Microlog
Microlog entries posted in March 2005
The entire Dischord catalog, including albums long out of print on CD/LP, will soon be available for digital downloading
iTunes already has most of them. Must… resist… temptation! Permalink ·
White Stripes record new album in 10 days
Ten days? Big deal! The Huskers recorded Zen Arcade in three days — and that was a double album, too. Permalink ·
Hybrid CSS Dropdowns (A List Apart #197)
Something for the summer redesign, maybe. Permalink ·
Developing Dashboard Widgets for OS X Tiger
Doesn’t look very difficult at all. Just time consuming for someone like me. And of course I’d have to upgrade to Tiger, which I don’t see happening for a while. Permalink ·
“The Web is not really a web after all. It is a list of lists.” [c/o kottke.org]
Permalink ·
Pupils ‘do worse with computers’
Another one for the ‘I coulda told ya that’ file. Permalink ·
The Egg Cream Racket [c/o The Morning News]
I need to print this one out. Not to mention try one of these mysterious egg creams. Permalink ·
Jack Mottram on being barred from photographing an exhibition that “utilises the function of a gallery as a public and social space for engaging with creative ideas”
Arf! Permalink ·
Sokwanele: This is Zimbabwe [c/o Guardian Onlineblog]
Ahead of tomorrow’s ‘election’ I give you this, to contemplate. Permalink ·
What’s the weather like in Dublin?
Miserable few days ahead. Bugger. (Good link, though.) Permalink ·
Ceefax.tv: BBC and RTE teletext online [c/o Interconnected]
It’s completely searchable and clickable, too. Fantastic. Permalink ·
Select winners from the Society for News Design’s 26th Creative Competition
Some very nice designs here; something to inspire the design for the class magazine that I’m supposed to be working on right now. Permalink ·
Mike Watt is taking the Secondmen to Dublin on May 12th!
Hot damn! Watt’s first ever headline show in Ireland! I am so there! Permalink ·
Devo’s “Whip It”, in Powerpoint-style outline format
Permalink ·
The Guardian’s Editor briefing of this week’s general election in Zimbabwe
Permalink ·
Judging a city to live in: distilled to two primary elements
With regard to his second element, I fail to understand how a gated public transport system indicates a lack of trust by the government in its people: government or no, left to their own devices most people are cheating bastards. Installation of gates does not mean that anyone is ‘scared’, of lost revenue or whatever: some societies are just more honest than others. Consider, for just one example, those newspaper vending machines common to the streets of larger cities throughout North America; I can guarantee they wouldn’t last a day on the streets of Dublin. Permalink ·
FreeMind: free mind-mapping software, written in Java [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
I don’t like the way it slapped a folder into my user root directory, but it may yet prove useful enough to earn my forgiveness. Permalink ·
Opposition fears Zimbabwe vote is already lost
Considering Mugabe and his Zanu-PF cronies, it’s amazing how people can be so unscrupulously selfish. Permalink ·
Google News source index [c/o Fimoculuous]
That’s a lot of sources. Permalink ·
The Ko Chang Cure, an unpublished piece by Mat Honan
Mat blogs even less often than I do these days. I miss his stuff, of which this is a great example. (If I published a magazine — and I will someday! — this is the kind of thing I’d want.) Permalink ·
Mike Watt’s “Burstedman” Quicktime video
Direct download link here. If you’re on dial-up, be warned; it’s over 40MB. Permalink ·
The Fox Blocker
This came around months ago, but I never linked to it at the time. Permalink ·
Eye Magazine profiles type designers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones [c/o kottke.org]
Permalink ·
Clocky is a clock for people who have trouble getting out of bed [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Oh my fucking God. Where do I begin? There’s no visible clock, for starters! This, ladies and gents, is the kind of thing on which the Irish Government spent millions of taxpayers’ money before they pulled the plug on Media Lab Europe a few months ago. Permalink ·
Ireland has apologised to a Nigerian student deported months before he was due to sit his final school exams
This story has been all over the news here. There are, of course, two sides to this, and a lot of the ‘facts’ can’t be substantiated. But what is clear is that this man had a job and was going to school, which is more than I can say of many who were born here Permalink ·
Zionism is moral, not military, says activist convicted of blocking West Bank bulldozers
Permalink ·
Banksy improves some of New York’s finest museums [c/o plasticbag.org]
