Write or Die

Don't worry, that wasn't an ultimatum, just the name of a new internet widgety thing that someone called Doctor Wicked* has helpfully created for those of us among the writing professions who seem to be eternally governed by Newton's lesser known Third-and-a-bit Law: "For every action there is an equal and opposite procrastination."

Click on the link above and you'll be taken to somewhere that will force you to write - through negative reinforcement. Essentially, if you stop writing for a pre-set (or random) amount of time, regrettable things happen (though not death; unless you happen to be terminally allergic to babies crying, fairly-slowly-flashing colours, your words disappearing one-by-one, etc.). Want to stop the regrettable things? Write. Couldn't be simpler.

Of course, I can't guarantee that with your heart racing and your mind going, "Eek! Think of something! Quick!", that you'll write anything that won't need endless editing - my trial 10-minute session yielded only some old nonsense about hippos and hoppos meeting on the African savannah and giving birth to rap - but the experience was oddly compelling. And, hey, a page of something to edit is better than nothing (though I'll probably leave the hippos and hoppos to their own devices - samplers, and record decks, probably).

I'll certainly be giving it another go.

But, erm, perhaps I won't start on the 'Evil' setting next time...

WARNING: the option to copy to clipboard when you navigate away from the page didn't seem to work for me (using Firefox 3), so if you do use this for something you don't want to lose, probably best to copy it manually before clicking 'Done'.

*may not be an actual doctor, or wicked. Treat all advice accordingly.

Friday links

Yep, after last week's unexplained* absence they're back again - the Friday Links:

You(niversity)Tube

The latest educational resource to hit YouTube: The Open University.

TED has some new ways of searching through its extensive catalogue of online talks and lectures. Here are the ones rated most jaw-dropping.

With this site you might want to search streamed web-TV (including 4oD, iPlayer, etc.) for educational content... or probably just the latest episode of America's Got Talent.

Random news stories

Possibly the most spuriously based semi-news story I've ever read. Does that trouser leg even look deliberately rolled-up to you?

In other prison news: possibly the oddest plea bargain ever; and a sheriff sending himself to jail.

It seems even the "aristocracy" are selling their lives on eBay now.

Or for the less well-off, how about part of someone's unwanted life: annastella007 is selling evidence of her husband's infidelity.

Music

Last time we linked to alternatives to Pandora.com; this week, Wired shows you how to access the site from anywhere in the world - while it still exists...

Also in Wired, David Byrne playing an entire building - no, not as a concert venue, as an instrument.

A few sources of free and legal MP3s:

Spiral Frog
Jamendo
We7 (UK-based)

And finally...

Weight Watchers = a Role Playing Game for the overweight? But where are the d20s?


*I could explain... but it would be boring.

Return of the links

In which our previously regular Friday links post is retrieved from the haphazard grasps of irregularity.

Unless it isn't.

Tune in next week to find out... (ooh, the suspense!).

YouTube

Learn to play the Ukulele with The Guardian.

Paris Hilton starring in a satirical video. Intentionally.

A little Monkey magic courtesy of the BBC's Olympics coverage promotional department (and Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn).

A mid-air restaurant in Belgium - maybe the subtle scent of danger makes the food taste better?

Games

Crash Test Dummy Olympics. Nothing to do with the band, by the way. Not that I can quite imagine those lugubrious Mmm Mmm people summoning the energy for athletics...

Dolphin Olympics 2 (are you sensing a theme yet?).

And, yes, yet another tenuously Olympics-linked game: Micro Olympics.

Gadgetry

In case your alarm clock wasn't annoying enough already, here's one that shoots rockets.

A (concept) mobile phone for Francophiles.

Proof that fruit can aid memory?

And that Lego can aid vision?

At least one Back to the Future fan clearly has way too much money. Or maybe they'd bought the Sports Almanac from the second film too?

What's the betting the same person owns some of these?

Music stuff

Orbit Downloader: download pretty much anything you want from YouTube, MySpace, Imeem, etc. More details (and slight privacy concerns) at Wikipedia.

