Links for 08-01-2008
Music reviews; banner ad demographics; OLPC design analysis …
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1 – Live review: Minus The Bear – Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
“[Their] instruments continue on the floor in front of them, in the form of two vast banks of pedals and footswitches that would make a nuclear plant technician feel nervous.”
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2 – Album review: ALO – Roses And Clover
“… all the sparkling musicianship in the world can’t cover up the fact that ALO write songs that are safer than a Volvo with its engine removed.”
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3 – Album review: Deadstring Brothers – Silver Mountain
“Silver Mountain is an unabashed homage to the style of the American south, an amalgamation of the approaches to country that have been and gone over the past four decades. Take it as it’s meant, and you’ll have no complaints.”
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4 – Album review: She Is So Beautiful/She Is So Blonde – She Is So Beautiful/She Is So Blonde
“… that’ll have to be the money shot this time – She Is So Beautiful/She Is So Blonde is an album that will draw your attention, but not capture it.”
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5 – Album review: High Cotton – Pictures
“If it’s not your scene, however, it’s more like a huge chunk of Radio 2’s mid-eighties daytime third-tier playlist broke free and lodged itself on a CD.”
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6 – Build a Home FTP Server with FileZilla
“With a home FTP server, you can upload and download files on your home hard drive from the office, your friend’s house or to your laptop while you’re on the road using any FTP client.”
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7 – Yesterday’s Tomorrows: James Tiptree, Jr.
Graham Sleight on Tiptree.
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8 – Will Sony/BMG’s Reputed DRM-Free Music Files Be Watermarked?
“Sony/BMG is reportedly in talks to become the fourth and final major label to allow its music to be sold without digital rights management, but the issue of watermarking [...] remains cloudy.”
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9 – Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?
“… companies increasingly rely on ad revenue to turn a profit and, while clicking on ads *may* be declining, it certainly hasn’t gone away. This raises a critical question: Who are the people that click on ads?”
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10 – OLPC XO-1
“If I were to make one general comment about the OLPC XO-1, it’s that its mechanical design is brilliant. It’s a fairly clean-sheet redesign of traditional notebook PC mechanics around the goal of survivability, serviceability, and robustness …”
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11 – Strange Horizons: 2007 In Review, reviewed by Our Reviewers
Yours truly makes an appearance here, but other people have far more interesting and erudite things to say as well.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Nothing to say about the above but you may be interested in the monster “Why do critics still sneer at sci-fi?” thread over at The Guardian
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/01/why_do_critics_still_sneer_at.html