IkoStar

MTV have just released all their videos, so I thought I’d see if it worked

I don’t know how this’ll go… it’s good of them an all, but I suspect very strongly that this will mean a migration of content from MTV to Youtube… because the entire point is to copy->morph->release->copy->morph->release.

Hmmm… not as big as I thought. Lets see if we can’t hack it up a bit:

Well that’s fairly cool - I don’t know if you can do that with Youtube. Mind you, I’ve never tried. The non-read-ahead thing is kindof fucked. If you’ve got a slow connection you need to be able to pause it and download a big chunk before you click play.

Ohhhh kaaaaaayyyy… can we do full screen?

click here

Yes we can. That’s quite cool as well.

click here to enter your own video id

Mind you, you could just click the “full screen button”, but well… you know… whatever.

These are some toffs.

There’s loads of kerfuffle about them in the papers at the moment because Toff#1 alledgedly attempted to scrounge some money off some Russians or something on Toff#7’s boat… and then denied it, so Toff#7 wrote a firmly worded letter to The Times (for that is what toffs do) and initiated a conversation that proceeded as follows:

Toff#7 : did
Toff#1 : didn’t
Toff#7 : did
Toff#1 : didn’t
Toff#7 : did
Toff#1 : didn’t
Toff#1 : did did did, times infinity and no returns. And whath more, if you disthagwee with me again I thall dethtwoy you caweeah

(that’s how they talk)

So that’t that. That photo was taken in Oxford… Bullingdon Club which surprised me slightly because I used to live round the corner from The Bullingdon (a pub) and it was too scruffy even for me, and I looked like this at the time:

On account of probably being a radical poet of some sort - like that one who’s girlfriend wrote Frankenstein etc.

Back in the day of course, these people looked a bit like this :

And it wasn’t called The Bullingdon Club it was called The Kit Kat Club - of which more shall be said later… and although they were different in every conceivable way, they were basically the same sort of thing. Toffs. The people who ran the place, and who we did not fucking vote for.

Anyway, at the time that I was there, the Bullingdon Club consisted of these Gentlemen:

In this one, Toff#8 is Major of London and the way things are looking, Toff#2 will become Prime Minister of Great Britain.

So what I want to know is… if we’re democratic, how come we’ve still got so many Toffs running the place? I mean I know there’s less of them than there used to be… but wtf? Surely The British Isles has got a population big and talented enough to eclipse an 18th Century rich-kid’s drinking club?

–

And here’s the thing : The House of Lords recently rejected the 42 day detention plan as championed by our (Labour) government… and it seems that every time the the Lords get into the news, it’s to protect The British People from the fascistic manoeuvrings of a democratically elected parliament.

And I read Toff#8’s biography once - and he said that in his constituency (Henley upon Thames) about 90% of the crime… which cost the place a small fortune in policing and repair etc, was committed by the same small community of people trying to fuel drug habits which if paid for by the state would cost around 1 GBP per dose… and really, if we had any bally sense, we’d legalise all drugs, right now.

So much as I despise toffs on principle… in actual reality the situation is somewhat more complex I think… because the government we currently have is a product of an ethos of out-of-control free marketism… and this has lead to a situation where the population has become too distracted, and the 4th Estate corrupted, and the spin-doctors and consent-manufacturers toooo clever…

… there’s something not quite right here.

And why has toff#7 got a jacket lapel on his leg? Hmmm? Answer me that then.

This is a photie of the bus-stop across the road from Les Miserables in London. Cambridge Circus and whatnot. It’s up Charing Cross Road which cuts between Soho and Covent Garden, with Covent Garden politely keeping (still, after all these years) at least one empty seat between the two. The Sex Pistols used to frequent The Spice of Life there, on account of living in Denmark St which is a stone’s throw away.

You see that old bloke with the beard sitting there?

