Archives for June 2003
Oskar & Apple... (June 28, 2003) When we went to Apple in Cupertino I got little Oskar a present that I thought he could grow into in a few months. And now he's wearing it! Aw!...
From "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"... (June 28, 2003) Lili was flustered. "But if you can do a complete revision in eight weeks, why not just finish it, then plan another revision, do that one in eight weeks, and so on? Why take five years before anyone can ride...
Recent Highlights on Barbelith... (June 27, 2003) The perpetually unfinished experimental message-board that Cal and I made is coming up with some particularly interesting debates at the moment. Here are a few of my favourite ongoing discussions: No Such Thing As Talent "So for my degree I...
RSS: The Truth... (June 27, 2003) Finally we know what it stands for......
Against Search Engine Optimisers... (June 26, 2003) In the middle of the comments for a fairly interesting article about the Googledance that never ends there's a post from a professional search engine optimiser. He says: My consulting business website ranks highly in google for a number of...
My obligation to you... (June 24, 2003) I feel a personal obligation to the people who read this site and to the world at large not to lie in my posts. I feel a personal obligation not to mischaracterise the truth and to correct any mistakes I...
Hacks: "On this day" links in Movable Type (June 24, 2003) Each day webloggers across the world post news, comments and little fragments of personal information onto their sites. And everything that they post will be forever associated with that specific day in history. But they're not the only sites to...
On "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"... (June 23, 2003) So because my brain refuses to do what it's supposed to be doing and is finding any and all other avenues to explore, I've read the entire seven hundred and fifty page Harry Potter novel over the last couple of...
Hacks: Upgrading to Movable Type from Blogger (June 23, 2003) The instruction manual for Movable Type contains detailed instructions about transferring your weblog from Blogger and Blogger Pro, and these instructions work extremely well if you have not been maintaining your site for very long. But while it's rare for...
Awesome Apple Updates... (June 23, 2003) The big news from Cupertino via the WWDC: New Powermac G5s Previews of Panther(cf. user-switching UI and exposé) iChat AV iSight WebCam (want) Safari 1.0...
Mac linkage.. (June 22, 2003) While I could be out with Cory I have to do loads of work and stuff. very frustrating. So here's just a few annoying quick Mac links to end the day with while I'm doing this stuff: There were Panther...
Hacks: Mailing Lists with Blogger Pro (June 22, 2003) One of the neat features that comes with Blogger Pro is the ability to have your weblog posts e-mailed off somewhere when you publish them. And this presents opportunities to extend your tiny empire right off the web and into...
e-flight.biz - unethical spammers... (June 22, 2003) So yesterday I got a comment on an older entry of mine. The comment read, "This wonderful site is worth dropping a line in your guestbook to say thanks!" How nice, I thought to myself. How sweet to send me...
Stunning Buoys... (June 21, 2003) During a break from the Aula event we explored the island. Sneaking over a gate, we wandered down by the shipyards. A lone seagull went nuts and tried to kill us. I got a nice picture of some stunning buoys,...
When burglars go down! (June 21, 2003) A while ago I found out that they'd caught the guy who committed the burglary on my flat at the end of last year. I was delighted, but also a bit nervous - the whole next part of the process,...
Five by Five (Weblogging)... (June 21, 2003) Five links about the state of weblogging in depth: Watchblog.com A beautifully designed site which explores the 2004 US election across three weblogging panes, reflecting Democrat, Republican and Third-party contenders. It's an interesting idea and elegantly assembled. Bloggers Rate the...
Hacks: A Random Link Button (June 21, 2003) Some people read a weblog because they like the person who runs it. Maybe they think that person is a highly entertaining, witty and exciting individual. On the other hand, many weblogs are run by geeks (including this one). If...
Hacks: Styling your first post differently in Blogger... (June 21, 2003) Simple weblogging applications like Blogger can make it a breeze to update your site, but there's a cost attached - every post on your site has to look pretty much the same. Here's a hack that means you can style...
Three pictures of Helsinki... (June 20, 2003) While I was in Helsinki, I finally had the opportunity to play with a camera phone without any sense of consequence - I wasn't paying the bills! The shift in usage that occurs when suddently you don't have to worry...
Reactions to "The Blank Slate" (Part Two) (June 20, 2003) Some really interesting stuff in Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate about responsibility, free will and guilt: "When we say that we hold someone responsible for a wrongful act, we expect him to punish himself - by compensating the victim, acquiescing...
Trivial entertainment links... (June 19, 2003) Here's a snapshot of what the rest of the world looks like when you've just returned from Helsinki: Boy breeds beetles in his body; Iraqi man hid 22 years in a wall; NetNewsWire's new views is 24/7 plasticbag.org; Jeffrey Archer...
Frustrated after Helsinki... (June 18, 2003) So I'm back in the UK after the Aula MOM 2003 event and I'm feeling a bit flat. I was talking about "The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything", which is kind of an old thing of mine that I've never...