For anyone missing Pandora, the personalised internet radio station now no longer available to UK users, you could do worse than Meemix. Still in beta, and a little glitchy, but definitely promising.

And a few more approaches to providing personalised internet radio:

Songza
Seeqpod
Jogli
Deezer

And finally...

If you've ever wondered which famous people look like other famous people, or perhaps even are other famous people - ever seen John McCain's wife Cindy and the Borg Queen in the same room? - here's the site for you: TotallyLooksLike.

The Friday links

No, don't worry, this is nothing to do with that tiresome golf tournament that seems to have taken over BBC Radio 5 Live for half the week. Just the usual parade of procrastination:

YouTube

In a previous set of links, I mentioned the spoof documentary Jesus People. As it turns out, the Independent Comedy Network has plenty of other online funny stuff for you to view. Pick of the bunch, though, is probably Warthog: set in a corporation post-some kind of apocalypse, a few people continue to come to work...

Someone tries to defend spamming.

I'm voting Republican. (No, not me. It's a satire. And I'm not American).

Games

Mousebreaker lets bored people play Flash games against other bored people, rather than just the computer.

Should your post-Wimbledon recollection that, 'Oh yes, actually I do kind of like tennis...' not have faded yet, Tennis Ace is worth a bash.

More addictive, and less frustrating (well, up to a point), Rong is very right.

Gadgetry

The New York Times recently highlighted a fascinating array of new music-making thingies - I should probably call them musical instruments, but in this case that would kind of miss the point.

A TV remote that you really will want to call a zapper.

This one looks more like a water pistol, which sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, if you have kids...

Oh, and those last two links reminded me of this cigarette holder. For the nihilist in your life, perhaps?

And finally...

Every car driver's dream: cut out the salesman. Shame it's just a Japanese marketing stunt.

Late linkage

Sorry, it's been a busy week... Better late than never?

YouTubage

Today's video links come from design blog 1+1=3.

A bicycle made for two - but possibly, two who can't stand the sight of each other...

I suppose you'd call this video animated graffiti. Whatever it is, it must have taken forever.

Quite honestly, I know next to nothing about Chaos Theory, but put into action I imagine it looking something like this.

More cool stuff from 1+1=3

There was lots of it, and I haven't had much time for link hunting this week.

Charlton Heston's (frankly terrifying) basement.

The world's largest freehand drawing, and other large transitory works of art.

The holeless sink.

A brick building that cleverly appears to be made of wood.

Images of London, post-rising sea levels.

Some dramas in a snowglobe. Oddly, I happen to have a card in my room featuring one of these.

Other little people

Because tiny model people aren't only to be found in snowglobes:

A greetings card company called Holy Mackerel offers some similar scenes: these involving food, for instance.

Even better, is the Little People blog, chronicling a witty, inventive and at times quite poignant street art project.

And finally...

This village in Romania's choice of mayor makes the election of Boris Johnson seem almost explicable. You can only wonder at what the other candidates must have been like...

Linking in the rain

Ahh, the Cornish summer... I'm just hoping it might start eventually.

Still, there are worse things to be doing on a rainy day than messing around on the internet looking for diverting links to bring you:

YouTube

Hammer Horror is back. And this time it's on the net...

From the undead to a house that staves off death.

Adam Buxton removes the original subtitles and tries to work out what on earth (or in Heaven) is being sung about on Songs Of Praise (should anyone be unfamiliar with the programme, it's basically karaoke for Christians).

Games

The one I seem to have been playing most often recently is 'guess whether you'll need a jacket.' Too rainy even for that one, though, today. Sigh.

Oh well, I'll Google for some browser games that involve rain:

First result: Rain (predictably enough, I suppose). Actually, more of an interactive sound art thingy, really - pleasant way to pass a few idle minutes, though.

Alphabet Rain isn't really a game either... but I suppose there are worse ways in which to spend a rainy afternoon than learning to type faster.

Erm, actually, Googling for games involving rain really isn't proving all that successful, is it? Still, I did discover somewhere that lets you make your own, should you get the urge: Fyrebug.

