Um, that Spielberg story is from February. And he wasn't the "Artistic Director" - he was an adviser, except that he never actually took up his post. Meanwhile, perhaps we could include some more balanced commentary from here: Council on Foreign Relations" Note this paragraph:

In many ways the economic growth in Asia, and the subsequent growth in demand, is good for Africa. Mineral prices are reaching record highs, reversing a long decline for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:45 PM on July 19, 2008

Oh yeah, and "colonize"? They are actually sending boats full of Chinese people to claim African territory, carve out some farmland from the jungle, raise a red flag up over the farmland, and proclaim a commemorative holiday?

Having read that Daily Mail article I am AMAZED to learn that "Angola has its own Chinatown". And that there are "Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food" which kind of reminds me of Discovery Bay in Hong... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:56 PM on July 19, 2008

The bit about bars looks like a Murdoch paper's attempt to sell extra copies

To be fair to Murdoch, the SCMP is now owned by the Kuok family, after Rupert sold it to them.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 12:39 AM on July 20, 2008

Sorry about the Drones link - but they are a seriously incredible band and I haven't even had the pleasure of seeing them live yet. (they haven't made it to Hong Kong as far as I know).

As for Powderfinger vs Jet vs Silverchair - I guess the list reflects the people who contributed to it, and to me a lot of those guys (Gudinski et al) are kind of responsible for the horror that was FM radio in Adelaide before JJJ-FM started broadcasting there, so I don't expect much... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 5:05 AM on July 14, 2008

was this post inspired by the poster's name from the previous post?

No way.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 5:11 AM on July 14, 2008

Re: Dave Hole - I've never heard of him, but a quick search reveals "While many bottleneck players base their styles on a few patented patterns, Dave Hole sprays a steely fire all over the strings, navigating stratospheric leaps with the greatest of ease," wrote Guitar Player. - don't want to be all bottleneck-ist but that's a bit of a niche market I think. He might be more well known in Perth, but I can't honestly say I've heard of him in Melbourne or Adelaide.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 8:03 AM on July 14, 2008

Am I going mad or is that a big band arrangement of the 1984 UK hit Two Tribes by popular New Wave combo, Frankie Goes To Hollywood playing in the background of the tuba video?

Nope, you're not going mad - that's indeed what it is. I was wondering why on earth they picked that as background music for the video, but then the trombones started playing the vocal line. I guess it was the most exciting "trombone" music they could find.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 2:04 AM on July 12, 2008

Or maybe they could have used 76 Trombones...
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 9:35 PM on July 12, 2008

A good point well made. That first Bobby Vinton track which just starts out with "I leerrrrrrrrrrrvvvvvv yooooooouuuuuu". Man that's awful.

Tangentially - the video accompaniment to the second Vinton track - wow.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 10:40 PM on June 14, 2008

Even my Beloved Cascade (Which was a genuinely nice beer) has changed to have the same Euro-piss taste. - Yeah I remember when Cascade changed - it was not long after it was bought by CUB right? I used to really like Cascade but now I never bother with it.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 9:19 PM on June 12, 2008

.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:00 PM on June 2, 2008

What fun! (But listening to the Part 10 - I have to admit I thought the lyrics were fairly lame.) Still, seems like he's managed to get everyone to write a fairly typical Weezer song. I wonder if this could be taken as evidence for auteur film theory working in music as well.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:43 PM on May 31, 2008

During the recent earthquake, it was reported that 6,000 school buildings collapsed and untold number of school children perished. But at Zhengjia Haiyuan village only fifteen kilometers away from Beichuan, there was an excerption. On May 17, a netizen posted an essay titled "The most awesome Project Hope school in history" in which he wrote: "During the Wenchuan earthquake, many school children were taken by surprise and buried underneath the collapsed buildings. But a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 2:38 AM on May 25, 2008

A further note - in the South China Morning Post today, a columnist named Wang Xiangwei wrote about the contrast between money spent on glitzy new buildings for the Olympics and what China spends on education each year. One figure that caught my eye was spending on education this year should reach RMB156.2 billion yuan. By contrast Chinese government officials (at all levels of goverment) annually spend 300 billion yuan on entertaining (banquets etc), 300 billion yuan on vehicle use and 250... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 6:38 PM on May 25, 2008

