Posted on May 28th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, General/Misc..
Those who have ever done publishing will be familiar with Lorem Ipsum. For those who don’t know, it’s just a long Latin text that’s used in publishing, so designers can do layouts before anything’s actually been written.
That’s the ground for this observation:
Rich Boy’s “Throw Some D’s” is the Lorem Ipsum of rap.
At first I thought the lyrics were pointless, repetitive, and simplistic. Just as a comparison, here’s the song, side by side with Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby (clearly the pinnacle of hip hop…):
http://www.lyrics007.com/Vanilla%20Ice%20Lyrics/Ice%20Ice%20Baby%20Lyrics.html
http://www.lyrics007.com/Rich%20Boy%20Lyrics/Throw%20Some%20D’s%20Lyrics.html
But that’s the point. Commercial rap has learned that it doesn’t need good lyrics; it needs good producers. Anyone who doesn’t believe that need only look at the charts. (exceptions of course)
And what would be better for good producers to work with then an undistracting, formulaic song with an easy to remember chorus and a straightforward beat?
What you get is plenty of remixes–guest stars, newcomers, and even classical music. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] Fact is, it’s harder to make a good beat if the lyrics are distracting you (especially if you’re just gonna make your own). That’s the point of lorem ipsum. That’s the point here. Rich Boy happens to illustrate it by having more remixes than you can possibly imagine.
Posted on May 21st, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, General/Misc., Product Design, Programming, UI Design.
For years I have used and loved Mulberry, perhaps the best e-mail client in existence. So I was greatly saddened to hear that Cyrusoft, the company behind Mulberry, declared bankruptcy a year ago.
I was just as much shocked as dismayed. Mulberry was hawked by so many colleges that I assumed its destiny was all but sealed. College students, as early adopters, would all be exposed to Mulberry and see how wonderful it was, and they’d take it to their jobs, promoting an almost viral spread.
I guess the Thunderbird/Outlook duopoly was just too strong for Cyrusoft to handle. However, all is not lost, as Mulberry is available for free now.
Let’s take a look at all the wonderful features of this program! (full article)
[originally started a long time ago]
Posted on May 16th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris.
[originally written forever ago]
Posted on May 10th, 2008 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, General/Misc., Philosophy.
There are many objections to Christianity. Some of the most well-known:
While many people have raised and tried to answer these objections, let’s take this in a bit of a different direction. If these are legitimate objections to Christianity (and let’s assume they are),
why not redesign Christianity to remove those objections?
Well, here goes.
(more…)