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Below are 25 friends' journal entries, after skipping by the 950 most recent ones.
- West End Girls, West End Girls Go Petshopping. West End Girls are a Pet Shop Boys cover band consisting of two teenaged Swedish girls. And they don't only perform covers of PSB's songs, they actually pretend to be Neil and Chris, emulating their respective personalities in their public appearances and posing in videos and photos looking bored with dogs and architecture and such. Goes Petshopping is an album of their covers of various songs from PSB's career, from early ones (West End Girls and Love Comes Quickly appear) to later ones (there is a rather good version of You Only Say You Love Me When You're Drunk). The music itself is vaguely eurodancey in production, though not excessively cheesy (though the version of It's A Sin does sound slightly too reminiscent of the Crazy Frog to be entirely comfortable with; the rest, however, is better). Standout tracks: Domino Dancing, Being Boring.
- CSS, Cansei de Ser Sexy. CSS (whose name translates as "I'm tired of being sexy") are a bunch of Brazilian kids who look like American Apparel models and/or Vice Magazine "Do's" and make a sort of edgy electro-tinged fashionpunk with a touch of Peaches-style rap, and tongue firmly in cheek. In a sense, this is to the whole electrocoolsie milieu what Wolfmother is to cock-rock: it takes its glamour and shallowness and name-dropping and hypersexuality and coked-up over-it attitude, exaggerates it, takes the piss out of it, and has a damn good dance whilst doing so. (Sample song titles: "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex", "Meeting Paris Hilton" (which probably merits a discussion of its own, for the way it sends up and comments on the celebrity-obsessed media culture through the combination of sexual desire, sneering contempt and consumeristic excitement in its lyrics), and the classic "Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above", which is perhaps an anthem for our times.) Standout tracks: a lot of them; the ones mentioned above, for three, and This Month, Day 10.
| Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 | ||
dima_l
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8:24p | American A-bombs Were Not Primary Cause of Japanese Surrender As 60th Anniversary of End of WWII Approaches, UCSB Historian Says Research Shows American A-bombs Were Not Primary Cause of Japanese Surrender Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presents a broader view that the New York Times has called "a brilliant and definitive study of American, Soviet, and Japanese records of the last weeks of the war." Examining in detail the deliberations of the Japanese leadership immersed in squabbling over how to end the war with the emperor system intact, Hasegawa claims the bombs were not the most decisive factor in Japan's decision to end the war. Only when the Soviets, jockeying with the United States for post-war influence in Asia, declared war and invaded Japanese-held Manchuria did the Japanese leadership capitulate to prevent falling under Soviet dominance. ( if you look at the decision-making process in Japan, neither the Hiroshima bomb nor the Nagasaki bomb really played a decisive role ) Hasegawa said the Americans misunderstood the Japanese value system. "The American assumption was that if you dropped the bomb on Japan, Japanese leaders would immediately surrender because that's what American leaders would do in that situation," Hasegawa said. "But not everyone has the same value system. However sad or tragic, Japanese leaders were more concerned with maintenance of the Japanese emperor system than with the lives of ordinary citizens." Hasegawa points out that by July of 1945, the Japanese leadership knew the war was lost. And an argument was going on at the highest levels of government whether to surrender immediately or hold out in hope of negotiating peace conditions favorable to maintaining the imperial system of government. Both sides in the dispute hoped to petition the Soviet Union to mediate a peace with the United States and its allies. ( Truman's decision to issue the ultimatum without inviting Stalin prompted Stalin to move up the date of attack against the Japanese forces in Manchuria by 10 days ) |
| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 | ||
| thenulldevice | 2:06a | How much is the fish? Does the fish have chips? More YouTube videos: this time Stump's "Buffalo", which you may remember from the C86 compilation (it was the most dadaistic track on that one). The video, in this case, is the visual equivalent of the song. Enjoy. Meanwhile, more Swedish indiepop: Jens Lekman's "You Are The Light"; pretty polished, involving Jens riding through a tunnel in a van surrounded by riot police, with brass sections passing in open-topped cars at key sections of the song. And here's one for the goths: Propaganda's "Dr. Mabuse", with Anton Corbijn doing his best Fritz Lang homage. (via Bowlie) ¶ |
