Integration, integration, integration.
That was the theme of a Yahoo press lunch Tuesday in which media executives unveiled their plans to develop “brand universes” that piece together diverse Yahoo content into sites built around particular television shows, video games, movies, and entertainment personalities.
A Paris Hilton site, for example, would include a discussion group, a Flickr photo-sharing group, del.icio.us bookmarking tags, search result links, and Yahoo Answer results—all Yahoo products usually found in different places around the Internet, all featuring Paris Hilton.
The concept is part of what Yahoo execs say are to become major areas of focus for the company this year: bringing together disparate Yahoo-owned content and attracting younger users.
Apparently, Yahoo plans to gear its future around a youthful audience that wants to interact with and learn about one thing, in one place (and apparently loves cheesy celebrities).
The web giant has found itself in a crowded space in its efforts to be everywhere at once. Yahoo’s recent earnings were slightly above expectations, and the company is just now rolling out its delayed new search advertising technology that is expected to help it better compete with rival Google (see Yahoo Sees New Hope in Ad System).
RED HERRING Yahoo’s Celebrity Universe
Wednesday 31 January 2007
The New Yorker : Google maps the Universe
Every weekday, a truck pulls up to the Cecil H. Green Library, on the campus of Stanford University, and collects at least a thousand books, which are taken to an undisclosed location and scanned, page by page, into an enormous database being created by Google. The company is also retrieving books from libraries at several other leading universities, including Harvard and Oxford, as well as the New York Public Library. At the University of Michigan, Google’s original partner in Google Book Search, tens of thousands of books are processed each week on the company’s custom-made scanning equipment.
Google intends to scan every book ever published, and to make the full texts searchable, in the same way that Web sites can be searched on the company’s engine at google.com. At the books site, which is up and running in a beta (or testing) version, at books.google.com, you can enter a word or phrase—say, Ahab and whale—and the search returns a list of works in which the terms appear, in this case nearly eight hundred titles, including numerous editions of Herman Melville’s novel. Clicking on “Moby-Dick, or The Whale” calls up Chapter 28, in which Ahab is introduced. You can scroll through the chapter, search for other terms that appear in the book, and compare it with other editions. Google won’t say how many books are in its database, but the site’s value as a research tool is apparent; on it you can find a history of Urdu newspapers, an 1892 edition of Jane Austen’s letters, several guides to writing haiku, and a Harvard alumni directory from 1919.
No one really knows how many books there are. The most volumes listed in any catalogue is thirty-two million, the number in WorldCat, a database of titles from more than twenty-five thousand libraries around the world. Google aims to scan at least that many. “We think that we can do it all inside of ten years,” Marissa Mayer, a vice-president at Google who is in charge of the books project, said recently, at the company’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California. “It’s mind-boggling to me, how close it is. I think of Google Books as our moon shot.”
The New Yorker : fact : content
Google intends to scan every book ever published, and to make the full texts searchable, in the same way that Web sites can be searched on the company’s engine at google.com. At the books site, which is up and running in a beta (or testing) version, at books.google.com, you can enter a word or phrase—say, Ahab and whale—and the search returns a list of works in which the terms appear, in this case nearly eight hundred titles, including numerous editions of Herman Melville’s novel. Clicking on “Moby-Dick, or The Whale” calls up Chapter 28, in which Ahab is introduced. You can scroll through the chapter, search for other terms that appear in the book, and compare it with other editions. Google won’t say how many books are in its database, but the site’s value as a research tool is apparent; on it you can find a history of Urdu newspapers, an 1892 edition of Jane Austen’s letters, several guides to writing haiku, and a Harvard alumni directory from 1919.
No one really knows how many books there are. The most volumes listed in any catalogue is thirty-two million, the number in WorldCat, a database of titles from more than twenty-five thousand libraries around the world. Google aims to scan at least that many. “We think that we can do it all inside of ten years,” Marissa Mayer, a vice-president at Google who is in charge of the books project, said recently, at the company’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California. “It’s mind-boggling to me, how close it is. I think of Google Books as our moon shot.”
The New Yorker : fact : content
Office 2007, the most annoying computer upgrade since Windows 95. - By Paul Boutin - Slate Magazine
Even if you missed Bill Gates on The Daily Show Monday night, you probably know what he talked about. Today is the launch day for Windows Vista, so Gates and Jon Stewart spent half the time gabbing about Microsoft's new OS and the other half joking about Gates' password and interactive television. Not once did they mention the other Microsoft product that's debuting today, Office 2007. That's no accident. Why isn't Gates stumping for you to buy Office again? Because he doesn't have to.
Office is Microsoft's real monopoly. Try to find a business, large or small, that doesn't rely on some combination of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Watch Apple's TV ads and count how often they remind you—Macs run Microsoft Office, too! Today's Macs can actually boot Windows, but it's Office that makes the sale.
The real proof is the price. You can upgrade your PC from Windows XP to Vista for as little as $100. The cheapest Office 2007 suite goes for $150. It's got Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Did you want Outlook? That'll be another hundred bucks for an upgrade package. (You can upgrade to Vista and Office 2007 separately—neither product requires the other.)
After playing around with Vista and Office for the last few weeks, I can condense my thoughts into one sentence. Upgrading to Vista is mostly painless but not necessary, while upgrading to Office 2007 is painful but inevitable. Vista goes out of its way to smooth your transition from Windows XP. As I wrote earlier this month, Vista's installer let me know which applications might not run and what gadgets it doesn't support yet. If I wait a few weeks for new device drivers, I'll have no incompatibilities at all. Office 2007, on the other hand, seems to go out of its way to make your transition as difficult as possible. By default, the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files you create won't open for people who have older versions of the software. Sure, you can save in "Office 97—Office 2003" format, but you'll lose some of your formatting.
Microsoft does offer a conversion program for people with the old Office. It works only as far back as Office 2000, though, and it doesn't work at all on Macs. (Apple users won't get a compatible Office upgrade for another year or so.) My home office has two computers, a Mac with Office 2004 and a PC running Office 97. I've never needed to upgrade for work. Unless I buy the new Office, I'll be out of luck when I get files from editors and publicists who don't save in the old format.
