Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[Rexas]

Debates over whether Shakespeare wrote his plays are in the same potty chamber as the moon landing conspiracy theories and those who think the Lucitania was sunk instead of the Titanic.

You might as well try to convince me you can win a hand with jacks

I agree that the notion that he did not have a hand in writing the plays attributed to him is absurd, but the fact remains that many of these play-writes would have been known and drawn inspiration from each other, so it seems likely that there was an element of collaboration in his writing.

Plus, on the subject of JJ...

[Tal]

I know you did that play-writes thing on purpose, but you must be careful, as there are all sorts of pendants patrolling these halls.

Alack...the wheel is come full circle and I must away

[tikay]

I know you did that play-writes thing on purpose, but you must be careful, as there are all sorts of pendants patrolling these halls.

Alack...the wheel is come full circle and I must away

Oh the irony......

Pendant reporting for duty.

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[Tal]

See what I mean, Rexas?

[Rexas]

Sorry lads, writing on the phone is pretty gay :p For those concerned about the validity of my claim to be an English student, the term is playwright. Please don't burn me. That's an r n, not an m.

[Claw75]

Morning Tikay

Don't know if you're familiar with the new Placebo track but I think you'll like where it is coming from.  I'd never seen the video until just now so I could post the song for you, but it's very good also.

Thanks Claire.

Umm, why will I like where it is coming from? I'm not disputing that, but I can't really work out what the lyrics mean. Nice tune though......

I tried to bone up on it by reading reviewws, but only got more confused. Try getting your head round this review of it....

http://nerdgasmpodcast.wordpress.com/2013/07/09/my-review-of-too-many-friends-by-placebo/

I got the impression that the author of the review is taking life a little bit too seriously, just as some recreationals get a little bit too heavy with poker theory.

I got this part though, I think....

The distaste towards social networks and the idea of computers taking over society continues with “the applications are to blame/for my sorrow and my pain/ a feeling so alone” which I feel references the fact that we, as a society are letting these networks and Internet take over our lives because of our easy access to pages such as Facebook and Twitter which have become a modern addiction

My music tastes are very basic - I like a nice tune, I like to understand the meaning but if the tune is nice (as in say, REM stuff) I'm not fussed if I can't get the meaning.

Nice & simple does me, which is why The Beatles made such an impression on me. "I wanna hold your hand" says everything.

And when she kissed me, I felt happy, insiiiiiide.....

Here's a more recent example, which I rather like. I can understand it, hear the words, & it is catchy. Perfect.

Hope you are well. Not forgotten your PM, am a bit behind, & trying to catch up.

  One of the things I like about the song is it's lack of crypticness (I'm pretty sure that isn't a word but I don't know what the correct one is).  the review you linked includes a lot of unnecessarily overanalysis, just adding confusion to the point really.

The song strikes a chord with me and I think, looking back, it'll be very 'of the time'. 

Facebook has been popular for 6-7 years now.  I remember when I first joined, thinking how great it was, getting back in touch with people I hadn't seen for years etc.  What facebook and the like have taken away from us though, I feel, is the organic nature of friendship, acquaintance and other relationships.  Pre-social networking people would come in and out of our life.  Along the way we'd make a few firm friends, and they're the ones we'd keep in touch with.  Suddenly all those people we'd chosen (because it is a choice if we don't make the effort to maintain a relationship) to lose contact with were back on the radar.  We were friends again.  We'd meet new acquaintances - maybe a workmate, someone we sat next to in a poker game, someone from an internet forum.  In the 'old days' we'd say hello when we passed in the street, but wouldn't exchange phone numbers, ring them for a pint etc.  We still wouldn't perhaps, but now they're our 'friend' because they've added us on facebook.  In the early days I did add pretty much anyone, but a couple of years ago I started to feel rather exposed.  I wanted more of my anonymity back.  I had over 300 friends on facebook (which is pretty conservative - I see other people with numbers in the 1000s).  That's fine if you want to use the place for social 'networking', but I found I didn't really want to be interacting, either actively or passively, with people I either a) hardly know or b) would otherwise have drifted away from.  My friends list on facebook now totals around 120.  it's much more reflective of real life friendships, with only about a quarter of the people on there people I would class as only acquaintances, but ones that I like   Getting things to that way didn't come without upsetting some people though - some people don't like being 'defriended', even by someone they barely know.  It takes all sorts.

