mrblack.co.uk weblog

After skimming through academia stuck in dusty libraries flicking through thousands of books trying to find that elusive quote describing which routes Russian technology smugglers took during the 1980s, you can understandably get a little frustrated with it all.

Well Google is attempting to cut down that by scanning in virtually every book (in modern use) so that we can search with a few key words. Wonderful. It’s a shame that book publishers who seem to be living in the dark ages or having a music business type fear of the internet should feel threatened. People will still buy these books, or go to libraries to read them, as for one, reading on a screen is still not as nice as sitting in front of a fire place with a nice brandy and secondly its faster and easier, especially when researching , to have 40 open books surrounding you rather than 40 open pdf documents cluttering up your task bar.

So calm down book companies, readers will for sure still purchase fiction books. As for reference and technical manuals when at times all you need is one page (say for example finding out how to use functions in a programming language) why not talk to Google and ask to see if they could limit the page further? To be honest though, Google Book Search makes me want to buy more books online, rather than making do with what the local WH Smiths stock or what I can work out is inside the book from the Amazon blurb or the entirely positive book reviews.

Well it seems my listening habits are now falling within the electronic sphere in addition to my rock and roll (or indie/guitar based). Hurrah for progression! So as a person who wants to listen to as many different genres of music as physically possible without resorting to shite like 50 cent, I am going to listen to more Ska.

This decision has come thanks to the wonderful abandonship from b3ta, who also hosts a cool show on a Boston collage based radio station. She has opened me up to the current world of Ska, with bands like The Aquabats and older stuff like The Specials. I suppose its time I should don more black and white checked clothing and perhaps buy a silly hat to get into the entire scene.

Ska isn’t the be all and end all though. I really need to listen to more electronic music that doesn’t have a silly woman screaming about castles in the sky or any other pointless one liners over the music. Trance and house are still within my ‘shite’ category, so really what I am after is more Boards of Canada.

Any hints of what to listen to for the budding ska/electronic type person?

I drew this when I was a little bored. It shows two sides to the fence, I would be the big guy on occasions (like on the phone to telemarketers), but then again I feel so sorry for the little marketing guy.