Proven By Science – FreakyTrigger https://freakytrigger.co.uk Lollards in the high church of low culture Tue, 12 Sep 2023 23:05:26 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 Fringe Science https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2012/08/fringe-science https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2012/08/fringe-science#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:49:30 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=23617 [UPDATE with attributions and conclusion under ‘the fold’ as they say]

Apparently, (apparently), some people are going around saying comedy is subjective – an “art” if you will. Nonsense. Just because the rigours of science haven’t been applied to something, doesn’t mean it can be so wantonly abandoned to the chaos of the immeasurable.

So for the following poll I do NOT want to see any come back guff – “interpretation” this, “define your terms” that. ALL THE WORDS IN THE FOLLOWING POLL QUESTION ARE SELF EVIDENTLY CLEAR, UNAMBIGUOUS AND UNDERSTOOD BY ALL.

OK. Happy? YES YOU ARE HAPPY. ANSWER

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

UPDATE

TV Channel ‘Dave’s 10 funniest 1-liners of the Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Our scientific and stringently methodical poll shows that the real winner should have been Will Marsh. The remaining jokes in final polling order were from:

Stewart Francis (riveting), Tim Vine (back-to-back DVDs), George Ryegold (frowning porn), Stewart Francis (Posh and Becks), Nish Kumar (olympic pessimism), Chris Turner (don’t know Y), Lou Sanders (rocket salad), Tim Vine (tanning olympics), Rob Beckett (big telly).

The mystery 11th comment in our poll, as I think some commenters caught on, was our SCIENCE CONTROL – an aside observational comment from a recent e-mail I’d read. WE TOTALLY DID SCIENCE.

Based on EXACTLY the same number of people finding none of the 11 funny as finding the control funny,  our conclusion is that everything is funny, and if you don’t find any specific thing funny, take a long hard look at thee sen. Everything. Even that.

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FT Periodic Table: Element 6: SUGABABES https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2012/07/ft-periodic-table-element-6-sugababes https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2012/07/ft-periodic-table-element-6-sugababes#comments Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:48:17 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=23576 Freaky Trigger has been going since 1999, almost the exact amount of time the Sugababes have existed. Like the Sugababes it has had many incarnations, from breathless multi-column blog, to the more sedate affair you see right now. But through all of its hiatuses, breakdowns and breakups, both Freaky Trigger and the Sugababes have survived. Of course we would see them as a kindred spirit. Of course they are elemental to us.

Back in March 2001 FT printed a breathless live review of the Sugababes by soon to be celebrated author Dan Rhodes. We used to do stuff like that back then. He signs the piece off: “Glory be to Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan. Saviours of pop.” This was not quite a given view back in 2001. Indeed the only point of agreement back then was how awful the name Sugababes was for a band, something we have now gotten used to. Tom named Overload as the 30th best single of 2000 – I wonder if he still gazes upon – say – Air’s Suicide Underground with quite as much fondness.

So yes, there are plenty of articles on FT about the Sugababes. We were in the thick of it with bootlegging, we cared when Siobahn left, Mutya left, we wondered if “Hole In The Head” was groundbreaking due to its dullness. I’d be surprised if the ‘Babes have the most column inches though. For a Poptimist website they have always presented a bit of a contradiction. the girl band who wrote their own songs became the norm (or at least the girl band whose names were on all the credits). It could be argued that Girls Aloud took the Sugababes formula and really ran with it, the Sugababes were always a little too fond of the odd grinding ballad. But instead the Sugababes presented, and now are the ultimate presentation of an existential Poptimist question. When is a band not a band? When none of the original members are in it?

The current line-up of the Sugababes has none of the original members in it. Ever all the versions of Bucks Fizz that do the rounds tend to have at least one member. When the current line up do gigs, do they still do New Year and Overload? What about Freak Like Me, which only has Heidi on it? If someone says they are a Sugababes fan, are they completeists? Is it merely the official record company line-up that is sanctioned, or do they look at those spin-off solo albums too (they should, Siobhan put a couple of really good albums out). You can argue the toss in the pub for hours and IT STILL WILL NEVER MATTER! Are the songs any good, and can we argue about them.

When is FreakyTrigger not Freaky Trigger? When we stopped being freakytrigger.com and had to settle for freakytrigger.co.uk (just after getting listed as a Pop Culture Bible in Entertainment Weekly). When Tom isn’t editing it? When it eats other websites, folds out into seven (count’em*) sub-blogs. When NYLPM died and Popular takes the odd hiatus? FT has been around for thirteen years, and whilst it may have been more vital in the past, it is still the same thing in its teens despite being almost completely different. Look in the archives. Lots of different writers, short snarky pop pieces, and a lot of dead links to Ananova. And if it wasn’t still the same thing well maybe the original line-up would fortuitously just get back together for the hell of it.

OK – that is kind of Tom’s Tumblr Blue Lines Revisited.

There has always been a slight slant in FT to compare pop with superhero comics. Well the Sugababes are a perfect example of a loads of comics phenomenons, the changing members of superteams, the solo spin-off comic, the new writer (producer) reinventing the band. Well now we even have a direct parallel to Grant Morrison’s “Big 7” JLA reboot, or even the new Marvel relaunching X-Men, the original X-Men, in their slightly re-tailored universe.

It is a complete coincidence that this piece was written today, when the Mutya/Keisha/Siobhhn reunion was announced. And whilst they may be the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young of our time (particularly if Heidi does guest vocals) it can’t help but feel serendipitous that a post that has taken four years to write, was actually started yesterday, and finished the day the original ‘Babes get back together. Of course Mutya/Keisha/Siobhan are not the Sugababes. That’s Heidi/Amelle/Jade. But there will be a week in the near future when both groups will release a single in the same week and it will be all the excitement, nonsense and fizzy fanaticism of pop all over again. Our superheroes of pop.

*Ah, dear belov’d lost Blog 7. We never knew what it was for, but it had an awesome logo.

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my deep and abiding interest in pain https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2011/03/my-deep-and-abiding-interest-in-pain https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2011/03/my-deep-and-abiding-interest-in-pain#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:09:46 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=20638 The diagnosis came at the age of 2. My father had set me down some distance from the hives, handing me a jar of honey, and he went to tend the bees. Or “keep” them. I got stung as I sat there, and my little body swole up like a tomato. The hospital nurse (my father claims) said I was the most allergic case they’d ever had.

Count Tyrone RogenI was stung 11 times in the next eight years. Each sting required a trip to the emergency room. Trust me when I tell you that “the ER” isn’t as sexy as George Clooney made it out to be. One time I saw a guy with multiple stab wounds in the waiting room, sitting calmly on one of the orange plastic seats, holding his sides. (Many of my friends had never been stung at all. Is there something about the flesh of allergic kids that proves irresistible to bees – and indeed to yellowjackets, wasps, and hornets? Something about the way they smell?)

The full-body swelling is what distinguishes your allergic types from run-of-the-mill stingees. When it happens, it’s serious. So throughout my childhood I went every six weeks, like clockwork, to get “my shots” – four injections, each with a different blend of hymenoptera serum, designed to mitigate any systemic reaction to a bee sting. But the shots hurt, too. Was it worth it? Getting “stung” 30-some times a year by a needle just in case I got stung once by a bee?

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I’d never realized there was a qualitative difference between the sting of a needle and the sting of a bee. Or if I had, I’d never thought to try and describe it. But one man has. He’s attempted not only to quantify every range of sting that it’s possible for a human being to feel, he has begun the almost brain-breakingly admirable work of describing these stings. Ladies and gentlemen, Justin O. Schmidt, and the Schmidt Sting Pain Index (thanks to Wikipedia):

  • 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
  • 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.
  • 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
  • 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
  • 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
  • 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
  • 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
  • 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic and burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
  • 4.0 tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
  • 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.[3]

By the way, did you know that a bee will always die after stinging you? Its body isn’t capable of pulling the stinger out of your flesh – but it doesn’t know that. Thus, it will struggle so mightily to retrieve it that the effort rips its own guts out of its body. There, something to look forward to.

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Fun with acid! https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/08/fun-with-acid https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/08/fun-with-acid#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:13:31 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=19546

This is what happens when you dip a cheeseburger in hydrochloric acid. I want to try this at home!

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What Can You Learn From Last.FM? (Part II) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/08/what-can-you-learn-from-last-fm-part-ii https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/08/what-can-you-learn-from-last-fm-part-ii#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:40:34 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=19397 In part 1 of this series looking at artist metrics on Last.FM, I talked about PPL (Plays Per Listener) and also the relative popularity of each act’s top track.

In this part we dig a little bit deeper into an artist’s catalogue, with two more metrics based on their list of top tracks (which, remember, are the tracks with most listeners over the last six months, not over the whole of LFM’s history). I’m calling these metrics – rather unimaginatively – head and body. “Head” is the number of listeners to the tenth most popular track expressed as a percentage of the number of listeners to the first. “Body” is the number of listeners to the fiftieth most popular track expressed as a percentage of the number of listeners to the tenth.

Both of these are based on the same principle – ratios of popular and less popular songs in an artist’s catalogue – but they turn out to measure quite different things. Head measures the extent to which an act is a several-hit wonder. A high head means that your top track isn’t that much more popular than your tenth, which usually means you’ve racked up either a bunch of successful singles or have at least one album that people are keen to listen to in toto. A low head means that you have a few, or maybe just one track which people are particularly keen on but that interest doesn’t extend very far – it suggests a big chunk of casual listeners in your audience.

A high body, meanwhile, means that people are keen to dig deeper into your back catalogue (50 songs is 4+ albums worth for most bands) and a low body either means they’re not, or that you haven’t GOT that kind of back catalogue. It’s usually pretty obvious if this is the case, as the body will be microscopic, since by the time Sleigh Bells or Wavves hit track 50 we’re in the realm of misfiled tags and typos. It certainly isn’t the case that artists who have that kind of back catalogue automatically get a fat body score though.

Head scores of over 50% seem to be pretty good, below 30% suggest the presence of at least one catalogue-outshining hit. In the top bracket you find “album acts” old and new – Pink Floyd are up there, for instance, but so are Vampire Weekend with an enormous 77% head, i.e. their tenth-most-popular track gets more than three-quarters the plays of their most popular one. In other words when someone puts on a VWE record they probably stick it out.