| thenulldevice | 12:24a | We're From Barcelona YouTube music video of the day: "We're From Barcelona", by Swedish pop combo I'm From Barcelona. There's 27 of them, and they sound somewhere between a Polyphonic Spree (only without the white-robed Texan cultist shtick) and recent Swedish summery indie-pop like Sambassadeur or Jens Lekman. (via Bowlie) ¶ |
| Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 | ||
| thenulldevice | 10:35p | A managed democracy The Australian government is planning to strip environmental groups and trade unions of their tax-deductible status, for campaigning against the government during the last federal election. Interestingly enough, there is no mention of revoking charitable tax-deductible status from groups that involve themselves in politics on the government's side, such as hardline evangelical Christian organisations. |
ilich
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11:02p | Окрашено  Люди сосут  Current Music: wfmu |
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foto_decadent [ crashwritten ] 
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10:33p | |
| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 | ||
tukmakov
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2:50a | Газета или нет? Марат Гельман вполне обоснованно сомневается в том, является ли "Завтра" - газетой. Ну да, мы всё что угодно: "арт-проект", "артель", "спецназ Всевышнего", "осажденная крепость", "шайка вагантов", "палата 6" и т. д. Тут, однако, интересен вот какой момент. Странная обособленность "Завтра" как явления в российском общественной жизни заключается в том, что мы никогда и никем не воспринимались просто как средство массовой информации, которое вольно публиковать те или иные материалы исходя из одного лишь простого желания вызвать живой читательский интерес. Любая наша публикация за все 16 лет всегда рассматривается всей совокупностью нашего читательского сообщества (вне зависимости от политических и мировоззренческих пристрастий) как некий мессидж, "идеологический посыл", как "продуманный политический маневр", который, "конечно же", появляется в газете "всегда не просто так", имеет "подоплеку" и "завуалированный смысл". "Смысл" этот тут же трактуется на все лады публикой: "Проханова купили", "он скурвился", "ему пригрозили", "он устал", "он показал свое истинное лицо", "нашел финансирование на несколько недель", "рассорился со вчерашним союзником" и т. д. ( Read more... ) |
tatjaana
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3:41a | Одно бы болело, и рвалось на части, и замирало от беспокойства, другое бы пело от счастья, любило, не подвергалось ни порче, ни тленью... А ведь есть же, наверно, миры, где такое устройство организма не вызывает ни у кого изумленья? |
kapahel
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3:04a | Задачник Guido's book of conjectures. |
| Thursday, August 10th, 2006 | ||
vele_ss
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4:00p | Пиар, Магия Хаоса Нашел у ![[info]](../IMG/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} aqualung интересное:Cо сверхчеловеком в майке с евразийской звездой (chaos star) я выжрал пару литров вискаря год назад в Киеве. Не обошлось без сакрального травматизма: наутро мой торс был несколько изрисован различной эзотерической символикой зеленым фломастером, а пальцы в порезах от раритетного африканского мачете. Алексей является главным пиарщиком Тимошенко начиная с майдана, на дух не выносит Дугина и евразийство, много лет штудирует Алистера Кроули и практикует магию хаоса и прочий телемизм. Русские православные истерички даже не догадывались, насколько они правы - оранжевая революция это, конечно, продукт чистого сатанизма. И поэтому я верный поклонник Тимошенко - я за власть телемизма, беспредела и хаоса овер да ворлд. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Пара литров вискаря, африканское мачете и зеленый эзотерический фломастер - "такие дела", да. Тут возможно небольшое уточнение. Khaos Magick - это, собственно, не "прочий телемизм", а куда веселее. Формальный основателем данного явления был художник Осман Остин Спеар, который был членом "Золотого Рассвета" тусовался с Кроули, но потом отпочковался. Кроули записал Спеара в Черные Братья. Скорее всего потому, что Спеар поклал болт на все, включая самого Кроули и Закон 93 (Do what thou wilt и тэдэ). Противопоставив этому нечто вроде "ничто не истина - все позволено". То есть, я так понял, что это было такое движения Мальдороров с мольбертом и бутылкой чего покрепче, убивающих скуку по пути к свету Маспела. Спеару приписывали какие-то удивительные сиддхи вплоть до материализации предметов. Хотя я подозреваю, что единственной его сверхестественной способностью была способность "выпить 3л без запивки". Ну, или нечто вроде. В общем, очень правильный был человек. Некоторые его последователи ударились в тупорылый и совершенно неуместный формализм. А некоторые продолжают правильное дело мэтра вызывая Атомных Элементалей и освещая магический круг именем Гомера Симпсона. ( Read more... ) Current Music: Steve Reich |
| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 | ||