Upgrading software is always risky. My fingers and toes twitch from the time I click OK until I've convinced myself everything's working. Will it break my computer? Will it work right? I winced and held my breath throughout the Vista installation, then forgot the pain and anxiety quickly when I saw Vista worked mostly like a tidied-up version of XP.
I can't say the same for Office. First reaction: They changed everything! Office 2007 deletes the old toolbars and menus at the top of the screen and replaces them with the Ribbon, an overlapping set of tabs that regroups each application's functions into graphical tools rather than text-driven menus. Still photos don't do the Ribbon justice. Watch this movie to see it in action. Even better, download a free 60-day trial of Office 2007—don't worry, it won't disable your existing Office software.
The Ribbon mimics the tabbed interfaces of the Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 browsers. It looks cool, but it took me most of five minutes to find, set, and test the Track Changes options my editor expects. As my deadline loomed, I panicked when I couldn't find the option to save in Office 2003 format. It was hiding behind a new jewellike logo in the upper left corner called the Office Button.
Microsoft's reviewer's guide makes clear that all of the keystroke commands you know and love are still here. That will assuage speed-typing accountants who might otherwise refuse to switch. But as nice as the Ribbon and other user-interface upgrades are, it's only natural that most users will react with annoyance rather than wonder when they find out they can't switch to some kind of "Classic mode" in order to finish a write-up that was due 20 minutes ago (like this one).
Initially, I didn't see the point of the UI's tabs, thumbnails, and rounded edges. Was Microsoft simply trying to embrace the Web 2.0 aesthetic? I e-mailed PC World editor Harry McCracken to ask if I was missing something. McCracken praised the Ribbon as forward-looking, the sort of user interface you'd design from scratch for late-model PCs. "The old Office UI dated back to the days when just rendering a drop-down menu used considerable computing power," he told me. "The new Office UI usually shows things rather than explaining them."
He's right. The Ribbon uses thumbnail images rather than text labels in most places. Elsewhere on the screen, ghostlike menus fade in and out as I work, offering graphical menus—not text lists—of the tools (fonts, styles, highlighting) I might want to apply. Office 2007 is still driving me nuts because I don't know where things went. But now I can see where it's going, and I can see the future me happily pecking away in Word 2007. But that leaves me wondering: If they really wanted to redesign Office from scratch, why not do like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and offer a full-featured Web-based version? I'd be happy with that right now, not in some indefinite future.
Office 2007 will delight the next generation of word processors and infuriate old fogeys. In that way, it reminds me less of its release partner, the soothing, seductive Vista, than of Windows 95—a radical overhaul that left nonbuyers behind and annoyed everyone who did buy it. Curse it now, but you'll eventually upgrade to join the rest of the human race. And you'll be glad you did. Someday.
Office 2007, the most annoying computer upgrade since Windows 95. - By Paul Boutin - Slate Magazine
Office is Microsoft's real monopoly. Try to find a business, large or small, that doesn't rely on some combination of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Watch Apple's TV ads and count how often they remind you—Macs run Microsoft Office, too! Today's Macs can actually boot Windows, but it's Office that makes the sale.
The real proof is the price. You can upgrade your PC from Windows XP to Vista for as little as $100. The cheapest Office 2007 suite goes for $150. It's got Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Did you want Outlook? That'll be another hundred bucks for an upgrade package. (You can upgrade to Vista and Office 2007 separately—neither product requires the other.)
After playing around with Vista and Office for the last few weeks, I can condense my thoughts into one sentence. Upgrading to Vista is mostly painless but not necessary, while upgrading to Office 2007 is painful but inevitable. Vista goes out of its way to smooth your transition from Windows XP. As I wrote earlier this month, Vista's installer let me know which applications might not run and what gadgets it doesn't support yet. If I wait a few weeks for new device drivers, I'll have no incompatibilities at all. Office 2007, on the other hand, seems to go out of its way to make your transition as difficult as possible. By default, the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files you create won't open for people who have older versions of the software. Sure, you can save in "Office 97—Office 2003" format, but you'll lose some of your formatting.
Microsoft does offer a conversion program for people with the old Office. It works only as far back as Office 2000, though, and it doesn't work at all on Macs. (Apple users won't get a compatible Office upgrade for another year or so.) My home office has two computers, a Mac with Office 2004 and a PC running Office 97. I've never needed to upgrade for work. Unless I buy the new Office, I'll be out of luck when I get files from editors and publicists who don't save in the old format.
Upgrading software is always risky. My fingers and toes twitch from the time I click OK until I've convinced myself everything's working. Will it break my computer? Will it work right? I winced and held my breath throughout the Vista installation, then forgot the pain and anxiety quickly when I saw Vista worked mostly like a tidied-up version of XP.
I can't say the same for Office. First reaction: They changed everything! Office 2007 deletes the old toolbars and menus at the top of the screen and replaces them with the Ribbon, an overlapping set of tabs that regroups each application's functions into graphical tools rather than text-driven menus. Still photos don't do the Ribbon justice. Watch this movie to see it in action. Even better, download a free 60-day trial of Office 2007—don't worry, it won't disable your existing Office software.
The Ribbon mimics the tabbed interfaces of the Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 browsers. It looks cool, but it took me most of five minutes to find, set, and test the Track Changes options my editor expects. As my deadline loomed, I panicked when I couldn't find the option to save in Office 2003 format. It was hiding behind a new jewellike logo in the upper left corner called the Office Button.
Microsoft's reviewer's guide makes clear that all of the keystroke commands you know and love are still here. That will assuage speed-typing accountants who might otherwise refuse to switch. But as nice as the Ribbon and other user-interface upgrades are, it's only natural that most users will react with annoyance rather than wonder when they find out they can't switch to some kind of "Classic mode" in order to finish a write-up that was due 20 minutes ago (like this one).
Initially, I didn't see the point of the UI's tabs, thumbnails, and rounded edges. Was Microsoft simply trying to embrace the Web 2.0 aesthetic? I e-mailed PC World editor Harry McCracken to ask if I was missing something. McCracken praised the Ribbon as forward-looking, the sort of user interface you'd design from scratch for late-model PCs. "The old Office UI dated back to the days when just rendering a drop-down menu used considerable computing power," he told me. "The new Office UI usually shows things rather than explaining them."
