Archive for September 17th, 2008
How To Go Back To The Old Facebook
Come on, you know you want to!
Some 500,000 Facebook users who don’t like the site’s new design have found a loophole leading back to the old one. The trick is to sign up as a Facebook application developer — and you don’t have to even write a line of code! Facebook allows developers to use the old Facebook design if they want, because until every last Facebook user has migrated to the new design, these widgetmakers need to maintain two versions of their applications. Here’s how to go undercover and get your old Facebook profile back in three easy steps.
- Step 1. Add the “Facebook Developers” application (available here).
- Step 2. Click “Go to applications” and then close the page.
- Step 3. Follow this link.
Tags: Media | Web | design | Network | Site | application | old | Social | facebook | developer | user | loophole | culturite | Tech & Biz
R. Kelly ‘Don’t Like Anyone Illegal’
This doesn’t exactly make R. Kelly sound any less guilty, in fact, quite the opposite. Rather than denying his attraction to young girls, Kells dodges the question to provide a more generic, and necessarily obvious, disclaimer that he doesn’t “like anyone illegal”.
Hey R., is that what your lawyer told you to say? Face it, man, we all know the truth.
In his first interview since being acquitted of child pornography charges, R. Kelly dismissed allegations that he ever preyed on young girls, telling BET News: “I don’t like anyone illegal.”
Tags: New York | Culture | Music | pornography | charges | illegal | Singer | R Kelly | r&b | R. Kelly
Amy Poehler Set To Leave ‘Saturday Night Live’
Comedienne, actress, and Hillary Clinton-impressionist, Amy Poehler is set to leave SNL after the U.S. election in November, although the election has little to do with it. Poehler will be on maternity leave and plans to focus her energy on her role in an upcoming spin-off from “The Office“.
Amy Poehler will be leaving “Saturday Night Live” after the November election. Poehler told Men’s Vogue that she will go on maternity leave after the election and won’t return to NBC’s late-night sketch show after giving birth to her first child.
Instead, she will focus on her upcoming primetime NBC series, a spin-off from “The Office.”
Tags: New York | Culture | TV | hollywood | Los Angeles | Election | Show | television | Night | Live | actress | BIRTH | Saturday | snl | AMY | MATERNITY | Comedienne | sketch | Poehler
Brad Pitt Is The Most Dangerous Person On The Internet
If you value your online privacy and security, you might want to avoid trying to hunt down that sexy Brad Pitt screensaver.
In the immortal words of Akon, Brad Pitt “is dangerous / he’s so dangerous…“!
Reuters reports today that Brad Pitt is now the most dangerous celebrity to search for on the internet.
The Hollywood hearthrob Brad Pitt has overtaken Paris Hilton as the most dangerous celebrity to search for in cyber[s]pace, according to the second annual study of by Internet security company McAfee.
The company found Web users searching for “Brad Pitt,” “Brad Pitt downloads,” and Brad Pitt wallpaper, screen savers and pictures had an 18 percent chance of having their computer infected with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware.
Tags: Culture | hollywood | Google | Security | search | virus | internet | Celebrity | pitt | actor | McAfee | Cyberspace | dangerous | brad
Tom Jones To Release First Album in 15 Years
Tom Jones wants to be a “contender” and he’s releasing his first album in 15 years to prove that he’s still got what it takes. It’s funny that he’s trying to play the retro card and align himself with Amy Winehouse.
That didn’t work out so well for Ms. Amy, but here’s hoping that Mr. Jones will fare better and gett back to his booty-shakin’ basics.
After 15 years without a new album in the U.S., Tom Jones will release a disc of almost entirely original material this fall.
The 68-year-old singer will release “24 Hours” on Nov. 25 on S-Curve Records. It’s a retro-tinged album much in the style of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” that finds the Welshman’s voice as strong as ever.
“The fire is still in me,” Jones told The Associated Press in a recent interview, speaking by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “Not to be an oldie, but a goodie. I want to be a contender.”
Tags: Culture | Music | Entertainment | 24 hours | RECORDS | Singer | album | Winehouse | tom jones | back to black | s-curve
All-Star Lineup of Comedians To Honour George Carlin
In remembrance of the passing of comedy legend, George Carlin, this past June, an all-star lineup of comedians is coming together for a special tribute performance to Carlin at the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour on November 10th.
Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and Margaret Cho are among an all-star lineup of entertainers who will honor the late comedian George Carlin at this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
The prize was announced just before Carlin’s death in June. It will be awarded during a tribute performance November 10th at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The program announced Tuesday will be aired later on PBS stations.
Others who will honor Carlin include Garry Shandling, Lily Tomlin, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, Lewis Black and Richard Belzer.
