Shannon O’Neill

is Boxee. Since installing it on my Mac Laptop and Ubuntu HTPC I’ve been enjoying lots of streaming TV (eg The Daily Show), video and audio - it’s especially great as a front-end for Last.fm. The interface works beautifully via remote control, and the way it presents my media library has inspired me to watch lots of files I’d been meaning to get around to. There’s also a social aspect: users can see what their friends have been watching and listening to, and can recommend things to each other.

I could go on, but others already have.

Some of the streaming content (eg Hulu) is US-only, but you can get around that with a proxy or VPN such as Hotspot Shield.

Boxee is still in alpha, so if you’re a friend who would like an invitation, contact me.

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Today’s blog recommendation: Rad Dudes.

I’ve programmed a selection of Australian music for the latest edition of the ELEVENELEVEN podcast.

Subject: THIS REALLY WORKS! WE SWEAR!!

Ok, here’s how it goes.

Our first issue is completed and is online right now for free download.

http://www.archive.org/download/sordid_zine-issue1/1sordid_zine_issue1.pdf

All you have to do is to send this messge to 10 (ten) people you know, and instruct each of them to send it to 10 (ten) people they know.

For this to work, it is important that everyone that possibly can actually downloads our entire first issue.

So, you send this on, the people you send to download our first issue (free download remember), and then they each send this message onto another ten (10) people, and so on and so on.

Once you’ve downloaded the first issue, you don’t need to download it again if you don’ want to, this will still work.

After a couple of weeks of this starting, we will have had HEAPS and HEAPS of downloads.

THIS WILL REALLY WORK. We aren’t making this up. If ou do what we are saying in this message it will really work.

You want to get rich don’t you?

Of course you do!!

Well, we don’t. We just want people to read our free online zine that has no advertising or anything.

Just 112 pages of awesome goodness for everyone.

YOU NEED TO DO THIS FOR THIS TO WORK.

It really works, we swear!!

SZ (Sordid Zine collective)

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I’ll be DJing at this:

The Sound of Failure 2008
Sound art festival
Bookings: http://factorytheatre.com.au
Website: http://SoundOfFailure.com

Following on from the (ironic) success of last year’s festival, Sound of Failure 2008 brings together over forty local and international sound artists in numerous venues to surprise, shock and entertain. Many of these artists have attempted to transcend the small rectangular screens and the latest Microsoft releases, opting instead to look at unintended consequences of technology – when it misbehaves or just gives up the ghost.

Internationally renowned torturers of electronic toys, Toydeath, will unleash their circuit bent mayhem on the Factory Theatre along with 15 other acts (Book NOW: http://factorytheatre.com.au). Exhibition wise, Chrissie Cotter gallery in Camperdown will host a diverse range of audio, and audio-visual installations from over a dozen artists.

You can also find sound art hiding between the junk in Reverse Garbage, and Wade Marynowski’s solo exhibition, ‘Rococo Vortex’, in the aptly titled Don’t Look Gallery, as well as a spellbinding performance, ‘Question/Answer… Interruption’ at the snazzy new UTS performance space. Please see http://SoundOfFailure.com for a complete list of venues and details.

Performers include: Toy Death, Ian Andrews (album launch!), Starella, Est Et Non, Hiske with Phychic Date, Greg Chantonsky (Can), Tom Hall (Bris), Cleaning Lady (Vic), Samuel Bruce, Dianne’s Dollhouse, Glenn Remington, Catfingers, Jessica Tyrell & Chris Caines, Lectre Macabre & Triangle, Peter Newman & Johnathon Hunter, DJ Olive, Panoptique Electrical, and Shannon O’Neill.

Artists include: Norie Neumark & Maria Miranda, Jordana Maise Goot, Subscape Annex (USA), Krzysztof Osinski, Cara-Ann Aimpson, Wade Marynowsky, Monopero (Spain), Nick Wishart, Caroline Huf, Lisa Roberts, Vienna Parreno, and 2203 Collective.

Main performance night:
Factory Theatre, Enmore
105 Victoria Rd, Enmore
August 30, 7pm
$20 (+booking fee)
Book NOW at: http://factorytheatre.com.au

Main exhibition opening:
Chrissie Cotter Gallery
Pidcock St, Camperdown
August 19, 6pm (FREE)

The Sound of Failure festival is supported by Marrickville Council, the Centre for Media Arts Innovation (University of Technology, Sydney), Reverse Garbage, the Factory Theatre and Don’t Look Gallery.

We have a two week break from classes, so I’m looking forward to catching up on writing, paperwork and sleep (I can’t sleep before 3am, so the morning classes have been killing me).

In social network news, I left Facebook a few months ago cos it was taking up too much time and is, let’s face it, evil. Twitter has had a lot of hype recently, so I’m checking it out again, although I’m still unconvinced.

I keep vacillating between privacy and openness online, deleting or hiding info, then showing it again. Right now I’m back on Flickr, Last.fm and YouTube, and have also created a YT channel for Alias Frequencies.

One thing I’ve noticed about del.icio.us is that making your network private means that the people you’re following can no longer see that you’re following them. I’m sorry if I offended anyone who thought I’d stopped following them!

Lastly, my blog recommendation for today is the hilarious rantings of Tom Ellard. For someone who was always anti-blogging, he’s a great blogger!

OK, break over, back to writing! Schnell schnell!