I'm conscious that I'm starting to waffle now and I don't want to end up sounding too much like the geeky song-analysis guy   I just sometimes hark back to a time when things were simpler.  I wish I could undo a lot of what I've done in the past few years in terms of exposing myself (for want of a better word) on the internet.  'Too many friends' are an unnecessary complication imo - I like to keep life simple.  Others disagree completely I'm sure.  Of my close friends, the majority are people I knew pre-internet - relationships were built on time spent together in real life - shared experiences and shared viewpoints.  I've also met a few more thanks to the internet - that's the good side, but the chaff just tends to remain dwindling on our list of 'friends'.   

I think the tide is turning though.  I read an article recently (rather ironically on Facebook, I think), about how less teens these days are using facebook - it's something their parents do, and I guess for them, having never known a world where you can't instantly contact anyone in the world at the touch of a button, or just google something you want to know the answer to, the wonders of modern technology just don't impress them as they do from those who grew up without mobile phones or internet.

whilst the song is very reflective of today, the video shows a (very plausible) version of the very near future where people have become more reliant on their technology to live their lives.  We see a group of people at the same event, all of them engaged with some piece of technology, and using that to communicate with each other rather than simply talking. 

sorry, tl;dr I know.  Here's a nice picture to finish off with

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[booder]

Good post ginge           

[Claw75]

Good post ginge           

thanks slaphead x

[Karabiner]

Oooh that old Mallard steam engine thingy has just been taken out for a run from it's home in the knacker's yard and is on the BBC local news.

It's quite a striking old chap too clad in a sort of dark shade of peacock-blue and hauling one of it's original dining cars that it used to take from London to Scotlandshire presumably during the time when your old boy was in action.

[Rod Paradise]

Wonder what New York would be like if some of these projects had been approved?

Some crazy ideas in this article.
 
6 Radical Infrastructure Schemes That Almost Changed NYC Forever
 
 
http://gizmodo.com/6-radical-infrastructure-schemes-that-almost-changed-ny-636053287

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The East River? Oh, we dammed that thing up and threw a new City Hall on top. The Hudson? Filled it with traffic years ago. New Yorkers have never been shy about changing the natural landscape of their city, but if you dig into the archives, you'll find dozens of ideas so radical, they make present-day Gotham feel like a nature reserve.
These days, the ballooning cost of construction combined with environmental and preservation issues conspire to make extreme infrastructural projects a moot point. Hell, it's taken us almost a century to build the 2nd Avenue Subway. But in the middle of the 20th century, a booming economy and a renaissance in public infrastructure made it seem like anything was possible in New York—literally, anything.
Six plans from those years follow, ranging from the grand to the gargantuan. Makes Bloomberg's Vision 2020 plan look a bit puny in comparison, no?

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Infill the Hudson River, 1934
 
In March, 1934, Modern Mechanix featured the daring plan of Norman Sper, “noted publicist and engineering scholar” (maybe publicist meant something different back then?), who envisioned adding ten square miles of land to Manhattan by infilling the mighty Hudson River. Sper proposed creating a massive, multi-layered grid that would connect New Jersey to Manhattan, solving problems like housing and transit which, according to the editors, “are threatening to devour the city's civilization like a Frankenstein monster.”
It’s hard for us to imagine the optimism felt about modern engineering in the 1930s and 40s, and today, Sper’s plan seems like folly. But the magazine asked a handful of established engineers about it, and many of them described it as visionary. “Provided with sufficient money and time, particularly money, the project could be carried through to completion with unquestionable success,” said one engineer. “... It would be quite in keeping with President Roosevelt’s rehabilitation and N.R.A. plan and put an enormous army of men to work. I heartily endorse the plan, though I am fully aware of the almost insurmountable impediments which appear at first study of the idea.”
Estimated cost: $17 billion*

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Build a Massive Hudson River Airport, 1946
 
The man who owned the Chrysler Building—William Zeckendorf—was behind this idea to build "Manhattan's Dream Airport." Zeckendorf proposed a 144-block-long floating airport on the edge of the Hudson River, where planes could take off on the long roof and boats could dock at its edges.
It's hard to know how New Yorkers of the day reacted to the plan, which was sited on the edge of what was then a still-developing neighborhood. But as Untapped Cities points out, a similar (but satirical) plan to turn Central Park into an airport received over 85,000 earnest signatures—which should tell you something about how "green space" stacks up against "long cab rides" for most modern-day New Yorkers.
Estimated cost: $35 billion*

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Draining the East River, 1924
 
According to the editors at Popular Science, in 1924, New York was losing $1.5 million a day on traffic congestion. The solution? Get rid of the East River, of course. Dr. John A. Harriss, a "special deputy police commissioner in charge of traffic," was the progenitor of this particular scheme, which would've required the construction of two dams—one at the Williamsburg Bridge, the other, near Hell Gate in Harlem. According to Gothamist, Harriss envisioned the new land supporting a broad avenue of cars and small pedestrian routes, centered by a massive new City Hall. Basically, Brasilia in New York City.