He's right. The Ribbon uses thumbnail images rather than text labels in most places. Elsewhere on the screen, ghostlike menus fade in and out as I work, offering graphical menus—not text lists—of the tools (fonts, styles, highlighting) I might want to apply. Office 2007 is still driving me nuts because I don't know where things went. But now I can see where it's going, and I can see the future me happily pecking away in Word 2007. But that leaves me wondering: If they really wanted to redesign Office from scratch, why not do like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and offer a full-featured Web-based version? I'd be happy with that right now, not in some indefinite future.
Office 2007 will delight the next generation of word processors and infuriate old fogeys. In that way, it reminds me less of its release partner, the soothing, seductive Vista, than of Windows 95—a radical overhaul that left nonbuyers behind and annoyed everyone who did buy it. Curse it now, but you'll eventually upgrade to join the rest of the human race. And you'll be glad you did. Someday.
Office 2007, the most annoying computer upgrade since Windows 95. - By Paul Boutin - Slate Magazine
Tuesday 30 January 2007
MARK ZUCKERBERG: The principles of social networks - Valleywag
When is cheating innovative collaboration?
--
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, told what he called a random story -- it's a perfect tale for the medium and the age -- about empowering collaboration. His sophomore year at Harvard, while starting his company, he failed to study at all for one of his courses; he didn't even go to class.
So days before the final, he pulled all the pictures he needed to analyze off the web and put them up on a page online with boxes underneath. He emailed the class and said he'd put up a study guide. Sure enough, in moments, the students filled in their essential knowledge on the art. Zuckerberg got an A. [Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the college social network, was on a panel at Davos, the elite conference in the Swiss Alps.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: The principles of social networks - Valleywag
--
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, told what he called a random story -- it's a perfect tale for the medium and the age -- about empowering collaboration. His sophomore year at Harvard, while starting his company, he failed to study at all for one of his courses; he didn't even go to class.
So days before the final, he pulled all the pictures he needed to analyze off the web and put them up on a page online with boxes underneath. He emailed the class and said he'd put up a study guide. Sure enough, in moments, the students filled in their essential knowledge on the art. Zuckerberg got an A. [Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the college social network, was on a panel at Davos, the elite conference in the Swiss Alps.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: The principles of social networks - Valleywag
Telegraph | Arts | Art sales: Sophia Loren's slice of Bacon
How surreal - Sophia Loren and Francis Bacon, together a somewhat abstract combination.
Both equally splendid.
--
Art sales: Sophia Loren's slice of Bacon
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 30/01/2007
Colin Gleadell reports on the New York sales
Francis Bacon in St IvesActress Sophia Loren is about to make as big an impact on the art market as she did on the silver screen: next week she will sell Francis Bacon's 1956 painting Study for Portrait II, from his series of pictures influenced by Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X.
Contemporary treasure: Francis Bacon's Study for Portrait II
--
Art sales: Sophia Loren's slice of Bacon
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 30/01/2007
Colin Gleadell reports on the New York sales
Francis Bacon in St IvesActress Sophia Loren is about to make as big an impact on the art market as she did on the silver screen: next week she will sell Francis Bacon's 1956 painting Study for Portrait II, from his series of pictures influenced by Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X.
Contemporary treasure: Francis Bacon's Study for Portrait II
The painting is among more than £400 million of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art that goes on view in London tomorrow before being auctioned next week, and is estimated to sell for £12 million.
Sadly for Christie's, Loren had declined to be named, but my research unearthed her identity. What a field day the publicity department could have had.
Loren's ownership is inextricably tied up with the fascinating but little-known collection of her husband Carlo Ponti, the producer of Doctor Zhivago and Blow Up, who died just days after Christie's announced the sale earlier this month.
Christie's has described the picture as "the most important work from Bacon's 'Pope' series to appear on the market".
Telegraph Arts Art sales: Sophia Loren's slice of Bacon
do i press it or not ...?
Just that kind of day regards what best to do business/career-wise; taken whilst at standstill earlier today - no, the button is not standard fitment on MX5's(!) - it's an apt Xmas present from Helen ...
Be your own career coach - Lifehacker
When you're stuck on a problem - like, oh, "What the hell am I doing with my life?" - the best adviser you can find might be sitting right in your chair. Career advice columnist Penelope Trunk lists four ways you can be your very own career coach. The first one will make you feel like you've lost your marbles, but the feeling might be worth it:
Talk to an imaginary coach. If you pretend you're talking to someone else then you have to explain what you're doing in much more detail than if you were mulling it over in your head. The result is similar to writing down a problem - more clarity about the problem leads to more clarity about the solution.
Being a "verbal processor," I'm embarrassed to admit how much I talk to myself (behind my office door, alone) about stuff I need to suss out, and it does help boil things down. The rest of the post is great reading for anyone on a job hunt or pitching a client.
Be your own career coach - Lifehacker
Talk to an imaginary coach. If you pretend you're talking to someone else then you have to explain what you're doing in much more detail than if you were mulling it over in your head. The result is similar to writing down a problem - more clarity about the problem leads to more clarity about the solution.
Being a "verbal processor," I'm embarrassed to admit how much I talk to myself (behind my office door, alone) about stuff I need to suss out, and it does help boil things down. The rest of the post is great reading for anyone on a job hunt or pitching a client.
Be your own career coach - Lifehacker
Monday 29 January 2007
WIRED Blogs: Autopia
Talking Billboards Get Personal With Mini Cooper DriversTopic: Ads & Marketing,Safety
We've posted about the perils of driving while distracted, so you can imagine our delight when we heard what some of the San Franciscans we rub hubcaps with will now be subjected to. Starting today, says the New York Times [registration required], Mini USA will be serving up personalized messages to Mini Cooper owners on "talking billboards."
We've posted about the perils of driving while distracted, so you can imagine our delight when we heard what some of the San Franciscans we rub hubcaps with will now be subjected to. Starting today, says the New York Times [registration required], Mini USA will be serving up personalized messages to Mini Cooper owners on "talking billboards."
According to the Times:
The enthusiastic guinea pigs for the Mini experiment will be more than a thousand Mini owners in New York, Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco who have signed up for what the company calls "an ever-changing array of unique, personal, playful, and unexpected messages."
The boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: "Mary, moving at the speed of justice," if Mary is a lawyer, or "Mike, the special of the day is speed," if Mike is a chef.
Of course, if Mike is an idiot — e.g., the kind of idiot who would sign up for such a thing — he may find this message so compelling that he inadvertently parks his Mini Cooper in your glove compartment.
WIRED Blogs: Autopia
Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » Record Companies Boxed In By Their Own Rhetoric
Reports are popping up all over that the major record companies are cautiously gearing up to sell music in MP3 format, without any DRM (anti-copying) technology. This was the buzz at the recent Midem conference, according to a New York Times story.
The record industry has worked for years to frame the DRM issue, with considerable success. Mainstream thinking about DRM is now so mired in the industry’s framing that the industry itself will have a hard time explaining and justifying its new course.
The Times story is a perfect example. The headline is “Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Music”, and the article begins like this:
As even digital music revenue growth falters because of rampant file-sharing by consumers, the major record labels are moving closer to releasing music on the Internet with no copying restrictions — a step they once vowed never to take.
Executives of several technology companies meeting here at Midem, the annual global trade fair for the music industry, said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.
But of course the industry won’t sell music “with no copying restrictions” or “unrestricted”. The mother of all copying restrictions — copyright law — will still apply and will still restrict what people can do with the music files. I can understand leaving out a qualifier in the headline, where space is short. But in a 500-word article, surely a few words could have been spared for this basic point.
Why did the Times (and many commentators) mistake MP3 for “unrestricted”? Because the industry has created a conventional wisdom that (1) MP3 = lawless copying, (2) copyright is a dead letter unless backed by DRM, and (3) DRM successfully reduces copying. If you believe these things, then the fact that copyright still applies to MP3s is not even worth mentioning.
The industry will find these views particularly inconvenient when it is ready to sell MP3s. Having long argued that customers can’t be trusted with MP3s, the industry will have to ask the same customers to use MP3s responsibly. Having argued that DRM is necessary to its business — to the point of asking Congress for DRM mandates — it will now have to ask artists and investors to accept DRM-free sales.
All of this will make the industry’s wrong turn toward DRM look even worse than it already does. Had the industry embraced the Internet early and added MP3 sales to its already DRM-free CDA (Compact Disc Audio format) sales, they would not have reached this sad point. Now, they have to overcome history, their own pride, and years of their own rhetoric.
Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » Record Companies Boxed In By Their Own Rhetoric
The record industry has worked for years to frame the DRM issue, with considerable success. Mainstream thinking about DRM is now so mired in the industry’s framing that the industry itself will have a hard time explaining and justifying its new course.
The Times story is a perfect example. The headline is “Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Music”, and the article begins like this:
As even digital music revenue growth falters because of rampant file-sharing by consumers, the major record labels are moving closer to releasing music on the Internet with no copying restrictions — a step they once vowed never to take.
Executives of several technology companies meeting here at Midem, the annual global trade fair for the music industry, said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.
But of course the industry won’t sell music “with no copying restrictions” or “unrestricted”. The mother of all copying restrictions — copyright law — will still apply and will still restrict what people can do with the music files. I can understand leaving out a qualifier in the headline, where space is short. But in a 500-word article, surely a few words could have been spared for this basic point.
Why did the Times (and many commentators) mistake MP3 for “unrestricted”? Because the industry has created a conventional wisdom that (1) MP3 = lawless copying, (2) copyright is a dead letter unless backed by DRM, and (3) DRM successfully reduces copying. If you believe these things, then the fact that copyright still applies to MP3s is not even worth mentioning.
The industry will find these views particularly inconvenient when it is ready to sell MP3s. Having long argued that customers can’t be trusted with MP3s, the industry will have to ask the same customers to use MP3s responsibly. Having argued that DRM is necessary to its business — to the point of asking Congress for DRM mandates — it will now have to ask artists and investors to accept DRM-free sales.
All of this will make the industry’s wrong turn toward DRM look even worse than it already does. Had the industry embraced the Internet early and added MP3 sales to its already DRM-free CDA (Compact Disc Audio format) sales, they would not have reached this sad point. Now, they have to overcome history, their own pride, and years of their own rhetoric.
Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » Record Companies Boxed In By Their Own Rhetoric
Wired News: Hacking the Human Life Span
Four years ago, Stuart Cracraft became a father at age 45. As his twin daughters grow up, he worries that his body and mind might not be able to keep up.
Having recently witnessed his mother's death following a devastating eight-year illness, Cracraft, an IT worker, decided he wanted to try and spare his own daughters such an experience with him.
So he changed his diet, cutting back on sugars and adding plenty of egg protein and fish. He started drinking tea and taking fish-oil supplements and multivitamins. It wasn't exactly a radical regimen, but he was willing to go further.
After three years researching a compound found in red wine called resveratrol, which has been shown to extend life and reduce disease in lab animals, he began taking 50 milligrams a day.
"It seems it's more powerful than all the antioxidants put together," Cracraft says. "You get all that in one pill, and it's too good to pass up."
Hope for a fountain of youth may spring eternal, but these days it is surprisingly active among the ranks of highly educated and even scientifically trained professionals -- despite what experts say is a lack of compelling clinical evidence for any particular treatment.
Inventor and artificial intelligence theorist Ray Kurzweil has promoted life extension for years, and revisited the theme in his latest books, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and The Singularity Is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel recently donated $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation, the longevity research organization created by Aubrey de Grey, a computer programmer who claims that humans could live for 1,000 years.
Another resveratrol devotee and computer programmer who asked to remain anonymous has gone even further and embraced calorie restriction -- another method unproven in humans that's associated with radical life extension.
"Engineers accept that anyone who understands a system also has the power to change it," he says. "A real engineer refuses to accept bugs in any code, whether his own, his tools, his operating system or his own body."
Resveratrol, which has protected lab animals from heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, seized the public imagination in November when two prominent studies showed that mice taking the compound lived longer and ran farther than mice not taking it. Still, scientists say it's far from certain that it will extend human life.
Waiting for the compound to be tested in humans, however, is not an option at his age, Cracraft says. He expects it will extend human life by about 30 percent, so waiting 10 years could cost him three. Altogether, Cracraft says, "I could get 10 more years."
