To make up for the shock of le pop française, have some stunning bluegrass. Lord have mercy. Harmonies to die for, guitar playing to die for too.

I laughed all over my keyboard.

Stunning short films about Cali. Borderland and Scrapertown in particular.

French pop geniuses Phoenix bop out acoustic style for National Public Radio. I love that they look like a bunch of nerds.

Lord British looks back. On PK-ing:

We definitely did not expect it to pan out the way it did; as it began to unfold we had mixed feelings as how to respond to it. The theory we thought was sound — we made the towns safe and guarded, you’d leave and have more of a free-for-all. But one day I was GMing as Lord British, and I saw a female character shouting for help. Right as I was talking with her, a thief shows up with macros, steals everything she has and runs away. I teleported ahead of him, froze him to the ground, and told him to cut it out. He promised to do so, but stole from her two more times. When I confronted him about it, he broke character and said, “Of course I’m going to do that, I’m a thief, it’s what I do. I’m operating within the rules of your game, and of course I’d lie to the king of the land.” I was like, “Damn! You’re right!

And on the best part of any MMO:

Conversely was the amazingly uninteresting feature of fishing that we put into the game for completeness. Even though it was extremely basic, that feature became stunningly popular, and a bunch of apocryphal stories arose of whether fishing worked better in streams or rivers (it didn’t). So we doubled-down on it and increased the sophistication of the feature.”

Microsoft in spin overload for E3 2010:

For us it was very clear from the start that there was no one better than the creative visionaries at Cirque du Soleil to fully bring to life the magic of ‘Project Natal' for Xbox 360 in a way that could capture the world’s attention and imagination,” he said. “While I cannot share any more details about this event at this time, trust that it will be unlike anything you have ever seen, a one of a kind memorable event that will entertain people of all ages.

Unlike anything we have ever seen??

I remember going to a Lotus conference where The Neville Brothers played and we had an exclusive night at Universal Studios theme park. After each I thought “That was cool”. I didn’t think “Lotus is cool”. It’s still just software, and still just a game console.

Instapaper developer Marco Arment:

The iPad is a great device, but what’s it for, really?

Logically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for most computer owners. In reality, if you needed a laptop before, you probably still need one. If you want to read novels, the Kindle is still a much better device for that. If you need a small computer for ancillary tasks that’s always connected and always with you, an iPhone is better (and you probably already have one). And, even though it’s a great deal for the hardware, most people will have trouble justifying the $500 entry price.

But using it is satisfying and delightful, and there are some things that it does better than a computer. That list isn’t as big as I, and probably most early buyers, initially assumed. And that’s OK.

The “single-purpose device” argument is a strong one, and often used in relation to the iPod. But the iPhone tends to fly in the face of that argument - it’s good at a lot of stuff.

What if you don’t have any computer or smartphone though? That’s what I’d be interested in. Can it work on it’s own if your main tasks are browsing & email? Maybe not:

For instance, if you’re using a hardware keyboard with the iPad very often, you’d probably be much better served by a MacBook Air.

Though it will cost you an extra $1400 to find out.

Slightly confusing infographic, but the end result is scary. As the author points out:

Let me be clear about something: I like Facebook. It’s helped me reconnect with dozens of people with whom I’d lost touch, and I admire the work their team does. I hope your takeaway from this infographic isn’t “I’m deleting my account”; rather, I hope it’s “I’m checking my privacy settings right now, and changing them to a level with which I’m comfortable.

My takeaway is “thank goodness I never bothered”.

Inappropriate Golden Books by Pixar Artist Josh Cooley

The Guardian on radio DJs:

Sean Adams, from Drowned in Sound, a music webzine, said strong radio personalities were vital to counteract the ghettoisation of music - where because of digital radio services people only listen to the type of music they already enjoy. “We now have a billion ways of getting our music. That can be massively damaging because people aren’t listening to music that they may not like on first listen, and there is this problem of the web making everything bland,” he said.

“The web has enabled everyone to be a DJ and in some ways that has diluted the need for [them] but people are still looking for direction and gatekeepers. The need for an established medium has changed but that doesn’t mean we don’t still need people like John Peel.”

This only works if the DJ is free from the constraints of playlists and demographic profiling, a freedom that is increasingly rare.