asides Blog

One line thoughts of the day.

This blog has had a new front page format for a couple of weeks now, long enough that almost all the content on the front page is more recent than the revamp. What do regular readers think of it? Is it an improvement? Let me know in the comments.

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

The Mercury Music Prize is not about celebrating the best of British music in all it’s diversity. It’s about selling records to people who know nothing about music but want to appear cool and sophisticated.

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

One way to tell if your band is a prog-rock band. Does the bass player rock out far more than the lead guitarist?

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

Listening to UFO’s last-but-one album “The Visitor” reminds me of how great Phil Mogg can be as a lyricist. He’s one of Britain’s most underrated songwriters. If he worked in a more fashionable genre than hard rock people would be comparing him with Springsteen.

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

I do like this software testing term. “A Lance Armstrong Bug”. It means that the code is passing all the tests, but it’s not behaving as it should.

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

Been listening to 2012′s metal releases on random shuffle. With one notable exception (York’s Morpheus Rising), the lead vocals are either cookie monster growls or operatic sopranos. Where have the great male vocalists gone? Where are today’s Ronnie Dios and Rob Halfords?

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Tim Hall | 5 Comments

This is why I will never buy an Amazon Kindle, and why I refuse to buy eBooks or music crippled by DRM. Because the vendor can take away what you thought you’d bought and paid for on a whim. Just like that…

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Tim Hall | 9 Comments

It’s getting to the time of year to start thinking of this blog’s end-of-year albums list. Still one or two albums to come, but Panic Room’s amazing “SKIN” is still ahead of the pack for album of the year.

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Tim Hall | 2 Comments

“Even though Excel is Microsoft and therefore supposed to be stable, there were serious bugs” – Actual quote from a meeting in which we decided to defenestrate a notoriously squamous and rugose spreadsheet.

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Tim Hall | Comments Off

A question for those of you who listen to music while you work. Are you more productive if you listen to music on random shuffle rather than listening to individual albums all the way thought as Steve Wilson intended? Does it actually make any difference?

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Tim Hall | 1 Comment