Sam Lewis

I'm not here at the moment...

2010-05-15T14:45:00.002+01:00

...but you can find me at samlewis.co.uk.

A walk in the country

2010-03-09T15:37:00.001Z

Having slightly misjudged the time when bluebells would be appearing (should have left it a week or two), we set off for a walk from Coulsdon South station. Great views, but very cold and windy. You can find the route in Time Out's book Country Walks near London vol. 2.

View Coulsdon South Circular in a larger map

TalkTalk/Spotify competition email faux pas: what's the appropriate response?

2010-02-27T18:08:00.001Z

I recently came across a competition that, in association with TalkTalk, offered the chance to win a year's subscription to Spotify in exchange for entering your email address and a Spotify song to a collaborative playlist. You can find the competition here if you want to enter, but when I first saw it it was only possible to sign up to be notified when entries were being accepted. So, I entered my email address and promptly forgot all about it.

I was reminded of the competition when I received an email telling me that I could now enter it, but my concerns were raised by one or two things. First, the email contained only a .jpg, and no link to click. Second, although it was mailed from the spotify.com domain, the sender was listed as an @gmail.com address, so I was suspicious about replying to ask what had happened. But the main problem was that my address was surrounded in the To: field by a large number of other email addresses.

This email faux pas is often committed by email users, through carelessness or a lack of understanding, and it certainly is annoying. When a business does it, however, it gives a particularly bad impression. People don't want their email addresses unnecessarily exposed to others, and I received several group replies to the original email saying just this. There was talk of the Data Protection Act, people demanded compensation (in the form of a year's Spotify subscription, which was the competition prize) and someone even set up a Facebook group to indignantly complain about Spotify's breach of data protection law.

It seems that this law may well have been broken, and distributing email addresses in this way certainly goes against the standard "sign up for this and we won't give out your address" spiel that (I think/assume) was included on the registration page. But what information was given out? Email addresses? Well, yes, but I googled a random selection of the addresses concerned, and found quite a few of them on the web, ready to be crawled by any nefarious email-gatherer out there. More to the point, most of the email addresses of those most loudly demanding compensation (including that of the guy who set up the Facebook group) are there to be found on the web, in plain text. I even found that one address was given to offer help with the PC game torrent the user had seeded via the Pirate Bay. And this was one of the people who had threatened legal action against TalkTalk.

If you're going to demand compensation, you have to have experienced a loss, injury, or suffering. For most of the people making this demand, this did not happen: their email addresses were already freely available online. For those who had not previously chosen to publish this information in this way, some damage certainly was done, but exposing email addresses (and nothing else) is far from the worst that could happen. I didn't like it, but I understood that it was a mistake – a human error. Spotify apologised, somewhat half-heartedly at first, and it has now provided a month's subscription as compensation. The outcry may well have played a part in encouraging this move, but these people's anger seemed somewhat unfair, and based on a poor understanding of online privacy. A human made a foolish mistake, which, while annoying, caused little or no real damage; some people overreacted; and now I have a month's worth of advert-free Spotify. Not the end of the world, and even slightly positive. I don't think I'll bother entering the competition though.

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Democracy in action: wind turbine will (hopefully) be built on Hackney Marshes

2010-02-21T12:05:00.001Z

A few months ago, I voted 'yes' on the proposal to build a wind turbine on Hackney Marshes. I didn't hold out much hope of it eventually going ahead, but I did what I could and placed my vote.

And it turns out that 87% of the people who voted agreed with me!

It will now be built (if it gets planning permission), and should be providing the power for Hackney's street lighting and council offices for about 25 years.

I ♥ Hackney.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Backupify backs up online accounts for free

2009-12-31T14:56:00.001Z

For those who sign up before January 31st, Backupify is offering free backups of data stored in online services such as Flickr, Twitter, Google and so on. You can read more about it here.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Shake mercury and you get:

2009-12-04T09:53:00.001Z

via liveleak.com

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

A good Apple parody advert for the Sun

2009-12-01T09:23:00.001Z

via boingboing.net

Shame it's for the Sun, and also that it's supporting the wrong side in a losing battle (see buzzmachine.com for why), but I like this advert.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Intelligence Squared debate on the Catholic Church in full(?)

2009-11-29T15:09:00.001Z

It seems that the videos I included in an earlier post on this subject were an edited version of the debate, not the whole thing. Here's an unedited (or at least, less-edited) version.

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Intelligence Squared debate on the Catholic Church in full(?)

