1 October 2004
[tube] What The Numbers On Your Tube Ticket Mean — from This isn’t London … ‘H: Number of loud, badly behaved teenage German exchange students in your carriage.’ [via Kevan’s del.icio.us]
2 October 2004
[tv] alt.nerd.obsessive — a tribute to the Comic Book Guy … ‘Inspired by the most logical race in the galaxy, the Vulcans, breeding will be permitted once every seven years. For many of you this will mean much less breeding, for me, much much more.’
4 October 2004
[politics] Robert Kilroy-Silk’s Views About Foreigners … ‘French. Not Kilroy’s favourite race – “devious” (2 Feb 2003), “treacherous… not to be trusted” (16 Feb 2003) and “self-regarding” (9 Mar 2003). In short, they are utterly unlike the British and Americans, who “can be relied upon to keep their word and to act with altruism to a degree that would seem foolish to the French” (13 Apr 2003).’ [via The Daily Chump]
5 October 2004
[religion] Klingons for Christ: ‘…we all know that there is really no such Alien Race as the Klingons, they were created by the late Gene Roddenberry for his much loved Science Fiction series STAR TREK. His vision has enriched our lives by giving us this wonderful mythology to speculate about. But there are REAL KLINGONS. The real Klingons are the many dedicated Fen who take the time to dress, look, act, and even speak the language of the mythical aliens. And it is to these real people , and all other Fen that this message is aimed at. Jesus Christ, the Great God of the Universe is real.’ [via Metafilter]
[tech] GDI Scan Tutorial and how to fix the GDI+ JPEG Vulnerability — nice how-to article on fixing the most recent Windows exploit … ‘At the time of this writing more reports are coming out about tools and sample code to take advantage of this vulnerability. The sooner you run this tool and fix any of the exploitable copies of this DLL on your system, the safer you will be.’
6 October 2004
[politics] My Trip to Ukipland — Guardian journalist observes at the UKIP Conference … ‘Inside, my bag is searched by smiling women “for flour and eggs, my dear”. Might I bake a Ukip cake to hurl at Kilroy’s perfect nose? I see facial hair, 1930s hats, Arran sweaters, angry vicars, fishermen and Jonathan Aitken. If Agatha Christie had written a political thriller, or if Engelbert Humperdink’s fan-club entered parliament, this is what it would look like. It is, for a grimy urbanite, very strange indeed.’ [via Sashinka]
7 October 2004
[blogs] Spilling the Beans — The Guardian covers job bloggers like Call Centre Confidential and The Policeman’s Blog … ‘You could argue that job blogs are a way of kicking back against our overwork culture. As people work longer hours, blogging is a way of wasting a little time and claiming back some mental space. It’s a way of dealing with office stress by taking control and making work “your story” – a comedy in which the blogger has the starring role and all the best lines.’
[internet] ROTFL-3000 — The new keyboard for Chatrooms, AOL and Blogs … ‘HOME, DEL, etc have been replaced by face-parts so you can make your own emoticons if you so wish.’
8 October 2004
[ukblogs] Webloggers’ End Of Year Party 2004 … ‘I’m very suspicious of fishtanks. At last year’s venue you could see right through one of them into the Ladies… (Jack) Damn how come I never saw that! (Adrian)’
9 October 2004
[coffee] Starbucks vs. Its Addicts — Slate on Starbucks raising the price of it’s coffee … ‘A recent survey of scientific literature by psychiatrists Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins and Laura Juliano of American University found that people who have a one-cup-a-day habit can become addicted. It’s not so much the buzz — pleasant as it is — that keeps people coming back for more: It’s the symptoms of withdrawal. In other words, Starbucks may not have to fret about the impact of raising prices because a goodly portion of its customer base may begin to feel sick without its products. Talk about a great business plan!’
11 October 2004
[comics] “Face Front! Clap Your Hands, You’re on the Winning Team!” — Rolling Stone article on Marvel Comics from 1971 … Marie Sevrin on Comic Fans: ‘”Gee,” she said, “they’re so uninteresting, that why they’re fans. If they were interesting they wouldn’t be fans. I mean, is a hospital ward interesting? The fans buy the books, but they don’t support comics. Comics are supported by many other normal little children, but the fans are the ones who are hung up on it. I think fans are very lonely.” She says the fans are arrogant now. They don’t gasp and ooh and ahh anymore. The new breed of fans just want to lean over your shoulder and tell you what you’re doing wrong.’
