My Birthday today...

Thanks for the greetings people... and can it really be 5 years since my 40th.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="160" caption="Petrols play at my 40th birthday"][/caption]

We had a great party with some great live music.. including for of The Petrols playing together. Here's some photos from that party - weren't we young!

This year after breakfast at Granny pam's we're off to see Ponyo with Charlie (now a Miyazki fan after watching My Neighbor Totoro and Porco Rosso on TV recently).

Computer Engineer Barbie coming soon to a toy store near you

Looking geek chic, Computer Engineer Barbie® wears a t-shirt featuring binary code and computer/keyboard icon along with a pair of black knit skinny pants. Computer Engineer carries a Barbie® smart phone, fashionable laptop case, flat watch and Bluetooth earpiece. With stylish pink-frame glasses and a shiny laptop, she is ready to conquer the day’s tasks on the go or from her desk.

via Computer Engineer Barbie coming soon to a toy store near you • The Register.

NASA Launches David Bowie Concept Mission

Lovely - real fans will spot all the references:

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL—NASA officials announced today the successful launch of the new shuttle Moonage Daydream, marking the beginning of a long-anticipated two-week conceptual mission inspired by British rock star David Bowie.

From The Onion

Train Buffet joke - made me lol

Funny - via Martin Kelner's Guardian column:

[set on a british inter-city train] a passenger gets a cappuccino, a cheese and tomato sandwich, a packet of crisps and a Kit Kat and hands over payment, saying: "I'm sorry, I've only got a twenty-pound note."

The buffet car steward replies: "Well, you'd better put the Kit Kat back then."

The column also discusses ESPN's "Free View Weekend". I watched (some of) their coverage of the Milan Derby. An eventful and quite interesting game. I don't understand why anyone would want to PAY FOR a subscription though... especially when they subject you to long (4+ minutes?) of ads in the breaks. Pay a subscription and still get bombarded with (stupid!) adverts - How is that supposed to appeal?

Eno Night on BBC Four

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="241" caption="The Professor"][/caption]

Don't forget Eno Night on BBC Four this evening (then repeats - MythTV box primed and ready!)

I'm excited to finally see (missed it on TV last year) the film of the Apollo missions that the very wonderful Apollo soundtrack was made for. (See Guardian mini-interview from last year).

Also - last week's Observer had some extracts form Paul Morley's interview (for the TV) with Eno - I particulalry liked this quote:

"I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it."

Similar to Bowie's "music like water" quote from 2002

''Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,'' he added. ''So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen.''

Link to Eno Night schedule info

1. 
   
   
   

   21:00–22:00

   
   
   
   
   
   

   Arena
   Brian Eno - Another Green World

   
   

   A profile of Brian Eno, former Roxy Music keyboardist and a pioneer in ambient music.

   
   


2. 
   
   
   

   22:00–23:00

   
   
   
   
   
   

   Brian Eno: Hits, Classics and Tracks

   
   

   Paul Morley talks about some of Brian Eno's hit tracks, including Heroes and Viva La Vida.

   
   


3. 
   
   
   

   23:00–23:55

   
   
   
   
   
   

   The Roxy Music Story

   
   

   Profile of the glam band Roxy Music, who reformed after 25 years to make a new album. (R)

   
   


4. 
   
   
   

   23:55–01:10

   
   
   
   
   
   

   For All Mankind

   
   

   1989 documentary relating the story of the 24 men who travelled to the moon with NASA. (R)

   
   

Schneier on Google vs. China

Great commentary and collection of links on the recent news on Google vs. China.

Bruce Schneier is well respected in computer and real world security - always worth a read.

Schneier on Security: Google vs. China.

Happy (63rd) Birthday David Bowie

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="242" caption="Bowie - Nov 2009 SoHo NYC"][/caption]

My hero David Bowie is 63 today - so Happy Birthday to him.

