Posted at 6:39pm on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 by Andy
So. We had an earthquake. We woke up in the middle of the night to the most godawful rumbling and rattling. The following conversation ensued:
Me: What on earth is that?
Mrs Offmessage: No idea. The house is shaking though. Could it be an earthquake?
Me: Earthquake? Unlikely
Mrs Offmessage: What is it then? I don’t like it.
Me: It’s very windy. Maybe it’s the wind?
Mrs Offmessage: Doing that?
Me: Well… Yes… Could be. The wind could be hitting the resonant frequency of the house.
(Mrs Offmessage looks sceptical)
Me: You know, like when bridges collapse
(Mrs Offmessage continues to look sceptical)
Me: It would have to be blowing from a particular direction I guess
(Mrs Offmessage rolls over)
Me: That narrow path down the side of the house could cause a funnel effect…
(Snoring…)
At least I wasn’t in bed with Ian, I guess
Posted at 11:27am on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 by Andy
Lordy. The lingerie catalogue just got interactive. The Dressing Room. Definitely diverting for a moment or two, let’s put it that way. Possibly not safe for work.
Posted at 11:02pm on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 by Andy
…and listen to death from above.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PynYTdCxU4g]
Clearly a band called CSS is going to get at a few plays in our office. That and being used in the best scene of the Phoo Action pilot means I can’t get that nagging riff out of my head. Also, same track, live on Later.
Posted at 10:34am on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 by Andy
Posted at 10:38pm on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 by Andy
I love youtube; particularly as a music discovery service. I don’t think I’ve talked about this enough here so here’s the first in (hopefully) a more concerted effort to post music videos to this blog.
This is the track I was looking for when I first discovered exactly how good youtube is for music. It wasn’t there at the time, it was the other things I found that made me realise. Thankfully someone has posted it since and for your delectation here is one of the highlights of Talking Heads career done by David Byrne plus small orchestra on Later a few years ago. This must be the place (naïve melody).
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG2NL72DhqA]
Posted at 1:57pm on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 by Andy
Classy game play. Takes a while to get used to, but a really neat idea. Shift.
Posted at 1:55pm on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 by Andy
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Some say creation
How about you?
I think we brits really miss out, not having science fairs.
Posted at 11:44am on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 by Andy
Absolute class – T-Shirts for VCs. Not only overpriced ($100 each), but you can add the company to your shopping basket too. Marvellous.
(Found at the wonderful tcritic.)
Posted at 2:50pm on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 by Andy
Fascinating (although as yet utterly inconclusive) look at a viral campaign for the fake pharmaceutical Obay.
When Amy started thinking for herself, we had to nip it in the bud with Obay™
(And if anyone’s wondering about the headline to the piece… Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit)
Posted at 5:53pm on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 by Andy
Must admit that I didn’t notice this story when it first broke (despite having over 4,000 diggs!), but there’s an interesting thought that if Google were to invert the colours of it’s pages (with a black background) it would save approximately 750MWh (Mega Watt hours) of energy per year.
This sounds fantastic (it sounded more fantastic before the migration from CRT to LCD got factored in and the savings were 3,000MWh). But. A note of caution. The average electricity consumption of a UK household is just shy of 4MWh per year, meaning that even Google can only save the electricity of 192 UK homes. Rather stops you worrying about energy consumption in your web design. Still, black is the new green makes for a nice slogan. Those interested in the power consumption of different colours (on CRTs) can find out more from the US Gov.
Interesting that blackle (a black page Google custom search) has gained a lot of traction among the eco/ethical crowd. If I’m honest it looks like a fairly cynical ploy; host AdSense on a standard version of Google and tout yourselves as ethical. Given the energy savings that such a site offers in reality it’s just another way of getting traffic to your ads – nothing more, nothing less. 469kWh saved to date (as I write this post). Approximately 10% of one UK household. I’m betting the ad revenue would pay for a whole lot more electricity (or solar panels, or wind turbines) than that.