[comics] Christopher Reeve Obituary: ‘Of playing Clark Kent, Reeve reckoned that “there must be some difference stylistically between Clark and Superman. Otherwise you just have a pair of glasses standing in for a character.” Reeve, though he played the two roles straight without any sign of camp, revealed a deft Cary Grant-inspired comic timing. Unfortunately, the three sequels were a matter of diminishing returns and, after Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987), Reeve, determined to ‘escape the cape’, explained: “Look, I’ve flown, I’ve become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I’ve faced my peers, I’ve befriended children and small animals and I’ve rescued cats from trees. What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn’t been done?”‘
12 October 2004
[comics] Cerebus No. 84, Page 2 — Dave Sim on Marvel Comics, Jim Shooter, Secret Wars and a page from Cerebus … ‘Another of Big Jim’s hard and fast rules of storytelling was that “conflict creates character” which is why Dirty Fleagle and Dirty Drew spend most of their time as the Secret Sacred Wars Roach’s henchmen beating crap out of each other.’
13 October 2004
[science] People Are Human-Bacteria Hybrid … ‘Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking “superorganisms,” highly complex conglomerations of human, fungal, bacterial and viral cells.’
14 October 2004
[comics] The Sim/Gaiman Project — a collection of letters that Dave Sim has been sending to readers of Neil Gaiman’s Blog.‘…for those who haven’t actually responded to the offer, it should be known that the sometimes irrascible tyrant and fire-breathing dragon Dave Sim has been enjoying tremendously the response he received from the Gaiman blog readers and those whom they’ve infected with the knowledge. These form letters are delightful and charming and so enjoyable that now everyone who has seen one wants to know what others have received.’
[search] Google Desktop Search — Google releases beta software which allows you to search your desktop as easily as the internet … ‘Search your own computer.’
15 October 2004
[film] Feeling Listless on Clerks X: ‘To some degree it’s a depressing experience because I’ve seen this film so many times that it’s lost that shock of the new. It’s the kind of piece which people are still discovering and I wish I still could. Even at student age I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the melancholic desolation which seeps through the cracks of the comedy. Like the best film with longevity it changes each time we revisit because we are older and our perceptions change. Which is the film’s real achievement – that something could cost that little money, be made under those production limits and still be have that value.’
[politics] Bush Like Me — a Rolling Stone Reporter spends ten weeks undercover with the grassroots of the Republican Party …
‘”We have a transvestite at our school,” I repeated. Only Susie heard me. “No!” she screamed. “Did you hear what he said? A transvestite works at his school!” She turned to me in horror. “Is he allowed to dress like a woman?” Now I had everyone’s attention. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Totally normal guy, except that at some point, he started reading all kinds of . . . ” “Books!” Susie guessed. “It’s called possession,” her husband said. “Yeah, books,” I said. “It started… he was reading Agatha Christie books at first, then he got really into detectives. Next thing you know, he’s reading Nietzsche. You know, the German philosopher.” “The weirdo German!” Susie exclaimed. Everyone was staring at me in shock.”And he comes up to me one day and says, you know, ‘Well, since there’s no God, I might as well be gay!’ ” “Oh, my God,” her husband whispered.’
17 October 2004
[comics] The Ascent Of Fan — Ninth Art on Comics Fans … ‘Far from discussing their love of comics, the fans seem to spend more time debating the precise reasons why they suck, with particular reference to why things aren’t as good as they used to be – whether ‘used to be’ goes back two years, five, ten or twenty. This, of course, is the basic joke of THE SIMPSONS’ Comic Shop Guy. For a man who’s devoted his life to comics, he doesn’t actually seem to like any of them very much. And remember, these are the people who really adore comics. Just imagine what the people who can’t stand them must be like.’ [via Neilalien]
18 October 2004
[collecting] Smartie Museum — a webpage for a collection of Smartie Lids … ‘You wouldn’t think there could be much to say on this subject, would you? WRONG!’
