Lol33t

jueves, 1 de marzo de 2012

A Newsdump for 29 February 2012: From Beyonce back on screen to Tulisa hanging out with The-Dream

Beyoncé has been cast in Ryan 'I created Glee' Murphy's latest film project One Hit Wonders. (Deadline)

With Lady Gaga opening her Born This Way Foundation at Harvard today, some students have timed a rally to get the university to award posthumous degrees to seven students who were kicked out for being gay in the 1920s. (Associated Press)

'Vanilla Twilight' hitmaker Owl City claims that he is "maybe 80, 85 percent done" with his new album, which sees him collaborating with little known songwriters such as Dr Luke and Stargate. (Billboard)

Cee Lo Green is going to let you "enter into the supernatural, the surreal, and [the] extraordinary", as he is writing a memoir to be published next year. (Winnipeg Free Press)

Kid Cudi has apologised for the way his "weak ass major label" have been promoting his new album 'WZRD'. (Ace Showbiz) He's also been showing off his hideous new 'slit-wrists' tattoos, which may or may not be related to his major label 'woes'.

Joe Mount of Metronomy has enjoyed touring with Azealia Banks on the NME tour, stating that "obviously you got people like Adele and Florence doing their big emotional thing at the moment, so it's nice to hear somebody do something a little bit nasty for a change". (Daily Star)

Avril Lavigne looks like she's being attacked by a bear from behind in this photo, but it is in fact Chad Kroeger. (Twitter)

Simon Cowell reckons that being a judge on The X Factor would be "a walk in the park" for Britney Spears. (Belfast Telegraph) What utter bollocks. Simon Cowell knows full well that the sort of shit an X Factor judge has to put up with from audiences and the show's production team is the last thing Britney would want or need.

And finally, news onthe legacy of Girl Power: Tulisa had fun with The-Dream at a Miami strip club the other day, with a 'source' claiming that while she was embarrassed at first, she soon got into the swing of throwing money at dancers. (The Sun) So classy.

THAT WAS some of THE NEWS.

Disney Changes The Name Of The Avengers, Let’s All Blame Honor Blackman

Hands up if you were excited seeing The Avengers when it gets released in April. Well we'll just go ahead and chop those hands off because it seems that you won't be seeing The Avengers anytime soon. Nope. Disney has decided that the great British public, those responsible for making Katie Price a business woman, are too stupid to realise that a film being released in 2012 has absolutely no similarities to a 1960s TV show.

What's that about?

What's that about, indeed hecklersprayers? Disney, who bought Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for $4 billion, thinks that you're too stupid to differentiate between different characters four decades apart. Too stupid to realise that Captain America never appeared with John Steed. Too bumbling to see that Scarlett Johansson was clearly too young to be in it.

A spokesperson from Marvel announced that

"We have changed the title of "Marvel The Avengers" to 'Marvel Avengers Assemble'. This has been done merely to differentiate the movie from the popular 1960s British television show, The Avengers."

What a ridiculous crock of nonsense. Why does anything need to be changed? We'll bet all our hair that no one who would be going to see The Avengers would have got it confused. Because the majority of the cinema going public haven't the foggiest who Aretha Franklin is, let alone the difference between Emma Peel and Black Widow (turns out, not that much, but that's by the by).

The public are gradually getting stupider, and knowing about TV shows from the 60s shows a hint more intelligence than what they have.

In fact, Disney changing the name of the film to suit is just reminding people that The Avengers actually existed in the first place. The whole ordeal just makes you want to shake your head and say "Mrs. Peel, we're needed…" before downing three shots of whiskey together and loudly vomiting in the street holding onto her catsuit.

Interesting fact before we go, it's not just the UK who gets fisted over film names. When Grease was released in Argentina, it was oddly called Vaseline.

And The Full Monty was called Six Naked Pigs which we can't argue with really.

iPad 3 Imminent; Missing A Home Button Like A Big Wimp?

Amazing isn't it? How a company can get people so worked up about a product which probably won't be that much different from what came before, but still make it seem that this is the best thing to be clad in plastic and metal since the original Terminator.

