- Haddock Blogs changes
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This is a post for those of you reading this feed via Haddock Blogs. You may have noticed a few changes there. Here’s what’s changed.
In Misc on 25 April 2008. 4 comments. Permalink
- I'm not bugging your phone
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First off, an apology. Sorry if you were reading my Twitters and I’ve now banned you from doing so by making my Tweets private. Like, I expect, most of you, I’ve started getting several emails a day from people wanting to follow me. Often these are wankers who are wasting all our time by using Twitter to spam, and who we can only hope will one day be found in the deepest circle of Hell. Other times these are complete strangers who apparently follow hundreds or thousands of people solely because, presumably, they have nothing better to do with their lives than click their mouse in an attempt to make the pretty number on their screen increase by one with each click, like some laboratory animal with half its brain replaced by citrus fruit.
- Bottom of a locked filing cabinet
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Due to an ironic but entirely unrelated email problem of my own I hadn’t been getting notifications of comments posted on this site. So I’ve only just noticed the 26 comments on my post about BT Yahoo!’s dumb email security and the Register’s coverage which quotes it. But it gets better…
In Misc on 25 March 2008. 2 comments. Permalink
- Beware of the Leopard
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My mum uses BT as her broadbrand provider. I’m not sure if it’s called ‘BT Openworld’, ‘BT Yahoo!’, ‘BT Internet’ or ‘BT Total Broadbrand’. Nice one, branding folks. Anyway, if you don’t want to use the email address they provide for you then sending email can be a little fiddly, because they seem to block access to all SMTP servers other than their own. So you’re forced to send email from your non-BT address through BT mail servers, which can require a little gentle gymnastics depending on your email program. But it’s not impossible. Until today when it started beeping with a “553” error.
In Misc on 22 March 2008. 38 comments. Permalink
- Personal University
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Over on Cool Tools Kevin Kelly has just pointed his favourable finger at The Personal MBA. The idea is that one doesn’t need to spend a fortune on a (US) MBA: just read the right books, talk with interested and interesting people, and get some real world experience. Josh Kaufman has put together a list of 69 books, created forums for people to discuss their reading, and offers coaching (even the most motivated self-educators sometimes benefit from a little structure and guidance).
This is an amazing thing.
In Misc on 3 January 2008. Add a comment. Permalink
- Optimism and creativity
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All that thinking about my own cynicism and how it affects me at college was happening over a little stream of thought that’s been babbling away for a few months about the position of optimism in creativity. When I went to see the V&A’s Modernism exhibition last year I was struck by how utopian so much of their efforts had been. It wasn’t just square buildings and metal chairs, but an effort to make the world a better place and, I assume, they believed they could. Although it seems more than a little over optimistic in retrospect, given that whole Holocaust/global war thing that happened afterwards, it still felt exciting and I still wanted to believe it could work.
In Misc on 6 March 2007. 2 comments. Permalink
- The Haddock Directory is now closed
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If you’re one of Haddock.org’s few regular visitors you’ve probably noticed that the Haddock Directory part of the site had its last daily update in October. After updating the Directory every day (well, kind of) since its launch in 1997 I’d finally had enough of the dull and thankless task earlier last year. A glamorous and anonymous assistant valiantly took hold of the reigns and kept it going for a further few months but eventually the regular tedium overcame them too. So we think it’s finally time to call it a day and shutter this tiny window onto the mailing list’s activity.
In Misc on 4 February 2007. 6 comments. Permalink
- My year in email
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More from the end of year file. Eudora generates statistics of my email usage and I thought I’d take a look at what’s happened in 2006. I have two email addresses: phil@ for my personal email and lists@ for all my mailing list email and messages generated by various scripts on websites. These statistics are for both of these together.
In Misc on 29 December 2006. 4 comments. Permalink
- Some of Leslie's ambitions
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Yesterday I was searching my email archive for something from a while back when I stumbled across an email Leslie sent to Haddock last year in response to the open query “What do you really want to do which is completely removed from your job?” I thought it was a great example of her imagination, humour and ambition — she always wanted to have a healthy creating:consuming ratio — and was worth sharing with more people:
In Misc on 19 December 2006. Add a comment. Permalink
- What percentage of restaurants fail after one year?
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I love statistics that are quoted by almost everyone as fact, even though none of us know the basis behind them. Often they’re entirely wrong, like the percentage of US citizens who have passports. Another favourite is that “90% of restaurants go out of business in the first year”. A conversation where this came up prompted me to poke around.
- A beginner's guide to freelancing
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It’s been over a year since I first thought of writing down everything I’ve learned about freelancing. I’ve now been freelance for more than three years but the title still has a double meaning — this is both for beginners and by a beginner, because I know I still have a lot to learn.