Just below the album acts you find a smattering of pre-Beatles icons – Sinatra, Elvis, Duke Ellington – men with broad enough catalogues to withstand even standout songs: Sinatra’s 10th most popular track gets over half the listeners of “My Way”. Modern pop icons – even those like Madonna with a basket of hits – dip under 50% head scores: there’s always a few songs that are much more popular than their others.

Down at the bottom you’ve got the occasional newbie like Ke$ha (14%) or Drake (9%), but you’ve also got a lot of 80s acts remembered for one or two songs – Dexys, Soft Cell, Bananarama.

Here’s where the relationship between head and body gets interesting though – or rather, the lack of it. The thing about these scores is that they don’t really correlate that much – you can quite credibly have a fat head and a thin body or vice versa. The averages are distorted by acts with small discographies but broadly speaking above 35% seems like quite a big body and below 20% is a thin one (if you’ve got a back catalogue that would merit more, that is.)

So this makes them diagnostically a bit richer, i.e. you can draw up a QUADRANT.

(Positionings in this quadrant are relative rather than reflecting absolute numbers, i.e. I hand-drew it, it’s not an actual chart.)

So let’s have a look at this. In the top-right you have acts with a big head and a big body – lots of popular tracks AND a deep back catalogue. Oh look, it’s the Beatles! But also Yo La Tengo, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, NIN: acts who have devoted fans who see their work as a body rather than a catalogue to be picked from.

Some of the interest lies in who doesn’t make it in: in the top left quadrant you get older acts like Elvis, Queen, and the Doors – people with extensive catalogues but who don’t have the big “body” scores which might be expected. This is the “good for one album” quadrant – whether that’s a debut album or a greatest hits isn’t reflected in the raw stats.

Below that is the “good for one song” quadrant at bottom-left – this section includes a lot of the acts I particularly like, perhaps because I believe people who’ve made one great pop song will often have made more and am happy to delve in on that basis. But the Last.FM public don’t agree with me so here are the Human League, Britney (though she does much better than most pop acts), ABBA on the borderline – lots of hits but no body to speak of – and, interestingly, the Beach Boys.

And on the bottom right is the most intriguing bunch of all – the rarest quadrant, made up of bands with one or a few big hit songs and a bunch of devoted followers who really get stuck in. If you’re happy to listen as far as your tenth Kate Bush or Johnny Cash track, you’re likely to stick around for a lot more. Most extraordinary is Lil Wayne: very very few of the many “Lollipop” listeners dig into Weezy’s labyrinthine back catalogue but a lot of those who do really get stuck in.

In part III I’ll link the data set as a download, point out important caveats, note some quirky results and also draw some conclusions from all this.

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Surely It Starts With Chris https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/06/surely-it-starts-with-chris https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/06/surely-it-starts-with-chris#respond Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:54:29 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=19065 Ah controversy. So many people court you but when is the wedding? I have always found the ideas of religions advertising to be a bit odd*, though even I cannot help but smuggle a small smile when I think of cheap posters saying Carpenter Seeks Joiners (flocking Eastern Europeans not wanted – pah). Nevertheless the teacup tempest caused by this ultrasound poster campaign for Christmas** does seem to flap around the resemblance this poster has to those used by anti-abortion campaigns of recent years (of course no-one really minds pro-lifers using Christianity for their own ends but I digress). This poster however is so staggeringly bonkers that it cannot help raise a large number of secondary thoughts, a number of which are pro-choice. I mean Mary didn’t really have a choice about harbouring Jesus in her womb, and honour that I daresay it was, it probably put Joseph’s back up a bit and she didn’t even have the benefit of a quickie with a swan that she might have got from a different pantheon.

Anyway it made me think:
a) That halo must be a bit uncomfortable. Would it get stuck in a normal birth, or make way for the head? Would it get stuck like some dutch cap if the nipper was breach?

b) If you knew you were giving birth to the second coming of Jesus, wouldn’t you be a bit worried? Octomum got near blanket press, in this case you’ll be looking at constant media attention. Even if you tried to keep it quiet, the shepherds and kings travelling afar (not to mention the star parked above your manger for a week) would make it hard to keep quiet.

c) Again I am sure the infant Jesus was a wonderfully natured child, he didn’t even mind the annoying kid with the drum or the shitting Catalunian in the corner of the stable. But Joseph and Mary were on the run for a crime they did not commit for quite some time. I daresay solving problems in every town they stumbled into. So unless you fancy living like the A-Team for a few years, again abortion may cross your mind.

d) Laura Bush thinks abortion is OK for unplanned pregnancies, and I reckon being knocked up by the deity is the ultimate in unplanned pregnancies. I mean really, has anyone got it on their to do list?

e) I’ve been shown a large number of ultrasounds by wonderful pregnant friends in my time, and there is a massive leap of faith going on when they trace the body, legs and head. Nine times out of ten it could just be a spicy beanburger that went down too quickly, being jiggled by the rightly upset belly. In this case the halo could easily be an onion ring that slipped down transversely or a particularly invasive and this pointless colon piercing.

f) It actually says to me that even Simon Templar was a foetus once.

So, in conclusion, don’t sweat it guys. And as nuts as you will be about the provenance of this ad, it won’t be anywhere near as odd as this Saudi story: Saudi Clerics*** Advocate Breast Feeding.

*Though not as odd as counter religious advertising. Trying to sell the non-existence of something seems like a great scam for the cash strapped ad agencies.

**Yes, yes, yes: it comes earlier every year, the decorations are in the shops in August and the first Argois advert is in September and if you wanted to watch GRUMPY OLD MEN / WOMEN / PETS then I am sure BBC2 will oblige and repeat ad infinitum. Actually I knew Christmas was coming too early last year when they showed the Grumpy Guide to Christmas in May.

***Am I the only person who when Islamic “Clerics” are referenced to wonder if they mind not using edged weapons and if they get to turn undead very often.

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How Buzzwords Work (Maybe) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2010/03/how-buzzwords-work https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2010/03/how-buzzwords-work#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:36:02 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=17810 I was lucky enough to attend a fascinating talk hosted by Mark Earls at the RSA last night on “cultural evolution” – using evolutionary theory to examine the mechanics of how stuff spreads through culture. I then came home and found a great Nitsuh Abebe post on my tumblr dashboard about music critic cliches – when and how they’re used.

The link between these two things? One of the most interesting parts of the talk was when Dr Alex Bentley of Durham university showed some analysis of the spread of “buzzwords” in academia – how particular language choices move through a population. He was looking at the change in use of words like “nuanced”, “apropos”, or “agency” as well as more obviously loaded terms like “Marxist” and words like “retarded” (which academics tend to use to mean ‘slowed’). So of course I found this quite exciting, as it seems to me not wholly unlikely that the use of words like “ethereal” or “soundscape” might well spread in similar ways.

Bentley showed some of his buzzword analysis and it demonstrated that the take-up rates of popular words like “nuanced” and “robust” often followed a classic s-curve. This is the model of word-of-mouth diffusion that became famous from economic studies of hybrid seed corn in the 30s. Hybrid seed corn had a clear benefit, but it wasn’t obvious until you tried it, so it spread by farmers telling their neighbours about it. There was a slow take-up at first, then a rapid one, and then – as most of the people who were going to be interested had latched onto it – a flattening out.

So you’d suspect that an academic sees a word like “robust” in a paper or two, thinks it’s doing useful work and adopts it. Then her peers do, and their peers do, and so on. That’s what the diffusion curve seems to suggest, anyway.

Bentley also showed some graphs of words that were on the way down – like “apropos” and “retarded”. With the exception of “retarded” all of them had a very uneven popularity curve – sometimes up, sometimes down, with a downward trend but no real shape to that trend otherwise. The issue Bentley pointed out is that uneven curve. My take on this – at least I think it’s mine, once you enter the world of what Bentley calls “undirected copying” it becomes harder to be sure! – is that we have ways of copying words but we don’t have ways of uncopying them. It’s rare to notice that a word isn’t being used unless (like “retarded”) people would have reasons of specifically drawing attention to their un-use of the word.

The third relevant slide was one showing the distribution of the buzzwords – a comparison of the ranking of each word with its popularity. In 2001 this followed a power law distribution – the popularity of the #1 buzzword was far more popular than the #2 one, which was far more popular than the #3, with the differences gradually lessening as you go down the curve. This isn’t particularly surprising – it seems to be how the English language as a whole works, with “THE” in the top spot. What’s a little more interesting though is that the shape of this distribution stayed practically the same in 2005, even though there was a massive turnover of actual words. So the words academics were using changed but the distribution of popular buzzwords stayed exactly the same.

The apparent fixity of distribution shapes has implications for all sorts of things but for now let’s speculate about whether Bentley’s findings would also apply to music critics’ choice of adjectives. Do words like “ethereal”, “jangly”, “breezy”, etc. rise on an s-curve and fall in a more random, disconnected fashion. Does the distribution curve remain the same even though words change? An analysis of rocksbackpages or the recently online Spin archives would be incredibly interesting here.

One other thought: Bentley also talked about different types of copying, particularly “directed” and “undirected” copying. I was a little vague on the difference between these but as I understand it (caveat lector!) the two differ in terms of ‘salience’, i.e. there being a relevant difference between the choices on offer. So directed copying is where you copy something because it is doing a better job for whoever’s using it, and undirected copying is where you copy something because it’s kind of there. Most people would – if they admit to copying at all – suggest they’re doing the former but actually the latter seems to be just as common, if not more common.

The way you tell them apart is by looking at stuff like diffusion and distribution curves, where different things spreading through a population leave different signatures, like the S-curves. But what was interesting to me about the buzzwords is that the diffusion curve of a specific word had a signature that suggested directed copying – people using a word because it was more salient – BUT the distribution curve and its high turnover were signs of undirected copying, where actually the choice of words isn’t salient at all.

Why would that be? I asked a question about this but I’m not sure I phrased it well enough. What I’m guessing is happening is that for certain words, word choice among academics is a basically arbitrary act (as shown by the distribution curve) that FEELS salient (as shown by the diffusion curve) while the word is in fashion. It suggests to me that people who laugh at particular words are RIGHT – those words are indeed arbitrary – but also IRRELEVANT in that within the community who use them they do in fact spread as if they were useful and accurate (and I wonder if that means they have some invisible use in terms of social status or bonding). This would apply even more to “management speak”, that other much mocked source of buzzwords. And it might apply to rock critic buzzwords too – so next time you groan at someone for “visceral” you can take comfort in the fact that science may be on your side and no comfort from the fact that nobody using it will or should care.