It's been several years since his last album (Reality, 2003) and well publicised ill-health whilst on the tour to support the album - and he's been laying low with infrequent media appearances (celeb stuff with his wife Iman, supporting his son's movie "Moon", some movie and music cameos). Recently there's the stamps thing plus a new live album (based on the live DVD) of his Reality tour out at the end of the month.

There has been no new music either rumoured or released - and some fans have speculated that he's really not well.

It was almost a relief when back in November these photos surfaced of DB walking around in SoHo NYC looking quite the dapper man about town (what's in that bag? a new album?)   ;-)

So - happy birthday DB and lets have some new music you old bugger!

The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos

This is from last summer -  but I just bumped into it.

A comprehensive list - many I know and remember fondly - many which escaped me till now (e.g. No 2 "Christian the Lion" - how had i missed that?).

It's hard to argue against the "Star Wars Kid" being at No 1.. but my favourite is still probably "David After Dentist" (No 7 - if you only watch one... watch that one).


A good list with useful contextual commentary too.

The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos [Full List] - Urlesque.

The Secret Kind of Blue (BBC Radio 2)

Originally broadcast back in August to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Miles' Kind of Blue album,  I finally got round to listening to this today (whilst cleaning the kitchen). It's a good one hour doc presented by Brit trumpeter Guy Barker with plenty of clips of the record, interesting comments and historical interviews. I have a copy in mp3 if anyone's interested.

BBC - BBC Radio 2 Programmes - The Secret Kind of Blue.

Article - IT snake oil

I've been involved or around all of these over the years.. AI and CASE at BP's IT Research Unit in the late 80's. Thin Clients (yeah!), ERP, B-to-b marketplaces while at Oracle and more recently Enterprise social media.

IT snake oil: Six tech cure-alls that went bunk.

In most cases I think the approach, ideas and technology/applications are (still) valid - it is the expectations which were incorrect:

• HYPE & timing:
  
  
  
  • over-estimating the short-term impact; under-estimating the long-term impact
  
  
  • technology is not quite ready/mature enough - yet the trend is towards what's required
  
  
  • Vendors always over-HYPE the potential of the tech and it's impact
  
  
  
  


• resistance to change:
  
  
  
  • most people and organisations resist change and most managements can't/don't/won't lead their employees properly
  
  
  • as the article points out -people like the way they do business already
  
  
  
  

B-to-b marketplaces

Bryan Ferry Sings "She" at Cannes (May 2009)

I just bumped into this oddity (via Bryan Ferry - The Official Site.)

Be sure to catch the duet with Aznavour in the audience.

An abundance of onions

For the first time, we have enough produce to make it worth preserving some for use into winter 
Only a couple of things and not even much of them, but our first ‘surplus’ so quite exciting !
Today I read about how to ‘string’ onions and we now have a couple of amateurish-looking strings hanging in the shed to see what happens. Hopefully, they will dry out a little and keep for a few months and not just fall off the strings or rot where they hang. If they look to be working I may do some more as I have left quite a few of the smaller onions in the bed.
We also have a freezer shelf of runner beans. I decided not to blanch them, just washed and dried them, sliced them up, then a loose freeze ready to bag into portions. We have lots more runners on the way so we will keep eating fresh and freezing spares for the next few weeks I think.
Charlie is getting mini-cukes every few days and we are still enjoying multi-coloured carrots, potatoes, salad and raspberries, even Steve and I managed to snaffle a few rasps yesterday when Charlie was out playing.
I cleared the asparagus beds of weeds yesterday and found 3 separate families of toads ! Lovely little things, very welcome so I tucked them back in and hopefully they will stay and get fat on slugs.

Facebook Quizes/Games & Privacy - Comments Requested.

PLEASE TAKE THIS QUIZ: What Do Quizzes Really Know About You? on Facebook.

I don't use many applications on Facebook - and certainly don't join in the fun and quiz apps - due to concerns about privacy and data-mining.

I'm not sure how well understood these issues are by most FB users - and it takes some work to read up and understand it all.

This quiz put together by the ACLU really helps you understand just WHAT information you agree to expose (your own AND your FB friends) when you give access to an FB application.

