xmas

Mark Simpson – Fairytale of New York – “A bit of Christmas cheer and festive spirit ends in near disaster.” yes yes, xmas is one of the times of the year, during which i wish i could still drink alcohol, helas …

bytelove – lifestyle – i want everything on this page for xmas, especially the ice invaders ice tray and the periodic table shower curtain, kkthxbye.

handjob – or ok ok, maybe a handjob [via b3ta]

online video killed the …

Truth in Advertising – “a great story about how a marketing campaign is made.” [via b3ta]

Killing In The Climb – “Everyone is fighting over which is better – Joe from X Factor with The Climb, or Rage Against The Machine with Killing In The Name.”

Homeless Guy ‘Mustard’ Sings Radiohead’s Creep – “If there’s any homeless person who deserves a moment in the spotlight, a huge royalty check, or even just a warm place to sleep, it’s Mustard” fucking sign this guy already.

schmooze and abuse

Interview: At Climate Talks, Thom Yorke Calls for Pay-What-You-Owe Economy – “It’s not enough,” Yorke said of the UK’s proposed emissions cuts. “But the political pressure they’re feeling, that’s very obvious. Hopefully something will come from that in the next 24 hours.” yeh you, thom.

The Simpsons turns 20 today – "Twenty years ago today, the first full-length episode of The Simpsons — known as The "Christmas Special" — aired on television." and i remember it like it was yesterday.

Why are the Alps getting taller? – "The Alps grow because they swim in the Earths mantle. Mountains like the Matterhorn or the Zugspitze lose one meter of stone every 1000-2000 years" and to think we used to have this slogan “weg mit den alpen, freie sicht aufs mittelmeer!”, not a chance then.

FREE For All – "Viewed from the side, the structure looks like a forty-four-foot-long stringed instrument, but from the front, it clearly spells one evocative word: FREE." for some bloody reason i now have the horrible geaorge michael song stuck in my head, “freedom, freedom… You’ve gotta give for what you take…” oh brother.

Un-Facebook Yourself – "Sometimes, social networking is just a bit too social. If you're feeling vulnerable on Facebook, the web's biggest social hangout, you can easily take control over who can see your information."

Swiss Mountain House Rocks! – "this unusual house plan is the collaboration between the Netherlands architects at SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects. This underground home, located in the Swiss village of Vals, is set amidst a cluster of mountain houses and if you don’t look carefully you might miss it!" want! someone make me rich fast so i can build one.

Announcing bit.ly Pro – "Today we’re pleased to announce a new service: bit.ly Pro. The Pro service provides custom short URLs powered by bit.ly. Publishers and bloggers will be able to use their own short domain names to point to pages on their sites" thats a bit.ly pro. see what i did there?

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

at home i started to listen to it and googled the tracklist online, wanting to check what albums some tracks are on. but what did i see? EMI has released this greatest hits album without the band’s consent.

EMI are set to feel Radiohead’s wrath once more following the news that they are to release a greatest hits album to coincide with the band’s summer world tour.

The news follows the release of EMI Radiohead box set last December to coincide with the release of ‘In Rainbows’.

Ed O’Brien told Canadian music-TV presenter Strombo: “They’re planning to do a greatest hits for April, May to coincide with our tour. That’s an interesting one. We won’t be doing any promotion for that, obviously.”

However, while the band are obviously not too happy with the release they are resigned to the fact that they can’t do anything about it.

Phil Selway added: “It’s well within their rights to do it. So we’ll have to see.”

darn. i feel like an idiot for buying the record now.

on a different note. here’s a excellent radiohead mashup some guy did: “I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.” the result is stunning:

Big Ideas (Don’t get any)

easter

the untold story … – and that’s about all i have to say re: easter holiday. oh wait, maybe this:

Google’s Top 17 Easter Eggs, Gags, and Hoaxes – “Google makes your life easier with great search, but did you also know it’s loaded with pranks, goofs, and put-ons? We show you the best of the bunch.”

twitter

colorwar 2008 – “And now it has gone haywire. I regret having caused a day of spam…but…”

S.F. Activists Use Twitter, Pirate Radio to Manage Anti-War Protesters – “San Francisco anti-war protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq are using the micro-blogging service Twitter to coordinate their movements throughout the day.”

