The electric slide
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2007 2:08 PM by Will Femia
Filed Under:
Games
I know I already linked to a bunch of headlines about Radiohead leading a shift away from the traditional music industry but this week it's been looking like a genuine trend.
If "destroy itself" feels a little too exuberant, we can at least see that some of the possibilities of the past are realities of the present. Consider these five alternative music industry business models.
Much more: What’s the Future of the Music Industry? A Freakonomics Quorum
Speaking of that Radiohead release, for some reason I keep stumbling upon links about secret messages and back stories of the songs. It must be a reflection of the size of their online fan base because as a casual listener it doesn't mean much to me: Pitchfork's Guide to Radiohead's In Rainbows
They're calling this the worst radio interview ever and indeed it's hard not to have some sympathy for an interviewer whose guest doesn't want to talk, but it also highlights something I've struggled with as a media person who does occasional interviews. It always seems a little misaligned to book a musical guest and then sit there and talk to them. I still don't have a good answer for what a musical interview would be like, somewhere between a full on performance and a sit down chat, but when I see an interview like this I have to think, "Well, duh, what did you think? They're a music band, not a debate team!"
Jason Kottke provides links and explanation of "green accounting." It sounds a little like the idea behind buying environmental offsets. Nature has worth and should be accounted for. Seems like that might run into some problems when you get to evaluating things like the Grand Canyon though.
"Girl with balloon is standing on an eyelash glued to the top of a needle." Microscopic art. The exhibit includes microscopes.
--The truth, in short, is that people don't click links like you might think. I know anecdotally that even the links in Clicked, which isn't much more than links, aren't clicked as much as the numbers of page views would suggest.
Speaking of traffic, who clicked Britney? - It's an analysis of Britney Spears related search traffic with categorization into what people were looking for.
Speaking of traffic, someone in the mainstream media finally speaks to Ron Paul supporters about their practice of flooding online polls.
Google hits vanity ring - "An electronic ring that shows the number of Google hits when searching for the name of the person who wears it."
The Most Amazing Video Of A Girl Playing Star Wars On The Trumpet… EVER
10 epic Halloween costumes - and they're all safe to view at work.
Speaking of Halloween, a massacre worthy of Calvin and Hobbes.
Tech bubble watchers were abuzz yesterday with word of CBS buying a 10-month-old gossip site for 10 million dollars. This report mentions that the seed investment was less than a million.
Floating LED light show - (not a bomb)
In the comments to my previous post a reader pointed out that txt words like BFF may one day be seen as part of the evolution of the language. This piece is about language evolution in a more literal way. "Verbs evolve and homogenize at a rate inversely proportional to their prevalence in the English language, according to a formula developed by Harvard University mathematicians." "Irregular verbs are fossils that reveal how linguistic rules, and perhaps social rules, are born and die," Michel says." The idea is that there are some verbs that don't follow the regular rules. Those are evolutionary remnants.
Turn a tiny amount of Mountain Dew into a big fat glowstick. The headline says "drinkable" but I'm pretty sure even just three caps full of hydrogen peroxide is going to make you barf - or worse. BURNED AG'IN: It's a hoax. Doesn't glow and you still can't drink it. Thanks to the commenters.
Speaking of instructions on how to do something cool (or kill yourself), a "how to do a backflip" video is not very reassuring when the demonstrations are heavily edited. This is good advice though: "Pull yourself toward you instead of pulling yourself toward your legs."
For a less dangerous how-to, the instructions call it a paper transformer, but it's not a robot-to-car kind of transformer. Still neat.
Cool trick for creating an invisible folder on your computer.
A "mixed reality" avatar is a physical model with a virtual projection.
"Kindersay is a web-based program designed to help preschoolers (Ages 1 to 4) learn English words. Over 500 words, images and English-speaking videos are featured in our interactive "Word Shows"." It's all free but if you want to customize it by adding your own photos or slide shows you have to pay for a premium membership.
The Baby Name Map gives you names ranked by popularity based on map plot points.
A Friday game! Create a portal to move through the screens.
I don't understand the hype around this Washington Post article about mysterious robot dragonflies spying on protestors. The article makes it sound like no one has ever invented a small remote control flying object. Don't they remember all the hype around the Micro Mosquito? So cheap! And the Dragonfly, though not exactly bug sized, entered the consumer market months ago.
"This amazing bread recipe/technique sent ripples through the foodie world."
