Sdtrk: ‘Now or never’ by Polish Radio Orchestra

Been quite a while since I’ve dumped a mess of links upon you! A big sloppy bucket of links all over you, all in your hair and down your shirt. You should probably go wash that off before it dries. Don’t forget to burn those clothes as well!

+ In a way, I’m glad that Deafening silence Plus is just large enough, as if it were larger, I’d probably be indulging in my love of technological white elephants. And if I had more money, that is. ‘Technological white elephants’ is a term coined by sexy Eighties Goth siren Danielle Dax that describes obsolete technology or devices that, for whatever reason, didn’t catch on and last in the minds of the general public. Things like the RCA VideoDisc, or the ondes Martenot, or the Nintendo VirtualBoy (I own two — don’t ask, it’s a long story). I’m fairly sure the TwitterPeek will be joining you lot shortly.

Hear that? That’s the sound of Planned Obsolescence

Puts Smart Phones and Twitter Apps to Shame!

No more waiting for tweets to download or clicking the “more” button to see old tweets.

TwitterPeek’s “always on” tweet delivery makes it a snap to follow 100’s of people throughout the course of your day. Best of all, you don’t have to spend $100/month on an expensive smartphone data plan to get Twitter on-the-go.

It must be an interesting and fanciful world the creators of TwitterPeek live in. Honestly, it’s not a bad product, but 1) it’s very very specific, and 2) the masses would’ve bought these feckers by the carton back in 2006, when Twitter first started. Or maybe a year after that; some people are undoubtedly still smarting over the whole ‘Friendster‘ thing.
I just tried to search for a used TwitterPeek on the Bay of e, but came up empty-handed. There is no such thing as a consumer item that is created and isn’t resold at some point, which kinda says to me that… no-one’s buying TwitterPeeks?? *cue minor chord*

+ Speaking of social vortexes, Wil ‘sorry, can’t save the Enterprise, too busy Tweeting’ Wheaton has some very lucid things to say about that other social networking timewaster:

Now, as long as I have your attention and I’m talking about Facebook: I think that Facebook is evil, guys. I believe that Facebook is making gazillions of dollars by exploiting its users, and Facebook doesn’t give a shit about how its users feel about that. The only reason Facebook has made any changes to their laughable privacy policies recently is because the company was looking at legal action, and was in danger of losing money.

Personally, I think you should delete your Facebook account and wait for Disapora to get going. I know that’s unlikely, though, because Facebook has become a useful and convenient way to stay in touch with people you care about. But please, please consider the consequences of trading privacy for convenience, and think about this, from Newsweek:

If you really expect this company to suddenly become trustworthy, you’ve lost your mind. Over the past five years Facebook has repeatedly changed its privacy policy, always in one direction, and every time this happens, the same movie plays out. People complain. Facebook stonewalls, then spins, then pretends to be contrite, then finally walks things back—but only a little.

the entire article is here

As for me, I’ve already said my piece on Facebook and how I think it’s rubbish, so I’ll not go on about it. But what Will’s saying and what others have been saying, not using Facebook is something to consider.
And will I go see ‘The Social Network’? If it were a scenario where the proceeds from every ticket for that film went to stopping Facebook, I’d see it once a day. Apart from that, should I suddenly decide there’s absolutely nothing else more important that I need to be doing with my life, then perhaps. And more than likely, I won’t pay to do it.

+ This domicile would more than likely fit nicely into the ‘This IS the Future’ category if I had one. *checks sidebar* Just making sure. I give you: Ring House, located in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture, Japan, and built by architects Makoto Takei and Chie Nabeshima.

Sadly, the fog is not included

The Ring House is wrapped in rings of glass and wood and has an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the forest. […] TNA designed rings around the facade so that areas of private space and utilities could be met. The height of each ring was decided by the function concealed behind it. The glass between the rings allow you to look straight into the forest, so the whole house appears to dissolve into the forest.
taken from this site

+ As I’m sure every one of you have done, I’ve lain awake at night, wondering aloud ‘when will someone write a yakuza-based Choose Your Own Adventure story??’ Well, despite the fact that it’s online only, as opposed to a printed work, this page on the site Infinite Story proves that Dreams Can Come True.

You pour the last of your now semi-warm sake from the carafe into your ceramic choko. It fills the shallow glass only halfway and you sip from it slowly, trying to draw out the time. Down the bar from you is a group of sararimen who are getting steadily drunker and louder. From their slurred speech, you gather they are celebrating the fact that their division has made its quarterly projections for the second time, or something bullshit like that. “Fucking peasants…” you grumble not too quietly between sips of sake, but the sararimen do not hear it because they are busy toasting themselves again.

Your name is Shinji Takagawa, a member of the notorious Yamashita Syndicate in Tokyo, and you’ve been sitting at this sushi bar for the last four hours silently eating, getting drunk, and watching game shows with the sound turned off on the plasma screen TV behind the bar. Usually this sushi bar is pretty quiet place to kill an evening, but these drunken sararimen are making it intolerable. When the waitress comes to see if you need another drink, you just grunt that you want your bill.
the rest of the story is here

Unfortunately midway through the story, your ability to actually make choices is halted, and it turns into a straightforward fictional narrative. But it still gets major Cool Points for the concept overall.

