London-Lincoln-London, 31-05-09

London to Lincoln
Hold The Line (DJ Edit) - Major Lazer
A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off - The Magnetic Fields
You Never Even Call Me By My Name - Merle Haggard (with Doug Supernaw, Charlie Pride, David Allan Coe & Waylon Jennings)
Gifted - N.A.S.A. (Feat. Kanye West, Santogold & Lykke Li)
Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) - Erasure
Teenage FBI - Guided By Voices
Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) - Edison Lighthouse
You're So Vain - Carly Simon
Darts - Flip
The Most Beautiful Girl [In The Room] - Flight Of The Conchords
Planet Earth - Duran Duran
Sick Muse - Metric
Dirty Harry (Single Edit) - Gorillaz
Smiley Faces - Gnarls Barkley
Hold Me Close - David Essex
Baby I Don't Care - Transvision Vamp
Lucille - Little Richard
Ring My Bell - Anita Ward
California Love - 2Pac (feat. Dr. Dre)
Substitute - Clout
Mixed Up World - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Silence - Delerium Featuring Sarah Mclachlan
Quicksand - La Roux
Alcoholics Unanimous - Art Brut
Big Girls Don't Cry - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel
Cacti Are Delicious Fruit - Les Handclaps
Us - Regina Spektor
Jump In the Pool (single) - Friendly Fires
Genie in a Bottle - Christina Aguilera
Femininity - Summer Magic
Thank You - The Pale Fountains
My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels
Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus
Popsicles And Icicles - The Murmaids
Wannabe - Spice Girls
I Can't Go For That - Daryl Hall & John Oates
Bonkers (Radio Edit) - Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden
Clementine - Mark Owen
Letter from America - The Proclaimers
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love - The Blues Brothers
We Are The People - Empire Of The Sun
dreamboat - Alma Cogan
I'm Not Alone (Radio Edit) - Calvin Harris
Tonight's Today - Jack Penate
Ev'rybody Wants To Be A Cat - Aristocats
Sugar Sugar - Archies
I Only Want To Be With You - Dusty Springfield
Only You Can - Fox
Sweet Soul Music - Arthur Conley
boys, boys, boys - Sabrina

Lincoln to London
Carolyn's Fingers - Cocteau Twins
Turtle Turtle Up - Four Tet
Ye Shall Be Changed - Bob Dylan
Coma Girl - Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros
Steam (Vapoureyes Mix) - East 17
Harold T Wilkins - Fanfarlo
Coming Back To You - Trisha Yearwood
Monday Night Nothing - Malcolm Middleton
Shake Some Action - Cracker
My Fairy King - Queen
Goodbye Cruel World - Shakespear's Sister
Wasted Years - Van Morrison
The Mental Traveler - David Axelrod
Jane - Catie Curtis
Junior's Farm - Wings
Oranges - They Might Be Giants (TMBG)
Tangent - Beth Orton
It's Magic - Eddi Reader
The Sinner In Me - Depeche Mode
Baby, Don't - Steve Forbert
Make It Go Away - Holly Cole
When The Man Comes Around - Knife In The Water
The Wind Blew All Around Me - Mary Lou Lord
Sitting In The Park - Georgie Fame
Can't Stop Now - Keane
Veronica - Wreckless Eric
Got To Get You Into My Life - The Beatles
Here She Comes Again - The Stands
Little Bird - Emmylou Harris
Finding You - The Go-Betweens
Step It 'pon the Rastaman Scene - Easy Star All Stars
I Never - Rilo Kiley
Skyway - The Replacements
October Nights - Yellowcard
Diabaram - Ryuichi Sakamoto with Youssou N Dour
Bonnie & Clyde II - Martina Sorbara
Eden Before The Fall - Lari White
Empty Bottle Blues - They Might Be Giants
10:1 - friends of lizzy
Cookie Jar - Mark Mulcahy
Fitting In With The Misfits - E
La Ritournelle - Sebastien Tellier
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Toy Story 3

Click here to view the teaser trailer.
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London-Lincoln-London, 30-05-09

