Links « Pete Hindle

April 23, 2011

Tab Sweeping

Owing to a combination of my massive inability to focus and Firefox 4′s inability to work on my computer, I have again ended up with a bunch of interesting tabs that linger beyond their usefulness. It’s what I’ve been reading.

Lester Bangs’ Basement: What it means to have all music instantly available – a good companion piece to a much-linked essay The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything. Both pieces deal with the problem of being able to get hold of much more relevant culture than ever before, whatever your personal choices are.
Two of my personal interests collide in this interview with the songwriter Mirah: the singer herself, and how she structures her creative practice. It’s on a whole blog about songwriters and how they make their creative process happen, which is why it has stayed open so long.
Darkon – a movie about live action roleplayers. There seem to be a few interesting documentaries around that are not generally available in the UK, owing to their distribution methods. I’m also interested in the documentary Get Lamp, about early adventure games (I meant to link it in my last piece, but forgot). Possibly to be filed under “I am going to miss almost everything”.
The Booth at the End – a web series that I might watch, if I felt that I needed to watch more TV.
A Documentary on Beards, which, again, I might watch, but it’s fifteen minutes long. It’s not like anybody ever sits up on their death-bed and says “I wish I’d watched more TV”.
An interview with the guy behind Superbrothers, who have written an excellent game for iOS devices called “Sword and Sworcery”. I’m about half-way through the game, and I’m really impressed – I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a game like this since I played Ico on my friend PSsomething, monopolising their lounge for a week until I finished the game.
Fishermans Friends, a Tumblr recording artistic research into marine traffic observation off coastal Wales.
Zardoz gets some love from both Tor.com and Gary Shteyngart. I really should watch that movie again sometime.
Finally, but not least, the amazing webcomic Bucko.

“Zardoz! Zardoz! Speaks to you…”

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April 15, 2011

Massive Tab Sweep

Firefox’s newest version is crashtastic on my Macbook, so I’m putting a bunch of my open tabs on here in a blog post. I’m pretty sure it’s not right to have all these tabs open anyway, and I should have some sort of tab purge normally. Is there a nominal number of open tabs/windows to have underneath, before the pressure of unread & “interesting” tabs becomes some sort of mental pressure?

Whatever, let’s go:

Annie Wu’s Sketches – look at that angular style! Nice work. Check out her sketch of Buster Keaton above.
The Cosmonaut who sacrificed himself for Gagarin: the first man in space didn’t come back, according to a new book
The Management Myth – an MBA isn’t going to help you. Ethics and thought help you. Apparently. A message which, as an underemployed person with an arts degree, I’m only too happy to spread.
Everything Popular is Wrong – intelligent essay on the effects of consumerism on electronic music. TL;DR version: the music industry is dying, but you won’t replace it with live gigs – because the only people who can afford to do gigs are the ones who have already made it.
How to Have a Rational Discussion: a useful flowchart for various internet dingbats, adapted from atheist resources available online.
Hipster Book Club – for people who, like, read that book back when it was cool.
James Gurney’s drawing kit – what master illustrator Gurney carries in his drawing bag.
Interview with James Gurney – just to prove he is that good. I’m not lying to you, honest.
Avoid the Future – UK indie comics blog. Good.
Part one of three epic interviews with comic book illustrator Gerhard (of Cerebus fame, but not the crazy one), and the follow-up post by the interviewer. Gerhard worked for years on a project, and he talks through the process of becoming, slowly, one of the best pen and ink illustrators around. He doesn’t talk so much about working for a woman-hating religious guy who had two breakdowns.
Revealing the Man Behind @MayorEmanuel – “It’s only words, unless they’re motherfucking true.” So, so good. A story of a story.

There. Maybe Firefox will work now. Have a good weekend, everybody.

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April 8, 2011

Creativity Linkage

The hard part for any person who is creative is to go back to work and keep being creative. I know that I’m more creative at night; sometime I have to rouse myself out of bed to finish something, or make a note of an idea. But there have been times in my life when it’s just been hard to get the creative juices flowing, especially when I’ve been forced into other peoples schedules.

