Wondering: don't astronauts have enough to put up with.

As awesome as it would be to go into space, I can see that orbit-life would have a number of downsides. You live in a tiny container - somewhat like being in prison, you have to poo in zero gravity and there's a real prospect of some piece of stray spacejunk crashing into your home at any point and rather ruining your day.

Why then would you send up an mp3 player containing 10 songs for them to listen to, chosen by a contest winning 14 year old Norwegian girl. (Not that 14 year old Norwegian girls couldn't choose good songs - just not this one)

Here's the list:

Here Comes The Sun - Beatles
Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra
Rocket Man - Elton John
Up Where We Belong - Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
Imagine - John Lennon
Flashdance - What A Feeling - Irene Cara
Walk of Life - Dire Straits
Fly - Celine Dion
Rockin' All Over The World - Status Quo
I Believe I Can Fly - R Kelly

Now I'm going to assume that there are more songs than this on the mp3 player and that the whole song-list competition thing is largely a handy hook to get media attention and spark debate because, admit it, who doesn't like a good top 10 list discussion. (Clearly I do)

That said though, there is no mention anywhere on the European Space Agency website about any other songs at all being included.

So worse case scenario - this is it - the ten songs you have to listen to over and over again while dealing with the aforementioned astronaut deprivations. Memories of my time working as a Santa photographer in a toy department come to mind at this point - looped Disney character sung Christmas carols all day. (Preceded by the like clockwork 8.55am juice-up-the-staff Tina Turner Simply the Best song playing of course)

Sure, individually there are some good songs on the list - but isn't the flying/space thing just a tad overdone. Do these people really need to be reminded that they are up in the sky - we're talking some fairly well educated scientist types here.

And where is Walking on Sunshine and the Bowie classics Space Oddity/Ashes to Ashes?

I guess it could be worse - if you were feeling mean you could have gone with a BadgerBadgerBadger, Crazy Frog and Bananaphone medley.

Admiring: the balloon tank

Click on the images for the full size version - you can check out the whole series at http://www.linkinn.com/_Balloon_Tank_pic

Wondering about: the Sarah Connor Chronicles ARG (Alternate Reality Game)

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) take a cross media approach to game play and attempt to bring the action more into the player's day to day life. Wikipedia says that

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.

The form is typified by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses, and characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and often work together with a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally use multimedia, such as telephones, email and mail but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium.

There is a new game in the field apparently, tied in to the Terminator based tv series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It revolves around a revolutionary new type of camera which can photograph events from 1191 days in the future.

This video that I found on Boing Boing sets the scene.



This "rabbit-hole" takes you on to the website for the company which is developing the camera - EniTech Research, where you can find more videos and presumably more ways of playing the game. (I haven't looked into it yet)

Slightly off topic, I've been thinking about other options for "real-world" gaming - having a bit of a fascination with the sport of cyclogaining (a derivative of rogaining), which is kind of like a big bike based treasure hunt.

I was thinking (having been influenced by the mobile-obsession of my friend and colleague Len :) that an addition to this might be to introduce some element of hunting your competitors by setting up a shared Flickr account and having everyone photograph the opposition on mobile phones and uploading these to Flickr. This would give a time-stamp of who got their pix up there first and thus who got the "kill".

Haven't really finished thinking that through yet but I reckon it has promise.

Enjoying: the new will.i.am/Obama video - but also raising an eyebrow

I really enjoyed the first will.i.am tribute song/video/project/whatever about Barack Obama (previously mentioned here) and I'm still finding the man (and the accompanying buzz) enthralling. I've been listening to the audio book version of his book of political views and that's impressed me greatly as well.

So for some reason I'm finding it a little odd that I have a faint nagging twinge about the latest video that will.i.am has put out as part of the campaign.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it still carries a lot of the inspiration and the hope (and it's for Barack man) - it just feels a little too slick, a little too polished and it also sparks a feeling that this is all veering a little close to the cultish for my tastes.



I guess I hope that this whole surge doesn't peak too early and hit some kind of overexposed backlash. The O-ba-ma chanting in the video just doesn't quite sit right either - what would be great would be if Barack came out and played it all down a little, made the point that he's not this guru figure but just a guy with some good ideas.

