Esc

My friend Barak Sh says:

… probably around 99.9% of the world’s population already knows that you should “press ESC to exit full screen mode” in YouTube. Isn’t it time to stop showing this extremely annoying message?

I would probably disagree and say that assuming such a thing about 99.9% is too bold, but…

I’m teaching my father (62) to use the Internet. I had to explain him many times what is spam, what are tabs in the browser, what are links, how to write a subject in an email and how to save email attachments to a local folder. Very simple things, but he’s still not so sure about most of them.

But he immediately understood that pressing ESC exits full-screen mode in YouTube! And he applied this knowledge to sport5.co.il (nonstandard).

So he’s probably not too far off the mark.

All lost in the tide

What do you get if you search for Soundgarden’s “Pretty Noose” video? The “Alternate Version” – the one where the band just performs. So the song is awesome, but the interesting original video is not on YouTube.

But what’s interesting is what appears in “Related Videos”. After a bunch of Soundgarden videos you get: Radiohead – Creep; Weezer – Say it Ain’t So; Roxette – Listen to Your Heart.

At this point i am supposed to write a Russian cuss word, but actually i can’t deny that Marie Fredriksson looks a lot like Thom Yorke. I’d love to say that it ain’t so, but it is too.

You

YouTube may be a competitor to Wikipedia as one of the most massively multilingual sites on the web.

Many people who comment there don’t seem to care that English is the lingua franca of the web. They just write in Russian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Catalan and Croatian and it creates a soup of languages. And that is a Very Good Thing. It makes languages seen and promotes tolerance. Variety and tolerance are mighty good.

Made Me Cry – Illusions

MTV launched a website with a lot of videos – http://www.mtvmusic.com. Until now i would watch videos on YouTube and quite often i’d get the “unavailable” error, because MTV would request YouTube to remove content for funny copyright reasons. Hopefully there will less of that crap now. (Now, if only Flash was True Free Software…)

As i opened mtvmusic.com for the first time, i was very pleasantly surprised by the videos at the top. Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” is an obvious joke—”Rickrolling” lovers must have quickly caught on to the new website. And Britney at the top is the exception rather than the rule. The rest, however, is pure classic bliss: “Once in a Lifetime”, “Legs”, “Take On Me”, “Money for Nothing”, and the one that just had to make me cry: “Under Pressure”.

One disappointing thing is that only seems to include video clips and not other MTV classics, such as the Unplugged concerts. You can still watch the whole of Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam Unplugged sessions on YouTube, though.

And why is this post called “Illusions”? Because if you open an account there, you’ll have to sign an agreement saying that you allow MTV “to edit, mix, combine, merge, distort, superimpose, create or add special effects, illusions and/or other material to or of all or any portion of your User Content”. If they allow me to watch Yo La Tengo’s “Sugarcube” in exchange, i don’t mind letting them use my content in illusions.

Glasgow Mega Snake

Oh what fun it is to play “Glasgow Mega Snake” to an unsuspecting hitchhiker.

Or “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend”.

Or “Teen Age Riot”.

Or “Halleluhwah”.

Or “Breath” (Flash).

Oh what fun.

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I suppose that you understood that those are songs. If you don’t try to find them after reading this, then we both failed.

Made Me Cry – Misha

Moscow 1980 – Farewell, Misha (Flash)

In Soviet Russia the good things were very good.

In Soviet Russia the big things were BIG.

Yesterday i saw a child walking with a big colorful balloon and imagined him flying to the sky. And it reminded me of Misha – the mascot of 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

Very few of the people who grew up in the Soviet Union won’t at least shed a tear when seeing the finishing ceremony of that olympiad. Its high point was “saying goodbye to Misha”, as he was released into the sky holding onto colorful balloons to the sounds of a sad farewell song. Everybody in Russia remembers the song. More than this, this is The Great Unifying Moment of post-Stalin Russia, comparable to 9/11 and Kennedy assassination.

So watch this movie. Don’t miss Misha himself shedding a tear at 0:47.

If this movie doesn’t make you cry, then you’ll never really understand anything about Russia.

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Here’s the song. Lyrics – Nikolai Dobronravov, music – Aleksandra Pakhmutova. My translation is lousy, but i tried to make it rhyme; improvements are welcome. Website of the authors with links to music files is here: До свиданья, Москва.

На трибунах становится тише… Тает быстрое время чудес. До свиданья, наш ласковый Миша, Возвращайся в свой сказочный лес. Не грусти, улыбнись на прощанье, Вспоминай эти дни, вспоминай… Пожелай исполненья желаний, Новой встречи нам всем пожелай. Пожелаем друг другу успеха, И добра, и любви без конца… Олимпийское звонкое эхо Остаётся в стихах и в сердцах. До свиданья, Москва, до свиданья! Олимпийская сказка, прощай! Пожелай исполненья желаний, Новой встречи друзьям пожелай. припев: Расстаются друзья. Остаётся в сердце нежность… Будем песню беречь. До свиданья, до новых встреч.

The stadium stands are getting quiet… Time of miracles is melting away. Farewell to you, our tender Misha, Go back home to your wood of fairy tales. Don’t be sad, give a smile before the parting, And recall these good days, please recall… Wish us all the fulfillment of wishes, Wish a new meeting soon to us all. So let’s wish lots of luck to each other, Let’s wish kindness and love with no end, Bright and clear echo of the Olympics Will forever be cherished and sang. Farewell to you, Moscow, farewell, Farewell, the Olympic fairy tale, Wish us all the fulfillment of wishes, Wish a new meeting soon to us all. chorus: Friends are coming apart, Tenderness stays in the heart… We shall cherish the song. Farewell, we shall meet again.

Shall we begin?

(tafkaPP, this is just for you!)

Prince reunites his old 80′s band!

That’s how they looked in 1984: Computer Blue on YouTube (Flash)

And today: Prince Reunites With Wendy & Lisa! – Pitchfork

Nothing changed …

Made Me Cry – Hey

Arcade Fire live at Rock en Seine (Flash)

Arcade Fire released two albums. Everybody agrees that both are growers—you need to listen to them for a few times before you can really love them. The first one may have been called manipulative—several band members lost their family members during the recording, so they called the record “Funeral” and dedicated several songs to their families, most notably the unbelievable closer “In the Backseat”. The record went on to top a lot of critics’ best-of-2005 list. And no, it’s not manipulative—it is really good and all the praise was well deserved.

A week ago they released their new record Neon Bible (Flash). With such a title (taken from a novel) and a booklet with lyrics typeset like bible verses and a black-and-white photograph of a girl reading a book on every page it may look like an overblown and overambitious attempt at a sophomore album. And on the first listen it really sounded like an album full of opening tracks, big-sounding but not too engaging. After a few more listens, though, it took a shape. The next-to-last track, No Cars Go, is my favorite, and probably everyone else’s. The music reminds a little of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight Tonight”, but far better. The lyrics are unusual for the band, which often employs wordiness, retro imagery and lines in French—here the lyrics are very simple, short and repetitive. The result is the best rock anthem of the decade so far. And it comes from a bunch of Canadian Québécois geeks.

Watch the video closely. I would really like to learn to play accordion now.