However, to hang on in there for the 12 years that Josh Mirman states as the period it takes to become a “success”, you’re going to need some strategies. Here’s a few inspirational things that have kept me going recently:

Sustainable Creativity, by Micheal Nobbs, is a good start for anyone with less-than amazing energy. Nobbs has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (like I do now) and his discussion of what it takes to keep going on and being creative, when you can hardly keep going with the normal stuff.
How To Steal Like An Artist is a good guide to the other part of being creative: getting inspiration.
Back to Work is a weekly podcast by Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin about knuckling down and doing things, but it’s a lot more entertaining than that. I often listen to it in the background while I’m working.
Fear of Missing Out is a blogpost by Caterina Fake, one of the people who created the photosharing site Flickr (remember that? Used to be huge, sort of prototype social networking). In it, she tells us why social media isn’t always the best thing to pay attention to – you’ll end up craving the funfunfun that your friends are having, and forgetting to make your own fun. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you find making things fun.
From Your Desks, by Kate Donnelly, is my favourite blog right now. It’s just interview after interview with brainy writers, artists, and designers, showing you their workspace. I find this fascinating, because it allows you to see the many and varied different ways that people create. Just like I work best at night, other people work in the morning. It’s about finding what works for you, and making a space so that you can come back and do it repeatedly.

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April 6, 2011

N+1 Magazine’s essay, “Sad as Hell”

“In the past year, I graduated from college, got a desk job, and bought an iPhone: the three vertices of the Bermuda Triangle into which my ability to think in the ways that matter most to me has disappeared. My mental landscape is now so altered that its very appearance must be different than it was at this time last year. I imagine my brain as a newly wretched terrain, littered with gaping chasms (What’s my social security number, again?), expansive lacunae (For the thousandth time, the difference between “synecdoche” and “metonymy,” please?), and recently formed fissures (How the fuck do you spell “Gyllenhaal?”). This is your brain on technology.”

From “Sad as Hell”, by Alice Gregory. Read the rest at N+1 magazine’s website. I highly recommend it.

I would also recommend N+1′s publication, “What was the Hipster?”, which can be obtained from the London Review Bookshop, or for an extortionate amount from the N+1 website. Word to the wise though, N+1 seem to be having some trouble with distribution in the UK.

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March 30, 2011

Moonlighting

As well as more active blogging over here, I’m also doing a few shifts on http://bookintime.blogspot.com/, where you can find a short essay comparing 1980′s TV and 19th century novels.

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February 16, 2011

Feb Links

The Open-Source Swan Pedalo Project – whilst some Linux luminaries took the stance that real things couldn’t be open-source, (my ex-flatmate) John O’Shea thinks that his shiny swan pedalo can. I’m backing John on this one.
Mick Farren has a blog. You might not know who Mick Farren is, but he was one of my favourite authors when I was growing up. He’s just worth looking up in general, although his stand-out sci-fi book is The Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys, which occurred maybe like a third of the way through his career but is amazing.
A blog about creative people’s desks. Stunningly good, giving me a peek into what other people’s desks look like. I’m going to try and blog mine, hopefully encourage a few other creative people to share what their workspace looks like.
Kerrin’s blog. One of those people I stalk across the internet because they are interesting and nice.
The now-dormant Galacticast’s take on the Phantom Zone (from before embedding, it seems). I like to refer to Bedfordshire as the Phantom Zone, but I’m thinking of the version of it in the Supergirl film. Not the version of it with fart jokes.
Drool-worthy urban cycling gear. Not sure about wax coats though
Swanky urban bag thing. I surely don’t need another expensive bag, no matter how many zips it has on it
Mike Duckett’s Pictures of Newcastle Coffee Shops makes me jealously wish I lived somewhere cool, or that I had the outrageously nifty drawing skills that Mike has.

Finally, these people might turn out to be the new Galacticast:

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January 20, 2011

Blast from the Past Day

“Blast from the Past Day” is an idea from Shawn Blanc, which is basically to draw attention to older, cooler stuff on the internet. After all, everything doesn’t have to be new, does it?

This is a great thing for me, because I was basically stressing over the fact I hadn’t written up the alarmingly big pile of books next to my bed. Or that review of Tron I said I’d hand in to the nice people at Re/Action Zine. Instead, here are a few of my favourite posts:

Ironic Reading of Silver Surfer Comics – I laugh at my own jokes
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a lot like an electro gig
I like the idea of Bag Cruft – the stuff that is left in your bag after you take the important stuff out
and finally, my short piece on the Screaming Hand.

Other people are amazing too, but I don’t know where to start when recommending something from the back-catalogue. Lucy Knisley continues to amaze me with her comics, and I lost ten minutes just trying to pick one to link to. Charles Stross has written some amazing essays. But the guy who I am probably most in awe of on the internet would be Merlin Mann, and while I can pretty much point at any of the long-form posts on his site 43folders.com, I’m going to pick this amazingly long essay about existing in a niche.

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October 27, 2010

Berlin: And also…

Above: the video for Donna Summer aka Jason Forrest’s War Photographer, whose career took off in Berlin under his annoyingly pseudonym.

