Sunday Roast: women! act cool! no son, that isn’t cool

I’m going to start of with a link, not to a particular post, but to a whole blog: I will then, be a toad.
Frequenters of the comments on Bright Meadow might have occasionally seen bits left by meowkaat. (She’s been posting a bit more lately, yay!) I can’t remember when meowkaat first commented on the blog (it was back in the blogspot days so I can’t even search) but it’s been a fair while and she’s been a stalwart of Bright Meadow ever since, even becoming a blog minion. Until very recently meowkaat never let on that she had a blog so I felt real honoured when she finally included a link back to it. She is one of those rare writers that can make you respond with genuine emotion to their words. Some of her posts had me in tears, some laughing so hard I fell of my chair. I do recommend I will then, be a toad to you not just because meowkaat is a wonderful person (though she is), but because her words have a true beauty and grace to them.

(And yes, I did check with meowkaat before I linked in to the blog, so she’s prepared for the lot of you to go tromping through).

Turns out that online news has a half-life of 36 hours, where the half-life is the time taken for half the total readership of an article to have read it. Whilst this research applies specifically to news sites, I imagine that something similar holds true for blogs. I know I find something similar which is partly why I’ve fallen into a pattern of roughly posting every other day. I found that, with my readership, if I posted more than one article a day, neither article would get as much traction. (I’m mainly basing this on feedback I’d get through comments). I also find it’s rarer that I will get comments on articles that are over a week old. I imagine this is partly due to the sheer length of the majority of my posts – wading through one must be bad enough. Wading through two (or more) every 24 hours would just be off putting. What do you find for your sites?

Call me a purist if you will, but it *isn’t* a retelling of the Godiva legend when it’s based in Oxford and the lady is wearing clothes!

The Radio Times 25 films you must see if you are an aspiring film buff. The list is pretty eclectic. I’ve also only seen eight of them. Better get down Blockbuster!

It’s been a while (seven months) since I officially stopped research in the field of social computing when I handed in the Demon Thesis, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still interested in the topic. The following crossed my radar earlier this week (you might have spotted it tagged in my del.icio.us feed):
The Hype vs. Reality vs. What People Value: Emerging Collaborative News Models and the Future of News.
If the full thesis looks a little scary to read (it is quite long), here it is in digest form.
I quote the bottom of the digest “This is fascinating stuff. Anyone who cares about collaborative online activity, especially in the news category, should take a long look at the survey.

I’m feeling in a spiritual mood this week. Not totally sure why, but there you have it. As is often the way with the world, in a moment of serendipity, a few other people were also taking the time to talk about things other than the Web:
Will over at thinkBuddah mused on loving kindness, in particular the need to ‘love’ yourself before you can properly love others. This is something I have trouble with at the same time that it rings true to me. I have big problems being happy with, or ‘loving’, myself, yet does that mean I am not capable of loving others? No. But I do appreciate how I would be able to do this better if I was happier and understood myself better.
The other person is Ben, over at Open Switch with his ask a minister podcast. Yes, the chap is actually a minister. Odd, the people you run into with this blogging malarky. Quite a deep question this week – why are so many people atheists? (And some stuff about poodles. Just because the chap’s a minister doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a sense of humour).

The NYT movie critic, who’s opinions I am more apt to trust than not if I am wavering about a film, does quite an amusing job defending critics in view of the perennial discrepancy between what critics think and how the public behaves. Film critics are an odd bunch of people and I normally take what they say with a pinch of salt, at least until I have built up a ‘relationship’ with that critic, understand something as to their prejudices, and whether I trust their judgement or not. I like the NYT reviews on the whole because, though they can be snobby, they are normally pretty good at flagging up the ‘bad’ movies. Those movies that aren’t even good popcorn movies. Empire Online is the other source of reviews I trust – they review each film as an example of it’s genre. A lover of sci-fi movies will go to a sci-fi movie and review it as a sci-fi movie. What they don’t do is send a fan of rom-coms to review a horror movie. Just makes sense that way.

