Monday Morning “Impediment to Productivity” – 20070716

Hi,

Only a quick one this week, the ABC has put Midsomer Murders on a Sunday Night (talk about Impediment to Productivity), so you know how it is with English murder mysteries. you have to pay attention or they will sneak a suspect past you. None of that flashy CSI-verse “whack it in the nuclear thingummy spin dryer and check it for prints”. No this is old school village of eccentrics sleuthing, all the villagershave a motive and it’s never who you expect. The upside is they only do about six episodes a year now and the downside is that they only do six episodes a year now (ripoff I call it)

So anyway on with the silliness

“She Loves the Moon” is an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure story that takes place on the sidewalks of the Mission district in San Francisco. It is like a 3D version of the old “choose your ending” adventure game books by Scott Adams (?) except that this story uses spray painted stencils connected to each other by arrows, . The streetscape is used as sort of an illustration to accompany each piece of text. There are two possible endings, happy and tragic, and two other points where the story can end unexpectedly if the viewer makes some less than correct choices. All up there are 4 possible endings. It won’t be long and some one will do it in Melbourne.
Act 2 - 11

Way back in the early Nineties Jools and I spent a wonderful lunch (and afternoon) listening to Douglas Adams at the Age Literary Lunch. He was talking allegedly about “Last Chance To See” but mainly about anything he wanted. Here is your chance to listen to him, there is recording of a speech he gave at Cambridge on ‘Is there an Artificial God?’ in 1998. Don’t miss it.
http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/

Continuing my fascination (OK, current obsession) with steampunk here is another gloriously pointless device. The Live Steam Hamster Wheel. I really love this stuff. I wish there was a video
http://wegmuller.org/v-web/gallery/hamsterwheel

This was from Bill C, an email titled.
“For those interested in celtic stone structures…
And the body said.
Well, you’re the only person I know of who fits that description…
http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/moving_big_rocks/
Thanks Bill. I think you need a wider circle of friends.

No game this week. Yes, yes, I know. Complain to the management. It won’t do any good, the management blew all it’s free time on the TED talks videos (not to mention the murder mystery). I pointed some of these talks out last year and Jools pointed out that the new ones were up. The new crop is just as amazing as last years. Try Chris Anderson on the Long Tail if you are looking for somewhere to start or just click any of them really, you can’t miss.
http://www.ted.com/talks

Over at http://www.notdeadyet.com.au/ we had an interesting week. Jools found some hip hop that was worth a listen, in the shape of Keith Murray and I was taken with CAKE.

thatch

{Currently watching: Midsomer Murders }
{Currently reading: Richard Branson’s Bio. It’s a hoot}
{Quick Status Check: Still going to Hell. }
{Crop Circle Status: July: we have seven and the Stantonbury Hill one is a true gem
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2007/2007.html }

Published
Categorized as Mondays

1 comment

  1. I saw the video of the guy moving the rocks a few days ago and was impressed with this nutter. Shows that if you have a lever you really can move the world.

    Oh and I have finished reading all four volumes of the Troy Game that you abandoned for Richard Branson’s book. The series would have benefited from a significant pruning. At least one book worth I’m thinking.

    While I thought the premise itself was intriguing and the characters were a diverse and interesting lot, the bumpy ride didn’t have a payoff as strong as it should have had. The end was a fizzer. So now you know.

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