Sex and the city in Chelsea

I can’t think of a more suitably located film. On the King’s Road it’s all about who’s wearing what…

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Let me take you on a trip

Just seen/heard the Cicada edit of Depeche Mode’s ‘World In My Eyes’. Love it.

MSN UK Homepage Relaunch

So here it is, the new MSN UK homepage. Click here to for a tour round the new homepage, highlighting the new design, functionality, and social media plugins.

Hope you like the new layout – and always up for hearing your feedback.

Previous MSN HP
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New MSN HP

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Tour website

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Retro Mags: Eagle, Star Wars and Computer and Video Games

Currently clearing out the flat and came across a series of old comics/mags I used to have as a kid. Took some snaps before they get archived forever!

Anyone remember Eagle from the 80s? Well, here’s issue one and two from 1982. Such an odd comic, really apocalyptic in it’s storytelling, in fact I think the Earth was under some kind of threat on every page be it Mekons or Doomlords. Maybe it was relaunched to try and give 2000 AD a run for it’s money, but as the years went on it tended to become more tame in nature, less disturbing and generally less interesting.

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I’ve also dug out some old Star Wars comics and an old Computer and Video Games magazine. So random – brings back GoTo codes all over again. I can’t believe I used to spend hours trying to copy code from magazines only to see them run error reports when hitting the return key.

But good to see that CVG is still going strong

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Rex The Dog – Synthpop set recorded live at Musicalia May 2010

I love Rex the Dog and here he is again. Nutter.

Rex The Dog – Synthpop set recorded live at Musicalia May 2010 by rexthedog1980

Sony BMG office…

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Sony BMG office…, originally uploaded by Steven Wilson-Beales.

Video screens in their recpetion. Pretty sweet.

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Post-Structuralism…

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Post-Structuralism…, originally uploaded by Steven Wilson-Beales.

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

iPad review: First Impressions

This week I hit the jackpot when my boss agreed to lend me his iPad so I could check it out for myself. Conclusion: not impressed.

Obviously, it looks really slick and sexy, it’s light, viewing large images on it looks fantastic and the tactile nature of it’s touch point surface is really beautiful. But, ultimately, I think it’s just a really expensive toy. Kindle is probably better for reading, you can port your present iPhone anyway into a larger screen for about 80 quid, and the fact that Apple have blocked Flash is just frustrating.

PIC 0222 thumb2 iPad review: First Impressions Obviously, a lot of the apps available at the moment are dedicated to iPhone and don’t map smoothly over to iPad. Then again, the Driver app I played was really cool. But I don’t want to use this as a mobile games controller – there’s already better alternatives out there for cheaper.

PIC 0225 thumb3 iPad review: First Impressions So, all in all, a bit confused by the hype. Maybe with some more bespoke apps (why no Spotify?) and flash integration it may improve over the next 6 months. Best thing about it was being able to get my 2 year old to navigate around old Sesame video clips on YouTube. Therefore potentially a great educational tool they could roll out in schools.

A revolutionary new paradigm? I’m afraid not. But, it does look sexy!

I’ll let Public Enemy play us out.

Ian Curtis R.I.P

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Ian Curtis R.I.P, originally uploaded by Steven Wilson-Beales.

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Top tips for writing a dissertation

At the moment I’m in the process of moving house so each night I have the joyous task of packing hundreds of boxes and deciding what to keep and what to throw away. So, imagine my excitement when I discovered my old Literary Theory MA dissertation. Since submitting it back in 1997 I’ve never looked at it – so I thought I’d kill a few hours reviewing it after all these years. Big mistake.

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After about ten minutes I had to put it down, I couldn’t understand any of it. And there’s the rub. There’s no reason for writing about anything complex unless you can communicate it simply and effectively. If you can’t, then it probably suggests you don’t really know what you’re on about or, worse, you’re just a pretentious idiot. 

So, here’s my advice for all you budding dissertation writers:

  • Keep it simple. If you can’t quickly summarize what you’re writing about over a few beers with your mates then something is wrong. Take a break and take a step back 
  • Take a step back: put the document down and come back to it the next day or even week. Does it still make sense?
  • Do you have an argument? Look at the logical progression of your essay. Is it really dialectical? Are you really considering the objections to your main thesis?
  • Is it really interesting? If not, why bother?
  • Is this essay going to add value to your life in future years? If not, why the hell bother?
  • Will you really change the world with this essay? If not, wouldn’t it be better if you set your targets on something more realistic?
  • Are all your original thoughts contained in your footnotes? If so, why?
  • Are you really trying to be original or are you just collating other people’s thoughts?
  • Remember what Orwell said: Stop being a prat and cut down the word length and  rhetoric
  • Be careful not to step out of the subject of your own research. If you haven’t had training in other areas then it may be harder to balance logical arguments. Do you really want to be a Jack of all trades and master of none?
  • Remember, handing in your end of year dissertation often coincides with some of the season’s biggest music festivals. The latter are more important.

I missed out on Glasto ’97 because of this paper. Don’t let this happen to you.

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entertainment, editing and MSN

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