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foto_decadent [ crack_cookie ] 
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12:01a | |
galerist
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1:58a | не могу молчать :))) Мы лучшие, мы соль земли, спецназ Всевышнего, авангард человечества. Мы первыми вступили в битву с космическим злом. Неся большие потери, оступившиеся, потрепанные, мы не потеряли своего духа, своей веры, своей воли. Мы не сдались, но закалились, готовые к новым прорывам. Это из статьи в Завтра. http://tukmakov.livejournal.com/223132.h Ну как можно это назвать газетой? В свое время Курицын пытался в Екатеринбурге устроить полемику между мной и Прохановым. Я сказал, что с поэзией полемизировать невозможно. При чем здесь аргументы если автор этого текста считает его трезвым анализом в отличии от "бытующих мифов". |
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galerist
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1:50a | посмотрел "Изображая жертву". По крайней мере это кино. Точнее так: удивительно хороший фильм при такой слабой игре актеров. |
polittechno
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1:22a | ремонт а я, между прочим, сегодня лаком паркет покрывал, вот. Впервые на телеэкране. Лак очень интересный - напоминает прозрачный ПВА. Тиккуриллская Assa. Дорогой - литр 560 рублеф. Напоминает собой разведённое молочко, слой сохнет отсилы час. Замечательная история! Не пахнет практически вапще. Однако литров я купил 4: первый слой типа грунтовочный, и три - для гламура. Столкнулся впервые с этим лаком. Предполагаю, что он гораздо лучше, чем лак на нитро-основе, потому что тот, высохнув, являет собой ломкую пластмассу, а этот - на водной осное - тонкий слой прозрачного полиуретана, из которого обувь делают. Типа резины, одним словом. Должно не так зашаркиваться и всё такое прочее. Но это - лишь предположение. Скажите пожалуйста, не сталкивались ли вы с подобным покрытием и как он кажется вам, напредмет износостокости? Моежет я чепуху учидил за 2240? |
| Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 | ||
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foto_decadent [ diamants_noir ] 
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2:06p | Couture's Flight of Fancy Title: Couture's Flight of Fancy Photographer: Patrick Demarchelier Additional art by: Chiho Aoshima Model: Gemma Ward Magazine: an old Harper's Bazaar, but I don't know which because I recycled it. All I know is that Courteney Cox was on the cover.  This is the set that a banner for this comm came from. If this was posted before, it was a looooooong time ago. This is one of my absolute favorites! ( More... )
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| Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 | ||
| reincarnat | 12:57a | Лозунги и песни это великое дело, вообще-то. Прежде чем писать общеполитческий анализ всего, наверное следует прикинуть, какие песни и лозунги будут актуальными. Но вот к примеру: Вставай, проклятьем заклейменный Весь мир голодных и рабов - это всегда будет актуально. Буржуев(богатых) надо истреблять, этот лозунг всегда будет популярен для 98% населения. Или вот: К оружью, граждане... Тоже замечательно. Ну и т.д. Куда не посмотри - везде социальная рознь и экстремизм. -- Классовая борьба не кончилась, классовая борьба только начинается. |
| Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 | ||
| thenulldevice | 3:19p | On a Freighter Over the past few weeks, Dorothy Gambrell (who draws Cat and Girl, an amusing and thought-provoking web comic (though somehow that wasn't enough to get her into the Belle & Sebastian tribute graphic novel)) has been travelling on container ships across the Pacific, from San Francisco Bay to Tokyo, Osaka and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She has now returned and posted photographs: |
| thenulldevice | 10:35a | Filthy, lawless and expensive Stephen Bayley, an prominent design critic, has issued a scathing indictment of conditions in London, speaking to a Conservative Party policy group: "Most of them are getting worse. London is filthy, lawless and expensive. These are not great conditions for civility to flourish." "Putting 10 million aggressive hominids into close proximity and inviting them to engage in serial acts of competitive individualism ... for jobs, schools or parking spaces, could not be considered a reasonable idea," Bayley said. "You put rats in claustrophobic circumstances and they become homosexual, murderous and cannibalistic in no time at all.I wonder whether he threw in the word "homosexual" to appeal to the reactionary elements in his audience. Though has London ever been anything other than filthy, lawless and expensive? |
| Monday, August 7th, 2006 | ||
