February 2012
8 posts
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52 Murders: 13 - Programming Your Killbot →
52murders:
In previous chapters we’ve covered the preparation, assembly and control of your Killbot. In this section, we’ll explore the basic principles of programming and write a simple control script. Programming your Killbot has a number of advantages over manual control, as it allows the Killbot to…
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“I remember my first ever time in Camden’s Roundhouse when it re-opened after...”
– Menk, by John Doran - Ring the Alarm and not a Sound Is Dying | VICE
Anecdote of the week by some stretch.
(via treblekicker)
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A Wish For Jackie. Dave's Final Story.
For anyone who was at True Stories Told Live on Wednesday, this is for you. With Mum’s help, I’ve tracked down the last piece of fiction Dave wrote. Aside from whatever personal writing exists between him and Mum, if any words give some clue into his mind at those last moments, they’re here. You might consider this the epilogue to the story. Me, I consider this a fantastic piece...
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A Valentine's Haiku
Partner promises:
“A very special surprise.”
Agh! Groupon voucher.
Love is the Currency →
Brilliant.
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I dreamt about the Olympics last night.
In my dream, I am standing in the middle of the Circus. Sanyo and TDK lights flicker and die, to be replaced by banners and screen, screens upon screens and the screens show picture-in-picture-in-picture. The pictures are of brands and the brands talk of achievement, glory, and nationhood until those words are just sounds on the lips of the masses. In my dream, ribbons criss-cross and mate with...
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January 2012
13 posts
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“The Moon sets in a counterintuitive way. From this vantage it moves nearly...”
– The blog of a man who lives in space.
It has zero comments.
Nobody has anything to say to him.
In space, noone can hear you blog.
Sutton who?
pennysecrets:
Bury me a king, with war wounds, anthems and pomp. I’ll take it with me.
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Story: The Lowly Trinity
I.
Fore perched on the stool, leering at the ashtray of peanuts. The repurposed ashtray; a good detail to spot there. Yes, Holmes! The game’s afoot! Finally, the origin of the Peanut Killer would be uncovered. He hailed his own good fortune and cooed across to his friend:
-Hi, Chadwick! I see there’s trouble brewing. There she was, nestling against the bar across the way. Chadwick had noticed her,...
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Story: Squeak
“We’ll put some sello-tape down. That catches them. Don’t worry, it’ll be humane.” That’s what the tallest one said. He’s scared. He should be, because I am a mouse and I will fuck you up.
Don’t believe me? Leave out some crumbs for the night, see how long they last. I’ll have them, and your gerbil for dessert. Try and stop me; I’ll be out of there quicker than your wife at a paternity test,...
December 2011
11 posts
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Free Advertising Book Bonanza!
Real men do their Spring Cleaning in December. Realer men know that true cleaning is a letting go: re-evaluating what you need versus what you only needed, what could find a better life elsewhere. Toy Story taught us this much at least.
That’s why I took a load of clothes to the charity shop this morning. However, I don’t think they’ll find Predictably Irrational as saleable....
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Story: Snip, Snip
Knives cut. Knives cut, knives cut, they cut and slice and sever and there are two of them an inch from my neck. This is what I’m thinking. Here’s what I’m saying.
“I’m in your hands, mate.” The steel resting on the collar of my shirt, silver against white.
“How about a fade?” He’s brusque and cheery, market trader-style.
...
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Say Yes
So, say “yes.” In fact, say “yes” as often as you can. When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage to improvise a scene...
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Stories I Want To Write #1
That night, nobody on the bridge could have mistaken the scene for any but two things: a first date, or a last.
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I cannot bear to leave facebook, so I dismantle it...
I can’t believe that peer pressure would’ve been the only thing at the time. It can’t have been - there’s plenty of peer pressure, to do all sorts of things, in the corridors and house parties and spare moments of university. I successfully waved away every drug except one: the intoxicant checking of my profile, day after day, sometimes hour after hour, to see if I popped...
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The TaleTorrent, part 2
Featuring @jnicholasgeist’s Zombie apocalypse slash night-on-the-tiles (a transatlantic special!), @simonsanders’ pen-pal to PM saga, @mananatomorrow’s cyberphilic daughter, and my experiences of chatroom courtship. Of a sort. Thanks again go to the @kinura guys for putting this up.
Oh! And a message. It went wonderfully well, and many people asked if there would be another one...
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The TaleTorrent, part 1
scroll right, apparently. Part One features @BetaRish and @mndtrythnkng’s ultimate answer to Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?”, @katylindemann’s True Confessions Of A Teenage Weblogger, @documentally’s 999-style car crash reenactment, and @claireburge’s paean to the gods of Serendipity.
November 2011
8 posts
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Story: A Sort Of Charity Month
Oct 23rd, 2043. Wednesday.
Met up with Max for coffee today. The streets of Ladbroke Grove are still smoking after what happened last night, but society has resumed its pulse almost immediately. It’s funny how adaptable this world has made the people of today. Though, perhaps adaptable isn’t the word for a people that absorb every crisis and then carry on with their lives as they...
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I get on the replacement bus and
There’s something missing. The sun conspires with the Sunday to create a kind of easy peace, like a nurse: attentive, but not smothering. But that’s not it. The people don’t shift eyes and bodies for territory like bus people do, instead they blog and chatter in gentle sussurus… but this is not the cause either. The details count for nothing when there has been some...
The Taxi Driver Asks Me:
Have you been working late? Yes, I have.
Do you know the way home? I confess, I do not.
Have you lived in London long? Not long. Well, long in a way, but I know so little.
Why do you not ask me anything? Because I have forgotten to be curious.
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October 2011
11 posts
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TaleTorrent: a night of internet stories
So the internet is all about like connections and communications between people and stuff, she said, which means that on the internet there should be a more diverse collection of human stories than anywhere else because you’ve got all these individuals with their hopes and fears colliding with each other like atoms in a bell jar slamming and spinning and bisecting each other in sweaty...
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War Of The Words
…and yet, across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our planet with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells 1898
A war is coming. A war of intellect and talking and stuff, and everyone’s invited to pick up a premise and start shooting. On the 8th of December, 12 people all aged under 30...
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“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve...”
– Steven Paul Jobs, 1955-2011
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