It's an astonishing thing to see Apple stores on launch days because between sweaty adults clamouring over an overly priced object like it was the last loaf of bread in 1920s Germany, there is the bitter taste of getting yourself in what feels like an exclusive club of Apple product users, even though they now rank into the millions.

So expect fervent panic and, frankly, rude pushing on March 16th when the iPad 3 is rumoured to be released. In typical Apple behaviour, there's nothing concrete to go on but hundreds of Apple rumours sites that seem sure that what they're writing about is entirely correct and should not be doubted even though they are sure the back of the new iPhone will be made from unicorn hide.

The only definite thing we have is that Apple have released an invitation to media outlets (but not hecklerspray even though we are Cosmo's Blog Of The Year) that shows that there is going to be a get-together on March 7th and that it will be including a new iPad.

Whether it will be a smaller version of what's already gone before, or a budget version to sell to schools because Apple loves schools, we don't know, and honestly, we don't really care.

Something which we can glean from the invitation is that the new iPad seems to be missing a Home button, which everyone who owns an iPad knows is a massive jump because, although there are only four buttons on the iPad, with the new multi touch gestures that were introduced in iOS5, it means that the Home button is kind of redundant. And is something that Google has been working on for their tablet rivals.

Oh, and there's likely to be a better display, to keep it in line with the iPhone 4 and 4S and something to do with 4G signal. But that's by the by really, because it doesn't really matter what is new about it.

People are still going to covet one because it's new and shiny. Just take sales of the 4S. That sold 1 million handsets in 24 hours just on pre-order alone and that only had an insipid woman's voice added to it.

Apple can probably sell a new iPad that has support for Spectrum ZX and people would still crawl all over it like it's Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep and Jesus all rolled into one.

It’s not easy choosing a book title

My book will be aimed at those who are dreaming of starting their own design business, or who have already started and are looking for some help to take them to the next level. It'll be the title I wish I'd read a few years ago (although I know I'm going to learn a lot writing it).

The title was going to be The Business of Design, but it's already published. Then Nikki suggested Business Designed to tie-in with Identity Designed. Great idea, but someone's sitting on the domain and my purchase request led to nowt.

Then Bernadette pitched in with these two ideas:

Working in Design
The Design Startup

—

Update: 10 February 2011
The chat in the comment thread has ruled out The Design Startup, and there's now a third option in the mix: Work for Money — Design for Love.

—

I've registered both .coms, so it's down to one of those, along with the likely subtitle of, "Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running a Successful Design Business."

I ran both names past Blair, who suggested that Working in Design may lead to confusion about the target market. It could imply design employment, as opposed to self-employment. Fair point. Nikki liked both, but thought The Design Startup could imply I had some unique product or service to sell, which wouldn't be ideal. Another fair point. She said Peachpit's salespeople would love Working in Design.

Which do you prefer?

Keep in mind they'll appear alongside the provisional subtitle.

1/ Working in Design: Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running a Successful Design Business

2/ The Design Startup: Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running a Successful Design Business

—

Update:
So it's down to number 1/ or number 3/ Work for Money — Design for Love.

—

Bernadette kindly pitched an alternative subtitle, too, with optional word in brackets: "Everything You Want to Know About Starting and Running a (Successful) Design Business."

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Adele Is Officially Better Than Michael Jackson

Some people can't bear to move on and will stubbornly live in the past forever. One group of people who can't escape the past are those loveable creatures that we call Michael Jackson fans.

How we chortle at their antics as they listen to their battered tape copies of his albums and trip over when they attempt to emulate his legendary moon walk. Heed our warning mind; anger these beasts and they'll lash out violently.

Since the king of pop's sudden death, nobody has officially taken his title. Lady Gaga has all sorts of gimmicks like Jackson had, such as that infamous meat dress. And to her advantage, they're all planned, unlike that Pepsi commercial. You can do all sorts in terms of marketing a product, but overall, that counts for nothing if you're yesterday's news as it is revealed that Adele is now officially better than Michael Jackson.

