Vex Appeal

WIKIPEDIA FOREVER!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:42:18 +0000

Check out the fundraising banner at the top of Wikipedia at the moment:

Awesomely totalitarian, eh? I like it.

All hail our glorious^{[citation needed]} wiki overlords!

camel/mouse

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:31:00 +0000

A camel is a horse designed by committee…

and this is a mouse designed by an open-source development team.

Awesome.

(via df)

music as autobiography

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:31:44 +0100

In Phil Gyford’s great blog post “The £10,000 Playlist” he muses on the value of having a personal iTunes library rather than purely relying on cloud-based services like Spotify:

There are differences, that help make my library worth spending on… my library has history, layers, a gradual accumulation over my life. It’s not just a playlist but a timeline that in itself is important.

Exactly. “Date added…” is metadata rich with autobiographical meaning, but because it’s handled by your media player rather than an ID3 tag (admittedly this is sensible) you can’t take it with you. For a good few years I could look through all my music by time of acquisition, from the beginning of the MP3 era (coinciding with my personal “discovery of proper music”, circa 13 years of age) to the present. But then I got a new computer and all that data was lost - but at least for the next couple of years, some new data accumulated. And then last year I switched from my PC and Windows Media Player to OSX and iTunes and it was all gone again. I like to believe I’ll magically be able to date every song I acquire from now on, but the chances are realistically pretty slim.

It’s a shame because music is so evocative of certain points in our life. I believe the crisis-ridden protagonist of High Fidelity at one point tries to distract himself from a break-up by re-ordering his record collection in “autobiographical order.”

I suppose he found the strength to do it all manually, so maybe I should stop moaning. I do remember the first song chronologically in my first Windows Media Player list was “Little Bastard” by the Ass Ponys:

…because it was the theme to The Ben Brown Show, really a proto-version of Ze Frank’s The Show that was way ahead of its time.

In conclusion, it would be nice if there was a standard library format to capture “Date Added…” data, allowing it to be imported and exported across operating systems and media players, so that people could reminisce more easily. Failing that, perhaps some brave hacker-type could find a way to seamlessly move music libraries from computer to computer, metadata intact. Go lazyweb go!

The Second Hand Marching Band - Dawn Raid (download MP3) Or...

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:35:05 +0100

The Second Hand Marching Band - Dawn Raid (download MP3)

Or maybe not the whole Second Hand Marching Band, but Pete, Benni, and my friend Sophie.

Autumn’s here. We’ve had to figure out how to turn on the heating in the new house. This Sunday the nights abandon their incremental encroach upon the day, and instead launch a major offensive to seize everything north of 5pm. For consolation, then, we turn to pub roasts, fireworks displays, and acoustic indie from Scotland. Call it hyggecore.

new house, new job

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:29:47 +0100

All change, please…

pre-unpacking

First of all, I’ve moved the 47.5 miles from my home-town to sunny south London, with some friends and friends of friends and so on. That’s very exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing friends a bit more, doing some culture, living well, and generally pretending to be a Grown Up.

Secondly, I’ve just started a super-good new job with the fine folks at The Reading Agency, where I’m the site editor for their teenagerish site Groupthing.

The big idea behind Groupthing is to provide young people with loads of creative inspiration, build a supportive community, and do all sorts of interesting things around writing, reading, language and creativity. (On the other side there’s a bunch of stuff we want to do for professional type people, educating them about technologies and trends and helping them run co-creation stuff with YPs.) There’s plenty to do. And if any of this sounds like it might intersect interestingly with what you do or know about, then definitely drop me an email! It’s certainly refreshing being in a completely new sector, where a Techcrunch is what happens when your hard drive fails. On the other hand, there’s all sorts of new lingo and institutional knowledge to learn, and the challenge of maintaining a pair of fresh eyes - while also adapting to the new terrain.

Anyway, they say moving and starting a new job are two of the more stressful experiences in our lives, but a week or so in and I’m still alive at least. I’ll try and find the time to blog, too…

Single Ladies by Pomplamoose (orig. Beyonce) [download MP3] Of...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:56:00 +0100

Single Ladies by Pomplamoose (orig. Beyonce) [download MP3]

Of course it’s better enjoyed in charming video format:

Here’s an analysis that explains the inherent weirdness of the song - a weirdness even more noticable in this cover version. The short version is that a lot of the singing is in E major but a lot of the music is in E minor, known as “polytonality… a technique normally reserved for highly esoteric jazz.”

