Winning today’s award for imaginative title, another shot of one of the punters from White Mischief. Same as last time, if you know them, do let them know about this, and if you are them, and object, please, let me know.
Shamelessly Thieved
Nothing To Be Scared Of
And now, the punters. I do feel slightly uneasy about this – I don’t know these people, and they didn’t sign any release (but on the other hand, they did pose for the eejit with the big camera and the laminate round his neck, so it’s not like it wasn’t clear what was happening). But under UK law, that’s OK, I’m just not allowed to make money off it. Which I’m not doing.
Still, in the unlikely even that anyone reading this recognises these people, do point them this way.
If this is you, then I will be happy to take this down on request, or, indeed, furnish you with a higher res version of this shot if it turns out you like it.
Not Quite So Terrible
I’m putting this up, prior to a few photos of some of the punters from White Mischief, because this pair gave me a nice approach to the photos of the punters – this high noise, sepia tone effect, like something from an ancient newspaper, as if they were something encountered by a Victorian gentleman explorer in the Dark Continent.
(The reason I wanted a specific approach is that the lighting in the main entrance was a bit of a bastard, and I didn’t want to use flash, so I wanted something that would give me a more flattering approach to the portraiture, that had a bit more wit than just going to black and white. I thought this fit with the tone of the night.)
2nd Movement
There’s been a bit of break, while I attempted to get used to working on Mac, and learned to use Lightroom, and a whole new photo processing workflow.
So I’m putting up this shot, which I had planned to run later in the sequence of White Mischief pics, in an attempt to pick up where I left off, as it were.
(Alex, if you’re reading this: There will be a site for you to point performers at on-line by Saturday evening. I have the photos sorted, I just need to put a decent site together, which is a much faster job.)
[Jobs] Yet again…
This hasn’t worked in the past, but y’know, still worth trying.
We’re looking for a Senior PHP Developer at my place (in London) right now. Realistic cash, nice, laid back working environment etc. Does anyone know any/Is anyone reading this a really good PHP programmer who are looking for a change of job? PHP5 is a must, as is a familiarity with MVC design patterns.
Please, please, pass this around…
[Jobs] Yet again…
This hasn’t worked in the past, but y’know, still worth trying.
We’re looking for a Senior PHP Developer at my place (in London) right now. Realistic cash, nice, laid back working environment etc. Does anyone know any/Is anyone reading this a really good PHP programmer who are looking for a change of job? PHP5 is a must, as is a familiarity with MVC design patterns.
Please, please, pass this around…
Book and Album Reviews: Week 21
This Week’s Book: Un Lun Dun
I only kind of understand why some people don’t get on with Mieville. He gets two common criticisms: that he doesn’t do happy endings, and that he puts too much of his politics in his work.
Me, I love both those things. I like to feel like an author is saying “this is the way I see the world today” (provided they’ve also backed it up with a good story that works on it’s own merits, and Mieville has, pretty much every time). I don’t believe in engineering a “happy” ending – the story ends, life goes on, and frankly, if the characters have been through the sort of trauma that most sci-fi or fantasy includes, the ending should probably be “and then they all got professional counselling ever after”. So I like his willingness to end with the feeling that the characters are going to be recovering (or not) from this story for a long time to come.
Un Lun Dun, then. His first kids (or rather “Young Adult” as I understand we’re now supposed to call them) book. (He has one for grown ups due this autumn, apparently.) Alice in Wonderland, set in a broken down mirror of modern London. There’s a certain feeling of concsiously kicking against the established tropes of children’s fantasy, but since they get right up my nose too, I don’t mind that sort of thing.
I don’t want to say too much that would spoil this, so I’ll leave it at: this is a succesfull translation of Mieville’s usual style into a work for children – a massive amount of inventive fantasy ideas, urban sprawl, environmental decay, etc etc. If you like his adult works for those things, and can enjoy “Young Adult” work, you will like this.
This Week’s Album: Impeach My Bush
I liked her first album, and thought he second was pretty good too. And here we are, on number three. The sound is slightly different – more lush, less minimal, but still basically dirty electro. And lyically? Well, on the one hand, I don’t suppose people want Peaches to change that much. But on the other, well, this is album three of basically the same material. I liked it, but y’know, I’d like to feel like there was something *new* there.
Xkcd: In ur reality.
Maybe it would stop this fucking fad…
Let this be a lesson to you, meme posting bastards
So, there was a tedious meme that did the rounds a while back, where you got some kind of pointless graph across several unrelated axes based on who you claimed to have dated. It plainly had *no* value, or means of deriving the info it claimed to from the questions it asked.
But now they’ve made the data they gathered public, to demonstrate how easy it is to get people to give up personal info.
http://d1rtyf1lthy.livejournal.com/257310.html
I note with amusement that surprisetruck claims to have dated me.
Just in case, given the number of people I know who fell for this:
You know those memes that calculate your porn star name, or your celebrity name, or things like that? Based on things like the town you were born in, or the street you lived in? Or your mother’s maiden name? What possible uses can you think of for that data?