(Postscript: Word choice is an interesting thing to do this experiment on because it’s not really subject to the kind of interaction effects you get with, say, choosing a record or a band to like. The popularity of words is more easily analysable now than at any time in the last several millennia but it still takes a bit of effort: the popularity of records or books or bands is a well-recognised object of interest and lots of people provide their measurements of those things.)

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A Drinker’s Infographic https://freakytrigger.co.uk/pumpkin/2010/02/a-drinkers-infographic https://freakytrigger.co.uk/pumpkin/2010/02/a-drinkers-infographic#respond Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:45:03 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=17229 Yesterday’s long overdue unveiling of the Pumpkin Publog’s favoured list of friends – friends who unfailingly keep our fettles fine on these February nights – let’s not speak of the mornings – prompted a bit of “who dat?” and “wha??” – at least from this corner – so if you too, dear one, find yourself in need of some architecural certainty, a solid platform from which to launch yourself towards certain bin death, look no further. Courtesy of Flickr user John Bullas, this CAD-rendered chart has pretty much everything you need to know if you want to make classic American cocktails with the precision of a construction foreman. You can click on it to go through to a gigantic version, suitable for framing.

Drinker's Infographic

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The Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl 2009: Das Pimlico Boot https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/12/the-annual-between-christmas-and-new-year-pub-crawl-2009-das-pimlico-boot https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/12/the-annual-between-christmas-and-new-year-pub-crawl-2009-das-pimlico-boot#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:49:01 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16259 Every year since pubs were invented (nine years by my reckoning), the fine drinkers of Freaky Trigger and ILX have spent the 29th December in a pub. Well, at least seven pubs infact, for the 29th is the date of the Annual Between Christmas and New Year Pub Crawl. Why the 29th? Well it’s the quietest pub day of the year, so we do our bit for the licensed trade and try to bolster their coffers.

Past crawls have taken in the Euston Hexagon, the Mornington Crescent, strange arcane routes across the river and last year a foray into Marylebone. This year we are again pushing further afield, by about half a mile and have settled on the wonderful environs of Pimlico, and its surprisingly large number of estate pubs!

So I give you Das Pimlico Boot (when you see the map it makes sense).

We start at 3pm by Victoria Station: The Kings Arms: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1525.php
4pm: Jugged Hare: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1521.php
5pm: White Swan: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub447.php
5:45pm: Morpeth Arms: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub446.php
6.30pm: The Grosvenor: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub3547.php
7:15pm: The Pride Of Pimlico: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub3833.php
Finishing at
8pm: The Cask: http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub3531.php

das pimlico boot

We will then stay at the Cask til kicking out time, or someone suggests going to another pub to make it eight (I think we eventually made nine in the end last year!) Please come along, and if it is your first time remember this isn’t about drinking (completely) – rather savouring the interesting architecture of London’s pubs. Well, maybe a bit of drinking too.

Facebook event here if you want to invite other people.

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THE FT TOP 25 PUBS OF THE 00s No 24: The John Snow, Soho https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/11/the-ft-top-25-pubs-of-the-00%e2%80%99s-24-the-john-snow-soho https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/11/the-ft-top-25-pubs-of-the-00%e2%80%99s-24-the-john-snow-soho#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:25:20 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16130 I will say not one bad word about Sam Smith’s in this review. Someone else wants to talk around that issue, but safe to say that as someone with a large social group of varying incomes, Sam Smith’s pubs being cheap has always been a factor. The John Snow in Soho is one of those pubs we rarely go to these days (in the area the Shaston Arms or Star And Garter get more visits) but hasn’t really changed, and holds a firm and fond place in our memories. I probably pop in there a couple of times a year and have whiled away a fair few hours with a pint of Hefeweisse reading about the good Dr Snow upstairs.

So things to note. The John Snow is named after John Snow the health campaigner, not the newsreader, which is amusing in itself as John Snow was a confirmed teetotaller*. The pub is near the pump that Snow brought fresh water into Soho thus sorting out the cholera epidemic. This marks it out in Soho already, for an area with a pretty full history an awful lot of the pubs are highly anonymous. Another key point about the Snow is its compartmentalisation. I started drinking after nearly all the separate bars in pubs had been knocked through so there is something really rather nice about seeing various rooms in action in the Snow. Not that the John Snow is precious about it, the weeny door downstairs notwithstanding its an easy and compact pub to navigate. Indeed its size has sometimes worked against it. A regular FT correspondent was supposed to meet us for the first time in there. It was too full so we decamped down the road, his memories of the John Snow are of disappointment.

It is a pub of first meetings, and often drinks there spiralled into odd areas. One night a bunch of us were sitting downstairs shooting the breeze (I guess early 2005) and slowly realised that the blokes on he table next to us were having some sort of UKIP meeting. Somehow we got embroiled, and suddenly it turned from a night of firendly banter into THE MOST IMPORTANT ANTI-FASCIST BATTLE IN THE BRITISH ISLES SINCE MOSLEY GOT HIS ARSE KICKED IN THE EAST END. Or something like that. They walked away tail between their legs and UKIP are now a spent political force because of us a four pints of the Fatman.

For me though the John Snow is synonymous with one of my favourite images of the 00’s. Pre-crossrail, pre-any kind of refurbishment of the Tottenham Court Road area, Centre Point was looking a bit run down. From the upstairs room in the John Snow there is a perfect view of the upper twenty storeys of this oft derided building, towering over Soho. And in its run down state, one of the letters on top had not lit up. So proclaimed to all in the John Snow was the prophetic legend CENTRE PINT. Which is what the John Snow has always been for me.

*Which the newsreader certainly isn’t. Indeed I have drunk in the same pub as the other John Snow on at least two occasions.

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CRISP PACKET COPY 3: Walkers Jamaican Jerk Chicken Crisps https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/10/crisp-packet-copy-3-walkers-jamaican-jerk-chicken-crisps https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/10/crisp-packet-copy-3-walkers-jamaican-jerk-chicken-crisps#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:03:44 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=15965 DSC00439An occasional series where we mock the nonsense written on crisp packets.

“It takes a more adventurous homegrown spud to volunteer for our sizzling Jamaican Jerk Chicken. Some spuds simply ‘dreaded’ not being picked so they went back to their roots (man!) to prove their worth. But the ones in this bag just chilled out ‘cos they knew they ware far better than the rest of the others.”

Well done Walkers, skirting accusations of racism and cultural stereotyping in three needless sentences to add nothing to a bag of crisps that tastes just like you mixed up the roast chicken powder with the picked onion powder.

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Accidental Food Science: What Happens To Quavers https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2009/10/accidental-food-science-what-happens-to-quavers https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2009/10/accidental-food-science-what-happens-to-quavers#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:50:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=15789 As part of my job, I am the recipient of lost property, contents of unused lockers and the like at a university. These usually sit on a shelf until claimed, however yesterday I was contacted regarding the contents of a locker which the student no longer wanted. “Give the contents away” he said from Dubai. So I went through the books to distribute to new students, and thought I would claim as my payment a packet of Quavers. Lovely, lovely quavers, the cheese corn puff curl which both crunches and is insubstantial. A hard mans Skip, a weak mans crisp. Moreish in all the best ways.

The locker had been in use recently I had assumed by the phonecall, accidentally left full at the end of September. Unfortunately the same could not be said of the Quavers. After eating the first one, I noticed something wasn’t right. Checking ont he packet I discovered the truth. The Quavers had an expiry date of the 30/12/08. They were ten months out of date. So what happens to cheesy Quavers after they have expired?

They taste of Humbol Messerschmitt Grey Enamel Paint. Who knew?*

*Note, I know what this paint tastes like from an accidental brush sucking moment as a child when painting an airfix kit.

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Food Science Day 4: Live Blog https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/08/food-science-day-4-live-blog https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/08/food-science-day-4-live-blog#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:58:25 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=15122 8:25pm Om nom nom, they expanded and were covered in melted Mars bars and stuffed with ice cream and and… I think we are too drunk and too full to say any more tonight. More photos to come, not sure about scientific content of the day but food and drink was had by all. Hooray!

7.20pm Final science of the day, Cis is seeing how much choux pastry wll expand. Diameter buns from 1cm to 10cm have been piped onto the baking tray. Will they expand or will they POP!!!!

6.10 pmLawks – Meg is making a giant Kit Kat. Melted chocolate can be very messy! Oh and Cis and Moggy have turned up talking about doing something with Choux pastry. I keep saying Choux puns aren’t necessary but…

5.25pm Jalapeño Grigio and Jalapeño Noir are both out. Two sets of each. Rob made his using picked Jalapeño, Tim and Jenn made theirs with scored fresh Jalapeños. Taste test have been done and oddly, the pickled versions have a slightly pickly taste. General view around the room is that Rob’s are a bit ropey. Tim and Jenn’s have more subtlety. Except Ewan clearly likes his wine with a hint of VINEGAR.

Comments:
Pinot Grigio with pickled Jalapeños:
Rob: Pickled white is kind of disgusting
Jenn: Would not drink again but not entirely offensive
Pete: Oddly subtle, have had worse “chilli” based cocktails
Tim: Starts well but leaves a sour aftertaste
Sarah: Has the most burn to it.
Meg: Kinda Yeachh!

Pinot Grigio with fresh Jalapeños:
Tim: Tastes like nettle wine, I rather like it
Sarah: Tastes of vinegar, pickles and manky jars. Tastes like something crawled into it and died.
Meg: Tastes OK. I’d drink that.
Pete: I’d drink it in a Mexican western.
Rob: I prefer the unpickled white.

Pinot Noir with picked Jalapeños:
Sarah: I liked it. Its like a flavour of organic chocolate you would get in Planet Organic
Rob: Vinegar seems to work with red wine better.
Pete: May be that the wine is rubbish. But the chilli doesn’t help.
Ewan: A real edge to it. Best of the batch.

Pinot Noir with fresh Jalapeños:
Pete: Hot but rough.
Alix: Disgusting frankly. Tastes of cooking pepper.
Tim: NASTY.
Ewan: Its got no distinctive merit. A very subtle hint of chilli. I’d drink a whole glass of it but the other one is more interesting.
Meg: Attishooooooo! x10.

