Unreliable information since 1972
Something appears to have gone wrong in my copy of Flock, because the comments don’t seem to have made it to del.icio.us even though the links have. Still, I’ve edited them back into the last post on the site, should anyone care to read my commentary on them.
This entry was originally published at my workblog.
Old news to everyone, just a reminder to myself to get this site upgraded when I get a spare minute.
Almost certainly not going to be any good for actual photography, but it looks like it might be a cheap and fun toy.
Dan Hill of City of Sound on the future of music, from the industry to the experience. Long, but very good.
A one day conference in London at the start of February, with some seriously interesting speakers. God, I want to go to this. Anyone spare me 100 quid?
I had been planning to give this move a miss, because frankly, I know too many deeply annoying people who’ve been making squeeky noises about the fact that there’s a movie featuring boys kissing, and while I appreciate that it’s an important step for Holywood, it’s not something I find particularly remarkable, or interesting of itself. But Coates’ review has more or less singlehandedly changed my mind, and I’ll probably give it a look.
Nothing terribly revalatory in here, but there’s a few nice turns of phrase and a couple of interesting and new perspectives on some old stuff.
This entry was originally published at my workblog.
Microsoft follows Yahoo, bows to censorship pressure from China.
It’s a big topic, this, so I think this one gets a post to itself, because I honestly don’t know what I think. I was faintly admiring of a friend (the same one I stole this link off) when he stopped using any yahoo-provided service in the wake of their own caving. I didn’t, because they owned flickr (and now del.icio.us, and upcoming.org) as well this mailing lists, and it would just have been too much hassle to quit using theri stuff. Also, I have friends who work for Yahoo, and I have intention of stopping talking to them.
Microsoft, of course, represents another, even bigger hassle to quit, and I’m not going to do that, either. But is quitting using these companies’ products the answer? There’s the saw about how trade with China will eventualyl improve human rights/democracy over there, as they’re forced/encouraged to become more and more a part of the same world as the rest of us. There’s the flipside of that, that they’re going to do shitty things, no matter what we do, so we might as well conduct trade with them anyway. (Yes, it’s true, eveything I know about international affairs, I learned from The West Wing.)
Clearly, Yahoo and MS have bought one or the other of those lines. It’s not hard to see why: even if everyone were to suddenly stop using MS and Yahoo, and they were to stop going along with China, would it make any difference inside China? Almost certainly not. And so it’s easy to excuse ourselves.
Except of course for Burke’s maxim. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. Surely, regardless of whether or not it’ll make a difference, there’s a moral imperative to stand up and register your dissenting opinion? And doesn’t the internet make it really easy to do just that?
Or does it actaully make it harder, as the technologies we use on it are increasingly owned by the same small group of companies?
This entry was originally published at my workblog.
Anyone out there got any experience moving from PHP4.3 to 5.1, and specifically with reference to the problems it causes with reference to a MS-SQL database? I’m getting a really odd change, in that mssql_fetch_array() used to return an empty string for null/zero-length string values, and now it returns a single whitespace character. Which means that all my result evalutions ( and the like) are fucking up, and it’s looking like migrating to the new version may have to be sacked off, which I’d rather not do.
Any help appreciated, as I’m at my wits end.
I’ve been putting off a trip to the barbers for a couple of months, so my hair’s a bit longer than I’ve generally had it for the last couple of years. No, I know you hadn’t noticed, but that’s not the point. And I’m thinking, “It’s a new year, I’ve got a new job, why not think about doing something more drastic than usual?” But of course, I am feeble and weak-willed and cannot possibly make a decision for myself, and thus I turn to the wisdom of LJ. So:
Something to keep me occupied, perhaps: an interactive on-line photo project encouraging people to visit a tube stop they’ve never been to before, and take photos.
A post from 37signals, linking to a couple of other posts with web design predictions for 2006. There’re a couple of interesting details in each, and I can’t help but pray that the one predicting the end of the fisher-price look comes true.
A few very lovely new wordpress themes in here. I need to spruce up my web presence in a few ways, and a modified version of at least one of these might be the way to do it.
This entry was originally published at my workblog.
Pearson is a techologist at BT, and offers sharp and easy to digest visions of some of the ways, great and small, that technology could shape our world
Every year, they ask a load of different thinkers a question. This is a lot of very clever people answering an interesting question, and deserves attention.
Draw a simple sketch, and it retrieves similar stuff from flickr. No idea how it works, muct find out…
Exactly what it says – a listing of some of the best new fonts of 2005. Several in here I’d consider paying money for myself.
Aide memoire: one to add to the regular reads list…
This entry was originally published at my workblog.
Missed this one at the time, but it’s a erally good overview of why flickr is fantastic, and a good insight into the next gen of web apps, and why they work.
Just a note to self, really. I don’t see it replacing flickr as my general photostream, but it might wind up getting used for a portfolio site if it’s better than what I’m currently using.
Like The West Wing’s Leo McGarry, breakfast is my favourite meal to eat out. And London is my favourite city. It turns out that the internet is useful for something after all.
This entry was originally published at my workblog.
By way of a change: a photo in my main journal. This is chiefly because it’s not a very good photo, so isn’t going to make my other journal, but it’s one that’s important to me. That’s my grandmother on the left, and the badly photoshopped baby that she’s talking to via webcam on the right is her first great grandchild, Orla, now slightly over a month old. (The baby has been photoshopped so that she stands out from the screen a bit.)
This, right here, is the magic of the internet. It’s this that makes me get fucked off with the people who mock it as for nerds, or worse, the nerds who’re blase about the whole thing, who laugh at people who talk with webcams, or who thing it makes them seem big and clever to dismiss this sort of thing as everyday.
This is an old woman, sharing in her great grandchild’s first christmas, when she didn’t think she’d be able to. Just because it’s not technically hard to do these days, does not make it any less special, especially when neither of the parties would be able to turn on a computer for themselves.
It was easily the best thing that happened to me this festive season, and all I was doing was watching. I hope you all had something this good in your christmas.
Bags: packed. (OK, this means shoving a showerbag and something to sleep in in beside my camera gear and some books, but still, I’ve done it.)
Devices: charged. (Because I cannot go away without at least three things that go beep.)
House: locked up. (Barring the front door, obviously, because I have to wait until I’ve left to do that.)
Amazon: cunts. (They have shipped one of my items now, three days late. It should, in fact, arrive in time for christmas. Shame I’m not going to be be here.)
Happy holidays, everyone. See you on the 27th.