More important, though, is that the woman from Pamplamoose looks a bit familiar. Don’t you think? I have given it some thought…

…maybe she looks a bit like Michael Cera, circa ‘Bleeker’ in Juno? Or, he looks a bit like her? With no offence intended to either party, of course - in fact, Cera gets to bask in Ms P’moose’s reflected hotness.

Orbital colonies skim through the magnetosphere of a dying blue...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:21:00 +0100

Orbital colonies skim through the magnetosphere of a dying blue giant star, NW10.

[ok actually a sunset over north london]

I’m too stingy to get MobileMe, so instead, I’ve...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0100

I’m too stingy to get MobileMe, so instead, I’ve made this my iPhone wallpaper.

What’s that? This is the digital equivalent of having name tags sown into your underwear? Well… yes. But a) I have a tendency to misplace things, and b) fuck you.

Photo

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:00:00 +0100

Button is a game for the iPhone. When you load Button, a big...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:48:49 +0100

Button is a game for the iPhone.

When you load Button, a big button appears. It mostly just sits there, but occasionally it will light up, and go “wommmmm” ominously. If you hit it, you get a random number of points. That’s it.

OK, there’s also a global leaderboard, a simple “team” functionality, a few silly achievements (press the button with your iPhone upside down!) and that really is it.

If you think that’s kind of absurd, I agree. But I am also 124th in the world at button-pressing. A double-digit rank lies within my grasp. Is this a purely dopamine-driven exercise that bewitches my inner pigeon? Or is it a more intellectual choice to nihilistically embrace the lever-pecking bird within? Perhaps, nauseated by the existential struggle for authenticity, I can seek a playful refuge in Skinner’s cosy box, where the rewards are plenty, if delivered on a random schedule. Behave radically, radical behaviourists! Play in bad faith! Friends, wake up and smell the delicious food pellets!

I keep Button open on my phone, propped up against my monitor, so I can see the button glow in my peripheral vision. Since I started this blog post, I’m now 123rd. Got lucky with an 11-point button push. My name is Guy, and my phone is also my operant conditioning chamber…

[see Button in the App Store]

Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Parties ad This is the most...

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:08:00 +0100

Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Parties ad

This is the most outlandishly terrible thing I’ve seen in a while. The worst thing about it is that at least a dozen people were involved in designing and creating this video, and even though they all knew how bad it was, nobody had the power or courage to call the whole thing off.

Some people speculate that this is intentionally deadpan irony, the Snakes On A Plane of viral marketing, but if so, I don’t think it works. Others have pointed out that this kind of marketing is so cheap (vs TV) that an absence of effort is only natural. But even though marketing is not always the same as product, I think the lack of attention-to-detail is utterly damning. What features and technologies are in Windows 7 that were also not important enough to really bother with? How many teams are there within Microsoft, making videos or websites or software, that are similarly allowed to phone it in, with no tasteful oversight - or any oversight at all?

Here’s another thing. By most accounts the Zune HD is meant to be “alright”, but look! They haven’t bothered to sort out the font size on the main bloody menu, so ‘Marketplace’ goes off the edge of the screen. Obviously you can still read that it says ‘Marketplace’, so why worry about the details, right?

Because this lack of polish indicates a more generalised sloppiness. The kind of sloppiness that means when you shell out a couple of hundred quid for this product, and get the “free” chess app for it, you find IT TAKES THIRTY SECONDS TO LOAD AND SHOWS YOU A FULL VIDEO ADVERT BEFORE YOU CAN USE IT:

zune hd chess startup from Ars Technica on Vimeo.

Horrible horrible horrible. I mean, someone decided to do this. In fact, a team of people! In real life, for real customers! Boggling.

Having said all this, I bet you’ve had times where you’ve found yourself doing Bad Work. Inspiration has failed to strike, a half-decent idea gets watered down to quarter-decent in committee, the client wants some adjustments to make things more Bang On Trend, and suddenly it’s 3pm on a Thursday and you’re spamming message boards, or organizing a shoot for a script you know to be terrible, or getting rid of navigation features to squeeze out extra page views, or whatever. I know I have! But I think the video that started this post is a stirring reminder that it should never be too late to stand up and say: “THIS IS SHIT, WE MUST REMOVE ALL TRACE THAT ANYTHING HAS HAPPENED HERE.”

