:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 ::

I can't believe we left it so long

Heya! It's been some time. I know I may have thrown you the odd scrap of music now and again but that old spark, it just hasn't been there lately has it. I know you have other places to hang out. I hope you understand what a death in the family has done here. But it's great to meet up again, have a drink, chew that fat, catch up on what we would have been chatting shit about if other events hadn't conspired against us.

Did I tell you I attended the BLDGBLOG book launch last week?

[v.o.g.: You mentioned you were going]

Ah, well, I did. And not only did I get a great book out of it, not only did I meet with and chat with Geoff Manaugh, whose a really inspiring guy, not only is there a photo floating around flickr of me sat at the same table as Warren Ellis (I didn't realise that at the time, I was distracted by the woman with him), but I've also come away with some blog based inspiration.

In the introduction to the book Geoff explains that when he started BLDGBLOG he decided that he wasn't going to pour concerns and negativity into it, it would just be for stuff that interested him. Things that made him think, gave him ideas, starting points for flights of fancy. I like that philosophy. I may try to take it on to some degree.


[source here via here]

So what else has caught my fancy?


Shots taken on Czechoslovakia - East border of the eastern German state security (Stasi)
[via www.ustrcr.cz]
Found in the Vice Magazine photography special, which is out now.

Its good to know that The American President is an Ass Man, Apparently

"But seriously, is this not one of the best presidential photographs of all-time? Even Sarkozy looks like he's sneaking a peek, though he's French, so we expect him to do it. However, in Obama's defense, that is a great ass!"

"Solicitors for the National Portrait Gallery are apparently threatening legal action against a US Wikipedia user for downloading 3,300 digital photographs of paintings in the UK museum's collection, and then uploading them to Wikipedia."
[via clayton cubitt]

Cauty - Julie Andrews tip in the Nude magazine sale


Codex Sinaiticus - Home The ‘Draft for Comment’ version of the Bible

Rumours of a Dr Who film

There, I Fixed It

6 Intriguingly Shaped Communities As Seen On Google Maps

My Pinhole camera experiments


"Patti Smith is one of the most anticipated gigs of the week, and the audience the most vocal. … joined by SMZ leader Efrim Menuck on drums and Portishead’s Adrian Utley, who attacks a guitar with a paintbrush to spooky effect."
Festival review: Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown, Southbank Centre, London SE1 | Music | The Observer
I mentioned this to Leafcutter John, wondering if he was aware Ade was at the Polar Bear gig where John had used the same paintbrush trick a few months back. His response was a spirited "Ah, but did he do it better?"

Stylophone Beatbox

Pre-order here

Open Source TIC - ePetition response | Number10.gov.uk
"The Government supports the principle that, where new software is being developed by the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, this should wherever possible be released under open source licence and available for use by other local authorities. ... Where the pilots will result in new software tools, ownership and intellectual property rights will usually remain with the individual local authorities"
Is this not a contradiction?

‘Ghost village’ to be demolished

"A village built in Argyll to meet the demands of the UK oil boom of the 1970s but abandoned without ever being occupied is set for a new role." [video link]

Stuff you've missed on the tumblr
* a whole bunch of new photographers discoveries
* shoes by architects
* a bunch of LEGO stuff inc jewellery, USB sticks and giant Star Wars models
* London Underground Map print dress
* Geek guide to shoe lacing
* The Battleships drinking game

I've also just discovered that Blogger is limited to 20 tags per post.

So what have you been up to? How are things?

Labels: Art, blogs, Copyright, Electronic Music, Flickr, FOSS, History, Instruments, IP, Law, Literature, Maps, Music, Petitions, Photography, Politics, Privacy, Religion, Sci-Fi, Wiki

:: Dan 14.7.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Nooooooooo!!!
RIP Music Thing

Labels: blogs, Music, RIP

:: Dan 8.1.09 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Thanks to the Doppleganger I've got into the idiots Blogger, Tumblr. I notice that among other web trends it has dropped the final e. It's quite a nice site if all you want is to look at colours and not think about anything.

This sketch from Fanniepack caught my eye:



My intention is only to use the site for book marking of things I can't be bothered to post here, so don't expect anything great. For example, I've just finished reading John Robb's Punk Rock: An Oral History and then spent this morning watching old punk videos on YouTube. So that's all in there. Normal service will continue here.

Labels: Blogger, blogs, Tumblr

:: Dan 31.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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By email,
"hello dan,
i´m interested in the stuff you blog, so i think you could be interesting in the stuff i posting. (of course not in such a professional way you guys do and yes german) so here are severals links witch include heavy weight content. including german audioart. (and sorry for my bad english)
bye hg"

Thanks hg. My German is ropey at best but I can only assume that calling this blog a professional operation was a translation error. Flattery will get you everywhere.

Have a look through the following links for the linked audio:
asger-jorn-jean-dubuffet
destiny-mata-vs-tetsuo-furudate
thomas-bernhard-geil-auf-stereich-nein
auf-der-flucht-geblieben
samuel-beckett-krapps-last-tape
federico-chiari-ark-of-noise
kimono-kops-is-techno

Labels: blogs, Electronic Music

:: Dan 6.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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“to all the people that knew and loved jand. I am sorry to have to break the news that John, died 20/06/2008.”

