Tim Carmody makes a good point about Radiohead: they’ve stayed relevant for 18 years, something very very few bands can claim. The King of Limbs may not be great, but it’s very good - especially listening through headphones.

Like Marco Arment’s Grandparent camera, a mobile phone that’s even simpler.

The horror. And to think this is not just accepted but embraced in the rest of the sporting world. Most bizarre thing: many of the comments to the post want to know if they can buy one.

He looked up. His pale hair looked white. He looked fourteen going on some age that never was. He looked as if he’d been sitting there and God had made the trees and rocks around him. He looked like his own reincarnation and then his own again. Above all else he looked to be filled with a terrible sadness. As if he harbored news of some horrendous loss that no one else had heard of yet. Some vast tragedy not of fact or incident or event but of the way the world was.

Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

Want to make your own Coca Cola? Public Radio show This American Life think they’ve found a documented copy of the original secret flavour:

• Alcohol - 8 oz
• Orange Oil -20 drops
• Lemon Oil - 30 drops
• Nutmeg Oil - 10 drops
• Coriander Oil - 5  drops
• Neroli Oil - 10 drops
• Cinnamon Oil - 10 drops

Mmm, coriander. I love that it’s real ingredients, not just “Flavouring xyz”.

From the days when movie marketing was slightly less sophisticated:

in an attempt to give theater goers a crash course on Dune, the studio made this terminology sheet and sent it to theaters so they could give it out to people seeing the film.

From out of the blue, a new Radiohead LP. Digital download Saturday 19th Feb. Yay!

Watching Rooney’s overhead stunner got me thinking again about corporate sponsorship, and the strange fact that the USA of all places seems to be the sole bastion of logo-less jerseys. In the UK, often the only way you can tell Man Utd and Arsenal apart is by the gigantic advert plastered across the jerseys. Australian sports are the same, though the jerseys themselves tend to be more individual.

Compare that to the US, where even the matter of a tiny Nike swoosh can cause pages of outrage. Strangely, the land of the free and home of ultra capitalism has got it right¹, and the rest of the world is wrong. From the linked article:

Let’s start with a simple premise that I think everyone here can agree with: Uniforms are special. They serve as the primary bond between fan and team. Players come and go, yet we keep rooting for (or against) that uniform, no matter who wears it.

That’s exactly right. Just look how quickly Chelsea fans swooped up Torres jumpers after his defection from Liverpool. The trouble is these shirts are totally spoilt by ginormous corporate logos. Who wants to ponce about in Aon logo kit, or decked out in Omega Pharma-Lotto cycling gear, advertising reinsurance & pharmaceutical companies?

Case in point: I pulled out my old Arsenal jersey with the Dreamcast sponsorship, and my nephews didn’t even realise it was Arsenal. Sigh. Whereas there’s no mistaking a Cubs, Bulls, Blackhawks or Bears top: the only branding is the team and years of tradition.

After cycling, Rugby League teams may be the worst offenders. Front, back, butt, sleeve, sock, and shoe logos paint the logorama picture. The only teams to escape that fate to some extent are St George (sponsored by a bank of the same name - though there’s a great ambush marketing opportunity there for some other bank), and the Mighty Bears back in the days they were so desperate that they were sponsored by their own Leagues Club. Genius.

Valve, a 250 person “tremendously profitable” company:

Newell says that, per employee, Valve is more profitable than Google and Apple.

Ex-Big Picture curator Alan Taylor is up and running at The Atlantic.