In Misc on 26 October 2006. 40 comments. Permalink
- This is on the new server
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If you can read this, you’re looking at the site on the new server. Hopefully it’s no different, other than perhaps a smidgen faster. More details to come in a day or two, but now I’m off to bed.
In Misc on 9 August 2006. Add a comment. Permalink
- Moving servers
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Rather than spend this sunny day without work sitting outside, I’m in the process of moving my websites and email to a new host. So my sites may disappear or not work, and my ability to receive email might be erratic for the next couple of days. (It might be worth CCing gyford [at] gmail [dot] com if it’s an important email, just in case.)
In Misc on 9 August 2006. Add a comment. Permalink
- Captionless exhibitions
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Dan Hill has a rave review of The Barbican’s Future City exhibition that reminded me I’d meant to write something about it. Unfortunately I was going to moan rather than rave. The exhibition suffered from a severe lack of contextual information that left me bewildered by much of it, something I’ve found at a few exhibitions recently.
In Misc on 2 August 2006. 2 comments. Permalink
- HotWired demo site from 1995
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Jeff Veen recently posted a look back at HotWired, discussing how the design of the site changed over the years since 1994. This reminded me that I have a demo copy of HotWired which he and you might like so here it is, HotWired from 1995.
In Misc on 27 July 2006. 5 comments. Permalink
- Wanted: A walking map of London for Palm OS
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A little while back, after months of dithering, I replaced my barely-working SonyEricsson T610 phone and my aging but dependable Palm Vx with a shiny Treo 650 off eBay. After the inevitable initial fiddling and cursing (and praising The Missing Sync) it’s proved to be a lovely, if chunky, slice of technology. But there’s one thing I really, really miss from my Palm Vx: a walking map of London.
In Misc on 24 July 2006. 8 comments. Permalink
- A trip to the Falkland Islands
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It's only been two weeks of catching up on email, feeds, updating websites, fixing bugs, tidying up, plodding through to-do lists, having meetings and generally avoiding writing, and already the fortnight we spent in the Falkland Islands seems like months ago. Before more memories leak from my head here's What I Did On My Christmas Holidays.
In Misc on 22 January 2006. 10 comments. Permalink
- Buggy New Year
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I've just returned from Christmas and New Year in the Falkland Islands, visiting my sister (photos and writing will appear sometime soon). If you read Haddock.org you'll have noticed it stopped updating on 21st December. The Directory is a manual operation requiring editorial, librarianship and swearing skills that even the computers of 2006 can't manage. Given that I selfishly trust no one else to press the correct buttons, this usually goes quiet when I'm offline — expect it to catch up gradually this week.
In Misc on 10 January 2006. 3 comments. Permalink
- The Guardian's re-purposing of online content
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Generally I only buy a Guardian on Saturdays and last week's was the first of the new design. It was nice enough, although it'll take a while to get used to the new layout — it felt like lots of familiar faces had been spread throughout an overly-sprawling Sunday Times-like paper. But one thing I definitely liked was the appearance of quotes from weblogs and the Guardian's own forums.
In Misc on 24 September 2005. 2 comments. Permalink
- Slimming for August
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After empathising with this post about information overload the other day, it occurred to me that maybe I should unsubscribe from from one RSS feed a day in an effort to simplify my life a tiny bit. It's not quite getting rid of 200 objects in 40 days, but it's a start.
- Classic travel
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I'm hopeless at going on holiday — I can put it off forever unless there's a reason to go for a specific event. But I liked Paul Theroux's description of why he travels in his article in the Guardian on Saturday, about a trip to the Colombian jungle:
In Misc on 17 May 2005. Add a comment. Permalink
- Royal Mail spam
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The Royal Mail is constantly battling against all those modern private companies who want a slice of its action. In theory I'm all in favour of some kind of monopoly on the universal delivery of post in the UK. Just as it makes sense to me that one company should run a rail network, it seems simplest to have the Royal Mail run the mail. But every time the post(wo)man pops a bunch of junk through our letterbox I want to see the company die a little.
In Misc on 13 May 2005. 12 comments. Permalink
- The Hitchhiker's Guide movie
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Like one or two other people, I've been looking forward to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. I was expecting to know the plot, give or take a few tweaks here or there but it hadn't occurred to me that I'd also know much of the dialogue. Some of it I could have recited with the characters, other bits came rushing back from whenever it was I last read or heard them, and other remembered phrases were glaring in their absence. “But you forgot the next line!” I kept thinking. Where in my mind has this useless stuff been living all these years?