I never met John Anderson. He was another one of my blogger friends that I never got around to hooking up with, despite a couple of email conversations attempting it. He asked me to contribute to his g3rm blog, later reborn as g3rmy, although I contributed only a tiny percentage of the content there, and most of that was cross-posted with this blog.

I was unable to make it to his funeral earlier today, but my thoughts are with his family and friends, especially to those who have had to break the news to others (via the blog and via facebook, the first time I’ve seem a death reported in the form of a friend request). Unless anyone convinces me otherwise I plan to leave g3rmy as it is as a memorial to John, an index of his thoughts and his state of mind. RIP.

Labels: blogs, g3rm, RIP

:: Dan 16.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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I guess this is a meme in the original sense of the word. It shows how an idea has started in one place and been built on, developed and evolved by others. Traditionalists would call it a conversation.

From Octopus99

Dominic Zero says:
"I actually lost interest in Alias after Season 1 largely because for a hard-nosed uber-agent working undercover she seemed to spend an awful lot of the time crying and getting upset. Either that or she was in jeans and a tee shirt the whole time once her contract had been renewed and I no was longer fished in. Everyone knows female undercover agents have to dress up as either prostitutes or pole dancers or goths at least half the time. Just ask Heather Locklear."

El Duderino says:
"Actually if I ran an undercover espionage agency I would only hire hot chicks and dress them in rubber and lingerie. I mean it makes fucking sense, innit? Then I'd pray to god all the targets hung out at fetish parties. They'd really stand out in Safeway."

I say:
"Everyone knows they do. It comes with the territory. To end up in that line of work you have to take pleasure in role-play, dressing up in uniforms (sometimes cross-dressing), and knowing there is a serious threat of torture around every corner. How could you end up in that career if you weren't a fetishist? It just make sense."

Labels: blogs, Fetish, Literature, meme, Sci-Fi

:: Dan 14.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Originally a comment on Doppelganger

Whilst perusing the Bookbarn a couple of weeks ago I was disappointed that more than half of their electrical engineering section was taken up by books for CD radio slang. Useful as these may have been at the time they are of little but academic interest now. I’m sure large chucks of the web, currently filled with those occasionally useful and oh so funny slang translators will equally waste future achieve storage space. Unfortunately, unlike radio, the medium they are translating will also be archived (eg my myspace has long since fallen into disuse) and thus the wasted space increases exponentially.

If you do insist on using it, here are the top 5 things I have learnt from it that you may benefit from knowing:

1. Do not accept friend requests from people who send you pictures of their body parts, even if they do write you’re name across them. This is a thinly vied guise – that it looks like you have seen through already – to get you to look at something called “pornography.” Incidentally, looking at it is fine as it can be passed of as “ironic,” just don’t tell everyone that you do by advertising it in your friends list.
   
2. Following on from this. Do not add friends ironically. Irony, like sarcasm (see slang translator comment above), rarely works in writing and is even less likely to come across through pointing and clicking.
   
3. Do not agree to play gigs (or in your case take commissions) from anyone you don’t know without seeing money up front. myspace is awash with first time promoters whose idea of promotion is to put a flyer on myspace. That’s it. No one will come to the gig as they will have only told people they don’t know in other countries about it. It will get shut down by the management as they aren’t making enough on the bar to pay the staff. You won’t get to play, even to the 14 randoms who wondered in by mistake. You won’t get paid.
   
4. It can be handy for getting around office firewalls that block webmail. However, facebook has already succumbed here and I’m sure myspace will follow. Fortunately generalities have shown that middle class twits use facebook, hence it is blocked in my office, whilst chavvy urchins use myspace, meaning it’s probably blocked in call centres.
   
5. Don’t bother.

Labels: blogs, Humour, SocialNetworking

:: Dan 25.3.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise - Articles, a blog, and a book by the music critic of The New Yorker
Example: Revisiting Stockhausen

The Guardian: "Is Alex Ross the most exciting thing to have happened to classical music this century*? Alan Rusbridger meets a revolutionary critic, blogger and author. Listen here to Ross on his 'musical voyage'" [stream or 1.2MB MP3]

* It'll be a sad century if the most exciting thing to have happened to classical music is a critic.

Labels: blogs, Music

:: Dan 21.3.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Two great 2007 summary posts I've found on other blogs today:

Octopus 99 review of 2007
Quote:
"Maddie : So nobody else went missing last year then. Look out for the McCanns on next year's Strictly Come Dancing.
Best Event Of 2007 : The Spice Girls comeback single failing to make the top 10. How fucking marvellous was that? And it was a charity single. Oh, how I laughed. I still get a semi just thinking about it."

And coincidentally (I was actually searching for Girls Aloud photos but that’s another story): Project 76's other end of yeariness

Great for tearing apart the Daily Empress. Hopefully my mum will STOP READING it this year. I printed out a huge critique I found of it last year but it doesn’t seem to have done the trick yet.

Labels: blogs, Media

:: Dan 1.1.08 [Arc] [1 comments] [links to this post] ::
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G3RMY...Art.Code.Lit.Tech.Maths.Music...
G3RM is back! Well, jand is at least. I'm still only making a token effort to keep it running.

Labels: blogs, g3rm

:: Dan 4.11.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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