2009-11-29T14:27:00.001Z

http://ec2-79-125-48-20.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/iq2-videos/Catholic_Church_is_a_force_for_good_19-10-2009.mp4","provider":"pseudo","start":"24","scaling":"fit","duration":0},"logo":{"fullscreenOnly":true,"displayTime":0},"plugins":{"pseudo":{"url":"http://www.intelligencesquared.com/__data/assets/file/0008/1034/flowplayer.pseudostreaming-3.1.3.swf"},"controls":null},"canvas":{"backgroundColor":"#000","backgroundGradient":"none"},"playerId":"iq2-video","playlist":[{"url":"http://ec2-79-125-48-20.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/iq2-videos/Catholic_Church_is_a_force_for_good_19-10-2009.mp4","provider":"pseudo","start":"24","scaling":"fit","duration":0}]}" />

via intelligencesquared.com

It seems that the videos of this debate that I included in an earlier post had been cut quite a bit. Here's the thing in full, or at least with less missing.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

'The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' by Richard Dawkins

2009-11-26T10:40:00.001Z

I've just finished this book, and on the whole enjoyed it. It does seem slightly lacking in structure, with a rather unfocussed stream parts of the overwhelming evidence in favour of the 'theory' of evolution. Those pieces of evidence are fascinating though.

One important point Dawkins makes at the start of the book is about the confusion over what the word 'theory' means, quoting from the Oxford English Dictionary:

Theory, Sense 1: A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.

Theory, Sense 2: A hypothesis proposed as an explanation; hence, a mere hypothesis, speculation, conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion.

Those who reject evolution often do so in the belief that evolution is a theory in the second sense, when it is in fact a theory in the first sense, just like the 'theory of electromagnetism' or the 'theory of relativity.'

If you want to read the book, you can buy it here.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

An interesting Radiolab episode on morality and how our brains work

2009-11-23T12:01:00.001Z

Killing Babies, Saving the World

By Radiolab

November 17, 2009

To get this podcast started, Robert ambushes Jad with a question … a question we’ve all been dying to ask him since June 10th, 2009, when Amil Abumrad came into the world. But fear not, we didn’t do a whole podcast just to give the new dad a hard time. Robert talks to Josh Greene, the Harvard professor we had on our Morality show. They revisit some ideas from that show in the context of the big, complicated problems of today (think global warming and nuclear war). Josh argues that to deal with those problems, we’re going to have to learn how to make better use of that tiny part of our brain that handles abstract thinking. Not a simple proposition, but, despite the odds, Josh has hope.

Download MP3

Photo by: Flickr/ connieth

Comments [29] | Posted in: Podcasts | Shorts

via wnyc.org

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Wow

2009-11-23T09:20:00.001Z

via youtube.com

2012's going to be an interesting year.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

White collar crime and double standards

2009-11-21T15:08:00.001Z

I strongly recommend you listen to the latest three episodes of Radio 4's Thinking Allowed programme, on the subject of white collar crime.

While you might be worried about being stabbed or robbed in the street, the crimes you should really care about are the ones committed by people wearing suits, not hoodies. These criminals affect the lives of everyone and yet they are rarely punished, let alone censured.

If you're not angry, you're not thinking hard enough.

Programme 1 | Programme 2 | Programme 3

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Decline and fall

2009-11-18T14:08:00.001Z

via boingboing.net

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Book recommendations from the Book Seer

2009-11-18T10:43:00.001Z

Read a book you liked and want to read other things like it? Want lots of recommendations but refuse to visit more than one site to get them? A fan of Victorian-style facial hair?

The Book Seer might be for you.

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

TVCatchup on iPhone

2009-11-16T14:49:00.001Z

It seems that the very handy (but somewhat misleadingly-named) TVCatchup is even handier than I thought. The site, which lets you watch live British TV via the internet (but not "catch up" on things you've missed), has an iPhone-compatible site too!

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

'Transition' by Iain Banks

2009-11-16T13:14:00.001Z

Iain (M.) Banks' recent books have not impressed me nearly as much as his earlier work, but I'm always hopeful that he'll get back to form one day. His latest work, Transition, might be different in that it appears to be somewhere betweenthe usual science- and, er, notscience-fiction, being published in the UK as by Iain Banks and in the US as by Iain M. Banks. (See here if you're not sure about the distinction.)