But given the way the media works and the need to keep the momentum going, I guess that might not be the best strategy.

I definitely got a sense though that the conservative/redneck/Republicans are genuinely scared of the man though from the range of rather offensive comments on the YouTube video digging deep into the staples of fear and misdirection that are the flip side of the Obama approach. (Which fortunately, I think the majority of people are well and truly sick of)

And by the way, if you're taking on board the arguments that the Obama campaign is all flash and no substance, all words and no plans, there is a great analysis/comparison of the Obama/Clinton voting records and legistation supporting/drafting up here on Daily Kos.

Chuckling: at the hapless hippy

Mark Boyle, a former organic food company boss, had a grand plan - to walk from England to India without a cent, relying on the goodwill of the people he came across on his way to keep him fed, sheltered and whatever else he might need. Essentially letting "the universe" provide.

His goal was to demonstrate to the world that we don't need money to live (presumably as long as everyone else that we meet actually does have money and a generous heart).

Mark is part of the freeconomy movement, which is all about sharing and community and bartering and working together and I'm pretty well fine with all of this. You can read up about this on his blog here. I'll happily agree that big business thrives on creating an environment where it's everyone for themselves and we are constantly encouraged to overconsume. Society is generally better served when we work together as a community and this is all good.

At the same time though, I respect that people who choose to work extra hard or who have good productive ideas are entitled to be rewarded for their efforts and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a reasonable level of private property.

Where our Mark's story gets interesting is how far he actually managed to make it.

France. Calais to be precise, just outside the ferry from England.

On arriving in France (with two fellow-travellers) they found that the French weren't that interested in speaking to "back-packing freeloaders" with no knowledge of the language between them.

After a few days starving, he and his pals have packed it in and headed home, copping a little bit of stick from the media in the process.

It's worth taking a look at some of the posts on his blog and it's hard to think too unkindly of him as his heart is clearly in the right place but let's say that he comes across as a little disconnected for day to day reality.

Poor hippy.

Playing: a rather mixed bag of tunes for Monday Sunset

Not entirely sure what's in the water this evening but I think there's something as I've been drawn to this motley batch of tracks to play on the radio tomorrow (or today if you will)

We have a couple of songs about serial killers, some fairly unusual cover versions, a bit of mashup and a closing song that probably isn't entirely appropriate to play before kiddy storytime but which will hopefully prompt some hilarious innocent questions along the lines of "what does - you took my frill necked lizard and put him in a crack - mean?"

And that has to be good for everyone.

Object Ween La Cucaracha 2:37
S.L.H. (Sri Lanka High) (M.I.A. vs. The Ramones) Jay-R Best of Bootie 2005 4:28
Wonderwall Paul Anka Q: Best Of 86/06 3:34
Pissing in the wind Badly Drawn Boy The hour of the bewilderbeast 4:20
'84 Pontiac Dream Boards Of Canada The Campfire Headphase 3:50
The Killing Moon Nouvelle Vague Bande À Part 3:39
Its Worth These Days Airport City Shuffle Death Of Robot 4:01
Mrs. Robinson The Lemonheads The Best Of The Lemonheads 3:45
Waves Superette Topless women talk about their lives 3:19
Utopia Goldfrapp Felt Mountain 4:18
Quick Way To Hell The Fuelers Hot Dang 3:43
Somebody Told Me The Killers Hot Fuss 3:17
Women's realm Belle and Sebastian Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant 4:36
Gun Gil Scott-Heron The Best Of Blaxploitation (Disc 2) 4:02
Read to me B(if)tek Frequencies will move together 4:17
Islands Cat Power The Greatest 1:44
yes We Can Song will i am and friends Obama 08 4:20
Secure Yourself Indigo Girls Indigo Girls 3:37
Blue Orchid The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan 2:38
Pushing Drugs Andrew W. K. Close Calls With Brick Walls 2:41
Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye Super Hits 4:00
You Took My Thing And Put It In Your Place C.W. Stoneking King Hokum 2:51