Link Dump 27/02/06

• - The MPAA have launched new lawsuits against TorrentSpy et al. If they spent half of the money they invest in these lawsuits on new cinema... oh, why bother. It's not about protecting the artists, it's about protecting their bank balances. You know it, I know it, there's no point preaching to the choir.
  

• - London is getting blanket coverage WiFi thanks to a company that partners up with Nintendo. I <3>

• - Foto Decadent, an LJ community for fashion photography (via Brock).
  

• - Affirmative Action, an interview with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs by Lynsey Hansley. I couldn't give a fuck as to what they sound like, I'm just glad that somewhere out there, rock stars still exist.

• - Nintendo's original DS patent. It looks like the thought process was: GBA SP > modern folding cellphones > the current DS. The DS Lite has come to us via the iPod. In future generations, Apple will be known as the company that created the colour white.

Link Dump 23/02/06

• - Got Ass? Is it OK to read words printed on someone's buttocks? Heh.
  

• - There are now over 3500 married partnershipped gay couples in the UK.
  

• - The Nintendo Apple Connection. I would like to see a comparison of major tv/computer/console designs over the last 50 years.
  

• - I'm afraid of Americans. I watched this and couldn't help think that there was something very fundamentally wrong with the people in this video.
  

• - 42% of UK babies are now born out of wedlock. ILLEGITIMATE! ILLEGITIMATE!

Google Pages

[Via Waxy] I just discovered Google Pages, which is Google's answer to Yahoo's Geocities but without the intrusive in-browser pop up ads, and (I'm guessing), the dodgy bandwidth limitations. At first glance, it's very easy to use, provides non-horrifying templates that you can modify via a side panel, quite intuitive (lots of drag and drop), and if you already have a Google Account (ie: if you use Gmail) it's ready to go - you just have to think up and add the content.

This is what I came up with in 2 minutes. I have my own hosting with the same kind of storage space, so it's not like I need to activate the account, but hey! It's quite fun to use.

One of the drawbacks is that editing and adding HTML directly (as opposed to using the side panel shortcuts) requires highlighting and clicking the 'edit HTML' button, which isn't as intuitive as it should be (either that, or I'm not as smart as I think I am). One of the positives, is that Google has raised the standard of the internet once again. Geocities and Tripod were previously the only available options for free and easy internet hosting - and everyone hated, nay, despised them. Google have provided something that is a million miles beyond the quality of what they offer, so now they're going to have to pull up their pants and improve their services, much like Yahoo and Hotmail had to do when Gmail launched. PWND. I fully expect rumours to fly about how Pages isn't as awesome as it seems in the next 24 hours. Fuck the haters!

It will also be interesting to see how this affects Blogger and Myspace.

AXL ROSE IS SEXY

Why I don't like Ricky Gervais Reason #422

[From BBC News]

Comedian Ricky Gervais is to make fans pay for his popular podcast, having previously released episodes for free. The weekly comedy show, which is among the most downloaded podcasts on the internet, will be sold via the Audible and iTunes services.

Twelve episodes had been made available without charge by The Guardian newspaper's website.

Stephen Merchant, who wrote The Office and Extras with Gervais, appeared alongside producer Karl Pilkington. The show largely consists of Gervais and Merchant teasing Pilkington for his idiotic ideas, including his regular Monkey News bulletin of news stories about apes.

Fans will have to pay $6.95 (£4) for at least four instalments of the programme.

He really doesn't get the internet, does he? All it will take is one person to download and distribute it via p2p, torrents, email - and I don't even need to mention why it's really remarkably annoying to take something previously available FOR FREE (cool) and turn it into a money making scheme (not cool) when all it comprises of is a recording of you and your mates fucking around. But hey! If people want to pay for an hour or two of your free time (your turds), that's their problem.

Link Dump 18/02/06

• - Bunny Love, an interview with Dick Bruna (creator of Miffy) by Lisa Allardice. "Making Miffy sad can take days. Bruna begins with five or six tears and while he is working, he takes a tear away. 'At the end I have one big tear, and that is the saddest tear you can have.'"

• - There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury. A must read.

• - The Daily Show takes the piss out of Myspace. I still think this show is overrated (stifled is perhaps a better word).

• - NBC threatens YouTube. NBC, you suck giant donkey balls! Get off our internet!

• - Busted? It was like torture... Charlie Simpson stupidly burns some bridges: "The day Busted split up, I was driving up to Warwick to play with Fightstar, listening to Radio 1, and these girls phone in going [tearfully], Oh, fucking Charlie, boo hoo. It just didn't bother me. I just thought, well, if you knew what I've had to deal with, you'd shut your fucking mouths." No siree Bob, insulting teenage girls is not going to make you cool.

Ergo Proxy

Recommended by Jean Snow, Ergo Proxy is an anime thriller dealing (so far) with infection, machines, citizenship, and consumerism. Very minimal goth/dystopian society with beautiful sexy characters, guns, and robot slaves becoming infected to turn against their owners. I think that perhaps the topic of robot/man co-existing together with disastrous consequences is a little bit unoriginal, but it's still running a good cycle as a genre that I can find interesting. So far. The first episode has only aired in Japan, so judging by the sleek nature in which they packed all of the above topics, I'm hoping that they're going to take it all in a new direction. If by some unholy manner they don't, I won't make it past episode 5.

Link Dump 17/02/06

• - Chinese people exist in the UK! 70% of them work in takeaways, and the government is withdrawing funding from projects that help them integrate and improve their lives.
  

