Rav Casley Gera

A quick PSA

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:19:17 +0100

I reserve the right to reverse this at literally any moment, but: I’m going to stay off Tumblr for a while and experiment with ‘blogging’ on my Facebook page. Public-relevant posts will be, well, public, so feel free to click and hit the ‘Follow’ button to subscribe.

Whether or not I stick with this, some sort of post about my thinking and experiences is forthcoming.

"I phrase like a saxophone. If you start on one and end on four you’re in time, dude. Just..."

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:52:57 +0100

“I phrase like a saxophone. If you start on one and end on four you’re in time, dude. Just ‘cos all these people want two and four nowadays … hell, that ain’t real. Saxophones don’t come in on two and four.””

- Meat Loaf

My pal Laura just reminded me of this, my favourite shot from...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:19:00 +0100

My pal Laura just reminded me of this, my favourite shot from the Wolfgang Tillmans exhibition in London a couple of years ago.

YOLO indeed

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:49:32 +0100

YOLO indeed

Most of ESPN’s classic album covers are pretty nothingy,...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:24:00 +0100

Most of ESPN’s classic album covers are pretty nothingy, but this Ryan Lochte one verges on satire.

So you probably heard about this 'Facebook Likes reveal personal details' study but...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:20:48 +0000

So you probably heard about this 'Facebook Likes reveal personal details' study but...:

Possibly not the level of detail:

The researchers found, for example, that “Likes” for Austin, Texas; “Big Momma” movies; and the statement “Relationships Should Be Between Two People Not the Whole Universe” were among a set of 10 choices that, combined, predicted drug use.

Wait, what?

Meanwhile, “Likes” for swimming, chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream and “Sliding On Floors with Your Socks On” were part of a pattern predicting that a person didn’t use drugs.

So much for the stoner Ben & Jerry’s cliche.

"Growing up, we typically weren’t picked first for sports, but were first on the Quake II..."

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:18:54 +0000

“

Growing up, we typically weren’t picked first for sports, but were first on the Quake II server. Few people really understood our peculiar hobbies or how amazing it was to see “Hello, world” for the first time. Plenty of us got used to being ignored. Many of us were bullied. But what did we learn from it — empathy or hate?

We need to know the answer, because suddenly we are the cool kids. They’re making movies about us. We’re “rock stars.” Holy shit, the rest of the world is finally realizing how awesome we are. The geek has inherited the earth. And now that we’re the powerful ones, we need to remember: with great power comes great responsibility. It’s irresponsible to continue to act as though we are victims.

”

- Alexis Ohanian

What happens to the meek after they inherit the earth?

Maybe Twitter is better than RSS after all

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:43:00 +0000

Maybe Twitter is better than RSS after all:

Although I doubt it. Joshua Rothman in the New Yorker:

In announcing the closure of Reader, Google said that usage has been declining, and I can see why. Reader was made for absurdly ambitious readers. It’s designed for people like me—or, rather, for people like the person I used to be—that is, for people who really do intend to read everything. You might feel great when you reach Inbox Zero, but, believe me, it feels even better to reach Reader Zero: to scroll and scan until you’ve seen it all. Twitter, which has replaced Reader (and R.S.S.) for many people, works on a different principle. It’s not organized or completist. There are no illusions with Twitter. You can’t pretend, by “marking it read,” that you’ve read it all; you don’t think you’re going to cram “the world of ideas” into your Twitter stream. At the same time, you’re going to be surprised, provoked, informed. It’s a better model.

Photo

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 19:22:22 +0000

Are e-cigarettes safe?

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:06:50 +0000

Are e-cigarettes safe?:

They bloody better be: I’ve been chuffing on my new one pretty enthusiastically.

Actually, the FDA tried to provide a definitive answer in late 2009, when it tested 18 varieties of e-cigarette cartridges from a pair of manufacturers, NJoy and Smoking Everywhere. The study produced mixed results: it found TSNA carcinogens (cancer-causing particles) in five of the cartridges, and traces of diethylene glycol — a highly toxic substance — in one cartridge produced by Smoking Everywhere. Other substances that are thought to be linked to cancer were found in 13 of the cartridges, with only Smoking Everywhere’s “no nicotine” cartridges getting a complete pass…

An advocacy group called the “Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association” (CASAA) … calls the FDA’s original study “misleading,” noting that the FDA stated that e-cigarettes contain carcinogens “without bothering to mention that FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapy products contain equivalent quantities.” It claims that a gram of the liquid found inside e-cigarettes contains the equivalent carcinogens of a nicotine patch, and less than one percent of those found in a full-flavor Marlboro cigarette.

Photo

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 13:35:00 +0000

Sony RX1 review: shooting like a pro with a pocket-sized camera

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:46:42 +0000

Sony RX1 review: shooting like a pro with a pocket-sized camera:

One of the hardest parts of being a successful street photographer or photojournalist is stepping outside of your comfort zone and being willing to take the picture that others might not. That could mean sticking your neck out and entering some dangerous areas, or just slightly annoying some people around you that might not want to be a part of your photographic vision.

…which is why I take so few pictures with people in them.