It’s boring when it’s political, but the soup can is simply sublime. Permalink ·
Doogie Howser, M.D. was the first blogger
This is nothing short of brilliant! Permalink ·
Notes from the Folksonomy discussion panel at O’Reilly Etech 2005
Permalink ·
Lynn Barber’s fascinating interview with the ‘human Google’, cuttings librarian Edda Tasiemka
Permalink ·
Welcome to Mugabeland, where hope wilts in the sun
A longish piece from this week’s Observer on Zimbabwe’s saddening decline. Permalink ·
The Zimbabwean [c/o Guardian Newsblog]
This will be one to watch. And a nice clean design too, courtesy of The Guardian. Permalink ·
Five MPs from South Africa’s ruling African National Congress have received fines of up to $14,000 and suspended jail terms for corruption
Good news! Maybe now more people will see that the ANC is no longer Mandela’s party. Permalink ·
An Israeli court has charged Mordechai Vanunu with violating the terms of his release from jail last year
“Israel insists Vanunu still poses a security threat.” Is that so? And here I was thinking anything he does know is from almost 20 years ago, and therefore hopelessly outdated. Permalink ·
Why South Africa does not criticise Mugabe
Permalink ·
Chump change: a brilliantly scathing review of 50 Cent’s new album
Here’s a gem for you: “[50 Cent] is no big shakes as a rapper, but as a lyricist he’s a disaster. He can’t do metaphors - at one juncture he claims to have the dancefloor ‘hot as a tea kettle’ - and his idea of humour involves referring to fellatio as ‘licking the lollipop’. He can’t even insult people properly … He calls Fat Joe fat, which, given that he already calls himself fat, seems unlikely to sting the very core of his being. Fat Joe himself is hardly among hip-hop’s rapier wits - his wildly varied oeuvre includes Shit Is Real, Dat Gangsta Shit, We Run This Shit and Shit Is Real Part 2.” Permalink ·
Bill Bryson answers your questions about A Short History of Nearly Everything
I never did listen to the live lecture I linked about before, so this will have to make do, until I ever do. Permalink ·
The Simpsons Body Count [c/o The Morning News]
It’s a conspiracy I tells ya! Permalink ·
The Case for Comics Journalism
I linked to Joe Sacco’s special for The Guardian a couple of weeks ago; this short but smart article gives some context to it. Permalink ·
Oblique Strategies for Mac OS X
(By way of the fertile mind of Brian Eno.) How could I say no? It’s free! And I might even use it. Permalink ·
Eno’s Music for Airports
A good introduction to Eno’s ambient music. I’ve got the fourth in the series, On Land, and I’d recommend it to anybody. Permalink ·
The Onion’s Irish-Heritage Timeline
Ha ha ha, and all that. Permalink ·
The New York Times on Harley Race’s wrestling school [c/o Bob Mould]
Everybody’s going old school all of a sudden. Next thing they’ll be bringing back rounds. Permalink ·
Drag and Drop Images and Layers, using DHTML and Javascript [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Just when you think you’ve seen it all… Permalink ·
Essential Fonts for Designers [c/o del.icio.us/magnetbox]
Sshhhh, don’t tell anybody. Permalink ·
Google News now customisable
Permalink ·
Hyperlinks in Print: David Foster Wallace in The Atlantic Monthly
If you want a copy of the PDF mentioned, send me an e-mail at the usual address. Permalink ·
Hyperlinks in Print: Examining the Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design Directory
Impressive. I like this trend towards microdetails that visualise and contextualise text. Permalink ·
Scientists may have found what makes a tune catchy, after locating the brain area where a song’s “hook” gets caught
Whenever I get a bad tune stuck in my head, I use Steve Albini’s advice: just play Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’ in your head, and all will be well again. (It’s the utter shapelessness of the song that makes it work. Or something.) Permalink ·
Damon Galgut’s The Good Doctor is in the running for this year’s Impac award
If he wins it would be well-deserved. The Good Doctor is an excellent book, sadly overlooked in the Booker Prize shuffle of 2003. (The only shortlisted novels I ever saw on front display that year were Ali’s, Atwood’s and DBC Pierre’s.) Permalink ·
Society for News Design contest winners database [c/o NewsDesigner.com]
I don’t know about you, but none of the images are loading for me right now. Permalink ·
Bill Bryson will deliver a lecture on A Short History of Nearly Everything this Thursday
I hope I remember this. I’m still only half-way through the book, but I’m enjoying it very much. Permalink ·
Video for The Futureheads’ Decent Days and Nights
I dunno, it seems a little overdone to me. The original video is much more restrained, it doesn’t distract from the song. But that’s just me. (Be warned, it’s a 44MB download.) Permalink ·
