Friends - I am notoriously bad at keeping in touch via Facebook because the site never really did it for me, but I (surprisingly) like Twitter more and more. You can find me here. Wanna join?

Scully, ladies and gents.

Because this is one of my favourite topic to discuss, I found this remark by Tony (who is currently having fun / working hard at SXSW) to be quite interesting:

“This thing that im in, this sxsw thing, is not just about the future its about the present. there were two big huge keynotes over the last two days. the first was on sunday with the twentysomething yr old founder of facebook who was offered a half billion for his site and said no and was offered over a billion for his shit and said ha and today his site is allegedly worth 15 billion dollars and he still isnt selling out.

gen y taking a chapter outta the book of gen x which is fuck you and your fucking money.”

Funny since I am still a sucker for half-understanding a generation via clichés relayed by the media, and Gen X to me still is about slackers. But it also is about a whole generation which didn’t quite get and feared the transition between the late 90s official way of doing business and the so-called revolution that ensued.

Now let it be said that I don’t doubt Mark Zuckerberg will wait and capitalise on Facebook before finally letting it go (who wouldn’t care about the money?) but to be honest, why would he sell it right now?

When the Youtube founders decided to finally sell their product to Google, part of me thought that it was too early for them to do so. But hey, with 1.65 billion in their pockets, I’m not sure that the Gen Y is not about the money, as Tony suggested. As people pointed out at the time, “if I had sold my company for a billion, I would probably be would have uploaded a video showing myself and work sporting a shit-eating grin on my site, too”.

This art project made my morning:

Somehow, I am sure the tree is very grateful. More here and here.

You know, considering the number of Law and Order episodes produced since 1990 (that would be 403), and the number of times I have watched the show (less than a dozen), I really don’t understand why when catching reruns, it’s always episodes that I have seen already.

Finally, someone understood how to successfully release music online - and under a Creative Commons license, no less. For some reason if feels way more natural than Radiohead’s first try. It might be because Reznor produced Saul Williams’ latest album, which was released in the exact same way (albeit with less options). Mark - always the devil’s advocate, but most often than not right [argh] - pointed that the decision is easy for a multi-platinum artist, but i can see how this would also work for smaller bands too. Thoughts?

me: Saw the NIN? If you buy the deluxe package you get an LP signed by Trent - awesome. It’s way more clever than radiohead to give people options like that - also it’s released on a CC license. Love Trent.

mark: Yeah, but it’s all stupid… It’s all well and good if you’re a multi platinum selling rockstar who is already a millionaire, but it hardly helps new bands.

me: Well, duh - but his job is not to help new bands. Also, saul williams is not massive, and he did the same.

mark: It was with trent reznor though!

me: Yeah but even so - it’s not the entire cd - The new NIN is 9 free tracks only. Small bands can use this model: release an LP of 5 free songs, have people download the rest for 5 quid, they’d still earn more than with a contract.

Photo via.

In an ideal world, this is where I’d be on April 18-20. Absolutely fascinating. I would love to go, anyone willing to come along?

Look, I don’t mean to turn this blog into a girly frenzy, nor do I like to advertise anything, but Etsy truly is the best place to shop in the entire world. I don’t know if it’s because I really like the idea of having an alternative place to buy from independent sellers, or because I know that most of the items are handmade and one of a kind but in the past year or so I had to watch myself and not buy every single item tagged as “steampunk”.

This is my latest purchase from AlliesAdornments - at 6 pounds, I consider it a bargain.
Notice that Etsy is also about three hundred times better than ebay at using their members for promotional content, not to mention they even have a journal showcasing DYIers’ work and many articles about lots of interesting topics. After their incomphrensible new rules and the mess/boycott that insued, maybe ebay could sit and learn.

In Angel

The HIV data is horrible, but seriously - they totally got this ad wrong.

I would love to have a boat similar to these.

My dear friend.