BigMother.dk

From http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/drfun.html via Bruce Schneier

Even if I denounced them back in November last year when a good friend, my scout on the Scottish music scene, warned me about this coming hype I have to admit that I’ve succumbed somewhat to the cult of Arctic Monkeys now. Especially the lead vocal differentiate them nicely from other new party-rock bands with it’s The Streets kind of British spoken-word-charm. Also Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has caught my ear with a promise to become a frequent iPod choice in February. Much more NY-arty and indie than the Sheffield Monkeys they still make for good energetic listening so refreshing in the Danish winter.

Concert-wise February will bring my long lasting love Jan Jelinek to town with his very winterly mellow take on krautrock the 9’Th at Culture Box. And WhoMadeWho will play one of they seldom hometown gigs the 17’Th at Rust (an impressive tour is underway). See you there I bet you look better than Madonna on a dance floor.

OK, sitting here among my ‘blog classmates’ discussing blog comments and commenting I’ve decided to perform a test/survey/exploration (knowing that it might expose my total lack of readers). I’m not too active contributing to all the blogs I read myself with comments and feedback so that might be the reason why I seldom get comments at BigMother.dk. It might also be due to my writing style that doesn’t leave enough space for other opinions and perspectives, corrections (I wish!) or discussion. So I would like your comments on this…. OK, if that’s not enough I’ll use a question mark; What would make BigMother.dk more interesting for you to read? What would it take for you to comment here?

What is it about this craze for blogs? How did it get so overly hyped? Here’s one attempt to modify the euphoria of the blog revolution from a professional writers perspective: it’s just better technology, not anything intrinsically valuable about the writing itself. Soon every commercial publication will be more or less in the blog format. By Simon Dumenco in AdAge.com

I you, like I am, are a mushy, concerned neurotic that can’t help worrying rather than just join the happy consumption party and leave salvation to others, you’ll probably find the new report from UNEP Talk the Walk valuable reading. Since the prospects for the arms race between even the most innovative production developments and increasingly craving consumption are rather bleak we have no choice but to seriously ponder our choices, habits and motivations for consuming. I’m myself everyday fighting inner urges to buy and use all kinds of stuff, from fashion clothes over gadgets to food and my loved but energy expensive espresso machine. Actually, I feel that besides privately trying to minimize consumption I have a professional obligation to help promote innovation that naturally replace old-fashioned consuming with sustainable alternatives.

While we’re at consumption but to add a little fun to the seriousness and please the inner consumer, you might want to check out Anti-Apathy’s quite niceWorn again shoes made from recycled parachutes, old men’s suits and car seats among other things.

I got to both great links from the indispensable blog World Changing on sustainability issues and ways to fight our own destructive tendencies.

I have always loved when British people go mad with future prospective as in British Telecoms notorious future predictions. This time it’s a timeline comprising several ‘sinusoid’ curves (an awful interface to navigate by the way but visually spectacular) covering the period from 2006-2051. There are, as always with futurology, mostly ol’skool science fiction clichés (the kind of childish dreams already warn down by mainstream Hollywood movies for years now), some dull (“70 million over 65 in USA” by 2020), but also some interesting and a few even congenial to yours truly’s controversial beliefs. For instance the idea of basic rights for electronic creatures (around 2015) that I have personally argued for publicly as a natural consequence of technological development and present juridical trends. Among the most fantastic are the ‘Wild cards’ (“can happen at any time”) including a ‘Global machine dictator’. However the ‘smart yoghurt’ by 2020 (in the Category ‘Materials, Electronic devices and Processing’) is not bad either and has to be comforting to customers who’s phone bill actually funds these necessities.

I’m quite pleased to witness how the exploration of possibilities for Danish innovative sound design that I initiated December 2004 is flourishing. Even if based on slightly wishful thinking disguised as firm strategic knowledge back then, the ground was surprisingly fertile and the timing seemingly good. A growing group of skillful professionals have been working focused on establishing a center for sound design in Denmark for since our workshop last May and important alliances are slowly being formed. I still think that there are immense strategic potentials in cutting edge sound design products and services among Danish designers, engineers and musicians. So even if I’ve only been following the efforts on the sideline for some time now due to other duties, I’ll start helping out again soon. I promise guys.

I thought I had a nice computer. Forget that it operates almost flawlessly, fast and very smoothly. That it’s only 5 months old and just got a very neat Red Maloo sleeve: THERE’S A NEW SOCALLED MACBOOK OUT WHICH IS MUCH FASTER AND THINNER….than my old dear mac. I hope this backlit keyboard is waterproof. You’re cruel Jobs, just cruel.

It’s not often that a video with a scape artist appears. And when it furthermore comes from one of the better scape releases, the fabulous Headset hip-hop-ish album Space settings and feature Beans on vocal, you got to check it out. And while you’re at it, buy the album.

After a bad upgrade to WP 2.0 I have had a little downtime. But fortunately, Marius helped me out (again!). While BigMother was down, you missed a very interesting post on counter surveillance, my proof that I invented the iPod back in ’86 and my conclusive idea to end poverty in the world. Think about it. Technology is surely evil in disguise luring us into the comfort of believing that it facilitates sharing of ideas when it actually impedes any true progress with its errors and malfunctions. We better hope that I will not have any downtime again.