Archives for February 2003
High Octane Link Fuel... (February 28, 2003) Fill your browser with your link-fuel and let's Easy Rider information interstate 666. Feel the breeze in your hair - fluff-links for the quasi-hip: Matrix: Reloaded phones from Samsung? Positive Search Engine Feedback with ktheory (via Jason) Gay Boyfriend by...
The return of the Bangles... (February 28, 2003) The Bangles are back! And the Thriller-like corpse of my trashy, teenage self has risen from the dead and is doing a little dance inside me. I mean - it's the Bangles! I had my first major crush while listening...
Let them hate as long as they fear... (February 28, 2003) Excerpts from John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation sent to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell: Dear Mr. Secretary: I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as...
I'm voting LIBERTY X... (February 26, 2003) So Project Stupidly-Long-Post about this iWire post is taking much longer than I'd expected, and work's suddenly started taking up my mental space for the first time in a month or so, and I've been trying to get some stuff...
On Google's trademark... (February 26, 2003) Over on kottke.org at the moment there's a piece by Jason on Google's response to verbing. The story goes like this - there's an entry on Wordspy for a the verb to google. Google decided to respon to this entry...
Monday Morning Linklog... (February 24, 2003) Depressingly, at some point it looks like I'm going to be compelled to go for the full separate link-log option, but at the moment you're just going to have to make-do with the annotated lists that I slap up every...
Why Content Publishers shouldn't host weblogs... (February 23, 2003) This is a post about why mainstream content publishers shouldn't host weblogs on their sites - and the special circumstances under which they might be able to make it work. Firstly the reasons why they shouldn't do it: If you...
The Ostrich of Journalism... (February 21, 2003) God what a stupid article. What a profoundly stupid article. I mean let's not even start with the condemnation of Google as the closest thing to an online Superpower, because while there may be some truth to it, at the...
Thursday Microcontentage... (February 20, 2003) There's a great big thing in my head at the moment - all conceptual and wiggling - that I've been trying to write all day. So far, no luck. I'm stuck about two-thirds of the way through. So to pass...
BBC News redesigns... (February 19, 2003) The newly redesigned BBC news launched last night - the redesign being an attempt to keep the basic UI and architecture of the site intact while bringing its design in line with the rest of the BBC. The most substantial...
On people who can't smell... (February 18, 2003) Last night I cooked myself a meal on my gas hob. This morning, on the way into work on the bus I became convinced that I hadn't turned the gas off. I had to get off the bus halfway through...
Google buys Blogger... (February 16, 2003) The only news today in the blogosphere is that Google has bought Blogger. I have an almost infinite amount to say about this subject, but it doesn't look like I'm going to have time to say it for a few...
Why I didn't go on the Stop the War march... (February 16, 2003) Today 750,000 people in the UK converged on London to take part in the "Stop the War" march. And here - if such a thing is possible - is where I try to put into words my reasons for not...
The Valentine's Day Link Massacre... (February 13, 2003) It's the day before Valentine's Day, that most accursed of all days. Accursed for all time because of the way the saint in question was beaten with clubs and beheaded for worshipping the 'wrong' super-powered fantasy figure. The same day...
Tove Jansson's Moomins (February 13, 2003) Recently, in a visit to Covent Garden's fashionable Magma graphic design store, my eyes found themselves irresistably drawn to a reprint of a Tove Jansson Moomin picture book from the late 1950s. The book - called unselfconsciously The Book About...
Dumb Theories about Buffy... (February 12, 2003) So how do I do this without spoiling things for people in the UK who don't know what's going to happen? And how do I do it without sounding like a total dork? How - in fact - do I...
Cosmic Polling Booth, I praise thee... (February 12, 2003) Björk's QuickTime Gallery Stunning Björkish videos presented in full through the magic and wonder of quicktime. Complete with small amounts of information about what exactly the tiny foreign lunatic was taking during filming. The Les Dennis Experience! Indescribably funny...
Microcontent Voting... (February 12, 2003) Definition of Microcontent Voting: A recent trend in weblog circles, the "microcontent vote" has emerged from several historical contingencies. In particular, the increasing use of tools like Movable Type has encouraged the posting of longer, more involved pieces of writing...
The end is nigh for clumsy irony... (February 11, 2003) Ok. Here's a funny one for you. Dame Edna Everage - that woman who is you know actually a man (sorry if I spoiled that for you) and who makes a living by saying really funny offensive things that satirise...
Three small site changes... (February 11, 2003) Because I never tire of boring people stupid with little tweaks and quirks around the site, here's an update about three small changes to the way the site is operating: Taking my cue from Dan Hon, plasticbag.org's commenting interface has...
Trackbacks and Simple Comments... (February 10, 2003) I posted a while back about the artificiality of treating Trackbacks as something distinct when we were developing the design of our weblog pages. I wrote at the time: " ...the only reason we're segregating [Trackback] from the body of...
The blocked and the unblocked... (February 9, 2003) Typically - just as my body decides that it no longer has any need for any form of valve, sphincter or fluid control mechanism of any kind - my ability to write has been confronted by what can only be...
On cramping and burning... (February 9, 2003) Massive stomach cramps that double you over in pain. Acidic excretia that burns as it's released. It's past midnight now, and so I'm in the fourth day of my bodily rebellion. The initial putsch subsided on Friday, but stray contingents...
Casting the microcontent vote... (February 6, 2003) Today's microcontent votes - to be recorded in turn by Blogdex, Daypop and Google (thus resulting in a certain increase in the statistically measured 'worth' of the linked-to artifacts in the world-wide infosphere) go to.. New Kids on the Blog...
On Acts of War... (February 6, 2003) There are two links I've seen on the net in the last couple of days that fill me with terror and foreboding. And I mean this literally - lying in bed awake at three in the morning worrying about what...
Uk Weblogging's two new flavours... (February 5, 2003) I should have posted about this before Christmas, but I got distracted and disorganised and forgot all about it. If you're a weblogger in the UK, and you want to meet and talk to other UK webloggers, then you might...
Useful links for commercial web publishers... (February 5, 2003) Today's very serious and unflighty link-dump consists of three stories of particular interest to commercial editorial sites - particularly those that started as print ventures and have transferred some (or all) of their content to the web. Not the most...
A brief history of Muzak... (February 4, 2003) So here's an interesting fact for you... 'Muzak' - that most despised of all musical genres - isn't in fact a genre at all. Nor is it a derogatory term or insult - it's actually the name of the company...
Smoking and the smoking gun... (February 3, 2003) Here's another intriguing article from the New York Times: Ah, Those Principled Europeans. Here's a stripped-down outline of the article in question: Europeans, GMOs and Smoking: Europeans have to make clear when they're selling food that contains genetically modified organisms....
Anti-Americanism versus Anti-Europeanism... (February 2, 2003) Presented with limited commentary, two articles about the relationship between Europe and America. One from the Washington Post (Politicians With Guts) that makes the stunning suggestion that a continent of states should make decisions on international politics based upon whether...
On moral ambivalence and heroism... (February 2, 2003) Kurt Vonnegut - the writer of Slaughterhouse 5, my favourite book of all time - finally joins my rogues gallery of personal heroes. I'm not sure it's an honour that he'd aspire to, or even accept - particularly given the...
Signing away your rights in perpetuity? (February 1, 2003) First things first, Creative Commons is a great idea that I thoroughly approve of and plan at some point to participate in. But I'm being a little more reserved about it than other people seem to be. And the reason?...