5.10 pm Eggs have been eaten. They were terrific. Photos to follow but the scientific opinion rated the eggs in the following order:
Irish Egg: White pudding cooked perfectly and the Guinness added a nice tinge to the egg.
Italian Egg: Oddly aniseed, but very nice. Slightly astringent taste from burned parmesan.
Japanese Egg: A bit of a tinned salmon taste, but on the whole quite refreshing.
Polish Egg: Mixed view on this – the kabanos were good but the lager soaked egg tasted funny.
Russian Egg: NEVER EVER STEEP AN EGG IN VODKA. EVER. The perogi dough was OK, but the eggs were vodka evil!

4.22pm Time to tell you about the Eggs Of The World experiment, devised by Alix Campbell to take the well-known Scotch Egg and the less-well-known Welsh Egg to a wider world. Here they are uncooked. In particular:

The Irish Egg: boiled egg, steeped in Guinness, wrapped in white pudding then covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried.
The Russian Egg: boiled egg steeped in vodka, wrapped in smooshed up pelmenis, covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried
The Polish Egg: boiled egg, wrapped in minced kabanos, covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried
The Japanese Egg: boiled egg, wrapped in smoked salmon mixed with wasabi and soy sauce, covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried
The Italian Egg: boiled egg, wrapped in minced salami and pepperoni, covered in breadcrumbs and grated parmesan and deep fried.

3:58pm Steve and Meg have arrived and a cassoulet is in the oven. Irish, Japanese and Italian eggs are in progress. Hurrah! Ewan is here and he has more beer.

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IMG_4931
IMG_4929

3:40pm Mars bhajis judged a success!! Bhaji coating like a spicy soft wafer with gooey sweet centre. Yum!

3:38pm Mars bhajis are out! Tasting notes to follow.

Score!

Score!


Pete's bahji batter

Pete's bhaji batter

3:20pm Alix is here. She will be cooking a whole world of eggs.

2:40pm Tim and Jenn are here, with beer, wine and Jenn’s amazing two in one food science. She has bought what could be called Courgette Cake, or alternatively Zucchini Bread. English will be eating Courgette Cake, non-English (for which Ewan will count) will eat Zucchini Bread. Notes will be taken. Time and Jenn are also keen on Jalapeño Grigio, and Jalapeño Noir, so various methods will be employed to make these great treats.

2.33pm: Rob is here. He will be responsible for the Jalapeño Grigio and eating everything! Bhaji batter made (photo on the way). We have decided to make some onion bhajis as well to prove that it actually works!

2pm: Well we are underway officially (no-one actually here yet). However there was a slight warm up for food science yesterday at the barbecue I was at where I investigated the food properties of a Quorn veggie sausage. In particular if cooking it in any way makes it any more edible. To whit, I ate a cold Quorn sausage straight from the pack. Rather dull, but firm textured, surprisingly dry. Ate one from the BBQ, still dull but firm textured. Burnt flavour from where it was burned. Still alive, hence the uncooked Quorn sausage clearly in no way dangerous to health. Unless your health is based on eating nice food. Which any other day of the year, mine is…

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Subtle BBC News Eammon Holmes Dig https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/06/subtle-bbc-news-eammon-holmes-dig https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/06/subtle-bbc-news-eammon-holmes-dig#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:15:16 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14656 There is a remarkably unremarkable piece of news on the BBC website. Apparently according to that old favourite “A MEDICAL EXPERT” the appearance of so many fat people on TV normalises obesity. Or as BBC News Health section put it: Fat Stars ‘Make Obesity Normal’ (their scare quotes). One assumes this is much like the way that thin stars normalises thinness and causes anorexia VIA THE SAME MEDIA. Nevertheless the EXPERT is an EXPERT, which we can prove by a few pull quotes from him:

Professor McMahon, a expert on keyhole surgery, said: “The increasing profile of larger celebrities, for example James Corden, Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Jones and Beth Ditto, means that being overweight is now perceived as being ‘normal’ in the eyes of the public.

“We talk about the dangers of skinny media images, but the problem actually swings both ways.”

Hold up. Eammon Holmes? Since when has he been seen as a crusader for corpulence? Cuddly perhaps but I certainly wouldn’t put him in the top twenty fat celebrities. Chosing him above, say, Dawn French or Christopher Biggins seems a little churlish. Almost as if someone knew that Eammon is a little obsessed with his weigh himself. Or someone read this article in the Daily Mail: I Dread Being 50 And Fat. Someone is clarly out to undermine his confidence. Well I say Mr Holmes, ignore the Professors carping on and keep up the good work. And keep being a friend to owls. (OK, he looks a bit fat in this World Of Owls photo, but thats an aspect ration thing.)

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Metaneologicistical Edenmares https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/06/metaneologicistical-edenmares https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/06/metaneologicistical-edenmares#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:35:46 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14532 So if a neologism is coined ever 98 minutes, say certain lexicographers, the English language will hit One Million Words TODAY! It surely behooves us at Freakytrigger to
a) pooh pooh this statistic
b) whilst at the same time coining the millionth word.

a) Actually the poohpoohing has already been done by The Guardian, the Guardianilists managing to elicitate this damninquote:

Professor David Crystal, professor of linguistics at Bangor University, called the idea “the biggest load of rubbish I’ve heard in years”. He said: “It is total nonsense. English reached 1 million words years ago. It’s like someone standing by the side of the road counting cars, and when they get to 1 million pronouncing that to be the millionth car in the world. It’s extraordinary.”

b) Well now that’s cleared up, what should that millionth word in English be. I feel Microsoft are very keen on verb usages of Bing to be it (Binging beats Googling hands down on your inputboard). Google is probably less keen (leekeen) on Chromecrash, what happens when you have down loaded the Mac Beta of Chrome. But I am sure we can come up with more…

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IPC Sub-Editors Dictate Our Nation’s Youth(‘s festival footwear) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/06/ipc-sub-editors-dictate-our-nations-youths-festival-footwear https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/06/ipc-sub-editors-dictate-our-nations-youths-festival-footwear#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:16:58 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14510 DO NOT WANT

Graun journalist spends all day reading nme.com and fails to really read the glastowatch story she links to which shows a screencap from metcheck when it said that SEVERAL MILES of rain would fall per day, temperatures would top 2000°C and the wind would be over 1000mph….

Also Science dude in the original Times story is relatively reserved, basically there’s this weather pattern that happens kind of at the end of June, but really isn’t that predictable and it’s not really a real monsoon, really…

The accuweather.com forecast will DO ME FINE to be honest (it currently says no rain after monday night, overcast but reasonably warm all weekend)

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the law of comments-thread toxicity (some developments) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/the-law-of-comments-thread-toxicity-some-developments https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/05/the-law-of-comments-thread-toxicity-some-developments#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 11:32:35 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14205 knitleralex harrowell of the yorkshire ranter proposes godwin score as a measure of a thread’s usefulness

daniel davies of dsquared digest proposes a better buzzer-causer than h!tler-mention

(useful pointer: the thread that alex and dsquared are actually commenting in is not itself especially relevant to this issue…)

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FT Word Threat Level Pandemic Watch https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/04/ft-word-threat-level-pandemic-watch https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/04/ft-word-threat-level-pandemic-watch#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:35:06 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14119 Yes yes, swine flu. We are all wearing masks and batmanning the barricades against piggy pox. The news is all a flutter and how will we survive with the panicked prognostications of all major news outlets.

However the vectors of the spread of a disease are nothing over the spread of jokes, memes and neologisms. So here are a couple of case studies for you to keep your eye out for.

A) WINE FLU: This would be an example of a joke disease which will burn out very quickly once everyone has heard it, but if Have I Got News For You or The News Quiz get it quick enough will get an OK laugh. The basic formulation is as follows:
“I woke up this morning with nausea and splitting headache. I think it might be Wine Flu”
Do you see? Its a play on words mistaking Swine Flu (actual disease) with Wine Flu, a made up term referring to a hangover.

THREAT LEVEL: High. Its a pretty simple joke after all. Luckily it should burn out by this time next week.

B) BADVOCACY: I came across this term on a website and wondered about the difficulties of the neologism coiner. It comes from Tom’s neck of the woods, looking at web and social media’s ability to spread negative perceptions around. For example #amazonfail is a perfect example of Badvocacy in action. Its clearly a clever mixture of BAD and ADVOCACY, and yet feels clunky.

You can check out The Ladybird Book Of Badvocacy, from Weber Shandwick, who are SHOCK, an advocacy firm. So you can see why they are keen on the term. But it seems a bit too glib to really succeed in the rough and tumble word of web neologisms. Nevertheless if you see it elsewhere, in particular in a headline, let us know.

THREAT LEVEL: Low.

Also let us know if you want us to monitor the pandemic levels of threat of other words – we have tendrils everywhere.

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Raspberry Berate https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/04/raspberry-berate https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/04/raspberry-berate#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:53:21 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=14116 An interesting blog post about the recent discovery that our galaxy “smells of raspberries” (and rum, though whether man rum or lady rum is unspecified).

The blog asks: given the irrelevance of that ‘fact’ to astronomy, should it have been reported? The German astronomers are quick to distance themselves from the raspberry herring: but if the angle doesn’t obscure the story (galaxy contains very complex molecules), then where’s the harm? The people who only take away the raspberry factoid probably wouldn’t have encountered – or absorbed much of – a drier, flavour-free story. They’re the informational equivalent of the people who download a track illegally which they would never have bought anyway: any loss they’ve caused is purely rhetorical.

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The Top Five Reasons I WILL Follow You On Twitter https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/04/the-top-five-reasons-i-will-follow-you-on-twitter https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/04/the-top-five-reasons-i-will-follow-you-on-twitter#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:05:05 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13965 nat111

For some reason I keep getting suckered into clicking through tinyURLs to things like this old Mashable piece, in which someone lists their reasons for NOT following people on Twitter and then all the comments crew slap each other on the back for realising that Twitter is like “a business networking event”. Since business networking events are some of the grimmest and most insincere occasions on earth it seems odd to want to recreate that vibe online without even a complimentary vol au vent, but each to their own.

Reading it though I thought some positivity was needed. So here are the reasons why I would follow back a complete stranger on Twitter. Of course I should point out that there’s no reason said stranger would follow me in the first place: beardy blokes working in social media are no scarce resource online! But in the event that a slip of the finger lands @tomewing on your list here’s what I’m looking for.

1. AN AMUSING ICON: Or at least something that isn’t passport photo meets nervous grin. Ideally it’ll be a kind of visual signature that makes you stand out amongst the rows of drab mugshots in my ever-unfurling tweetdeck.

