ps - i walked past the guy that buys the racing form yesterday when i was getting coffee.
“Sacha van Loo, 36, is not your typical cop. He wields a white cane instead of a gun. And from the purr of an engine on a wiretap, he can discern whether a suspect is driving a Peugeot, a Honda or a Mercedes.
Van Loo is one of Europe’s newest weapons in the global fight against terrorism and organized crime: a blind Sherlock Holmes, whose disability allows him to spot clues sighted detectives don’t see.”
(↝via new shelton wet dry)
Hacks Shall Overcome
Have you read any of the news stories about the Writers’ Guild strike? The mayor of LA told culturally-sensitive SoCal newspaper ‘La Times’ a WGA strike &emdash; a walkout by the people who make shit up for a living &emdash; could cost L.A. one billion dollars. I wonder if that’s true in any real sense, like how large is the US ‘imaginary goods’ market as a percentage of the GDP?
I like to picture all these actors standing around like the strike happened in the middle of filming a scene. Like the A.D.A. on Law and Order is standing across a desk from a sassy detective, panic-stricken: “What do I say? WHAT DO I SAY!!!”
The New York Times resorts to sensationalist scare journalism: “In the wee hours, late-night hosts would probably have to spend a lot of time winging it.”
I think part of the disorienting feeling of reading about it in the news is the combination of the journalistic house styles with 20th century IWW rhetoric, and then realizing that what we’re talking about is the fact that reruns and reality shows may replace Heroes for a few weeks while the writers push for a 5-series to 7-series BMW upgrade across the board. From the AP: “‘I’m willing to put my family on the line for what’s right,” said Mick Betancourt, a writer on the NBC show ‘Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.’ Betancourt has a 4-year-old son and a baby due in December but says he is ready to walk a picket line if asked to do so.”
Further down in that same article the AP brings us another blistering dispatch from the class war:
“The CBS sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’ was asked by 20th Century Fox Television to shoot an extra episode during a planned production break last week. ‘It simply would have been impossible, so we said no. That was pretty much where it started and ended,” said Jamie Rhonheimer, a writer-producer on the series.The capitalist fatcats in LA won’t make tools of oppression from HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER! Not on Jamie Rhonheimer’s watch anyway! I hope all the showrunners get together and start writing folk songs where like Norm from Cheers and the Desperate Housewives join together in a noble struggle to smash the state.
When it gets down to it—talking trade balances here—once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here—once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel—once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity—y’know what? There’s only four things we do better than anyone else
- music
- movies
- microcode (software)
- high-speed pizza delivery
Errr…pretty sure the high-speed pizza delivery is better in India now. “Perhaps you would like some ice cold Pepsi to accompany your meal, Mr. Jeb, or a portion of garlic bread with cheese?” CallerID right into the CRM system.
the perils of futurism.
I’m curious about some of the non-famous writers that are involved in the strike. Has anyone seen an income distribution chart for the members?
The error page Safari displays when it can’t find a server now has a Google search field populated with the domain you were searching for.
Perhaps this was in the Safari 3 beta I never installed as well.
yah it is in the beta, because I see it and don’t have leopard.
New York's Alright If You Like...
Quote from a promo email I got today for a new album:
in the words of Vice Magazine, “the favorite guitarist of every musician you like in New York. He’s like the New York music geek world’s secret weapon.”
Hmmmmm.
“Mikey Bones delivers on the promise of a Jerz dude channeling pure insight.” Phew…its been exhausting being the main Jerz dude channeling pure insight around here. Now I can start cutting my insight with baby laxative and spending the profits on bass.
it’s kind of scary that this release party/show/whatever is happening right now about 7 blocks away.
Embedded Flash MP3 Players
Why are there so few nice looking free embedded flash mp3 players? The new one on Tumblr brought this to my attention. It is fairly plain, but looks much nicer than some of the other options[1]. The nicest and most visible one out there is Jeroen Wigering’s JW MP3 Player, but it is rather large and has a specific look and feel that probably wouldn’t work on this site.
Honestly the commercial options aren’t much better.
My personal favorite is the minimalist Bleep proprietary player. In a smart move they allow you to embed any track that is sold in their store on your site, but you can’t use the player to embed files from other sources.
Side note: the new Bug 12” (with Kode9 remix) that I am linking to here is a killer. More Kevin Martin material is on the way on Hyperdub soon.
1: This link is surprisingly up-to-date with regards to options considering it is over 2 years old.
Why are there so few nice looking free embedded flash mp3 players?
people have terrible taste?
also I really don’t understand the lack of volume control on all of these.
also also why does the bleep player stop every 30 seconds?
Yep, it’s not perfect. The blinking arrow is a bit much for me.
Time to make a new one I guess.
Can we add a donation link to buy a copy of Flash? It’s only $699.95.
that is the second time a contributor to this blog has asked me something about buying Flash today. Also, straight outta the feedreader: “Post up to one MP3 audio file per day. It will play back in a sleek Flash Audio Player. Nothing you don’t have permission to share, please.” –New Tumblr thing that waxy linked.
didn’t ry link that tumblr thing in this very post?
I can’t read.
(↝via simon grant via stephen fry via tim bray via ry)
Intense.
funny – his description of dos is more accurate for *nix oses these days.
I gotta say, when I posted this and thought about possible reactions, “responding to argument on its merits” was not one I ranked highly.
I still think a lot of IA is bunk
Couple empirical-data-backed arguments that the whole “Userss don’t scroll” rule is BS: from boxes and arrows and the clicktale blog.