THE INTERNET IS BREAKING

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged AI, alternative intelligence, archaeologists, Baghdad battery, break, civilisations, digital age, evolution, external, God, gods, google maps, human engineering, internet, ipad, life, malfunction, mortality, promethean, radio, simplify, technology, Turing test, virtual world.

by Pip Morgan

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” -Vladimir Lenin.

The internet is breaking, this news greeted my ears during the early days of last summer, the man speaking on the radio (the expert), was trying very hard to make the problem intelligible to the layman, explaining the momentary stammers and false starts. Interestingly this is the recent diagnosis that the internet received; at running the risk of over simplifying; it is ‘on the blip’.

All over the world there are anonymous administrators monitoring the waves, and giving it the occasional zap with the equivalent of a defibrillator when servers become overloaded.Continue Reading

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged 2016, adele, Amy Winehouse, arts, At The Drive In, Black Sabbath, Bloc Party, Blur, BRIT, charts, comeback, Ed Sheeran, Grime, Guns'n'Roses, James Bay, Jay Z, kanye west, LCD, music, music industry, nostalgia, NWA, pop music, popular music, radio, Sam Smith, Stormzy, Take That, teenage.

by Mike Vinti

We’re barely a month into 2016 yet it’s becoming plain to see the musical trend that’s going to dominate the next twelve months: comebacks.

For as a long as there’s been a history of popular music there have been comebacks, it’s a natural part of the scene. The bands and musicians you idolise as a child and throughout your teenage years hold a special place in your heart and that’s always going to translate into a desire for more music and more shows form those artists; nostalgia is a powerful force.

Of, course, where there’s nostalgia, there’s money. Artists that have been around for longer can charge more for tickets, command larger production budgets and utilise the demand from fans to open doors not available to their more contemporary peers. This is doubly true for those than have been away and come back again. From Blur to Black Sabbath, Take That to Jay-Z, the combination of die-hard fans and risk averse record label execs sets the stage perfectly for a comeback if you’ve been officially out the scene for more than five years. Money and nostalgia, it seems as simple as that, right?Continue Reading

CULTURE CU*TS

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Apple, arts, bbc, conservative, corporate, culture, Doctor Who, entertainment, general election, media, neo-liberal, radio, streming, torrents, TV, welfare cuts.

by Mike Vinti

The future of the BBC is uncertain. Despite John Whittingdale’s assurances everything is going to be ok, you can’t help but wonder — if they’re abolishing grants for disadvantaged students, cutting disability benefits and generally meddling in the NHS, why would they save the BBC? As the Tories start to enact their new budget, it seems nothing is safe.

The cuts have already started. Though its programming has been weak in recent years, the loss of BBC Three is symbolic of the Tories plans for the rest of the broadcaster. It hardly seems like a coincidence, especially in the context of Osbourne’s refusal to scrap the free license fee for over 65s, that the BBC’s youth-focused channel was A) its most neglected or B) the first of its services to go. The Tories’ cuts to the welfare state have disproportionately affected young people ,and if previous attempts are anything to go by, so will its gradual disintegration of the BBC.

This will be easy for Cameron and his underlings in the department of Culture, Media and Sport to achieve. The BBC has been losing young viewers and listeners from its TV and Radio stations for years.Continue Reading

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged art, arts, capita, conservative, desert bluffs, dystopia, escape, escapism, fan art, game designers, ge15, general election, jeffrey cranon, joseph fink, night vale, podcast, politics, queer, radio, reddit, relationship, same sex, strex corp, tumblr, twitter, uk, welcome to night vale.

by Jack Brindelli

Contains spoilers.

Let’s get something perfectly straight. The proponents of 21^st century capitalism do not want to be your friend. As much as the likes of Starbucks and Apple might wax lyrical about fair-trade, rainforest friendly, organic, aspirational community funds,, they are not interested in improving your living standards, and they don’t care if you dream big, or live with dignity. They have only one true desire; —they want to bleed you like a stuck pig until your veins run dry, and their cups overflow with crimson cascades of our life-force. Metaphorically… more or less.

And we know it too. Capitalism, like any self-respecting cannibal, wears a human face — but it sits uneasily with us. Subconsciously we know that even in a world where it is the dominant ideology, it has all the sincerity of a crocodile’s grin. That’s why we all need a sanctuary — a place of refuge from the dull buzzing rhetoric of productivity, aspiration and progress that continuously echo round our heads every time we tune into society.Continue Reading

radio

THE INTERNET IS BREAKING

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK

CULTURE CU*TS

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

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