2. STUFF I DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW: Doesn’t have to be about my job. It could be a fact about a 13th century Antipope for all I care. Far better someone who can make me interested in something I didn’t know I could be, than someone retweeting orthodox opinion on stuff I spend half my day thinking about.

3. AN INTEREST IN MORE THAN ONE THING: Parliamentarians used to call it a “hinterland” – the stuff you do when you’re not on the job. Chances are if you can be engaging about the rest of your life you’ll be interesting about the professional stuff too.

4. A MANAGEABLE FOLLOWS LIST: This is purely selfish – if you follow more than, say, 1000 people, what are the chances you’ll give a monkeys what I have to say?

5. YOU’RE HUMAN: Obviously it’s easy to spot Russian Spambot Hotties but there are more subtle pointers to your being a replicant: for instance, one dead giveaway is if you use a cliche like “passionate” in your bio to describe your job. Ah, I know, you think it makes you sound more human, but that’s because – yr a lizard! I can see it in your flickering green eyes.

You don’t have to tick all these boxes – and even if you tick none of them I might follow you anyway. And who cares if I do or don’t – I’m a nobody and Twitter is a cocktail party for passionate entrepreneurial experts who are going places! Yeah! No, sorry, I meant: there’s no right or wrong way to use the service and Twitter is a rainbow flower gathering full of sharing and conversation. Phew – glad we got that sorted out!

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Twauntology https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/twauntology https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/twauntology#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:59:50 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13888 “Twittering” – as Mark pointed out in the pub last week – is how the Romans described the sounds made by ghosts in the classical underworld: spectral interactions, grey and fleeting. The topic had come up after we claimed on air that a percentage of the micro-messages released into the Twitteric aether issued from the dead. We had in mind a phantom undernet of hauntings: the ouija board as the original microblog. The truth of ghost twitters turns out to be more mundane, but just as intriguing in its way.

According to a New York Times article, many of the celebrities who have made Twitter jump into the mainstream are – gasp! – employing ghost writers to compose their 140-character updates. Some are transparent about this – Britney’s vastly popular account is run by Team Britney – others are at least honest: “It’s just like how a designer would work” says Kanye West.

He has a point – celebrity blogs have been ghost-written for a long time, why should celebrity micro-blogs be any different? But as I pointed out earlier this week, vociferous early adopters have made “authenticity” the cardinal virtue of Twitter. Even entertaining fiction is regarded as suspicious, let alone flat-out fakery. But fakery is deep in the web’s DNA – performative identity can be frowned on but it won’t go away.

Celebrities on Twitter are appealing partly because the 140-character limit is a democratising promise – Kanye, Solange, and Lily get exactly the same tools as you or I do to express themselves. And that raises the expectation that they are expressing themselves. I was originally going to compare ghost-twittering to lip-synching, which as most Freaky Trigger readers will know I don’t mind in the slightest. But there’s a difference: pop can transcend the circumstances of its production in a way microblogging doesn’t. Elvis doesn’t need to have been to jail for “Jailhouse Rock” to be effective. But when Snoop Dogg tweets about eating a sandwich, if it’s a non-existent Snoop eating a non-existent sandwich, the – already miniscule! – point of the exercise diminishes still further.

In other words, authenticity isn’t a guarantor of content, it’s a mask for it: strip away the presumed authorship and you’re forced to judge the content on very different terms. And here’s where ghost-twittering gets intriguing. Because it’s not just mainstream celebrities doing it. The NYT article talks to a “ghost-tweeter” for Guy Kawasaki, a prominent social media expert (the fashionable term is “rock star”) with 80,000 followers. This person tweets in Kawasaki’s name – the example given is while he’s on stage at a conference.

This has caused outrage among some Twitter users. “Shame on these imposters!” says one. In reply, another says, “It’s not like people were following Kawasaki for his brilliant insight”. So why were they? “For the connection”. Kawasaki himself is unapologetic – “This is old news”, he tweets, “Is the quality of my tweets high? That’s the question. Not who did them.”

My sympathy here is with Kawasaki, if only because I bet a lot of the people talking about “betrayal” would indeed have claimed that they followed him for the content, not the networking opportunity. And the content hasn’t changed one bit. Authenticity is often a good filter for content, but when it becomes the primary filter for content – a rule to be applied regardless of circumstance – most types of content suffer.

(But maybe I’m just scarred by having fought these kind of battles for years over pop music. Do social media rock stars automatically lead to social media rockism?)

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Me Hearties https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/me-hearties-2 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/me-hearties-2#respond Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:03:00 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13877 As you might or might not know, I have another blog which focuses mostly on market research, social media and speculation about how the two fit together.

I’ve been really enjoying writing for it lately, and I think it’s got rather good. I try to do stuff that’s interesting whether or not you’re in the marketing loop. Some posts, I admit, are craven attempts to write in the punchily stupid style favoured by the modern business dude, but some of them I’m pleased with. Here’s a little digest of the best recent Blackbeard stuff:

Humanists and determinists battle for the soul of research.
The Twitterphant in the room
The “Bulworth Effect” and the limits of representativeness.
What we used to believe vs what we now believe about teh internets (this is part of a series called “Digital Colonists”)

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Everything Starts With A Swastika https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/everything-starts-with-a-swastika https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/everything-starts-with-a-swastika#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:35:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13825 I’d like to propose a science historian’s version of Godwin’s Law: a historical conversation is over when a technology gets linked back to the Nazis in an effort to make it sound a bit sinister.

Actually it doesn’t have to be the Nazis. It could be Stalin, or the US military. The basic formula is the same:

“How many of the millions who use [x] every day of their lives realise that its story began in a secret research program in Nazi Germany…”

I spotted this pattern when I saw it three times in a couple of days. Stephen Fry’s series on rock and roll technology starts with Nazi efforts in amplification. James Harkin’s book Cyburbia traces the invention of social networks to – you’ve guessed it – military theories about cybernetics. And Adam Curtis’* excellent documentary series love nothing more than rooting around and digging up a Nazi or two.

Generally the Nazis in these stories aren’t doing a great deal of historical work. World War II was probably the most concentrated period of R&D spend in human history, and if it wasn’t the Cold War was. The military tends to have a really massive development budget. So it’s enormously unsurprising that many if not most technologies can be traced back to some sort of military roots. It’s interesting but not significant – the historical equivalent of going “aaaah but did you know that Perfect Day is really ABOUT DRUGS?”.

*Curtis is an interesting case because he dodges around the problem – for one thing he rarely starts with the Nazis, for another his Nazis are subject to the same laws of unintended consequences as anything else in his documentaries: they’re mere links in the chain of forces that haunt a Curtisian view of history.

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Tweets In The Rear View Mirror May Appear More Numerous Than They Are https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/tweets-in-the-rear-view-mirror-may-appear-more-numerous-than-they-are https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/tweets-in-the-rear-view-mirror-may-appear-more-numerous-than-they-are#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:30:35 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13730 You may or may not be aware that I’ve been spending
a fair bit of time on Twitter lately. This began as a work exercise – “what’s the point of this then?” – but has become something more as my enthusiasm has grown. And as my enthusiasm has grown my participation has grown.

This morning I realised I’d sent six posts to Twitter in an hour. Not many by some standards, but if you’re only following 20 people and one of them is me, it must seem like I’m absolutely caning it.

And that – together with this blog post on the fallacy that number of followers is a measurement of ‘influence’ – got me thinking about how we perceive audiences when writing online.

By “we” I mean “I” – I bet there’s some good research on this, but I’m just jotting thoughts down.

Twitter is like some other services I use – LiveJournal and Tumblr – in that the default mode is a flow of information, and the more people you are following the faster that flow is. With Twitter, because all content has a fixed length, it’s practical to follow a lot more people.

But how your activity on these services is perceived isn’t a function of how many people you follow, or how many people follow you. Perception of your activity is governed at the individual level by how many other people someone is following.

This means the same individual can appear laconic to one follower and loquacious to another. If my 6 tweets are 30% of someone’s twitterstream, that’s a fair chunk of their attention I’m trying to muscle in on. If they’re .3%, I’m barely noticed.

If I was posting this on my marketing blog, I’d say that this implies you’d be better off trying to get people who aren’t following many others to notice you than going for the ‘big birds’. But I’m not, so I’m more interested in how the “casual tweeter” processes this information.

And the answer, surely, is “very imperfectly”. It’s simply too hard to keep in mind the very different shares of attention you’re demanding and commanding.

So what I hypothesise happens is this: you assume on some level that the people you’re interacting with on Twitter (or in any decentred web space) are using the service in roughly the same way as you.

We project our own experience onto the ‘standard experience’ and use a service accordingly.

In other words, on Twitter people become more chatty in proportion to the amount of input they’re receiving. That’s mostly determined by how many people they’re following, but it’s also influenced by the number of @messages they get, and the application they’re using.

This is a completely testable hypothesis, and I’d be interested in seeing if it’s true or not.

]]> https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/tweets-in-the-rear-view-mirror-may-appear-more-numerous-than-they-are/feed 8 Descaler https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/descaler https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/descaler#comments Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:48:12 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13420 Having spent a fair chunk of my blogging time yesterday talking about rating scales, this Financial Times piece came as an eye-opener.

“Practice does not help. Neither, surprisingly, does varying the gaps in the scale: it’s no easier to distinguish five sounds between “very loud” and “very quiet” than between “fairly loud” and “fairly quiet”. Some people have perfect pitch and can transcend these limits when it comes to musical tones, but there seem to be few other exceptions. No wonder so many reviews use a scale of one to five stars.”

If true this would not only explain why so many reviews use a scale of one to five stars, but why – when presented with a wider scale – reviewers tend to cluster in the middle or at one end of it. Sadly the FT is somewhat vague about citing its sources in this piece.

Here is my own experiential contribution to scale research – which bears this out to some extent. On Popular, as you know, I have a 1 to 10 scale, and there’s a fair amount of discrimination within it. But my internal method of alloting marks tends to be:

1. Go on instinct whether a record is good (6-10) or not good (1-5).
2. Discriminate within those ranges.

So I’m still using the five-degrees rule, I’m just chunking records into subcategories before applying it. This is also what I do when ordering end-of-year lists by the way (yes, we’re getting deep into Hornby territory here!): I put everything into 4 or 5 baskets, then sort within each basket until I get granularity.

