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Archive for August, 2007
I’m currently reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, which was adapted to a feature film starring Zhang Ziyi in 2005. The book is a fascinating insight into a whole new world. I’ve only read the first third of the book and I find it hard to put down. The story is a first-person account of Sakamoto Chiyo’s life and her journey to become a Geisha. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with even the slightest interest in Japanese culture and history. Truly an enlightening read. Wow, has it really been 100 posts? In 428 days. I’ve done a new theme for the blog so you RSS junkies go there and check it out. It’s a modded version of K2 which I saw over at ascnnr and liked. Turns out K2 is not only pretty but also really functional and easily customisable. I’ll refrain from blogging about the magic that is CSS but it truly does rock. I wonder how long it will take for soushinsei to get a hit on Google… Our new Subway opened last week. I’ve been a few times. It tastes the same as it always does. I was going to photoblog it but I’m not really all that excited about it anymore. I’ve been a big Subway fan for ages and when I lived in Melbourne it was just always there so it wasn’t a big deal. When I moved back to Deni Subway became “magical faraway place I don’t go to much” so it was special again. Now we have one, and almost immediately it’s gone back to being just always there. It’s only 5 mins walk from work so I’ll still go lots. Here’s how it works: you open the Last.fm player and tell it an artist you like. It then plays you similar artists via streaming radio (128kbps MP3). If you listen to at least 50% of the song, it is “scrobbled” which is a silly way of saying “remembered as something you like”. You can also express your love for tracks which as far as I can figure just adds it to your list of loved tracks. Conversely you can also ban tracks so they aren’t played again. Another awesome feature is the Winamp plugin which records the songs you listen to in Winamp and contributes to the scrobbling database. The website even matches you up with other Last.fm users with similar tastes in music! The software is apparently open source for those worried about what info it actually collects. And yes, there are Linux (source) and Max OS X players too. There’s also an iTunes plugin, and it can even scrobble your iPod’s usage data. So far, I’ve tried music similar to Hybrid, Massive Attack and Pendulum and have gained an appreciation for some awesome artists I hadn’t heard much of before, including Thom Yorke, Air, Zero 7, Everything but the Girl, Lamb, Layo & Bushwacka, Morcheeba and The Crystal Method. I haven’t let the scrobbler loose on my collection yet because I’m still enjoying all the fresh stuff it keeps dishing out! There’s only a couple of downsides that I’ve noticed about Last.fm. Firstly, I feel sort of obliged to switch it off if I’m not within earshot for a few minutes so I don’t give false positives. You can still listen with scrobbling turned off though. Secondly, if you skip too many tracks in a row it sometimes runs out of tracks and you have to switch to another station. This is apparently due to radio licensing laws which restrict the number of tracks that are available at any one time. In my opinion these are pretty minor for the benefits you’re getting. I totally love it! It’s a great way to hear new music, and much better than plain old streaming radio because you can skip tracks you don’t like. They even have widgets you can chuck up on your website/blog! Check out my profile. It feels like I haven’t been posting as often lately. I’ve been working on a new theme for the site and it’s kinda exploded into a couple of side projects. In the meantime, here are some pictures of water…
I found this site linked from William Gibson’s blog, which I have just started reading after it showed up in a google for his new book, Spook Country. He describes Planet Hiltron as a collection of “contra-idoru anti-portraits” which is pretty accurate. For the uninitiated, in his Bridge Trilogy universe lives the Idoru, a virtual pop-star created using “aggregates of subjective desire” to represent the perfect female form. The site’s well worth a look if not for the humour value, then just to admire the l33t sk1llz of the photoshoppers. Must see’s include Johnny Depp, Larry King and Tom Kat. |
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