| thenulldevice | 5:20p | NWTF The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles has revoked an elderly woman's custom license plates because they had become obscene. Pat Niple had had the number plates reading "NWTF" (standing for "Northwood Tree Farm", a business she had owned) for more than a decade, and had had no problems with them—until this year, when they fell foul of technologically-mediated language change: "Apparently, the young people use it on the computer," she said. Niple went to a BMV office to get some answers. A clerk had to whisper what the acronym means to some people. "Now what the -- and the last word begins with an f," Niple said. "I said, 'You got to be kidding me.'" |
| thenulldevice | 2:53p | American Madrassa American Christianity may have fallen behind fundamentalist Islam in the fanaticism stakes, but it's now making an effort to catch up. Witness the Jesus Camps, America's own madrassas, which serve to indoctrinate 9-10-year-olds in a severe form of fundamentalist Christianity, linked to all manner of conservative ideologies, from veneration of George W. Bush to denial of global warming: Right wing political agendas and slogans are mixed with born again rituals that end with most of the kids in tears. Tears of release and joy, they would claim -- the children are not physically abused. The kids are around 9 or 10 years old, recruited from various churches, and are pliant willing receptacles. They are instructed that evolution is being forced upon us by evil Godless secular humanists, that abortion must be stopped at all costs, that we must form an "army" to defeat the Godless influences, that we must band together to insure that the right judges and politicians get into the courts and office and that global warming is a lie. (This last one is a puzzle -- how did accepting the evidence for climate change and global warming become anti-Jesus? Did someone simply conflate all corporate agendas with Jesus and God and these folks accept that? Would Jesus drive an SUV? Is every conclusion responsible scientists make now suspect?) at one point Pastor Fischer instructs the little ones that they should be willing to die for Christ, and the little ones obediently agree. She may even use the word martyr, which has a shocking echo in the Middle East. I can see future suicide bombers for Jesus -- the next step will be learning to fly planes into buildings. Of course, the grownups would say, "Oh no, we're not like them" -- but they admit that the principal difference is simply that "We're right." In another scene a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush, with his trademark smirking smile, is brought out and the children are urged to identify -- many of the little ones come forward and reverently touch his cardboard hands. (via Boing Boing) ¶ |
| thenulldevice | 2:32a | Magical 8bit Plug Japanese electropop band YMCK are known for making catchy pop songs with instrumentation sounding like 8-bit Nintendo game music. And now you can do the same: they've just released a software synthesiser plug-in that emulates primitive 8-bit sound chips like the one in the Nintendo Famicom. Named the Magical 8-bit Plug, it is free-as-in-beer and available for MacOS X (in AudioUnit format; sorry, Cubase users) and Windows (in VSTi format); it even comes with a demo MIDI file. |
| thenulldevice | 12:16a | Recent listening Two CDs I picked up in the past week or so and have been listening to a fair bit: |
| Friday, August 4th, 2006 | ||
| thenulldevice | 4:01p | Google Talk in hardware Joining the cornucopia of vaporware Skype WiFi phones (and the occasional phone using the SIP industry standard which no-one seems to actually use outside of the enterprise) is a Google Talk phone; that's a WiFi-enabled mobile-phone-sized unit that connects to Google's voice-over-IP network. The advantages: the unit will have "Gmail capabilities" built in (which means that all they'd have to do is widen the keybad and they could call it a Googleberry). The disadvantage, of course, is that all your friends are on Skype, which refuses to connect with other networks (other than the analogue phone system). (via Engadget) ¶ |
| thenulldevice | 2:08p | Discless PlayStation The PlayStation 3 may still be vaporware, but according to a source at Sony, the PlayStation 4 won't support physical discs at all, downloading all of its content through the massive broadband connections everyone will have in 2012 or whenever it comes out. The PlayStation 5, however, will be available in ingestible form and will nano-reconfigure your nervous system. |
| thenulldevice | 10:16a | Capital punishment in the EU? The ultra-conservative president of Poland (one half of a set of identical twins running the country (his brother is Prime Minister) and a man so right-wing he makes Tony Abbott look like Bob Brown) has called for the restoration of the death penalty. If anything comes of this, it could lead to an interesting situation, as capital punishment is expressly prohibited in the European Union. Were Poland to reintroduce it, it would leave Brussels with a dilemma: hold to principles and expel one of their populous members, or allow Poland to opt out of the death-penalty ban. If the EU blinks and the latter happens, how long until the Daily Mail and Sun put the reintroduction of capital punishment on the agenda in the UK. |
