Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Spooky technology and gear porn

My iPod likes Francophone hip-hop. I'm sure Apple will claim there is some clever algorithm that means the shuffle function is completely random, but I don't believe it. I've only got one MC Solaar album on it, but Solaar comes up more often on the shuffle than any other, I swear. The fact that my iPod is developing artificial intelligence should worry me, but actually we're cool. If it didn't have such good taste in music though, I might be concerned.

And then the gear porn. Patagonia, maker of clothing that I like too much, has a new very cool multimedia section of its site - "the Tin Shed". Amazing films of Sonnie Trotter flying off Rhapsody; House, Anderson and Prezelj making cutting edge alpinism look like a fun day out; but showing the utter sad gear freak that I am, Steve House talking us through his ice axe collection was just, as Steve would say, "super cool". I'm totally in sympathy with his suggestion that you never get rid of an old axe, although my family both in Finland and England might not agree.

The Tin Shed works via Flash so I can't do links to the exact films. You need to just go in and explore.

No comments: