Journal

These days when friends tell me they want a personal website, it’s often just a single-page profile that they’re really after rather than something pricier and more complicated.

In the past there were services like http://flavors.me/ but it seems to have fallen by the wayside. This looks like a decent option to point friends toward if they’re not looking for a blog or want to take baby steps toward that. Incidentally, I came across Carrd through Chris Ferdinandi’s Vanilla JS List which features organisations which favour Vanilla JavaScript over JS frameworks.

Great video (in German with subtitles) which shows and tells the most important elements of this serve, namely:

1. Brush the ball sideways extremely fast;
2. Swing your wrist about 90° extremely fast when touching the ball; and
3. The third bounce should be close to the side-edge of the table so that the opponent cannot easily attack and your spin has the strongest effect.

I’ve just read 1984 by George Orwell. I know, I know… I should have done this a long time ago. Anyway, here’s what I thought.

I remember a copy of 1984 being around the house when I was growing up but for some reason I never got around to reading it. I did, however, see the film when I was young – the “Room 101” scene in particular being unforgettable – and have always known the general plot.

On a recent work trip I realised while in the airport shop that I’d left a book at home so it seemed like as good a time as any to pick up a copy of 1984 and scratch this particular itch.

As a book about a dystopian future, I knew it would be dark, but it was even darker that I imagined. The constant sense of dread was really palpable.

I loved the concepts Orwell created – the Two Minutes Hate, doublethink, Thought Crime, Room 101 to name but a few.

I also loved the language in general and the appendix, The Principles of Newspeak.

And even though it was heart-wrenching and pretty harrowing, I loved the final descent into brainwashing (or “re-education”) and ultimately, betrayal.

This was an amazing book that I loved reading, while not necessarily always being ”enjoyable”.

When watching presentations recently I’ve noticed that a few speakers use this tool to generate animated images for their slides.

Gifox is a menu bar app that records your screen into animated GIFs – a great compromise between static images and full-size videos.

I was introduced to this smile-inducing website by Val Head’s An Event Apart Talk “Building more expressive projects”.

TunnelBear describes itself as “A more secure way to browse the web” and it does this by encrypting your internet connection to keep your online activity private on any network.

More interestingly to me, it succeeds at making a techy subject friendly by the use of illustrated and animated bears. And who doesn’t like bears?

I just made a first visit to Chicago. It was primarily to attend An Event Apart but I was lucky enough to have a little time to check out the city, too.

Firstly I want to thank all the friends who provided tips for things to do and see in The Windy City – Aleks, Susan, Jenny, Lucy, Alan and Karen, Collette etc – cheers!

Thanks also to Davie for jetting in from NYC to join me and Liam for a couple of days. I doff my cap to your knowledge of beautifully designed restaurants with really expensive menus 😉.

I also got the chance to catch up with old friend Nick Calingaert AKA Common Factor, a lovely guy and talented producer who DJed for me and my friends at a couple of our club nights back in the early 00s.

We only had a few days, but I felt we managed to cram in some good stuff. Here’s a summary of the highlights.

Eating out

• Swift & Sons
• Momataro
• Chicago Athletic Club (with its appropriately posh tag-line “Dine and Libate”…)

Bars

• Danny’s Bar
• Rainbo Bar

Record Shopping

• Gramaphone Records
• Dusty Groove
• Shuga Records, 1272 N. Milwaukee Ave
• Reckless Records

Cool Neighbourhoods

• Wicker Park area

Culture / History

• Architecture Boat Tour
• The Art Institute of Chicago

Things to do

• Millenium Park
• Cloud Gate (AKA The Bean)

And if we’d had more time…

• Go see the Cubs playing baseball at Wrigley Field
• Green Mill Jazz Club

Magical sounds in the mix, from Auld Reekie’s finest.

Other Lands consistently plays amazing records.

He’s also been cultivating a quirky but cuddly radio voice which, combined with the heartfelt electronic sounds, makes for a warm and fuzzy listen.

This two hour show is notable for featuring lots of amazing music from Glasgow and Edinburgh, including tracks by Being, Lord of the Isles, a cut from the Off-World Transmissions LP on Invisible Inc, and a preview of the forthcoming Mac-Talla Nan Creag sequel on Firecracker.

Gav also plays both sides of the new Nuclear Family EP and I'm chuffed for our record to feature in this company.

I’ve heard a couple of people mention that when they buy domain names, they use Namecheap because they are cheap and trustworthy.--- I tend not to have any particular favourites but I’ll maybe give Namecheap a go next time.

When in Chicago, buy #house

Jamie (aka Bud Burroughs of Stirling’s Jelly Roll Soul crew) kindly invited me to DJ with him at Max’s Bar last Saturday night (21st July ‘18).

We played from 9pm–3am. Max’s was rammed to the rafters as usual and it was fun to have six hours to play with, going through the gears and playing different styles and tempos. We also had some friendly faces for company – not only was it Jason Brunton’s birthday but we also had Chris Reid over from Italia and on the birras!

Music-wise, it was cool to mix on the DJR-400 and I particularly enjoyed playing EXU, the new one from Patrick Pulsinger & Irl:

Jamie played lots of tracks I liked, including an upbeat version of Space Jungle Luv by Oneness-Of-Juju that I would post but can’t find anywhere!

Thanks to Jamie for the invite, and if you don’t already know his productions, check out:

• The Mail Art EP by Bud Burroughs on Seventh Sign Recordings
• Jelly Roll Soul record label
• Too Many Voices by Dam-Ru on Temporize Recordings