Dominique Vocat, a 32-year-old IT worker in Basel, Switzerland, is even more optimistic. He figures resveratrol will add a few extra years to his life -- and in the meantime, scientists will develop serious life extension technologies. Then he might live to 200.
"Computer geeks think technology can fix anything," says Steven Austad, a cellular biologist and longevity researcher at the University of Texas. "People in the research community tend to think of mice as small little furry humans with long tails, but they're not. We don't know what it will do."
Clinical studies on resveratrol's human effects are only now beginning. Scientists warn that people taking the compound are conducting an uncontrolled experiment on themselves -- one that could leave them empty-handed or, even worse, make them sick.
History is littered with people who gamble on unproven treatments with unexpected problems.
"Fen-phen and ephedra are classic examples of substances that people thought were useful, and were administered by physicians before proper clinical evaluation," says S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois epidemiologist and longevity expert. "It's the exact same story with human growth hormone: The science came out, wasn't evaluated, and subsequently we discovered problems."
Fen-phen was a popular diet aid until studies showed it could cause sometimes-fatal heart problems and high blood pressure. Ephedra was a popular stimulant until strokes and sudden deaths caused public alarm. The FDA eventually banned it. Human growth hormone -- used off-label to reduce fat and increase energy -- has been linked to diabetes and nerve pain.
Story continued on Page 2 »
Wired News: Hacking the Human Life Span
Having recently witnessed his mother's death following a devastating eight-year illness, Cracraft, an IT worker, decided he wanted to try and spare his own daughters such an experience with him.
So he changed his diet, cutting back on sugars and adding plenty of egg protein and fish. He started drinking tea and taking fish-oil supplements and multivitamins. It wasn't exactly a radical regimen, but he was willing to go further.
After three years researching a compound found in red wine called resveratrol, which has been shown to extend life and reduce disease in lab animals, he began taking 50 milligrams a day.
"It seems it's more powerful than all the antioxidants put together," Cracraft says. "You get all that in one pill, and it's too good to pass up."
Hope for a fountain of youth may spring eternal, but these days it is surprisingly active among the ranks of highly educated and even scientifically trained professionals -- despite what experts say is a lack of compelling clinical evidence for any particular treatment.
Inventor and artificial intelligence theorist Ray Kurzweil has promoted life extension for years, and revisited the theme in his latest books, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever and The Singularity Is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel recently donated $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation, the longevity research organization created by Aubrey de Grey, a computer programmer who claims that humans could live for 1,000 years.
Another resveratrol devotee and computer programmer who asked to remain anonymous has gone even further and embraced calorie restriction -- another method unproven in humans that's associated with radical life extension.
"Engineers accept that anyone who understands a system also has the power to change it," he says. "A real engineer refuses to accept bugs in any code, whether his own, his tools, his operating system or his own body."
Resveratrol, which has protected lab animals from heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, seized the public imagination in November when two prominent studies showed that mice taking the compound lived longer and ran farther than mice not taking it. Still, scientists say it's far from certain that it will extend human life.
Waiting for the compound to be tested in humans, however, is not an option at his age, Cracraft says. He expects it will extend human life by about 30 percent, so waiting 10 years could cost him three. Altogether, Cracraft says, "I could get 10 more years."
Dominique Vocat, a 32-year-old IT worker in Basel, Switzerland, is even more optimistic. He figures resveratrol will add a few extra years to his life -- and in the meantime, scientists will develop serious life extension technologies. Then he might live to 200.
"Computer geeks think technology can fix anything," says Steven Austad, a cellular biologist and longevity researcher at the University of Texas. "People in the research community tend to think of mice as small little furry humans with long tails, but they're not. We don't know what it will do."
Clinical studies on resveratrol's human effects are only now beginning. Scientists warn that people taking the compound are conducting an uncontrolled experiment on themselves -- one that could leave them empty-handed or, even worse, make them sick.
History is littered with people who gamble on unproven treatments with unexpected problems.
"Fen-phen and ephedra are classic examples of substances that people thought were useful, and were administered by physicians before proper clinical evaluation," says S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois epidemiologist and longevity expert. "It's the exact same story with human growth hormone: The science came out, wasn't evaluated, and subsequently we discovered problems."
Fen-phen was a popular diet aid until studies showed it could cause sometimes-fatal heart problems and high blood pressure. Ephedra was a popular stimulant until strokes and sudden deaths caused public alarm. The FDA eventually banned it. Human growth hormone -- used off-label to reduce fat and increase energy -- has been linked to diabetes and nerve pain.
Story continued on Page 2 »
Wired News: Hacking the Human Life Span
When camera phones attack. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine
Ten years ago, Philippe Kahn was walking around a hospital with a cell phone and a digital camera. His dadly mission: to share pictures of his newborn baby girl. With an assist from Radio Shack, he linked the two devices together and e-mailed photos to family and friends around the world. The day marked a twin birth of sorts: the cell phone camera and daughter Sophie.
Kahn regards his invention with paternal pride: "I built it to document the birth of my daughter. For us, it has always been a positive thing."
So he was taken aback recently when, with the Saddam-hanging video circling the globe, an interviewer compared him to the inventor of the Kalashnikov. First there was Prince Harry's Nazi costume, then the shaming of Kate Moss, then the Michael Richards racist explosion, but, for some, Saddam's hanging marks the low point for Kahn's creation. A camera on a phone has only aided the perverted, the nosy, the violent, and the bored.
When camera phones attack. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine
Kahn regards his invention with paternal pride: "I built it to document the birth of my daughter. For us, it has always been a positive thing."
So he was taken aback recently when, with the Saddam-hanging video circling the globe, an interviewer compared him to the inventor of the Kalashnikov. First there was Prince Harry's Nazi costume, then the shaming of Kate Moss, then the Michael Richards racist explosion, but, for some, Saddam's hanging marks the low point for Kahn's creation. A camera on a phone has only aided the perverted, the nosy, the violent, and the bored.
When camera phones attack. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine
Archie Bronson Outfit | Releases
Last night the pragmatic-cerebral-cultural program that is The South Bank Show awarded "The Archie Bronson Outfit" as their Breakthrough pop act of 2006 ...
