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He starts out spelling how we're fucked on an economic and environmental level. And then he gets in to what we're doing about it. Some of this shit is fascinating – a set of tools for a completely new system of economics.
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By the end of the 21st century, there are predicted to be 19 cities with a population of over 20 million. London is one of them, currently has a population of around 7-8 million, and large parts of it's infrastructure are creaking at the seams. We urgently need more thinking on how we will cope with the supercities of the near future, and I'll watch this project with interest.
Author: Alasdair
Photography: At The Bus Stop
Bet you all thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?
I hadn’t. But a couple of days after I first posted about it, they started digging up the road. They finished digging it up a couple of weeks back, but I was busy with stuff at work, and other randoms stuff, and didn’t really have time to think about it. And anyway: the weather’s improving a bit. And while I do want some shots in the rain, my general preference is likely to be for sunlight. Of some kind.
Those of you wondering what the fuck I’m talking about, by the way, should go here, but the brief version is that I have a number of friends who belong to one or more subcultures that involve dressing up, and I want to do a series of photos with willing people of two shots each – one in normal clothes, the other dressed up in their finery, in identical poses at the bus stop.
I’m planning to get groups of 3-6 people in at a time – that should give me enough time to get decent photos of each person, and mean that we’ve enough space about the place for people to get changed, apply make-up, and so on.
So, for those of you interested (and if you didn’t say you were interested last time, you can always say so now), please indicate dates that you would be willing/able to lug a costume to my place in Tooting, and have a few shots taken of you, in exchange for all the tea and biscuits you can consume, and hi-res digital copies of the two resulting images.
I’ll then drop people emails trying to sort out specific dates/times/groups. I’ll probably want a range of daytime/evening/night shots.
NB: like I said last time – this is a moderately busy bus stop, on a main road. You won’t be out there in your costume very long, and it is literaly outside my front door, but still: it will be pretty public. That’s the appeal of the project – the very ordinary context. So if you’re nervous about being seen in public in the outfit you want to use, do say – we can always try and arrange a night shoot, when the street is emptier, but I would like *some* day shoots if I can…
Everyone follow that? Good. Please to be ticking the boxes.
Shadowplay

I was round an art exhibition the other week with some friends. Some of it was unmitigated toss, some of it was OK, and mostly it was the building that was the star. But here’s a shot of one of the better works. Still if I’m honest, my photo of this piece appeals to me far more than the piece itself did. This is another shot where I knew exactly what effect I’d be post-processing for, removing detail, and replacing it with heavy shadow, before I even took the shot.
Links For Thursday 2nd April 2009
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100 quid. For the kind of computer you can shove in a corner, hook to a network, and hack to do lots and lots of different things. And it'll do it silently, and without eating power. This may be handy at some point in the near-ish future.
Links For Wednesday 1st April 2009
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Steve Albini's breakdown of exactly how much a band can expect now to earn in a normal record industry contact. Figures would need to be adjusted for inflation, but I bet they're still proportionally the same. I've seen this a few times over the years, I just wanted to log it in case I need to refer to it again.
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Some notes about the practicalities of nanomachinery in the body – both the propulsion/navigation, and the means by which they might operate on us.
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Good to know that my future cybernetic implants aren't likely to need batteries.
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After the links the other week, here's a talk about how they newspapers might yet be kept alive: by making them beautiful objects.
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A fascinating talk on the some of the possible neuroscientific explanations for some of the more remarkable and ill-understood operations of the brain.
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I shall be sending these in future. Well, maybe not, but there are a few things in here that made me laugh.)
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This could be a really useful little learning tool.
Links For Friday 27th March 2009
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I've got a few different quotes I'd consider having put on me, and this place might provide inspiration for design/context for them.
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I don't have time to read this in full right now, so I'm bookmarking it so I remember to read it at some point over the weekend.
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Mac App to lock email/internet away for periods of time. Killer feature: once started, it cannot be undone, unlike most other, similar apps. Handy for those days when you really have to just dig in and get something done.
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Alan Moore's Big Numbers #3, made available on-line with his blessing. To say this is a big unexpected would be understating things a bit, but well done that man.
Links For Thursday 26th March 2009
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Alan Moore's Big Numbers #3, made available on-line with his blessing. To say this is a big unexpected would be understating things a bit, but well done that man.
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Ironically, the police state that we're increasingly living in "for out own saftey" is what's moving toward to the belief that armed insurrection is the only answer.
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My former colleague Phil has recently won a well deserved award for a very clever means of producing a viral music video.
Publication!
If anyone of this parish happens to be the sort of person who might pick up a copy of Bizarre magazine now and again, then you could do worse than pick up this month’s issue, as one of my photos is in it, alongside their review of the Amanda Palmer gig I was at the other month. I sent them a choice of photos, so naturally, they’ve used the one I like least, but still, that’s one of my photos in print that is. I am now an internationally published photographer. (I’ve previously been published in Sweden, some years ago.) Which is nice.
Wireform
Links For Tuesday 24th March 2009
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Be Afraid! Your Neighbour Is Not Like You, And You Should Fear Them! If Someone Deviates From The Norm, They Must Be Investigated. Do Not Watch The Cameras, The Cameras Are For Watching You. Be Afraid! (fucksake)
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This may or may not be the real deal, but the fact that at this stage they're just saying "look we found this" rather than claiming 100% certainty now makes them a bit more plausible than the previous bunch. Here's hoping, eh?
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This is simultaneously a massively nerdy book, a notion of staggering genius, and an instant must-read.
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"Yes, halfway through this project we'll discover the impossible, but we know how to build through the impossible. Impossible is when we do our best work."
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About bloody time. There is no reason why any cultural artefact produced since we started using computers should be ever be out of print.