London to Lincoln
Death or Radio - Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer
The Spirit Moves - The Lilac Time
Some Guys Have All The Luck - Robert Palmer
Got To Give It Up (Part I) - Marvin Gaye
Chinese Arithmetic - Faith No More
Getting By - Barry Crompton
Madame George (tb sheets) - Van Morrison
Where Does the Good Go - Tegan and Sara
Last Night's Party - Simplifires
Get Over It - Solid Gold
Gollum's Song - Howard Shore (sung by Emiliana Torrini)
Co-Star - Tears
Raped And Freezin' - Alice Cooper
Not Just Sometimes But Always - Idlewild
Disappointing Show - They Might Be Giants
Number One - Goldfrapp
Piggies - The Beatles
Free To Go - Folk Implosion
Some Things Get Lost - Alice Peacock
Save Me - Aimee Mann
Porch Swing Summer Night (Duet) - Jeff Bjorck
Lottery Winners On Acid (sxsw version) - The Crimea
All Work And No Play - Van Morrison
I Want To Be Straight - Ian Dury & The Blockheads
Don't Mind Me - Lucy Kaplansky
Magnolia Street - Catie Curtis
Bells and Bombs - Erin McKeown
Moon On My Shoulder - Lyle Lovett
The Wising Up Song - Misty's Big Adventure
Cracked LCD - Ladytron
Muskrat Love - America
God Only Knows - The Langley Schools Music Project
France Chance - Ry Cooder
Time - Easy Star All Stars
Ballad of Easy Rider - The Byrds
Riding With The King - John Hiatt
Congratulations - Traveling Wilburys
The Midnight Special - Leadbelly
In Spite Of All The Damage - The Be Good Tanyas
Memphis Jane - Buddy & Julie Miller

Lincoln to London
Candy - The Addictions
Ride On Time - Black Box
Skinny (Radio Edit) - Lo Rider
Look At Me (When I Rock Wichoo) - Black Kids
Something Is Squeezing My Skull - Morrissey
The Reeling (Calvin Harris Remix) - Passion Pit
Laughing With - Regina Spektor
Walking On A Dream - Empire Of The Sun
Please Don't Touch - Polly Scattergood
Hold It In - Jukebox The Ghost
Back of The Van - Ladyhawke
Better Off As Two - FrankMusik
Trouble - The Dirt Drifters
New In Town (album version) - Little Boots
Raindrops - Basement Jaxx
Inbetween Days - The Cure
Weighty Ghost - Wintersleep
Last One To Die - Rancid
In for the Kill - La Roux
Sushi - Kyle Andrews
Clouds across the moon - Rah Band
Inner City Pressure - Flight Of The Conchords
Headlock - Esser
Bulletproof - La Roux
Dusk Til Dawn - Ladyhawke
The Horizon Is A Beltway - The Low Anthem
Work It Out - Heads We Dance ft. Little Boots
All About the Music - Chad Hudson
Stuck On Repeat (Edit) - Little Boots
Sleepyhead - Passion Pit
I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked - Ida Maria
Too Young - Phoenix
Big Bang Theory Theme - Barenaked Ladies
Every One's A Winner - Hot Chocolate
The Kids Are Sick Again - Maximo Park
Works for Me - The Twelves
Little Secrets - Passion Pit
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher - Jackie Wilson
3 Little Words (single) - FrankMusik
The Reeling - Passion Pit
Rock Me Gently - Andy Kim
Jackie Collins Existential Question Time - Manic Street Preachers
The Lion And Albert - Stanley Holloway
Say Whoa - A-Trak
Lisztomania (Radio Edit) - Phoenix
Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros - Flight Of The Conchords
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SXSW 2009 Free Tracks Review #4

SXSW 2009 posted 1267 songs for free download in March. So far I've listened to 905 of them. Here's half-a-dozen that I haven't deleted...

Trouble - The Dirt Drifters: Heads-down, no-nonsense, mindless country boogie. Music to choreograph a bar-room-brawl to.

Mrs Vain - Ross Royce: He has drummed for most of Australia's indie bands, now he's writing his own early-Bowie-esque primitive rock.

Weightless Again - The Handsome Family: This Albuquerque-based couple write and perform dark, emotive songs that sound as if they come from a much earlier time.

