1/6/10 02:36 pm - Toilet roll art. Astounding. Yuken Teruya. |
Cornelius, AgainPragmatism's good, but idealism's more satisfying |
| Communities: quiet-thrills design murakami galaxy-far-away... dna-fans animegallery usability color-theory urban-decay sf_with_bite |
1/6/10 02:23 pmI quite often vent with comments on the guardian's website. This one I feel very strongly about:Because we don't have coaltion politics, we'll probably end up with a more right wing government than the vast majority want, with far more power than anyone wants to trust them with. I'm bitter that labour haven't safeguarded their legacy more by having at least a PR elected Lords; they'd rather gamble it all at the single-past-the-post roulette wheel. Shame on them. In response to Geoffrey Wheatcroft's article. |
1/5/10 10:34 am - Too real? I think these are fascinating. Also too expensive to own, btw, but maybe the ultimate posable action figure because you can see the way the plastic is imitating the skeleton, muscles, skin, and internal organs even in various places where human movement is constrained by one or the other of those aspects. The forearms, for example, are structured based on bones, the stomach is based on the constraints of muscle and intestines, the thighs are also about muscle... weird and clever. I'm only disappointed at the lack of shoulder blades. And breasts are less static than this too. Oh well, maybe not perfect, but still, thought provoking. |
12/27/09 09:41 pm - ChristmasChristmas has been ok. Entertained the parents on Christmas day, which went pretty well, the turkey was good and even of the potatoes didn't quite work, they were still very nice. Good pressies too, giving and receiving were both a success I think, at least as much as the guesses ever can be, hit and miss, but some nice hits. Ihavd an unexpected solar motor kit thing which is fun, but also House s4 and The IT Crowd and some good books and Lisa Mitchell's CD. Just finished "goth girl rising" - Barry Lyga's follow up to Fanboy and Goth Girl, which was lots of easy fun. This was too - of course when I say fun, well, it's quite tough teen fiction, but done so well and with a loT of humour - of some dark sort. Definitely a highlight, anyway. |
12/19/09 12:31 pm - Cherie Priest : BoneshakerI don't think I've really wanted to like a book so much before reading it for years - Boneshaker is the first Cherie Priest novel I've read, and I love the steampunk idea, plus she's one of the seattle crew - which includes Richelle Mead. Richelle M does the fantastic Succubus series, among other things, and I like Caitlin Kittredge's books almost as much as I like her attitude.Thankfully, it is a good book; not very very good, but refreshing and different and full of fun. The plot is tweaked once or twice to bring more steampunk in, but it works, and it all makes more sense than a lot of steampunk - i.e. it's not full of machines that are as totally economically non-sensical as they are in that awful novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (the only thing WG has touched that I don't love). The story arc, the history in it, is actually very good too. Suspense and mystery. Plus it's all held together by some very nice writing, and it's full of fantastic ideas and machines and outfits. So it's a 9/10, probably not 10/10m because of those oddities it needs to make itself work at all, and a lot of fun. |
12/16/09 02:14 pm...and the evidence that something needs to be done about the police abusing their powers keeps on coming.http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/15/i |
12/4/09 10:23 am - WirelessI like the term "wireless". I like when younger people than me use it to mean wi-fi, without any hesitation, whereas to me it brings up memories of my parents and grandparents and large wooden radios.It's opens up a landscape of time. Kind of a Gaiman moment. |
11/29/09 10:43 pmWell, what should have been a 90 minute drive home this evening took... four and a quarter hours. We hit the blackwall tunnel approach road probably within minutes of a car fire in it, and just failed to take the right exit, thinking it was a bad exit, just as it all snarled up. Made it over tower bridge about three hours later... which was fun actually - it's a nice bridge to drive over and probably best at night.At least we found LBC radio and had a running commentary of the X Factor. It seriously helped pass the time. |
11/6/09 09:26 pm - Mixtape.With apologies to jwz, my first LJ mixtape.Marina and the Diamonds / Mowgli's Road Nerina Pallot / Real Late Starter Lisa Mitchell / Coin Laundry A Camp / Love has left the room |
10/31/09 07:37 pm - Happy Halloween |