I understand the trade-off between a content/amusement provider (their app) and me (my time, attention, information) - and the concepts behind the data-mining and customer profiling to enable highly targeted advertising -but given that we mostly have no idea who these app providers are - how do we make an informed choice of whether to expose our (and our friends') data to them?

Bottom line:

• Make sure you understand and carefully set the privacy options in your FB Profile - ref: 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know (note that this is from early in 2009 and there have been changes to the FB privacy options since the - but it's still a good guide).


• Don't put sensitive information into your profile: e.g. remove the year from your birthday - better still don't display it at all and better still don't fill it in correctly


• Assume that FB apps suppliers are in general sleazy marketeers who want to harvest all your and your friends' data and don't trust them unless/until you know for sure they are sound and trustworthy (in most cases it's not possible to verify this)

Further Thoughts:

Perhaps I am overly sensitive (paranoid!) about this issue (I also reject store "loyalty cards" for similar reasons) - but I get the impression that most FB users have no idea how exposed their own (and their friends') data/info is on Facebook.

Note: I have quite a lot of personal information (blog entries, tweets, photos, contact details) available on the public Internet. This data/info is available to anyone who cares to look at it - and should someone wish to stalk me they could access it all. I don't perceive this as a (significant) threat because I don't think there's value in doing the work to gather that data. Paradoxically, whilst Facebook "protects" one's information and only allows access to "your friends" (and itself of course!)  - by exposing this info to "3rd party application developers" companies are able to hoover up and aggregate lots of information about you (and your friends!) and use it to profile and target you.

I'm very interested in others' comments on this.

• Did you take the ACLU quiz? What did you learn?


• Do you inherently trust FB apps?
  
  
  
  • If not - why do you (continue to) use them?
  
  
  • If so - why?
  
  
  
  


• General comments on the topic


• Should I order a tin foil hat?


• Maybe you agree with Scott McNealy who in 1999 said "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."

Let me know what you think.

**Note: I disabled comments on here (Wrodpress Blog) due to all the comment-spam - comment via Twitter or FB please :-)

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Trying out TweetDeck

I have just installed and am experimenting with TweetDeck.

It seems very impressive - handling multiple accounts and most usefully (for me) allowing the creation of groups to allow you to follow multiple users grouped into categories. It also (apparently) allows access to Facebook accounts too - however the account setup just hangs for me.

It runs on Linux via Adobe Air - which is a bit scary closed/proprietary but probably becoming a "necessary evil" (like Flash)... sigh.

Let's se if it changes/improves my use of Twitter.

Recent Photos: Back to School and Summer 2009

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Charlie back to school September 7th 2009"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Photos from Summer 2009"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Photos from Summer 2009"]<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/distractedbyathing/sets/72157622156735423/"><img title="Photos from Summer 2009" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3480/3896004444_e879d080d7_m.jpg" alt="Photos from Summer 2009" width="240" height="180" /></a>[/caption]

September's here again

It's become a bit of a annual ritual each September the 1st to play this still exquisite poem/song from David Sylvian's 1987 album Secrets Of The Beehive.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="291" caption="Sylvian ~ September"][/caption]

The sun shines high above
The sounds of laughter
The birds swoop down upon
The crosses of old grey churches
We say that we're in love
While secretly wishing for rain
Sipping coke and playing games

September's here again
September's here again

You can listen to it here at youtube (1min 14sec)

harvest festival !

Currently harvesting:

- carrots of various shapes and colours - kids like the 'golfballs' best, I like the purple ones with orange middles.

- parsnips, which we have had roasted and in stews and are very nice

- mini-cukes which The Boy eats whole as a snack

- rasps, a mix of summer (Glen Prosen) and autumn (Polka), both in their first year so just a handful of each a day, I have had maybe 3 in total so far as Charlie loves them

- alpine strawbs, still lots of these. So tiny, but what an intense flavour.

- red and white onions, mostly going in salads or onion marmalade

- salad leaves, half a dozen types of lettuce and rainbow chard

- runner beans and yellow waxy french beans - just ready, havent tried either yet, maybe Sunday lunch.