Solid Gold - The Golden Filter: Electronic dance grooves from a New York duo. Think early Goldfrapp and you're getting close.

Quiet Little Voices - We Were Promised Jetpacks: The song isn't anything special. But what a great name for a pop group!

Cacti Are Delicious Fruit - Les Handclaps: Hailing from Montreal, Les Handclaps fuse 60s garage rock and electro-pop with French/English hybrid lyrics. Agreeably kooky.
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Finger painting on the iPhone

The New Yorker reports: [edited]

Jorge Colombo drew this week’s The New Yorker cover using 'Brushes', an application for the iPhone, while standing for an hour outside Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Times Square.

“I got a phone in the beginning of February, and I immediately got the program so I could entertain myself,” says Colombo, who first published his drawings in The New Yorker in 1994.

There’s a companion application, Brushes Viewer, that makes a video recapitulating each step of how Colombo composed the picture. Colombo leans heavily on the Undo feature: “It looks like I draw everything with supernatural assurance and very fast — it gets rid of all the hesitations.”
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Atheist Delusions

I read a lot of books. Some of them are a joy to read, others are rewarding and informative. Once in a while I come across a book that is both. Atheist Delusions is one of those books.

David Bentley Hart is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, philosopher and theologian. And he has a jumbo-size axe to grind. As he explains in the first lines of the book's introduction:

"This book is in no sense an impartial work of history... In what follows my prejudices are transparent and unreserved, and my argument is in some respects wilfully extreme..."

What follows is 240 pages of glittering prose that demolishes many popular secular conceits, while demonstrating how the Christian message has shaped the civilization we live in, immeasurably for the better.

There are not many academic books that make me laugh out loud (well, not intentionally anyway). Hart's book did. Frequently.

This is not an eirenic book. To quote from pages 3-4:

"The God Delusion, an energetic attack on all religious belief, has just been released by Richard Dawkins, the zoologist and tireless tractarian, who - despite the embarrassing incapacity for philosophical reasoning - never fails to entrance his eager readers whith his rhetorical recklessness..."

he then goes on to dismiss Christopher Hitchins, Sam Harris and Philip Pullman with similar one-line put-downs, followed by:

"And one need hardly need mention the extraordinary sales achieved by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, already a major film and surely the most lucrative novel every written by a borderline illiterate..."

To find out more about the book, visit Amazon.com and read some of the reviews. Oh, and if you do decide to read it, make sure you've got a dictionary handy. Dr Hart writes brilliantly, but he does like to let you know that his vocabulary is a little wider than most.

Thanks to Jason Clark for putting me on to this book
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Evom

The Little App Factory reports: [edited]

Evom (currently in beta) converts & transfers movies from your computer and the web.

One-click videos: All you have to do is select the destination and Evom handles the rest.

Videos from the web: Evom makes archiving your favourite internet videos as easy as pressing a bookmark.

Built for speed: Evom is optimized to take advantage of your Mac's spare power to provide you with gorgeous results, fast.

Friends with iTunes: Evom is a good neighbor and works with iTunes to quickly move your videos where you want them.

One-click downloads from YouTube: Add our bookmarklet to your browser to enable one-click-downloading of your favorite flash videos.

Requires Mac OS X 10.5 or greater.
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Comic Sans

The Wall Street Journal reports: [edited]

Mr. Connare has looked on, alternately amused and mortified, as Comic Sans has spread from a software project at Microsoft Corp. 15 years ago to grade-school fliers and holiday newsletters, Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags, business emails, street signs, Bibles, porn sites, gravestones and hospital posters about bowel cancer.

The jolly typeface has spawned the Ban Comic Sans movement, nearly a decade old but stronger now than ever, thanks to the Web. The mission: "to eradicate this font" and the "evil of typographical ignorance."

"If you love it, you don't know much about typography," Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, "if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."

Mr. Connare, 48 years old, now works at Dalton Maag, a typography studio in London, and finds his favorite creation - Magpie - eclipsed by Comic Sans. He cringes at the most improbable manifestations of his Frankenstein's font and rarely uses it himself.