Twitter / bedtime – little stories people post on twitter just before going to bed. [via ze frank]

online video has killed the …

Michael Jackson – Trifon Aleksandrov – this video has me chuckling all morning already. “A guy doing his own interpretation of Michael Jackson’s song “Bad” during the Bulgarian “Music Idol” TV show. He didn’t make it to the final.”

The Profit – The movie Scientology doesnt want you to see. – “Years ago, in 2001, several film directors worked on a documentary called “The Profit”, indirectly telling the story about how the Scientology came to be what it is today. Before it could be released, the CoS managed to get it banned, even after it claimed that it was totally unrelated to Scientology. But now it has been leaked. See for yourself.”

The Creation of a Character – truely great stop motion animation. i especially love waht it says on the sign the character holds up towards the end. [via b3ta]

Miranda July: How to Make a Button – “This instructional video was made for us by Miranda July, a lady from California who writes short funny stories that are sometimes sad and occasionally sort of weirdly hot.”

Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Last Message – “Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a giant in the science fiction genre and early proponent of the geosynchronous satellite orbit, has died. Recently, Sir Arthur videotaped his reflections on his 90th birthday, in which he talked about the future of space travel and more.”

“Hot Hot Sex” Video Removed from YouTube – “After weeks of criticism from YouTube commenters, the creator of the popular fan-made “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” video finally pulled it offline.”

Test Your Awareness: Do The Test – “Test your awareness. Transport for London has released an Advert for commuters to test their awareness by taking the test.” [via habi]

schmooze and abuze

World of Warcraft Shines Light on Terror Tactics – “Virtual terrorists blowing themselves up and spreading disease inside World of Warcraft could provide counterterrorists with a window into real-world plots.”

Spiritually uplifting courthouse installation of Flying Spaghetti Monster – “People of all religious denominations will be overjoyed to learn that a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was installed on the Cumberland County Courthouse Lawn in Crossville, Tennessee today.”

Think Periodically – “Out of my interest for Chemistry and my heritage I chose to get his tattoo done almost a year ago.”

mildly sleazy uses of facebook – “clearly, we should have sex.”

Australian Man Gunned Down in Driveway by Killer Robot – “An 81-year-old Australian man has shot himself dead with an elaborate suicide robot built using plans he downloaded from the Internet.”

The Many Views of Abbey Road – “It’s such an iconic image that whenever you see a group walking single file on a zebra crossing, you automatically think of Abbey Road. It’s been imitated, honored, lampooned, and recreated by countless artists.”

Billboard Liberation Front’s talk at Vooruit, Ghent – “i was in Ghent for the festival The Game is Up! at the Vooruit. Artists who study the relationship between art and consumerism were invited to perform, and present their work to explore this year’s theme: Art for Sale.”

The Pirate Bay to BBC: We Don’t Want To Be Information Slaves – “The BBC has published a podcast which takes a look at piracy through the ages, also covering the modern concept of ‘intellectual property’. Of course, no story of piracy would be complete without discussing The Pirate Bay”

Pirates – BBC podcast – “Pirates are not just peg-legs, parrots and pistols. In this three part series, Nick Rankin finds out how they have adapted to changing times.”

Japan appoints cartoon cat named Doraemon as ambassador to promote animation – “Japan has created an unusual government post to promote animation, and named a perfect figure to the position: a popular cartoon robot cat named Doraemon.”

Interview: Perplex City Creators Craft ‘We Tell Stories’ – “Penguin has challenged some of its top authors to create new forms of story – designed specially for the internet…”

We Tell Stories – story told as a sort of online game.

Battlestar Galactica Streams Into Season 4 – “The wait for season four is almost over, though, and BSG junkies can get their fix online 10 hours before the show airs on TV. The final season premiere will stream live on SciFi.com from noon to 1 p.m. April 4 — get your lunch orders in now.”

Tibet Protest Photos 080315 – a collection of photos and videos covering the protests in tibet.

In Rainbows Music Video Contest Judged by Radiohead in conjunction with aniBoom – “It’s the perfect match between revolutionary music and the mind blowing possibilities of animation. The *In Rainbows Music Video Contest* judged by Radiohead is here.”

Radiohead Launches In Rainbows Video Contest – “Radiohead has invited fans to create animated videos for any of the songs on the band’s groundbreaking In Rainbows album, and you don’t even need to be an animation expert to enter.”

espacio+coches.jpg – amount of space required to transport the same amount of people.

Street Art At It’s Best #2 – indeed!

