Soundtrack, "Run Lola Run"
I frequently buy soundtracks to films I've never seen, nor have any particular wish to see. A few years ago, a friend from Germany sent me a track called "Wish (Komm Zu Mir)" but no other information. I thought it was great, in a rather German industrial way. However, I didn't follow it up. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a track by actor Franke Potente called "Believe" which I ended up leaving on repeat for a few hours.
Michael Brook, "Cobalt Blue"
I first came across Michael Brook while listening to the soundtrack to "Heat" which included "Ultramarine", an echoey heavily processed guitar track. A bit later I encountered "Diffusing" which was a very similar piece.
Aurora, "Aurora"
This 2002 eponymous album from UK band, Aurora, doesn't fit terribly comfortably into the electronica/dance-floor genre that it was released into. It's rather better than most due to a combination of cover tunes and guest vocalists. You get Shakespeares Sister's vocalist, Marcella Detroit, on two tracks, a cover of "If You Could Read My Mind" and the rather better "To Die For"; Irish singer Naimee Coleman on the very pretty "Hushabye" and a good cover of Duran Duran's "Ordinary World"; and resident singer Lizzy Pattinson on the remainder.
"Self Help" in Microsoft's Vista EULA
Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/22/vista_eula_worries/
Interesting article on the Register about the process of "self-help" wherein one party to a contract can unilaterally deprive the other member of the contract. In the case of Vista, the discussion is about Microsoft's ability to terminate the user's access to the software based merely on their say so.
Use of abandonware legal in the US again
Link: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2006/11/us_copyright_to.html
Good to see the US's copyright law moving in the right direction for once:
it's now going to be legal to hack copy protection on computer software and video machines that are no longer available, including those that use hardware-based methods such as "dongles."
They Still Don't Get It
Electronic Arts and Atari have been pushing their new downloadable games pretty hard recently.
Locavore cuisine
Link: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,72148-0.html?tw=wn_index_14
Wired is on a bit of a roll with reporting the somewhat bizarre eating fads. First, it was Calorie Reduced Diets (BoingBoing has a good link to that bit of insanity) and now it's "Locavore" wherein one tries to eat only foods created in their entirety from within 100 miles. That means that not only does the end product have to come from within that 100 mile radius but also anything that went into creating, processing and distributing it. That includes nitrates and phosphates for agriculture, antibiotics for livestock, and fuel for heating and transport.
The premise is to demonstrate how much food we take for granted is from distant realms and how much energy is consumed to get it to us. It's an environmental message wrapped up in a typically obscure middle-class package.
The director of "The Hobbit" will not be Peter Jackson
Link: http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1200
In one of those bewildering moves, New Line Cinema has opted not to employ Peter Jackson to direct the new live action version of "The Hobbit".
Nimblebrain.net: we bring you breaking news as cited by cartoon strips.
Concrete Blonde, "Recollection"
Link: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:w8ge4jn72wav
Concrete Blonde were an alt-rock band who appeared in the early '80s, hit their high point in the early '90s, and for all intents and purposes vanished a little afterwards. It's too bad. When good, they were very good.
Gender inverted Nimblebrain
Link: http://regender.com/swap/http://blogs.nimblebrain.net/
Another entry in the wacky Internet tools category. Via QBlog, I found Regender, an amusing little hack that works much like Altavista's Babelfish engine; it "translates" a page by switching genders and names. Title link goes to the inverted version of Nimblebrain. What surprised me was how little actually changed outside of some names; guess we've got that gender-neutral writing style down pat.
It's not terribly smart and there are some phrases that just don't work in translation. For example, the term "buxom ladies" comes out as "buxom lords" which, while amusing, doesn't quite work. I'm still unsure as to how "Bee Gees" becomes "Benjamin Gees" too. It figures though that "Ritchie" would be the same in either case...
Sex sells. Well, drives up the bids. Perhaps.
Apparently eBayers have been taking a page out of British lad-mags like "T3" or pretty much any motor show in the last forty years, and have decided to spice up those boring pictures of games consoles with buxom ladies. There's shallow, there's really shallow, and then there's this. The funny bit according to the creator of the video:
Apparently trading in your self respect doesn’t net much: According to my unscientific analysis, nudity and/or cleavage doesn’t have any discernible impact on bidding.
Hole In The World
Link: http://map.pequenopolis.com/
More stupid Google (TM) Tricks! This one is via Pharyngula, one of Ritchie's preferred blogging sites. It allows you to choose where you live, and then drills a hole through the world to show you what's on the direct opposite. And no, popular referencing aside, the default destination is not Australia (you'd need to live in the middle of the Atlantic ocean for that.)
For what it's worth, drilling through from Calgary dumps you in the Indian ocean near the French Southern and Antarctic Islands.
Your YouTube video for the day
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll8Qm8yDj-8&eurl=
At last we have an answer to the much asked question: what if Bollywood had made the video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller"?
DMCA abuse? Surely not?
Link: http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/sweet_sweet_copyright_law/
Surprise. BestBuy issues a DMCA take-down on a site that publishes information about their discount pricing.
'Cause everyone knows that a free market works best with perfect information and no commercial entity would ever try to hinder that.
So here's a Canadian equivalent for discounted shopping. Consume away; it's the North American way.
Something's rotten in the state of Washington
Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/17/ballmer_linux_users_.html
Ok, now this is just plain under-handed and sneaky. Summary of the BoingBoing'd article is that Microsoft has some patents that Novell, owner of SUSE Linux distribution, has licensed from them; in turn, Microsoft is now claiming that all other varieties of Linux are patent infringing and thus illegal. I might expect this behaviour from the snakes over at SCO but I though Novell was above this.