+ If the Missus and I had a cat — Shironeko doesn’t count, in this instance, unfortunately — if it were a male, we would totally get him one of these: a kitty necktie.

That’s something I’d wear. Good choice, little guy! That had better
not be a clip-on, though; that’s just lazy

And yes, they offer feather boas for the lady kitties as well. Pair some dapper cats up with ones wearing Kitty Wigs, have a bartender pouring Bradfords into water dishes for everyone, and you’d have a stylish little party!

So there you are! All these links are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace

Sdtrk: ‘I’m Bruce (Dimension 5 Mega mix)’ by Fantastic plastic machine

I’d have to say this is pretty mental. Looks like someone Photoshopped something onto the picture of a courtyard, right? But there’s much more behind it…

They’re really small Toclafane! And THEY WILL END US ALL

Beginning October 23, 2010, MASS MoCA will present a new site-specific sculpture by Prague-based artist Federico Díaz. Created from 420,000 black spheres precisely milled and assembled by robotic machines, the 50-feet long by 20-feet high sculpture, Geometric Death Frequency-141, will fill MASS MoCA’s entrance courtyard with a fragmented wave seemingly caught between movement and stasis.

An interior installation of one of the robotic machines used to manufacture the work will accompany Díaz’s presentation at MASS MoCA. The robot will assemble additional spheres to be later added to the massive sculpture, providing viewers with the opportunity to experience the process by which Geometric Death Frequency-141 is created. The Díaz-developed process is unique-in addition to utilizing modern computer-aided manufacturing techniques, pure data and algorithms based on particle physics are the guiding forces behind the sculpture’s shape, texture and size.
taken from this article

Frankly, I’ve no idea which is cooler — the fact that it’s a solid thing that resembles something liquid, or the entire gigantic sculpture is assembled entirely by robots, or the title itself — ‘Geometric death frequency-141’. Sounds like the name of a piece by Masonna. Very nice!

*Yes yes, I apologise for the title

Sdtrk: ‘Milling around the village’ by Broadcast

Sweet Dagon, the last one of these I wrote was in April?? *exhales* Wow. Good job I don’t charge admittance to read this blog, right? Yeah. Whooo.

Anyway! This house, like all good dwellings, has a name; they call it Moonacres. Which sounds really Crowleyan, if you stop to think about it. Adding to its pre-20th century Modern pedigree would be the fact that it’s located on the Beaulieu Estate, in Hamster Hampshire, England. According to its listing on The Modern House Agents (yes, I’m harvesting from them again), ‘The Estate is an area of approximately 7,000 acres of beautiful Hampshire countryside, including the Beaulieu River, that is owned by Lord Montagu. The Estate has been in existence since the 13th century and has been carefully protected to avoid over-development’. Mm hmm.

The house itself, designed in the Sixties by architect John Strubbe, boasts two floors, five bedrooms, an office, a study, a reception room, and a double garage. There’s a deck area over the garage as well, so you and your significant other / mistress / what-have-you can lounge about, drinking Bradfords and staring off into the middle distance.

The only issue I have with this place is rather like the one that fellow bloggist veach of s n a p p e r h e a d had with the domicile I’d written about in the previous instalment of this series — Moonacres’ interior is kinda incongruous with its exterior. It’s been maintained, so it’s not as if it’s falling into disrepair or anything; it’s just too modern. Like a now modern, not a Sixties modern. I love IKEA and all they do for humanity, but its distinctive aesthetic simply doesn’t belong in a home from roughly fifty years hence. Although I gotta say — the white, black, and Factory grey with blood-red colour scheme they’ve got going definitely speaks to me.

You’ll be delighted to know that Moonacres is still on the market for a cool £1,750,000, so start rooting through your couch cushions

Sdtrk: ‘Einstein-Rosen bridge’ by Venetian snares

It has to be said: Megan Fox has never done anything for me. I’m not altogether keen on her generic looks, as she looks like she tumbled out of the pages of Maxim / FHM / Stuff magazine. She’s not repellent — apart from that clubbed thumb of hers — but her style just doesn’t stand out enough for me. I’m led to believe other people like the way she looks, but she elicits a resounding shrug whenever I see her. That is, until now.

Left, Megan Fox; right, Megan Fox

Apparently the June issue of Interview magazine (it saddens me that you can’t really refer to it by its original title of ‘Andy Warhol’s Interview’ anymore) had featured a one-on-one with Ms Fox, and the accompanying pictorial where she poses with a mannequin Doppelgänger of herself stopped me in my tracks, for obvious reasons. If she were to rock that Louise Brooks-esque style all the time, she’d really stand out in a crowd! Unless she were to go back to the 1930s; in which case, she’d blend into the crowd.

Elsewhere — China, to be specific — a photographer and Photoshopper team have transformed a lass into a Gynoid, in a shoot entitled ‘Robot in Disguise’. No points for the title, but still.

Don’t those parts look like they belong in like a car or something?