All it takes for bad work to happen is for good people to do nothing…

DO use the word ‘dead.’

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0100

DO use the word ‘dead.’

DJ Dangermouse, The Beatles, Jay-Z and Pharell - Change Clothes...

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:17:49 +0100

DJ Dangermouse, The Beatles, Jay-Z and Pharell - Change Clothes (Grey Album) (download MP3)

Ah, this was good, wasn’t it? Still is, in fact. I need the space to say whatever I like…

Alarming Starbucks Sign, from lovemaus

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:45:13 +0100

Alarming Starbucks Sign, from lovemaus

Gang Of Four - Natural’s Not In It (download MP3) As...

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:45:00 +0100

Gang Of Four - Natural’s Not In It (download MP3)

As reported by David:

Jon King. Gang of Four frontman and… Managing Director, Story Worldwide

“Before this Jon was Business Head, Europe, for ScreenRed, a retail communications company specialising in the delivery of rich media content across IP networks for major corporates. His primary client was Sainsbury’s, for which he led the development and delivery of a groundbreaking customer facing screen based marketing programme which produced significant sales uplift.”

I don’t actually begrudge King for the work he’s been doing - some of it does sound pretty beneficial to society. But I do find it incredible that the same man who sang with such passion about consumer culture in Entertainment! and Solid Gold could be developing marketing programmes for Sainsbury’s. I almost want to cry.

It’s especially strange to think he is right now touring the country and singing those same old vitriolic songs.

Another day, another dollar, eh Jon?

Funny old world. Gotta make a living though, eh?

The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure
Ideal love a new purchase
A market of the senses
Dream of the perfect life
Economic circumstances
The body is good business
Sell out, maintain the interest
Remember Lot’s wife
Renounce all sin and vice
Dream of the perfect life
This heaven gives me migraine
The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure

Gang of Four on Spotify.

The Brakes - Heard About Your Band (download mp3) Another song...

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:29:37 +0100

The Brakes - Heard About Your Band (download mp3)

Another song from the olden days, because I haven’t been getting into any new music recently. The message is timeless at least, which is to say: stop being a self-aggrandising asshole. This is obviously much easier said than done, especially with the advent of Twitter, which Josie Long accurately characterised as “brilliant -it lets you show off for NO REASON.”

Additionally, forgive the hypocrisy next time I try and discreetly hint at how cool I want you to think I am.

Oh and if you like analysing the intersection (complete overlap?) of social media and showing off, you’ll like Asserting Your Social Status With Your Facebook Status at NY Mag. Excerpt:

Your life is worthy of envy, but it is not perfect — otherwise everyone would hate you, and we can’t have that. And so the fabulous undershare must strike a counterbalance, and the results can be fantastic. This updater’s status, nominally a complaint about a nasty hangover, is really a subterranean boast that (a) the updater has a Dionysian appreciation for the high life, (b) has rather limitless supplies of Rose [sic] wine, and (c) is in Ibiza.

Anyway, I’ve got to go, I have an appointment to view a delightful house in leafy South Lon… oh fuck.

I don’t wear a wristwatch, because like most people, I...

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:34:46 +0100

I don’t wear a wristwatch, because like most people, I rely on my mobile phone to tell me the time. But if I did, I’d want one of the beautiful timepieces from Mr Jones.

[via enjoymentland]

On It To Won It A year ago on Sunday, I went along to BBC...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:52:34 +0100

On It To Won It

A year ago on Sunday, I went along to BBC Television Centre to be on In It To Win It, a game show that’s broadcast before the National Lottery on Saturday nights. It went rather well, and this is the story of how it came to pass…

It started in July 2008. I wasn’t doing an awful lot, and money was running out. As it happened, my sister was in the same predicament, and she mentioned that she’d applied to be on tropical-reality-show Shipwrecked. She even went along to an audition! I thought this sounded like a good laugh, so I fired up the Shipwrecked website and started filling out the application form.

I got as far as the second page, which began: “Can you swim?” In truth, I can have a good stab at “not drowning”, but my rudimentary flailing has but one purpose - TO GET OUT OF THE DAMN WATER BEFORE I DIE. I inferred this was not the level of competency or enthusiasm they were looking for, so I turned my attention elsewhere.

