WebWatch
Gavan Reilly reduces the Internet t0 426 words for your ease. He’s nice that way.
Far be it for otwo to judge, but the world of journalism is filled with an awful lot of bullsh*t. Surprisingly, there are certain papers – ones otwo will decline to name – which manage to somehow recycle the same news on a daily basis with only the slightest of substitutions to their main headlines, and get two million people per day to lap it up without hesitation. Sage journalistic advice suggests that if a headline ends with a question mark, the chances are that the question it poses is one firmly answered with a ‘No’. (“Will Ireland reject Lisbon a second time?” etc etc.)
Thank Jehovah, then, for the cryptically titled Daily Mail-o-matic (http://short.ie/uo31), which will surely take the hassle out of concocting similar headlines in the future. Simply click the button, et voila! “Have the Unions given Britain’s swans diabetes?” Eh, probably not. “Have the unemployed ruined your children?” otwo will rejoice, knowing its dreadful punned titles never need rear their alliterative heads again.
If journalistic snobbery isn’t your thing (and let’s face it, there are only so many tabloid headlines with the words ‘the memory of Diana’ anyone can handle), then you might be more piqued by some of the amazing musical tools that consistently make the internet a funkier place to spend some time. Top of the pile is the beautifully simple ToneMatrix (http://short.ie/uo32), requiring absolutely no musical competency whatsoever to make pretty, tuneful and catchy ditties that you’ll happily want to leave playing in the background as you browse elsewhere for hours at a time. If you’ve a little more time or interest in developing the output, you’ll like the other audio tools from the same author (http://short.ie/uo33) or his masterpiece Audiotool (http://short.ie/uo34), complete with effects pedals and amps of all sorts to substitute for those peskily expensive pieces of hardware from Melody Maker or Walton’s.
Which, provided you don’t spend as many days playing with them as otwo did, leaves enough time for pop psychology as only The Office could explain it (http://short.ie/uo35); a nice LOL at some of the world’s best musical stat graphs (http://short.ie/uo36) – in fact, let’s thrown in the worst album covers of all time for good measure (http://short.ie/uo37); the latest developments in the fast-moving world of Consumer F**king Electronics Or Some Sh*t Like That (http://short.ie/uo38); and – to steal whatever time you had left – the best collection of trivial and utterly useless information you’ll ever need (http://short.ie/uo39).
If you have any links you’d like to share with WebWatch, send them our way at webwatch@universityobserver.ie.