A small request to Six Apart... (June 18, 2003) So here's a tiny thing that I'd be really interested in seeing in a subsequent version of Movable Type. It's so small it's barely worth mentioning - particularly as the proper search function has now been integrated. But nonetheless it...
A pier into the sea... (June 16, 2003)
Cameras communicating with Cameras... (June 16, 2003) So here's a dumb idea about digital cameras. Let's imagine a world in which everyone has a camera - and they carry them with them all the time. Say - for example - that they're built into mobile phones. Right....
Helsinki at midnight... (June 15, 2003) Caption: Helsinki at midnight. Currently: Nervous about Aula Meeting of Minds 2003....
The Ten Commandments of Weblogging... (June 14, 2003) Being a feeble transcription of some things that seemed really funny once over lunch with Cal, and which we tried - and failed - to get Webb interested in. The Ten Commandments of Weblogging I am the log of the...
On rapid constitutional change... (June 13, 2003) Beat this Americans... 1,400 years after the post was first created, the role of the Lord Chancellor in the UK has been abolished. And, for the first time in hundreds of years, the political establishment and the judiciary have been...
Burning the name of god... (June 12, 2003) So there's a guy outside the back of my flat who has lit a bonfire against the back wall of my building. The flames are licking up the wall. There is a large empty courtyard behind him. But no -...
Weblogging Links... (June 12, 2003) A few interesting links about weblogs that have emerged recently (including a few about new-favourite-subject: permalinks) - many of these links taken from Many to Many: Permalinks considered harmful "So basically, we have a nice concept of weblogs, but one...
On Permalinks and Paradigms... (June 11, 2003) There are some things that become so ubiquitous and familiar to us - so seemingly obvious - that we forget that they actually had to be invented. Here's a case in point - the weblog post's permalink. I mean -...
Butts, blackjack, broadcast and... (June 10, 2003) I'm not sure why I'm bothering collating this set of links, because you'll all flick through the first article, click on the realplayer movie of rectal endoscopy, watch in awed silence, howl in terror and grossed-out intrigue at the end...
Five asides... (June 9, 2003) Five asides: Matt Jones on living in space "How many of you, like me, had shelves full of books full of images of suburban life being enjoyed on the edge of plexiglass toroid in geostationery orbit?" I did! In fact...
Reactions to "The Blank Slate" (Part One) (June 9, 2003) I'm currently reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate - recently published in paperback. Even though I'm only a fraction of the way through it, I can already recommend it. Part of me is prejudiced, of course. During the time I...
Wow, that hit a bit close to home... (June 9, 2003) Celebrating the 30,000 word point, Cory posts a 2,000 excerpt from his upcoming book /usr/bin/god (thanks to The Link Machine]: "You're the kind of sneering, creative, self-important 'consultant' that sucked the economy dry. You're a carpetbagger, Mason. You're a phony....
On Camden's tube redevelopment... (June 7, 2003) The plans for Camden Town's proposed tube redevelopment have been around since the end of last year, and I imagine debate has raged in the area. I've only just stumbled upon them though. My only real issue with them is...
Tom Coates' Family Fun Hour... (June 7, 2003) Having been woken up from my post-unblocking-drains late-Friday-night sofa-doze by a bored Los Angelene, I shall pass time by casting a few web-pebbles into the memetic voting urn. I will make the links fun and not all about work stuff....
Other people's RSS feeds... (June 6, 2003) A few things that drive me insane about some other people's RSS feeds which make the experience of reading their posts via a newsreader like NetNewsWire less simple, pleasant and consistent: Excerpt-only RSS-feeds... Now before I start, yes I know...
On tiny interface imperfections... (June 6, 2003) I don't know whether it's because I spend time working on user interfaces or whether it's because I'm profoundly anal, but the smallest imperfections in consistency in a UI can drive me mad. Weirdly, the large ones don't affect me...
Cherry and Almond Cake... (June 6, 2003) For some unknown reason I spent much of yesterday evening cooking a Cherry & Almond Cake. The finished product is a little burnt around the edges, but is extremely nice. Maybe a little too sweet......
In love with radio 4... (June 5, 2003) "The history of mankind in the last three hundred years has been punctuated by major upheavals in human thought that we call scientific revolutions - upheavals that have profoundly affected the way in which we view ourselves and our place...
The FCC, Weblogs and Inequality... (June 4, 2003) I can very much recommend Clay's latest piece: FCC, Weblogs and Inequality to anyone who's even vaguely interested in either FCC regulation of the airwaves or the nature of inequalities in webloggia. I'm afraid I'm going to spoil the ending...
Stop bitching. Make it better... (June 3, 2003) The main problem I have with the weblog-related positions of professional writers like Bill Thompson and professional trolls like Andrew Orlowski is that we've had all these debates so many times before. Debate around A-list cliques has existed for years...
The Mind Palace... (June 3, 2003) A few things that I'm taking the time to place inside my mind palace - as ever mostly culled from my favourite weblogs and news sources (see the Weblogs panel on the right): Credit Card Signature Prank; Lunch with Steve...
