Category: Musings

The Conservatives back in England are taking the approach, surprisingly since they’re conservatives and all, of standing up for the hoodie youth culture. They believe, strangely enough, that just because a teenager wears a hoodie does not mean they will rob/murder/disagree with you, well – maybe just the last one. It is amazing to me that hoodies have been banned in shopping centers all over Britain now on the basis of this dress profiling – although I have to say that when I go back wearing my hoodie I’ve yet to be thrown out of anywhere.

Malcolm Gladwell, the famed author of the Tipping Point, wrote about this in a great article in the New Yorker on the subject of pitbull profiling. After a few vicious attacks by a couple of pitbulls many states in the US banned pitbulls and ‘pitbull like’ animals. Blatent profiling based on appearence. It turns out that many other dogs are responsible for more attacks than pitbulls, but when pitbulls do attack it’s a lot more devastating so people react in a more extreme manner. In New York with our current spate of terrorism related fear the New York police are hard pressed not to take the profiling route – but luckily at least some people realise that tans and long scaggly bears do not a terrorist make. Or at least that shaving is an easy option for your less stupid terrorist. The other day I was stopped rushing to the subway and my bag scanned for explosives, which given the size of my rugsac was a pretty sensible move. Of course I had recently been sunning myself and hadn’t shaved that morning…

The third installment of Tezuka’s epic. For some reason this one engaged me slightly less than the first two, which given Buddha starts his journey towards enlightenment is kind of surprising. Still, Tezuka weaves great stories with his new characters around the Buddha’s own life and this certainly doesn’t make me want to stop reading the series!

The second in the series on Buddha’s life continues as Buddha grows into a young man and the supporting characters grow up. Not much to add from the first review – it’s a great read and the additional characters that Tezuka adds into the mix are interesting and engaging in their own way, with their own stories to bring. Perhaps my only gripe at this point is that I’m now getting confused where the real life of Buddha ends and Tuzaka’s creations begin.

For the last year or so I’d noticed this amazing set of hardcover comics in a Montreal comic shop, along the spine of which was the face of a Manga Buddha growing up. Finally I took the plunge and bought the first one and I’m glad I did. The story, by master of Manga Osamu Tezuka (creater of Astro Boy), starts at the beginning of the life of Buddha as he is prophesized and born to the king. From this well known life Tezuka then expands out to add his own world of magic, transfiguration and fable – all drawn in beautiful black and white, a style echoed by the beautiful white covers with removable colour bands (on the hardcover edition which I highly recommend you get).

The read is over quickly, as it’s not a dense story and the characters tend not to get into long soliloquays, but ‘luckily’ there’s another 9 or so books after this one. My one other gripe is that sometimes the translations come across a bit tacky and American, somewhat akin to the Archie comics, which seems off given the epic scope of the story. A must-have addition to any comic addicts bookshelf – which may need widening if you get the whole series!

A Christmas present kids book bizarrely enough – that is actually an enjoyable enough read for an adult if you feel like something low maintenance for a change. The story revolves around Matt, a child whose father the King dies unexpectedly and so he finds himself thrust into leadership. Many adventures then follow, including running off to war, making friends with cannibals and eating chocolate. It’s not exactly Harry Potter, but definately a good read for a young teen kid.

Well it’s old news now… but I’m still reeling a bit from our loss last weekend to Portugal. Some good news though – Portugal went out yesterday as well to France, ha (sorry Jes!). In the meantime though, here are some useful things to do with that England flag you bought… [thanks to Metafilter]

It’s July 4th in Noo Yawk and 31c in my apartment – yeuch. Hottest is kitchen, then middle then bedroom but I’ve turned the a/c off now so that could change rapidly. I’m also suffering from an electricity meltdown – in that every now and again my power goes right down to nothing (all lights almost go out and my TV dies). Yay summer.

After last night’s awesome TV on the Radio gig at Prospect Park Bandshell, I came across some more TVOTR this morning – in the form of Trent Reznor and others singing along to Dreams with them. [Thanks to Metafilter]

Just got back from The Streets’ amazing gig at Webster Hall, the last of their US tour. After a slightly shakey start from Lady Sovereign, who was also great but was having issues with the PA, Mike took to the stage and immediately upped the vibe – with his fellow MC’s amazing vocal range and a tight backing band consisting of drums, bass and keyboards and all decked out in matching orange. Didn’t know they were supporting Holland…

From the very start of the gig Mike paced the stage with fierce energy, interrupting his own songs to chat with audience to discuss poker, get tips on training for the New York marathon or to share his bottles of vodka and rum with all. The old classics such as ‘Has it come to this’ were mixed in with the new classics from his latest album, such as ‘When You Wasn’t Famous’ – moving from hard dance beats (with the tightly pressed floor crowd being pushed to jump harder to show up the VIPs on the balcony) to the soulful renderings of ‘Never Went to Church’ – Skinner’s ballad dedicated to the death of his dad – after which he seemed to get tearful and disappeared off to the side of the stage for a moment. All the songs sounded amazing, and the banter between MCs and with the crowd seemed light hearted and playful, bringing smiles to everyone’s faces. The last finale ended up with Skinner stripping to skin and crowd surfing for a brief moment, before jumping back on stage and heading off – much to everyone’s disappointment after an amazing set.

I’ll be uploading the photos shortly – so keep checking this link out.

Addendum: Check out The Modern Age’s great review of the gig with lots of real info and much better pics. Next time I may have to sacrifice my 20D to the fray in the cause of better pics than my S70 can manage.

Playing around with GreaseMonkey, a plugin for the great Firefox browser, has been on my to do list for a while now, along with learning Rails and Ruby. Finally I found some time this weekend to put it to use on an annoying little work problem and I have to say it’s been very effective.

The problem was simple: Due to a random series of constraints I needed to delete approximately 1,500 items off a web page and deleting each count required loading a page, scrolling down a bit and then clicking the correct button – manually. Ug. After a quick test this process was taking about 10-15 seconds per deletion which obviously was a whole waste o’ time. So in steps GreaseMonkey, a few hours of coding later and bingo – a clever little application that automates pressing ‘delete’ 1,500 times for me. Ah, technology.

Now I won’t go into the obviousness of how stupid it was to need this solution in the first place, but suffice to say it works just like it says on the can. So thumbs up to GreaseMonkey! And while we’re on the subject Ruby on Rails is also turning out to be pretty darn smashing to my geek self.