I’ve no idea what the model’s name is, as it’s in Chinese, which might as well be Linear A as far as I’m concerned. But why trifle with unimportant details like that, when you can check out the entire pictorial right here?

And for those of you who prefer your Gynoids more steampunk in appearance, you might find designer Dave Lowe‘s ‘Spooky Robot Lady’ to be more your cup of tea. Your steampunk tea, it should go without saying, in an appropriately steampunk cup.

I hear the patinaed look is in this year

One October, years ago, my own cheap version of “False Maria” (the classic robot in [‘Metropolis’]) was made. My niece Devin calls her “spooky robot lady”…the name’s stuck. It’s one of the oldest customized Halloween props I still use. She’s displayed on the dining table every season as the guardian of the party food. She was once a used and broken mannequin. Her creation became a team effort.
the rest of the article is here

Very nice! Kinda makes me wish Mario’s Mannequins were still around, so I could have a go at making one of my own! Also, kinda makes me wish I knew how to effectively create and modify stuff like that, so she wouldn’t end up looking like total cack.

More news of a media nature coming soon! I’m still writing the bastard. You’re familiar with how that goes round here by now, I’m sure

ta very much to fellow iDollator Euchre, for the ‘Spooky Robot Lady’ link

Technorati tags: Android, Gynoid, robot, Megan Fox, Interview Magazine, Louise Brooks, Photoshop, Linear A, Dave Lowe, steampunk, Metropolis, Mario’s Mannequins

Sdtrk: ‘My time’ by Ann Steel

I would like to blame Twitter, and the prevailing weather conditions, and preparing for a cluster of iDollator-related interviews for my tardiness. Cos without PB Shelley mentioning a couple of days ago that ‘Shouting etc etc’ was on the verge of hitting the 400,000 hits mark, I honestly wouldn’t have noticed! Well, I’d have noticed later. Thank you sir, and thank you, the viewers / readers / data miners that visit this blog so very, very often! Thanks, visitors! Thisitors.*

Up next: the latest instalment of ‘Any Synthetiks-related news, Davecat?’, some catching up on the ‘This was the Future’ series, and some posts reporting on some things that Sidore and I may or may not be doing in a media-related context. Yes. All this, and so much more!**

Once again, thanks to the lot of you for stopping round! As blessed, temperate Autumn approaches, we should be back to a normal posting schedule! Whatever that may mean, exactly. Nevertheless, happy Friday the 13th!

*with a tip of the hat to Peter Serafinowicz
**the definition of ‘more’ being, of course, entirely relative

Sdtrk: ‘C’est un rêve’ by Death in June

Even with this hideously humid weather SE Michigan has been withstanding lately, the Missus and I have been rather busy! Last week-end, the result of an Email interview with Felipe Castro, a reporter representing the Chilean newspaper La Nación (not to be confused with the Argentinian La Nación, or the La Nación from Madrid, which has been defunct since 1936) saw the light of day, which was fab. For the first couple of days, they had posted a photo of a Maria-type Honey Doll in lieu of everyone’s favourite silicone Goth lass, for some bizarre reason only known to the editing staff, but that problem was nipped swiftly in the bud. Well, relatively swiftly. You can read the article here in its original Spanish, or run it through your favourite online translator, and wonder as to what the potency level of mescaline they were taking when it was written!

Then today, I spoke at length with Amisha Surani, one of the editors for Best magazine UK, for another interview session, or ‘sesh’, as the meeja-types call ’em. I had to rise from our bed by 9am, as they’d be calling during 2pm UK time, but I’d like to think I was lucid! Time will only tell if I’m right, or if I’ve merely doomed the iDollator community with more of my careless and incendiary blather. Apparently, the ‘Strange love’ episode of National Geographic’s ‘Taboo’ will be aired over there on 05 August, so their plan was to speak with me, as a sort of apéritif. It was better than I’d expected! I was told it would only be a twenty minute chat, but we ended up conversing for a wee bit over an hour! My hope is, of course, that the bits that should be included are included in the final draft — you know how these things go.
They’d naturally wanted me to send them photos of myself and Shi-chan to go along with the article, and as she and I hadn’t taken any new pics of us together since her new body arrived, we got that sorted this afternoon.

I’m told the Best magazine UK issue we’re in will be out on 03 August, so keep an eye open for it if you’re on that group of islands! Although it’s a ‘womens mag’, I’m also told that men can read it as well, if we’re wearing our special goggles.

So there’s that to look forward to, if you’re into that sort of thing! Happy 23rd (yesterday)!

Sdtrk: ‘Lovecats’ by the Cure

私の最も貴重なしどれに –

知っているように、7月は18日私達の10年記念日を示し、ずっとすばらしい恋人、パートナーおよび友人であること言うまでもないべきです。 私はそこにいること、ないよい時によって私にに常に感謝したいと思い、従って寛大に私を与えたと私がので同様に多くの愛最少の半分のおよび献身与えたことを十年のよく、ひとつひとつの日、私望んで下さい。

私は、黒猫 しどれ愛します。 私達で、10年は始めだけです。

The Missus, ten years, four residences, three cameras, and two bodies ago