If you're interested in checking it out but are not sure if it's worth your money, the book is available in abridged audio form as a free podcast in iTunes.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

3D projections on buildings

2009-11-13T17:48:00.001Z

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

'Stumbling on Happiness' by Daniel Gilbert

2009-11-12T17:03:00.001Z

This is a book about the ways we experience, remember, and predict feelings, and the mistakes we make in doing so. It's not a recipe for the perfect happy life, but I recommend it.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Is the Catholic church a force for good in the world?

2009-11-12T16:25:00.001Z

I think it's pretty clear that the answer to this question is "no," but here is the motion as debated by Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry, Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan. Not much of a debate really, as there's little that can be said to refute the motion, but here it is:

You can watch the whole thing on YouTube here.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

The world's smallest specs

2009-11-12T13:21:00.001Z

via wired.co.uk

This is a real photo, of a fly wearing very small glasses.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Tim Minchin - Storm

2009-11-11T10:18:00.001Z

via youtube.com

Right on.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Petition to make the Press Complaints Commission a public body

2009-11-07T14:03:00.001Z

Britain's newspapers currently 'regulate' themselves via the Press Complaints Commission. This petition proposes that it instead becomes a public body:

Following the article in the Daily Mail on Friday 16th October by Jan Moir in relation to the death of Stephen Gately, the PCC received over 21,000 complaints; however the chairman the Code committee for the PCC is currently the editor of the Daily Mail Paul Dacre.

As the formula one boss Max Mosley said when giving evidence to the culture, media and sport committee at the House of Commons “"It's like putting the mafia in charge of the local police station. You can't let them regulate themselves."

The PCC was weakened by preferential treatment to the newspaper industry and it lacked sufficient powers to appropriately deal with cases. The government needs to abolish the current PCC and re launch the committee as a public body so the public can have faith in the PCC once again.

If you want to sign the petition, click here.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Elliott Smith – Waltz #2 (XO)

2009-11-06T15:04:00.001Z

via kungfugrippe.com

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Al Gore, "carbon billionaire"?

2009-11-04T13:19:00.001Z

So, it appears that Al Gore stands to make a large amount of money on his investments in green energy, possibly making him the first "carbon billionaire."

And he is actually being attacked for this, accused of promoting his views on global warming simply in order to make a profit. I strongly doubt that those who disregard the science behind man-made climate change would take kindly to the contrary suggestion that they do so for the sake of money, despite the far more compelling evidence.

Right-wing – and especially Republican – doublethink is getting more insane by the day.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Ibis Reader and BookServer

2009-11-03T12:21:00.001Z

Ibis Reader, an in-development digital reading system for a range of internet devices that provides access to books both online and offline

via blog.threepress.org

The shift from paper to digital books is (finally) actually happening, and will entail far greater changes and benefits than the shift from analogue to digital music ever did. I really hope publishers don't make as much of a hash of it as the music industry managed to. Things like Ibis Reader and BookServer should help them to find the best path.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Scale: coffee bean, carbon, and Powers of Ten

2009-10-29T11:24:00.001Z

For your consideration, a view of the relative sizes of a coffee bean and a carbon atom, and many things in between.

In a similar vein, Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Online virtual keyboard

2009-10-28T11:02:00.001Z

Link

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Nick Griffin on Question Time

2009-10-28T10:17:00.001Z

So, despite protests, the BBC had the BNP's chief schmuck Nick Griffin on its last episode of Question Time. There were plenty of people protesting – quite rightly – against the hateful Nick Griffin, but there was also a lot of anger directed at the BBC for "allowing him a platform." If Peter Hain was right in saying that the BNP's (at least current) requirement for members to be "indigenous caucasians" makes it an illegal organisation, then they certainly should not have been allowed on Question Time. But if that's the case, why haven't their local council and european parliament seats been taken away from them, and why was this objection not raised at the time of the elections? Free speech is essential, and has to mean the right to say unpleasant as well as pleasant things, as so memorably put by Voltaire Voltaire's biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

But was the show a success? I think probbaly not – it was a bit of a shambles really. It might not have won the BNP many votes, but I can't imagine it lost them any.

§ Language evolves, and fighting this process is foolish, if not impossible. But I do have a problem with the idea that once a word has found a new meaning, the old one should be considered incorrect and worthy of attack. Nick Griffin described the result of immigration into the UK as "genocide," meaning, in the original sense of the word, what Raphael Lemkin called in 1944 "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The mass murder of a particular group can be included in this definition, but it is not the only feature of genocide. Of course, Nick Griffin is flatly wrong to describe as genocide the currrent evolution of British society, but the panel's main response came from Conservative life peer (and Nick Griffin's co-homophobe) Sayeed Warsi, who, rather than refuting his claim, simply took deep offence at what she saw as his misuse of the word. In popular use its meaning may have changed, but why did no one point out her misunderstanding?

