I’ve archived an MP3 copy of Arnold Brown’s Radio 4 programme here: Ivor Cutler: Glasgow Dreamer. It’s a good introduction to Ivor Cutler’s work, and it’s a bit more accessible than the RealAudio format I had to convert it from.
Month: November 2005
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completely not feeling the love for the iPod Shuffle
Shuffle mode on the iPod Shuffle isn’t random. It seems to play the same tracks in the same random order every time you restart the device. It only seems to get a new randomization when you sync with iTunes.
Oh yeah, and it’s too wide to fit alongside a standard USB plug on an iBook. I’ll check the BestBuy returns policy, ‘cos this thing just ain’t doing it for me.
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no, I don’t get this, either
BBC NEWS | Scotland | Crews face bonfire night attacks:
Firefighters and police faced a series of attacks from gangs as they attended bonfire night call-outs in the Strathclyde area.
When I read this, I’m glad I left the Land of Ned.
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aargh, why’d ya do it
Because the Mini-ITX box was sitting doing nothing all these months while there was much bickering amongst the driver developers. At least this will work, for smallish values of ‘work’. -
What’s with the Council of Canadians, eh?
Every couple of months, the Council of Canadians sends me a large and visually unappealing (1986 called; they want their typewriter font back) mailing, ranting about how those pesky Americans keep stealing our water.
Close reading of the mailing (which is hard, given the woeful typography) shows that the initiatives being railed at are either:
- run by Canadian companies, or
- are part of legislation voted for by Canadians.
Like most environmental things, Canada has an appalling record of looking after its abundant water. I think we think that the rest of the world thinks better of us than they do, or maybe even frankly cares about Canada.
I’m a bit worried by the CoC’s use of the n-word — nationalist — since it has unpleasant connotations, like the BNP and SNLA. Also, at least half of the mailing could be summed up as The Maude Barlow Fanzine, with only slightly lower production quality than the average zine.
And anyway, pesky Americans haven’t been stealing our water. Catherine hasn’t been sneaking any more out of the house than usual …
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iPod Shuffle: meh
There’ve been a couple of times that my 256MB USB key wasn’t quite big enough, so I was in the market for a 1GB unit. Since the iPod Shuffle was only slightly more expensive than a plain memory key, I thought it would be a good purchase.
Um, wrong. While it’s undoubtedly a decent (if slightly portly) USB key, it has huge deficiencies as a music player:
- you can’t skip to the next album in the play list.
- shuffle mode seems more like ‘play a few songs out of order from the same album until you manually skip to something different’.
- why is my music hidden away in weirdly-named files?
- iTunes doesn’t always sync all of the tunes in the playlist, leaving you with missing albums.
For me, I think the most the Shuffle will be is a way of listening to the couple of albums I’ve bought on the weekend. It is small, light, and sounds pretty reasonable, but it won’t replace my iRiver H120 for musical goodness.
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the Wawa Plume – it’s pollutionalicious!
The Wawa Plume (Google maps link) — a 24km trail of environmental destruction left by smelters — is clearly visible from space. You don’t need a weatherman to say that the wind blows from the southwest in Wawa.
Thanks to Evan o’ the Wildlands League for finding this.
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halloween fallout
One forgets how quickly — and how extravagantly — a carved pumpkin goes mouldy. It’s positively fluffy.