In Misc on 28 April 2005. 5 comments. Permalink
- With great audiences…
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Like everyone else I know (or everyone else I know who doesn't get out enough) I enjoy reading Boing Boing, the group weblog that's become phenomenally popular over the last few years. It hits the spot for thousands of novelty-hungry geeks and is popular enough that it often doesn't seem worth linking to something if it's already appeared on Boing Boing. However, I think this vastly increased popularity changes the nature of Boing Boing, and the responsibility of those who write for it.
In Misc on 3 April 2005. 60 comments. Permalink
- I don't understand
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From yesterday's Guardian business section come two stories that demonstrate I either have no understanding of how business and government works, or there's something very wrong in the world:
In Misc on 3 April 2005. 4 comments. Permalink
- American passports and Mexican food
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It's impossible to tell from my site when comments are posted to old entries, so I thought I'd point out a couple of posts that have attracted a large amount of traffic via Google.
In Misc on 5 March 2005. 2 comments. Permalink
- May the Government be damned for it
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I must admit that over the past few months I've neglected keeping up with the news. I'm rarely conscious of the few minutes of Today that whispers at me in the morning, and only ever read a paper at the weekend.
But last night I caught a bit of Brian Sedgemore's speech in the House of Commons debate on the new Prevention of Terrorism Bill and, wheeee, is it worth a read:
In Misc on 24 February 2005. 7 comments. Permalink
- Direct diet marketing
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On Saturday the Guardian had a supplement about nutrition, including this article on how much fruit and veg you should eat. That attempts to link to a site called “Daily Diet Tracker” but gives a URL that doesn't work. I'm guessing this is what it meant, and it looks handy: keep track of what you eat when, how much exercise you do, and what it's all doing to you. But…
- Haddock Blogs working better
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[Darn, wrote this last night and saved it as Draft by mistake.]
Haddock Blogs appears to be including everything again, now I've removed something I added to fix a problem a while ago. Consequently there's a flush of posts from Matt, Alice, Ian and Azeem.
In Misc on 17 November 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- Haddock Blogs a bit broken
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If you follow the aggregated weblog feeds at Haddock Blogs you should be aware that it's currently a little broken. It could just be that Matt's and Alice's new posts aren't showing up. Or it could be more widespread. My dodgy perl and the slightly peculiar server don't make things easier, but I'll try and fix things when I get a chance. I'll post again if there's progress. Or things get worse.
In Misc on 16 November 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- If sometimes you're catching a fleeting glimpse, of a twelfth man at silly mid-on
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I doubt there's much I can say that hasn't already been said by all the people posting on websites and emailing and texting BBC radio about John Peel. But hell, I cried for half the afternoon so…
- New Jamie Oliver website
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When I haven't been moving house, or writing HTML for the new Which? site, I've spent some time of late at Poke, working on the site for Jamie Oliver's new book, Jamie's Dinners. Concept, design and Flash by the Pokers, PHP, HTML and CSS by yours truly.
In Misc on 7 October 2004. 13 comments. Permalink
- Walking on the right
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A few years back, a couple of weeks after I began my stay in Houston, Texas, I met someone who joked that he thought I must be British because he'd driven past me and noticed I was walking on the left of the sidewalk. I was a bit taken aback as I hadn't been aware that there was a convention of walking on the right in America (or Texas? or Houston?) as if everyone was a car. And it must have been coincidence that I happened to be walking on the left when he'd passed.
In Misc on 26 September 2004. 22 comments. Permalink
- Andrew O'Hagan on the Republican convention
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The current London Review of Books carries a calmly horrifying report from the US Republican party convention by Andrew O'Hagan. Two passages worth quoting, beginning with the opening paragraph, a relentless account of the state of America:
In Misc on 21 September 2004. 9 comments. Permalink
- Seeing the light flicker
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When Ludicorp launched Flickr at EtCon earlier this year it looked quite fun. It looked like it might be a Friendster with a point — share photos with your friends.
In Misc on 25 August 2004. 3 comments. Permalink
- Let's live today, anyway. Change me, change me, change me once again
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A decade ago I couldn't wait to see Before Sunrise. I loved Richard Linklater's Slacker and Dazed and Confused, Ethan Hawke was the cocky yet sensitive Gen X posterboy, Julie Delpy was cute and French and the idea — boy meets girl on a train in Vienna and they spend the night walking and talking — was the perfect romance. Somehow it didn't quite live up to expectations: perhaps Jesse (Hawke) was too annoying; perhaps Céline (Delpy) was too wet; perhaps there was something not quite engaging about the dialogue. Despite this, the film floated about me ever since, pushing into my thoughts, weedling its way toward being one of my favourite films, in theory if not in fact.
