So, maybe Kanye is finally going to come with a good album**. His recent GOOD Friday's (he has been giving away a song every Friday for a few weeks now) have been really nice and been working with some good artists that could really make for a well rounded album.. so lets just wait and see!
His latest song "Runaway (the douchebag song)" comes with a 35 minute video, not to mention an auto-tune free singing kanye..
** I like a lot of Kanye's music, Gold Digger, Stronger, etc, are really great singles - and he has consistently released good singles, however, I have never felt he has managed to compose a good album - his non single tracks just don't seem to stand up enough as just regular listening.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
PostScript 2 - Movie Quotes
Speaking of the Spike Lee quote, I recently read an article in the New York Times (via kottke) about how the era of great movie quotes is over, and how its been probably at least a decade since we have had anything resembling a "classic" quote in a film, the type that has been repeated across playgrounds/pubs/living rooms for months after a film.
Trying to rack my brains of recent film quotes that I have enjoyed recently and I really can't think of any, in fact, I'm struggling to think of any truly great films of late..
Trying to rack my brains of recent film quotes that I have enjoyed recently and I really can't think of any, in fact, I'm struggling to think of any truly great films of late..
PostScript 1
On the topic of achieving anything, I heard an interesting observation recently whilst listening to a talk by Alain De Botton.
He observed, that if you go to a large bookstore and go to the self help section there is a clear divide between the bulk of the books - half of them are the big, bold, you can do anything! books, teaching its reader how to achieve anything and everything they have always wanted and how its only us stopping ourselves. The other half were books on coping with failure..
Whether or not this is strictly true in terms of what the books are, i thought it was interesting none the less.
He observed, that if you go to a large bookstore and go to the self help section there is a clear divide between the bulk of the books - half of them are the big, bold, you can do anything! books, teaching its reader how to achieve anything and everything they have always wanted and how its only us stopping ourselves. The other half were books on coping with failure..
Whether or not this is strictly true in terms of what the books are, i thought it was interesting none the less.
Avoid the Grey Twilight
For some time now I have been a big fan of the "Entrpreneurial Thought Leaders" lecture series they have been running at Stanford University, the basic premise being that every week throughout term they invite guest speakers from the world of entrepreneurship to come and talk about, well, anything they like.
Most of the talks are about how to become an entrepreneur, things to avoid, lessons learnt, etc, but they are always very interesting to listen to, so I highly recommend getting over to their site and checking them out. They generally put the new lectures up pretty quickly and have an archive of over 100 great lectures (a whole range of speakers including Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO), Marissa Myers (Google VP), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) and many more - you can check it out at itunes.stanford.edu or just search for Stanford in your iTunes store and it should come up (all the lectures are free downloads, and there are also many more lectures and complete courses that can be downloaded).
The most recent one I have listened to is one by Alec Ross, who was chief tech advisor to President Obama during his campaign (which is a pretty massive role, considering the role that the web/tech played in giving him the edge) and is now chief advisor on innovation to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Alec gave 4 pieces of advice to anyone wanting to become an entrepreneur:
1. Manage your time like you manage your money,
2. Hire believers
3. Avoid the Grey twilight
Most of the advice was very similar to that given across the ETL series, but with different anecdotal stories, but I quite like his piece of advice "avoid the grey twilight" - this was in reference to a quote by Theodore Roosevelt:
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat"
I think this is a great quote, and have always remembered a very similar quote from Spike Lee's basketball film "He Got Game", which I can only assume is based on the above:
"And if we fail, at least we fail whist daring greatly, so we will not be remembered with those cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat"
I am of the mind that people can achieve anything, and if we put our minds to things they can be done..
Most of the talks are about how to become an entrepreneur, things to avoid, lessons learnt, etc, but they are always very interesting to listen to, so I highly recommend getting over to their site and checking them out. They generally put the new lectures up pretty quickly and have an archive of over 100 great lectures (a whole range of speakers including Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO), Marissa Myers (Google VP), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) and many more - you can check it out at itunes.stanford.edu or just search for Stanford in your iTunes store and it should come up (all the lectures are free downloads, and there are also many more lectures and complete courses that can be downloaded).
The most recent one I have listened to is one by Alec Ross, who was chief tech advisor to President Obama during his campaign (which is a pretty massive role, considering the role that the web/tech played in giving him the edge) and is now chief advisor on innovation to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Alec gave 4 pieces of advice to anyone wanting to become an entrepreneur:
1. Manage your time like you manage your money,
2. Hire believers
3. Avoid the Grey twilight
Most of the advice was very similar to that given across the ETL series, but with different anecdotal stories, but I quite like his piece of advice "avoid the grey twilight" - this was in reference to a quote by Theodore Roosevelt:
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat"
I think this is a great quote, and have always remembered a very similar quote from Spike Lee's basketball film "He Got Game", which I can only assume is based on the above:
"And if we fail, at least we fail whist daring greatly, so we will not be remembered with those cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat"
I am of the mind that people can achieve anything, and if we put our minds to things they can be done..
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Angry Birds
Two pieces of news on the Angry Birds front this week, firstly, the full, free Angry Birds game was released to the Android market on Friday.. which is great news for Android users (even if it did bring down the market on release!)
There is also word of stuffed angry birds toys! check out the link below to TechCrunch who reported it (from geekchicdaily.com
Tech Crunch Article
There is also word of stuffed angry birds toys! check out the link below to TechCrunch who reported it (from geekchicdaily.com
Tech Crunch Article
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Last Exit to Nowehere - Trading Places Tribute
The guys over at LETN have created a homage to the Eddie Murphy classic Trading Places. I would have prefered it if the image was in the centre of the shirt rather than as an emblem, but its a nice one none the less.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
.. that reminds me
Seeing the Fallon and Timberlake thing reminded me how much I enjoy The Roots' "The Seed 2.0". I think it may be my favourite hip hop tune, so here's the video
The most unexpected history of rap ever
Aaron Cohen over at Unlikely Words posted a link to a clip from Jimmy Fallon's show featuring Justin Timberlake where the pair do an "impromptu" performance of the history of rap. Its really worth watching
It might get taken down to due content restrictions from NBC, so you may need to search youtube for it to find it but worth the work
It might get taken down to due content restrictions from NBC, so you may need to search youtube for it to find it but worth the work
Stop... Hammer Time
MC Hammer was performing over at Tech Crunch's Disrupt conference this week so the twitter-sphere has been a buzz with generally very positive reviews, however, one tweet that did get noticed was MC Hammer promising a diss track to Jay-Z to be released by the end of the month..
The messages were in reply to a line form Jay-z on a recent track "So Appalled" talking about Hammer losing all his money. Personally, I'm looking forward to the 31st!
The Answer to Jay comes on Oct 31 ( Devils Nite) ..I saw him coming.
See, no need for such nastiness. I'm going back to the baggy pants that keeps you off guard. :)
The messages were in reply to a line form Jay-z on a recent track "So Appalled" talking about Hammer losing all his money. Personally, I'm looking forward to the 31st!
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