Lego Art

Famous photos recreated in Lego.

The Little Artists take on artists, as well as their art: in this photo they're upsetting a Lego Tracey Emin - wonderful :)

Some Rubik's Cubes seem to have got in on the act at this site.

You can even find entire movies shot in Lego: originals, parodies, remakes, they're all at Brickfilms.

Book stuff

The publisher Hamish Hamilton has a new downloadable (and free) literary zine type thing: Five Dials.

In collaboration with HarperCollins, Amazon has launched Authors in the spotlight. Essentially, new author interviews and extracts (actually, essentially, it's just promotion, but you know what I mean).

Some interactive stories by the person responsible for that musical Rain game above [click 'Stories' in the menu at the top, and also use that to select the stories - the sidebar menu doesn't seem to work].

And finally...

Perhaps, one day, we'll find ourselves having to ask, "Is it really raining, or just an advertising stunt designed to make us look up at the clouds?"

Dali and dominos

Time for your weekly dose of procrastination methinks (those of you who haven't already skived off to trudge around in the Glastonbury mud):

YouTube

The BBC is encouraging you to try out the beta of its new iPlayer; even if the inexplicable prominence of Chris Evans's face on the 'Try it now!' button at the bottom of the page does rather suggest the contrary.

Europe's "last remaining Communist state", Slabovia, has its own answer to the iPlayer. Enjoy such delights as 'News 2.4' and 'Watch. Enjoy. Or Be Punished!'

Salvador Dali on 'What's My Line?' - and what could be more surreal than that?

Games

Help a small humanoid character called Gnome avert the destruction of his homeworld in Samorost. Then, erm, do it again in Samorost 2. They're both somewhat surreal point and click adventure/puzzle games, apparently.

Domino-P seems to be all about solving puzzles by knocking down hand-drawn dominos. Gets a bit repetitive after a while, but nice soundtrack.

Random bits and pieces

Perfect for Friday afternoon procrastination, this web application makes it look like you're working when really you're reading an e-book.

Why not submit your deepest neuroses to public scrutiny? Because, yeah, that's going to help...

EBay for people who can't quite let go, Zilok.com lets you rent out your unwanted or unused stuff.

And finally...

Someone who definitely can let go, Ian Usher, an ex-pat living in Australia, is auctioning off his entire life. If you want his job, his house, his possessions and his friends (his evident disillusionment with it all doesn't seem to be included; presumably he'll take that with him), it can be yours for AU $399,400. Or at least that was the minimum bid at the time of writing.

Something for the weekend

Turned out I was too busy not procrastinating (mostly) to procrastinate this afternoon. Still, here are some links anyway - who knows, it might be a wet weekend.

YouTube

Happily, despite cancellation, Futurama lives on. Here's a clip from the latest DVD release.

A robot band - the inevitable destination of electronic music?

Old ladies aren't as defenceless as they look... Fabulous stuff!

Games

First, I should apologise for linking to Dino Run last week - truly, hideously addictive. So much so that when it inexplicably lost the dinosaur I'd finally got up to maximum ability levels, I found myself feeling not so much angry as oddly and suddenly free.

Then again, if that all sounds more like a recommendation to you, here are the rest of Pixeljam's neo-retro time-stealers:

RatMaze - find cheese in a maze, as quickly as you can.

RatMaze 2 - find much, much more cheese, much, much more quickly. With puzzles this time, too.

Gamma Bros - not the Mario clone I expected, but a nostalgia inducing shoot-em-up. I sense addiction looming again...

Random links

Peter Gabriel wants to help you filter entertainment according to your own personal tastes. If the involvement of a known Phil Collins associate doesn't put you off, click here.

Wimbledon is imminent. And this year it's going all hi-tech, apparently. [I know, not much use for this weekend, but great for weekday procrastination. If you like tennis, obviously].

Some online community type thing revolving around designing T-shirts.

And finally...

If it's a really bad summer this year maybe you could spend all that time indoors building a V-12 two-stroke engine out of paper?