The prize is being awarded posthumously for the first time in its 11-year history.
Tags: Culture | Humor | Margaret Cho | Kennedy | arts | comedy | John | george | Bill Maher | Humour | American | comedian | center | Jon Stewart | Prize | carlin | program | Mark Twain | garry shandling | lily tomlin | denis leary | lewis black
UK Musicians Enjoy Mercury Prize Sales Boost
The Mercury Prize is certainly a prestigious honour bestowed on UK musicians every year, however, I had no idea that it could have such a huge impact on sales for those artists fortunate enough to be either nominated, or to win, the award.
This year’s prize winning act, Elbow, alongside nominated electronic producer, Burial, have enjoyed a phenomenal sales boost of almost 1000% since the awards were handed out last week.
The 12 bands and artists nominated for the Nationwide Mercury Prize have seen album sales soar by almost 500 percent, music retailer HMV said on Wednesday.
The albums have enjoyed on average a fivefold increase in sales since last week’s ceremony, the biggest ever post-awards increase since the event began 17 years ago.
“Untrue” by Burial recorded a 1004 percent rise in sales, while the winning album, Elbow’s “The Seldom Seen Kid”, saw an increase of 688 percent, resulting in a leap of 54 places to number 7 in the Official UK Album Chart.
“A lot of music fans will be aware of the band and their music, but may not have bought one of their albums before,” said HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo.
“The band look set to be one of the biggest ever beneficiaries of winning a Nationwide Mercury Prize when measured in commercial terms.”
Tags: Culture | Music | London | sales | Nomination | UK | artists | nominee | band | elbow | album | mercury | BURIAL | Prize | WINNER
Damien Hirst Art Auction Sets $200 Million Record
As NowPublic previously reported, widely-acclaimed British artist Damien Hirst set a first-day auction record for sales of his controversial works. After two days, the auction soared to a record breaking $200 million (£111 million) for the sale of 218 items.
Love or hate him, Hirst has outpaced Picasso sales tenfold and “is believed to be a dollar billionaire”.
Is this art for the rich made by own of their own?
Multi-millionaire artist Damien Hirst wildly exceeded expectations on Tuesday with a record-breaking sale of 218 items for 111 million pounds, underscoring the resilience of the high-end art market.
A further two items were sold privately on Monday and three remained unsold on Tuesday after the unprecedented sale that bypassed the traditional dealer network and instead went direct to the auction rooms of Sotheby’s in London.
“It is iconic; inherently British,” said one bidder at the Sotheby’s auction who asked to remain anonymous. “His work challenges people, and visually it is stunning.”
Despite a global economic downturn, the auction put paid to fears Hirst’s mammoth clear-out sale could flood the art market and hit prices. After taking 70.55 million pounds on Monday night, a morning and an afternoon sale on Tuesday brought in a further 41 million pounds.
Auction houses have been appealing to “recession-proof” buyers in the Middle East and Russia, where record oil prices have boosted already massive fortunes, along with the super-rich in emerging economies such as India.
By auctioning his work, Hirst can expect a far greater share of the money raised.
The two-day sale set a record for an auction dedicated to one artist. Sotheby’s said it was 10 times the previous record set in 1993 for 88 works by Picasso.
The Telegraph offers a fascinating perspective on the record-breaking sale, suggesting that Hirst’s work is ‘impactful’ but lacking “any real visual ideas”.
Hirst has noticed you can get big sales without any real visual ideas. Just impact will do. Anything brightly coloured or tackily grim will keep the product brand going.
It’s the audience’s job to keep pretending this is the kind of thing that art’s always gone in for, and the promoter’s job to keep cheering. Artistic emotion in Rothko is grand, dignified and distanced. In Hirst it’s hysterical and effervescent.
For some reason the money people couldn’t do the necessary buoying-up for the world’s big banks, but they can do it for Hirst. And that’s impressive, but it doesn’t make these rapidly churned out objects any different to what they palpably are, which is empty.
The work’s bombastic pointlessness – its insulting meaning of “buy this” – is all too clear in paintings and sculptures that have a lot of monumental marble-gold-and-diamond bluster but little else.
The mood in the sales room was of anti-climax: the press in their scruffy scrum, the phone bidders earnestly lined up in front of a gigantic chrome cabinet full of cigarette butts, the main punters in their chairs looking glum and distracted, as if they weren’t really there.
It was clear from the first bids that the sale was going to be an immense success. If the show had bombed, it would have signalled not just that the financial world was in meltdown, but that other, deeper values were being revised.
In the end, though, there was something numbing about business as usual.
Tags: Britain | Culture | Art | Sculpture | arts | auction | sale | artist | UK | england | British | million | picasso | Damien | sotheby's | Hirst | Sotheby