§ A similar point came when a woman in the audience objected to the use of the phrase "Afro-Caribbean," prescribing instead "African-Caribbean." Perhaps she had heard the phrase "African-American" but not the phrases "Anglo-Indian," "Franco-Prussian," "Serbo-Croatian," "Italo-American" and "anarcho-syndicalist." It's a shame, for everyone's sake, that no one explained her mistake.

§ One audience member pointed out that it was unreasonable to attack muslims and not christians, as (the christian) Nick Griffin does. He was right, but I think he meant that we should therefore go easy on all religions. I'd say that he had it the wrong way round: many of the attacks on Islam (such as on its misogyny, homophobia, and belief in fairy stories, for instance) are justified. We just need to get started all the other religions too.

If you missed the programme, you can catch it for a while longer here, or just have a look at cassetteboy's edited highlights:

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

10/GUI

2009-10-13T14:13:00.001+01:00

via ignorethecode.net

This looks great.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

The Scandal of Trashing Britain's Brilliant Broadcasting To Please Rupert Murdoch

2009-10-02T09:16:00.001+01:00

There is a scandal in British politics that is passing almost unnoticed in the night. It will alter the ecology of our politics – and our culture – in ways that will damage us for decades to come. There is one thing most British people think we do best: broadcasting. A recent ICM poll found that 77 percent think the BBC is an institution to be proud of, and 63 percent say it is good value for money. This makes the BBC by a long way the most popular public institution in Britain – yet both main political parties are lining up to happy-slap Auntie. The link between the license fee and the Beeb is about to be broken by a Labour government, and a Tory government will sweep in and widen the gap, while unleashing a snarling pack of Fox News-style hounds across the rest of the channels. And for what? To win the favour of a foreign right-wing billionaire.
Let’s start with the good news. The BBC works. For just £2.60 a week, the British get a package of the best television and radio in the world. We get the best comedies, the best drama, and the best news. There’s a reason why we have won seven of the past ten international Emmies, and the BBC News website is the most popular on earth. As soon as he took power, Nicholas Sarkozy asked how he could make French broadcasting more like ours. It is a model for the world of how to create journalism that isn’t contaminated by either corporate advertisers and proprietors on one side, or state ownership on the other. Three independent polls have found that a large majority of Brits would happily pay more for it.
Of course we can all find some parts of its output we don’t like. I can’t stand Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Neil’s blatant editorializing, Chris Moyles, or bogus questions about whether Gordon Brown is popping pills. A right-wing bias still seeps into a lot of its news coverage: see the new book ‘Newspeak’ by David Edwards and David Cromwell for details. But other people will loathe the parts I love – In Our Time, Start the Week, Eastenders, Question Time, Lauren Laverne, Mark Kermode, BBC4. It’s a package: it’s impossible for every part to delight every individual. But when there are so many riches, we almost all find something to enjoy: a London Business School found that 99 percent of us use it every week.
Far from becoming outdated, the BBC model is more necessary now than ever. Commercial television is losing its ability to produce quality programmes, fast. Advertising money is leaking away to the internet: this week, for the first time, online advertising overtook TV ads in Britain. Revenues are expected to fall by 20 percent in the next decade, and to continue spiralling after that. As more of us get digital packages that make it possible to record programmes and fast-forward through the ad breaks, it will only get worse. Budgets for shows on commercial channels are in freefall. We won’t get good programmes for nothing again. The BBC is the simplest answer, and we are overwhelmingly happy to pay it.
So why would our politicians start trashing this system? Rupert Murdoch has long despised the BBC, for the simple reason that although it works well for us, it works badly for him. He can’t step in and make a profit by providing his import-filled alternatives, because we’re happy with what we have. So he has launched a long campaign through his newspapers to delegitimise the BBC. They relentlessly present it as poor value, biased to the left, and bloated. It’s not working with the public: the BBC is 9 percent more popular today than a decade ago. But he is determined to shrink the BBC to a feeble service like PBS in the US, producing worthy programmes watched by a handful.
Despite losing the public argument, Murdoch has another way to exert influence: his newspapers have long applauded the politicians who most serve his interests, and savaged the politicians who lag behind. It’s part of a long pattern that stretches across continents: anyone who wants to understand it should read ‘The Murdoch Archipelago’ by Bruce Page. In the debate about the Sun’s endorsement of David Cameron this week, many naïve observers have acted as if the newspaper is a pressure group with only the interests of the British people at heart, rather than the arm of a corporate machine acting bluntly in its own self-interest.
The Labour government began the bidding for Murdoch’s favour by proposing – for the first time – to break the link between the license fee and the BBC. From now on, a chunk of it will be given to other broadcasters like Channel Four and regional news providers. At first it sounds like a small and reasonable step – it will go to support valuable programming – but it begins a process that will bleed the BBC. You won’t be able to see so clearly where your money is going. Gradually, more and more money will be dispersed from the BBC by a Tory government eager to keep Murdoch’s favour, and the corporation will shrink back. As it provides less easily traceable value, it will be harder to defend the license fee itself – and Murdoch will win.
The Tories then upped the bidding. This summer Ofcom – Britain’s broadcasting regulators – found Murdoch’s BSkyB guilty of effectively pricing other companies out of the pay-TV market. David Cameron responded by saying he will quietly put Ofcom to sleep, scrapping most of its regulations. Then he gave Murdoch another bauble he has craved for decades: he is going to scrap all the political impartiality rules covering British television (except on the BBC). If Cameron succeeds, Sky News will mutate into Fox News, pumping its poison 24/7. Murdoch duly endorsed the Tories.
This quid pro quo is unspoken – there are no meetings in darkened rooms – but Murdoch is quids in nonetheless. His son James Murdoch has been at the forefront of trying to rationalize these grabs for profit. He called the impartiality rules “an impingement on the right to free speech.” This is based on a basic error. Your right to free speech – which is the closest thing I have to a sacred belief – doesn’t include the right to speak wherever you want. I don’t have a primetime show on BBC One to expound my views, but that doesn’t mean I’m being censored. Your right to say what you want doesn’t entail a right to say it on the public airwaves. They are a shared public resource, and it is right to regulate them in the public interest.
Murdoch Junior then claimed the BBC “penalizes the poorest in our society with regressive taxes and policies.” This is hilarious. If Murdoch is against regressive taxes, why has New International – which makes billions – paid no net taxation in Britain for over a decade? Why do his newspapers vehemently oppose moves to tax the rich more and the poor less? After this argument belly-flopped, he claimed the only “guarantor of independence [in broadcasting] is profit.” Perhaps he should visit Italy, where the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, owns half the TV channels, and makes them support his political campaigns.
Enough. We can’t tolerate a clandestine campaign to trash one of our great national institutions, just so a foreign billionaire can make more profit. Where are these politicians’ spines? Where is their patriotism?