After some rudimentary Googling for “be on TV” and so on, I ended up at the 12yard website, the production company that produces In It To Win It (and Eggheads, and other game shows.) They were looking for contestants for the new series. I downloaded the application form and got to work.

It was late, late at night. My mind was in a strange place.

WHICH THREE WORDS BEST DESCRIBE YOU?
1. organic 2. free-range 3. free-from-additives

HAVE YOU APPEARED ON ANY TELEVISION PROGRAMME(S) BEFORE?
No, people are always asking me to be on TV, but I tell them, “I’m saving myself for In It To Win It.”

TELL US AN INTERESTING FACT ABOUT YOURSELF
When I’m bored my brain emits powerful alpha waves, causing nearby lightbulbs to shatter. As a result I’m condemned to a life of refreshing my Facebook news feed and email inbox every thirty seconds.

Etc, etc. At 5:30am exactly, I sent it off…

Hi there,

I’m applying to be on your television show, buoyant with hope and
radiant with optimism at the fame and riches which will result.

Attached is the form, for your consideration.

Kind regards,

Guy

A week or so later I got a call from the 12 Yard folks inviting me to an audition in mid-August. Lovely!

Along I went, arriving a couple of minutes late (as I am wont to do) and sitting in reception for an awfully long time, until it became apparent that actually it was already all happening upstairs. Fortunately another chap had become similarly confused, and we were hurried upstairs where the “fake gameshow” was already underway. I felt briefly worried about my tardiness, but I quickly realised that in the glamorous world of telly, lateness is no obstacle as long as you can be really really EXCITING. ALL THE TIME. !!

So the fake gameshow was like a cheating version of the regular gameshow, where magically everyone gets chosen for a question each. You get “picked” and VERY EXCITEDLY walk to the front (of a drab meeting room) where there is a guy pretending to be the host. You then do some EXCITING banter, and then you get your QUESTION. Then you UMM-AND-AHHH about it, and by a process of elimination (whether you know the answer or not) arrive at an answer! You then react with the appropriate EXCITEMENT at your correctness or DISTRESS at your lack of general knowledge.

[me at the audition]

Then you get a little quiz to do on paper, featuring a bunch of general knowledge questions. It occured to me that the production company has a financial incentive not to pick anyone TOO good at the questions, but that way madness lay, so I just did the best I could, and it turned out that basically it’s a Moron Filter and if you get 40% or better then you’re golden.

Then it was INTERVIEW TIME. During the wait, I spent a while chatting with my twenty fellow auditionees, who were a diverse bunch of folks. I discovered that 12yard had been inviting applications for ages, and some of the people there had applied months and months ago, rather than a few weeks prior. Mostly, I talked about music with a couple of other studenty chaps, who I imagined were my competitors for the demographic slot of “studenty-looking chap.” I realised I would need to bring some extra jauntiness to the table…

[other would-be contestants]

I can’t remember much about my interview, but needless to say it’s five minutes talking about yourself (and how exciting you are!) in front of a camera. I think I flirted with the AP quite a lot, in an attempt to demonstrate my eligibility for the “lovable rogue” slot also. Double the chances, that way.

And it worked! A couple of days later I was told that I was shortlisted, and then I had just one more hurdle to clear (well, outside the show itself) - the phone interview. This consists of many more questions, lots of which had already come up “what you spend the money on??” but this time “for real” - as in, your answers go with you, and get given to Dale, and then you’ll have to talk about them. So lots of questions like “are there interesting facts about your mum?” and “what do you do at the weekends?”, searching for an entertaining bit of personal trivia around which a magical bit of banter can be constructed. I suspected that my realistic spending plans (pay debts, go on holiday, etc) were a little pedestrian for their tastes, do decided to give ‘em what they wanted and tell them that I’d spend my winnings on a Routemaster Bus if I won. INSTANT HIT!

[what i said i’d buy. actually now i’m quite sad i don’t have one…]

By the end of August it was a done deal, down from several hundred applicants to a couple of hundred auditonees to 60-odd shortlisters and 30 final contestants. I was through! Woo, yay, and hoopla.

A week later. I get put up in an Acton hotel to keep me well-rested, and in the morning, having played “spot the gameshow contestant” over breakfast, am put in a taxi with some other hopeful Innits to BBC TV Centre. It is not yet 8am, and shooting doesn’t begin until 6pm. They keep you busy…

First up, a thorough explanation of all the rules, and explaining how the game works. Then, a run-through of the game in the green room. Not just to demonstrate that you know where you’re meant to sit, but to show HOW! EXCITED! YOU! CAN! BE! This will happen at least three times throughout the day.

