Interesting concept from Wired - crowdsourcing a book that everyone reads and discusses in a gigantic twitter book club.

The winner was American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and the reading schedule and discussion began last week. 

By following @1b1t2010 on twitter, and appending #1b1t to your tweets, you can participate in a chaotic global discussion, with Mr Gaiman himself chiming in to answer questions. I get the feeling it needs some kind of moderation to cut through the noise, but maybe the concept will evolve for the next book.

Great live-in-the-studio version from triple j’s Like a Version series. Download a copy from triple j.

And yet the 2% will no doubt stop it.

Seed Magazine posits an answer to Fermi’s Paradox (“if extraterrestrial intelligence is common, why haven’t we met any bright aliens yet?”):

“Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot.”

Our brains can’t cope with tracking the real-life signs of biological fitness, instead:

“The result is that we don’t seek reproductive success directly; we seek tasty foods that have tended to promote survival, and luscious mates who have tended to produce bright, healthy babies. The modern result? Fast food and pornography.” 

And when we do find the smart Aliens?

“When they finally achieve contact, it will not be a meeting of novel-readers and game-players. It will be a meeting of dead-serious super-parents who congratulate each other on surviving not just the Bomb, but the Xbox.”

Genius.

The Boston Globe’s always great Big Picture gets an iPhone app.

The iPhone is a strangely excellent platform for viewing photos. Despite the small screen, the images look very sharp - the football photos on The Guardian’s brilliant app being a great example. I suspect it’s a combination of the fact that it’s full (albeit mini) screen (so no distractions) and the touch scrolling.

Nobody onstage can hear anything the audience doesn’t hear. No click tracks, no guides, nothing can be heard onstage that isn’t going to the front of the house. If it’s a synthesizer, you have to make that sound onstage happen with a synth. If it’s an organic sound, it absolutely cannot be put on a sampler. No ‘feeling it'. No sunglasses. No rocking out. No improvising. No noodling. No psyching up the crowd. No pretending you’re cool. I understand that if someone’s going to make me his idea of cool I can’t control that. But no wearing the rock-and-roll hat.

James Murphy, aka LCD Soundsystem, on their live show. The new album is killer.

Heartfelt and sad reflection on faltering middle aged relationships. Album out today.

Dark Chocolate with:

+ Jalapeños 
+ Fleur de Sel (Sea Salt) 
+ Ginger 
+ Hazelnut Brittle 
+ Organic Mint Leaves

aka Jalesaltginhazminto!

A cracking, pulsating track from The National. Album out today.

Beautiful looking bikes, not overdesigned or overdoohickeyed or overbranded. Especially this one - fluro orange with white tyres and yet it still looks simple.