19 October 2004
[politics] Without a Doubt — Ron Suskind on George W. Bush’s Faith-based Presidency …
‘He truly believes he’s on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence. But you can’t run the world on faith.’
‘The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”‘
20 October 2004
[politics] Faith Against Reason — commentary from Jonathan Freedland on the faith-based Presidency… ‘As the [Republican] faithful streamed out of the Evesham Recreational Centre in Marlton, a Kerry-Edwards bus with a loudhailer was taunting them from across the road: “Don’t be scared of science, guys. Please guys, we need science.” It seemed an odd kind of election slogan, but it might be right to the point. For the clash under way now is about more than Bush v Kerry, right v left. It seems to be an emerging clash of tradition against modernity, faith against reason. The true believers pitted against the “reality-based community”.’
21 October 2004
[books] Neal Stephenson interviewed by Slashdot. On the Singularity: ‘I have a personal mental block as far as the Singularity prediction is concerned. My thoughts are more in line with those of Jaron Lanier, who points out that while hardware might be getting faster all the time, software is shit (I am paraphrasing his argument). And without software to do something useful with all that hardware, the hardware’s nothing more than a really complicated space heater.’
[politics] Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004 — Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in Rolling Stone …
‘Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for — but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him. You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep and a gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander around in the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat suit and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him. Then we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for laughs.’
22 October 2004
[fact!] True Facts — a page of trivia … ‘In her later years, Florence Nightingale kept a pet owl in her pocket.’
24 October 2004
[politics] The Baghdad Blogger goes to Washington — Salam Pax visits America before the election… On arriving at JFK: ‘This is the moment where, in a perfect world modelled on Bollywood movies, I would break into song and dance; my chorus boys would be the beautiful boys in turbans and beards brandishing their “axis of evil” passports and I would look as fabulous as Kylie Minogue while singing: “What do I have to do to get the message thru? I am Iraqi, Iraqi!” It would be a hit with everyone at the airport and I would be escorted by adoring fans to the limousine waiting outside. But this is not a Bollywood movie and I am being taken to a “secondary screening”. My first visit to the USA might just end up with me being shackled and sent to a very unpleasant place where the colour orange is the height of fashion.’
26 October 2004
Human Nature — audio download of Malcolm Gladwell exploring ‘…why we can’t trust people’s opinions — because we don’t have the language to express our feelings. His examples include the story of New Coke and how Coke’s market research misled them, and the development of Herman-Miller’s Aeron chair, the best-selling chair in the history of office chairs, which succeeded in spite of research that suggested it would fail.’
27 October 2004
[web] Who knows? — Simon Waldman on the rise of Wikipedia … ‘The current Encyclopedia Britannica has 44m words of text. Wikipedia already has more than 250m words in it. Britannica’s most recent edition has 65,000 entries in print and 75,000 entries online. Wikipedia’s English site has some 360,000 entries and is growing every day. But numbers mean nothing if the quality is no good. And this is where the arguments start…’
28 October 2004
[blogs] Hierarchy of Blogging — a useful guide from Random Acts of Reality. I look down on Family Blogs and Bloggers who blog about their pet cats apparently… [Related: Sasha has mirrored the Hierarchy]
29 October 2004
[work] Forty per cent of IT workers vomit at office Xmas party — ‘…while more than third admit to snogging their boss or a colleague […] The research doesn’t reveal what proportion of people threw up before snogging their boss.’
30 October 2004
[useful] Google Cheat Sheet — I learned a couple of new tricks from this … ‘~auto loan – loan info for both the word auto and its synonyms: truck, car, etc.’
31 October 2004
[politics] You Ask The Questions — PJ O’Rourke … ‘Q: Is Tony Blair Bush’s puppet, poodle or fig leaf? A: Tony Blair is your Bush, or Clinton, or Kerry. He is your first really American politician: he has a great facility for baffle-gab; he gets intrigued with all sorts of complex ideas without really thinking them through; and he attempts to be all things to all people at all times. I think George does care what Tony thinks. They are the only two people on the same page about international intervention by Western powers…’