The other thing about Berlin is that (aside from being a centre for culture and a big, fun European city) it’s also a place where there are a lot of young people trying to do vaguely hipsterish things. And it’s been this way for ages. Since way before the word ‘hipster’ was invented.

But I believe there’s something of a zeitgeist at the moment. The current economic climate makes it impossible for people under the age of thirty to buy houses across the EU, but they can support themselves doing freelance work on the internet. Hence, to some degree, a large foreign population arriving in Berlin to do arty things whilst working from home on their laptop. And I can see why; if I had a choice of sitting and tapping the keys on my laptop from here in Bedfordshire or in a Berlin neighbourhood, I’d have to pick Berlin.

Irish writer Julian Glough moved to Berlin to make typing noises, and talks a little about it in this article
He’s not the only artist to move out there, as this Guardian article shows
Ich Werde ein Berliner mocks the hipster population of Berlin, which is easily done
Famously, David Bowie went to Berlin to do huge amounts of smack and write two good albums. But, apparently, going to Berlin makes you amazingly creative, and that means you can learn stuff from the Thin White Duke’s creative approach. Hm. OK. Do I have to make out with Iggy Pop as well?
“Who wants to be constantly in the company of hedonistic supercool teenagers? That’s what living in Berlin is like.” An outsiders view of Berlin’s dominant yoof culture, from Canada’s Globe and Mail

I hear that Copenhagen has a similar hipster density. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been there. But there are certainly areas in any city that draw a type of young, stylish person, such as Heaton in Newcastle. I’m not saying Heaton is as interesting as Kreuzberg, but what it does have are people who are interested in bouncing ideas off each other and trying new things. Living in Bedfordshire, as I am at the moment, that can seem like quite a draw. However, when I lived in Heaton, I found myself almost suffocated by the people around me. I guess the trick is to find somewhere that’s a balance between the two.

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October 5, 2010

Shush

The argument for comments on a website is something like “it allows you to have a conversation with your audience”, but I’m no longer so sure about that. I’m lucky to get some nice comments here, which makes me very happy when it happens, but in the past few months I’ve been fighting an avalanche of spam. I’m not about to turn off comments just yet, but I have been tempted to recently.

Because, jeez, that spam is irritating. And jeez, the comments on other sites are fucking irritating. In fact, commenting has got to such a stage at this point in history that it’s propensity to turn into a slanging match is well known. But is that the right thing? Should we keep commenting as it is, or is it a system that should evolve?

The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory – normal person + anonymity + audience = fuckwad. It’s a truism that you can also get on a slightly-more-polite t-shirt.
Engadget Turns Off Comments – when a bear-pit like Engadget, whose business plan is dependent upon page-views, turns off it’s comments, you know something is up. “What is normally a charged — but fun — environment for our users and editors has become mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations… and that’s just not acceptable.” they said, because citing the above theory would not have a calming effect. They’re back on now though, but by default casual browsers don’t see them.
Speak Your Branes – one of the earliest sites dedicated to lampooning the miserable commentator. The choices are mainly culled from the Have Your Say forums of the BBC, which I’m not familiar with. Sounds hellish though.
Help us improve debate on CiF (Guardian) – the Guardian is one of the sites where I feel most dismayed by comments. Some subjects, especially the arts coverage, turn into a spiteful mirror of the message of the written article when the comments start. I think that some of what they are suggesting might help, but I’m not sure that having the author of a piece engage with trollish behaviour will do anything to improve matters there.
Antisocial Web Script for Greasemonkey – if you can’t beat ‘em, delete ‘em.
A Comment on Comments – from Suw Anderson, a mover and shaker in the media world, who notes that most news websites forums are toxic wastelands, and asks these organisations to reconsider the idea of ‘social’. I actually left a length comment on this piece, maybe you could read that. I only made one spelling mistake (I think…)
Why there are no comments on Daring Fireball – one of my favourite blogs on the internet, as much as for the voice as the content, responds to criticism that his site should have comments: “I care about what’s best.” Scroll down to the second half of the post for his extended views, which are worth reading.
Anger Management for Trolls – a contemporary piece from Wired magazine, which states that science will stop those pesky humans with their bad thoughts. I dunno, Wired, I’m dubious… maybe it has something to do with human nature?

That is a lot of linkage for now, and I’m going to let you click and mull to your own conclusion. But here’s one last thing, from Mitchell and Webb, which Suw Anderson used in her piece:

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September 11, 2010

New Page: Mac Software Suggestions

I get a lot of people asking me about Mac Software, so I’ve put up a web page where I can list my recommendations. Find it on the top of this webpage, or click here to see it.

If you have suggestions, or you think I’ve missed something out, let me know. You can either leave a comment or use the Contact page.

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Tag: Links