Inside the mind of Delphine, a Caribbean mongrel
Thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing-Boing for linking to this incredible site, which features album art from Brazilian pop LPs from the 60s, along with MP3s of selected tracks.
And this also from Cory: who knew Gilberto Gil was a free software advocate?
Technorati Tags: Brazil, bossanova, music, gilbertogil, albumart, samba
Lots of posts and lots of acknowledgments today, but couldn’t forget to thank Henry Shukman for his treatise on procrastination in yesterday’s Guardian, which we perused while avoiding working on that bunch of articles we’ve been sitting on this past month.
It includes, among other things, a possible explanation as to why Marcel Proust was photographed so frequently with chin in hand.
Technorati Tags: Proust, procrastination, writing, literature
“It’s always seemed curious to me that commentators and journalists - people who write every day and who presumably know something about the practice of putting words on paper - should make such an elementary error as to think that spelling and punctuation and other such surface elements of language are ‘the basics’. These, and deeper features of language such as grammar, are things you can correct at proof stage, at the very last minute, and we all do that very thing, every day. But how can something you can alter or correct at that late point possibly be basic? What’s truly basic is something that has to be in place much earlier on: an attitude to the language, to work, to the world itself.”
Thanks, Philip Pullman, for saying it better than we ever could dream of doing.
Everybody else is thanking “Matt from Oddio” for the bookmarklet which automates the tedious process of creating Technorati tags (which are all the rage at the moment), so we’ll be polite too: Thanks, Matt, and thank you Boing Boing for letting us know about it.
Technorati Tags: technorati, tags, bookmarklet
Like interesting music, in the electro/ambient/jazz vein? Understand a bit of French? Do both? Then take a look at PODvains, a blog/podcast showcasing all sorts of cool tunes, plus links to how you can assume legal ownership of the stuff.
The housemate subscribed to the audio feed some time ago but is only now listening to the tracks as a playlist. She’s smiling and nodding occasionally, which is always a good sign.
Since we reformatted the iMac and reinstalled iPodderX earlier this week, iTunes is once again filled with the dross (and the occasional gold nugget) which iPodderX downloads so indiscriminately when the AutoCheck feature is activated. Problem is, iPodderX doesn’t allow you to preview the content of RSS feeds before you download them, so you either have to go directly to the feed source for a description or spend minutes each day winnowing the crud downloaded into iTunes.
That’s why we’re loving the new NetNewsWire 2.0 beta, which incorporates the ability to view descriptions of audio (ie podcast) feeds (in cases where podcasters have the decency to include them!) before downloading.
Of course the new beta will also download automatically and send to iTunes (as iPodderX does) if you tell it. Another nice feature is its ability to add a genre tag–say, “Podcast”–automatically to the feed, which is useful if you use Smart Playlists to organise your feeds.
Technorati Tags: NetNewsWire, iPodderX, podcast, audio, feed, iTunes
Housemates, please take note.
Been out of commission for the past several days since the housemate abandoned me and went off to Barbados over the weekend, very likely on some drunken binge, taking the iBook and leaving strict instructions not to touch the iMac (some technical problem, since rectified).
On her return she sat me down and lectured me on my “attitude”, then showed me these obscene photos, taken on some awful beach on the south coast.
Apparently I’m supposed to emulate this poor sod, who, from the look of it, was having a dandy moment alone with his owner until a bunch of humans came along and spoiled things. Note the creature’s body language: the arched back, the ears laid flat against the head (gestures I myself have honed to a fine science over the years). Does this look like a dog who wishes to be petted by strangers?
I reminded her that I don’t do leashes and that the occasional bath or frolic in the rain was quite enough for this mongrel, thank you.
Then on Tuesday the housemate was having a bad day and begged me to accompany her to the beach. She seemed pretty low, so I agreed to let myself be leashed, tossed into the back seat of the Honda Civic and hauled off to Chaguaramas (so much for principles, eh?). Once there, I let myself be led to the water’s edge, where I entered the ocean for the first time in my life.
Words cannot explain. Suddenly, I felt connected to every organism on earth–even the plastic bags, snack wrappers and the mossy rubber slipper on the sea-bed seemed like they had a right to be there.
Of course I couldn’t let the housemate know how much I’d enjoyed it, so on the way back I tugged at the leash and acted like my usual stubborn self. But there’s talk of another beach jaunt later this week. . . with swimming.
Audible.com is offering members a free audio download of Lecture Two in the Library of Congress Series on the Digital Future.
Listened to Lecture One, starring David Weinberger, the other day, and it was terrific.