You have to bring a bunch of different clothes in case they look weird onscreen…

Sometime later, you go to the studio to see how they look!

Then, you get to do cutaways. In the show, there are bits where they show your faces and you react to getting chosen or not. But in case you make an insufficiently emotional expression, they get some shots done in advance which can then be used instead. So not all of these faces are necessarily real…

At all points throughout the day, the production staff were constantly making us practice all the stuff you’re gonna do on the show: talking about what you want the money for, practicing your walk across the stage, all that stuff. I must have done “the walk” like thirty times. The three R’s are repetition, repetition, repetition…

[my eventual bizzare cross-stage leaping]

Another thing is that you spend the entire day with your fellow contestants, so you get quite a bit of cameraderie. I felt bad for Phil, who was filling the “salt of the earth geezer” slot and a born pessimist. I wanted his expectations to be radically subverted but instead he was dead-on and never even got to answer a question.

For about five minutes, Dale Winton pops backstage, all business. Basically he’s read all your answers to the phone interview, and is like “Guy, I hear you want to buy a double-decker bus. Let’s talk about that.” He is tall.

Eight hours later, and there’s still two hours until filming starts. Fortunately, it’s dinnertime. And what’s for dinner?

[cider, from ireland. keava the production lady, also from ireland.]

Cider. Excellent. Then my mum and dad arrived, my chosen VIPs who’d take their seats in the special gallery bit:

One last visit to make-up, which made me look a bit android:

Then it was showtime. Rock onto the set, INCREDIBLY hyped up, and let the chips (and questions) fall where they may….

By this time I had been totally brainwashed into hamming it up to the absolute extreme. Get chosen first (AWESOME), get a bunch of questions right and do my bit for the team, only to flunk out on some celebrity tennis marriage question. Then another sporty question sends me right back to the beginning. I thought it was all over for me, at that point (which was totally fine) but then the fates intervened (well, I had a 1/3 chance!) and I was back in the game. Barbara and I rocked some more general knowledge to get the prize fund up to 60k, and then the siren went off just as Patrick managed to get over to the Winning Side.

Then it was all up to the final question to decide who’d get a share of the money. As it happened, we all got our questions right, so we all walked away with a lovely 20 grand. This is how it happened in brief:

In It To Win It In 5 Min Its from GuyP on Vimeo.

Then I caught up with Jey and Mike who came to support me in the studio audience, before heading home and getting righteously drunk with my Mum and Dad. Brilliant. A month later, after the producers had checked the footage for cheaty coughing, my cheque arrived, and on Boxing Day the outcome was broadcast to the nation. Watching it required even more booze than participating.

Anyway, the Dale fund has almost been exhausted what with one thing and another (er, life, holidays, having fun, getting my iMac, saying goodbye to my overdraft) but it’s been awesome. Thanks to the 12yard folks for looking after me nicely, and to BBC license payers everywhere for providing me with financial support. Much appreciated!

We Vs Death - Wake 44 (download mp3) Happy September....

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0100

We Vs Death - Wake 44 (download mp3)

Happy September. Autumn is here. The dark, the cold, the drizzle, all that fun stuff. Here’s a cheery song to go with it.

I found We vs Death through a (rather good) flash game plays Wake 44 on loop, which did the rounds a couple of years back. Looking at the date stamp, I was probably a bit of a mess at the time, which explains why I find this song so sad. I think of these unreasonable emotional musical ties as ‘The Lowgold Effect’, after the also-ran indie band who soundtracked My First Super-Fun Depression. Eight years later, their music is still absolutely gutting. I guess it’s the horribly self-absorbed version of “music accompanying love, later to be ruined by heartbreak.”

There are some tiny little flies in my room, and I keep trying...

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:51:21 +0100

There are some tiny little flies in my room, and I keep trying to clap them to death. But I’m aware for the flies (who are very good at escaping my malcoordinated swiping) it’s a lot more exciting. In fact, I am Andross from Lylat Wars! [aka, Star Fox 64.] All they need to do is aim for the eyes my face will fall off, revealing my brain, enabling them to truly go in for the kill.

Let’s hope they don’t have a strategy guide.