Do you blog for validation? Chris Garrett at Performancing finally got a picture marked ‘interesting’ in Flickr (congrats Chris, I am very jealous) which got him thinking on why he blogs – turns out, he likes the comments. Not surprising really, I think most of us like the comments, but why do we like the comments? I guess we’re all seeking validation in our own ways. I know it gives me a buzz when my words have prompted someone to think, then speak.

It’s not overly often I get excited about a piece of software, and it’s even less often that I get excited about a piece of WINDOWS software, but I am excited about Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0. Yes, I would feel like a fool speaking into my computer (one of the reasons the BrightCast’s are so infrequent), and I also like the action of typing as akin to writing my thoughts, but just think – no more RSI!

When I saw the title for hedgehog spaghetti carbonara I thought the ‘hedgehog’ bit was a joke. Nope. Really, you need a hedgehog for this recipe. No idea where you *get* a hedgehog from, but you need one. Not sure I fancy eating a hedgehog to tell you the truth 🙁

Stargate 2 and 3 are planned

Daniel Craig has signed for a second Bond film. Whilst this is a ‘yay’ in my book (Craig is a fine actor and always a pleasure to watch) er, shouldn’t they wait till the first film is released first?

Curly Durly went to Holland back this spring and had a lovely time there wandering around countless gardens. Now my mother is a brilliant gardener who has been slaving for the past three decades in the garden back at the Homestead – it shows. I would put my hand on my heart and say it is as good as some professionally designed gardens. I would also have said it couldn’t have been improved. Then she came home from Holland all inspired. Last time I went back there was a distinct flavour to some of the plantings that just weren’t her usual style, and I didn’t understand where it had all come from till I saw her photos from the trip.

More or less since first crossing paths with JB I have been under the impression that he is a couple of screws short of a hardware store. In a good way, I hasten to add. I can’t exactly lay claim to the full compliment of marbles myself. I am even firmer in my convictions now he’s climbed Mt. Fuji. At night. By himself. All to see a sunrise…

10 thoughts on “Sunday Roast: women! act cool! no son, that isn’t cool

  1. that film list is a little odd, I’ve been a film fan for a long time and I’ve never heard of some of those.

    aren’t hedgehogs a protected species?? Interestingly, the bloke who posted the hedghog recipe has recently seen a top 50 films list on Channel 4. This list makes a lot more sense.
    Here’s the original roadkill story from the Guardian (the link in Nibblous wasn’t working for me)
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1698632,00.html

  2. And reading that Guardian story (thanks for finding it Moose) makes me think – well, it’s all roadkill. At least the meat has been tenderised…

  3. Because Moose doesn’t think that looks like a tongue-sticking-out smilie, let me just stress – it is a tongue-sticking-out smilie. She’s gloating because she’s watched more films than me.

    Damn it.

  4. The sunrise was totally worth it. And there were lots of other people climbing at night. Only the infirm, and those who drink more than their bodyweight in a week, and/or smoke the same shouldn’t do it.

    Oh wait. I fit two of those categories.

    See? Bucking the trend is fun!

  5. The first list sucks. The second one is better, in my opinion (I’ve seen 30, 14 from the first) but it’s missing some greats like Godfather and Citizen Kane and Rear Window. Stupid top xx films lists always get it wrong!

  6. I am pondering making my own list of top films – thing is, I’m not sure I could get it down to just ten, twenty, or even fifty. I like watching movies too much! And how would you categorise it? Favourite films? Best films? Films you must see? Films you watch over and over?

    Because English Patient is an amazing film that people must see, like Schindler’s List, and Hotel Rwanda, but I wouldn’t say I wanted to see those films lots of times. Whereas I can watch Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Die Hard movies over and over yet they are not ‘great’ films by any stretch of the imagination…

    Hmmm. Do I feel a post coming on? Yes, I think I do 😀

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