No, I don't know why you would either, but someone evidently thought it was a good idea.

An army of links

With all the predictable inevitability of Boris Johnson's first mayoral gaffe, though with rather more cause for joy, it seems Friday is upon us once more. May as well celebrate with a few links then:

Videodrome

American indie types Weezer hand an extra minute of micro-fame to some well known YouTubers with their latest video. If you recognise more than a few, consider your procrastinatory skills well honed.

From old YouTube stars, to ads of the past, among other things.

Is it just me who finds this girl's apparently award winning ukulele bothering antics highly annoying?

Anyway, here's some proper ukulele - even George Formby had nothing on this guy.

General oddness

I'd explain more about this animated head... but I can't. And anyway, its secrets are best discovered for yourself.

Further similarly inexplicable animated oddities here.

In a nice reversal of the usual Hollywood trend, a popular film goes Shakespearean (on your ass): Pulpbard, a wiki project in progress.

The Economist eulogised in rap by teenagers. Follow the link for more info, or download the song here (right-click to download).

Wired recently had an article on websites tracking urban eccentrics - achingly cutting edge place that it is, Radix's hometown has a site too.

Possibly the strangest piece of direct marketing ever. Gives a whole new definition to 'going viral'.

Major wind up

American humo(u)rist Harman Leon doesn't own a dog. So why's he phoning pet psychics?

Private details

Juicy family intrigue in an online archive of wills made in Surrey between 1470 - 1856, with any luck.

Corporal punishment?

Probably not. But still, I can't imagine that even the most hardened coffee drinker would enjoy this brew...

That linking feeling...

The hour of procrastination is upon us, so without further ado:

A bumper YouTube section

Dollary Clinton, Barack Odollar, and John McCoin take their wearisome YouTube battle over to eBay. Incidentally, can't someone just toss a coin and get this interminable nonsense over with?

Isabella Rossellini's oddest film role since Blue Velvet.

The deeply strange Northern-accented world of David Firth.

Everybody needs somebody. Obviously. Otherwise our heads would just float around.

You'll have seen it already, but what the Hell: Microsoft Chief Eggsecutive (sorry) Steve Ballmer dodging eggs in Hungary.

Sex & The City

Pretend you're one of the Sex & The City girls (if you must) with some New York City bar and restaurant interior design porn.

The bright lights of NYC, again, but this time from afar. More cities here.

Or perhaps you'd prefer something a little more 'street' level?

Some other arty things (this time, happily, unthemed)

Kind of post-apocalyptic scenes that look more realistic than they are, photographed by Lori Nix.

Usually pencils aren't responsible for fully 3-dimensional art...

The world (well, just Australia, so far) in glorious Google Maps tagged panoramas.

Music

Exclusive live bits and pieces from people you will and won't have heard of. The site's mostly in French.

Listen for free to the Radio Soulwax mixes of 2ManyDJs.

More mixing, but of the old C90 cassette kind.

And finally...

No games today, but this is way more fun :) Seriously. I mean, how often do you get to make a pipecleaner Cossack dance to Staying Alive?

Really?

Weirdo.

Procrastination Friday

Yep, it's that time once again, which can mean only one thing: that's right, my watch battery's gone flat again. Great.

Anyway, before wandering off to the shops, I believe I usually post some links here, around about now:

You Tube

An online sitcom about the beginnings of a Christian pop band.

Yet more Jesus people here. The Christianised version of Baby Got Back, anyone?

Google and ye shall receive :) In other words, it wasn't just a dodgy pun I came up with, after all: there really is a JewTube.

Games

Ever wanted to put some poor spider type creature through what appears to be a version of Hell? I was going to say that Triachnid might not be for arachnophobes, but then again...

After that slightly agonising experience, a little zen gardening might be in order, I feel - a little plant care to restore the virtual karmic balance.

An interactive animation movie, you'll have to download Rückblende before you can play it, but it looks like being worth the bother. Preview videos here.

Bookish stuff

Smashwords: a new community aiming to bring together adventurous readers with digitally self-publishing independent authors. Well, something like that, anyway.