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funky maps

Gracenote: Music Maps – “the popularity map shows snapshots of current top artists and album charts by geographical location.” [via bb]

World Map with Countries Distorted to Represent Relative Population – “What the world would look like if population determined the size of the countries. Guess who’s the biggest, and no, its not Antarctica.”

The Most Beautiful Planetary Maps Ever – “These are, quite simply, the coolest planetary maps I’ve ever seen.”

Number Of Inhabitants Per Doctor – i am actually surprised to see switzerland not having the highest ratio. [via neatorama]

music. should it be free or not?

Radiohead sign ‘conventional’ record deal – “Radiohead have signed a deal with British indie label XL Recordings for the physical release of ‘In Rainbows’.”

Radiohead Verschwörungstheorie Wahnsinn: OK In Computer Rainbows – “Es gibt die Verschwörungstheorie „TENspiracy“, die genau das behauptet und sagt: „In Rainbows“ formt zusammen mit „OK Computer“ das Über-Album „01 and 10“.” erm. [via rho]

Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK – “I think it’s just an awkward time right now to be a musician. The reality is that people think it’s okay to steal music. There’s a whole generation of people, that’s all they’ve known.”

oink.cd – the number 1 site in the world for waffle recipes – “These are the waffles that taste really good according to google.” clever.

graffiti

Jesus Christ! – sweet jesus, what a nice graffiti. [via wooster]

Fresh Stuff From Banksy in Bethnal Green – tired roller guy taking a well deserved break after painting a lovely flower onto the wall.

schmooze and abuze

World’s best bottoms – “Two winners are awarded the hotly-contested title of the “world’s most beautiful bottom”: 19-year-old Kristina Dimitrova from Bulgaria and Andrei Andrei aged 24 from Romania.” now, if ever, it may be allowed to say “nice ass”.

Chocolate Keyboard – “so, it’s just chocolate keyboard ” awesome, until you start thinking about using one. [via neatorama]

Pac-Txt: Pac-Man meets Zork – “I had just got back from a party where the concept of a Pac-Man + Zork hybrid came up as a joke. So, being 2am with a little alcohol in my system, I thought it’d be funny to code it up (as far as I could before collapsing).” [via waxy]

David Lynch and psychosis – “Lynch’s dark and mysterious films can be seen to draw upon-and to inform-concepts in modern clinical approaches to psychology, especially the psychology of psychosis.” the film disturbed me so much, i couldn’t watch it to the end. this may expain it.

WoWInterface Downloads : Hello Kitty Island Adventure – “Well here you have it, the hello kitty UI” zomfg, that’s too silly.

21 – a film by laura plotkin – “in the aftermath of 9/11 many violent and racist attacks occurred through out the USA. 21 quickly and succinctly chronicles Niomi, a Brooklyn resident who recalls being brutally accosted ten days after the twin towers collapsed.”

Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president – “If elected president, Barack Obama plans to prioritize, well, barring broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast from prioritizing Internet content.”

World’s Worst Suicide Hotline – “please press 1 if you are definitely going to kill yourself.”

swiss focus

The LIFT price – laurent explains the price of LIFT. i best not say a word, or receive huge aggro again.

Berner Medientag » 17. Medientag – “Hilfe, die Zürcher kommen! Wie weiter nach dem Tamedia-Deal?”

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take off panties and shirts as protest and such

Women’s panties threaten Burmese Junta – “The Burmese military is facing an unexpected threat from female opponents to its regime – a deluge of panties dispatched to the country’s embassies in a “culturally insulting gesture of protest” against its recent crackdown on protestors.”

No Shirts at Improv Everywhere – “For our latest mission, 111 men of all shapes and sizes shopped shirtless in the Abercrombie and Fitch store on 5th Avenue here in New York.”

Police: Pantless Man Claims Leprechaun Opened Door – “A man was caught Tuesday morning inside a car with his pants down. Leblanc told them he had done drugs and believed that a leprechaun had let him into the car.”

how to of the week

How To Wash Your Hands – “Which brings us back to the main point of this post: How to Wash Your Hands.”

online video killed the …

Absolutely Hilarious Bathroom Mirror Prank Video – “This prank is absolutely hilarious. Replace the mirror in a bathroom with a window pane, place a set of identical twins in identical rooms opposite each other and proceed to prank everyone who walks in.”

