This made me laugh. Lads, if you are confused as to whether a compliment you are paying a lady is going to be taken as flattery, or if you're going to cross the line into creepy, her is a simple test that will save you more than 90% of the time: imagine yourself in jail, and imagine how you would feel if your hypothetical cellmate said exactly the same thing to you. Now do you see?

An absolute gem of a little horror comic. Serious, go read.

Nice post on the evolution of genre, and why some genres flourish, some mutate, and some die at different times.

I think the most surprising thing about this story is this quote: "A policy which fuels resentment and antagonism amongst minority communities without achieving a single terrorist conviction serves only to help our enemies and increase the terrorism threat." And the reason it's surprising it that it's coming from a Conservative MP. (Although I it is David Davis, who I confess to a grudging admiration for on the subject of civil liberties.)

Yes. More of this sort of thing, please.

Here's one of the governments cuts that won't make headline news, that won't get any of the usual arts bodies fighting against it, because it's not music or theatre or public art or any of the other stuff luvvies and lefties get up in arms about. And honestly, it probably won't change most' people's lives, but realistically also won't save any serious money. It's a cut for the sake of making a cut, an idealogical statement. And that statement is, broadly "fuck writers".

Budgie has managed to write 150 ultra-short stories in 150 days. If you think that consistently writing 200 words a day isn't a remarkable feat, then I suggest that you try it. Every day, for almost half a year, you sit down in front of a blank piece of paper, and force yourself to have a good idea. No excuse for illness, no excuses for just "being busy with other things". 150 days, having a new idea every day, and executing that idea to a high standard, without fail. Yeah. My hat's off to you, squire. 200 days next year, year?

Here's a plugin you can install and use that will protect you from Firesheep on a lot of sites that support it. Not all, by any means, so don't go assuming you're secure, just because you're running it, but it should keep you safe on many popular sites.

3 Conservative MPs, one of the them a cabinet member, have repeatedly smeared and harassed a journalist who had the temerity to question some of the lies they told in public. (I should perhaps say that I don't believe that Labour MPs are automatically above this kind of behaviour, either, merely that I haven't read anything about it lately. That doesn't make it acceptable that the Conservatives do it.)

Some good, thoughtful writing on the current crop of magazines-for-ipad, and the failings in the software used to produce and consume them.

If only I used a laptop on public wifi I'd set this up…

This has become a reasonably hot issue in the last week or so, as I hope my post earlier made clear. If you’re a Mac user, there’s some stuff in here that’ll help…

Should probably run this at home – I just had a quick check on my work machine, and discovered I could free up 4GB of space, and I suspect that number will be higher at home…

Really interesting article on African SF writing – why there hasn't been much of it historically, and why it's something to really look forward to.

This is a superb idea, and I would love to see it extended to cover *any* texts. Most of the books I own, I would be happy to ditch, and replace with digital copies. But there are a maybe a dozen or so that I would pay small fortunes to have in truly beautiful bespoke editions, so that the physical object truly reflected the importance of the text to me.

This is the sort of thing that it's useful to keep in mind as perspective, when considering technology. "90% of the phone for 20% of the price" is something that could be applied to all sorts of different sorts of development work. (Especially since is it my experience that the first 90% of any project, the rough functionality type work is indeed, less that half the work/cost.)

Mostly bookmarking this for myself, although I imagine a few people here might be mildly diverted by it.

"The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart’s desire.”

I wish I had his way with words.

Del, on writing with clarity and purpose. I would like to forcefeed this to oh, really, everyone. Including myself.

I imagine this one will be doing the rounds today.

I am told that this is "An exhilarating re-telling of the classic story of betrayal and vengeance, told by two outstanding, award-winning Zimbabwean performers using music, dance and a fusion of traditional African storytelling with contemporary Township Theatre practice. Fast, powerful, moving and unlike any other Shakespeare you have ever seen." I'm planning on going. Anyone else?

Good piece on the importance of the blame game in today's cuts. Remember: it is not Labour who is responsible for these cuts. If you are disposed to blame someone other than the current government, I suggest you blame the bankers. And if you are disposed to suggest that they should have been more heavily regulated, then, well, I agree with you. And I suggest you ask yourself how the Conservative party of the time argued they should have been regulated. (Hint: it was not more heavily.)

Will have to try and get to the Museum of London to see this.

Mr Cascio being clever, as per. Wouldn't mind seeing the whole documentary if the opportunity were to arise, but these bits from Jamais are worth the price of admission on their own.

If and when I get round to buying an stylus for the ipad, I could see this getting a lot of use, mostly at work. (I've tried handwriting without a pen, just using a fingertip, but it's a but rubbish.)

By this point, there really isn't a lot of point in saying anything. I'm just y'know, sighing and rolling my eyes.