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... Cheeseburger In A Can.

British History Is Morally Ambiguous

Apparently history teachers, and their pupils, have noticed that the history of Britain isn't all purity and light. This is in reaction to both Gordon Brown and David Cameron calling for a history curriculum that fosters attachment and loyalty to Britain.

As tends to be the case in this issue the normal suspects are trotted out: the slave trade, imperialism and 20th century wars.

The history, then, of the British ruling classes is indeed one of moral ambiguity, if not, on occasion, downright immorality . In the same way the London is not England, the ruling classes are not Britain and their history is only part of it.

I'm not saying that the normal working man didn't play his part in any of the above, but I doubt very much that any of my ancestors were ever in the market for slaves or made money out of trading them. Something I suspect is true for most people I know. As slavery happened at a time when suffrage was far from universal, I'm not entirely sure the whole country should held accountable for it. History does indeed keep repeating itself the whole nation being asked to make up for the mistakes of the rich few, time and again.

Great Is The Enemy Of Good

This is a phrase that I've been using for quite a while, though I tend to put it "Perfect is the enemy of good". Over at Coding Horror they've found that Steve Martin, whose prior funniness does indeed forgive him any number of Father of the Brides, shares a very similar opinion:

The consistent work enhanced my act. I learned a lesson: it was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the circumstances.

Coding Horror recasts this as: strive to be consistently good, and the greatness takes care of itself. I don't know, though, I think it actually comes out as: Great happens, good takes work.

That Explains So Much

Via Boing Boing comes an article in Fast Company that attempts to refute Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. I've sort of avoided the Tipping Point as it just seems like one of those books that has one central, easily expressed, marketable idea that it then expounds for 300 pages, so I'm not entirely sure how this article succeeds. What did strike me, however, was the study looking at how pop hits happen:

Nor did there seem to be any compelling correlation between merit and success. In fact, Watts explains, only about half of a song's success seemed to be due to merit. "In general, the 'best' songs never do very badly, and the 'worst' songs never do extremely well, but almost any other result is possible," he says. Why? Because the first band to snag a few thumbs-ups in the social world tended overwhelmingly to get many more. Yet who received those crucial first votes seemed to be mostly a matter of luck.

Understanding Art for Geeks

Via the commments in Making Light I found this page, Understanding Art for Geeks. It's clever, funny and, yes, geeky in varying amounts. Some pictures I laughed at and others I frowned at until I think I figured the joke out. I liked the one below in particular:

The Youth Of Today

Some times you despair:

Third of teens 'drink to get drunk'

The other two-thirds presumably just don't know what they're doing.

Mums, eh?

As Lou Reed once had it, you can't always trust your mother, but it worked out fine for the Little Baby Cheeses.

New Poster

For our second Weyer gig at the Café Adabei they let me use the "South Park" Blueberries logo. I've got rid of some text compared to the last one and next time I think we'll be confident enough to get rid of the left-hand bar as it's just text and people are beginning to know who we are. I think this is nicely bold, though.

It's Always Tease Tease Tease

Star Trek XI Teaser Trailer. You know you want it.

Update: Huh?

The Distance Between Fantasy And Reality

A site called West Virginia Surf Report has tasked itself with documenting ads vs. reality when it comes to fast food. Comparing what they got out of the box with the photo the fast food place wanted you to believe it would look like. Like many good ideas this is obvious, yet fascinating.

Also, it made me feel hungry...

Via Accidental Hedonist