- St Pancras Chambers
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Yesterday I went on a tour of St Pancras Chambers (erratic Flash site), the official title for the vast, grand brick building that forms the front of St Pancras railway station in London. In the 19th century the building was originally the swanky Midland Grand Hotel, which closed due to poor profits in 1935. It then became railway offices and had many of its large, elegant rooms split by temporary walls, some elaborate and colourful patterned walls painted over, and holes punched in ceilings to provide access for power and phone cabling.In Misc on 25 July 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- Anyone for a greasy?
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Finding a decent, simple cafe in central London is surprisingly tricky (that's cafe pronounced 'caff'). If you're after food that doesn't come with a rocket salad, and isn't a hybrid of cuisines from warmer parts of the world, it can take some hunting. There are still classic cafes where egg, bacon chips and beans form the bulk of the menu but they seem to be disappearing.
In Misc on 22 July 2004. 7 comments. Permalink
- Inaccessible Odeon
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The Odeon cinema chain has sent nasty letters to Matthew Somerville, forcing him to remove his accessible version of their site. It's bad enough that a company which had previously welcomed Matthew's efforts about-faced and got nasty on a site that made it easy for people to give them money. But it looks even worse if you try to use Odeon's own site to book tickets.
In Misc on 11 July 2004. 24 comments. Permalink
- What webloggers are reading this summer
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Lists of who's reading what are all very well but, although I love book recommendations, do I really care what books Kate Adie or Neil Mullarkey are reading? I realised I'd be far more interested in the reading habits of people whose thoughts I read every day. So I asked a bunch of friendly webloggers what they're dipping into when they're not hypnotised by a monitor, and here are their replies.
In Misc on 9 July 2004. 8 comments. Permalink
- Blogloops
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Bloglines, the web-based RSS reader of choice has had a first birthday revamp. It's a bit cleaner and more professional-looking, although I'm not a fan of that deep sky blue, or the cartoony tabs. Also, something about the design hinders quick scanning — I think the “Posted on…” lines are rather intrusive to the flow. And I'm not entirely sure why a lot of links are brown. But otherwise, it's nicely refreshing.
In Misc on 7 July 2004. 2 comments. Permalink
- RCA and CSM degree shows
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Friday afternoon I went to the degree show at the Royal College of Art, in London, (open until 2nd July). Here are the few things that caught my limited span of attention:
In Misc on 26 June 2004. 2 comments. Permalink
- New and improved Jamie Oliver
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This year, when I haven't been coding TheyWorkForYou.com, I've been employed at the lovely Poke working on the new Jamie Oliver website, which launched yesterday. I feel rather too close to it now to describe it in any detail, but a few bullet-pointed highlights for you:
In Misc on 22 June 2004. 2 comments. Permalink
- Beach hut photos
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A couple of weeks ago we went to Walton-on-the-Naze, on the Essex coast, for the weekend. The walk along the promenade to the more genteel Frinton-on-Sea is lined with beach huts, and the weather was good for taking photos. There are also a couple of photos of Walton's muddy Backwaters (more on those here)In Misc on 20 June 2004. 3 comments. Permalink
- Bishopsgate Goods Yard demolition
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Bishopsgate Goods Yard is currently being demolished to make way for the East London Line extension, although I can't recall now whether the project is stalled or not. Either way, demolition looks pretty complete, and although you can't see much from the street, an aerial view gives you a better perspective of the sea of bricks now filling the space between the walls. (I took the photos a month ago, although it's pretty much the same now.)In Misc on 20 June 2004. 3 comments. Permalink
- TheyWorkForYou.com
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Contrary to popular opinion some interesting things happen in Parliament. Unfortunately these are hidden by many more dull things. Finding the interesting things is made more difficult by the nature of the official record of Parliament, Hansard, which doesn't make life easy.
In Misc on 6 June 2004. 4 comments. Permalink
- London's Elections - The Designers
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A couple of days after my voting forms for the imminent London and European elections arrived, I received a booklet containing mini-manifestos for each mayoral candidate. The great thing about it is that each party has obviously been given a double page spread to do what they like; each spread is entirely different in design, language, colour scheme, everything. It's like some peculiar political zine patched together from numerous contributions, and you can download the PDF, which is much more fun than the sanitised HTML version.
- Homeostatic envelope
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The November 2003 issue of The Believer had an interview with David Foster Wallace, and one part, by the interviewer, Dave Eggers, caught my attention. After talking about how after stories like A Beautiful Mind mathematicians “might even be supplanting artists as the presumed sufferers of a sort of 'mad genius' syndrome” he goes on to say:
- Goof of the day
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I was looking for some information about the history of the House of Commons. Eventually, after resorting to the Site Map, I found a promising sounding PDF, Chronology of the House of Commons.
