The Christmas Sandwich

Epic video

Embedding has been disabled, but do check the link, tis a wee bit special:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUYhWnTv2CU

Geeks and Bikes

Mr tea's post below involving (some really rather fine) hippity hop beats and, more relevant to this post, some geek stuff on powerpoint, reminded me to post a recent discovery of mine. Mr tea's fine examples aside, I'm sure I'm not alone in having endured countless mind-numbingly dull powerpoint presentations in my time. So many, in fact, that, along with other geekish hates including most things Windows and all things Comic Sans Serif (bancomicsans.com), I have grown a rather unhealthy hatred for powerpoint and its stupid slidey monopoly over the presentation world.

But hallelujah! During a particularly long powerpoint-fest at a conference the other day someone whipped out a presentation using prezi, and bye jove it was good! Prezi works more like a map that you navigate, rather than a slide-show. Regardez vous s'il vous-plait (let it load, then press the play button to go between each 'slide'):

Why should you move beyond slides? on Prezi

Snazzy eh? And you can get a half-decent free version, so no more putting money in Mr Billy-Gates-Gruff's pockets, even if he is going to give it all away eventually..

And now, as a treat for enduring another waffly post, the amazing new video from Danny MacAskill. He don't need no stabilizers..:

Geek PowerPoints and Chinese Man

First up, a couple of presentations from the Ignite London show from a couple of months back that I had the pleasure of attending. The concept is basic but effective - you get 5 mins to give a PowerPoint presentation on literally anything and anyone can apply to do it. The slides move on automatically which the presenters can't control. 

Some were funny, some were serious. All were very geeky, which was great.

This one was on why we should decimalise time:


Decimalising Time - by Alby Reid from chichard41 on Vimeo.

And another by a guy who created the geek atlas:


The Geek Atlas: Sun, Sea, Sand, Science - by John Graham-Cumming from chichard41 on Vimeo.

If this kind of super geek thing interests you the next event will be in February (with the actual date to be posted on the website here) and it should be free.

On another [musical] note - a great find if you like well chosen good-time samples and decent old fashioned head nodding hiphop beats, which I do (not like some of that new hip-hop-pop- lil-tinchie-star-in-tha-hood-tinny-ring-tone beats you hear nowadays...)

From France, Chinese Man:

Snap, crackle and pop

Brrrrr.... it is super blitz outside today, but this is a great, warming (pop) tune:

This is nice:

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

Blasts from well past

Evening chums. While listening in the car to a selection of "Now" Cds, which were being flogged off cheap at the shameful price of £1 each, I paused to think two things. 1) Now 34 is definitely worth more than a pound, 2) Said Now record was released in 1996 when I was 11 or 12, and for all the shite that is on it, and shite there indeed is in bucket loads (Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl, Gina G - Ooh Ah, Just a Little Bit), there are also some cracking tunes that actually did well in the charts (remember them?). I found myself thinking that it is quite sad that, when I am old and crusty and lamenting to the underpaid carer who has to change my nappy that music you hear on the radio these days is shit in comparison to in my day, the 'my day' I will be referring to is at the age of 12, not 26. While there are some decent tunes to be found on the radio these days, none are ever as big as the following were. I guess what all this boils down to is this: these tunes were good, and they made it big, like really big. It's sad that thanks to Mr Simon Cowell and his music industry chums, that doesn't happen any more, todays next big thing is tomorrows celebrity big brother fodder.

So, without any more further rambling, I give you The 90s ladies and gentlemen. I remember it fondly.