- Help: Twelve Tales of Healing
Your second stock-filler recommendation for the day! What are you waiting for? Go! Get shopping! Buy my friend's fine literary product and help make the world a better place!
- Invaders from Mars – Charlie's Diary
I know Stross is one of my regular linkees, and I'm sure a lot of you glide over him at this point, but I thought this was a particularly interesting read, and I commend it to anyone who is feeling frustrated by the apparently lack of ability for members of the public to influence anything in the wake of stuff like Wikileaks and the student fees protests. It won't tell you how to change things, but it provides an interesting perspective on the whys of the current situation, that lead to some interesting thoughts on how one might affect change in the medium-term future.
- The Fast Fiction Challenge – Volume 2 by Lee Barnett
Budgie's Fast Fiction Challenge, now in its second volume. I commend it to your attention as a perfect stocking filler.
- standpoint gallery
Reverting to Type: exhibition. Must go see.
- Havasu: a material exploration of conversational interfaces – Blog – BERG
Interested mostly into the insights into conversational interface, rather than the actual product here. For consideration: pair a more general use version of this with some voice recognition software, and it won't be long before all those SF voice-activated computers become a reality.
Tag: friends
Bookmarks for November 3, 2010
- Did somebody just try to buy the British government? – Charlie's Diary
I uh, don't quite know what to make of this. It sounds like conspiracy theory meets internet fraud scam on a national level. But if it's legit, and anyone from Foundation X is reading this and would like to fund me to the tune of say, 4 or 5 million quid with no strings attached, then I'm certainly willing to enter into discussions about how I would usefully use the money…
- The Do Lectures | Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee explains the context through which he came to computers, and makes the case that while people aren't ever going to come to thme that way again, there are still some vitally important things that we should be teaching our children about computers.
- Antony Johnston – Scrivening Comics
If you write, whether it's comics or not, I imagine that by the time you have read this article, you will understand why you need Scrivener in your life. It is hands down the best writing app I have ever encountered, and what's better is that it's surprisingly intuitive to use. Antony's article may have you thinking "god, that sounds like a lot of options, how confusing", but what I love about it is that they're not intrusive, and you can come to them as you need them. Try it just as a word processor, and you'll find that over time, you'll pick up more and more of it's features, just because they're there and easy to understand, until you wonder how you managed to write without it. Just the ability to hold my research notes in a meaningful structure alongside my actual writing, and view both at the same time is invaluable to me, never mind the bits of process tracking it enables me to do…
- The protocol-relative URL « Paul Irish
I didn't know that one could do this. It's pointless tech stuff to most of you, but I'll find it very useful.
Bookmarks for October 29, 2010
- No terror arrests in 100,000 police counter-terror searches, figures show | Law | guardian.co.uk
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.)
- Del's plain english guide
Yes. More of this sort of thing, please.
- WGGB – News – PLR agency written off
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's squawks – The Fast Fiction Challenge 2010: The final list
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?
Bookmarks for October 21, 2010
- The Right To The City
"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.”
- China Mieville: Letter to a Progressive Liberal Democract
I wish I had his way with words.
- apiphile: If it helps, try to imagine I am less of an annoying git and more of a conduit for wisdom
Del, on writing with clarity and purpose. I would like to forcefeed this to oh, really, everyone. Including myself.
Bookmarks for September 9, 2010
- budgie's squawks – Fast Fiction Challenge 2010: The one hundred stories so far…
My mate Budgie has completed 100 of his fast fiction challenges in 100 days. Firstly: give him a round of applause. Secondly: go read some of them – they're bloody good. Thirdly: Leave him a new four-word-or-less title, and a word to use in that story. Because I want to see how long he can go on doing this for. Fourthly: buy his book!
- The Commodification of Publishing & Media
Dave pointed me at this, and yes, it is a fascinating light in which to consider the publishing and creative industries, and their approach to history.
Bookmarks for September 5, 2010
- No More Mutants by Andrew Wheeler #1 – Won’t You Take Me To Mutant Town?
Andrew's back writing about comics again, and specifically, about the (lack of) representation of those who are not straight, white, or male in the medium and the industry. I will follow this with interest, and I imagine a substantial number of my friends will as well.
Bookmarks for March 11, 2010
- Death Knight Love Story cast: Joanna Lumley, Jack Davenport, Anna Chancellor, Brian Blessed
You know how over the last ten years, I've occasionally mentioned home-made machinima in a "one day, you'll all want to watch this" kind of way, and most've you have looked at me funny? Yeah. That.
- BBC News – Bank of America sued for seizing parrot
I know it's not funny. I know it will have been horrible for the person this happened to. But how can you not laugh at a litany of damages that reads "they [… ]invaded her home […] stopped utility services, cut water pipes and electrical wiring, damaged flooring and finishings, poured antifreeze into sinks and toilets and [stole] her parrot"?
Bookmarks for July 22, 2009
- Matt Legend Gemmell – iPhone Development Emergency Guide
Really quite a good quickstart – cleared up a few things for me, at any rate.
- Alasdair on the Plinth – a set on Flickr
Phil's photos from the other night – them as dressed up and made an effort will probably find better shots of themselves in there than anything I've managed to get, but at least *someone* managed to get some good photos. There's even one or two of me here that I like. Cheers, Phil.
Bookmarks for July 14, 2009
- YQL: INSERT INTO internet (Yahoo! Developer Network Blog)
OK, I need to read this in more depth when I get home tonight. I'd missed this before, and it looking like it could do some seriously interesting stuff.
- 50 states — Kickstarter
A photographer friend of mine is most of the way through a project to take photos in all 50 states of the US, and is trying to raise the cash to finish the job. If you've got a few quid to spare, please consider pitching it her way – she's bloody good, and I want to see the results of the complete project.
Bookmarks for July 8, 2009
- Alex's Stuff – Why web design sucks in '09
Look, I know I go on a lot about IE, and most of you are sick of it, but the gods honest truth is that using IE actively stifles innovation on the internet, because we have to spend so much time working out how to support it that we don't have the time or budget to get on with anything really interesting. Until Microsoft either take the web seriously enough to implement some proper fucking standards, then using IE is actively hindering the rest of us getting on with inventing the future. Even if you don't care about viruses, please stop it, or urge the people who are making you use it to stop it – I will happily provide supporting documents to counter *any* or their arguments about "business" or "security" reasons.
- Just for Laughs -Jean Paul Satre's Lost Cookbook
"Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika."