What to say about this past week? Well, not a lot really. Work has been even crazier than usual. OK, so I do hate to be bored, but it’s reached a whole new level this past week and the stress levels have kinda plateaued somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas. Beautiful scenery, but a long way down if I let go of the rope by accident. (There’s a potentially decent analogy in there somewhere if you care to look for it).

This means that when I get home I have little, if any, inclination to write on the blog. Added to that, my wrists are starting to make themselves noticed again. They are always niggling, but right now they are jumping up and down, screaming at me like a two year old having a temper tantrum, and the only way I can shut them up is by eating unhealthy amounts of Mars ice cream bars and watching Season Four of Angel. Not doing what I love to do, i.e., write out the stress and frustration.

It’s a hard life being me.

But on the plus side I have fucking fantastic new hair, the prospect of a crazy-fun day in London on Thursday, and possibly even some blog-stalker-fun in Southampton next weekend. Well, when someone says “I fucking fancy you” in public, the least you can do is agree to a coffee. Right?

So that’s what’s been happening with me in a fairly large and wordy nutshell. Let’s get on with the whole reason you’re still reading this blog shall we?

News from around the world
It turns out that half of Britons are e-mail addicts. I know that, at work, when email goes down pretty much everything grinds to a halt. Personally, I can go a few days without checking email, but after that I get antsy. I have vivid memories of being in New York and making a daily pilgrimage to an internet cafe because I just couldn’t be out of touch. I’m a bit better now but still, more than a week and I’m getting twitchy!

ID cards are to be the next UK ‘institution’, like the railways before them. So, vastly over priced, never working, and generally one mass headache for users then?

Is Facebook destined to be the great meta-app? The site that kills all other sites and becomes where you live your life?

Ever wondered what it would be like to be on a long-term space mission? Volunteer and you might have to wonder no more. Now I’ve just got to learn me some Russian, grow a few inches, and loose a few pounds. Easy!

Need to send large files? Use Pando. It has the Pogue Seal of Approval.

Bits and Bytes
I have issues about linking to Gizmodo and the majority of the time can’t see the point of even subscribing to them, but then they pull out a gem like this adorable Steampunk R2-D2 and I forgive them everything.

I realised the other night when Moose came into the living room and caught me guiltily watching the end of Time Team that I’m more than a little out of touch with Archaeology in general. Her words “But you HATE this programme!” were like a cold splash of water to my face. I do, I loathe Time Team and all it stands for, yet here I was sitting down, watching it, and nodding along to what Tony Robinson was saying. Dear gods, shoot me now. I might as well hang up my trowel in shame. So it’s time for drastic measures. Step one? Listen to some of the Wessex Archaeology Archaeocasts. Step two? Er, suggestions?

Shooting has started on the fourth Indiana Jones movie. Now, I’m not convinced as to how the aged Harrison Ford will pull this off, but to be sure… Just the sight of him lounging in that fedora and all was well with my world once more. (Yes, I’m a fan. Find me an Archaeologist who isn’t )

Here’s a couple of handy hints for next time you do a stirfry.

A guide on how to make ‘Usable web content’ came across my radar recently (I wish I could remember where I got the link so I could credit it!) I’ve had a quick look through and there are some salient points and others that set my hackles up – possibly because it’s in the ‘how to suck eggs’ school of information exchange. I think that might also be because I’m reading it on a Sunday morning when I’m feeling grumpy and my wrists (and now little fingers) are killing me, so I’m going to reserve judgement for when I’m feeling more open minded. If nothing else though, the constant referencing of Jakob Nielsen is getting on my nerves – he can’t be the ONLY person writing about this usability stuff, can he?

Want to do something different in the kitchen? Try painting your cupboards with blackboard paint. This just looks like SO MUCH FUN! Screw fridge magnets…

It’s time for a shameful confession. When I read books now (especially text books/journal articles) I find myself wishing for things you can only get with computers – searchable text (oh, to have had this during my thesis!), hyperlinking words, bibliographies that link to publication lists or the work in question, “rich texts” with cross-media connections (e.g., pictures or audio) – but I want all of this in my beloved book format. Reading/interacting with computers has a tendency to cause me real physical pain, plus I just love the feel of the printed word on the physical (paper) page. Yes, I agree I’m in a whole cake/eat it situation. So it’s good to know that the geeks of the world have got my back. (source the Penguin Blog).