Fans of The Beatles can sympathise with the fanatical Michael Jackson fans, and this time it isn't about the royalty rights issues. The Beatles are now considered old toss since Glee outranked them in terms of chart positions. Any Fab Four LP's you own dropped in value overnight. After all, who would want to listen to a band that has a measly 71 chart entries? Glee have 75 plus and are still going strong! We won't stop believing in them.

With 'sexy' Dr. Conrad Murray being convicted of killing-one-off over Michael Jackson, it weirdly did MJ some good. People stopped calling Michael a two timing paedophile and most importantly for Joe Jackson, the album revenues started rolling in! Hooray for easy money! Yup, it was like the Californian gold rush all over again. People flocked from miles around to buy the same records they already owned, but with an additional demo track that was recorded when Michael was suffering from musical diarrohea.

Anyway, Jackson has relied on these post death extra-sales, but the fact remains is that he's still absolutely dead. And what with Adele still being alive, there's a tortoise and the hare style race.

Basically, in the space of a year, Adele has already outsold 'Bad' and is a whisker away from outselling 'Thriller'. Have a look at the best selling album sales, ever:

Queen – Greatest Hits (5,863,000)
The Beatles – Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (5,044,000)
Abba – Gold: Greatest Hits (4,989,000)
Oasis – What's the Story Morning Glory (4,517,000)
Michael Jackson – Thriller (4,248,000)
Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms (4,152,000)
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (4,114,000)
Adele – 21 (4,020,000)
Michael Jackson – Bad (3,959,000)
Queen – Greatest Hits II (3,887,000)

Michael Jackson fans will probably be frothing through their noses as they angrily point out that there are two Michael Jackson albums in there… but they're missing the point. See, Adele is on the cusp of outdoing Michael Jackson with considerably less work under her ample belt.

Basically, Adele is much, much better AND hasn't been accused of touching children on the bum.

Shiny Shiny's top Pinterest users you should be following

Pinterest really is what you make of it, so follow some of our top recommended users for plenty of cool photography, fashion snaps and design inspiration.

So you've bought into the Pinterest hype, you've created some boards with pretentious titles and a large proportion of the time you'd usually spend working/eating/sleeping has been taken up by the obsessive pinning of EVERYTHING in sight.

Sure you can use Pinterest to just store content that you see around the web, but a big part of the site is about re-pinning, liking and commenting on photos that other users have uploaded too. Although you can browse through photos by category on Pinterest with ease, it's really much more useful if you follow a bunch of cool people who tend to pin things you're interested in.

Yes many argue Pinterest is too girly or pretentious or just rubbish. But our advice is STOP FOLLOWING LOTS OF GIRLY/PRETENTIOUS/RUBBISH PEOPLE THEN, it's really not rocket science.

We compiled a short list of awesome people to follow on Pinterest back in September, but here's an updated list with our top ten suggestions of who's really worth following, whether you're into photography, cupcakes or design, along with a few suggestions from Twitter too:

Hansol Kim

Best for: The most amazing photos

My personal favourite Pinterest user, Hansol Kim curates some of the most beautiful photographs from all over the web. There are lots of boards of lovely looking people, which tend to get a LOT of re-pins, but as a photographer himself the more technical boards about different poses, movements and lighting are pretty fascinating too. I love the fact he labels his boards in a pretty unique way too, with the first names of famous stars, take a look at Audrey, James and Marilyn.

Follow him: pinterest.com/tinman/

Oscar PR Girl

Best for: Fashion content and behind-the-scenes exclusives

We've been big fans of Oscar PR Girl's online activity for a LONG time now and it seems she doesn't fail to disappoint in the world of Pinterest either. She labels her boards in a super simple way, collecting only the best photos from the world of fashion and everything Oscar de la Renta. There are also some dreamy photos of interiors and hairstyles to swoon at too.