Archie Bronson Outfit Releases
Archie Bronson Outfit Releases
Nobody Knows You're A Dog 2.0
On the internet it is easy to pretend to be somebody else. Don’t like your name, adopt a new one. Don’t like the way you look, Photoshop your picture. Think you are too young or too old, select a new age. How is anybody going to find out anyway? As the now classic cartoon goes: On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
With the growing popularity of online dating, more and more people are asking: how do I know you are who you say you are? Also with the popularity of online peer-to-peer transactions, like the ones at Craigslist or eBay, it is more important then ever to establish that both parties are reliable. But how does one establish trust in an environment where it is easy to pretend? One way to do it is to share personal information, that can help the other party establish that you are indeed who you say you are. The problem with such an approach is that the information you give may be abused.
The Solution: Identity Verification Services
This problem has spawned a number of identity verification services. These services provide a verification-chain framework to both parties, while protecting sensitive information. These services typically work as follows:
Users sign up for a new account on a dating site and are prompted to click through to the site of an identity verifier.
Users create profiles with details such as their name, age, address, and occupation etc.
Verification services electronically check data in public-record databases to verify assertions and prompt users to answer other challenges based on public records.
If users pass these challenges, they are granted a verified status.
These services provide value by acting as a mediator in an identity transaction. They create trust by certifying that the user is indeed the person he/she claims to be, without disclosing sensitive information about the user to the other party.
Nobody Knows You're A Dog 2.0
With the growing popularity of online dating, more and more people are asking: how do I know you are who you say you are? Also with the popularity of online peer-to-peer transactions, like the ones at Craigslist or eBay, it is more important then ever to establish that both parties are reliable. But how does one establish trust in an environment where it is easy to pretend? One way to do it is to share personal information, that can help the other party establish that you are indeed who you say you are. The problem with such an approach is that the information you give may be abused.
The Solution: Identity Verification Services
This problem has spawned a number of identity verification services. These services provide a verification-chain framework to both parties, while protecting sensitive information. These services typically work as follows:
Users sign up for a new account on a dating site and are prompted to click through to the site of an identity verifier.
Users create profiles with details such as their name, age, address, and occupation etc.
Verification services electronically check data in public-record databases to verify assertions and prompt users to answer other challenges based on public records.
If users pass these challenges, they are granted a verified status.
These services provide value by acting as a mediator in an identity transaction. They create trust by certifying that the user is indeed the person he/she claims to be, without disclosing sensitive information about the user to the other party.
Nobody Knows You're A Dog 2.0
Wired 15.02: A Second Life for MTV
Second Life for MTV
It used to be the last word in youth culture. Now MTV is more about reality shows than rock stars. Can a virtual world of 3-D avatars help the network get its groove back?
By Mark WallacePage 1 of 3 next »
MTV's flesh and blood VJ's mix it up with their virtual counterparts on TRL. Which version is more fake?
Lounging by a bright blue pool, Kyndra and Cami, stars of MTV’s hit reality show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, chat with a bunch of other teenagers. Kyndra’s white bikini shows off an artificially enhanced figure, while Cami’s dark skin glows against an unnaturally bright blue sky. This is Laguna Beach, after a fashion, but it isn’t the TV show. It’s a live appearance, a chance for the show’s bitchiest characters to hang with some of the 2 million viewers who tune in to their breakups and hookups every Wednesday night. As the pool fills up with fans, someone asks why the girls are always so mean to fellow cast member Tessa. Kyndra shrugs: “We just don’t like her personally.” Cami can’t be bothered to answer; she’s busy tongue wrestling with some hipster dude in sunglasses.
Kyndra and Cami are kind of fake—and not just in the catty teenage sense of the word. The two girls by the pool are computerized 3-D replicas of the cast members, who are using mouse and keyboard to navigate their avatars through a multiplayer online environment known as Virtual Laguna Beach. Anyone with a PC and a broadband connection can join them.
You want your MTV? These days, that means going virtual.
MTV planted its flag on the moon on August 1, 1981, and the channel quickly came to define what being young and hip was all about. The quick-cut style of the music video set the pace of the era and helped launch the careers of directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. In addition to being the official soundtrack of youth culture, the network discovered up-and-coming talent like animator Mike Judge, pioneered reality television with The Real World, and, with its televised town halls, helped send Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992.
But as anyone will tell you, MTV has lost its groove. The network’s 2006 Video Music Awards were the lowest rated in 10 years. Its airtime is increasingly occupied by reality shows. You can find music on offshoot MTV2, but even so, TV commercials break more new bands these days. As an arbiter of cool, MTV has lost its clout.
MTV has always struggled to stay hip. “The novelty of music video wore off a year or two into our history,” says Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks’ music group. But over the last decade, the network has had an especially hard time keeping on top of the latest trends. Why? The Internet killed the video star. Since the advent of Napster, MP3 blogs, and YouTube, kids have learned about new music by going online. They watch, buy, stream, swap, and steal music online. They list their favorite tracks and debate which band is coolest online.
Now MTV execs are scrambling to catch up with the hot new hangout spots on the Web. The network’s parent company, Viacom, had a chance to buy MySpace, but competitor News Corp. snapped it up for $580 million in 2005. (A corporate reshuffle at Viacom followed.) MTV has been reduced to copycat initiatives. Last May, MTV beta-launched the subscription-based music-download service Urge to compete with Apple’s iTunes. It continues to beef up Overdrive, a broadband site offering free music videos and show outtakes that vainly tries to compete with YouTube. The shows also have discussion forums-—but they aren’t holding on to as many eyeballs as the network would like. “Kids were watching Laguna Beach,” says Matt Bostwick, an MTV senior vice president, “but then they were going everyplace else on the Web to talk about what they’d just seen.”
These overhyped, underperforming MTV.com portals may, however, soon be overshadowed by a tiny unit within the network called Leapfrog. Its mission: Don’t try to compete directly with today’s top destinations. Instead, find the next big thing so MTV can, yes, leapfrog the competition once social networking sites start to seem so five minutes ago.
