South by Southwest (AKA SXSW) is an interactive, film, and music festival that takes place every year in Austin, Texas.
Because many of the bands that perform there each year are trying to make it big and break into the scene, they release an official torrent with most of the music from the festival for you to download and enjoy.
This years torrent contained 763 tracks, and played end to end, would be nearly 48 hours of continuous music.
If that sounds like a lot to go through to find what you like, that’s because it is, so Paul Ford decided to listen to them all and give you a kind of cheat sheet for finding the music that you like.
His chart ranks each of the songs on a one to five scale, and gives each a six-word review, making it easy to find the good stuff.
If you’re looking to be on the cutting edge of the music scene, then head on over to the download link and fire up your favorite torrent downloader, because it doesn’t get much rawer than this.
In the AOL era, forums and chat rooms were the place to be.
However, as Facebook and MySpace began sucking up everyone’s extra time, forums and chat rooms were suddenly slotted under poking and biting chumps on the Internet order of importance scale.
Fortunately, the forum has remained a vital source of information for some, and because of this, a set of laws and rules has slowly developed to make them more enjoyable.
Unfortunately, not everyone follows these rules, and internet anonymity means that there’s always someone who wants to ruin everyone else’s good time. If that someone happens to be you, then be sure to watch the following video for a quick lesson on How To Behave On An Internet Forum.
Pwned.
And from the same guy, and equally funny video titled “How To Ruin Xbox Live For Everyone Else”:
One of my favorite aspects of Cloverfield was that they didn’t give a lot away in the previews, so I’m going to try and review it without giving a lot away as well, because I think that you should go see it with as little information about it as possible.
Thus, a brief synopsis:
(Warning: Though I’m trying not to, this may contain some small spoilers, so if you want to go in with a pure mind, I suggest you read this after you see the film.)
The Good:
Like I said, I knew little to nothing about this film going in, because they decided to go with vague trailers as opposed to the current trend of using the trailer as a mini-version of the movie.
The ‘Blaire Witch’ style camera work added to the sense of realism, and kept you on edge the whole time.
The pace and tone of the film was so good that for an entire hour and a half, no one in my theater spoke a word. No one. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
The Bad:
The monster had a bit of a scale issue. One minute it’s tearing down building; the next it’s going after individual people. Perhaps it just changed tastes half way through, but it seems like it couldn’t pick a size.
They don’t explain much. Where did the monster come from? Why is it unaffected by our counter-monster measures? Why is the film named Cloverfield?
All in all, I’d say it was about as good as a monster movie can get. They kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time, they kept things somewhat believable, and they didn’t oversell any of it. While I don’t think that this was the ‘Movie of the Year’ by any means (and I’ve already basically give that nomination to Juno), it was a very entertaining film, and I definitely suggest going to see it.
Grade: B+
Theater Worthy: Yes
Note: For a great article on how Cloverfield advertised without advertising, check out MTV’s coverage of the Cloverfield viral-marketing campaign.
The English language is by no means easy, which is why so many people butcher it so badly.
Unfortunately, even if you’re familiar with the words that are in common use, you’re probably still led astray by common misunderstandings.
To clear up some of the confusion, Cracked has put together a list of the 9 Words That Don’t Mean What You Think, and included a dick scale so you can see just how big of a dick you are if you correct people on each mistake.
Irregardless of the ironic titles, I think that for this post, I’m going to peruse the Internet until I can find something better; because it’s deceptively simple to rely on the plethora of info that’s out there.
On the car scale, Ferrari is definitely at the top; and on the Ferrari scale, the Enzo is definitely at the top, which is why a special edition Enzo is no ordinary supercar. Called the FXX, it was sold only to “select” buyers, and was used by Ferrari as a test bed for development of their latest equipment.
Two years, and 20,000 miles later, they’ve gathered up enough data from the 20 cars to make an even better version of their wondermobile, and they’re calling it the FXX Evoluzione.
Again available only to a “select” group of buyers, the Evoluzione features 860 hp, a 9,500 redline, 60 millisecond shifts, a less invasive, more adaptable traction control system that can be adjusted in the cockpit on the fly, modified suspension geometry, and a new aerodynamic package.
Being a test driver for Ferrari doesn’t come cheap, but if you had the cash, would you turn down the offer? (Oh, and the $2 million it takes to own one comes with “a 15-member official team made up of engineers, electronics experts and mechanics capable of providing complete assistance to clients”. And you thought you had a comprehensive warranty!)