Jay’s been on a bit of a roll lately, especially with these latest photographs.

And lastly, the Movie of the Week
Interview. I’m not sure why this is appealing to me, other than it’s about time Steve Buscemi got a proper role, but it is appealing to me.

And with that I am off to revise for my last exam. In three months time when I’m starting to ponder about doing another evening class, please remind me how much time this one took? Then bash me over the head with a blunt instrument till I see sense. Thank you.

Before we go any further, can I just say – bless random Facebook comments.

Now I’ve got that out the way, what else is there to say? The opening of the Roast has turned into a brief update on my life lately but, well, I’ve got nothing I want to share right now. Yes, even us bloggers have things we like to keep private.

Related to this is that I’ve also been thinking a lot about how “online Cas” differs from “offline Claire Louise”. There is a difference, I know there’s a difference, but the problem is, unless you know me in both environments, it is hard to explain that is exactly. Neko got closest to it when we were talking about this a while back: she said that online I was “Espresso Cas” – all the best bits of Claire filtered and compressed into an intense, caffeine rich Italian drink… Yeah, I think that analogy got away from us a little bit, but I hope you get what she meant. Cas is Claire without all the crippling neuroses and the self esteem that’s low enough for an amoeba to walk over.

Why am I taking up valuable Roasting time with this ill-concieved rambling? Quite simply, it’s been on my mind a bit lately. Several things have happened lately that indicate I’m very soon (as in within the next two weeks) going to have to face the fact that “Cas” and “Claire Louise” are one and the same and that I might actually not be bad at this whole blogging thing.

Which frankly scares the shit out of me. Come on! I’m a blogger, an observer. I commentate, I don’t participate! There’s a reason I write about all these fun things going on elsewhere and don’t actually go to them – I’m a big cowardy, cowardy custard and, what’s more, I’m proud of it. But unfortunately I’m surrounded by people who are determined for me to “succeed” so I have no choice but to crawl out of my lovely cave and actually face the fear.

Damn them.

Privacy International has just announced that Google is hostile to privacy. Ouch. Which brings me to something I wanted to save for a piece I’m writing at the moment on whether you need sign-ins or not on wikis – I bring your attention, if I may, to paragraph four of this article:

Don’t get me wrong. I am a bit concerned about the amount of data Google has on me, but my choice is clear…I can avoid them. Yahoo!, too. They own the social part of me and for that, I get a history of my social interaction.

Couldn’t have put it better my self.

I want to live in Denmark.

Apparently, white people wear sagging pants, too. Can I also point out that, yes, “If you expose your private parts, you’ll get a fine” is a suitable law. But isn’t the whole point of underwear to stop people from seeing your private parts? Silly Americans.

If Dave Winer says it, it must be true, right? In which case I’m not a blogger because I can’t remember the last time I wrote 200 words about anything. So what am I?

Come on people, we’re British, rain is what we’re GOOD at!

I always knew the Cornish were tricky bastards. Well, the Scots and Welsh are already heading that way, so why not the Cornish? And why do I suddenly feel I’m in a Gwyneth Jones novel?

And… That’s it this week. A Roast made up (almost) entirely of news items. Well, these things happen. I’m now off to hover Meadow Towers and to possibly do some revision for my exam on Tuesday. I know I should be doing more work, but frankly the Eight Metaphysical Poets are boring the pants off me and I never was any good at working on things that bore me.

Toodles

I’m not sure why, but the Sunday Roast has become almost a repository for all my research links lately. I think it’s time I resurrected my del.icio.us account! (Or tried Magnolia again – so pretty). For now though I’m just going to throw those weird social computing/archaeology/wiki/you-WHAT-now?! links that have caught my research eye into the mix with the rest. I will try and flag them up so those of you on the lookout for fun over brain stretching can give them a wide birth, but they are worth a read even if you’re not feeding your research beast like me.

And mine isn’t even an official research beast! Damn Neko and her suggestion that I just do some reading on the side…

Anyway, this is a “Monday Meal” for reasons already enumerated (and check out the comments on that post, btw, for a great tangent into English literature versus language). If you’re curious, the exam went ok(ish). I had to write a letter to my brother about being a governess. Well, I like writing, I have a brother, and I’ve read Jane Eyre a time or ten, so that bit went fine! The analysing of what I’d done was a bit ropier, but then it always is. I got quite attached to my little governess. She had a back story and everything in my head so I could write a convincing letter.

