Links from September 2007

Links for Tuesday 25 September 2007
Johnaugust.com » Quitting, and the age question
"It's not harder for an older writer to start. It's just easier to quit." Replace "writer" with pretty much any profession. Harsh truths.
Johnaugust.com
I finally got round to reading a few months of John August's weblog — he's the screenwriter of 'Go' and 'Big Fish' among others — and it's great stuff. Honest, open and useful.
Timeline of historic inventions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I like timelines. One day I'll draw a great big one on a very long wall. (via Kottke)
"An Ilustrated Life" Preview
Lovely collection of pages from "artists, illustrators and designers'" sketchbooks. Awful slidy Flash interface though. Illustrators are worse than estate agents in their use of appalling interface techniques. (via Ted Mills)
Ops on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Oops indeed. What kind of vehicle did that sort of damage? Somewhere near the Barbican apparently, Silk Street or Moor Lane?
Install multiple versions of IE on your PC | TredoSoft
This has come a long way since I last looked at this kind of thing. Now comes with a handy installer.
YSlow for Firebug
Not entirely sure about the A-F grading, but handy plug-in for measuring page loading times and weights. (via Rodcorp)

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Links for Saturday 22 September 2007
Moving Target: Cyclist-killing lorry driver fined £300
Yes, the lorry driver must feel awful, but he wasn't looking where he was going while steering an HGV round a corner. Only a 300 quid fine for killing someone!? Motorists get away with so much while driving dangerous machines.
Pulse Laser: Drawing Olinda
Splendid piece by Jack Schulze on how they came up with ideas for the form of their exciting-sounding digital radio prototype for the BBC.
Telephone and broadband packages
The Advertising Standards Authority on phone and broadband claims of "Unlimited" usage: "Something can be described as 'unlimited' even if a fair-use policy exists." Pathetic. A licence for companies to print lies, correcting via a footnote. (via Haddock)
Billie the vision and the dancers
Gorgeous, tuneful, twee Swedish pop, all free. If you try one track, try 'A Beautiful Night in Oslo'. (via Not Your Usual Bollocks)
DJ Earworm Mashups » No One Takes Your Freedom
While I'm at it, this is my other favourite mashup. Great fun.
Mark Vidler // Go Home Productions
12 CDs worth (4 more to come) of mashups / bootlegs / remixes, his complete back catalogue, free. Of the few I know, 'Girl Wants (To Say Goodbye To) Rock & Roll' on CD6 is one of my favourite bootlegs. (No permalink)
Scarlet Mist - buy/sell spare music gig and Festival tickets ethically
Buy and sell UK and Ireland gig tickets at face value, avoiding eBay and touts.
The Terrific Electric, by Boiler Room for BITE 2007 at the Barbican - a photoset on Flickr
Photos from the dress rehearsal of the play I enjoyed at the Barbican's Pit a couple of weeks ago.

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Links for Wednesday 19 September 2007
Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Device and Desires
Splendid essay about all the smartphones he's owned. He cares, he knows what he's talking about, he's such a lovely, lovely geek. (via ChrisDodo)
Orbicule | Undercover | F.A.Q.
Fascinating software and service to help trace your Mac if it's stolen. Even sounds vaguely feasible. (via Daring Fireball)
Crooked Timber » » Globollocks Watch
I like the "objective" scoring of articles. I want to do something similar to calculate genuine "newsworthiness"… +1 per person killed, +1 per million dollars stolen, etc. (via Nick Sweeney)
LastGraph: Home
Create completely stunning and fascinating colourful graphs of your Last.fm data. The best way I've ever seen of getting a good impression of what you've listened to. If only I had data for my whole life of listening. (via Plasticbag)
Last.fm - the Blog · Audio Fingerprinting for Clean Metadata
Help Last.fm identify tracks, albums and artists better, in return for a future free API. Pretty slow going on my ageing PowerBook though. (via Plasticbag)
The Morning News - Still Life
Awesome photo of a shattering ceramic figure. (via Rodcorp)
What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) for laypeople? | Ask MetaFilter
I'm fascinated by the single book that summarises an entire field, and here's a list of loads. Some are a bit too opinion-based (eg Jane Jacobs, as good as she is) rather than fact-based, but maybe I'm a pedant. (via ChrisDodo)

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Links for Wednesday 12 September 2007
Business lessons from the donut and coffee guy (kottke.org)
A post from 2003 about a guy on a stand who lets customers make their own change.
London Print Studio - courses
Would love to do this if I found more hours in the day. Was thinking more of lino/wood cuts though. (via Rodcorp)
Styling File Inputs with CSS and the DOM // ShaunInman.com
File input fields are stubbornly resistant to beautifying. A new way to make them pretty. (via Daring Fireball)
Swissmiss: urban cup holder
I really like little things that make the real world a little bit nicer.
Flickr: Discussing RSS feed of your contacts' favorites (Y! Pipe) in Flickr Hacks
How to make an RSS feed of your contacts' favourites using Yahoo! Pipes. (via Haddock)

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Links for Wednesday 5 September 2007
BigO Worldwide - Brian Eno, Joanna MacGregor and Bath Camerata
MP3s of a concert at Bath Abbey in 2006. 'Music for Airports' performed live for the first time is pretty good.
Google Image Labeler
I'm trying not to let this useful game eat up all of my time, although it's getting a fair amount of it.
Dopplr Blog » Dopplr Receives Funding from Premier International Team: Varsavsky, Ito, Hoffman and Klein invest in online social-travel service
Congratulations to Matt, Matt and co! (I did a bunch of the site's HTML/CSS work a while back.)
'Beyond good and evil', Prospect Magazine issue 138 September 2007 - Printer Friendly Article
Another interview with writer Nicholas Mosley.
True to Life - Metatheory and the Writings of Nicholas Mosley
Interviews with Mosley, whose books I'm liking a lot so far ('Accident' and 'Impossible Object').
YouTube - 9 Nine Minute Sopranos (Complete 7 Minute Version!)
Brilliant compilation of clips from the Sopranos, telling the entire story veryquickly.
World Clock
Statistics (based on estimates) updating in real time about deaths, diseases, disasters, etc globally.

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