- Donald Barthelme's reading list
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I've been catching up on back issues of The Believer and October 2003 contained an article by Kevin Moffett, in which he described tackling a reading list of 81 books passed down through a couple of hands from Donald Barthelme. To be honest, I couldn't tell you the first thing about Barthelme, but I love reading lists in exactly the kind of way I don't love lists of essential CDs.
In Misc on 13 April 2004. 2 comments. Permalink
- Bye bye HyperCard
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Awww, HyperCard is no more. I haven't touched HyperCard for ten years or so1 but I've always had a soft spot for it. As far as I know my college didn't have the internet in the early 90s, although I'd heard tales of a computer in the library that was on JANET, but I could never substantiate such foolish rumour-mongering.
- Powergen's negative energy
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How can one company do so many simple things wrong:
In Misc on 28 March 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- Houston's transport
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2lmc link to a USA Today story about the large number of cars colliding with Houston's new light rail system. I'd forgotten the city went ahead with this, as when I was living there around 2000, I couldn't imagine it happening. It was supposed to be the start of a 40 mile scheme, and searching the Houston Press archives I found some articles giving background from last year:
- Why not to buy a Roomba
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I'm not planning on writing about every moment of EtCon; there are plenty of people doing that already, and it's hard enough for me to concentrate on what speakers are saying without the burden of massaging that into something publishable. I probably won't even expand on the atmosphere to any great extent. Suffice it to say that hanging out with a gaggle of London friends in a place full of clever folks discussing ideas and projects is a lovely holiday.
In Misc on 11 February 2004. 8 comments. Permalink
- I forgot to pack my cynicism
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(Sunday afternoon.) Right now it's hard to believe California's original boosters were in any way exagerrating. Trundling south from Santa Barbara on the Pacific Surfliner, listening to the sunny sounds of Camera Obscura, marvelling at the ocean's dazzle, kids waving from the sand, palm trees and sea birds, surfers gliding the waves. It's the middle of winter and the world is like the start of a David Lynch movie, when the world is way too good to be true.
In Misc on 9 February 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- I've had it up to here
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In the past twelve days I've received over 5,000 MyDoom virus emails (or their associated bounces). Add this to the background noise of spam and I'm giving up. Despite my reservations last summer, I'm signing up for Knowspam to claim my sanity back. Hopefully I've imported the email addresses of everyone I've received mail from over the past couple of years, so few people will have their human-ness challenged by the system. And I'll only receive the email I want to read. How novel!In Misc on 7 February 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- Whither Ikeaphobia?
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I've seen a couple of places applauding 'Ikeaphobia and its discontents' by Adam Greenfield in which he describes anti-Ikea and anti-Starbucks rants as “nonsensensical prejudices”. While I agree with a few of his points, and dislike the ranters' attitudes that such companies are simply evil, I feel like standing up a little for the ranters, or at least providing an alternate slant on their rants.
In Misc on 30 January 2004. 5 comments. Permalink
- MapQuestster
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Tim O'Reilly posted a question to the Geowanking list, and after a lot of responses I posted the following. I'm frustrated with endless social networking schemes, endless people going “ooh, we could annotate space!”, lots of waffle about how difficult it is to do collaborative mapping and just wish all everyone would get together and do something useful. If such a thing is possible. Rambling follows…
Tim O'Reily wrote:
> If we were to envision a next generation, collaboratively-enhanced
> version of MapQuest, or Maps.yahoo.com, or mapinfo, how might we
> do it? What features would lead people to naturally annotate maps?In Misc on 27 January 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- Their first movies
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I'm halfway through My First Movie (Amazon US, UK), interviews with directors about making their first features, and it's great stuff. Their single-minded determination makes me realise I'll never make a movie myself. From the introduction:
In Misc on 27 January 2004. Add a comment. Permalink
- Weblogs, unexplained
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Once upon a time the word “Internet” had to be explained whenever it was used. At first the word would only appear in articles about Internet itself (it often occurred without its definite article), then it would crop up in gradually more mainstream stories, but still requiring explanation: “a world-wide network of computers”. I'm now enjoying watching “weblog” or “blog” going through the same process.
In Misc on 19 January 2004. 2 comments. Permalink
- The Poetics of Space
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I spent much of the New Year reading The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, which had been on my reading list for a while: two friends highly recommended it and a third kindly bought it for me (for which I'm hugely grateful, however the rest of this sounds). Unfortunately I was disappointed and so I'd love to know why the book is so highly rated by people I admire.