- potatoes, the Anya are finished but still a few Charlottes and Juliettes left

- one or two peppers, they didnt do very well outside this year, need to be under glass

- plums are just starting and our one surviving apple looks about ready for granny Pam to pick it

Only put in a couple of dwarf peas, in the childrens patch, they picked a few pods today and the peas taste really sweet and nutty, totally different flavour and texture from a shop or frozen pea

- herbs: mint is looking a bit rusty, rosemary is okay, coriander is now going to seed, lots of oregano and thyme, basil still hanging in there, made pesto with most of it for Charlies pasta tonight.

Its the first time we have had enough things ready together for a whole meal and its brilliant !

CD Case as Circuit Board Noisemaker

As discovered by Booyaa:

tres tres coolifique! - Alternative Music Distribution: Moldover’s CD Case as Circuit Board Noisemaker http://bit.ly/UHN1j

Fun, Funny, Geeky and Innovative... http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/08/19/alternative-music-distribution-moldovers-cd-case-as-circuit-board-noisemaker/

Recent Online Music Distribution Musings #2 - Frisell

One of my favourite musicians has a  new cd/album out.



[caption id="" align="alignright" width="133" caption="Disfarmer"][/caption]

Bill Frisell has a very well received CD named "Disfarmer" - see info & reviews via http://www.billfrisell.com/news/main.html#disfarmer

"Disfarmer was an outsider artist who became famous for his Depression-era photographs of families, farmers, and individuals around his hometown of Heber Springs, AK"

I've listened to samples (npr.org had the whole thing up to sample a week or two ago - not there anymore) but have yet to buy it... Interestingly the mp3s cost very nearly the same as the CD... and i have this whole shelf of Frisell CDs... and I kind of want the physical thing...

After a long period of buying CDs and ripping them to an electronic format - these days I tend to buy albums as high(ish) quality mp3 (or (FLAC) as/when available  and rarely miss the "packaging/physical object".

I tend to buy from play.com as they offer (generally) competitively priced, higher-quality mp3s, always sold without (stupid, stupid!) DRM, don't require I use any "special download tool/program" (you get a .zip file and can download straight from the browser and more than once if necessary) and were one of the first in the UK to adopt this model. The catalogue is now very good with much/most things available.

I absolutely avoid  iTunes (and similar) as they are relatively expensive, restrictive and require me to use their own software to access their store. Software which I can't run on my preferred Linux systems (as they don't suport it).

Fortunately some of my favourite artists really  "get it" and have taken control of their own output. They have their own websites and stores (often using a partner site/service) and  make good quality audio files avaialble at a fair price (sometimes with choices on quality & extras) and often with accompanying electronic artwork and information/notes (e.g. Byrne/Eno, Sylvian).

They sell direct to me and can keep all of the revenue themselves (passing on an agreed percentage to any 3rd party who helped them - e.g. an online store provider).

Consequently they own the relationship with me and they have the opportunity to offer me other things/merchandise (Tshirts, special extras, concert tickets) and keep me informed about their activities.

What about you?

- do you still buy CDs?

- do you pay the Apple tax for iTunes? (if so what give the value here, the convenience)

- do you have music that you are now locked out of as is encumbered by DRM?

- do you download free/pirated/shared music

- has spotify become your library?

Recent Online Music Distribution Musings #3 - Sylvian

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="330" caption="Manafon"][/caption]

David Sylvian is about to release (mid September) a new album called Manafon (lot of info here) which follow up on a previous wonderful experimental album Blemish - utilising a recordings from free jazz/improvising musicians to create a soundscape for improvised songs.  Sounds wonderful and the samples I've heard make me a sad old over-excited  fan! There's also an accompanying documentary (Amplified Gesture) about the musicians involved and the recording process - to be premiered at the ICA (gasp!).

Lots more info at:

http://manafon.com/ (official site - samples, interview and more)

http://www.davidsylvian.net/the-news.html (fan site)