Hydrgnc

"Getting the reissue together has been a really interesting project for me, because it involves going..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:50:43 +0100

“Getting the reissue together has been a really interesting project for me, because it involves going through old boxes of tapes, which necessarily means exhuming the corpses I became at several turns between then and now.”

- The Mountain Goats | News Archive | Requiem for Red Southern Curl

"Facebook users should be both smart and selective about what they like. The act of liking a page can..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:16:20 +0100

“Facebook users should be both smart and selective about what they like. The act of liking a page can associate a user with that page’s content, and with these underhanded “Like Farming” pages, it’s best not to give them what they want.”

- How “Like Farming” Facebook Scams Work | Facecrooks.com | How to Avoid Facebook Scams

"Green is R.E.M.’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience , and while it should be all over the shop,..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:42:02 +0100

“Green is R.E.M.’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience , and while it should be all over the shop, it coheres staggeringly well – put that down to good sequencing, great songwriting, an underlying naivety to even the bleak songs and allowing the sweeter music to take the lead. And less analytically, the band simply appeared incapable of doing any wrong at this time.”

- R.E.M. - Green (25th anniversary edition) / Releases / Releases // Drowned In Sound

"To be clear, five of the six “surveys” cited by the Department of Education in backing..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:45:25 +0100

“To be clear, five of the six “surveys” cited by the Department of Education in backing up a claim by a cabinet minister were PR-commissioned puff-polls. They were commissioned, not to find out information in a trustworthy and repeatable manner, but to ensure that stories about UKTV Gold, Premier Inn, the Sea Cadets , Bomber Command Memorial and “teacher-set exam revision service” Education Quizzes found their way into UK papers.”

- Michael Gove revealed to be using PR-commissioned puff-polls as “evidence”

"Until a few hundred years ago, most people believed human history was cyclical - a series of rising..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 08:54:00 +0100

“Until a few hundred years ago, most people believed human history was cyclical - a series of rising and falling civilizations in which what some generations gained, others lost. Today, nearly everyone thinks otherwise. The modern world is founded on the belief that it’s possible for human beings to shape a future that’s better than anything in the past. If the Gormenghast novels have any continuing theme, it’s that this modern belief is an illusion.”

- BBC News - A Point Of View: Leaving Gormenghast

"It has become so well-used in the journalistic ecosystem that it is on the edge of cliche and on its..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:14:14 +0100

“It has become so well-used in the journalistic ecosystem that it is on the edge of cliche and on its way to becoming an idiom. Any story that runs for more than a few minutes, and in which further comments or developments are expected, just becomes a -gate for ease of reference. I have no objection to its use among consenting adult journalists in conversation, but using it in print just betrays a lack of imagination.”

- BBC News - Turning a scandal into a ‘-gate’

"To the outsider, the Nottingham accent might make the person speaking it sound thicker than Barry..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:10:52 +0100

“To the outsider, the Nottingham accent might make the person speaking it sound thicker than Barry White’s shit on Boxing Day morning, but don’t kid yersen; it’s actually the most complex dialect in the UK., drawing in and absorbing speech patterns and slang from Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire and the South before spitting them back out in a concentrated stream of inflection, tone, tempo and swearing.”

- Aah Ter Talk Notts - Nottingham Culture - LeftLion.co.uk

- also, the Wikipedia article on East Midlands English is good: “Those who speak traditional regional dialects are not trying unsuccessfully to speak Standard English. East Midlands English follows a series of distinct grammatical rules.”

"All language has grammar, otherwise it wouldn’t be language. Grammar is what gives words..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:07:07 +0100

“All language has grammar, otherwise it wouldn’t be language. Grammar is what gives words sense. We produce language in strings of words, and the means by which they stick together and make sense is grammar. This applies to all language, all dialects – not one particular way of speaking and writing. So grammar is not a matter of being correct or not. It’s a way of describing how all language works. All linguists believe there is grammar, but linguists do not all agree on grammatical terms or categories. Pretending that there is only one correct way to describe language is confusing and untrue.”

- Michael Gove and ‘correct grammar’: let me explain this slowly | Michael Rosen | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

- everything in this article, but the quote above in particular.

"We are constantly creating and recreating our narratives of identity, cultivating a sense of who we..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:25:07 +0100

“We are constantly creating and recreating our narratives of identity, cultivating a sense of who we are and where we fit within our cultural contexts. We want to understand ourselves, and perhaps even more so, to be understood by others. I suspect our compulsion to record and save and archive everything arises from this keen desire to narrate our story to others, and find connection. Sometimes, when a dozen parents stand up in the front rows of the audience at the school play, videotaping their kids on stage, I wonder if we take this process too far. How much do we have to do before it becomes over-the-top data collection, which consumes us to the point of eclipsing experience (think of the sight-seers and tourists who spend more time clicking photos than admiring the landmarks). Why do we do it? Are we collecting evidence for some future narrative?”