via johannhari.com

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Spotify goes offline

2009-10-01T16:55:00.001+01:00

No, we’re not turning off the music - we’re extending the popular ‘offline mode’ that is available on Spotify Mobile and bringing it to your computer!

Starting today, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to select their playlists and set them to be ‘Available offline’. Those playlists will then be synced to your computer so you can continue to listen to your favorite tunes if you have a slow connection or even if you have no connection at all. Each computer will be able to store up to 3,333 tracks at a time.

To use ‘offline mode’ you’ll need to be running the latest version of Spotify and you may have to log out and back in for the feature to kick in.

So don’t let the lack an internet connection stop you from listening to Spotify - upgrade to Spotify Premium today and sync your music.

via spotify.com

Spotify just keeps getting better, making the premium option more and more attractive...

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Augmenting Aerial Earth Maps with Dynamic Information (augearth)

2009-10-01T11:44:00.001+01:00

via youtube.com

We are going to have to rethink our ideas about the world and our place in it in pretty major ways in the coming years. The notion of privacy will also change beyond recognition before too long. I don't think this is necessarily in itself such a terrible thing.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Stop blaming the poor. It's the wally yachters who are burning the planet | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

2009-09-29T12:21:00.001+01:00

about one sixth of the world's population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Waze

2009-09-23T19:42:00.001+01:00

Waze does something similar to Google Maps (as I mentioned in an earlier post) but goes a bit further and is, in some ways, a bit cooler. It has some obvious drawbacks, but it looks interesting.

You can see how it works here.

via Boing Boing

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Proof!

2009-09-23T17:06:00.001+01:00

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Crowdsourced traffic information from Google

2009-09-21T15:22:00.001+01:00

I hinted in an earlier post that I'm increasingly of the opinion that when I replace my iPhone it will be with a handset running a version of Android, not a new iPhone. Apple's strict control over what will work on an iPhone, and over how software can work once it's been blessed with approval just seems too restrictive, and prevents its phones from doing really cool things.