Bostwick, 48, is a leader of the Leapfrog initiative. The veteran marketing exec commutes from suburban Connecticut to his Dilbert-drab office in midtown Manhattan, but he’s also a gamer who dresses like Johnny Cash: ankle-high black motorcycle boots, black jeans, and black shirt with black stripes. He’s betting that 3-D environments like Virtual Laguna Beach are the next logical step beyond what he calls the classical model of 2-D social networking sites.
And he’s probably right. What YouTube and MySpace offer—the ability to actively participate, build a social network, and express yourself by adding your own content—is now a minimum requirement for any Web-based property that wants to capture youth. And virtual worlds like Second Life push this sort of online socializing a step further. There, your interactions unfold in real time and take the form of a 3-D avatar that is more expressive than any flat Web site could ever be.
With its headlong leap into virtual worlds, MTV hopes to forge MySpace 2.0—and find its way back to the cutting edge. “It’s like the moment you went from listening to music to watching it,” Bostwick says. “Now we’re taking it from watching the show to actually becoming the show.”
Bostwick is showing me his maroon Cadillac convertible. “It’s not really made for this kind of driving,” he says. He pushes the up arrow on his keyboard to make the Caddy go forward, but it stalls out and slides down the heavily banked curve of a virtual rally course. Bostwick has traded in his all-black wardrobe for a flattering micro-miniskirt—a fetching choice on the female avatar he chose for the purposes of this test-drive. When he pulls the Caddy over, it attracts the attention of a guy in board shorts and a hoodie who jumps into the passenger seat beside the newly buxom Bostwick. The MTV exec ejects his suitor with a mouseclick. “Everybody wants one of these,” he says, grinning.
Bostwick has been mixing mediums in his marketing for a while. At Coca-Cola in Japan several years ago, he worked on vending machines that rang up the cell phones of passersby and let them download Coke ringtones, then offered them free beverages. When he came to MTV in 2004 to help upgrade “off-TV activities,” Bostwick envisioned something similar to existing interactive worlds, like Neopets, and dreamed up an MTV-branded networked environment that kids could explore with a personalized avatar, a world that knew their tastes and purchase history, and one they could check in on using TV, Web pages, and mobile phones.
Wired 15.02: A Second Life for MTV
It used to be the last word in youth culture. Now MTV is more about reality shows than rock stars. Can a virtual world of 3-D avatars help the network get its groove back?
By Mark WallacePage 1 of 3 next »
MTV's flesh and blood VJ's mix it up with their virtual counterparts on TRL. Which version is more fake?
Lounging by a bright blue pool, Kyndra and Cami, stars of MTV’s hit reality show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, chat with a bunch of other teenagers. Kyndra’s white bikini shows off an artificially enhanced figure, while Cami’s dark skin glows against an unnaturally bright blue sky. This is Laguna Beach, after a fashion, but it isn’t the TV show. It’s a live appearance, a chance for the show’s bitchiest characters to hang with some of the 2 million viewers who tune in to their breakups and hookups every Wednesday night. As the pool fills up with fans, someone asks why the girls are always so mean to fellow cast member Tessa. Kyndra shrugs: “We just don’t like her personally.” Cami can’t be bothered to answer; she’s busy tongue wrestling with some hipster dude in sunglasses.
Kyndra and Cami are kind of fake—and not just in the catty teenage sense of the word. The two girls by the pool are computerized 3-D replicas of the cast members, who are using mouse and keyboard to navigate their avatars through a multiplayer online environment known as Virtual Laguna Beach. Anyone with a PC and a broadband connection can join them.
You want your MTV? These days, that means going virtual.
MTV planted its flag on the moon on August 1, 1981, and the channel quickly came to define what being young and hip was all about. The quick-cut style of the music video set the pace of the era and helped launch the careers of directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. In addition to being the official soundtrack of youth culture, the network discovered up-and-coming talent like animator Mike Judge, pioneered reality television with The Real World, and, with its televised town halls, helped send Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992.
But as anyone will tell you, MTV has lost its groove. The network’s 2006 Video Music Awards were the lowest rated in 10 years. Its airtime is increasingly occupied by reality shows. You can find music on offshoot MTV2, but even so, TV commercials break more new bands these days. As an arbiter of cool, MTV has lost its clout.
MTV has always struggled to stay hip. “The novelty of music video wore off a year or two into our history,” says Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks’ music group. But over the last decade, the network has had an especially hard time keeping on top of the latest trends. Why? The Internet killed the video star. Since the advent of Napster, MP3 blogs, and YouTube, kids have learned about new music by going online. They watch, buy, stream, swap, and steal music online. They list their favorite tracks and debate which band is coolest online.
Now MTV execs are scrambling to catch up with the hot new hangout spots on the Web. The network’s parent company, Viacom, had a chance to buy MySpace, but competitor News Corp. snapped it up for $580 million in 2005. (A corporate reshuffle at Viacom followed.) MTV has been reduced to copycat initiatives. Last May, MTV beta-launched the subscription-based music-download service Urge to compete with Apple’s iTunes. It continues to beef up Overdrive, a broadband site offering free music videos and show outtakes that vainly tries to compete with YouTube. The shows also have discussion forums-—but they aren’t holding on to as many eyeballs as the network would like. “Kids were watching Laguna Beach,” says Matt Bostwick, an MTV senior vice president, “but then they were going everyplace else on the Web to talk about what they’d just seen.”
These overhyped, underperforming MTV.com portals may, however, soon be overshadowed by a tiny unit within the network called Leapfrog. Its mission: Don’t try to compete directly with today’s top destinations. Instead, find the next big thing so MTV can, yes, leapfrog the competition once social networking sites start to seem so five minutes ago.
Bostwick, 48, is a leader of the Leapfrog initiative. The veteran marketing exec commutes from suburban Connecticut to his Dilbert-drab office in midtown Manhattan, but he’s also a gamer who dresses like Johnny Cash: ankle-high black motorcycle boots, black jeans, and black shirt with black stripes. He’s betting that 3-D environments like Virtual Laguna Beach are the next logical step beyond what he calls the classical model of 2-D social networking sites.
And he’s probably right. What YouTube and MySpace offer—the ability to actively participate, build a social network, and express yourself by adding your own content—is now a minimum requirement for any Web-based property that wants to capture youth. And virtual worlds like Second Life push this sort of online socializing a step further. There, your interactions unfold in real time and take the form of a 3-D avatar that is more expressive than any flat Web site could ever be.