I was once sitting in that exact spot at about 4am, skilfully micro-managing my basic motor-functions in the fizzy embrace of some fairly serious pharmecutical ratbagitude… quietly (and like, not so quietly) grocking the glittering dark… sitting there, chittering and chattering to myself (and to the shadows and lights that came and went) happy, and generally painting the town from the inside. As you do. It was the 90s

Anyway - from across the other side of the road - from the Soho side came this big black bloke, being chased at about 100 miles an hour by this little black bloke, who seemed to be quite cross about something. Big Bloke ran across the road, straight at me - and didn’t stop. He used the big plexiglass advert thing I was leaning against as a spring-board… BAMM, about six inches above my head - “Woah”, I said (impressed)…. he bounced back 180 degrees (ears ringing) and they ran - wide, decreasing circles. It was all incredibly exciting etc.

Eventually the little bloke caught up - middle of Charing Cross road next to this big yellow light thing. He knocked him down with one shot - which was holding a knife… and with big bloke crying (but like, not crying) and fetalling and holding his arms and his hands (making holes in his hands and his arms and his face and everywhere) and his head on and off the pavement, little bloke carried on - stabbed him about 20 times.

“Woah”, I said, still sitting on my forgotten arse at the bus stop. I’d never seen anyone get stabbed before. When little bloke had finally stopped and gone off, Big bloke got to his feet… steadying himself against the yellow light thing… kindof bandy-legged, with blood falling off him like rain.

I think an ambulance came. I can’t remember. The bus might have come. I wasn’t there for the bus. It wasn’t even my bus stop. It was a long time ago, and although I don’t take those sorts of drugs anymore, I’ve been drunk pretty much ever since. Soho has been cleaned up. The time, the place, the people are gone. I have gone. When I think of it now, I still say “Woah”, though quieter now.

Anyway, I was looking at this the other day:

and am mainly in love with the dark-haired one on the far side, and not because she reminds me of a musical cartoon mouse if that’s what you’re thinking (and I suspect it is) and anyway, it’s probably time you stopped going on about that now because THESE ARE HAMSTERS:

and not actually mice, which is pretty obvious if you ask me.

They were brought together by Levy Lorenzo who is clearly a genius and probably looks a bit like this guy
who is also a genuis on account of inventing whatever it is that he’s holding.

Anyway, Levy made this hamster tray thing in the video above, and connected it up to a Midi thing with wires and sensors and so on, so the hamsters can compose music when they move about. And it’s brilliant, and it’s been stuck in my head since about 2003, which was when it was first invented for the first time.

So anyway, I thought I’d contribute etc… so I merged the two and put them up on youtube.

So that’s me happy.

Welcome to my world.

New Moo cards.

Isn’t it? Marvellous. I’m supposed to hand these out to people, but I don’t think I will.

(15A is another girl that I bitterly regret splitting up with. WTF? I must have been out of my mind)

Time passes…

I just saw this on the tv, and thought it was pretty good

And then remembered that I promised someone to tell him about some music etc, so this time I’ll do a small thing about various kiwi bands. I was in one once you know. A kiwi band I mean.

See? None of my stuff is digitised though. It’s analogous.

Anyway, enough about that. The last gig I did with my first band was supporting this lot - Straightjacket Fits:

Who are fairly good I would’ve thought.

This one was popular this year, and sounds exactly like the sort of thing that my friend Jeremy Taylor (who’s a genius) would have written. He was in a band called Cinematic back in the day, and is one of the best songwriters I’ve met in my life. Anyway, this isn’t by him. It’s by Opshop.

This next one is an utter classic - probably THE classic of the era, which was in the 80s. People were into Twitch-Dancing. They’d go down the Commercial Tavern in Palmerston North on Friday night and stand in the middle of the dancefloor wearing trenchcoats and severe (pooftery) haircuts like David Sylvian, and they’d stand there and twitch imperceptibly, and that was how they danced.

They were all into this song until they found out everyone else was as well, at which point they claimed not to like it afterall, and preferred the Chills earlier stuff before they sold out.

This is cool because of the twirl-kick by polyester suit wearing Mark Hunter (who is obviously some sort of god, and if you could look like this today, you’d be so cool that people would just lie down in front of you in the street, and like, die, in gratitude) at the beginning:

And lastly, the impossible task of choosing a single Finn Brothers track… but this is one of my favs

I fucking love this one - it’s like walking back from her house after the first time, with your heart exploding, even though that’s not what it’s about. I like the verse better than the chorus to be honest. Ok. I’ll find another one as well then.