Another one for the Games heading, or perhaps another way of writing affecting fiction? Either way, I came across some really interesting blog blurbs about Photopia, earlier. I gather it's interactive fiction, kind of... except not rubbish.

Gadgety things

If I was anywhere close to being a musician I would want this Yamaha notebook (the paper kind). I'm not, of course, but dammit I'd still love one anyway.

A design for a plasma laser-beam-walled pedestrian crossing. Erm, aren't people just going to want to drive through something like that?

Something to consider when the price of oil gets even higher, perhaps?

Random bits and pieces

Lots of new tracks from Indie/nu-folk/whatever musician Joseph Arthur on his Tumbleblog.

Abstract art - a la Mondrian - as a programming language. No idea if it works, though.

Steampunk jewellery. Erm, yep. That pretty much sums it up.

And a not-so-little something for any Star Wars fans who still have more money than merchandise.

And finally...

Have you ever wondered what to believe? Or even what to think, or feel, or wish for? Perhaps you don't even know who to love. In today's unstable, changeable world, it's so hard to be certain about any of these things anymore, isn't it? Well, thank goodness for this, then.

Is there nothing Twitter can't do?

Links galore

In much the same way that your MP3 player will be filled to bursting after a determined browse of the SXSW 2008 Music website, a visit to this year's Webby Awards winners gallery should keep anyone procrastinating happily for days. So why I'm even writing the rest of this post...

Still, half the joy of procrastination is its pointlessness, so here we go anyway:

YouTube

What could be more boring than being trapped in a lift for 41 hours? How about the CCTV footage?

An indie musician tries to sell his album, and makes a documentary about it. Thus doubling his money, or doubling his failure?

Games

The release of Grand Theft Auto IV is hardly news by now... but have you found all the Easter Eggs yet?

Even older news, of course, is the range of Nintendo Game and Watch handhelds; but if you happen to fancy wallowing in 1980s LCD nostalgia for a while, here's the site for you.

Further to the other week, another delightfully odd puzzle game: Hapland; in which getting it wrong seems to be as much fun as getting it right. Or I assume so, since I haven't actually got it right yet.

Gadgetry

Wired has exclusive video of a working Difference Engine in action. After all these years, someone's actually built one, apparently.

And at the more recent end of the technological timeline, the Smartpen. I wonder if it starts getting stroppy if you only ever use it for doodling?

For the pet that can't be bothered to go outside, the SunSpa.

Book related stuff

The Guardian had news of the Independent foreign fiction prize's winner before The Independent did. Quite a scoop that one...

Borders seems to be trying to beat Amazon and the Kindle to the UK's e-book reader market - bigger stores will soon be stocking the iLiad. Hmm, any guesses what the next version will be called?

Random artiness

The photographic talents of American postal system workers.

One stripy-pink topped girl really doesn't seem to be getting the point of Young Me / Now Me, no matter how often she tries...

And just because the last two links reminded me of it: Found magazine; a magazine full of stuff people have, erm, found, basically.

And finally...

Some helpful advice on life. From serial killers. And Dick Cheney.

Friday afternoon seems to have come early

I have to be elsewhere today, so links are early this week. Still, you could save them 'til later... Consider it a kind of meta-procrastination, if that helps. Anyway, here goes:

YouTube

I'm not sure jellyfish were meant to fly, but someone evidently thought so (link courtesy of Laughing Squid, appropriately enough).

What would Facebook be like if it were real life? Probably much like this. Still quite annoying, in other words.

Here's an alarm clock that gives you the run around. Hmm, it would get you out of bed, undoubtedly... but how long before you ripped it's tiny sleep-destroying wheels off?

Book type stuff

Get your free downloadable Star Wars audio book/pdf/eBook here. Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal is available until midnight Tuesday 13th May.

When you're done with that you can just delete it, but if you've got some (non-downloadable) books you'd like to be rid of, why not offer them at BookMooch? The more you give away, the more you can get in return.

For some reason, Wikipedia will soon be available in book form. In German, though, and only the 50,000 most commonly searched entries. I suppose that makes it the zeitgeist edition...