- Writing, Time Machines, and Memory | Play

"In the last few weeks, I have had messages from people saying that I should not be campaigning..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:18:24 +0100

“In the last few weeks, I have had messages from people saying that I should not be campaigning against Tesco, that I should be supporting its stance as a Conservative. But it is precisely because I am a Conservative that I am opposed to how Tesco is treating its workers. Conservatism was never meant to be about big corporations: it is about the rights of families and ordinary people; about helping them to stand up to monolithic corporations and big government.”

- Tesco’s treatment of its workers shows why we must stop subsidising it

- I have to admit that the phrase “[I] am a Conservative trade unionist myself” completely stopped me in my tracks.

"Protecting children on the net is a responsibility of their parents in the first place. It cannot be..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:27:35 +0100

“Protecting children on the net is a responsibility of their parents in the first place. It cannot be outsourced to Facebook. It is a matter of educating them about the difference between between privacy, publicity and a circle of trust.”

- BBC News - Censoring Facebook: Social network’s violent video dilemma

- lots of food for thought in this report. I picked the above quote because it illustrates something I’ve referred to in conversation several times so far this year, regarding the way ‘systems’ handle issues of identity, privacy, interaction, and so on. The average parent - and indeed a Facebook user in general - now needs to get to grips with online security concepts that ten years ago were almost exclusively the preserve of the IT sysadmin.

"Residents were astonished when they woke up and found new signs with their street name spelt..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:11:36 +0100

“Residents were astonished when they woke up and found new signs with their street name spelt backwards. Families living in Muriel Street in Barnsbury discovered they were, from now on, living in Leirum Street. The name change aimed to reduce the confusion of emergency services and visitors unaware that the street is divided into three separate roads.”

- From Muriel to Leirum: tenants get their street’s name flipped back-to-front - London - News - London Evening Standard

"People find birdsong relaxing and reassuring because over thousands of years they have learnt when..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:09:34 +0100

“People find birdsong relaxing and reassuring because over thousands of years they have learnt when the birds sing they are safe, it’s when birds stop singing that people need to worry. Birdsong is also nature’s alarm clock, with the dawn chorus signalling the start of the day, so it stimulates us cognitively.”

- BBC News - The surprising uses for birdsong

- a blackbird has recently taken to perching on the TV aerial outside our flat and I’ve been enjoying its song, so this is timely.

"I have never forgotten that conversation. It showed Thatcher conscientious to a fault yet..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:09:19 +0100

“I have never forgotten that conversation. It showed Thatcher conscientious to a fault yet insensitive to someone she perceived as a non-achiever. This became ever clearer over the years in her attitudes towards poverty, social problems and the ethos of organisations such as the NHS.”

- Mental health and Mrs Thatcher: “All due to a lack of personal drive, effort and will”

"There are ten rules in the law as defined by Sandemose, all expressive of variations on a single..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:56:21 +0100

“There are ten rules in the law as defined by Sandemose, all expressive of variations on a single theme and usually referred to as a homogeneous unit: You are not to think you’re anyone special or that you’re better than us.”

- Law of Jante - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The discontent that people might reasonably feel against bankers, capitalists and managerialists has..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:48:00 +0100

“The discontent that people might reasonably feel against bankers, capitalists and managerialists has been diverted into a hostility towards immigrants and the three main parties, and to the benefit of yet another party with a managerialist and pro-capitalist ideology. In this way, even “protest” votes help sustain existing class and power structures.”

- UKIP: the victory of the ruling class

"Music has emancipated me, pornography has emancipated me, people, lovers. And I think art in general..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 09:30:29 +0100

“Music has emancipated me, pornography has emancipated me, people, lovers. And I think art in general is here to soften social transitions… Potentially, people who come to see us play, they will receive a sound, they will receive a word, and something will happen. They will go back home and maybe they will look at their husbands differently, look at their family differently, friends, lovers, their job, what kind of music they listen to. Because nothing else is asking you to think about these things! Where are the things that make you reflect?”

- Savages - Silence Yourself / Releases / Releases // Drowned In Sound

"I’ve saved my favourite graph until the end. This is the share of income, after tax, of the top 1..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:46:44 +0100

“I’ve saved my favourite graph until the end. This is the share of income, after tax, of the top 1 percent of earners. Like the other charts, there is a dip in the 1970s and then the trend reverses. It has the shape of a broad smile doesn’t it?”

- Did the left win the 20th century? | Flip Chart Fairy Tales

"Excel fans are often treated pejoratively. “‘You can’t learn this is in a..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:04:00 +0100

“Excel fans are often treated pejoratively. “‘You can’t learn this is in a spreadsheet, kid,’ said the old man, his weather-beaten face grimacing as he swiftly removed the caribou’s entrails” is a line found in many books. But spreadsheets have a beauty all of their own. They speak to a need deep inside of us to arrange things in rows and columns. Ever since the first town planners pored over drawings of grids in the Indus Valley, man has wanted to locate points by how far over and up they were.”

- BBC News - The mysterious powers of Microsoft Excel

"… the last five years of economic prediction have told us one thing: No one knows anything any..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:31:40 +0100

“… the last five years of economic prediction have told us one thing: No one knows anything any more and the people who say they know something know even less.”

- BBC News - The mysterious powers of Microsoft Excel