The proliferation of Comic Sans is something of a fluke. In 1994, Mr. Connare was working on a team at Microsoft creating software that consumers eventually would use on home PCs. His designer sensibilities were shocked, he says, when, one afternoon, he opened a test version of a program called Microsoft Bob for children and new computer users. The welcome screen showed a cartoon dog named Rover speaking in a text bubble. The message appeared in the Times New Roman font.

Mr. Connare says he pulled out the two comic books he had in his office, 'The Dark Knight Returns' and 'Watchmen', and got to work, inspired by the lettering and using his mouse to draw on a computer screen. Within a week, he had designed his legacy.

A product manager recognised the font's appeal and included it as a standard typeface in the operating system for Microsoft Windows.

Thanks to Conrad for the link
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SXSW 2009 Free Tracks Review #3

SXSW 2009 posted 1267 songs for free download in March. So far I've listened to 755 of them. Here's half-a-dozen that I haven't deleted...

All About the Music - Chad Hudson: Thoughtfully-written, competently-played, well-sung, country rock.

Death - White Lies: I had already bought this before I realised it was on the SXSW 2009 playlist. Killers-meets-Interpol, doomy-yet-uplifting rock.

Amendoim - Macaco Bong: 7 minutes of tight, inventive, sprawling, virtuoso instrumental guitar-led rock.

Dubai - DJ Sun: Blissed-out, Ibiza-esque grooves.

Works For Me - The Twelves: The Twelves have remixed just about everybody, but I think this is one they made up themselves.

You Look At Me - Rokhsan: A musical prodigy, Rokhsan blends folk, soul and pop in this delightfully scatty acoustic ditty.
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Eucalyptus

Technologizer reports: [edited]

Eucalyptus is an iPhone application that that lets you download and read books from the expansive Project Gutenberg library of free public-domain works. Judging from its Web site, it’s comparable to Amazon’s Kindle application – except all the content is free, and the interface looks to be prettier. The asking price is $9.99.

Except Apple rejected the program for including material that is “obscene, pornographic, offensive, or defamatory.” The material in question is the Kama Sutra, which has been offending (and intriguing) people for centuries. It’s not included with Eucalyptus – no book is – but it’s available at Project Gutenberg, and you can therefore use Eucalyptus to read it.

If the mere fact that an app could be used to download something dirty was enough to ban it from the iPhone, of course, Apple’s own Safari would never have made it onto the phone

My guess is that Apple’s policies don’t really ban Eucalyptus. It seems far more likely that the app fell victim to an overzealous and underinformed member of Apple’s staff who twisted the intent of the App Store’s rules and applied them in a way that nobody ever meant to enforce them.

Thanks to Conrad for the Eucalyptus link
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BarCode Image

LevSys reports: [edited]

BarcodeImage is a small application for generating barcode images. It is easy to use and includes the following features:

- Generate the following barcode types: Interleaved 2 of 5, Code 39, Code 128, Codabar, UPC-A, UPC-E, EAN-13, EAN-8, POSTNET

- Save your barcode image to PNG or EPS image formats

- Specify the output image resolution in pixels/inch or pixels/cm

- Drag and drop your barcode image to an image editor or word processor.

- Print your barcode image for proofing

Available for Windows XP/200 and Mac OS X 10.4+. Donationware.
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Urban Cross Stitching

Fresh from the 'You Couldn't Make It Up' department, Urban Cross Stitching reports: [edited]

'You heard it here first, cross-stitch is the new knitting'

Urban Cross Stitch are dedicated to 'urban-craft', updating cross stitch from twee pastime to modern graphic medium.

Urban Cross Stitch Kits, inspired by street art and popular culture, contain everything required to create your own contemporary, hand crafted cross stitch image.

All our designs can also be ordered as finished stitched pieces, mounted and framed, or, we can customise and create unique image using your own image

Urban Cross Stitch is the brainchild of London based pattern-cutter, Phil Davison. After taking time off from the couture fashion world, Phil learned to cross-stitch in Arkansas, USA, where an elderly family friend taught him the basics.

On returning to London Phil was inspired to combine his newfound love of cross-stitch with his existing love of street art, so created his own brand, Urban Cross Stitch.
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Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought...

