Archives for January 2003
Superfast Superfunny Extrapotent Linkfun III (January 31, 2003) Being a list of (relatively) recently-found funny and/or weird links that are too insubstantial to write anything critical or interesting about and that have been piling up in my 'do something with' box for quite a while, only to be...
iPhoto 2 and iMovie 2 are now available... (January 31, 2003) Just in case you haven't heard yet - iPhoto 2 and iMovie 2 are now both available for download. I'm off to get my copies now and if I have anything pertinent to say about them, you can be sure...
The weblog them. The weblog us. (January 31, 2003) Once more into the breach. We're riding back into familiar territory, only this time we're doing it with a different purpose - to provide a different perspective on One Pot Meal's piece on A-listers and the rest of us. First...
Building Trackback into plasticbag.org... (January 29, 2003) A few days ago I wrote a post on trackback and how incomprehensible it was. And then I got two or three more people to explain it to me and it turns out I understood it all along. The reason...
How has Blogger changed your life? (January 28, 2003) This post marks the end of a personal era. Over the last three and a bit years I have religiously written something into Blogger almost each and every day. From late 1999, when I'd been in London less than a...
I don't really want to talk about it... (January 28, 2003) I went to a tanning salon. Obviously I'm ashamed of myself, but it was that or fill in my tax return. I thought to myself, "You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to go to a tanning salon!"...
What is a Designer? (January 27, 2003) From What is a Designer? by Norman Potter: "In the field of product design, the professional extremes might be said to range from studio pottery and textile design at one end of the spectrum to engineering design and computer programming...
Final thoughts on the Bloggies... (January 27, 2003) I think it would be going over the top to say that the web has been rocked by suggestions that a group of Texan webloggers have 'gamed' the Bloggies. After all, the awards are very clearly niche-interest and geeky. More...
Bon mots about Trackback... (January 27, 2003) A select few AIM bon mots about trackback from the last 24 hours or so that demonstrate that I have absolutely bugger-all idea what I'm doing on the internet and should probably go back to sheep-herding or something like that...
The first form of writing native to the web....? (January 26, 2003) I've heard it before and I know it's not a particularly stunning thing to say, but I still feel a weird rush of pride and enthusiasm when someone says something like this: "Weblogs are arguably the first form that is...
On Undesign... (January 26, 2003) Much to my delight, there's a picture of plasticbag.org in an article on "Undesign" in this week's copy of Graphics International: Lo-fi Allstars. If you want to see the article in context complete with images, then you have to download...
Two degrees from Al Gore... (January 24, 2003) So here's a conversation that I'd love to have been party to: Douglas Rushkoff spends a couple of hours with Al Gore. And in his post about it, Rushkoff has the charming naive enthusiasm of a teenage crush. And by...
On the strange priorities of 8 mile... (January 23, 2003) There's no denying that 8 mile is a perfectly serviceable bit of cinema. And there's no denying that it packs a few punches and that Eminem himself pulls off a perfectly adequate performance. And the world that is represented is...
Link-dump in extremis... (January 22, 2003) According to Mr Webb and Mr Gyford (with whom I work), it is inappropriate web behaviour to have four full lines of bookmarks in your Mozilla toolbar, all waiting to be properly written-up and posted to your site. Probably less...
The Genius, the Expert and the Christmas Turkey... (January 22, 2003) I don't believe we ever needed more reasons to love Kurt Vonnegut. But if we did need more reasons, Matt Webb's extended quotation from the Vonnegut book Bluebeard would certainly suffice. In the excerpt, three types of people are outlined...
On being nominated for 'Best Designed Weblog'... (January 22, 2003) Well the nominations have been announced for Bloggies 2003 and this year I've not been nominated for either "Best Poof" or "Best Eurotrash". It's always a terrible shame when people who do so well in childhood fail to live up...
How to contact Kim Howells and tell him what a plonker he's been... (January 21, 2003) Thanks to Matthew Davis, George Wright and Tim Duckett for writing in with various e-mail addresses for Dr Kim Howells, the Minister for Culture who so resolutely confused music piracy online with drug-dealing and prostitution and in the process declared...
