On our recent trip to the Edinburgh Fringe, I was bemused by just how little effort performers put in to finding out why people had selected their show. Taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe is ridiculously expensive with some performers paying tens of thousands of pounds. The way performers recoup the costs of performing is by getting people to pay to see a show. Acts are spending huge amounts…
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Pixels are a lie. Even if you think you're drawing something with "pixel perfect" accuracy, your monitor is lying to you. There is no grid of platonically perfect squares. In CSS, pixels are a double lie: Note that 1px doesn't necessarily equal one physical device pixel. On HD displays, it may span multiple physical pixels. Similarly, 1cm in CSS often doesn't correspond to one hundredth of SI…
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This is a detailed examination of the various senses possessed by animals. Some will be intimately familiar to you - like sight and sound - whereas some will seem strange and uncanny - like magnetic detection and electro-sensing. Some straddle an almost understandable space like echolocation or tetra-chromatic vision. This isn't a game of Top Trumps where all the animals are ranked by power.…
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One of the promises of the AI-filled future is that we'll all have highly capable autonomous servants "agents" to work for us. Even back in the 1990s, it was a common trope in future-gazing to insist that a person's personal slave agent would negotiate on their behalf. Ask your meek digital pal agent to find you a restuarant in town, tonight, for a hot date, catering to your dietary preferences, …
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In early February 2011 Egypt was in the middle of a political revolution. One morning, everyone's phones suddenly pinged with an alert. The Armed Forces asks Egypt's honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honour and our precious Egypt. A series of messages arrived all ostensibly from the network provider Vodafone. All pro-regime and all with the…
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This was my first ever time at The Fringe™. Here are some scattered thoughts looking at the good, the bad, and the annoying aspects of this madly extravagant exhibition of talent. We saw 23 shows together, and one separate show each. There were more hits than misses, but the frustration of wasting your time on a bad show is rather heavy when there are literally hundreds of other shows on offer. P…
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I'm really not sure what to make of this book. It was recommended by my book club as something between tragedy and comedy. The characters are excruciatingly well written - if you (or your friends) shoplifted Impulse body-spray back in the 1990s, you'll be hit by a terrifying wave of nostalgia. It reminds me of this excellent essay by Marie Le Conte about consent. What can a teenage girl…
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Easily the best show I've seen at the Fringe. For plot-related reasons, a television company asks a literary genius to create a "pro-weapons sitcom". It is a fast paced mix of the sitcoms 2012 and Episodes. The jokes come at a steady pace - some attack with the furiousity of bullets, others the the subtlety of a knife in the night. All four of the cast are spectacular. Turning the…
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For a pay-what-you-want show this was decent. Three comedians doing sets on the theme of philosophy - followed by a Q&A where the audience poses philosophical conundrums to them. It more-or-less works as a gimmick. Although an early afternoon crowd may have been more likely to ask questions anonymously. I've never seen a Sikh doing an unnervingly accurate impression of Trump before. Daman…
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This play is fucked up! Such a brilliant concept - what happened to the kids from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after they were rejected by Wonka? Stuck together in a Big-Brotheresque household, they trauma-dump on each other. New Zealand's Half Trick have shrunk their full-length play into a Fringe-standard 60 minutes. That does make it a little brusque and, simultaneously, a bit…
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Quite simply marvellous! Three Scottish divas giving us their interpretations of the greats while backed by an excellent pianist. So many shows at the Fringe skimp on sets and props - not this! A luscious array of costumes, hats, wigs, and ruby slippers bring the characters to life. The framing is thin but serviceable - the backstage helpers are reminiscing about their favourite stars and bring …
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Walking down the street, I noticed a ringing phone box so, naturally, I answered it. What happened next was a few minutes of pure fringe magic! I had a little chat with the caller, he welcomed me to the smallest venue in the fringe, and then he improvised a banger of a song based on my peculiar proclivities. What a treat to have a front row experience at a one man (and one audience member)…
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