In Misc on 14 January 2004. 17 comments. Permalink
- Richard Herring on his new watch
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The [Timex Ironman digital watch] comes with a box about the size of a pack of playing cards that you strap round your upper arm, which communicates with 12 satellites to pinpoint your exact position and calculate all the other statistics I've mentioned. I am not sure that the bloke who invented satellites realised that his invention would be used to check the progress of a plodding, fat man traversing the back streets of West London. He probably thought it would be used for international espionage, but he was mistaken.
In Misc on 18 December 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Jame Oliver's new site
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Last week I helped Poke set up Jamie Oliver's new website. It's an interim effort, with more thrilling stuff on the way apparently, and is quite nice as these things go (and that doesn't feel too much like blowing my own trumpet, given very little of its visible niceness is down to me).
In Misc on 8 December 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Its true
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Greil Marcus quoting John Humphrys in the Sunday Times quoting Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation:
In Misc on 4 December 2003. 3 comments. Permalink
- Vito, Michael and Henry
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I'm currently catching up on reading the September 2003 issue of The Believer which contains a fun article by Jim Shepard, 'No Regrets: Goodfellas and American Hardball'. He compares the “honourable” morality of the gangsters in Coppola's Godfather films with the destructive selfishness of those in Scorcese's GoodFellas, and, all too briefly, likens the latter to the world of Enron and Bush's government:
- Statement of a Photographic Man
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I recently did some web work at a company based around photo libraries, which reminded me that I never got round to posting the second of two great excerpts from Henry Mayhew's chronicle of mid-19th century life, London Labour and the London Poor (Amazon UK, US, or the full text online).
In Misc on 23 November 2003. 3 comments. Permalink
- Extendaword
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I've spent much of the past couple of months “project managing” or “producing” Extendaword, a web- and email-based word game for the Financial Times, which launches today. There are two versions, one for the UK, one for everywhere else (the difference being the prizes, or lack of them). Create a team with your friends (navigating through the complex marketing opt-in/out checkboxes) and come up with the highest scoring sequence of words during each week's game.
In Misc on 3 November 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Semi-public events
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A while back, while my mind wandered as I watched the first couple of parts of the Cremaster Cycle, I was thinking about how to announce events semi-publically. Continuing to think about it sicne then hasn't got me much further, so here's my half-idea.
In Misc on 1 November 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- A question
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Here's a question. Let's say someone breaks into your home and steals all your CDs. Let's say you've wisely insured all your possessions, so you can claim for the CDs' surprisingly high collective value. Let's also say your CDs were stolen from your cupboard, where you put them after ripping every single one to your capacious hard drive.
In Misc on 23 October 2003. 4 comments. Permalink
- Geolocational link dump
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I've been tidying up my mailing list subscriptions, unsubscribing from those I never get round to reading, and catching up on those I want to read. One of the latter is Geowanking, and rather than litter the linklog with stuff, here's a few of the most interesting things in my whizz through two months' worth of emails:
- Changing jobs
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Last week the Guardian had a special report on changing jobs. Handy if you need inspiration. Do it!
In Misc on 16 October 2003. 4 comments. Permalink
- Sunsets and shared experience
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You know how some people still insist that spending a lot of time online is sad? How living much of your time online means you must be a pathetic stay-at-home with no life? (If you don't hear people say this, you obviously hang out with geeks and rarely meet “normal” people these days.) Obviously, they're not aware of how online links can enhance this oh-so-important “real” life.
In Misc on 10 October 2003. 7 comments. Permalink
- Linklogs are taking off. Again.
- “I wish he would pull my hair again”
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A friend of mine in the US has started posting excerpts of her old junior high diary to her new weblog, adding comments from her present-day self. (For those of us who don't know what junior high is, she was about 12 at the time.) It's great stuff, like Adrian Mole in America. If he was a girl. Who talked about nothing but boys.
[UPDATE: The weblog has since moved to here because of this. 8 Nov 2003]
In Misc on 6 October 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Bloglines' blogrolls and the real world creating friends
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Bloglines, which I still enjoy, has introduced a feature that lets you include your list of subscribed-to feeds on your own site. So here's mine. Yes, “blogroll” is a hideous term, but it probably makes sense to the few people that might have the slightest interest in seeing what someone else reads. And I can't think of anything else short and meaningful.
In Misc on 3 October 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Hiragana and Katakana practice page
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I've been learning Japanese for a while now, and needed a better way to learn the characters that I don't yet know. Repeatedly going through a list means you learn the sequences, rather than the individual letters. So I've made a page that displays characters randomly. It lets you choose to practice Hiragana, Katakana or both at once and gives you a score. Maybe one day I'll move onto Kanji…
In Misc on 2 October 2003. 25 comments. Permalink
- Online autobiography tools?