Robbie Williams supports prostitution and organised crime... (January 20, 2003) So Robbie Williams supports prostitution and organised crime? Well - according to the culture minister Kim Howells, he does... And why? Because he supports 'internet piracy'. After all, as we all know, music distribution online is all about making lots...
The plasticbag.org second link-dump... (January 19, 2003) Being a set of links that I don't have either the time or the inclination to write up properly, even though I know no-one will actually click on any of them: Syndirella - Is this NetNewsWire for Windows? Does Larry...
Resurrecting "You've Got Blog"... (January 19, 2003) I can't quite believe that we're doing the rounds of You've Got Blog again. But ever since diveintomark.org linked to it, I've been getting a new batch of referrals coming through to plasticbag.org - presumably from people who haven't read...
Observations and Speculations on Music (January 19, 2003) Being a long list of observations about the ways in which people are starting to use music and its relationship to computing practice generally, with some thoughts about how the music industry should be working in the longish-term...
On why I didn't sleep well last night... (January 18, 2003) The dream - the recurring one - is the one where I go back to school after my degree to do more A-levels, and have to wear the same school uniform and am older than everyone else, but because I...
On the increasing distance between Europe and the US... (January 16, 2003) Two hundred-thousand people have voted. And the response should be at the very least sobering for the American and British governments. The question asked: Which country represents the greatest threat to world peace in 2003?...
You need a good connection for this one... (January 16, 2003) A good connection to the interhighweb and a love of computer games is all you need to appreciate the Jackass of X-Box gaming: Warthog Jump by Randy Glass. With only a few dozen grenades, a few dead marines and a...
Do you want to know if you're happy (but already know that you're lazy)? (January 15, 2003) A few weeks ago there was an article on the BBC's site called The Formula for Happiness which explained that scientists had somehow managed to work out precisely the right way to calculate how happy someone was based upon several...
For the pre-school psycho in your life... (January 14, 2003) Are you children never satisfied? Do you find yourself buying them ever more toys that they seem to discard almost immediately? Do they have a strange menacing glint in their eyes that you find ungodly? Terrifying, even? Then get them...
I wonder what would happen if I went looking for fights? (January 14, 2003) Often as I'm taking the bus home of an evening, I pass a man who looks a bit like a dynamic middle manager standing on Oxford Street near to John Lewis talking about God very loudly through some kind of...
On what I've seen and where I've been since the beginning of the year... (January 14, 2003) Since I don't talk nearly enough about the trivia of my life on the site any more, I thought I'd briefly allude to my trip to Suffolk and put online a scant few of the pictures I took when I...
On the first two weeks of 2003... (January 13, 2003) So what have you seen in the first two weeks of 2003? Shortly after New Year I travelled up to Suffolk to visit a friend who had rented a cottage by the sea for her thirtieth birthday. The weather was...
On doing nice things for other people... (January 13, 2003) Three things. A) The first thing is that I'm going to send you all over to Sparky's house and remind you to make a donation to Sparky and Rooster's Big Gay unWedding - which you should be able to find...
On 'doing a Kottke'.... (January 12, 2003) I've been getting really behind with the stuff that I want to write on plasticbag.org recently, which probably explains why when I do write something it's fairly hardcore and intensely thought-through rather than a piece of conversational life-fluff. So I'm...
On the possibility of using web-navigational schemes to communicate data rather than site-structure... (January 12, 2003) I'm two-thirds of the way through my second Edward Tufte book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Now, before your eyes glaze over and you start skipping over to one of those proper weblogs where they talk about sex and...
A brief list of some interesting articles I've read today: (January 12, 2003) A brief list of some interesting articles I've read today: Skipping Ads? TV gets ready to fight back... Beijing Blocks Blogspot Winning the War on Masturbation...
On the lazyweb - iTunes remote... (January 11, 2003) So I have an iBook. And I have a desktop computer. They are both Macs. My desktop computer is plugged into a stereo amplifier. I use it to play mp3s that I've rippped from my ample music collection. But mostly...
