Fullwidth

Unintentional alliteration aside, I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while but didn’t quite know what to say. Before we go on, I invite you to watch this video. No, really, watch it. Read more about positive psychology here Breaking up the learning process One of the things that so appeals to me about object manipulation disciplines in general is the progressive nature of the learning process. ...

Looking cursorially at the newspaper headlines about Abu Qatada, the ‘hate preacher’ who was enflaming Muslims against the western Infidels, I’m struck with an interesting thought. Free Speech by preprintPeople have, predictably, made the knee-jerk response that ‘People should not be allowed to preach hatred like that’ and comments of that ilk. What fascinates me is how, yet again, most folks don’t think it through. Yes, the man is unquestionably a shady character and having him peddle his ideologies to the impressionable can be seen as a Bad Thing. ...

I’ve been using ZFS at work for a while, but haven’t really had time to tinker with it to see what makes it tick and use it actively. One of the great benefits that I’ve found to using it is that it sits there and requires no human input 99.9% of the time. It *just works. *Which makes me happy. Today, though, I had to Do Stuff. I’m posting this mostly as a reminder to myself on how to do stuff and on the off chance that Google indexes this page and others of its ilk under ‘ZFS Tutorials’ or ‘ZFS How-To’ or something. ...

SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) has gone dormant for now, thanks to a massive outcry by millions of end-users who are, ironically, far better clued up about how the Interpipes work than the legislators debating the bills and a host of big-name companies, like Facebook, Yahoo, Google and so on. It’s really awesome to see the industry rally together to fight a piece of legislation that is so badly conceived that it would wreck many more lives and sources of revenue than it would save. ...

This is one of the most fun Tenori-On analogues I’ve come across. It’s really well done, too! Click the squares and put some headphones on. See you in 3 hours.

I’m sitting on a sheepskin in the Isle of Skye and listening to music. You should hear this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUT6b3sxSVs

Beats Antique have released a new album called Blind Threshold and it’s rather tasty. It’s also downloadable for free from their site, though I’d recommend donating to them regardless – they’re an amazing collective of musicians and deserve your support! Without further ado: [wp_bandcamp_player type=”album” id=”3034204548″ size=”grande3″ bg_color=”#E2E2E2″ link_color=”#BB5242″]

The collaboration between David Guetta and Usher resulted in something that’s fairly ‘mainstream club’-esque, but it’s still quite pleasing to the ear and there are some nice melodies and notes in there too!

The makers of CyanogenMod have announced on Twitter that they are working on CM9 and should have a release ready by early 2012. This is very exciting news as the new version of the popular Android OS, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich has a whole bunch of new fixes and improvements over the currently-prevalent Gingerbread releases, which have been around for over 2 years and are a little dated.  It's coming soon! ...

The D&B/dubstep/glitch wizard, Pretty Lights’ latest batch of tasty remixes are singularly awesome and none more so than this gem. It’s a montage of his Red Rocks gig in Colorado and the way the tune flows and how he mixes in classic rock songs into the glitchy backdrop is sublime!

This is mostly for Katelyn, who has been itching to get more things out of my head and into hers. It’s a bit tricky to do this, however, when we’re separated by an inconvenient ocean. So I got Skins to shoot some rough & ready clips of me flailing wildly with my poi in the hope that someone somewhere finds some new ideas!

Every man and his dog is playing Skyrim, to the sound of wailing and gnashing of teeth of spouses/girlfriends, howling in impotent rage as their man is sucked into a strange world. A world where the less armour a lady wears, the better her armour rating. A world where people don’t freeze to death standing in the middle of a stone courtyard being blasted by horizontal snow dressed in a vest and sackcloth trousers. ...

There is a terrifying new Bill in the works over in the jolly old US of A. It’s called the *Protect IP* bill. It’s been backed by some pretty powerful conglomerates and it’s primarily driven by the entertainment industry. While I wholly oppose piracy and believe in supporting artists for the hard work they do, I also utterly disagree with what is happening right now, *this*very moment, to the Internet. The Protect IP bill will bring to accountability any provider of a platform or medium or means to share content – ISPs, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, uncountable forums, any blogs and many other outlets for free speech. ...

My friend Chris Baker was rocking some kickass tunes at the circus jam last night and one of them was this awesome little piece which has been stuck in my head for a good hour now. The bastard played it at the end of his set. Chromeo’s Night By Night has been remixed into something far less cheesy and more awesome. Electronic music cures what ails you! He’s also DJing at the Imaginarium party in a few weeks – I’ll fish out the URL once I find the flyer. ...

I saw this a while back and it’s the simplest intro to any event I’ve ever seen but it’s the more powerful for it. It’s since been remixed and made awesomer. It’s really really worth watching. To Write Love On Her Arms is a charity dedicated to helping people get through depression and the work they do is pretty amazing and you should go check them out and support them! ...

I’ve been meaning to shoot some HDR images for a while now, ever since I got some funky custom firmware for my camera that allows for such shenanigans and makes it easier. So finally I got out and shot some!

My friend Mark Steyn, an awesome contact juggler just posted this quick short of him doing a routine in London. Well worth a look!

I saw this project on thisiscolossal.com and I’m determined to make this into a piece to go on my wall. This is so simple and elegant and, frankly, amazing. All credit goes to thisiscolossal and crafterall for finding and making this!