One of those cool things is the way in which Google Maps, when running on an Android or Palm phone (but not on an iPhone), can send information on the phone's location and speed to Google (where steps are taken to preserve privacy), and then the information is sent back to the maps app in the form of an indication of traffic congestion. Simple, ingenious and useful, this is a great example of the possibilities offered by modern, location-aware, internet-connected phones, and one that will only get better as more and more people get involved. But while the iPhone can display traffic information in its maps app, it cannot (currently) contribute traffic data.

You can read more about this here.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Spotify searches

2009-09-21T13:48:00.001+01:00

As its main selling point is the ability to play almost any music you're looking for, it's helpful to know how to search in Spotify. You can specify what you're looking for in the following ways:

artist:
album:
track:
year:
genre:

You can combine these search terms, as in the example "genre:folk year:1950-1960".

And, in their ever-helpful way, Spotify have provided a list of all the available genres as a Google spreadsheet.

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Spotify is the future

2009-09-21T11:22:00.001+01:00

Thanks to another of my Drobo's funny turns, I haven't been using iTunes to listen to music lately, I've been using Spotify. And it has confused me – Spotify just seems to be too good to be true. It's library of music is vast (and growing), and (if you don't mind the adverts) it's free. If you pay (an extremely reasonable) £9.99 a month, you get the adverts removed, and the chance to listen to music on- and off-line on your iPhone or Android phone. And you use Android, you can even listen to music with Spotify while you're using the phone for other things, which is not currently possible with the iPhone. (This is one of what I think is a growing number of reasons to choose Android over the iPhone, but that's another story.) Sharing songs, artists, and playlists with friends or the whole world is so easy, it makes the days of borrowing CDs and making compilations on tape seem almost unbelievably archaic.

So, what are the drawbacks?

Well, you do of course need internet access. But if your connection is down, I think you'll probably cope with the lack of music. Radio does still exist, after all. And Spotify can buffer several gigabytes of data, so temporary network cut-outs shouldn't really be a problem. There are arguments against storing data (especially private data, such as email and documents), but the benefits of storing music on the cloud seem to easily outweigh the problems; storing and backing up a music collection is a job I'd be happy to pass on to someone else.

Spotify is an extremely simple app, and this unfortunately means that it doesn't yet seem to offer personal song ratings and smart playlists, so getting the best out of the huge library is less easy than in iTunes. But it might one day, and I don't think the current lack is too terrible.

At present, searching for some artists will produce a limited list, or nothing at all. This is of course a fairly major problem, but it's not one that cannot change in future. Maybe one day they'll have literally every song recorded in their library, and if the cost of that is £9.99 a month or listening to a few adverts, I think Spotify (or something like it) might just be the future of music.

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Songs: Ohia (and Magnolia Electric Co.) are brilliant

2009-09-18T12:03:00.001+01:00

Why not listen to them on Spotify?

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

Jonathan Meades: Off Kilter

2009-09-17T09:24:00.001+01:00

The wonderful Jonathan Meades is back on the telly for a brief series on Scotland. You can watch the first two (and soon, the third and final) episodes here, for a limited time.

I love his use of language, and his unflagging right-headedness – perhaps you will too.

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Paper iPhone stand from Dessine moi un objet

2009-09-16T10:28:00.001+01:00

via dessinemoiunobjet.com

http://www.dessinemoiunobjet.com/iphone-and-itouch-paper-stand-dock/

Posted via web from Sam Lewis

RFID Rube Goldberg device

2009-09-16T09:51:00.001+01:00

Via Boing Boing

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Why Have We Stopped Raging Against The Sick, Sick Fashion Industry?

2009-09-16T08:03:00.001+01:00

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1574

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

38 Degrees petitions

2009-09-15T17:15:00.001+01:00

Two petitions for your consideration:

http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/BBCStandup

http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/mandelsonweb

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Palm oil power plants become burning issue thanks to UK's crazy 'green' policy | George Monbiot

2009-09-15T09:00:00.001+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/sep/09/palm-oil-power-plant-wales

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

War Horse at the New London Theatre

2009-09-14T10:03:00.001+01:00

Brilliant puppetry – highly recommended.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/warhorse

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

All Labour needs to summon is nerve, daring and ambition | Polly Toynbee

2009-09-08T07:47:00.001+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/07/labour-radical-ideas-electoral-reform

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

More on the mural: an update on my previous post

2009-09-05T16:07:00.001+01:00

Mural no more? Well, no, not exactly.

