why I am back in love with radiohead >>

for years I have liked a lot of the music radiohead have produced but as many people haven't gone out of my way to buy their music. so I thought I would wait a while to see if the in rainbows download was worth writing about.
pretty much as soon as it was available my son downloaded it and gave me a copy which I have had in the car ever since, to be honest it is the only thing I have been listening to and what a great collection of music it is. I am now thinking of digging out all the shop bought radiohead cd's I have to re-listen to them.

but what an excellent idea to have it available to download and you decide how much (or not) you pay. I will probably buy more radiohead now as I have fallen back in love with in rainbows.no wonder then that cliff richard and the charlatans are the next to release their music through the internet leaving the price paid decided by the person downloading.

what's in a number >> 64

whilst I was in france I had my 'let's see if there is anything new' eyes on. I found many things that interested me but this was the best. what a fantastic idea market the number of the region/area of france with the best waves 64.
64 is the number that is the prefix for car number plates (so residents) registered in the local area, as well as the prefix for all local postal addresses. putting it within a surf context takes the number and makes it more. without promoting the 'locals only' attitude that is common in many parts of cornwall, california, and australia.


the marketing was very subtle as the number just appeared on surfers cars as a sticker and sponsored the the life guards t-shirts. I had to find out what it was and eventually found the small shop that was the centre of the '64' empire in guethary, (pays basque) deep in the heart of serious surfing in europe.

the brand is being marketed so well and controlled in my opinion that it will sit happily along side the major surf labels without having to compete at all, as it is cool already.

what I like about this >> paper first please

when you are teaching, especially if you happen to be in a good position/location and with a very well equipped room. (technologically I mean). it is all too easy for students to be controlled by the programmes they use.

macromedia flash for instance is initially a reasonably easy programme to use and students will happily make stick men move around a screen, but their work all looks the same and if it were on paper they would discard it. used well flash is fantastic and we are in a position to create very complex layered animations with students who are still in their early teens.

dreamweaver does the same it takes control of what the user is doing, and as the students are so used to having templates to fill in as with bebo, myspace and facebook they just follow and any creativity is lost.

please don't misunderstand me the programmes I mention are very good indeed, but only when the user is in full control. (I hate wizards as they used to be called).

that is why I keep the students away from the computers until they have planned what they want, with pen/paper and paper, this gives them time to think before the computer channels them in to the way it works. it sounds simple but I am scared that we could have a whole generation who expect everything to have a template. so they don't learn they just follow a few simple directions.

then they have to make the programme do it. it is of courses much harder but brings much better return, and that is why I like this......

a working drawing.