Category Archives: PopCulture

An Annual Tradition On This Blog Somewhere Around This Time of Year

Well, definitely last year anyhow and I think back in 2006 too from the look of things.  I'm sure I did this in 2007 too but the post wasn't tagged, keyworded or referred to in any identifiable way.  (Uhm, NP: “First Snow of the Year” – Hawksley Workman by the way.)

Friday Fun Link – Wordoid and Readability (Oct 2, 2009)

A double hit for the Friday Fun Link this week…Wordoid is a site that will generate realistic-looking but not-in-the-dictionary words.  (via Christian Bok's Twitter feed) Readability is a bookmarklet that will help convert web sites into something a lot more readable. 

The BBC Big Read

I came across this site from 2003 where the BBC Radio 2 sponsored a contest to pick the UK's 200 best loved novels.  Lots of familiar names on the Top 21 and I wonder if this contest was the origin of the “Canada Reads”-type events that have proliferated where one community/region/nation chooses a single book […]

Happy Banned Book Week

Banned Book Week which is held during the last week of September is the US equivalent of Canada's Freedom to Read Week which is held during the last week of February.Here's a post on MetaFilter about Banned Book Week including a really cool Google maps mash-up of book challenges across the US since 2007. 

Friday Fun Link – iNudge (Sept 25, 2009)

iNudge is a pretty fun web-based music making program.  Or to put it another way, WELCOME TO MY RAVE!!!

A Couple Interesting Ways to Analyse Individual Beatles' Popularity/Contribution Within the Group

Here's a couple very quantitative way to determine which Beatle added more to the group…– assign point values in descending order based on who wrote each of the Top 50 Most Played Beatles Songs on last.fm (Paul has a slight edge over John)– using the Beatles #1 album, count who wrote more of their #1 […]

Design Your Own Cover For The New Douglas Coupland Book (Which Is A "Generation X" Sequel)

*I'm backdating a few posts to this past weekend to keep up the illusion that I never leave the front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending quality time with my family.*CustomizedCoupland is an opportunity for you to design your own cover for his new book – for a price of […]

Friday Fun Link – Obama's Reading List for His Holiday in Martha's Vineyard (August 29, 2009)

Sorta interesting but not as cool as hearing what's on his iPod.

Radiohead – Inexpensive Charity Single and a Free Song Too

Radiohead is no stranger to innovative music practices.  Recently, they've done a couple more…– a one-off charity single, “Harry Patch (In Memory Of), to support the British Legion, an anti-war song written using the words of the UK's last surviving WWI soldier, Harry Patch who died earlier this summer.– and a brand new song, “These […]

Friday Fun Link – Guess The Famous Novels From Their Opening Lines (August 21, 2009)

I got 12/16 and once I saw the four I missed, realised I probably should've got 16/16.  If you want a hint, mouseover the following text…the site fills in the titles automatically as you guess correctly so picking names of classic novels at random is a good way to cheat…and for the record, I didn't […]