I suspect this is an iterative process – i.e. the Pitchfork 101 point scale LOOKS ridiculous, but not if the reviewers use a series of decisions to differentiate. Is this good Y/N? Is it a 6/7/8/9/10? Is it a high or low 7? Is it 7.1 7.2 7.3? OK, it’s still ridiculous. I love using it though!

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Not With Your Gloves Tarquin https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/02/not-with-your-gloves-tarquin https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/02/not-with-your-gloves-tarquin#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:15:04 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13164 In Crouch End yesterday (this will become important) I saw a small child gleefully playing in the snow after being let out of school. The poor nipper was possibly upset that his primary school had not been closed by an inch of snow, but he was making up for it afterwards by pelting friends and the occasional passer-by with snowballs. I beamed on with thoroughly appropriate adult bonhomie*. Until I saw his friend who was pelting him back using this:

Yes, the Sno-baller (check the Wicked spelling of the device to give it that extra edge of cool).
According to the website where it can be purchased at a pinch for £8.95 for that one day a year IF YOU ARE LUCKY fun, the Sno-baller has all these great features:
-Long handles preventing
-Soggy Gloves
-Frozen Fingers**
-Makes perfectly round, ice-free snowballs.

That last claim is one which I am sure attracts many middle-class parents afeard of the potential ice dangers hidden inside every snowball. OR Worse. Because the snoballer does not, as claimed, remove the likelihood of these dangers. Firstly if your Walter The Softee kid only throws harmless powder puff snowballs, he is going to get hurt more by the hardcore snowballs. But the device does not even guarntee that the users balls are pure as the driven. Rather it increases the likelihood of the chance of the fabled “yellow snowballs” and worse “the white chocolate Ferrero Rocher”. If the kid doesn’t have to touch the snow to make and throw, he can throw some pretty nasty stuff inside his snowball.

If only the innovation catalogue still existed…

*For all the whinging about cold, and lack of buses, snow days are ace. For one its the only time an parent (or indeed any adult) can throw something at a child and not be seen as a monster.

** I Bet Captain Scott wished he had one when he had the most southerly snowball fight ever.

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BBC Planetomorphosizing Bollocks https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/01/bbc-planetomorphosizing-bollocks https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/01/bbc-planetomorphosizing-bollocks#comments Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:25:54 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13010 In the old days on FT, when we had a regular science column, we mostly used to post links to the BBC News website and be snarky about their rubbish sicence reporting. WHY DID WE EVER STOP?

Look at the following paragraph regarding the growth of the planet Jupiter taken from the BBC News Science and Environment page (it is bad enough science has to share with environment and is hived off from Technology but…)
“The planet Jupiter must have gained mass fast during its infancy, according to astronomers.”

(I know, to me that’s a sentence but on the Beeb website its a paragraph. In bold.) Anyway that sentence is the justification for the following headline for the article:

BABY JUPITER’S HUGE WEIGHT GAIN

Shall we count the errors in this headline. Not only are they equating a planet with a child, but they make the classic mass/weight error. This would be a childhood which lasted a few million years too. All rolled up into some sort of scare story about how planets are OBESE these days. Such scare stories are the bread and butter of the online news industry and drives hits. Though I clicked on it because I thought it was about the massively fat child of Horton Jupiter of They Came From the Stars (I Saw Them) – FT’s live band of the year in 2000.

(That link does not quite express how impressed Tom was with them in 2000 – sorry.)

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nanobama https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/11/nanobama https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/11/nanobama#respond Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:12:04 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12673 Each face is made of approximately 150 million tiny carbon nanotubes

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I Know What It Means To Work Hadron Machines https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/09/i-know-what-it-means-to-work-hadron-machines https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/09/i-know-what-it-means-to-work-hadron-machines#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:57:03 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12231 With so much stuff whizzing around the internets, accelerating barely-humorous* claims of big bangs, and all-devouring black holes zapping around one way, and conspiracy nuts spiralling out of control going the other way and throwing out like actual death threats to physicists, what does the resulting explosion of uninformed daftness tell us about the small-scale fabric of culture itself? Follow the tracks of the memes as they galvanise those around them and work backwards to the source…

Pop cultural candidate #1 has to be Dan Brown’s ‘Angels and Demons’ which features a finished LHC (as did Brown imitating ‘Decipher’ by Stel Pavlou). I have not read it, but it sounds particularly bonkers — I look forward to the forthcoming film. CERN even have a page for A&D fans explaining the reality. But that (appears) to be largely about a large bomb — it’s not the source of end-of-world-ism.

It’s got a sort of negative echo of Y2K about it all — those who know that there is little (i.e nothing) to worry about, are actually going out of their way to stress that this is the case, as it might lose them funding. The Y2K fear and uncertainty was, by contrast, a great source of cash.

It also feels like — finally an end of the world i can relate to! A bang not a whimper! A Statham/Cage blockbuster firecracker of doomscience instead of the media drip-feed namby-pamby melting ice caps and ‘won’t someone think of the polar bears’ editorials. Like boiling frogs, we can only get agitated when the threat is instant but fictional, not incremental and more likely.

And here’s another interesting trace — a serious article in a proper science journal — going back to 1999. Will relativistic heavy-ion colliders destroy our planet? The answer is no, but look at the step up in downloads of the PDF around 2004/2005. What happened then?

Like the physicists, I have no final answers, only more questions. Such as: assuming there really were people who thought there was a threat — what did they think the scientists working at, and presumably more knowledgeable of, the LHC were thinking? “Oh at least it’ll be over quickly for me”

What I want to know is, how will they replicate the experimental results? What if this piece of apparatus is faulty? 10 years in, they get an interesting result — “We think we saw a Higgs Boson but we can’t be sure… we’re going to need another 10 billion pounds plz”. Or, finally they do catch site of the great white shark whale god particle: “… we’re going to need a bigger colllider”

And when the Larger Hadron Collider was turned on it spoke of the existence of the one that would come after it — the Largest Hadron Collider. And with Humanity’s help, it would design one for us…

*OK, Cracked.com’s “Scientific experiments most likely to end the world” made me laff.

Thompson Twins “You take me up” interlocking picture disks. You know what it means.
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Comics as an instructional medium https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/09/comics-as-an-instructional-medium https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/09/comics-as-an-instructional-medium#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:17:19 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12210 I remember talking to comics giant Will Eisner a long time ago (1990 or so, I guess) about his experiences while working for the US army. He would produce instruction materials for soldiers in comic form. Every few years, a new boss decided he didn’t like that medium for such a purpose, and a new study was commissioned to prove that text and illustrations was the better approach – and every time it showed the exact opposite, that in fact comics were the best way to pass on information and instruction.

This point hasn’t been picked up an awful lot, but now we have as high a profile use of that idea as I’ve ever seen. Google has just launched a new browser, which looks pretty impressive. To explain it, they brought in the perfect choice for the job: Scott McCloud (who I happened to cover in the context of his great comic Zot! a few weeks back)(and he even responded!). I assume his Understanding Comics, a comic explanation of the medium, showed them how useful this approach was. He’s produced a lovely, clear and highly readable comic explaining and promoting it, explaining new features and elements of its internal architecture superbly. I have no idea if Chrome is as good as this makes it sound – new computer software is never bug free, and the potential problems from browser bugs can be huge, though it sounds as if they have taken sensible decisions to minimise the hazards – and this isn’t any kind of endorsement of the browser, which I haven’t tried, just an expression of delight that they chose this method, and the perfect person to execute it. I can’t imagine how many people will see this, but I hope it inspires others.

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keyboards for crinoids: win-win oh wait https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/08/keyboards-for-crinoids-win-win-oh-wait https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/08/keyboards-for-crinoids-win-win-oh-wait#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:08:39 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12144 japanese knotweedHARD TO GET RID OF: Europe got japanese knotweed, japan got the piano, courtesy Philipp von Siebold

LARGEST FEMALE ON EARTH: “Across Europe, there has only ever been that Siebold sample. It is a female plant (the largest female on Earth, some argue) that has never had a mate and has spread by its underground stems – rhizomes – alone.”

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Where Are The Lords Of COBOL? https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/08/where-are-the-lords-of-cobol https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/08/where-are-the-lords-of-cobol#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:16:57 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12121 A brief dip into news territory for FT, as the web throws up this truly extraordinary story regarding the Californian budget negotiations. DON’T YAWN YET. It appears that Arnold Schwatzeneggar’s Republic’s have been unable to fix a budget for public spending and are running blind into the new session. The solution? Pay all state employees minimum wage until it is sorted out. Not only is this a truly bonkers idea (underpaying as an incentive – rarely works as a management strategy) but it appears to be impossible to implement. Because in other cost cutting news, they are still working on a payroll system which is programmed in COBOL – programming language TO GO of the 1970’s.

So there is a desperate call for rarely found COBOL programmers to be employed by the California State Government to reduce the pay of all state employees (including one assumes the programmers themselves) to minimum wage. Good luck with that head-hunting job, Governator.

If in the meantime however you want to take our advice, Rob of FT has brushed up on his barely remembered COBOL and offers you, for free, this little programme while you are waiting.
Arnies computer

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Life Imitates Tharg part 374 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/07/life-imitates-tharg-part-374 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/07/life-imitates-tharg-part-374#comments Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:20:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12090 Can Electronic Cigarettes Beat The Smoking Ban?

“I think people need to be cautious,” warns Dr Roberta Ferrence, director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. “It’s an unknown.”

“The concern is that the product will probably be promoted as something that’s safer than smoking,” she adds. “What needs to happen to make the dangers of smoking clear is for the product to be fitted with an electronic voice, perhaps one possessed of a piercing Mexican accent and a series of warning phrases such as “No no Senor Slade! Thees ees madness!””  .

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One Of Our Insects Is Missing https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/07/one-of-our-insects-is-missing https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/07/one-of-our-insects-is-missing#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:50:54 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12069 GASP! FEAR! London has been attacked by ALIEN INSECTS. Just like the ones in Starship Troopers, these MYSTERY BUGS have tried to infiltrate and destroy planes. When interrogated by Dr Horrible, or other staff at the Natural History Museum, the bugs just shrug and PLAY DUMB. But what are these mystery deadly bugs* and what is their agenda?