Genius. Not sure how long the link will last, but you can click on the header picture for a larger version of the image.

Thanks to Shaun for the link
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Elgato Video Capture for Mac, iPhone and iPod

MacWorld reports: [edited]

Macworld Awards 2009 nominee Elgato Systems has announced Elgato Video Capture, a hardware/software combination solution for transferring analog video - including home movies on VHS video tape - to a Mac, iPhone or iPod.

The device connects VCRs, set top boxes, camcorders, DVD players, and other analog video sources, anything that uses composite RCA or S-Video outputs, to the Mac via a USB 2.0 interface. The package also comes with a SCART adaptor to connect the supplied RCA or S-Video cable.

With one click, videos can be transferred to iTunes, played back in QuickTime, uploaded to YouTube, or opened in iMovie for final editing says Elgato.

Generated files can be synced with video capable iPods, iPhones and Apple TV and can be edited in iMovie ‘09 without re-encoding. Elgato Video Capture automatically detects NTSC, SECAM, PAL, and PAL/60 video formats for worldwide compatibility.

Requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later.

Price: £89.95
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District 9

District 9 is a science fiction film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is based on Alive in Joburg, a short film about aliens landing in South Africa.

Click here for the District 9 trailer. (Or here if you want to see what the aliens look like).

Neill has also produced an Adidas-sponsored short film called Yellow.

Thanks to Conrad for the link
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Toshiba offers 512GB SSD option on latest laptop

Register Hardware reports: [edited]

Toshiba has begun selling what it claims is the first notebook to come with a 512GB solid-state drive.

The 1.1kg Dynabook SS RX2 WAJ uses the same casing as Toshiba's Portégé R600 but the company claimed the new model will run for up to 12 hours on a single charge of its battery.

The laptop's specs are: 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor, 3GB of 667MHz DDR 2 memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Gigabit Ethernet and all the usual trimmings. The 12.1", 1280 x 800 display is driven by the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics core built into the machine's chipset.

Available in Japan for ¥398,000 (£2755).
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Compact superzoom group test

Digital Photography Review has published an extensive comparision/review of the following compacts:

- Canon SX200 IS
- Olympus Stylus 9000 (mju 9000 in Europe)
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 (DMC-TZ6 in Europe)
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 (DMC-TZ7 in Europe)
- Samsung HZ10W (WB500 in Europe)
- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20

Excerpts from the conclusion follow:

"Joint winners: Panasonic ZS1 and ZS3"

"The image quality of both cameras is up there with the very best in almost any shooting situations, be it bright daylight or low light conditions. At higher sensitivities none of the cameras in this comparison can cut the mustard but the ZS1 and 3 are simply not quite as bad as some of the competitors."

"The ZS3 is currently just over a $100 more expensive than its ZS1 sister model which is easily justified by the larger and higher resolution screen (which is much better than the ZS1's) and the HD video mode. As a customer that leaves the choice with you. If video is not a priority and you can live with a standard resolution, smaller screen you get, with the ZS1, a camera that is very similar to its bigger brother at an attractive price point."
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Coldplay live, free download

Tracklist:
Glass Of Water
42
Clocks
Strawberry Swing
The Hardest Part / Postcards From Far Away
Viva La Vida
Death Will Never Conquer
Fix You
Death And All His Friends

available here
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Simon Schubert

Simon Schubert creates images using folds and indents on paper.
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DVD release of Watchmen will be even longer!

Total Film reports: [edited]

If you watched the Watchmen credits roll thinking, “I really wanted to watch more of those Watchmen, I wonder when the extra footage Zack Snyder promised will arrive”, prepare to get your answer.

A director’s cut of the movie is arriving Stateside on DVD/Blu-ray 21 July featuring an additional 25 minutes of footage, including Hollis Mason’s death and more Rorschach.

Those who want to see Snyder’s master version – with Tales From The Black Freighter anime footage edited into a complete cut of the film itself – will have to wait a while longer, since the director has said that it won’t arrive until later this year or early the next.

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for more technical info visit The Hot Blog.

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Thanks to Shaun for the link
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