South Africa is to change the name of its capital city, Pretoria, to Tshwane, as part of a move to make place names more African
This isn’t really news, since Tshwane has been the official municipal name for a while now. And Tshwane is semantically appropriate. But making the place more ‘African’? Doesn’t that imply that African-born whites who speak English or Afrikaans can’t call themselves African? By the way, read down through the comments below; there’s some pretty disappointing racism coming from both sides. Permalink ·
Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso is out now on DVD
Back in the mid-’90s I used to read a magazine called Super Play. If you don’t know it, it was an unofficial magazine for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; for those who do, I’m sure you remember it fondly. You see, what was different and special about Super Play was its focus on ‘grey market’ Japanese import games, which went hand in hand with regular reports on other facets of Japanese pop culture like manga and anime — those alluring alien ideas that made each issue compulsive reading for me. I was never a big gamer, but the likes of Super Play, and the irreplaceable Digitiser on Teletext, made me feel like a part of the greater gaming world, appreciating my interest regardless of my lack of skill (and boy, was my skill lacking!) and neither was afraid to step away from the console for a while. It was in Super Play that I first read about Porco Rosso, in a context where it wasn’t too weird to discuss a cartoon about a pig flying a warplane. I still miss Super Play. Permalink ·
Fontsmith discusses the new Channel 4 brand typeface [c/o plasticbag.org]
What a coincidence. I was only last night when I was watching Channel 4 and thought to myself, “I wonder what that font is, it’s very nice.” Permalink ·
Wiki Becomes a Way of Life
I am in their shadow. Permalink ·
A California judge has said that bloggers should not have the same protection afforded to journalists under US law
I’m not sure what to make of this. You can’t go making wild accusations with ‘anonymous’ sources as your only evidence, but these sites in question were reporting responsibly (providing information of public interest, at least to that segment of the public with an interest in technology) and not doing anything different than what a mainstream publication would do (PR embargoes be damned!). Permalink ·
Zimbabwe’s opposition criticises South Africa’s President Mbeki for saying that this month’s elections would be free and fair
Free and fair?! Ha! Permalink ·
New York Public Library: Digital Gallery [c/o MetaFilter]
I’m dumbfounded. Excuse me while I explore here for a few days. Permalink ·
Yahoo! Netrospective: 10 years, 100 moments of the web
Permalink ·
Identity in South Africa: the story of Happy Sindane
Permalink ·
The Observer talks to six authors preparing for the launch of their debut novels
One of them is 72 years old! Goes to show that it’s never too late to start. Permalink ·
The most useful websites for reporters [c/o del.icio.us/merlinmann]
Overwhelmingly US-centric, but there’s lots of valuable stuff here nonetheless. Permalink ·
“With the rapid increase in blog readership that’s occurring, in less than three years the average B-list blogger will get significantly more reader attention than the average US unsyndicated newspaper article or column.”
And: “For the A-list, daily reader attention will be about equal to that of the average US daily paper.” Fair enough, but what does it all mean? Permalink ·
Journalistic.co.uk: the UK digital journalism blog
Yeah yeah, I’m not from the UK, but I’m sure close enough for this to be of use. Permalink ·
Another independent paper shut down in Zimbabwe
Permalink ·
Office Space, starring the Superfriends [c/o MetaFilter]
Permalink ·
Luciferous Logolepsy: A collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. [c/o The Morning News]
Permalink ·
It’s not too late to listen to the Gang Of Four’s BBC radio session and interview with Andy Kershaw from Sunday night (direct link here)
It’ll likely be gone by March 6th, so hurry up! Permalink ·
The Guardian clocks on with some of Britain’s night workers
Another Guardian link, I know, but if it’s worth reading, why not? Permalink ·
Complacency Kills, by Joe Sacco [c/o MetaFilter]
Be warned: it’s a 36MB PDF file. But it’s worth every byte. Permalink ·
About
This is the personal website of MacDara Conroy, a production journalist, music writer and mediavore in Dublin, Ireland. Read more »
Details
This page is a reverse chronology of Microlog entries by MacDara Conroy published in March 2005. You will find many more in the Archives.
Continuum
↑ April 2005
→ March 2005
↓ February 2005