Just a pity we weren’t getting points for originality

News Stuff

Anyone who has had the stupidity to ask “how is it going at work Cas?” lately has already been on the receiving end of my IT rant. Let it just be said that I’m not surprised at the findings of this report.

Skoda have been running an awesome advert lately for the Skoda Fabia where they create the car out of cake… BBC News has a great breakdown of it.

What happens when a mother joins Facebook (thank the lord I’m safe from THAT horror – it was bad enough when my brother commented on Bright Meadow!)

Now I’m a tech-savvy kinda gal. I know enough tricks to get XP to sit up and beg. I can code a semi-decent website out of the ether. I’ve even been known to wrangle the odd bit of Python into a half useable wiki. But show me a VCR and I just can’t get it. No matter how many times she shows me, Moose still always ends up programming it. Digital cameras used to be the same, but I’ve got my head around them now. Not much gets past me in the digital world (at least once I’ve had half an hour to sit down with it and break it in peace and quiet) so I’m in two minds about this NYT piece. So they stress that there are ways to make gadgets ‘women friendly’ other than making them pink but… why do gadgets HAVE to be women friendly? Surely if you make a gadget easy to use it appeals to BOTH genders equally?

For those of you who need two platforms, the new release of Parallels is sounding even better.

Not to be outdone by the Germans who are content with pushing people down the autobahn whilst safe inside a car (google some combination of Smart Car and Autobahn for the story), the Americans have to push a man in a wheelchair.

There’s been a Cabinet Office report that calls for the opening up of public data. Yay and all that jazz, though bad choice of post codes as an example. Post codes are NOT public data. They are proprietary property of Royal Mail and boy do they make you pay for them!

From around the Web

I think it was Rich on Facebook who clued me into this one – the London Book Project is a great idea for spreading good literature by leaving copies of books on the Tube and seeing who picks them up. It’s enough to make me want to go to London to see if I get a book! It reminds me of the backpacking hostels I’ve stayed in over the years that had bookshelves filled with books previous backpackers had left behind. The books were there for you to read whilst you were in the hostel or to take away with you on your travels if you so wished, but the unstated understanding always was that if you had a book you’d finished, you left it at a hostel for someone else to enjoy. You passed it on. A great philosophy

It turns out, Farenheit 451 is not about censorship after all, but about how television is killing books. OK, so Ray Bradbury is the author so we should listen to what he says, but is it also up to us the reader to bring our own meanings to books? Isn’t that why Shakespeare has survived so long, because we keep bringing new interpretations to the text?

But yeah, I found that interesting.

Got a large wall you want covering in a huge poster, but can’t print bigger than A4? Worry not! The Rasterbator is here! (And try typing THAT one ten times fast whilst drunk )

A brilliant video explaining RSS in plain english (via Nils)

I think I’ve asked for these before, but nothing happened, so I’m asking again: can I have these Tetris fridge magnets please?

Doing some background reading on Wikipedia, I came across a few interesting pages (and can I take this opportunity again to state how much I *loathe* MediaWiki and all it’s demon spawn?):
Wikipedia: Statistics
Active Wikipeidans

Photosynth has crossed my radar a few times lately – the first time in a room of some very excited Archaeologists, bless their little cotton socks, it was like Christmas had come early – and now they are collaborating with the BBC. If you haven’t heard of Photosynth, it’s a tool to create three dimensional representations from flat photographs and… OK, so that doesn’t sound very sexy, but TRUST ME, it will get your geek on.

What are YOU doing in December? (I might be pretending I’m still an Archaeologist )

Movie Goodness!

I Am Legend – I read the book a month or so back. Short, but full of spine tingling terror, and I suspect on future readings it will be even better/worse. This could make a bloody good movie, though I’m dreading a ‘Hollywood’ ending.

And that’s me done for this week. I’m off to bask in the nostalgic goodness that is the original series of Battlestar Galactica (oh that hair!) and to quietly wig out at my email inbox once again. Yes, the time has come for Cas to possibly accept if you talk long enough, people will listen, but… I’m a blogger! We observe and comment! We don’t do!