Archives for February 2004

On Creative Commons and attribution online... (February 29, 2004) Imagine a circumstance where someone was building a weblog aggregator like Haddock Blogs, but imagine for a moment that they were doing it with the full text of other people's weblog entries, sectionalised by theme and with the name of...

A few beautiful images... (February 22, 2004) A few beautiful images from daily dose of imagery: Reflecting Box Giant Icicles of Niagara Frozen Falls Canada Trust Towers Corridor...

My visited countries... (February 21, 2004) I've visited seventeen countries so far (I'm sure I've left some out), and if I could remember the names of the places I went to in America I'd do the dedicated map for that too. But I can't. Why...

One tiny tweak on Yahoo! (February 21, 2004) Ok. I'm probably missing something really obvious, but while everyone's talking about how Yahoo! have now relaunched their search without Google and while everyone's debating whether it's better now or not, why has no one commented on the really really...

Do weblogs need Terms and Conditions? (February 21, 2004) So here's a thought - albeit a short and unconvincing one that hasn't really got much of my heart behind it - about the problem of weblog comment spammers. For those of you who are unaware of the phenomenon, basically...

An Archaeology of Browsing... (February 18, 2004) So here's a weird sensation. I'm trying to install a Photoshop upgrade at two in the morning, because i'm jetlagged and can't concentrate on work but can't sleep either so I'm procrastinating. And in order to install said upgrade I'm...

Appeal for Broadcast Assassins.. (February 18, 2004) Public service announcement: Basically the BBC is doing a session in a couple of weeks (March 8th) in London exploring the impact of new technologies on viewing / listening behaviour and they're looking for volunteers to come and spend the...

Reactions to being back in the UK... (February 17, 2004) Well of course it's the jet-lag that makes tired and frustrated with the UK. It's the jet-lag that makes me want to be part of a larger and more productive internet community. It's the jet-lag that makes me begrudge the...

A picture of lemons... (February 17, 2004) This picture - taken shortly before I flew back to London - shows lemons growing by the garage around the back of Kerry's house. They were left uncommented upon - no big deal - they grow all over the place,...

On Horton Plaza... (February 17, 2004) When I think back to ETCon and my time in America my mind can't help catching onto images of Horton Plaza in San Diego - the Escher-like mall-from-hell that kind of sat in my head and unfolded its sprawling, immoral,...

ETech come-down... (February 13, 2004) Right then. Emerging Tech is over and everyone's heads are full and we've all got a little bit of a hangover from last night celebrations and socialising. I'm now back in Los Angeles, having taken the train up from San...

Live from ETech: Cory Doctorow and e-books... (February 12, 2004) Warning: What follows makes increasingly little sense. Day Three Proper of ETech has resulted in a certain lack of mental flexibility and a weird warm grinding feeling at the temples as my over-saturated lobes rub together... So in a few...

Is there a ROBOT OVERLORD in your future? (February 12, 2004) ETCon gets weirder and weirder by the moment... [larger version]...

Live from ETech: Day Two Schedule... (February 12, 2004) In lieu of a detailed coverage of what's been going on at ETCon, I just thought I'd post a schedule of the talks I've been to today. I'll drill down into some of the more interesting ones later this evening...

Pictures of Mountains and Clouds... (February 11, 2004) So by way of a change of pace, here are some pictures of mountains and clouds. They were taken (much like last year) from the plane from the UK to California....

Live from Etech: Flickr and the end of Day One... (February 11, 2004) So ETCon Proper Day One ends and I'm basically high on some kind of highly emotionally charged intellectual hysteria-generating buzz. So far I've only managed to write about the things that have caused me frustration and irritation - probably because...

Live from ETech: Nutters from the Defence Department... (February 10, 2004) Wow. Weird. The Defense Department / Many-to-Many technologies session turned into some kind of weird recruitment/intimidation drive from a marching shouty soldier man. What a creepy and kind of dirty-feeling waste of time! Such a shame, I was really looking...

Live from ETech: iRobot... (February 10, 2004) For the most part the ETCon keynotes are pretty much high-concept fluff. They're fundamentally high-profile, high-glamour bits of hardcore tech that (often) are completely outside the practical experience of the so-called Alpha geeks that attend these events. But they have...

Network troubles at ETCon... (February 10, 2004) Day Two of ETCon and the network horror starts. Rendezvous isn't working for me, so I can't see or connect to any other SubEthaEdit documents. I can't IM anyone, I'm trying to download IRC but the network is collapsing. All...

ETech Adjunct: Weblogs and Journalism... (February 9, 2004) I'm watching the panel on the role of journalism as part of the Digital Democracy and it's the first teach-in of the day that feels like a teach-in. Nonetheless, I'm not sure that I'm finding it terribly useful - probably...

Live from Etech: Digital Democracy Part II (February 9, 2004) Two more Digital Democracy Teach-In events come and go. The guys from meetup.com put together a couple of presentations including some useful statistics and a few nice punchlines, but I'm not sure I learned anything particularly new during it. Certainly...

Live from Etech: Joe Trippi... (February 9, 2004) Rapid recontextualisations make my head hurt. Nonetheless today I'm not in Los Angeles having fun with friends in drag. Today instead I'm watching Joe Trippi talking about American politics and the consequences and effects of the Dean's internet-enabled online fund-raising...

The weirdness continues... (February 8, 2004) It's 5am in the morning, and one of my favourite Los Angelenes has just decided to get into a nurses outfit. His boyfriend is - I think - amused but a little weirded out by the whole thing......

Ah! Weblogging like it used to be! (February 7, 2004) Another unexpected joy of this trip so far is the unfettered bad-quality weblogging I'm doing. I'm using the site as a jotting diary of my time here, and I'm dropping in all these little references to things that will hopefully...

Los Angeles (Day Two) (February 6, 2004) A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Dan Hill about clothes. My contention - that everyone in the world should wear the same clothes because then we'd stop making spurious assertions about people's integrity and value on the...

On taxi drivers in Los Angeles... (February 5, 2004) So I'm being churlish of course - you give a taxi-driver a written-down address on a piece of paper and you would of course expect them not to have heard of the large region of Los Angeles where things like...

Cheery thoughts before flying to America... (February 4, 2004) Looking at my passport photo, I'm suddenly gripped with a fear that they won't let me into the country, followed by a massive burst of misery at how badly I seem to have decayed over the last five years, followed...

One. More. Day. (February 3, 2004) One more day of work. One more day and then I'm off... Off to Los Angeles for a few days of R&R before ETCon starts. I can hardly wait. I had to wave goodbye to Mr Webb today, who's flying...

A brief aside about the BBC... (February 1, 2004) By the way, just in case you're surprised by how cheerful and non-violent I appear to be about the current political / BBC situation, rest assured that it's all a big act but that I don't really think I can...

On the rhetoric of adverts... (February 1, 2004) Brief one this: So I'm watching Contact on television and there's an advert for Pantene shampoo. And the voice comes on - the deep pounding "buy me" voice of the professional voice-over artist - and he says ,"Pantene makes your...

Things to do... (February 1, 2004) Font for post-its remains Coates.ttf as made with Fontifier....

The music from the Odeon Trailer Ident... (February 1, 2004) This will only mean anything to readers in the UK, and only cinema-going readers at that. Just before the trailers are shown at Odeon cinemas there is often an ident designed to get you into the filmgoing spirit. This advert...