Follow her: pinterest.com/oscarprgirl/

Recommended by: @teriTECHNO / pinterest.com/terbaby/

GSD&M / SXSurvival

Best for: Innovative use of Pinterest

We love boards full of inspiring and cute pins as much as the next person, but as the community has gained momentum over the past few months we've started to see some rather different uses of Pinterest and this example from GSD&M is pretty damn cool.

The agency has created a SXSW Survival Guide to help those attending the popular Austin conference make the most of their time and find out what to eat, drink, see and do around town. The thing that makes it really stand out is that the agency essentially put a front-end microsite on top of their Pinterest boards. Genius. Check out the site at sxsurvival.com.

Follow them: http://pinterest.com/gsdm/

Recommended by: @33Digital

The Perfect Palette

Best for: Weddings and colour inspiration

Whether you love it or hate it, Pinterest is a brilliant place for wedding planning and a modern day version of the traditional scrap book. If collecting colours, fabrics and all kinds of other ideas for your big day takes up a lot of your time on Pinterest, then there are SO many different users you can follow. Our favourite, and the most popular, has to be The Perfect Palette, an eye popping celebration of all things colour, weddings and smart ideas.

Follow them: pinterest.com/perfectpalette/

Sha Hwang

Best for: Design and architectural inspiration

A designer who pins a lot of the usual stuff you see on the site day in and day out, like his heroes and food snaps, but he's so popular because he also has a great collection of design pins, which are both clever and fascinating. Installation and Spaces and Architect and Heart are two of our all time favourite boards.

Follow him: pinterest.com/shashashasha/

Jane Wang

Best for: Variety and a huge mix of lovely pins

One of the most popular users on Pinterest, Jane Wang pins photos spanning pretty much every topic you can think of, from cupcakes to marine life. She also has great taste too, so she's a handy person to follow if you're just getting into this whole Pinterest lark.

Follow her: pinterest.com/janew/

Christine Martinez

Best for: A cute mix of fashion and interiors

Another VERY popular user, Christine Martinez pins lots of lovely, stylish and colourful content covering most of Pinterest's most popular categories, like interiors, fashion and cool stuff for the home.

Follow her: pinterest.com/chrisem/

Michael Litman

Best for: Information junkies

He's a friend of Shiny Shiny's and may not have the HUGE following of others on the list, but Michael's Infographics and Quotes board is pretty damn addictive if you're an information junkie.

Follow him: pinterest.com/litmanlive/

Shiny Shiny

Yep, this is obviously a really biased one and we've only JUST started using it, but as a dedicated fan of the site you should really go and follow us RIGHT NOW. We'll be pinning some of the best content we find from around the web, links to our features and sneak peek photos from all the best tech shows and events we attend. Oh, as well as lots of weird stuff we find too for our WTF board.

Follow us: pinterest.com/shinyshinytv/

You can also check out another Shiny Media page, Bridalwave, or some of the team's personal accounts, Becca Caddy (me, me) and Elisabeth Edvardsen.

WEBTHUMP! 29th February 2012

Hold on to your wizard robes, we're riding the magical flying unicorn into battle on the plains of Interwebtopia! A rich plunder awaits our marauding hordes. There's the mighty gnome tower of ThatisprobablyillegalinMalaysia, the verdant fields of Disgustingbutimustkeepwatching and the deep dark valleys of Howmanygirlsandhowmanycups.

All the best treasures of the rich and varied Interwebtopia shall be piled at the high altar at Castle hecklerspray and we can all rejoice as King Mof eats a baby.

EATS A BABY!

10. We don't often feature online stores on Webthump, mostly because we're rampant anti-capitalists sticking it to the system and being evicted from outside St Paul's. Or we've never earned enough to have disposable income, whatever. These fine products can be lovingly ogled by rich and financially inept alike. We are mighty impressed with the combination of hat and face fuzz, it makes us fancy we could impress ladies should they think us real, manly men. Like
lumberjacks.