It is remarkable that these insect have no match in the 28 million species horded in the British Museum** (Natural History Kensington), but the bug itself does look a bit unimpressive. And rather than being a case of a wholly new species, have the museum staff considered the more likely scenario. Namely that in the sixties, in some sort of hair brained caper, Derek Nimmo convinces Helen Hayes and Joan Simm (and her tiny chin) to steal the insect which he had hidden a particularly micro-microfilm in. Surely people remember the chase through London on a double decker bus pursuing a lorry which has a tiny insect poking prominently out of the back. Much mor elikely than a minor mutation of a red insect no-one noticing this relatively insignificant creature in the first place.

*Deadly if you are a plane tree.

**More proof that Noah’s Ark was a bit of a push space-wise.

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Who Aggregates the Aggregator Aggregators? https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/07/who-aggregates-the-aggregator-aggregator https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/07/who-aggregates-the-aggregator-aggregator#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:44:04 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=12064 And perhaps more importantly – who cares? If the impending closure of the obnoxiously “Web 2.0” BBC Sound Index this Friday is any guide, the answer is pretty clear.

Oh sure, the site boasts more than 22 million “comments, posts, plays and views”, but those comments and posts are all from OTHER sites like YouTube, last.fm, iTunes, myspace, and the like. Sound Index sent automated “robot” scripts to these sites looking for the names of bands, fed what it found into some kind of magic algorithm, and produced a constantly updated list of the 1000 buzziest bands on the planet. Or well, the English-speaking planet. Probably. Slap some shiny, gumdrop-like buttons on the results, organise things with a direct rip-off of the iTunes “Coverflow” feature and hey presto.. well, what exactly?

The subcontractors who made it, Nova Rising, had some heady early expectations that it could be “the chart to replace the Top 40”. And indeed, the TV show Sound (for it is that which the Index is named after) is the BBC’s attempt to make up for the lack of live chart music on television precipitated by the cancellation of Top of the Pops.

One could argue that the Top 40 was the original “web 2.0” concept. The songs are all written, performed and recorded by other people; their order of presentation each week is determined by millions of people’s individual listening and buying habits; all you have to do is play the songs. Brilliant! For Top of the Pops you’d have to invite a smelly band or two, but even the dancing bits were “user generated”. Just turn on the cameras and away you go.

But Top 40 radio shows and Top of the Pops were popular, when they were popular, because we understood how things worked. If a band sold enough records, it would be – or should be, with ensuing debate – invited on the show. There was no mystery about why a song had reached number one – it had sold the most. But Sound – and even Top of the Pops near the end – introduced a nefarious editorial element. Why are these bands playing?

And with the Sound Index it’s even less clear. The algorithm Nova Rising used for trawling through other sites’ comments threads was developed by IBM and has apparently cost a fortune. IBM’s presentation of some of the challenges involved says that “online comments are absolutely the worst way to find out what is popular… except for all the other ways.”

So, is money really obsolete? Do sales really rate less than 10,000 variations on JAN47 from TAMPA, FL’s contention that “ONE NIGHT ONLY ROX”? I don’t think so. Ultimately the only people who care about this kind of popularity – i.e. aggregate internet buzz – are record labels, and it has been pointed out that they already have Music Week for that sort of thing already.

For those who do care about the pop music horserace of the charts, the Top 40 still exists. And in the absence of a real chart show you can do what my friend Josh and I did when we were seven or eight and had the use of a real cassette tape recorder all to ourselves. You can sing your own versions and play them back, collapsing in laughter. Hey, maybe we could YouTube it. Then we’d get in the Sound Index!

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the proof at last!: alien caught blinking https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/05/the-proof-at-last-alien-caught-blinking https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/05/the-proof-at-last-alien-caught-blinking#respond Fri, 30 May 2008 13:14:11 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/science/2008/05/the-proof-at-last-alien-caught-blinking/ “authentic” video released today (authentic here seems to mean that YES it is indeed a video, and not for example a sellotape dispenser)

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volcano and electric storm! https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/05/volcano-and-electric-storm https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/05/volcano-and-electric-storm#comments Thu, 08 May 2008 17:55:12 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/science/2008/05/volcano-and-electric-storm/ chaiten with lightning: i can’t get the pictures to embed, i guess they want you to click through — it’s well worth it (cf esp 12/35)

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IN SALAD (of all the) NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM(s) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/04/in-salad-of-all-the-no-one-can-hear-you-screams https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/04/in-salad-of-all-the-no-one-can-hear-you-screams#comments Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:02:28 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/04/in-salad-of-all-the-no-one-can-hear-you-screams/ vegetable alienhuntin for images of BRANES in pulp culture i came across THIS via boingboing: “In November 2006 Till Nowak created the image SALAD. For this image he created 12 digital vegetable models in 3ds max using photographic references. They were combined to become a tribute to the fantastic biomechanical creations of H.R. Giger and the vegetable portraits of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.”

full size here

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A Bite of Stars, a Slug of Time, and Thou – Episode 2 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/04/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-2 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/04/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-2#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:12:35 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/slugoftime-podcast/2008/04/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-2/ Tom Ewing joins Mark Sinker and Elisha Sessions to discuss Fritz Leiber’s “A Pail of Air”, written in 1951. It’s a short story about a kid, some rugs, and an Earth so cold that helium crawls. Will it crawl onto YOU? Elisha reads from the story in case you haven’t.

Next week: Isaac Asimov – “Segregationist”.

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Kids Toothpaste https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/03/kids-toothpaste https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/03/kids-toothpaste#comments Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:32:47 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/03/kids-toothpaste/ This morning I discovered that the new toothpaste I bought had vanished. Knowing my 1-year-old son’s love of raiding shopping bags I worked out quickly what had happened to it: the where proved more elusive, and to avoid being late I decided to nick his toothpaste. Here are my science findings as an adult using children’s toothpaste:

1. It has an odd viscosity whereby it is harder to squeeze out of the tube (for obvious reasons) but then is bounced right off the brush by even the slightest most glancing stream of tap water.

2. It is incredibly sweet: since I ASSUME they’re not putting sugar in toothpaste they should totally be using whatever sweetener they do use in actual diet food.

3. It clings to your inner mouth and leaves your teeth feeling considerably less clean than they did before you start. My mouth felt k-horrible all morning until a cup of tea brought some palate normality back.

My conclusion: todays kids have got it bad. Bring back scrubbing yr mouth with moss and woad, or whatever our forefathers used.

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that resonance fm time machine in full https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/that-resonance-fm-time-machine-in-full https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/that-resonance-fm-time-machine-in-full#respond Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:45:01 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/that-resonance-fm-time-machine-in-full/ timemachinethumb

Click on this tantalizing thumbnail for a full schematic. (Credit goes to goopymart.com)

For more on how this wormhole faff works, you know what to do. Just click here.

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Freaky Trigger & The Moomins of Pop – 13 February https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/freaky-trigger-the-moomins-of-pop-13-february https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/freaky-trigger-the-moomins-of-pop-13-february#respond Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:08:02 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/freaky-trigger-the-moomins-of-pop-13-february/ PLUG PLUG!

Tonight leading Moomin academic Dr Vick, Tom Ewing and Pete Baran, corralled into brilliance by the Atommick Brane herself halloo the return of the kid-lit husband list! (Ms Puddleduck come on down!) (PuddleDUMB more like!) We’ll tackle Tove Jansson, Raymond Briggs, Uncle (<— the Elephant in the Castle!) (he has a B.A.!), the general disjunction between morals and quality in children’s art and the horrific not-so-SUBtext of Toy Story II. Plus something SO SCARY even Beaver Hateman and Knobsman Carsmile will tremble in fear. Tune in and find out for yourself! 7pm GMT, 104.4 Resonance FM, online at www.resonancefm.com and follow-ups at freakytrigger.co.uk, wild surmise to ftlollards@gmail.com.

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253. To. Euston https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/253-to-euston https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/253-to-euston#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:48:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/02/253-to-euston/ I mentioned on Lollards last night my growing (petty) irritation with the introduction of automated announcements on London buses, whereby the bus route and each stop is announced regularly throughout the journey. This morning I did a small, non-scientific, non-representative experiment to see whether my annoyance was reasonable – afterall, tube and overland trains have similar systems which are not half as irritating, and perhaps bus announcements just need adjusting to. Here are my results.

Journey: Stamford Hill Broadway to Brecknock Road
Bus: 253
Length of Journey: 19 minutes
Number of Stops: 18
Number of times announcement said ‘253. To.    Euston’: 20
Number of times bus stop was announced: 18
Total number of announcements: 38

The pattern of announcements was this – on approach to bus stop announce stop name, on arrival at bus stop announce destination before opening doors (why?!), then once doors are closed and bus is pulling away, announce it again, for the benefit of passengers who have got on the bus and immediately forgotten which bus they got onto. There were a couple of stops where the destination was announced only once, but most of them got 2 announcements per stop. With the bus stopping approximately every minute this gives an average of 2 announcements every minute.

I’m not saying that this system doesn’t have merit – it is clearly quite useful in a number of ways, but it is excessively intrusive. Buses are quieter than trains, on the whole, so the announcement is clearer, and harder to tune out. I am fully convinced of the value of announcing the stop name, but announcing the destination is surely not as important, especially this frequently. I know it benefits people with visual impairments, but it’s not like they get on random buses then sit there waiting for an announcement that will let them know whether they’ve got on the right bus or not.  And people getting off a bus have no real need to know what bus they are alighting from.

My experiment also suggests that no one will sit next to you if you have an open notepad into which you record a tally.

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The Poptimists Cookbook https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/the-poptimists-cookbook https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/the-poptimists-cookbook#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:17:18 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/the-poptimists-cookbook/ It will be no surprise to our readers that despite much food science and interest in cooking, the FreakyTrigger Cookbook is still a few years away. But it behooves me to remind contributors and anyone using a recipe on this site of the following:

CONTRIBUTORS:
No matter how slapdash your general cooking method, or indeed how drunk you are while cooking, someone out there may follow your culinary Amundsen footprints. Thus if you use terms such “a handful”, we need to know if you have big hands. Ingredients may be particularly British, so think about how you would talk about – for example – cream where single and double is a UK only affectation. A good example of the problems in translation just across the Atlantic can be gained from this brave chef in the US, taking on Sarah’s admittedly avant garde spicy chocolate cupcakes.