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The other night, while making a late dinner, I heard Chuck Palahniuk on Radio 3's Night Waves talking about his new book, Diary. He thought that as the baby-boomers retire they're going to want to archive things, to document their lives.
In Misc on 1 October 2003. 4 comments. Permalink
- Link-only weblogs aggregated on Haddock Blogs
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If you only read Haddock Blogs via RSS you may not have noticed I recently created a sidebar that aggregates a few weblogs that only contain links — no discussion, just pointers to interesting things. As I mentioned in a lengthy (yawn) post the other day, this was harder than expected, so there may be glitches. But it seems mostly OK. The RSS feed is here. It'll all appear on the Haddock front page too when I get a moment.
In Misc on 30 September 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Imperial Rome's high density living
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Dan Hill was intrigued by a sentence in Hammersley's Florentine adventures: “There are eight storey apartment blocks built in 1250!!!!!” That reminded me of a chapter in Peter Hall's mammoth Cities in Civilization (Amazon US, UK) about Rome between 50BC and AD 150.
In Misc on 26 September 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Underground Britain
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Following a link from the Greater London Industrial Archeology Society site, I discovered Subterranea Britannica, which appears to be split into information about cold war bunkers, and then everything else. There's a list of bunkers that each have a page of photos, floor plans and description, like Hackney WW2 ARP Control Centre & Post War Borough Control near me at Hackney Town Hall. Or this more rural 1950s bunker which is now a museum.
In Misc on 20 September 2003. 2 comments. Permalink
- Greater London Industrial Archeology Society
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Another link from my mum, Greater London Industrial Archeology Society. Every couple of months they publish a newsletter full of background information on current events. A quick browse turns up a huge range of stuff: the distilling industry, postboxes, Royal Mail railways, Clapham Common band stand, power stations, tunnels, old shop fronts, and bricks. Shows that you don't need a flashy site, just wonderful content.
In Misc on 20 September 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Douglas Coupland interviews
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I've been meaning to read, and mention, this Morning News interview with Coupland since Rod mentioned it. And now 2lmc point to another interview, at Submit Response.
In Misc on 15 September 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Farmers' Market
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If you live anywhere near, I can recommend a visit to Stoke Newington Farmers' Market run by Growing Communities. Every Saturday from 10 to 2.30, just here off the High Street. It's smaller than I imagined a “market” to be, but there's lots of veg (the sweetest ever cherry tomatoes), some meat, eggs (fantastic scotch eggs), goats cheese and sausages, a bewildering array of bread (try the vegetarian pasties), and some kind of bottled drink I didn't investigate. All sold by smiling people who can tell you exactly how best to cook onion squashes or whatever they're selling. N16 has an article.
- Bill Nighy
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Best line of the day comes from an interview with Bill Nighy:
In Misc on 13 September 2003. 6 comments. Permalink
- Gigantomachia
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After someone asked for a hand with getting their TypePad site up and running, I've been having my first real play with the system. The result is Gigantomachia, a categorised resource detailing the “primordial battle between different races of gods”. I can't pretend to follow much of the content, as it reminds me of the single semester's worth of philosophy classes I took which I, unfortunately, barely understood.
- Wired UK employees
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Wired: A Romance, Gary Wolf's book about Wired magazine, came out in the US a while back (like a couple of other books, it's been stuck in the “things people have bought for you” part of my Wish List for ages, but has never arrived). Despite sending Gary a list of all the Wired UK employees twice, hardly any seem to have made it into his roll call of Wired staffers. So, for perpetuity's sake, here they are:
In Misc on 9 September 2003. 6 comments. Permalink
- Bloglines
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I've been using Bloglines as an RSS feed reader for the past week and I'm loving it, so another vote for that. I'd been using NetNewsWire Lite but when you're stuck on another computer and want something to pass the time, having all your feeds online is wonderful. It works so well I prefer using it to NNW when I'm at home too. So there.
In Misc on 4 September 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Post boxes
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At the risk of turning this into the UK's premier street furniture weblog… Look, postboxes! So I like it when people pay more than the usual level of attention to everyday objects. And there's more (beautifully, in a subdirectory titled “hobbies”; I should get one of those). Apparently there's a Letter Box Study Group although I can't access the site right now. I'll have to amuse myself with browsing Unicorn Kiosk's range of original street furniture… up to three grand (plus VAT) for a Victorian post box or nearly five for a K6 red phone box complete with Jubilee interior.