And it's a game that is only liked in two states. AFL has at least four (Tas, Vic, SA, WA). Anyway I tried playing the flash game - it's confusing. I tried running into the canetoads to smash as many as I could but it turns out you're supposed to avoid them. That's not how I understand State of Origin works (especially in the Traditional Softening Up Period).
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:08 PM on May 20, 2008

Oh Lord if only a band as good as this would tour out here. What I love about the Dirtbombs is the sound like it's all going to collapse at any minute but somehow doesn't and ends up sounding so together.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 6:31 PM on May 19, 2008

That link where Mick talks about the band is a good one - interesting how he says after ten years he's tired of the band and wants to do something else but it's only now that they're getting good crowds at decent venues and "fat paychecks".
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 6:40 PM on May 19, 2008

The idea is better than the execution of the idea - if only because CCTV footage is kinda of hard to look at (IMO).
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 10:14 PM on May 12, 2008

For those of you who take issue with the song, or the band, or what they were wearing or what their facial hair looks like or how they were standing: that's what you came away with, is it?

Erm, so far only you have mentioned facial hair and the way they are standing, and only one person in the thread so far has said they don't like the song. So, um, what?
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 12:04 AM on May 13, 2008

Here in Hong Kong we have the Octopus card - and instead of people tearing open their cards to get to the chip, we can just buy watches or other small gadgets that have a chip in them, that can be recharged at any convenience outlet in the city. So to all those people in London being smartarses I say "why not turn your tiny rebellion into an actual business and enter into an arrangement with Oyster to market and distribute Oyster chips in a variety of form factors?".... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:19 PM on May 8, 2008

I just love that clip where he's jamming (sorrying - jellying "You call it jelly over here") with Frank Zappa and breaks into the ABC News theme while Zappa looks at him like he's a complete dill. Genius.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 4:11 AM on May 5, 2008

OK, but in the first linked video he misses the first shot, and then it looks like he blazes away at anything in range, not following the order of the balls, AND he duffs a couple more shots. So while he is very good, it all kind of seems like it's just a good player who just did a massive line of coke or something.

And in the Luc Salvas video the first thing he does after the break is pot the white!!

I don't know - if this is going to be a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:25 PM on April 28, 2008

Chinese sentiment as expressed on the Internet is pretty amazing at the moment - remember the Chinese wheelchair athlete in France who had the torch taken off her? She was portrayed as a hero in China - but she made a statement about how a boycott of Carrefour might not be a good idea (clearly the Chinese govt is becoming a little concerned about protests and boycotts getting out of hand). So now the backlash against the athlete has started. A couple of choice... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:56 PM on April 19, 2008

...I'm currently awaiting the third's release as a mass market paperback

It's out - the third one is better than the second one in IMO.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 8:14 PM on April 13, 2008

It's great, and fun to play with, and I realise that for the sake of verisimilitude that all the instruments shown have to have knobs, but please can music software developers stop making us use knobs that are designed to be twiddled with fingers and not mice? (So many opportunities for knob jokes, but I refrain, I refrain...)
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:45 AM on April 6, 2008

From the page http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=3432, when did Japan get a 1000 yen coin? Or is just a special commemorative one?
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:41 PM on April 2, 2008

Someone has already released "Chinese Democracy" anyway - a French guy called Dr Eggs who lives in Hong Kong.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 8:26 PM on March 27, 2008

Re: "The Beijing Olympics debacle has begun", I'm not so sure about that. The linked article looks only at the Olympics from an international perspective. So sure, I can see that there is good chance that quite a few embarrassing things will happen during the course of the Olympics, and China will look a bit foolish on the world stage.

But the most important audience for the Olympics as far as Beijing's leaders are concerned is the Chinese audience. All of the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:38 PM on March 19, 2008

Thanks for posting that - I've been avoiding looking for firsthand accounts of the Iraq war. Not sure why, maybe I just find it all too depressing. But those accounts are very compelling and if you have a spare 5 minutes or so well worth reading.

