Luke Kelly (21) reads all the papers, magazines, websites and cereal packets you don’t have time to peruse – here he explains why.
I like cheese, stuffed pigs’ trotters and Turkish Delight. My friend
Kevin likes kebabs, Patanegra ham and boxty. Kingsley Amis liked tomato
juice, whiskey and Coke mixed together. We all have a kaleidoscope of
fancies. Similarly, the internet has many different tastes – she
devours videos of debates between Chomsky and Buckley in equal measure
to YouTubes of dogs riding skateboards. So how does one sort the
incredible article from the entirely missable one? The fascinating rare
clip of Elvis playing with Johnny Cash from the hordes of videos of fat
Vegas Elvis strutting at the edge of a sweaty, deep-fried demise?
Hopefully this is where thesetoday.com will help. My new website guides
you through the mucky wastelands to five links, selected daily and
arranged from high-brow to low-brow.
In real life, we have “desire paths” – unintended, improvised paths marked out by the collective footsteps of people trying to find the shortest way across grass, like ants marching in efficient streams. Apparently some clever institutions wait for desire paths to be created by pedestrians and then put permanent sidewalks in these places. Thesetoday.com creates a desire path through the internet: the easiest, most direct way to interesting findings. To match these desire paths to your actual desires, the links provided are arranged from high-brow to low-brow. For example, go to town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio and select Dylan Thomas. Click on the first file. You can hear the voice of Thomas reciting ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ – this experience sent a shiver down my spine and I made it one of my first high-brow picks.
The internet is still assumed to be a smorgasbord of con artists, misinformation, geeks, porn and celebrity dribble, making surfing the net slightly less culturally respectable than a Friday night in Temple Bar. If nothing else, thesetoday.com will help you to separate the metaphorical Temple Bar bride-to-be in fairy wings from the attractive Spanish exchange student. www.thesetoday.com
Comments