So that’s probably enough for now. There are loads of others etc.

PS (edit)

I really like this as well, and I never thought I’d hear it again. Youtube fucking rocks.

Ok, there’s this google thing over there —->

Where you get to make up this thing to save the world and so on. So I’ll do that then:

AK47 design principles applied to energy generation : A Solar/Bio-fuel Micro-CHP Generator.

This is a Stirling engine:

These are Stirling engines:

• Stirling engines are simple, contained systems that convert temperature differences into movement.
• CHP stands for “combined heat and power” - systems that generate heat (which is what about 80% of our energy is used for) and electricity.

Stirling engines were invented about 120 years ago as an alternative to steam (which was quite dangerous) but were sidelined in favour of the internal combustion engine (which has turned out to be even more dangerous). Now in the 21st Century after 100 years of oil-wars and planet-shagging levels of pollution, they’re beginning to make a comeback. Solar-Stirling is currently about twice efficient as solar electric cells.

There are hundreds of hobby kits you can buy/build and several commercial applications have emerged recently, eg: big solar farms and small domestic units.

The good thing about these systems is that they demonstrate proof of concept; the problem with them is that are that they are big and expensive, designed specifically for western markets.

The world doesn’t need big and expensive, it needs small and cheap, and it needs it now. Yesterday. The AK47 has proliferated because it’s simple: made with mass/locally-produceable wood and metal parts, and it can be repaired in the field, under difficult conditions etc. I think this design philosphy combined with open-source design, applied to decentralised energy generation could be a biosphere-saver.

–

The advantages of de-centralised power generation are:

• Small and modular is good systems design : When the technology advances, new units can simply be swapped in/out
• Massively reduced transmission costs : currently losses are at around 10%
• Reduced greenhouse emissions / improved efficiency
• Reduced geopolitical fighting over limited or centrally controlled resources.
• Robustness : No massive power-cuts.
• Safety : No nuclear leaks or meltdowns.
• Independence : People aren’t tied to govt or corporate systems. They can look after themselves.
• No need to wait : while governments or utilities to “debate” about what’s best for us, the market can simply route around them.
• Existing monolithic infrastructure, both physical and political need not be affected/involved.
• A range of possible fuel sources - reduced dependence on resources controlled elsewhere.

For as long as I can remember, the holy grail of energy generation has been nuclear fusion, which seems like a nice idea, but this still leaves us vulnerable to all of the points in the list above.

Greenpeace has recently begun to advocate CHP combined-heat-and-power-chp on a community level, as is currently used (for example) in Scandinavia and Holland - which is good news, and although progress is being made on this front, it’s still slow because there are fairly large infrastructural (eg: digging up the streets) obstacles, as well as good old fashioned political torpor and cronyism in the way. Household scale CHP has many of the advantages of community scale, without having to rely on local government for implementation.

So my google-saves-the-world idea is a stirling engine that is solar during the day with surplus going to batteries and hot water…. but it can run on bio-fuels/wood pellets at night if need be. A CHP system that is cheap and simple (and small) enough to be set up and run anywhere in the world, from the galley of a mega-yacht to a tent in a refugee camp and anywhere in between. Your place for example.

The focus of this project is not (however) a domestic appliance for the west - that’s just a (billion dollar) biproduct. The core of this project is a simple design which is also available and usable in the developing world, where there are uses beyond simply generating heat and electricity. Some examples of possible alternative uses:

• Water pumps
• Water purification (a cool example of a bike-driven water purification system)

Both of which could potentially save tens of millions of lives, and certainly raise the living standards of huge (really huge) numbers of people.

And of course on top of that, there’s still the electricity generation.

Here’s an example of a wind-powered rope pump. What I have in mind is something similar in scale and complexity to this, but using solar/stirling.

So that’s it.

We already have an incredible amount of energy falling out of the sky, for free, every day. We don’t need new sources of energy, we have enough already. We’re just not collecting it.