With its headlong leap into virtual worlds, MTV hopes to forge MySpace 2.0—and find its way back to the cutting edge. “It’s like the moment you went from listening to music to watching it,” Bostwick says. “Now we’re taking it from watching the show to actually becoming the show.”
Bostwick is showing me his maroon Cadillac convertible. “It’s not really made for this kind of driving,” he says. He pushes the up arrow on his keyboard to make the Caddy go forward, but it stalls out and slides down the heavily banked curve of a virtual rally course. Bostwick has traded in his all-black wardrobe for a flattering micro-miniskirt—a fetching choice on the female avatar he chose for the purposes of this test-drive. When he pulls the Caddy over, it attracts the attention of a guy in board shorts and a hoodie who jumps into the passenger seat beside the newly buxom Bostwick. The MTV exec ejects his suitor with a mouseclick. “Everybody wants one of these,” he says, grinning.
Bostwick has been mixing mediums in his marketing for a while. At Coca-Cola in Japan several years ago, he worked on vending machines that rang up the cell phones of passersby and let them download Coke ringtones, then offered them free beverages. When he came to MTV in 2004 to help upgrade “off-TV activities,” Bostwick envisioned something similar to existing interactive worlds, like Neopets, and dreamed up an MTV-branded networked environment that kids could explore with a personalized avatar, a world that knew their tastes and purchase history, and one they could check in on using TV, Web pages, and mobile phones.
Wired 15.02: A Second Life for MTV
Telegraph | Arts | Albarn finds new focus after Blur
Damon Albarn is a Chelsea fan, and there's something of Roman Abramovich about the supernova line-up he leads out on the opening night of its first tour.
Strutting and posing with lapels upturned is Paul Simonon, the bassist in the Clash; beaming behind him is Fela Kuti's Tony Allen, exalted by Brian Eno as "the greatest drummer who ever lived". Staring combatively ahead is Simon Tong, the rhythm guitarist in the Verve: Albarn's less glamorous but solid signing, his Makelele.
Together they're The Good, the Bad and the Queen, or, strictly, the band that's just released an album of that title (they're officially anonymous; Simonon has declared that band names are merely for the young and "insecure").
Supergroup, however, isn't quite the word for them. What we're really hearing, as Saturday's Bristol gig makes clear, is a solo singer-songwriter who just happens to have assembled an almost superfluously gifted backing band. No doubt about it, these are Albarn's songs – looser, less glossy expansions on the kind of ballad he wrote in Blur.
The other three musicians adjust their own styles to fit in. For all their pedigree, here they look virtually like Albarn's staff, his personnel – or like ducklings, paddling obediently behind their mother. It's a curious move, recruiting a rhythmic genius like Allen just to pat diligently along to tunes as unfunky as most of these; like hiring Michelangelo to creosote the garden fence.
But all that matters, as Abramovich would say, are results – and tonight sees an assured away win. A stately Kingdom of Doom, an aptly lush Green Fields and, at the end, a joyfully scrappy cover of Guns of Brixton, sung – or, more accurately, muttered – by Simonon.
It's often been asserted that Albarn's music lacks soul. Perhaps his critics accidentally fast-forwarded through Blur's This Is A Low, Out of Time, No Distance Left to Run, Yuko and Hiro and To The End. Or perhaps what they mean – with a touch more reason – is that Albarn's lyrics don't quite extend to misery; he's written plenty of songs about break-ups and breakdowns, but their mood tends to be resigned rather than distraught.
This is true of his latest lyrics, about Iraq, the tsunami, a fearful London. But his heart's there – if not obviously enough in the words, then without question in his increasingly rich voice.
At 38, Albarn is no longer the Britpop pin-up. His eyes are ringed with grey, that guilty-wolf grin is missing a tooth, and his hair looks suspiciously like it's been combed forward over his temples. But in yet another band he's found new energy and life.
Telegraph Arts Albarn finds new focus after Blur
Strutting and posing with lapels upturned is Paul Simonon, the bassist in the Clash; beaming behind him is Fela Kuti's Tony Allen, exalted by Brian Eno as "the greatest drummer who ever lived". Staring combatively ahead is Simon Tong, the rhythm guitarist in the Verve: Albarn's less glamorous but solid signing, his Makelele.
Together they're The Good, the Bad and the Queen, or, strictly, the band that's just released an album of that title (they're officially anonymous; Simonon has declared that band names are merely for the young and "insecure").
Supergroup, however, isn't quite the word for them. What we're really hearing, as Saturday's Bristol gig makes clear, is a solo singer-songwriter who just happens to have assembled an almost superfluously gifted backing band. No doubt about it, these are Albarn's songs – looser, less glossy expansions on the kind of ballad he wrote in Blur.
The other three musicians adjust their own styles to fit in. For all their pedigree, here they look virtually like Albarn's staff, his personnel – or like ducklings, paddling obediently behind their mother. It's a curious move, recruiting a rhythmic genius like Allen just to pat diligently along to tunes as unfunky as most of these; like hiring Michelangelo to creosote the garden fence.
But all that matters, as Abramovich would say, are results – and tonight sees an assured away win. A stately Kingdom of Doom, an aptly lush Green Fields and, at the end, a joyfully scrappy cover of Guns of Brixton, sung – or, more accurately, muttered – by Simonon.
It's often been asserted that Albarn's music lacks soul. Perhaps his critics accidentally fast-forwarded through Blur's This Is A Low, Out of Time, No Distance Left to Run, Yuko and Hiro and To The End. Or perhaps what they mean – with a touch more reason – is that Albarn's lyrics don't quite extend to misery; he's written plenty of songs about break-ups and breakdowns, but their mood tends to be resigned rather than distraught.
This is true of his latest lyrics, about Iraq, the tsunami, a fearful London. But his heart's there – if not obviously enough in the words, then without question in his increasingly rich voice.
At 38, Albarn is no longer the Britpop pin-up. His eyes are ringed with grey, that guilty-wolf grin is missing a tooth, and his hair looks suspiciously like it's been combed forward over his temples. But in yet another band he's found new energy and life.
Telegraph Arts Albarn finds new focus after Blur
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