Gadgetry

How to make a steampunk mouse. Which, erm, does seem to involve buying an actual mouse... but just for the circuitry.

Ever thought that all those people you see rushing around with briefcases must be horribly busy? Well, turns out they might be lazier than you thought.

All the convenience of MP3, with all the inconvenience (but nostalgia) of the mixtape: the MP3 cassette player. For the tech-minded semi-luddite, I suppose.

Games

If internet browsing isn't already proving dangerously addictive enough for you, why not make things worse for yourself by signing up to the Passively Multiplayer Online Game?

Or do you fancy a game that actually exists in three physical dimensions, for once? Actually, it's not so much a game as a freeform puzzle... Anyway, find out how to get your hands on the Neocube here.

And if you still miss the Nintendo NES, and even better still have your old cartridges, why not while away some office time by bidding for one of these on eBay? Ah, nostalgia - it's not what it used to be...

And finally...

Remember Ren & Stimpy? And perhaps even more fondly, the fantastic 1950s goodness that was the incidental music? So does someone else - download it here and dance around the office like a dyspeptic chihuahua. Go on, you know you want to.

Nearly the weekend...

Ahh, that Friday feeling! I don't get it so much in my current job, but I still vividly remember those days when I'd wake up, sigh, and think of nothing else but the coming weekend for the rest of the day. God, I couldn't wait... Sadly, this would usually happen on a Monday, and I'd have to get through the rest of the week, each and every tedious day tainted by disappointment.

Still, thank God for self-employment. Oh, and here are some links:

Second-person tubular

Maybe you'll have already seen this on BoingBoing, but the Ultimate Machine just had to be on here. It's the most wonderfully pointless thing I've seen all week :) And according to the latest update on its creator's site, you'll soon be able to have one of your own... erm, if you must.

Another one that's been doing the rounds: an automated bike park in Tokyo.

At times like Friday afternoon, if it's any consolation, you have Mr T's sympathy. Or something like that. Mostly he just want's you to watch his telly programme, though.

And some more viral nonsense, as Cadbury's eggs go to the movies (more GooTube than YouTube).

Random bits and pieces

Chilirec: like TiVo for internet radio, said some site or other. Can't remember which one, though, but that pretty much sums it up.

The world represented in the form of URL country codes (with posters available for $30).

If you can't afford PhotoShop, can't get the hang of the free online Express version, or would find having a GIMP icon on your desktop a tad embarrassing, there's another good free alternative: Paint.net

And if you're still in a photographic frame of mind, why not supercharge your camera? Assuming you have a Canon, that is, and don't mind voiding your warranty.

Games

Grow isn't just a puzzle game; in fact, it's a whole series of puzzle games, in which, as far as I can work out, you place combinations of objects together so that they, erm, grow and interact. Actually, I'm not really sure what's going on at all, to be honest, but it's all very pleasingly odd. UPDATE: Hmm, I don't even think it's a puzzle game... It's definitely wonderful, though, no doubt about that - inspired, Flash-based madness :)

Not much at the next site yet, but if you're a fan of both games and Penny Arcade it might be something worth keeping an RSS-fed eye on. Or if there isn't a feed, I suppose you'll just have to, erm, remember to check-in now and again.

Movie Magic

An online collection of visually striking title sequences.

Trailers, recut and mashed-up at Trailer Mash.

New endings to old movies.

A selection of links from WebZen's Movie Zen post.

And finally...

At last, we're free! We can all stop our endless clicking and do something else instead: someone finally found it.

[Tries to think what else to do]

Oh well, I suppose, we could always start again from the beginning...

Links time again

This week, no particular theme, just links aplenty:

General YouTubery

How to download YouTube videos as MP4 files. You might be breaking the user agreement thingy, mind. But then again you might not. No-one seems quite sure.

Your inbox is probably already infested with video-clips of cats doing cute things, I know... But still, cats playing the theremin? Come on, you know you want to :)

Since, erm, it's pretty much the whole point here, a short animation about procrastination.