It's interesting how the vets so clearly draw the link between racism, dehumanisation and casual violence. And with the firepower at their disposal, there's no margin for error. Imagine firing grenades at an old lady!
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 2:40 AM on March 19, 2008

So I was wondering if I should have made this a FPP as well, but instead I just put it in the previous SWSX thread.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 10:18 PM on March 13, 2008

Aside from the possiblities of dipping into a chord and fixing a bum note here and there, I think some of the more creative things that could happen might be like Photoshop filters(?). I envisage taking a recorded guitar part, and then you could wave a "Majestic" filter across it and each chord would end somehow being related to E major. You could simply record a part, getting the rhythm you want, maybe even just strum the one chord over and over, and then apply the "Melancholy... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 9:20 PM on March 13, 2008

Meanwhile, someone has gone through the torrent of all the bands playing at SXSW, and given each band and song a six word review. Some of them are quite funny.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:28 PM on March 12, 2008

"World's best Chinese restaurant outside China"? That's a massive claim. How could anyone seriously say that? There'd be a few places in Malaysia or Singapore that would have something to say about that I'm sure.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 8:49 PM on March 11, 2008

The few bits of 20-20 cricket I've watched, batting seemed to be a much more important part of the game than bowling, given the cavalier way batters smashed the ball around. (In fact I would hate to be a bowler in a 20-20 cricket side.) So I can understand why Glen McGrath didn't make his reserve price at the auction - there's not much point investing in a retired fast bowler who was renowned for consistently nagging away just outside offstump. But spending US$950,000 on Ishant Sharma doesn't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 4:20 PM on February 20, 2008

Isn't there a institution in America (I remember hearing about it but I can't remember the name) that functions as a library of audio and is supposed to have a copy of everything anyway? Or is it more selective?
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:17 PM on February 18, 2008

At 4:41 he breaks down and uses the keyboard to delete something. I'll keep watching and tell you all how it turns out...
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:49 PM on February 16, 2008

And again at 7:17.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:51 PM on February 16, 2008

Good lord he hit hard. That is fantastic!
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:56 PM on February 14, 2008

The other thing I like about Bonham's playing is how he changes the accent on certain beats of the bar when he's doing a fill so it suddenly sounds like he's out of time, but if you count it out you see he's actually not. Very noticeable in the first few bars on the first track on the linked page. The classic example is "Black Dog" - try as I might I can't count out the verses without getting in a mess.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:01 PM on February 14, 2008

Hey COBRA! - just drag the file from your finder into a Garageband window.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 12:43 AM on February 16, 2008

Gold:

"But like with anime, you have to be careful about how much you like Japan. If you know how to speak Japanese, you kind of ruin it for everyone else."

posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 11:10 PM on February 14, 2008

Calling it a "mashup" is almost a pun...

So many people making beer. Does anyone know of any craft breweries in the Hong Kong/Southern China region?
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 9:32 PM on February 13, 2008

This story has been front page news in most of the newspapers here in Hong Kong for 2 weeks now - meanwhile 900,000 people in Guangzhou were stuck in a train station for days because of massive blizzards that crippled huge swathes of China. That was page 2 or 3 news.

Actually I think the most interesting things about the story are the media reaction and the over-reaction of the police (amply covered by ESWN) and the contrast between Western and Cantonese pop stars. Just... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 6:13 PM on February 12, 2008

He made a Blue Thunder much better than it really was.
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 8:24 PM on February 10, 2008

Language learning for migrants is a funny thing. I live in Hong Kong where the second-biggest group of expatriates (English, US, Australian, assorted Europeans) pretty much never bothers to learn Cantonese (there are some awesome exceptions) and their usual excuses are "it's too hard" and "you don't need it anyway". The largest group of expatriates (Filipino maids) don't seem to have too much trouble learning Cantonese at all. I suppose you could say that because the expats... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 7:06 AM on February 6, 2008

Great series - I like the cultural observations as he encounters POWs and soldiers from other countries. Interesting how a number of the drawings are devoted to going to the toilet. Also, does this girl look pregnant?
posted to MetaFilter by awfurby at 8:14 PM on February 5, 2008