WARNING!

The new Meshuggah track is so awesome that it actually will melt your face off. Whatever you do don't listen to it!

Annoying Whinge of the Day

As mp3 (and aac) becomes the new standard for music storage in the digital era, the complaining of audiophiles about the lack of music quality gets louder and more insistent. Via Arts and Letters Daily, here's a good example of what I'm talking about. Sure, I too am disheartened when I read that recording levels are being manipulated for volume (for best results on a portable mp3 player) at the cost of quality, but the anguished moaning about how an entire generation of kids is growing up with no experience of a quality music recording is starting to annoy me.

Here's something that no one seems to be considering: Moore's Law. In ten years, our portable mp3 players will probably be able to hold every surviving audio record ever made at lossless quality and still have room for rips of all three Lord of the Rings boxed set DVDs. Fear not audiophiles, the current trend towards shite audio quality is just a passing phase, the birth pains of the digital era. In a few years you'll be able to go back to arguing over whether the kind of wire used in your headphone cables makes the music sound 'warmer'.

Nerd Links Day

If your day job involves software at all then you probably want to be reading The Daily WTF, it's fucking hysterical.

But even funnier is Zero Punctuation at The Escapist, easily the best video game reviews I've ever read.

Random Metal Article of the Day

An article about Californian black metal band Wolves in the Throne Room at Slate. I like to see semi-obscure, interesting bands like this profiled in the mainstream media.

And yes, they are a pretty awesome band. I haven't gotten around to getting their album yet, on account of the options for doing so being slim. In this age of digital downloads mail order feels like a waste of time, and I haven't seen their stuff in the local stores either. I should have spent more time in music stores while I was overseas...

New Blogroll Additions

Back in the early days of this blog I bemoaned the lack of other blogs talking about the same kinds of music that I like. Well times sure change and now there are tons of them. Here are a few recent discoveries:

Aversion Online
Metal Runs in My Veins
The Metal Minute
Heavy Metal Librarian
Blonde at the Bar, hey wait... how'd that get in there?

Random Weekend Links

Via Making Light: Homeland Security Blanket
Via Arts and Letters Daily: More arguments against the war on drugs

Random Link of the Day

Ruthless Reviews: The ABCs of Drunkenness.

New Web Comics

And by 'new' I mean 'old but new to me'.

For those of us who admit to the occasional bit of roleplaying: DM of the Rings

For those of us who like stuff that is really funny: Basic Instructions

New Blog

Not actually new at all, but new to me.

When flipping through the morning newspaper, I inevitably stop to read the comics page, maybe out of some kind of habit left over from when I was seven and the comics were the only things in the paper I understood. Nowadays it's more like watching a car wreck. If you hate and loathe the quarter page crime against humour that is the daily comic strips, then you should be reading The Comics Curmudgeon.

Japanese People

Just when you think you've seen it all, they surprise you with even weirder sexual deviance.

Guys paying girls to photograph them dressed up as anime characters, complete with big head masks.

Charlie Brakowski

I'm not very familiar with Charles Bukowski but this mash up of his writing with Charlie Brown (via Neil Gaiman) is still pretty funny.

Good Monkey Vs Evil Monkey

Via Arts and Letters, an interesting article about bonobo monkeys. The conventional wisdom is that while chimpanzees are violent, warlike and patriarchal, bonobos are gentle, matriarchal and highly sexual.

Of course the truth is not so clean and tidy, but it's still an interesting insight into human psychology to see the way people have projected these yin and yang personalities onto a bunch of unsuspecting monkeys, one group embodying the altruistic, nurturing side of human nature and the other the destructive, warlike (but also industrious and creative) side.

Random Tired Sunday Post

John Scalzi makes a good argument as to why the Lord of the Rings movies are better than the books. Via Uncertain Principles.

Newsflash

People still finding ways to make All Your Base funny. (via Making Light)

Random New Blog Of The Day

I'm prepared to suffer the shame of admitting I read more than a few Babysitters Club books during my misspent youth in order to tell you that BSC Headquarters is a damn funny read.

Just So You Know

Bethesda have released an uninformative but tantalising trailer for Fallout 3...

Fucking Brilliant!

Some old favourites for the crew:

Five Go Mad in Dorset
Five Go Mad on Mescalin

Random Sunday Link

I know I'm really late with this, but in case you haven't seen it there's a really interesting article in the Washington Post where they get a world class violinist to play for spare change in a subway station in order to see how many people stop and listen. The unsurprising answer is 'not many'.

Random Friday Link

Moshpit or Orgy?

Remember When The Onion Was Always This Funny?

Bush Refuses To Set Timetable For Withdrawal Of Head From White House Banister

I know it's old and I know it's lame to post links to stuff from The Onion because everyone reads it anyway but it made me laugh so damn hard I had to anyway.