Bad day at work – “Bad day at work and you thought this was a kick back job.”

reboiled: a social network for two – that brilliant ze frank’s song now animated.

radiohead cd

why P2P can be a hard habit to break – “Radiohead’s innovative digital distribution arrangement for their new album, In Rainbows, lets people pay whatever they want for the music, including nothing at all. Despite that, BitTorrent swapping of the album has been on the level of other major releases.”

Please Buy “In Rainbows” On CD. Please. – “Radiohead’s much-debated decision to let fans choose what they pay for its new album online is a promotional tactic to boost sales of compact discs, the band’s management said yesterday.”

schmapple

Apple to open up iPhone software – “Apple boss Steve Jobs has said that outside developers will now be allowed to make add-on software for the iPhone.” is this just like he promised to make apple greener?

Mac OS X Leopard – 300+ New Features – the new OS comes with some impressive new gimmicks.

iPhone’s hazardous chemicals – “Scientific tests, arranged by Greenpeace, reveal that Apple’s iPhone contains hazardous chemicals. The tests uncovered two types of hazardous substances, some of which have already been eliminated by other mobile phone makers.”

schmooze and abuse

A Bona Fide Stephen Colbert Presidential Candidacy Might Be a Bona Fide Violation of Federal Law – “does he know that if he succeeds in using his show to help him score a slot on South Carolina ballots as a bona fide 2008 contender, he’ll also violate federal campaign law?” Colbert for President!

Cubicle Freakout – Vent your office stress – frenetic cubicle game, i was told to: “take the rest of the day off. the internet told you so”. ok then… that’s ofc what i like to hear.

A Times Square Pedestrian arrested for standing around – “observed defendant along with a number of other individuals standing around” on a public sidewalk in June 2004. Mr. Jones was “not moving, and that as a result of defendants’ behavior, numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around defendant”. soon: minimal speed limits while walking in crowded areas.

Viacom opens up Daily Show archive – “Viacom has put online the entire eight year archive of its top rating comedy series, Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a move which will be closely watched by all the major networks, advertisers, telcos and the burgeoning new media video industry.” the battle is on.

Phone Fingers – “Our Phone Fingers are made for iPhone’s touch screen to prevent smudges and fingerprints. With the Phone Fingers you won’t have to clean your touch screen all the time and it’s an eye catcher too.” while i agree smudge on touch screens is gross, i hope this is not serious.

Guns for Girls and Glamorous Weaponry! – a hello kitty AK-47. is this sad or mad?

Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime – “If you had 2-hours a day to devote to no-cost, off-blog (even off-line) marketing for your blog, what would you do?” I posed this very question to a collection of some of the world’s top bloggers and social network marketers… and here’s what they revealed:” the most stunning conclusion, they all said something completely different.

STRIDA – elegant, if odd looking folding bike. [via swissmiss]

Global hunt for child-sex suspect – “Interpol had appealed for public help after experts unscrambled digitally-swirled internet photos of the suspect.”

Aaron Hobson – great, dark, cinematic photography series [via rebel:art]

BBC online to go free over wi-fi – “The BBC’s online services will be made available free of charge at thousands of wi-fi hotspots around the UK.”

Rebel Nuns Evicted From Polish Convent – “Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns Wednesday from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after defying a Vatican order to replace their mother superior, a charismatic leader who had religious visions. Several nuns, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s, screamed at police, calling them “servants of Satan,” as they were escorted out and into waiting buses.”

swiss/german focus

Miss Syl & H1- – upcoming exhibit at buro discount: rockets and outer space. opens 27.10.

The LIFT08 program explained – “Tonight we announced the 2008 program at an event with the local members of the LIFT community, and here is a short rundown of what will happen for those who couldn’t be here.”

D*Face vs. Chapman Brothers – “Mainstream-Künstler klauen Idee eines Underground-Künstlers.”

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and that’s tomotherfuckingday. weee…

their last album, hail to the thief, was a bit of a dissappointment not so much for the music, but for the copy control they implemented onto the CD. it was a huge let down coming from a band who always seemed to stand so strongly for independance and integrity and had always valued its fans. all of a sudden we the fans were treated like potential pirates.

well, it was fantastic news to read this morning that radiohead is selling their new album, in rainbows, through a donations-based system, that lets the buyer decide what price the want to pay, no really, it’s up to you. the download can be pre-ordered, that is, and of course i instantly did this, now to patiently wait till october 10. when the downloads will get available. and we’ll see what type of mp3s we get, drm, quality, etc…