Cogs can think.

Over the coming days and weeks, my blog will probably be filled with a lot of The Streets lyrics– it’s inevitable. Today, I want to share with you the most touching song, “Never Went To Church”, which is about Mike’s deceased father. In all its simplicity– or, better yet, because of its simplicity, the song is as moving and touching as a song will ever get.

Two great European narcotics
Alcohol and Christianity
I know which one I prefer

We never went to church
Just get on with work and sometimes things’ll hurt
But it’s hit me since you left us
And it’s so hard not to search

If you were still about
I’d ask you what I’m supposed to do now
I just get grubbin’ scared
Every now
Hope I made you proud

On your birthday when mom passed the forks and spoons
I put my head on the table I was so distraught with you
You tidied your things into the bin
The more poorly you grew
So there’s nothing of yours to hold or to talk to

Put your hand up and interrupt the conversation with a, but
People say I interrupt people with the same look
Sometimes I think so hard I can’t remember how your face looked
Started reading about dreams in your favourite book
I Panic and pace when I can’t see the right thing to do
You’d be scratching your head through the best advice you knew
And I feel sad I can’t hear you reciting it through
I miss you dad but I’ve got nothing to remind me of you

We never went to church
Just get on with work and sometimes things’ll hurt
But it’s hit me since you left us
And it’s so hard not to search

If you were still about
I’d ask you what I’m supposed to do now
I just get grubbin’ scared
Every now
Hope I made you proud

I needed a break when your book about dreams was taken
I needed to pray or see a priest that day
I needed to leave this trade and just heave it away
But I cleaned up my place like you so I could see things straight

I never cared about God when life was sailin’ in the calm
So I said I’d get my head down and I’d deal with the ache in my heart
And for that if God exists I’d reckon he’d pay me regard
Mom says me and you are the same from the start
I guess than you did leave me something to remind me of you
Everytime I interrupt someone like you used to
When I do something like you you’ll be on my mind all through
‘Cause I forgot you left me behind to remind me of you

We never went to church
Just get on with work and sometimes things’ll hurt
But it’s hit me since you left us
And it’s so hard not to search

If you were still about
I’d ask you what I’m supposed to do now
I just get grubbin’ scared
Every now
Hope I made you proud

But you you still tell me how you didn’t know what to do even now
And then I’m not so scared somehow
‘Cause I know that you’d be proud

I got a good one for you dad
I’m gonna see a priest, a Rabbi and a Protestant clergyman
You always said I should hedge my bets

Stunning, isn’t it? Who’d expect someone from the streets (think “Trainspotting”) could write such strong lyrics? During the song, you are deeply drawn into his feelings about losing his father, into his initial hopelessness, all the way through to him finding a sort of peace with the past (‘Cause I forgot you left me behind to remind me of you).

It’s just stunning. Mike Skinner and Fiona Apple are the absolute king and queen of songwriting, currently.

Update: various comments again falsily attributed to me. The real posters have started a serious discussion on IP addresses, and Kelly is no wpretty much exposed for the Apple whore that he is. Expose Kelly McNeill page updated accordingly.

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Laptop: $700
Windows MCE: $199
Firefox webbrowser: $0
Seeing others telling Kelly McNeill the truth: priceless.

Sometimes you encounter things which are just too funny not to blog about.

Ooooooh I’m such a happy camper at the moment. Like I said, I bought the new The Streets album, “The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living”, but since Pop-Eye also had their debut album, “Original Pirate Material”, one of the most critically acclaimed albums ever in British history, I bought that too. Now my collection is complete!

The new album is… Amazing. I have no other words for it. I can’t write a review of it, because there’s nothing to bitch about. The most important note is that the album doesn’t let you down; after such strong releases, it is hard to stay at that same level– but Mike Skinner managed to do it.

Where “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” is a concept album about roughly two weeks in the life of Skinner (including returning a DVD, a holiday on Ibiza (or some similar place), starting a relationship, the girl ending it, and the end conclusion that you are on your own when it comes to making life work), the new album talks about the experience of getting famous. However, where other artists usually only whine and complain, which in the end becomes boring, Mike retains his wit and makes sure you’re never bored for one second while listening to the album.

Mike’s greatest strength is his ability to remain down to earth; lyrically, he stays on our level: no semi-deep reflections, and no pimpin’talk like many of today’s ‘artists’. His language is like the language of you and me. And his style hasn’t changed with his success, and artists like him are to be cherished since they are rare.

I bow deep in respect to Mike for ‘keeping it real’, for not letting stardom get to his head. Amazing artist, and probably the best thing to come out of England since Oasis.

Update: ‘More about crazy news by Kelly McNeill’. Hey don’t look at me, they’re his words.

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Yesterday, I wrote a very difficult and harsh editorial about Apple trying to silence the press. I drew a comparison between the goals of the killers of Fortuyn/Van Gogh, and Apple’s goals in trying to force ThinkSecret/AppleInsider to disclose sources. In essense, they are the same: to stymie free speech.