Some arty stuff

If photos of interesting artworks, with the occasional YouTube video thrown in, all lovingly presented beneath enigmatic snippets of song lyrics sounds like your kind of thing, then head on over to The Lucky Charm blog (cereal-hoarding leprechauns, thankfully, noticeable only by their absence).

Chances are you might also enjoy a stay at Motel De Moka: a tasteful brew of art, mp3s, song lyrics, poetry, and the odd bit of Spanish. Muy bueno.

For the more inadvertent face of representation, Faces in Places collects photos illustrating our in-built propensity to spot faces pretty much anywhere we care to look.

Possibly the most beautiful sheets of blank A4 you'll ever see.

And it's quite surprising what you can do with a watermelon too...

Some newsy stuff

The BBC's latest Pods & Blogs podcast featured a couple of interesting newsy sites:

According to the spokesman interviewed, pundits and public alike will soon be going head-to-head to prove their prescience on Hubdub.com, a news prediction game. If you're in the business of tech predictions, a good Hubdub ranking might one day be as important as a well-read blog, they said. But you probably knew that already, didn't you?

Ever wanted to be an interviewer? Well, Yoosk won't quite let you do that, but it will ask politicians and celebrities questions on your behalf. If your fellow users have given them at least 100 votes, that is. Yesterday on Yoosk, it was the turn of the London Mayoral candidates, minus Ken and Boris so far, though...

ITN have just added a News channel and a Music News channel to their previous YouTube offerings. That should perhaps have been in the YouTube section, but frankly the thremin playing cats were more interesting.

Oh, and small-minded self-righteousness and xenophobia just got a makeover. Great. They must have been at a loose end after the Diana inquiry (which should be a worry to us all, I suspect)...

And finally...

This Dear God site seemed like it might have been a nice quirky idea for this slot...

But yikes, is that depressing!

Seriously, you won't be able to make it through more than a few posts without losing the will to live. So instead, to rather belatedly celebrate the new Portishead album, and because even a Portishead song sung by the cold dead cicuits of a machine is infinitely cheerier than that God site, here's Roads sung by a computer.

It has a girlfriend, too. She's called Audrey. Sometimes they do duets.


AN UPDATE ON LAST WEEK'S LINKS:

Here's a review of the Flock social browser.

There was a link to it on the e-learning blog I linked to last week, but it looks like I left out one of the bigger language learning social network sites, iTalki.

This week's procrastination fodder

Well, after six more days of rest and relaxation, it seems Friday has once again decided to grace us with its welcome presence. If only we all had such cushy jobs...

Sadly, of course, we don't.

But what we do have is procrastination - the ray of light in the darkness of our working days! Not that days seem to do much work, apparently...

Anyway, the rest of us do, which is why you'll be needing these links. Today's (quite loose) theme: words.

YouTube clips

[Er, clearly, I didn't really have YouTube in mind when I came up with that theme... but still, one or two things presented themselves this week. Thankfully.]

Wikipedia's full of words, and so's this documentary: The Truth According to Wikipedia. Erm, the words might be in Dutch, though (I haven't watched it yet, and now my computer's refusing to play it, so I have no idea. UPDATE: Nope, they're in English. Phew).

This one combines both words AND procrastination. Or at least some very skillful procrastination using things you might use to write words. There's even a National Championship in Japan.

A whole load of videos, courtesy of Wired, of toys that sound like they're saying words they probably shouldn't. Question: if it's a toy, and it's not really saying what it's saying, is it still NSFW? Your call, I think.

Games

How to describe Poesysteme? Fridge Poetry left to fend for itself, was the best I could come up with. At present, it's more of an interactive screensaver, but it's kind of an interesting idea. And might be good, if you feed in some real text, for generating aleatory cut-up poems.

Not words exactly, and not a text adventure either, but on the other hand, Super Serif Brothers! is a platform game composed entirely of letters and punctuation. You control the letter I, appropriately enough.

Some other wordy stuff

Erm, I guess there are quite a lot of words on social networks (I told you the theme was quite loose)... Well, anyway, they're great for procrastination, so here's a browser designed especially for the social web: Flock.

