Sunday Roast: I’ve read the constitution and it does not protect ugly people

I lied when I said I had set this to post itself before I left on Friday. I didn’t get it finished in time, so the Mac had a little trip back to Somerset with me, all so you won’t miss out. Is it worrying you as much as it is worrying me, how much time I spend thinking about Bright Meadow?

Whilst I go and sit in a dark corner and ponder my severe lack of life, have a gander at what’s tickled my brain cells this week.

I love wikis, I think that that is a matter of public record by now. After near a year writing a thesis on them, it was always going to be a case of love or hate. Anyway, whilst I think they are great tools, I do think that Wikipedia has a lot to answer for. Yes, it’s brought wikis to the attention of people who might otherwise not have known about them (my supervisor and hence me for two) and it is a great idea, but it has got to be synonymous with wikis when in fact it is just one implementation of the software. And a very narrow one at that. It also has it’s problems, as Liz discovered to her cost recently.

I just think this fold-up DVD player can not be built fast enough. Such a groovy idea!

I made a discovery the other day at the gym – audio-books are great when you’re peddling away for 20 minutes on an alpine pass that doesn’t actually exist. I’m sure if I was cycling through the real Alps, I would be paying attention to the road, but seeing as how I’m stuck in a gym staring myopically at the wall, I need something to listen to. Long have I relied on upbeat music – American Idiot by Greenday is a great workout album I have discovered – but the other day it just wasn’t working for me. So I switched over to a spoken-word copy of “A Christmas Carol” I’d downloaded at Christmas, and next thing I knew I had finished the program on the cycle! I used to listen to a lot of spoken-word when I was driving regularly, but I hadn’t thought to do the same in the gym. Wish I had thought of it sooner! It takes me two sessions to get through an episode, and I have three episodes left, so I’ve started casting around for other sources of spoken-word books that I can (legally) download onto the iPod. Current favourite is EscapePod, which has some great Sci Fi.

The UK Attorney General calls for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. About bloody time too.

I can’t remember how I found this mind-bending street art but I have an embarrassingly sinking feeling that it was the NYT. Regardless of how I found it though, this British artist does some amazing 3D street art. Has to been seen to be believed.

MP calls for birth control to be added to methadone. You what?!?!

Since I integrated coComment fully into the Blog, I have come to rely on it as a way of keeping track of comments when I am at work. Especially now several different posts are the focus of conversations at once. I’m not the only one it seems with a desire to track conversations – for example Easton uses coco, del.icio.us, and co.mments.

And who said tree-houses were for kids?

The ever knowledgeable Paul has a great how-to to make gravatars link to comment authors URL as opposed to the gravatar site.
I’ve lost track of the times I’ve automatically clicked on a gravatar (the little picture that appears next to some peoples names) thinking it will take me to the commenters site, only to be greeted by the gravatar site instead. So I can see the plus side in this – it spreads the word about gravatars and is certainly the way I worked out how to get one – but at the same time it is very counter-intuitive for the user. Which would explain why I implemented this little change within five minutes of reading the article 😀

And to finish, Jeff is spot on with his piece about how there is no blogosphere. I’m fighting the urge to make a “there is no spoon” joke right now (damn Keanu’s dark glasses) because he actually has a serious point.

We’re just people talking. You’ll agree with some, disagree with some; like some, hate others. It’s just like life. It’s just people