I still stand by that editorial for the full 120%. The moment companies can force members of the press to disclose sources, is the moment the press is dead. Currently, it’s only about computers; but if Apple wins this case, then this case will be used in the future as jurisprudence for more serious matters, i.e. Watergate II.

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Obviously, Kelly McNeill, the guy who sucks each Apple’s employee’s cock, has completely taken the article out of its context, claiming that I said that the murders in itself were the same as Apple sueing ThinkSecret et. al.; this is of course utter nonsense, as I’m talking about Apple’s goals (namely, to stymie free speech and free press)– and oh surprise, what were the goals of the two killers? Exactly– to stymie free speech.

The means are different; however, the goals are the same.

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Kelly also mentions some more nonsense. For instance, he says we at OSNews delete comments we disagree with; utter bogus of course, as we are a website moderated by the community themselves. I haven’t removed a comment in ages (and the ones we do remove, are the obvious trolls, i.e. “Windoos i5 t3h 5uxx0r22!!!oneone” etc.), so he is compeltely off base there– especially taking into account how he has removed multiple comments on his Apple newssite, and of course how he is saying “This is Thom” after each comment on his Apple newssite that dares to critisize Apple.

Kelly McNeill is mentally ill, but regular readers of my blog already know that.

Someone by the name of ‘Bob’ said this in reply to the Expose Kelly McNeill page:

I wouldn’t get too excited, Thom, when you talk about OSnews’ success. It is, afterall, just a shadow of Slashdot.

The only way in which Slashdot is ‘better’ than OSNews is in sheer volume of readers. On all other fronts, OSNews kicks Slashdot’s ass– badly.

1. We have much, much, much, much better browser support. OSNews.com will work on any browser, no matter how old or obscure, no matter on mobiles or on pda’s or on desktops, and you are automagically redirected to the page that fits your browser best. Slashdot cannot say the same;
2. Our page layout is cleaner and less cluttered and more usable than Slashdot’s. At OSNews.com, the news is the focus. At Slashdot… Well, there really isn’t a focus;
3. Slashdot’s commenting engine is impossibly complex and unusable. It takes a fcuking manual to understand it. OSNews’ commenting engine, while far less advanced, does not require a manual, and can be used understandably by anyone who visits the site;
4. We are faster than Slashdot. We have news faster than Slashdot. Slashdot almost always lags behind OSNews. This is because when Eugenia’s asleep, I’m awake, and vice versa;
5. We aren’t as arrogant as Slashdot. Slashdot seems to think it is king of the world, and rejects submissions if they are not formatted EXACTLY to fit their needs. We at OSNews don’t give a fcuk. If you just put the link in the submission field, we’re fine with it, we don’t care. Of course we appreciate it if people nicely format their submissions- but we don’t require it. We don’t force people into doing the work we as editors are supposed to do;
6. We have original content, Slashdot rarely has that;
7. And probably the most important point: Slashdot is populated by mostly anti-MS, pro-OSS people. And that goes for the editors as well. At OSNews, we are unbiased. Me and Eugenia, who do most of the news, use whatever tool fits the job best; we use Linux, we use OSX, we use Windows. We don’t care. And this shines through on OSNews’ front page: no bias to be found there.

So, I don’t really see how Slashdot is supposed to be better than us. Of course, if amount of users is your most important point, then you’d have a point. But then I guess Windows is your best OS, and Kelly Clarkson is bigger than Elvis.

Or maybe it’s that I realised that it is true;
No one’s really there fighting for you in the last garison.
No one except yourself that is, no one except you.
You are the one who’s got your back ’til the last deed’s done.
Scott can’t have my back ’til the absolute end,
‘Cause he’s got to look out for what over his horizon.
He’s gotta to make sure he’s not lonely, not broke.
It’s enough to worry about keeping his own head above.
I shut the door behind me, huddled up in my coat,
Condensation floating off my breath, squinted out the sun.
My jeans feel a bit tight, think I washed them a bit too high;
I was gonna be late, so I picked up my pace to run.

The final verse of maybe the best album ever made. At least the best modern album ever made. Let’s hope tomorrow won’t fail me.

For all to see: a video and screenshot proving to the world that Aero will run fine on even pre-DirectX9 videocards, in this case, my Ati Radeon 9000 128MB RAM. The computer used for this video only has 512MB of RAM (old and slow pc-133 even), and an Athlon XP 1600+ processor.

However, in order to bypass Vista’s DX9 compatibility check of the videocard it runs on, you need to do some minor registry tweaking. Since I’m not sure about the legality of that stuff, fire up Google to find which tweaks.

One caveat: even though window borders were transparent during these tests, they did not sport the blurr effect. The fact that this effect seems to have been disabled might mean that less strain was imposed on the crappy videocard. Bear that in mind.

I’m putting this video up as proof for each and every one to see that FUD has been making its rounds around the internet against Microsoft, instead of by Microsoft ;). Since I hate false information… If you would like to share your videos of Vista running on ‘older’ hardware, let me know, and I’ll add your videos to this page. Bear in mind that I cannot host all the videos, since my space is limited, so host them somewhere yourself.