Unexpectedly taken by this

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcyrf6_joni-mitchell-refuge-of-the-road...

performance (late 80s or later ?) of Refuge of the Roads, with Larry Klein I think. Is it from a DVD ? If there's any info on the site I can't see it.

Another in my occasional cosmic series:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/01/25/lego-balloon-spac...

Soundtrack suggestions please ...

Dull I know, but I have been, er, charged with looking for a battery for the FPO's Motorola KRAZR phone, and when I tried Amazon the feedback on many of the suppliers suggested that they were flogging dodgy ones i.e. possibly previously sold, not Motorola originals, and not holding a charge.

Should I just go to a high street phone shop, or try one of those little accessory places one sees, or have I missed a better option ?

I'd like to play formats other than mp4/QuickTime on an iPad but it looks as if the originals VLC app for iPad has been pulled. What do the massive recommend as an all purpose video player for iPads ? will eventually use with things like a nas drive but in short term am looking for something that plays locally stored files. Ta.

I am wondering how well these things coexist. If I were to open a Word doc on an iPad from the Dropbox app, can I save it back into Dropbox after changing it ?

Or save an attachment into the dropbox from web based mail clients on the ipad ?

Any other things to know about these programs ? Would find a tablet without full Dropbox compatibility a bit of a pain.

I am contemplating getting a base model Wifi 16Gb iPad 2 when next in the US, they are about £320 equivalent as opposed to £400 here.

Any hidden extra costs or issues I should know about ? (have digested this thread http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/advice-buying-electronic-trinkets, and would use a Froyo Android phone and a giffgaff gigabag for occasional tethering).

Quick question-are any of you finding that Spotify now crashes on Android ? I am using latest app, Android 2.1, ZTE Blade (Orange San Francisco), 16 Gb Card, and a few dozen playlists (not hundreds). Crash frequently happens while updating playlist.

A quick scan of web suggests this is a known issue but is not very helpful on why, and on long-term likelihood of a fix-so any digested info or experience would be greatly appreciated. It's one of the things I like most about smartphones and would drive me away from Android or at least towards an iTouch if not fixed on former and better on latter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8912714/Apple-iTunes-flaw-al...

[edit: corrected after helpful comment below-cheers. After this other item http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8915104/GCHQ-to-sell-off-... I wondered if they'll be offering this expertise more widely ;-)

Listening to (and enjoying) 50 words for Snow on Spotify I couldn't but wonder if Kate Bush is what Stephen Fry would no doubt call the Peter Greenaway de nos jours ... It's not just the numerology:

It's the stunning arrival on the scene (Wuthering Heights vs Draughtsman), the classic mid period (Hounds of Love vs Drowning by Numbers & Prospero's Books), the "difficult" later work, the diehard fans (like me), the more recent late classic (Ariel v Pillow Book), ...

... or maybe not. As you were ...

While fond of the official one at the corner of the page, with the perennial presence of Gelliant Gutfright and the Aspidistra & Hatstand, I was struck by a possibly more objective one here:

http://www.wikio.co.uk/sources/www.wordmagazine.co.uk/blog-ulgU

Nice to see Cetology trending ...though not so sure about Jo Whiley ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/aug/25/origins-of-music-genres-hip-...

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/progressive-rock-and-oed

Suppose I could lay my hands on a cheap Touchpad in the "fire sale". Would it be worth having ? And if so, why ? [I don't have an iPad or a Kindle yet, but do have a nice Android phone].

Also intrigued by the reasoning in this piece, about the effect on future user expectations of HP's dumping of old stock at $100 in the US:

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/every-tablet-should-be-99-20110823/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-apocalypse-actually-happened-3-y...

Though the event went largely unremarked upon at the time, a report published Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that the apocalypse, or end of the world, occurred three years ago. "According to our data, the total collapse of all human civilization occurred on or around April 3, 2008" [...] Palmenterri went on to say that because the apocalypse does not resemble the eschatological predictions of any major religion, it's safe to assume the gods have all forsaken us.

Explains a lot ...

The history of "Afternoon Delight":

Bill Danoff [SVB]: When it came out, I was getting my car fixed, and the guy said: “I heard your record. It’s about a nooner!” I didn’t know there was a term for that. I was just thinking the guy goes to see his girlfriend in the afternoon. . . . There’s a line in the song, “Gonna grab some afternoon delight.” The right word was probably “have.” But “have” is a lame word when you’re writing a lyric. You want action words. I changed it to “grab,” like you grab a bite. I was looking for words you can sing and put your teeth into. I wasn’t trying to be a pervert.

Milt Okun [Producer]: Since I had been a schoolteacher, I liked to take my arrangements of hit songs and do chorales for schools. This one, obviously, I couldn’t do because of the meaning, which sort of irritated me.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/starland-vocal-bands-afternoon-delig...

TMFTL. A truly 21st century piece from the Washington Post:

It’s not often that search giant Google looks like the little guy. But in a move unprecedented in the tech world, six of Google’s rivals — including Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion — combined forces recently to prevent the company from buying a critical trove of patents.

Federal antitrust enforcers are scrutinizing whether Google, often accused of abusing its Web search power, is facing an unfair coalition of companies that could block its popular Android mobile phone software, according to a source close to the matter.

[...]

The latest tussle over patents began when the Canadian telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks declared bankruptcy and put up for sale its portfolio of about 6,000 patents covering an array of wireless and Internet technologies. Nortel described the portfolio as touching “nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets as well, including Internet search and social networking.”

[...]

Then an unknown group calling itself Rockstar Bidco stepped forward with a whopping $4.5 billion offer — turning the Nortel sale into possibly the biggest intellectual-property auction of all time. The group, it turned out, was a coalition of Google’s biggest rivals in mobile phones.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/antitrust-officials-probi...