In Misc on 20 August 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- David Lynch on sheds
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In The Guardian's Guide on Saturday, Jacques Peretti wrote about sheds, apparently flavour of the season in the worlds of fashion and style (it's entirely possible this article is on the site somewhere, but I couldn't find it). This reminded me of something from Lynch on Lynch (US, UK) that I'd read only the day before. A hidden, dark and terrifying side to David Lynch…
In Misc on 18 August 2003. 3 comments. Permalink
- Telegraph poles
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My mum has, in her capacity as a local historian, become interested in Witham's telegraph poles (I only now realise I should probably call them telephone poles). Each one has certain markings and, so you can amaze your friends, here's how to decipher them. There are three marks, one above the other, in this order:
In Misc on 8 August 2003. 3 comments. Permalink
- Updated Haddock Blogs
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For those that care… I've updated the Haddock Blogs script so that if a source RSS feed includes the full text of an entry, this is also included in Haddock Blogs' own RSS feed. This post will test whether the script's working or not…
In Misc on 7 August 2003. 2 comments. Permalink
- Pre-client spam filtering
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The last few days I've been collecting my email via Knowspam.net, one of those challenge and response systems where unapproved people have to click a link and verify their existence before their email reaches you. It seemed a good solution to the spam problem — the problem being receiving any spam at all — but I've decided the whole idea is not for me.
In Misc on 5 August 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Open mapping
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In Osnabrück, Germany, a group of people have “developed a free dataset of geographic vector information” for the city using free software. (As their site states, such map information isn't freely available in Europe, unlike the US.) Apparently the city donated the satellite photos used to create the data. Great stuff, I assume, not that I'm able to read the rest of the site.
In Misc on 29 July 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Essex signposts and milestones
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My mum pointed me at Milestones Online, a site cataloguing signposts and milestones, mostly in my home county of Essex. Not the modern green reflective signposts of course, but those old cast iron posts that you see on country roads between villages with names like Stapleford Tawney and Tolleshunt D'Arcy. Among the good old fashioned homepage styling (centered text, background images, confusing navigation, etc.) there are photos of dozens of signposts (actually, “guideposts”) and photos of milestones on different routes such as the road between London and Harwich. I love it when the web makes you take more notice of things in the real world.
- T610 dimness
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Like everyone else who bought a mobile phone in the past month, I've replaced my clunky old freebie Motorola with a Sony Ericsson T610. While it satisfies all my criteria — small, cute, tri-band, bluetooth-syncable with Mac OS X, non-Motorola interface, polyphonic ringtones — and has a camera, he was right about the dim display. While it lights up a darkened room like a pocket-size sun, outside on a bright (but still cloudy) day, the screen was only just readable. So, it'll be perfect for you if you never go out. Although the camera only works in decent light. But apart from that it's as lovely as I hoped.
In Misc on 27 July 2003. Add a comment. Permalink
- Doonesbury via RSS
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I love 'Doonesbury' but I rarely buy a paper or visit the website. So I've whipped up an RSS file that will link to the past week's strips. Feel free to use it.
In Misc on 12 July 2003. 8 comments. Permalink
- Freelance charging
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I've been doing a spot of freelance webmonkeying at Syzygy where everyone seems to work, rather than have fun. No wonder they're still in business five and a half years after I was last there. It's no way to run a dotcom I tell ya!
In Misc on 3 July 2003. 11 comments. Permalink
- Birkenstock
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You'd think that someone writing an article about how Birkenstocks are accidentally fashionable would have done some, any, research and then pointed out that in the US the company is going out of its way to appear trendy with an entirely new range of footwear.
In Misc on 2 July 2003. 5 comments. Permalink
- Domestic geeks
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One of the great things about geeks is the way they (or, I admit, “we”) submit apparently mundane events and actions to exhaustive levels of analysis. There seems to be a mini-tradition of trying to make domestic tasks as regular and efficient as possible:
- The Mapmakers
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I just finished reading The Mapmakers (Amazon US, UK) by John Noble Wilford which was wonderful. The two aspects that fascinated me most: The simple acts of triangulating and measuring the world in order to capture it on paper, from objects to geometry to images. And the increasing knowledge cartographers gathered over the centuries, making the process of mapping more accurate and far more complicated. It's a great read, only suffering from a severe lack of relevant illustrations. I'd love to read more about cartography, but most of the books on Amazon seem to be either more historical works or complicated sounding academic tomes. I think I'm looking for something in between; more technical than The Mapmakers but not so technical I can't understand it.
In Misc on 28 June 2003. 4 comments. Permalink
- The Believer
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Last week my friend Ted kindly sent me issue 2 of The Believer, McSweeney's monthly magazine: “There are book reviews which are not necessarily timely, and