9. Samuel L. Jackson. You've got to love him. Otherwise he'll kill you. And look really cool doing it. But even the ultimate coolness that is Mr these-snakes-are-proving-to-be-rather-inconvenient-on-this-long-haul-flight can't cope with children. Especially when they won't go to sleep. This has to be the finest idea ever committed to pixel. Not only is there a book that threatens insomniac children, but there is a video of it being read by Mr Used-to-actually-be-a-crack-addict-and-a-sort-of-terrorist. Scare your children to sleep so they can then soil the sheets with their nightmares of afros and firepower.

8. When not scaring the living snot out of children the Internet occasionally comes up with a saint. Someone who is willing to share their talents and hard work or willingly prance about like a performing monkey for your delight. Here's a lovely site where you can commission a song about absolutely anything. A good suggestion will net you a little ditty of your choosing, though the website name insists you wear pants. Go scrub up to filthy urchin!

7. Are you wearing underwear now? Good. Let us quickly move on from this and pretend that we didn't see your sad, underused genitals. Now then, how can we add a touch of class to procedings? How about some soothing music, the sort of tinny, elevator music that calms you right down and always sounds much better than the original song it's copying. With one simple download you can make your computer serenade you whenever you what for a program to load. Which will make working approximately 1 gazillion times more fun. To blow your mind with joy you can turn any progress bar into a cat that shits rainbows.

6. We're probably going to kill off Webthump if we show you this. It's part one of the Definitive List of the internet. If you ahven't seen ever single one of these websites, videos, memes and what nots you are a failed human being. You will be stripped of your right to visit the web and may even have your fingers cut off. So, quickly go look through all 99 odds and sods. Or you'll be trying to pick your nose with bloody stumps by teatime.

5. You're still reading this? Wow, well done! You must be getting tired though. Maybe you'd like some Govarian to perk you up? Or maybe some Tekturna would do the trick. Hang on, one of those is a drug, the other a fictional robot. Oh, it's happened again. Luckily there's a website out there to help you unmuddle you prescription drugs from you city smashing mega-droids. Thankfully we no longer need to worry when the doctor tells us to take two Johnny 5?s and call him in the morning.

4. A few Webthumps ago we featured a website that claimed hipster fashion as invented by your dad. Not your dad specifically, nobody knows for sure who your dad is. Now you can by the ultra-tight rayon towelling jumpsuit featured alongside a glorious pair of muttonchops. Plaid Stallions is a 70?s nostalgiafest told through pages of catalogues that truely makes us glad to not remember any of that decade. There's everything from toys to clothes and fashion and playthings. Ok, it's mostly clothes and toys, all of them crap, all of them ugly. Unless you're a hipster and think them cool because nobody likes them. Which is why we hate you.

3. Ha Ha Ha death. Yes, death is always a fine source of japery. Thanks to this infographic you can now chortle away at the sufferings and untimely demises of your fellow humans. We are always delight to hear tell of anyone who dies from the arse up thanks to a creatively concealed pepper spray can activating inside of him. There's also the side splitting one about the lifeguard who drowns at a party thrown by lifeguards to celebrate that nobody had died. If that doesn't put a smile on your grimmacing visage keep scrolling down, you can learn all about how Australians die. Which is always nice.

2. We love this guy. By day Adam is a pleasant, sensible Englishman. As soon as he's asleep he becomes Sleep Talkin' Man. STM is a rude, perverted, sick and twisted individual. Which makes it all totally hilarious to us. Let us share a quote from STM, "Happy Birthday! It's a dead puppy! … Now listen, you: you didn't specify a live puppy, you just said you wanted a fucking puppy! Jesus you're spoiled. Now go take it for a drag". The best part of this is that it's said o nthe eve of his daughter's birthday. We sincerely hope that there was a surprise for that little girl in the morning.

1. Didn't we promise you that Editor Mof would eat a baby? Here's how. It's a bit to horrific to explain, just click the link.

Alright then fluffers! Do you feel satisfied? Is your internet history now a bit richer for something other than all that porn? We do hope so, because we've had look and you scare us quite frankly. There is no way a woman and a honey badger should be made to do that to eachother. If you've got something for the next Webthump that doesn't break the laws of nature send us a link on Facebook or Twitter

jueves, 1 de marzo de 2012

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