10/13/09 10:26 am - PoliticsI usually restrain myself from commenting on politics here, but the prospect of a conservative government is getting seriously scary now. It's Cameron's quote that's it in a nutshell: "It is more government that got us into this mess." No, David, it isn't - it's a reckless private financial gambling that got us into this mess - or to turn that around, it's a failure to have enough government that got us into this mess.Among all the Labour disappointment, I really wish Gordon Brown had announced a proper electoral reform referendum to coincide with the next general election. At least then we might be able to get out of this poisonous duopoly that now threatens us with an unchecked right-wing government that hardly anyone really wants, just because they're the only alternative to Labour. I think Britain would be much more social democratic overall if we sorted out the system. The Labour Party just fails us, time and time again. All that investment, all that progress, wasted and reversed, because Gordon Brown's an idiot. Shit. Will Hutton has a good article on it. |
10/1/09 04:44 pm - Kylie's new songSo a little story: we've seen Nerina Pallot live a few times now, she's loads of fun. I think twice now she's done a live song called "Better than Today" that's lots of fun, and she sold it on an only-at-the-gig EP (Buckminster Fuller EP). But it didn't turn up on the album. Odd.Turns out, Kylie's got it. It's good. Quite similar to how Nerina did with the band actually (though she didn't have the dancers...) |
9/25/09 09:43 am - In BrugesWell, I'm on the train to London where I'll hop onto Eurostar to Bruges. Quick weekend stag-do-which-isn't (because he married 18 months ago). Should be fun though the big food & wine expert of the crowd has dropped out, which is a a shame. Shall try to take pretty pictures. BTW, "in bruges" - the film - is recommended. |
9/22/09 09:53 am - DilbertToday's Dilbert features wisdom from the boss character, I like it. Or maybe I'm in a good mood because I enjoyed Elise Harris' latest siliness. |
9/1/09 03:51 pm - Alan Turing PetitionI studied computer science at university. Being a young kind of science, it doesn't have that many geniuses of its own. Arguably there's just the one who everyone recognizes, and his name is Alan Turing. He worked at Bletchley Park with the other code-breakers who were probably critical to letting Britain survive nazi attacks and the eventual defeat of the nazis in the second world war. Before that, though, he came up with the notion of a Turing Machine, which was really the first idea of a general programmable computer - like the one you're using to read this. He also came up with the Turing Test of artificial intelligence.Anyway, the sad part is that he was homosexual, which was a crime back in 1952. He was convicted for it and forced to take drugs for the condition (including female hormones). He ended up killing himself. There has never been any official apology for the terrible treatment of a man who saved countless lives and made key contributions to his country and the world's future. There's currently a petition on the "Number 10" website and I'd encourage Brits to sign it. |
8/10/09 03:08 pm - Paranormal Romance?Phew. The amazon seller I ordered a book from seems OK - they sent me "Dead to the World" instead of "From Dead to Worse" from the True Blood series. It is an easy mistake to make. Looks like they'll send me the right one with a reply-paid envelope, which is ideal.Just reading Caitlin Kittredge's "Street Magic". I'm taking a long time over it because I tend to read in bed but I've been tired enough recently to only get through a handful of pages each night. It's a bit off my usual track because for once it probably does fit under the heading "paranormal romance" which Borders (UK only?) have decided to use for urban fantasy, among other things. I much prefer "The Lady and the Vamp", the label that Waterstone's use. So it's amazing I read it, but I was reading Caitlin on LJ and just decided to order it when the stack of books-to-read got low. Not only does it feature a muscly male on the cover, along with a girl, but not really inviting male reading, but it's also an american author writing british characters in London. It's never going to quite work, but somehow I've ended up reading it as fantasy and I've not been too put off by the odd silliness; it's fun and I can forgive a fun book a lot. It's also pretty creepy - I was a bit restless last night and got up in the middle of night to read for a bit, and was a bit scared. I was sitting in the extension though, with all the unfamiliar noises and windows. It should probably be labelled "paranormal gothic slightly-horrory romance". Anyway, Richelle Mead's "Succubus Heat" is next to read and they're fabulous books. |
7/30/09 03:02 pm - Death's DaughterFinished reading Amber Benson's latest book, Death's Daughter, a few days ago. I enjoyed it - it's very lightweight and comedic, kind of asking to be a comic really, more consciously frothy than the usual Urban Fantasy that it could otherwise be grouped with. Pretty good stuff. |
7/27/09 07:51 pm - Music againAnother victory for the iPhone - arrived safely at Norwich Arts Centre with no printed map, just glances at phone at traffic lights. Even directed me from car park to venue. Of course, having someone else use it would have been that bit safer. And now I've got a toy to play with while I wait. I guess I should google the support... |
7/27/09 04:16 amUp at 4am with lemsip. Cold. Nasty cough, sneezing, general bunged-up-ness of the brain. Suspect I'm not going to work tomorrow. Not bad news, thought on Friday that the cough could be flu. |
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