In my last post, I linked to a story in the Hackney Gazette on the subject of a Banksy mural on Stoke Newington Church Street. I took the article at its word, and passed on the news that Hackney Council had "destroyed" the painting. I included the photograph from the article, which showed the mural surrounded by black paint, but basically unscathed. I'll admit that I didn't give much thought to the picture, thinking it was a document of the so-called 'destruction' before it was completed. If I had thought about it a little more, the lack of any workmen or ladders in the picture might have seemed a little suspicious. But surely it's gone, right? After all, the article seems to be saying that the mural has gone, a victim of Hackney Council's stated position "not to make a judgement call on whether graffiti is art or not." Well, no.

If you take a closer look at the photo (or the wall itself, as I did today), you'll see that there are a few light black marks over the mural made by paint rollers. Other than that, they have painted around the mural, not over it. Does it look less pleasant than before? Yes, probably. Would a completely black wall be a far better canvas for a new mural, council-sanctioned or otherwise? Yes, definitely. Has Hackney Council "destroyed" this particular mural? No, absolutely not.

So, my apologies. I will think a bit longer next time. This is clearly one of the dangers of instant blog posting. Hopefully I won't come to regret this one too...

Posted via email from Sam Lewis

Expialidocious

2009-06-10T20:05:00.003+01:00

Let The Right One In – a summary

2009-04-14T20:00:00.006+01:00

Young love, falling snow,
Necessity of feeding,
And a life ahead.

Let The Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in): ****

Scale

2009-04-14T09:32:00.002+01:00

An approximation of the Total Perspective Vortex.

(Via Reddit)

Whitechapel Art Gallery

2009-04-12T14:59:00.001+01:00

Hackney City Farm

2009-04-12T14:52:00.003+01:00

Enso

2007-05-20T19:59:00.000+01:00

Enso is another Quicksilveresque program, and it looks very nice. It's Windows-only at the moment, but a Mac version is planned. It's not free, but if you've tried Launchy and Keybreeze and haven't quite got what you want yet, it might be worth a try.

If this sort of thing leaves you cold, that's probably because you haven't really given it a chance yet. The computer you're sitting at right now is much quicker than you at doing a lot of the tedious, repetitive tasks you find yourself doing over and over again, so using a program like this can save you a lot of time and effort. The difference between, say three seconds and twenty seconds to complete a given action might not seem like a very impressive time saving, but it really adds up when you get in the habit of doing as much as possible this way rather than with your mouse or trackpad.

I urge you to try one of these programs, by which I mean for a week or so, not five minutes. There is a bit of a learning curve involved, but it really is worth it, I promise.

(via Google Operating System)

Browsers

2007-05-20T18:04:00.000+01:00

I recommend Firefox to people a lot, but I've been using Opera lately and think it's pretty good. Why not give it a go?

I'm moving

2007-05-19T21:54:00.000+01:00

I like Tumblr, the service that has been hosting my attempt at a blog, and I think its simple, stripped-down format is what eased me into getting round to posting every now and then.

But I've decided that it's a bit more stripped-down than I want, and so I'm moving to Blogger. I'll be moving the address (samlewis.co.uk) too, so if you read this by just visiting the page then all that will happen is that you see a slight change. If you subscribe via RSS (and hopefully you do), then you will need to update your subscription to carry on receiving updates.

2007-05-18T21:53:00.000+01:00

Top 10 Mac OS X tweaks

A day in the life...

2007-05-18T21:52:00.000+01:00

Solar power in Spain

2007-05-18T21:51:00.000+01:00

2007-05-15T21:51:00.000+01:00

Google search results in two columns...

2007-05-13T21:48:00.000+01:00

...with this Greasemonkey script. You'll need to have installed Greasemonkey in Firefox to use this.

A nice time-lapse video...

2007-05-11T21:47:00.000+01:00

...here.

2007-05-11T21:46:00.000+01:00

iTunes licence agreement

2007-05-11T21:41:00.000+01:00

You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

This is part of the iTunes licence agreement. Really.

The 2007 Reith Lectures have just finished

2007-05-11T21:40:00.000+01:00

You can listen to them all here.

The Encyclopedia of Life

2007-05-11T21:37:00.000+01:00

This won't be anywhere near complete for a decade or two (if ever), but you can keep an eye on it at eol.org.

Richard Feynman on "the inconceivable nature of nature"

2007-05-09T21:35:00.000+01:00

"Do the math(s)"

2007-05-09T21:34:00.000+01:00

Google Maps Address Book Plugin

2007-05-07T21:32:00.000+01:00

I just used this for the first time in a while and thought that some of you might be missing out.

