Archive for August, 2008
The futility of flogging music (and the despair when you can’t even give it away)
An excellent article about selling records, file sharing and trying to flog MP3s via Word Magazine:
web technology lets us see exactly how many people are listening to our music. We can see the MySpace hit counters spin round, with the total number of listeners for each track. Our stats pages on our blogs show us how people arrived at our page, which country they’re from, even which web browser they’re using. We’ve got information about the reach of our music that we couldn’t have dreamed of 10 years ago, and it tells us that thousands upon thousands of people have their ears open, and they’re listening. But, by and large, and with a few exceptions, we can’t fucking sell music to them.
So long, Glaswegian indie rock radio
XFM Scotland, the radio station formerly known as Beat 106, is to become part of the Galaxy dance music network.
The switch, which will be made in the autumn, is likely to see a radical overhaul of the station’s music output.
Ubiquity: this could be awesome
Sorry, on deadline just now so this’ll be quick: Mozilla’s Ubiquity could be amazing. More on MetaFilter.
Maybe I should have waited before shaving my legs
Despite reports, Girls Aloud are not planning to recruit a new member - at least, not according to the official site:
Over the weekend the papers have been filled with false stories on the girls. But instead of the tired old ’split’ stories, they have invented rumours of a brand new Girls Aloud reality show. These reports could not be more wrong and the Girls are far too busy putting the finishing touches to their brand new album to be filming a new show, let alone bringing on board a new member.
God help us if there’s a war
For most people, losing out on the chance of a new job is not something you want to shout about. But rather than keep it quiet, Darren Mirren failed to show up for his interview and then sued the employer when he could not find his way to the office
The Evening Times picks up on the story.
The youngster said: “It wasn’t my fault.
“I was unable to get there because they didn’t give me any directions.
“I felt it was discrimination because of my age.”
Discrimination because you’re an idiot, more like.
There’s a serious point here, though. The firm was remarkably patient with the kid, the case was clearly groundless, and yet the employer still loses - because lawyers don’t work for free.
There’s something very wrong when someone who can’t find their own arse with both hands can shout “help! I’m being oppressed!” and cost a company a fortune, even when the company’s in the right.
Unsolicited social networking status updates advice
If you’re telling everybody you’re far too busy to do something really important, and you’re linked to them on Facebook, it’s probably a bad idea to spend days uploading cute photos, sending people virtual beers, joining “I like badgers!” groups and generally dicking about. BECAUSE THEY CAN SEE YOU! THEY CAN SEE YOU!
You’re welcome.
What people search for. Oh my [language NSFW]
It’s always amusing - and occasionally depressing - to have a look at your website stats to see how people arrived. Here’s some of the search strings that landed people here:
IR camera see through which fabrics
I may be small I may look sweet ringtone
Free zoo porn
Jade Goody
Fucking Japan Giles
Man has 2 dicks
Angelina Parenting
Men shaging wemen
Men who like to be dildoed
Scottish bukkake
Nightshot infrared see through clothes
Roy chubby brown dad fuck off black
Gary tits
On a brighter note, if you’ve ever wondered whether you should post stuff you’ve learnt - such as rants about health things you’ve experienced, or problems you’ve had with specific companies - the answer appears to be “yes, you should”. Blog posts about things I’ve dealt with (travelling with babies, dealing with colic, run-ins with particular companies…) are being read too, often by more people than the ones searching for cameras that can see through clothes or men with two dicks.
Baby-proof my iPhone
An unusual request: does anybody know of a crystal case for the first-gen iPhone that *doesn’t* let you use the touch screen? I want to use it as a portable video player for baby bigmouth, but the touchscreen means she turns off the clips in seconds and then beats me around the face with the phone. Any ideas?
It’d be great if there was a preference that turned off the touch interface during video playback…
People with cancer “more likely to be pissed off” than people without cancer
Although that’s not entirely how it’s been reported:
Positive thinkers ‘avoid cancer’
Women who have a positive outlook may decrease their chances of developing breast cancer, say Israeli researchers.
…But the researchers admitted that women were questioned after their diagnosis, which might significantly change their outlook on life.”
A happy Xbox experience
My Xbox 360 developed the dreaded Red Ring of Death the other week, and after trying the various troubleshooting tips it was pretty obvious that the ‘box was broken. So with a sinking feeling I called tech support to try and arrange a repair.
What I expected was this:
- Hours on the phone being passed from pillar to post
- Days and days before my console was picked up
- A couple of months without an Xbox while it sat in Germany gathering dust
- A returned Xbox with “there’s bugger-all wrong with it” written in biro on it
What I got was this:
- Talking to a real person within a few minutes
- An emailed shipping label that arrived during the phone call
- Pickup of the console within three hours
- An email update telling me it was fixed a week and a half later
- Delivery a few days after that, on the promised date
- A note explaining that my motherboard and DVD drive were buggered, so they’d been replaced
- A complimentary month’s membership of Xbox Live
Credit where credit’s due, that’s made me feel very positive about Microsoft.