asides Blog

One line thoughts of the day.

I described a cluster of very old and never fixed bugs as “A clown car abandoned in a field”. The product owner thought that was the saddest image. Others thought it would be a great name for a prog album. I can even imagine the artwork…

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

The idea that Britain will never win the Eurovision Song Contest because of politics and regional block voting remains an untested hypothesis as long as the out-of-touch dullards of BBC Light Entertainment continue to choose half-arsed entries that anyone who cares about music is deeply embarrassed by. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The British entry needs to be Mötorhead.

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Tim Hall | 4 Comments

One strange thing about the current Prog scene is that there are quite a few very young bands around, who seem to be playing to much older audiences. It might just be that my perception is skewed from seeing bands like Maschine and District 97 at festivals rather than at their own shows, but if the scene is able to attract younger musicians, where are the younger fans?

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

One sign of a good festival: You end up spending more on CDs by the bands you’ve seen over the weekend than you paid for the ticket.

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

Seriously, a Wagner opera in Third Reich dress? This has got to be one of the worst “What were they thinking” episodes in the entire history of music.

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

This may be a controversial thought. To what extent do the endemic misogyny in tech and fan culture, and the increasingly disruptive behaviour of Social Justice Warriors form opposite sides of the same coin? Not so much that one is a reaction against the other, but that both stem from a critical mass of people on both sides with very poorly-developed social skills and/or a serious lack of empathy?

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Tim Hall | 4 Comments

Great blog post from Mike Talks – Everything I know about Testing I learned from Doctor Who..

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

If Karl Marx and Ayn Rand are the Gods of Economics (to whom we sacrifice George Osborne at dawn tomorrow), who else is in the pantheon? I get the feeling Marilyn Monroe and Elvis ought to be in there somewhere. Who should be in the 19th/20th century pantheon of gods and goddesses, and what portfolios should each of them have?

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Tim Hall | 4 Comments

Good blog post by Trish Koo on how it’s not just sexist men who put obstacles in the way of women in technology.

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

From the music blogosphere – Sid Smith laments the days when non-mainstream musicians could make music as a full-time career. And Matt Stevens confronts a heckler shouting “It’s going round and round, it’s a fake, I’m not stupid”.

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Tim Hall | Comments Off