Of course, some of you will be missing out in a bigger way by not actually having Address Book on your computers because they are not Apples. But there you are.

Spinal Tap...

2007-05-07T21:30:00.000+01:00

...are back (in a small way).

Growl notifications for Firefox...

2007-05-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

...here. You can get Growl here if you haven't already got it. (Growl is Mac-only.)

Track your deliveries...

2007-05-03T18:16:00.000+01:00

...with this Dashboard widget.

Design for the other 90%

2007-05-02T18:14:00.000+01:00

Don't forget to look at the pictures too.

2007-05-01T18:12:00.000+01:00

www.matthewmahon.com

Slow-motion water video

2007-04-30T18:11:00.000+01:00

ProVoc...

2007-04-28T18:09:00.000+01:00

...looks like a very handy Mac application for learning languages (specifically vocabulary).

Keybreeze...

2007-04-28T18:07:00.000+01:00

...is another Windows version of Quicksilver. You can get it here.

Launchy...

2007-04-26T18:05:00.000+01:00

...is a Windows attempt at a Quicksilver clone. You can get it here.

Jarvis Cocker is running Meltdown this year

2007-04-26T18:04:00.000+01:00

More here.

Anybody there?

2007-04-18T18:02:00.000+01:00

In order to see if anyone's actually reading this, I have an offer for you.

Joost is a new TV thing (from the makers of Skype and Kazaa) that lets you, well, watch TV, but in a new kind of way, on your computer. You can learn a little bit more about it here (and see its moving logo, which reminds me of the old animated Channel 4 one).

Anyway, Joost is still in beta, so you can't just download it and have a look. I have three invitations to give out though, so if you want one just send me an email and I'll invite you. First come, first served, and all that

Quicksilver multiple action cleverness

2007-04-18T18:01:00.000+01:00

Here

Petition to close Guantanamo prison

2007-04-18T18:00:00.000+01:00

Here

The Corporation

2007-04-17T17:59:00.000+01:00

Is worth watching if you haven't seen it yet. It's on YouTube here.

More free language learning materials

2007-04-15T17:58:00.000+01:00

From the BBC this time.

Infinite Google search results scrolling...

2007-04-15T17:56:00.000+01:00

...can be acheived with this Greasemonkey script. To use it, you'll need to install Greasemonkey first. Install it in Firefox, that is.

C'était un rendez vous

2007-04-13T17:54:00.000+01:00

This is another good old one. It was recently nicked by Snow Patrol as a video for one of their songs.

Human computation

2007-04-13T17:52:00.000+01:00

I saw this quite a while ago and just remembered it. It's quite long, but very interesting - it describes the idea behind the ESP game.

The new del.icio.us Firefox extension...

2007-04-12T17:45:00.000+01:00

...is here. Looks pretty good. If you're not familiar with del.icio.us, you can find out more about it here. If you're not familiar with Firefox, don't bother reading too much, just download it and use it!

And please, don't use Internet Explorer!

(As an alternative, you might like to try Opera, but the del.icio.us extension won't work with it.)

Google Notifier

2007-04-12T17:41:00.000+01:00

Is a good way to keep track of your Gmail and Google Calendar from your menu bar. Get it here (Mac only).

Google Reader Notifier does the same thing for Google Reader.

MagiCal

2007-04-12T17:40:00.000+01:00

Allows you to have a 'fuzzy' menu bar clock, amongst other things. Get it here.

Darfur crisis Google Earth layer...

2007-04-12T17:38:00.000+01:00

...can be downloaded here. If you don't have Google Earth, you can get it here.

Open University

2007-04-11T17:36:00.000+01:00

Openlearn offers free learning from the Open University.

Free language learning courses

2007-04-08T17:35:00.000+01:00

Here

Thou Shalt Always Kill

2007-04-08T17:33:00.000+01:00

Linux vs. Windows MCE

2007-04-06T17:29:00.000+01:00

This looks great...

...and this is part two:

Quicksilver

2007-04-05T17:24:00.000+01:00

If you have an Apple but don't have Quicksilver, you are missing out. You can get it here.

Yum

2007-03-26T17:22:00.000+01:00

Apple recipe management software

Send as IM

2007-03-15T16:18:00.000Z

An Applescript for using Adium via Quicksilver

Drag de Go...

2007-03-15T16:12:00.000Z

...is a very handy Firefox extension. You can get it here.

(I found it via Lifehacker.)