More in keeping with the theme, though, maybe you could use your new browser to engage in book club type chats on Book Glutton? It's a "community for people who want to read, share, annotate and discuss, right inside the text", so it says. Here's a YouTube video of how its "proximity chat" feature works.

Or why not point your browser (and probably your headset too) at another kind of social network and learn a few foreign words? Language learning, in fact, being the whole point of these: Livemocha, VoxSwap, My Happy Planet, palabea, and indeed many more besides.

And finally...

Light isn't the only thing a little procrastination can bring into your working life. How about a little bit of colour too? Just type a word in here to find out what colour people think it is. A fuller explanation can be found here (though not of why friendship might be purple).

Actually, that wasn't nearly as interesting as I'd hoped, so here's a music video consisting almost entirely of virtuoso shadow puppetry.

Erm, no reason.

I just liked it.

Relax with Radix

Newton's third law of motion states that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." In other words, all that aimless internet browsing, blog reading and general slacking off you get up to on a Friday afternoon is entirely essential activity - without a relaxing Friday afternoon you'd get even less done between yawns the following Monday morning. Welcome, then, to The Root of the Matter's first weekly selection of paradoxically productivity-enhancing procrastination fodder.

Without further ado, then, let the parade of YouTube clips, gadgets, odd news stories, games, and sundry other stuff begin. Today, a musical theme:

YouTube clips

According to this, a halfway listenable electronica track can be made entirely from sounds native to Windows XP and 98.

More gadgety resourcefulness: there's now an iBand, playing songs on modified iPhones and a Nintendo DS. (You can see more of the iPhone being played as a guitar, and as a piano, here and here, respectively. Oh, and there's an iBand site with loads more videos - only just spotted that).

Rather than hack their DS, Japanese users can now get professional music making software, courtesy of Korg. The existence of an English website, suggests it might be heading this way...

Further illustrating Japanese tech-know-how, here's Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) getting to grips with a unique new musical instrument, the TENORI-ON - cooo, look at the pretty lights!

Games

Might be slightly old news this one, but, well, let's just say, it's a bit different, and it fits the theme: Synaesthete.

This musical puzzler-thing's just a demo: Audiosurf. But you could pay for the full version.

And if you happen to have a guitar controller handy (no, me neither, but anyway), you could use it to "play" a platform game: Fret Nice.

[At the risk of having nothing to post next week: all the above found at the Independent Games Festival 2008 site].

For when you've completely given up on any pretence of work for today...

Radiohead have released the five "stems", and a GarageBand project file, that make up their new single "Nude" - download them from iTunes and post your remix here. Apparently the band will listen to the ones that get the most votes. It doesn't say whether they'll do any more than that, mind, but still, it could lead somewhere...

Loads of great bands have played at Amsterdam's Paradiso and Melkweg, over the years; fortunately both venues have been recording them. In high quality. And they'll let you see/hear them for free. Well worth a look through the concerts list. More bands added as more bands play (the blog should keep you up to date).

Songbird is a web browser/media player designed for music lovers. It's in beta, but apparently it's been stable for a while now. And for added procrastinatory value, it's based on Firefox, so you can customise to your heart's content.

And finally...

Has it been one of those weeks? Nerves frazzled? Starting to wonder what life would be like without all those people around to screw everything up? Anything just to get away from them? Perhaps, you might have found yourself thinking, it would be more peaceful living on the bottom of the ocean... Well, now you can find out. Sit back, stick some headphones on and chill out to the sound of no humans whatsoever.

Bliss. Utter bliss.

Actually, you possibly better not do that: sometimes things like this happen. Iceberg calving can be a bit loud, apparently...


DISCLAIMER: This service is provided purely for the benefit of our readers; any way in which the gathering of these links might be construed as an attempt on my part to legitimise my own countless moments of time-www.asting idleness is purely coincidental, and entirely accurate.

Oh, and videos weren't embedded to save loading times. Or would people prefer to see them added to the post next time?