The Null Device

2002/12/3

Read: Fuck Hip Hop, an article claiming that hip-hop as a form of cultural expression is dead, at the hands of the bejewelled, illiterate thugs who dominate the genre.

All one needs to do is watch cribs and notice none of these people showing off their heated indoor pools or the PlayStation Two consoles installed in all twelve of their luxury cars have a library in their home. Or display a bookshelf, for that matter. No rapper on cribs has ever been quoted saying: "Yeah, this is the room where I do all my reading, nahmean?"
Rappers reflect what has become a new image of success where money is its own validation and caring is soft unless you're dropping a single about your dead homie.

(via bOING bOING)

affluenza hip-hop materialism thug life 0

A compedium of the stupid things people name their children, along with the parents' reasoning. Covers "unique" spellings (i.e., things like "Cydnee", "Dylon" and numerous bastardisations of "Mackenzie"), transpositions/omissions of letters ("Jayln"), random punctuation/capitalisation ("Cam'ron", "CrystalLynn") and various pseudo-African/Celtic/Sioux names. Not to mention rationales like "Brittany after the statue- Brittania", "Lorelei Jakarta (yes i know its an indonesian city but i think its exotic)", or "I think i'm going to name my son Kakinston ,, What do you think... ??". Or the people who were going to name their son Rebecca, just because they could. Or, indeed, the brain donor who was going to name their daughter Catatonia Calliope. (via Lukelog)

Reminds me of a theory I once heard that the uniqueness of names is inversely proportional to the intelligence of the parents, which was apparently supported by an ongoing survey of the births column of a local newspaper. (Presumably using some phrenological technique for determining intelligence from the photographs of the happy parents?)

culture names stupidity 5

Kikkoman: the Movie (Flash animation). The odd thing is, this probably isn't much weirder than some Japanese TV ads. (via Graham)

animation flash japan kikkoman weird 0

Now from crap homemade geometric fonts to exquisitely well-drawn fonts; a Swedish type foundry named Fountain is selling three font sets based on historical type forms: Baskerville 1757, Montrachet and Monteverdi. They come with small caps, lowercase figures, and lots of ligatures, and look absolutely gorgeous. They're not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I'd be tempted to splash out, if I wasn't already skint from my trip abroad. (via Cos)

fonts 0