On Pete Townsend, Child abuse and Child pornography... (January 11, 2003) The appalling nature of child abuse and the unpleasantness of child pornography notwithstanding, this article on Pete Townsend seems to me to highlight how cultural hysteria around these issues is leading to some extraordinary legal situations. 1300 people arrested for...
Do you want compulsory ID cards in the United Kingdom? (January 10, 2003) Do you want compulsory ID cards in the United Kingdom? I would hazard a guess that you don't. If that's the case then get over to stand.org.uk now and do something about it: Hands up everybody who's really excited about...
Steve Guttenberg is gay... (January 10, 2003) So Steve Guttenberg is gay. Except of course he probably isn't gay. That bit might have been made up. Or an error, maybe. On my part. Don't sue. I wish Steve Guttenberg was gay, because I had such a huge...
Rejected by ETCON... (January 10, 2003) Well there's bad news and there's good news. The bad news is that at least one of my papers for ETCON has been rejected, which means that since (essentially) I've already written the damn thing, all I need is for...
On the Guardian and UpMyStreet Conversations... (January 9, 2003) There's at least one clear analogue for the process of (1) getting exciting by a work project, (2) getting completely involved in said work project, (3) going at it like a mad badger and (4) collapsing exhausted afterwards. And the...
One more thing.. (January 7, 2003) One more thing as I download my new Apple browser and look towards the pub: Safari Notes: DiveIntoMark's review of Safari and information on Safari CSS bugs and sucesses Final Cut Express Keynote iLife Powerbooks...
Live Blogging of MacWorld... (January 7, 2003) And here's where I will be live-blogging Macworld as I watch it over Quicktime in real-time. There's apparently a video stream of the keynote stream going into the Vatican. 68% of people going to Apple's Switch Pages are using Windows....
In a little less than 20 minutes, it's Steve Jobs Keynote time at Macworld... (January 7, 2003) In a little less that twenty minutes, it's time for the January Steve Jobs Macworld Keynote speech. This is the speech that sets the scene for the next year of Apple products - heck, it's the speech that announces most...
The excesses of "Social Software" (January 7, 2003) What is it about "Social Software" that is starting to worry me? Is it the abandonment of concepts of 'online community' and the complete rejection of familiar terms and paradigms like the message board? Is it the increasing lack of history? Or is it the desire to claim a territory as unexplored when it's patently not?
Being a rant about - and to an extent a caricature of - some of the excesses of the Social Software movement... (January 6, 2003) The Excesses of Social Software: There's a post over at Matt Jones' site at the moment concerned with attempts to define and discuss social software [Defining Discussing 'Social Software'] and I find myself reacting to it in a completely unexpected...
A quote from Jonathan Franzen's Why Bother? (January 3, 2003) A quote from Jonathan Franzen's Why Bother? (from his book of essays How to be Alone) that I think is interesting in that it presents a different perspective - a tangential perspective perhaps - on the loss of social capital...
On Mr Morgan... Long will he be missed... (January 3, 2003) I don't know if his decision to take his weblog down is final or whether he's just having a short break, but either way Mo Morgan's weblog will be much missed....
On Dead Ringers and Doctor Who... (January 3, 2003) While doing a search for something completely different, I stumbled upon the Dead Ringers team doing some Tom Baker Doctor Who pranks. The first one I listened to, and probably my favourite, has the impressionist ringing up the real-life version...
The neighbours of the siege in Hackney... (January 3, 2003) One of the largest news stories in the UK at the moment is the ongoing siege in Hackney. A man is holed up in a flat with a hostage and a gun and has been for several days. Some of...
On the 'nagging artificial girlfriend'... (January 2, 2003) You couldn't ask for a better quote, really. You can almost hear the tone of voice as he said it. The former soldier was talking about the new robot that can sense emotions, and which is designed to be a...
Happy New Year... (January 1, 2003) So the New Year has started, and while we may not have the most to look forward to economically or politically, but personally I feel it's started well. Movies and drink with friends, Indian meals, Chinese meals and many movies...
And the Bloggies are back... (January 1, 2003) So the annual weblog awards voted for by the community and for the community have come around once more. It's Bloggies 2003 and there are strange new exotic categories for nominations and brand new opportunities for scampery and fun. A...
