(on Flickr)

Warren Ellis: fuck you, barking urban fox with my bootprint up its arse

Fraction tries to understand why the new White Stripes isn’t doing anything for him. Shot through with occasional breakdowns like this one:

The next song is something about a “Prickly Thorn” or somesuch? It drones on and on until I can’t believe I’m actually still listening to it. Seriously, I thought it was some kind of mistake when I first heard it. On a second listen, I realize the mistake isn’t on MY end. “St. Andrew” starts off like John Cale playing a cover of “Baba O’Riley”. Is that Meg singing? Is she vocoded upwards? Jesus CHRIST, what the fuck is wrong with this record?

NASA are after a self-guided machine-to-machine (M2M) intelligence system for space missions:

An M2M system would enable machines to make intelligent choices, execute self-guided adjustments, and communicate with one another, all without human intervention, in a way that they presently cannot. As envisioned, an M2M intelligence system will work with a broad spectrum of machines, from wireless tools and sensors to robots, spacecraft, and computer grid systems. The goal is nothing short of machine self-dependency.

From the illustrator of PHONOGRAM. It’s out in two months. You’ll need a copy.

• High Dive – Popular Science
  Ride a rocket into space and then abandon ship? You’d need to be nuts—or desperate. Either way, space diving could be the future of reentry
  (tags: space)
• Nicholas Leather – Hand made and custom leather (Powered by CubeCart)
  (tags: xmas)

Finally, money has changed hands, and Michelle Tea & Laurenn McCubbin’s excellent RENT GIRL has been optioned for series by Showtime Television in the USA. Congratulations, ladies.

By Benoit Peeters, translated by Jesse Cohn. To re-read and digest later.

(on Flickr)

Here I am on a battlefield.

Originally uploaded by tetheredto.

Now in their full hideousness on Myspace.

A new 12 by Burial, and Boomkat have it up for streaming listening (as well as vinyl/mp3 purchase).

As of 11.30am BST. Looks like it peaked at 214 overnight — thanks for keeping an eye on it, Wil and David.

I am now going down the pub for the Cigarette Of Victory.

Warren Ellis: country pub dinner. Grim skies overhead. Flooding, death, cholera imminent.

(image by Faux Maux. Mangina by Satan.)

Walker Douglas Young, born to Mimi Rosenheim and Larry Young on Sunday.

(via riotclitshave)

As of 11.30pm BST. Now I’m just suspicious.

(EDIT: Agent just emailed: #252 as of 2.30 BST. I’m going to bed, praising the powers of EW.)

Taken over Mountfitchet about six weeks ago. Hasn’t stopped raining since.

(Clouds over Mountfitchet)

Someone just sent me a message pointing out that I am now mentioned on the Wikipedia entry for Silk Cut cigarettes:

Silk Cut is the brand of choice for comic book character John Constantine, writers Warren Ellis and Tom Stoppard…

“She Is The New Thing” – The Horrors

(Southend FTW. Mp3 provided for review purposes only, deleted in 7 days, contact if you need it gone)

So I’m listening through the magic-mix of the week’s offerings at Piccadilly Records, and this… thing starts playing. It’s a one-minute low-bitrate excerpt of a single called “Take A Look At Your Life” (except that elsewhere it seems to be referred to as “Take A Look At Yourself”) by Bright Spark. No-one knows who Bright Spark is, and apparently only three hundred copies were made. It’s a sort of massively retarded, obscene version of “Once In A Lifetime.”

This is that excerpt. Listen.

The b-side, “Valentine,” is frightening, but also features the couplet “you’re dead good at sex/and cooking me tea.” I think I like it better. Listen. I’m vaguely reminded of The Macc Lads, and their own era-defining couplet “Do you love me?/Well, I fuck you, don’t I?”

Holy shit.

(EDIT: #337 at 7.24pm BST. FFS)

(EDIT: Amazon.com Sales Rank: #324 in Books – 9.04pm BST. Book is now searchable in bestsellers, was #8 in Movers & Shakers, now #10. I think my agent just fainted. Someone might actually fucking buy this book.)

(EDIT: #265 at 10.30pm. We are all weirded out now.)

Design: Mother Of London
Photo: Nadya Lev