READERS
Welcome brave traveller to our world of food. We are not professional chefs. Some of us are even afraid of making stock. Others believe that a bit of heat kills everything and have tried a project of a month long rolling stew in a big pot. Though we tend to style ourselves otherwise, we are sensualists rather than scientists. Therefore I advise you to take all recipes as mere guides, and use your own discretion when following them – to the extent of not following them if they seem wrong to you.

If this hasn’t put you off, here are a few great archived foody things: and coming soon I daresay Sarah’s recipe for Dirty Dirty Japanese Curry…
In Search Of Squirrel (Part II)
An excellent warming stew
Really Easy Fish Soup
Parsnip Chips (aka Parsnip Paradise)
Marmite Chicken

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Elephants Not Suitable As Pets: SHOCKER https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/elephants-not-suitable-as-pets-shocker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/elephants-not-suitable-as-pets-shocker#respond Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:33:45 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/elephants-not-suitable-as-pets-shocker/ In proper old Web 1.0 fashion*, I thought it worthwhile to bring to your attention that the UK Government is ignoring a petition of 650 signatories and outlawing Elephants as pets. WELL 650 PEOPLE IS HARDLY GOING TO SWAY THEM IF THE IGNORED TWO MILLION MARCHING AGAINST THE WAR**.

That said, not all elephants are bad as pets. Who can forget poor old Stampy in the Simpson?

*ie Linking is good enough for a story like this.

**OK, editorialised a bit. Blame where I work for that outburst.

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You Can Stick Your Novelty Guinness Hat Up Yr Arse https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/you-can-stick-your-novelty-guinness-hat-up-yr-arse https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/you-can-stick-your-novelty-guinness-hat-up-yr-arse#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:03:53 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/you-can-stick-your-novelty-guinness-hat-up-yr-arse/ And so it came to pass that the cynical amongst us noted that this year they haved moved St Patricks Day from the usual 17th March which would have been a QNI Monday, to the far more party friendly 15th March, a Saturday. Whilst the articles and so on suggest this is just a shimmy for religious reasons – what with an early Easter and all, your important feast days can’t clash. Something has to give and you can’t exactly move the first day of Holy Week. Nevertheless a result for the marketing men of Guinness who not only get to celebrate St Patrick’s Day twice, but once on a Saturday!

Oh, and there were never any snakes in Ireland anyway.

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Mario Bandwagon — Keep On Loving You https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/01/mario-bandwagon-keep-on-loving-you https://freakytrigger.co.uk/science/2008/01/mario-bandwagon-keep-on-loving-you#respond Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:03:26 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/science/2008/01/mario-bandwagon-keep-on-loving-you/ The Physics of Super Mario Galaxy.

I’m loving this game (about half way through I reckon), but if I have a complaint, it is that the visual resolution of where you are in all the magnificent 3D-ness is a little underdetermined by the graphics you see. Hence the shadow under your feet “as if light in Mario’s universe always falls directly toward the nearest source of gravity” is not only essential, but I find i spend more time fixing on the shadow than on Mario!

To be fair, the game designer recognises this as mentioned in this Gamasutra interview.

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Brandwatch AKA Snifflewatch: Lemsip Cold & Flu Max Strength Direct https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/brandwatch-aka-snifflewatch-lemsip-cold-flu-max-strength-direct https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/brandwatch-aka-snifflewatch-lemsip-cold-flu-max-strength-direct#comments Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:31:43 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/01/brandwatch-aka-snifflewatch-lemsip-cold-flu-max-strength-direct/ This is not a new brand but Lemsip’s latest salvo in the war against the uncurable common cold (via our wallets) was new to me when I tried it yesterday. You might think that putting a couple of capsules in your mouth is pretty direct, ditto drinking some Lemsip, but these things are simply not direct enough for the modern convenience-led consumer. This is one of those products where you can see the “customer insight” clear as day: “I want to take Lemsip but I am busy and on the go and do not have any water*”. EUREKA!! Instead I will take this sachet of Lemsip powder which I will pour directly onto my tongue! Then I can get my relief from colds ANYWHERE!!

Admittedly products have been launched on flimsier grounds than this but the non-marketer in me is screaming at this particular straw man, “Just take the sodding tablets without it you gimp!”. The subset of consumers who are too precious to take capsules without water and yet unembarrassed enough to pour purple powder onto their tongues in semi-public is surely tiny. Or perhaps there is something darker at work…

Because as soon as I actually TRIED Lemsip Direct I realised their game: IT IS SPACE DUST. Space dust, the fabled pops-on-your-tongue sweet that was banned** from playgrounds in the 80s, creating an unslakable yearning in a generation of kids who are now weary 30something commuters buying cold and flu remedies. Only now it contains an actual drug too. Gotcha, Lemsip!

*NB the not-needing-water claim is a total lie – you will need water anyway as Lemsip Direct tastes disgusting.

**This is probably an urban myth.

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A Trigger Almanac: 2007 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/12/a-trigger-almanac-2007 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/12/a-trigger-almanac-2007#comments Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:32:13 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/12/a-trigger-almanac-2007/ Here’s a selection of some of the most entertaining/interesting posts on the site this year – thoroughly incomplete, as it doesn’t include much of the frothing ephemera that makes FT so good (in my partisan view). As usual when I look at the FT archives I’m enormously amused, amazed that there’s so much of it, and frustrated that loads of good ideas don’t get followed up, but such is the way of the blog.  Huge thanks to all contributors and a Happy New Year to all readers.

JANUARY:
More Cheese That’s Good To Fry: useful and nutritious.
“Maggie May”: where’s the chorus?
Jamie T’s Album Cover: this is our truth tell me yrs.

FEBRUARY:
It’s Hot!: the sleb comic strip lives on.
The All New SI Units Of Measurement: year’s biggest spam magnet! But a great post.
Shared Universe Comics: I was completely wrong about all this but I still like my idea better than the dire reality.
Your Own Private Quatre Bras: aka A Dalek Make Of Light Part 2.

MARCH:
“Vincent”: Don gets a 1.
Pomp and Circumnavigation: Pointlessness exalted at Wembley.
Sci-Fi for Kids: Andre Norton: big retrospective!

APRIL::
The Sex Pistols at the Manchester Free Trade Hall: pathbreaking pop archaeology.
Take The Brain: stupid chess.

MAY:
This Is The Review That Goes Like This: please don’t go and see Spamalot.
Worlds In Collusion: the problems of RPG worldbuilding.

JUNE:
Let’s Make Glastonbury Better: a sensible proposal!
“Mouldy Old Dough”: the heart of one 70s.

JULY:
“Oliver’s Army”: we could talk all night.
Moaning about Black Snake: psychological complexity EXPOSED.

AUGUST:
IHM Health And Safety Watch: no, Mike Scott, no!
Diet Water / The Scandal of Skinny Water: consumer watchdog on the prowl..

SEPTEMBER:
“Think Of You”: Whigfield’s only proper song!
Food Science: Mars Planets: the second law of thermodynamics – DEFIED.

OCTOBER:
“Waterloo”: A milestone for Popular
Radio Wrong: the horror, the horror.
Confused by Cerveza?: a linguistic lesson.
Yo DJ Pump This Party: Kat’s first gig!

NOVEMBER:
Whodiddit? – the rules of crime fiction, explained. 
Overgrown doorways: woods between the words
Burial – “Untrue”: writable music and the joy of the 6AM twix 

DECEMBER:
Self-organising systems in the London Bridge Pret A Manger: social physics! with diagram!
Spicy chocolate curry cupcakes: tasty yet controversial recipe!

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Self-Organizing Systems In The London Bridge Pret A Manger https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/12/self-organizing-systems-in-the-london-bridge-pret-a-manger https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/12/self-organizing-systems-in-the-london-bridge-pret-a-manger#comments Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:45:06 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/12/self-organizing-systems-in-the-london-bridge-pret-a-manger/ I have been re-reading Philip Ball’s Critical Mass, his book about “social physics”, how the study of physics can lead us to understand aggregate human behaviour better. It’s very wide-ranging and interesting, with pretty obvious implications for my day job. One of Ball’s early chapters is about path-formation and “flocking” (eg. how a mass of people can most efficiently leave a room – vital to understand this when planning fire exits etc.). He doesn’t actually mention queue formation but it’s the same sort of thing, and it’s a problem that strikes me when I go into Pret A Manger for the occasional breakfast bacon and egg baguette of a morning (om nom nom).

The London Bridge Pret A Manger is managed by a gentleman of boundless enthusiasm, both for his job and for the rules it requires him to enforce. I often see him upbraiding staff – in a friendly way, naturally – for incorrect cap position, insufficient service speed, etc. His main role in the customers’ lives, though – a thankless one – is to inform us that there are six open tills and can we please form six queues, instead of, as invariably happens, one big long queue which fills individual tills from the front. Is he right?

sammiches.jpg I have drawn an scientific DIAGRAM of the Pret a Manger London Bridge layout which I reproduce here. The black dots represent queueing individuals in the formation that they commonly (without prior planning) adopt. The red dots represent the queuing layout that the manager wants them to adopt.

The manager’s version is clearly more efficient when it comes to minimising queue length and from a management perspective it allows him a fairer assessment of the performances of individual workers. But the longer queue is in the collective interests, not only of current customers in the shop but also of prospective shop entrants (I’m assuming, and my own experience tallies with this, that neither method has a positive impact on the time it takes you to get served, though see below for more on this). The six short queues favoured by the manager would clearly make access to the tables, and to one end of the sandwich cabinet, more difficult. (Very importantly, this end of the cabinet has the Pret Chocolate Bars in). Whereas the one long queue allows better access to and from table areas and cabinets, with a minimum of queue crossing even at busy times. The crowd here have organised themselves into the most mutually beneficial system possible in terms of using the shop space.

But is this system unstable? Every individual beyond a certain distance in the queue will find their own utility maximised (i.e. will get their nosh faster) if they leave the queue and go immediately to one of the more empty tills. We now have a kind of prisoner’s dilemma in action – Ball in his book talks about the p.d. and game theory but it’s in the bit I haven’t read yet. Some people who are left behind in the main queue or do not redistribute fast enough will then find their utility lowered (i.e. it takes longer to get the sammich).

Left to its own devices the queue doesn’t collapse into sub-queues – whether it’s a spirit of mutual co-operation that drives this, or a kind of selfishness (the benefit created by quicker sandwiches is not equal to the disbenefit created by breaking the social convention) doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the manager’s encouragement to move from long queue to sub-queues creates this collapse, and therefore invariably causes an increase in queueing time for some customers. He really should leave well alone.

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