer.

I agree whole-heartedly with Simon St. Laurant’s opinions on this. What kind of a web would it be where Macromedia rules the roost? Where one company says ‘To make good websites, you need to buy our software?’. In my opinion, ‘rich media’ is like rich food, you can only handle so much of it before you have to push it away.

You may remember my post about Sesame Street’s Pinball Song a while back. Well, I forgot to mention that Jeff Boyd sent me a good quality version of Number 6 [there are variations of the song for each number up to 12]. I had another email from somebody asking me if I have a copy of either the 8 or 10 versions of the song. What is this, a game of swapsies?

A couple of intriguing rumours about future Apple products are surfacing: an Apple branded digital camera and a set-top box incorporating Tivo-like functionality, DVD burning and CD/MP3 playback. MacOS Rumors reports.

‘Any science teacher who denies that the world is billions (or even millions!) of years old is teaching children a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood. These men disgrace the honourable profession of teacher. By comparison, real teachers, teachers who respect truth and evidence whether in science or history, have so much more to offer.’- Richard Dawkins on the news that Christian Fundamentalists have taken control of a state-funded school in Gateshead. [via t-melt]I went to a typical Comprehensive School where I was taught traditional Christian values. Religion wasn’t rammed down our throats, although there was the odd prayer during morning assembly, something which I reluctantly followed along with. Other than that however, it seemed that religion didn’t impinge on the rest of my schooling, although now I’m beginning to think otherwise. I’m fascinated by science, the universe, and the theory of evolution; I like reading popular science books, I try to catch as many science documentaries as I possibly can. So where was this interest in science when I was at school? I could put it down to teenage rebelliousness, the lack of willpower to be interested in anything. But no, quite simply, there was a lack of passion about science on the part of my teachers. All we did in our science lessons was sit round bunsen burners, fill beakers with harmless acids to see what would happen if something equally as harmless was added to them, burn peanuts to see how many joules of energy they contained and, oh, we dissected a rat. Where were the lessons about the wonders of the universe, about the evolution of life on our planet, about the dinosaurs, all things that interest me and every other sane person on the planet? It seems that my teachers were sitting on the fence, unwilling to put forward firm opinion about the natural history of our planet. I’m sure that if I had been taught by the likes of Richard Dawkins or Heather Couper, people who are passionate about science and the truth of our existence, it would have sparked something in my brain much earlier in my life and maybe I would have been a scientist. Now there’s a thought.

What a fantastic tribute to those who lost their lives 6 months ago; twin beams of light stretching high into the sky, infinite, untouchable.

BBC News | AMERICAS | US marks six months after attacks

‘The weblog community is in the unique position situation to affect significant change through nimble and collective action.’

Steven Garrity proposes an interesting idea, BlogML.

I’m sure this article will have people dunking very expensive digital cameras into the bathtub in the hope of producing similar results. When I was a youngster, I had a very inexpensive Speak ‘n’ Spell which accidentally got chucked down the stairs. Instead of commanding me to spell words, it started speaking gobbledygook and I replied in a likewise fashion… in fact, conversation flowed.

I’m beat, bushed, drained, jaded, pooped; two days of hefting house junk around in a hired jalopy has taken its toll. It’s a story I won’t bore you with, sufficient to say that it’s 11:20am and I need to sleep.

William Shatner now has a blog as part of his homepage. All we need now is Leonard Nimoy to sort himself out with one.

It’s easy to personify Pioneer 10 as it drifts through the blackness of space, 7.4 billion miles away from home. It’s like Huey [or was it Dewey or Louie?] left all alone with a battered watering can to tend the ‘garden of eden’ in Silent Running. Pioneer 10 was launched on the 2nd of March 1972 to take pictures of Jupiter. With its primary mission complete, it was then sent on a course that would take it away from our solar system and into deep space. A few days ago, NASA scientists transmitted a signal to it, asking if it was still OK. It replied with a signal described as ‘loud and clear and strong’; against all the odds, it is still alive, braving it through the intense cold, and incredibly, still taking readings using its only functioning instrument, the Geiger Tube Telescope. What unflinching dedication to its work! That it should battle on and take readings in the lonely infinity. Ok, so it’s just a chunk of metal, programmed to perform a specific task which it is still working on because it hasn’t been programmed not to. One day, humankind will be sending out intelligent space probes designed to learn and adapt to their environment, to gather information and make new decisions based on that information. These artificially intelligent machines could pave the way for humankind to populate other planets; they could set up environments for us to live in, terraform land and build homes. Pioneer 10 was one of the first of a long line of space probes that have and will continue to tell us more about what is out there. Even though its mission is complete, Pioneer 10 is still serving humanity; it is a part of us, reaching far beyond the solar system, a symbol of our need to find out more. In two million years time, it will reach the nearest star in the constellation of Taurus. Long after we’re gone, I’m sure it will say hello. BBC News | SCI/TECH | Pioneer 10 makes contact

The Little OS: A Fine Photoshop Production OR Am I sardonic or not?

Thanks to those of you who responded with answers to a few queries here of late. It turns out that ‘What is real? 415 564 1347’ is in reference to an event at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. Twenty people have two minutes each to discuss ‘What is real?’. 415 564 1347 is a US telephone number where you can discuss ‘what is real?’ with an answer phone. More here. Also, this from Jeff Boyd:

‘I happened across your 20.2.02 blog entry during my own exhaustive search for who recorded the incredibly funky “pinball” music from Sesame Street. Imagine my surprise to learn that someone else out there is just as interested in this as I am!’

Marvelous!