Date: December 2013
An invaluable reference guide, here. I'm rubbish at pitching, myself, as in I haven't yet plucked up the nerve to pitch more widely. Maybe that'll be the next step for 2014. #link
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I love a good cliché, me. #link
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Where there are videos, there will be how-to videos. Some people just love being helpful, even if it's not for expressly altruistic reasons. #link
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Stuck for a codename for your project? Be stuck no more. #link
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"Thirty-six hours on the road — and in the bar — with exiled TV genius Dan Harmon." Though of course now he's exiled no more. But that shouldn't take much away from this interview, conducted while Harmon and co took the Harmontown podcast across America earlier this year (a jaunt that put me months behind on my listening, oy). #link
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He's compiled some of the best writing on the subject so I don't have to. #link
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"The phrase is in fact an insult to almost everyone who has ever struggled with the creative process, and as a teaching tool is liable to do more harm than good. It embraces several dangerous lies: that writer's block is the result, first and foremost, of laziness; that writing (indeed, any creative pursuit) is like any other form of labor; and that how hard you work on something is directly correlated with how good it is." This times infinity. #link
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Some interesting points here; it's easy for a long-time extreme metal listener such as myself to brush aside Cannibal Corpse's grotesquery under the rug of irony, but at the same time it's clear that's an inspiration for the inexcusably everything-ist 'sexually angry death metal' (copyright Jamie Grimes) purveyed by Devourment and their 'slamming' death metal ilk (I'm not even going near pornogrind). #link
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Complete with a sample playlist for the uninitiated. #link
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Eurogamer explores a meta-gaming meme that's pretty much impenetrable for outsiders; much easier to grasp, for me anyway, is the similarly infectious meta-gaming phenomenon that is Divekick. #link
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"Despite the best efforts of Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Swift, et al., there has never been a governing body that approves “correct” English. Unlike French, say, or Japanese, English is an open-source language. Anyone is free to suggest new words or phrases. The only criterion for their success is that users adopt them." And that's why I persist in using 'alright' instead of 'all right'. Alright? #link
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No, 'subeditor' does not mean 'spellchecker'. It means pretty much everything Andy Bodle describes here; it's an often thankless task but one I love doing (provided I'm subbing stuff that's written by someone who cares about what they write). #link
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Good advice here, which ultimately boils down to taking ego out of the situation. Everybody wants their bloody stamp on something, but that's almost always to the detriment of the thing itself, which should be the only focus. Too many cooks spoil the broth. #link
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"Women should be free to talk to whomever they choose and go wherever they want without threat of assault. Men have the choice to either create this freedom, or uphold the threat." The thing is that it feels like everybody needs to be guarded and vigilant but it's only women who seem to get berated with that message, mostly by men, which is funny because the stats are pretty clear. Whenever I feel defensive about this -- you know, I wouldn't walk through town on my own in the middle of the night, there's threat around every corner, whatever -- I have to catch myself and remember that it really is worse for women. I still think anyone who gets so shit-faced drunk that they have no idea what they're getting into is fucking stupid, because we clearly don't live in a perfect world where we can do that without blundering into danger we would otherwise avoid. But that often turns straight into victim blaming -- especially when the victim is a woman -- which immediately clouds the issue and is so damaging because, let's face it, the bastards who take advantage of these situations are the only ones to blame. The onus shouldn't be on the victim when the one perpetrating the crime -- any crime -- could choose not to do it. #link
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Could've sworn I'd linked to something about urbex before, but this will do in its stead. #link
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Informal but helpful hints and tips from various DIY label proprietors. #link
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Pitchfork's outer-limits column takes a look at the oeuvre of the idiosyncratic guitarists, whom I've read about for years but never properly listened to. I hope this rectifies that for me and for you. #link
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Related: Phil Gyford's playlist to accompany the BBC Four series The Sound and the Fury from earlier this year. #link
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Let this be a reminder to myself to put down the fucking smartphone for a while when I'm watching telly in the evening. #link
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Make the Ultimate Pizza at Home with a $5 DIY Brick Oven
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And their pick is the one I use. Which reminds me, I really must start using my bike more. I could start by taking it in for that service. #link
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Dodgy shenanigans here. #link
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These 'Ask a grown up' things in the Guardian are usually hit-and-miss (most respondents seem oblivious to the age of their questioners) but I love the straight-forward answer to this one: we don't know! #link
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Copyright is broken only insofar as the media industries' use of it as a weapon is destructive to everyone, makers of things and the people who enjoy them alike. Meanwhile, the arguments for and against come from very different places. Pullman makes a sympathetic case, showing his proper understanding of the chains of production that get the words he writes to the people who read them, but he's perhaps naive to ignore that he and other creatives should be getting a better deal from their publishers for what they do. Casserly highlights one example of a better deal: authors bypassing the traditional system to market their wares themselves, and often making a good living out of it. But she's also naive in assuming that's something everyone can achieve. For instance, Cory Doctorow isn't just successful because he's a gifted and hard-working writer; his editorship of the highly trafficked web culture blog Boing Boing played no small role in his success, too. Would he be where is is today were it not for already having significant visibility among the bulk of the audience that pays for his work? I doubt it. #link
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