plus nine. neo now.

If celebrities are the new American aristocracy, the exotic baby name can sometimes function as the equivalent of a royal title, a way for a privileged caste to bestow the power of its legacy on future generations.

New York Times: Why Stars Name Babies Moxie, Moses and Apple

[via (i think) he was a journalist]

Split attention creates a multilayered sense of presence, and identity. You're here, and you're in the ether, at the same time, at all times. Video games teach us to project ourselves into other realms, and maintain attention there. That's kind of magical and scary.

Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing in an interview at SuicideGirls.com

Maybe it's time to consider the Web.

After a long freeze brought about by the dot-com crash and 9/11, Web editors are hiring and Web operations are expanding again. Safa Rashtchy, a senior research analyst at the securities firm Piper Jaffray, recently predicted that online advertising will reach its tipping point in mid-2006. That's prompting news organizations to realign their resources to focus more on Web journalism.

What's more, for a discipline with decades of tradition and well-defined standards of practice, there is a sense of excitement and rejuvenation about journalism as it is being practiced on the Web today. The rules are still being written, so the practitioners, by and large, are following their own muse as they explore new ways to communicate news and information.

Anthony Moor with a very encouraging piece about job perspectives in online journalism: Go to the Web, young journalist!

[via jprof.com]

Being in a band is not about music or rebellion. It is about simulating rebellion - living in a similation of a band. Playing the music is less than a tenth of the work and less than a tenth of the point.

So this is a site about a band that does everything else other than play music.

A simulated band by mr. plasticbag himself, Tom Coates.

The fact that the Hong Kong - Watches And Perfume shop is run by an old Turkish man. That the sushi restaurant is run by the same Vietnamese lady with the huge oil painting of Istanbul on the wall, who before ran a Thai restaurant in the same location. That the bar on the corner offers coffee and cocktails to go - all day.