A little bit more raving about Friends

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:15:09 +0000

A little bit more raving about Friends:

Vulture’s ‘Sitcom Smackdown’ is proving thoroughly enjoyable:

There is very little bite to Friends; the characters snip and snipe, but gently, and they always make up by the end of the episode. There would never be a need for them to go to therapy together. It’s this preference for amiability that can bug people: It’s a vanilla sitcom. In fact, praising Friends feels a lot like praising vanilla ice cream— something that I don’t do because it’s banal and chocolate is better. But at the same time, I can’t deny that a really great vanilla ice cream is the platonic ideal. Whatever else we may like or want in our ice cream, vanilla is the purest expression of the form — and so it is with Friends.

Exactly. Friends isn’t edgy or interesting, nor was it really particularly ephochal, its status as an emblem of 90s young-professional gentrification notwithstanding. It was just tremendously good.

"I am inclined to think there are three kinds of people in the world… those who prefer Friends,..."

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:07:17 +0000

“I am inclined to think there are three kinds of people in the world… those who prefer Friends, those who prefer Seinfeld, and those who prefer Seinfeld and want to tell you that’s because Friends is hackneyed and lame and therefore contemptible. It is those people to whom I have pledged my eternal eye-roll and the energy to always, always yell at them loudly at bars.”

- Willa Paskin

Even when Alexis Petredis overdoes it he is effortfully entertaining

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:41:23 +0000

Even when Alexis Petredis overdoes it he is effortfully entertaining:

For example, while discussing the new David Bowie album:

The present writer spent an alternately illuminating and rather trying few hours attempting to unpick the lyrics of I’d Rather Be High. Perhaps the mention of “Clare and Lady Manners” drinking and gossiping about politics during wartime was a reference to The Coterie, the 1910s’ equivalent of the subsequent decade’s bright young things – its male membership ultimately decimated in the trenches – in which Lady Diana Manners played a leading role. Or perhaps it was a reference to Officers and Gentlemen, the second novel in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy, in which a character based on Lady Diana Cooper (nee Manners) attempts to pull strings for Ivor Clare, a character facing desertion charges. That seems more likely – amid the subsequent lyrical references to the futility of conflict, there’s a mention of Egypt, where Officers and Gentlemen is partially set – in which case, the song’s overall message might be summarised as: Waugh – huh! – what is it good for? But what does Officers and Gentlemen – or, for that matter, The Coterie – have to do with the opening line’s reference to Vladimir Nabokov’s life in 1920s and 30s Berlin?

Pausing only to wonder whether there’s a certain cultural richness here that you just don’t find in, say, the oeuvre of the Vaccines, or whether Bowie has earned himself the exalted position where one takes for cultural richness the kind of thing you’d ordinarily dismiss as agonising pretention – and to note that either is deeply impressive – the present writer gave up and decided to just enjoy the music.

"Why, these kids are nothing but a bunch of ghoulishly entitled, comically solipsistic, sexually..."

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:30:52 +0000

“Why, these kids are nothing but a bunch of ghoulishly entitled, comically solipsistic, sexually exhibitionistic yet emotionally catatonic automatons, outwardly flip but utterly joyless in their grinding pursuit of self-interest! Y’don’t say?”

- Scott Brown (ha!) on Broadway’s Really Really

"In black music, we’ve got so many leaps and bounds to make with acceptance and tolerance in..."

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:32:35 +0000

“

In black music, we’ve got so many leaps and bounds to make with acceptance and tolerance in regard to that issue. It reflects something just ingrained, you know.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family—not even my mother—who I could look to and be like, “I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.” So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

It’s tempting to give those views and words—that ignorance—more attention than they deserve. Very tempting.

”

- Frank Ocean might be the most important gay man* in the world right now.

*If that’s even what he is.

Matt Haughey on Facebook's ongoing acquaintance problem

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:54:54 +0000

Matt Haughey on Facebook's ongoing acquaintance problem:

Touching base with an old acquaintance is all about catching up. If I haven’t talked to someone in 20 years, the level of detail I’d like to see is what you typically see in letters from a family that accompany their holiday cards. Let me see a photo, how many kids do you have, what trips did you recently take, where are you working, how is everyone doing, and that’s about all I want to know for the next 20 years. But on Facebook I only have the option of adding an old acquaintance as a friend or denying them, and then I am met with daily updates on their daughter’s ballet classes, photos from their workplace, and who they think should win the big game tonight, forever. I kind of wish I could just see a person’s About page for five minutes and move on, as I don’t need the daily detail/updates of every old high school buddy’s life. Facebook doesn’t offer much granularity in this regard, without moving all your friends into complex groups with different levels of permissions.

If Facebook fails or falls out of common use in the next few years - big ‘if’ - this will be why. The fact that they haven’t got that much smarter at letting acquaintances fade into the background is the clearest source of the sense they care more about recruiting the next billion customers than about continuing to improve their core service.

"He introduced the skinny jeans to the rap scene Then he wore a fucking skirt on the video screen..."

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:20:16 +0000

“He introduced the skinny jeans to the rap scene
Then he wore a fucking skirt on the video screen
Then he wore it again at a memorial
I can’t pretend that this shit ain’t deplorable
I bet this nigga thinkin’ he looking adorable
Your music’s good but your ego is horrible”

- Lord Jamar on Kanye West

As vile as this is, the rhymes are rather precious.

I would like one of these. Right now, please.

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:47:01 +0000

I would like one of these.

Right now, please.