Excellent article!

The UK riots: the psychology of looting

The shocking acts of looting may not be political, but they nevertheless say something about the beaten-down lives of the rioterser the buzz of mob mayhem from 1981'

Phone hacking!

Phone hacking: Hunt worried Murdoch 'was not told'

Jeremy Hunt has said News Corporation still has questions to answer about why Rupert Murdoch and other executives did not know about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World.

There're quite a number of people who don't believe the Murdochs' 'ignorant & betrayed' defence. I don't know really, I think it's not as clear-cut as that. I thnk in a big organisation, responsibility & judgement becomes diffused almost. It's too easy to 'choose to know as little as possible', or see dubious practices as 'the way things are done', or to decide to 'let someone else think about it because I've got more urgent things on my plate'. All those little sins of negligence that culminate in a significant wrong. I'm not surprised that something like this could happen, and I think that while the specific crime might not be the same, malpractices, large or small, are probably present in any big organisation. When in a large enough group, the crime of many becomes the crime of none.

Poor whale :(

The Loneliest Mystery of the Deep

For the last 12 years, a single solitary whale whose vocalizations match no known living species has been tracked across the Northeast Pacific. Its wanderings match no known migratory patterns of any living whale species. Its vocalizations have also subtly deepened over the years, indicating that the whale is maturing and ageing. And, during the entire 12 year span that it has been tracked, it has been calling out for contact from others of its own kind.

It has received no answer. Nor will it ever.

Billie Holiday, Audrey Tatou and Chanel No. 5

To be honest, I like the song more than the commercial.

The Animals

A friend introduced me to The Animals, and I'm sold!

DIY bungee jumping (aka my stomach turned itself inside out)

Stravinsky, Petrushka

I was wondering whether Petrushka's good to have swirling around in your head while you're trying to write a bigass paper, but then I realised that I was just getting distracted from work by the thought of the music possibly distracting me from work.

11,000 words to go!

Don't see the sorrow

Psychostick

I've been laughing my head off listening to this band my friend introduced to me.




And of course...

Pyramid apartment, Seattle + Cool video

This is absolutely the coolest-ever apartment I know.

Also, extremely cool stuff (trust me):

More Music - Terra Naomi

More and more and more and more music!

The trouble with waking up at midnight and not being able to go back to sleep... I end up looking for music and getting obsessed about music and getting frustrated that I have to be passive in the musical process because I can't reproduce the music or create more music or share the music with anyone in the middle of the night except through a very non-interactive blog.

Apart from Lana Del Rey (aka psychotic songstress to some of you), I've also been listening to Kathleen Battle.



Battle also sang one of the tunes in the soundtrack of House of the Flying Daggers:



I watched that movie recently, and to be honest, wasn't a great fan. Martial arts-deception-romance-tragedy movies have been done, and done better. And while I love the song, it's somehow disconcerting to have an English song in a Chinese period movie.

Slightly obsessed

Sad post

The soul wants what it wants, until it does not.

Not that my relationship has ended, far from it I hope. But I can relate to the strange sparseness when life changes and people are far away. Do I still remember how to be a girlfriend? I try, I try very hard indeed. But how was it like before? What was life like before blurry videos on Skype and offline messages on MSN? I'm not sure anymore.

Can we date?

The Morning News answers the age-old question!

Also, Service held in memory of Kent's giant carp. Gosh, I don't know if carp is good eating, but did no one look at that fish and think BIG FOOD?

WW2 on facebook

(courtesy of LSB)

(& Collegehumor. Yes...)

a modern adaptation of world war II for the american teenager.

A book I now REALLY want to read

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach

From one reviewer (accessible via above link):

I had just taken a shower and washed my hair and I sat down to read the chapter about how filthy astronauts become after weeks or months in space with no access to personal hygiene. Disintegrating underwear! Toxic BO! E coli bacteria that migrates INTO THEIR EYEBALLS. I'm not kidding, I had to get up and take another shower.

Funny + Sad

Wayward Alzheimer's patients foiled by fake bus stop

The idea emerged after the centre was forced to rely on police to retrieve patients who wanted to return to their homes and families but had forgotten that in many cases neither existed any longer.

Right now, this resonates. (& I'm too lazy to write my own post, so I'm quoting)

From CitizenoftheMonth:

I don’t enjoy being pushy. In fact I hate when circumstances force me to do that. It makes me reflect on other parts of my life, as if you are alone in this world, and no one really gives a shit, so you have to force your way into getting what you want. I don’t want to live my life that way.

No doubt LSB will be surprised I think that way. It's also the reason I hate networking. But dammit if I'm going to back down on this accommodation issue without telling them exactly what I think of them!

Link to another blog

The link

Title of this post: Hey, I'm a literal sort of person.

Favourite line: "there are things you can’t say. you don’t get to take back ten years, whatever your paltry reasons."

There are always things you can't say. Sometimes it's better not to say them, sometimes you don't have the right to say them. Sometimes, by saying them, you negate them. Silences are so complex and lonely. I think they are the hardest things in the world to maintain.

In other news:



(Just so you know, the reporter is apparently his girlfriend.)

If all World Cups end like this, football would have many more female fans.