• - The Bjork Interview by Emma Brockes. "'Control' obviously has a really bad reputation. I guess 'responsibility' is better. Coming from the punk generation, it was about being responsible; you know, you can't be an Elvis who said, 'Oh, they gave me the drugs and my manager fucked me over and blah blah blah.' You can't blame anybody else. You have to set it up yourself ... it's kinda the indie way of thinking. You can call it control, but at the end of the day it's being responsible for what happens to you and what you do to others."

• - The international cool of US branding is slipping, or perhaps coming to a close. Don't you get it? It's all about irony right now. Deciding what is ironic however... well, that's a hit or miss game. Sucks to be in marketing right now.
  

Rain Down

Link Dump 14/02/06

• - The MacGuffin. More new WG! New book new book new book new book, dear god let there be one soon.

• - Neverland, Amerika. Absolute surreal anarchy, and why I'm really into Flickr right now (my favorite).

• - Gay rights vs WoW. Gay rights win. You will not triumph over prejudice by insinuating that the victim is the problem.

• - Nora Jones to star in the next Wong Kar Wai movie? It's going to be his first English language movie! While we're on this, I'm annoyed that we have to wait for Lady of Shanghai. Nicole Kidman is not an actress worth waiting for, he should have recast.

• - A Whole New World by Katie Price, otherwise known as Jordan. PS - a sex tape of hers surfaced on Oh No! today. NSFW in it's entirety.

(PS - Blogger has been taking a huge shit recently whenever I try to publish a post. Apologies.)

Filmfour to move to Freeview!

[from The Guardian]

"Channel 4 severed its last link with conventional pay TV yesterday by moving FilmFour on to the Freeview service. In July it will join Channel 4, E4, E4+1 and More4 on the free-to-air digital service that sits in more than 5 million homes.

Andy Duncan, chief executive of Channel 4, said the move reflected the broadcaster's strategy of getting its channels into as many households as possible. He added that there were economic reasons for cancelling FilmFour's subscription service, which had 320,000 customers paying a total of £2.2m a year."

Oh man, this is great. Back in the days, when I used to watch too much cable TV, this was the definitive film channel for me - sometimes I would sit down at 6/7pm and not move again until 3am. It was where I found Lars Von Trier, the concept of Dogma 95, gay cinema, Ray Winstone and modern British cinema. They showed me how the world could be reflected through various images, voices, facial expressions, camera techniques, objects. They quashed any kind of rising ideal in me that foreign cinema was pretention not meant for me. They showed me beauty, idealism, intellect, stupidity and compelling storytelling in the ways that the mainstream movie channels could not (Home Alone is great y'all, but when you have thousands of films in the world, do we really need to see it three times a day?). They defined a large part of how I approach myself and exterior existence.

Knowing that Channel 4 continues to show a variety of alternative cinema (the other week, they aired one of my favorite movies Freeway) on it's terrestrial channel leads me to believe that this is going to be a good, undiluted jailbreak from behind an economical barrier - not to mention the fact that there is no free-to-air movie channel available as of yet (although I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC turn BBC4 into something along these lines in the near future, as it's practically the only decent thing about that channel). This is going to bring good solid cinema to everyone. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is badass.

YouTube != Good Use of Time

• - The Myspace movie

• - Placebo's A Song to say Goodbye.

• - Finally, finally, finally, a clip of Trent Reznor going batshit re: sound difficulties on last year's American Tour (second part, I think) has surfaced. My favorite bit is the smashing.
  

Reasons I've Not Blogged This Week...

Link Dump 09/02/06

• - Sophia Lamar is, much like Amanda LePore, a transsexual IT-girl of the NYC club scene. Her website comes across as very retro-Bond-girlish.
  

• - Teens reveal too much online. I've noticed that there is a big trend of thirteen year old girls attempting to garner popularity through sexually provocative pictures on the internet. so much for feminism, huh?

• - The White Chamber, sequel to the Crimson and Viridian rooms (not forgetting the mini-Blue Chamber), was released at the end of December, and I didn't even notice. Tried to give it a go, but it requires more concentration that I have right now.

• - Get Me Tickets has finally been shut down. I wonder how many NIN fans were ripped off last summer thanks to them.

Link Dump 05/02/06

• - Coyotes take to City Streets by Rachel Metz.

• - Ema Nakao interviews my favorite comic book artist Junko Mizuno.

• - Fashion Week FAQ by Josh Partner.

• - Online Multiplayer Frustration! Awesome when played with friends that like to kick your butt.

• - Teenager in 'insulted on the internet' SHOCKA! Suck it up girlfriend.
  

South Bank Anime

ITV1's South Bank Show will be airing a special edition devoted to Japanese anime. It airs on February 19th (ie: exactly two weeks time) and will be followed up by an ITV4 airing of Ghost in the Shell. After the splendour that was Jonathan Ross' Asian Invasion (the website now has interview clips up from the show) and it feels like they are going to both cheapen and overintellectualise the genre, but we'll see.

Property

More from Sunday

Link Dump 02/02/06

• - A list of 100 first lines from novels. I quibble them being "the best", but it's a good list, regardless.

• - Travels with My Beard by Rajesh Thind.
  

• - Why Reboot? is a small piece of software that lists changes made to software after you reboot Windows. Insight into what's happening with your computer can only be a good thing - haven't tried it yet though.

• - Samuel L. Jackson is entered into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. About time, he's ace.