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A Super-Highway Slicing Through SoHo, 1940-1962
 
The mercifully unfulfilled Lower Manhattan Expressway was one of Robert Moses' plans to modernize Manhattan. LOMEX, as the plan is known, came close to leveling a huge 14-block swatch of Lower Manhattan to build a ten-lane highway stretching from the Holland Tunnel to the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Moses envisioned the highway edged on both side by gigantic public housing complexes.
We actually have LOMEX (along with the destruction of Penn Station) to thank for the development of historic preservation in New York City. Jane Jacobs led the fight against the project, and ultimately, it was abandoned. It's hard to imagine that anyone ever seriously entertained the idea—but we need only look across the East River to see what could have been, since Moses was central in creating the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the highway that required the razing of thousands of homes in each borough.
Estimated cost: $749 million*

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A Geodesic Dome Over Midtown Manhattan, 1960.
 
Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome was proposed with the best intentions: It would've created a bubble of clear air stretching from the Hudson to the East River, between 21st and roughly 64th streets. Of course, in reality, it likely would've led to strict urban segregation in Manhattan, between those "inside the bubble," and those without.
Estimated cost: $7.5 billion*

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A Bridge Over the Hudson, circa 1915
 
Ever wonder why there are no bridges between Lower Manhattan and New Jersey? One of the main reasons is that too many massive freighter ships passed through the bay on their way to Manhattan's docks. But architect Alfred C. Bossom envisioned a seemingly simple solution: A bridge 200 feet above the waterline, more than enough space for ships of the day to pass unfettered.
Bossom christened his idea the Victory Bridge, angled as a celebration of the end of World War I. The concept never took off, perhaps because of the sheer size and cost (the towers themselves would've been more than 800 feet high), but Bossom was right on, in some ways: The Holland Tunnel was completed underneath the exact same route, in 1927.
*All estimated costs have been adjusted for inflation.

[tikay]

!

Amazing stuff, thanks Rod.

By chance, New York has moved on to my "wanno go there" radar.

My next adventure will be Scottish Highlands/Isle of Skye sorta area again, but then New York is top of the list.

[tikay]

Cliches we love. Ish.

Just saw a guy at work.

"Hi Alan, how are you"

"Ooh, you know, bearing up under the strain".

FFS.

He'll do we'll to bear up after I've smacked him in the bloody chops.

[KarmaDope]

Wonder what New York would be like if some of these projects had been approved?

 

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[/COLOR]
 

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Build a Massive Hudson River Airport, 1946
 
The man who owned the Chrysler Building—William Zeckendorf—was behind this idea to build "Manhattan's Dream Airport." Zeckendorf proposed a 144-block-long floating airport on the edge of the Hudson River, where planes could take off on the long roof and boats could dock at its edges.
It's hard to know how New Yorkers of the day reacted to the plan, which was sited on the edge of what was then a still-developing neighborhood. But as Untapped Cities points out, a similar (but satirical) plan to turn Central Park into an airport received over 85,000 earnest signatures—which should tell you something about how "green space" stacks up against "long cab rides" for most modern-day New Yorkers.
Estimated cost: $35 billion*

I wonder if Capt. Sullenberger had read this article and got confused when he landed that plane in the middle of the Hudson

Tbf, this idea would be awesome.

[GreekStein]

Do you have a long lost brother residing in the states?



I think he might like trains a little bit too.

[tikay]

Do you have a long lost brother residing in the states?



I think he might like trains a little bit too.

Wonderful!

I never show my emotions, but I'd feel EXACTLY like that chap.

Those Locos are so damn cool, & are so evocative.

There are British equivelants, & I could Post pages & pages of them, but probably not wise.

Early diesel electric locomotives in the UK are a major tourist attraction these days.

How is life in Thailand, or Macau, assuming you are still there?

I don't envy you, I'd not go there if you paid me, (foreign food etc) but it's grand that these days, young men travel & get to see the world. Enjoy, old age comes over the horizon with frightening speed.