Charlie Brooker reviews “The X-Factor”

Charlie Brooker reviews “The X-Factor”

Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse? don’t you see, friend, the streets are so villainously narrow, that there is not room in all Paris to turn a wheel-barrow? In the grandest city of the whole world, it would not have been amiss, if they had been left a thought wider; nay were it only so much in every single street, as that a man might know (was it only for satisfaction) on which side of it he was walking.

Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

No offense to our artists (Bryce, did you do this?!) but this logo is a typography disaster. Every single element is a different style – not to mention the fact that the 50 and bubble don’t line up with TC correctly. Am I just oversensitive to these things?

The number of mariners in the saide fleete were above 8000, of slaves 2088, of souldiers 20,000 (besides noblemen and gentlemen voluntaries), of great cast pieces 2600. The foresaid ships were of an huge and incredible capacitie and receipt, for the whole fleete was large enough to containe the burthen of 60,000 tunnes.

Edwin Creasy, The 15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World

Battles this week

Quotes from The 15 Decisive Battles in the History of the World this week. Up first, the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the British in 1588.

A different Picard facepalm, so you people on the internet can try a DIFFERENT ONE EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, COME ON!

Wow, this whole series was completely unknown to me. “Zoom into” about a million different things with an electron microscope. And of course, everything is fascinating when you zoom in to a million times normal size. (fixed video)

Why iTunes needs a Lite version. (by me)

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Field Music – “You’re Not Supposed To”
Write Your Own History

This album is a great little collection of b-sides and early songs by a band I didn’t even know existed. They’ve got a unique sound going on though, a sort of cross between Tunng and The Lovely Feathers.

Scene Missing Magazine’s photoset of Dragoncon. Wow, that looks … pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I never can have fun at those things because the people freak me out. The whole idea of putting yourself on parade feels wrong to me and I can’t interact with people who are fabricating themselves wholesale. Still, makes for some awesome pictures.

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Bibio – “Dopplerton”
Vignetting the Compost

V. good. The playful electronics of later Minotaur Shock crossed with the jangly guitars of the Fruit Bats. Repetitive to be sure, but cheerful and hypnotic.

On a more real note than Prince Valiant’s plan below, here is the layout of Napoleon’s invasion force for England before he was forced to call off the operation. That’s a lot of ships.

Prince Valiant’s battle plan to help the outnumbered King Arthur defeat the Saxons. So awesome.

Thank god for Facebook.

This is absolutely fantastic. Hidden messages placed in old 8-bit games – programmers complaining of rank coworkers, shout-outs to the good guys, and general reminiscing, all tucked away in a weird corner of the game’s data and hidden away for years.

The shore is silent now, the tide far out: but six hours hence it will be hurling columns of rosy foam high into the sunlight, and sprinkling passengers, and cattle, and trim gardens which hardly know what snow and frost may be, but see the flowers of autumn meet the flowers of spring, and the old year linger smilingly to twine a garland for the new.

Charles Kingsley, Glaucus

Vocabulary: foppish naturalist edition

From Ten Thousand A-Year

pomatum: a perfumed unguent for the scalp (it’s pomade)
bedizen: to ornament or dress in a showy or pompous manner
opprobrious: expressing (or bringing) reproach or scorn
champerty: sharing the proceeds of a lawsuit by an outside party who has encouraged the
  litigation. Used to be illegal, is now the standard
animadversion: a critical or reproachful remark
jackanapes: an impudent person, especially a young man or child
fustian: a stout fabric of cotton and flax, or unnecessarily turgid language
virago: a strong and forward woman, or critical and scolding woman
palaver: to talk profusely or idly

From Glaucus; or, The Wonders of the Shore

congener: an organism belonging to the same class or group as another organism
coracle: a small boat made of wicker and a treated or waterproof material
sciolism: superficial knowledge, or a pretentious attitude of scholarship
tyro: a beginner or novice

Happy, truly, is the naturalist. He has no time for melancholy dreams. The earth becomes to him transparent; everywhere he sees significancies, harmonies, laws, chains of cause and effect endlessly interlinked, which draw him out of the narrow sphere of self-interest and self-pleasing, into a pure and wholesome region of solemn joy and wonder.

Charles Kingsley, Glaucus (1855) (v. good)

But when the artichoke flowers, and the chirping grass-hopper sits in a tree and pours down his shrill song continually from under his wings in the season of wearisome heat, then goats are plumpest and wine sweetest; women are most wanton, but men are feeblest, because Sirius parches head and knees and the skin is dry through heat.

But at that time let me have a shady rock and wine of Biblis, a clot of curds and milk of drained goats with the flesh of an heifer fed in the woods, that has never calved, and of firstling kids; then also let me drink bright wine, sitting in the shade, when my heart is satisfied with food, and so, turning my head to face the fresh Zephyr, from the everflowing spring which pours down unfouled thrice pour an offering of water, but make a fourth libation of wine.

Hesiod, Works and Days

Beautiful little short. CG smoke – reminds me of the old fractal videos I liked to much. I’ll put those up over the next couple days.