And it’s that time again. Technically it is Sunday lunchtime, but because I’m still sitting here in my PJ’s, drinking a fruit smoothie and feeling ever so slightly rough around the edges thanks to Neko & Co, I’m going to persist in thinking it is ‘morning’ till I’ve had my shower, made myself respectable, and taken myself off the Apple Store to see if they can work out why my trusty iPod is loosing ten minutes each day. Now loosing ten minutes a day on your iPod really shouldn’t be such a major thing, but it is bugging me because my iPod is my alarm clock. Not for me being woken each morning by the harsh, clarion call of synthetic bells jangling discordantly in my eardrums. Oh no. Instead I come to consciousness gently, to the strains of some favourite mellow music. So when my iPod is loosing time each day, this causes me a problem, because I rely on the iPod to wake me up each morning. Plus I really don’t want to have to buy a new one.
Other than that, I have one more thing to get out of my system and then we can continue – I met William Gibson’s UK publicist-type-person! < moment of sheer cyberpunk geek-out pleasure / >
OK, I’m good to go now. Enjoy ๐
The world this week
The cash machine was invented by a Scots man, as all the great inventions were.
I’ve been taking Echinacea for several years now, as have other people I know, and we can all say anecdotally that we’ve had fewer and less severe colds, but now it’s been scientifically proven.
Clearly my penguin obsession has filtered through to y’all, because five separate people took it upon themselves to tell me about the discovery of a giant penguin. This is just the first evidence that once penguins ruled the world and should be taken as a warning that they will soon be trying again…
It’s not often that a book review in the NYT catches my interest, and it’s even less often that a non-fiction book reviewed in the NYT catches my interest, but The Cult of the Amateur has peaked my interest. The purported premise – that the rise of the amateur in Web 2.0 is dangerous – intrigues me because it chimes with some things I’m thinking of at the moment. I’d be interested to read this if only to see what his arguments actually are (and yes I know I’ve used ‘interest’ far too many times in this paragraph, but it’s a Sunday and my creative writing skills are still fast asleep in bed).
The poor NFL is withdrawing from Europe because no one is watching or even interested. Funny that. We have these two sports called Football (soccer if you’re American) and Rugby. The first requires skill. The later is American Football for grownups – it also requires skills and, unlike the wimpy American game, they don’t wear more padding than the average soldier on deployment in Afghanistan.
Bytes and Pieces
Emil has, as always, good tips on how to check if your site is ‘accessible’.
So I’m a huge fan of the Die Hard movies – can’t get enough of ’em, and seeing a trailer for Die Hard 4.0 at the cinema is often more exciting than the film I’ve gone to watch – but I never figured on the collateral damage in the movies before.
It’s great to see that Nils has we and truly got his blogging mojo back – his comparison of the different social networking sites had me giggling like a nutter (or GLAN’ing to make Neko happy).
Some people, it turns out, are incapable of getting places on time. Me, I’m not one of them. I think mainly because of my insanely organised mother, I have to be early everywhere. Yes, I can think of a few instances later where I’ve been a few minutes late but that was always due to circumstances beyond my control. This WikiHow article claims to have some useful pointers for the chronically late among you. It might be so, but I have an issue with point two and its reliance on time pieces. I don’t wear a watch and I haven’t for many years. I don’t have multiple clocks around the house or on my desk at work – the only clocks I look at with anything approaching regularity are the one on my mobile phone and the one on my computer taskbar. But, and I stress this, I rarely look at them. Tasks take as long as they take and I don’t rule my life by minutes/hours. Yes, there are certain things that have to be done at certain times (meetings to get to, tv shows to watch, buses to catch) but once I know the fixed points in my day I’m good to go. I don’t really have much of a point to make, but I do recommend trying to go without a watch for a few days. Once you get used to it, it is very liberating.
I don’t want an iPhone, I want a Helio Ocean – if, you know, I had to go for a multi-function device. As it is, I’m fine with using my phone just for calls and texts and only checking email etc when I’m at a computer. Call me old fashioned that way.
Here’s a nice article on Creative Commons and publishing (book publishing for the premise of the article, but the points are pertinent for other fields).
There aren’t the words to describe how glad I am that strange things happen to people other than me. It makes me think the fates aren’t just picking on little old me.
Filmy Goodness
I recommend you go to One Race Films and look at the video for Babylon AD (alas I can’t link direct). Yes, I’m a bit of a Vin Diesel fan.
And now it’s time I got dressed and headed to the Apple Store. Wish me and my poor aged iPod luck!
Thanks for the mention, Cas, I’m glad you enjoyed that.
I’m also glad you came out and said it. American football is not only for babies, it’s also intensely boring.
And that ‘Mr. Keen’… well he managed to ruffle my feathers. While it’s true that ‘we are all photographers, directors, writers and critics now’, his angst over the undermining of his precious quality irks me. I’m glad we don’t live in an age where a few educated encyclopaedians get to tell us what to read, where and when. When 8mm film รขโฌโ and later video รขโฌโ came out, it was the end of cinema they said. My god, now everyone could make movies. What happened is that more people could now get to understand the cinematic language and experiment with it (resulting in Tarantino to Lynch). The same will happen with the ‘dreaded amateurs’ on the web.
Okay, if I go on, it’ll become a rant, but isn’t it the main stream media that’s going crazy about the iPhone just as much as the blogging community? I haven’t read a word of ‘serious criticism’ from them yet. No, they even link the hype to the near-bombing in London. Seriously.
Right, now I’m done. Cheerio! ๐
A comment on Cas’s time-keeping – you don’t need to look at your phone or computer very often because you invariably ask whoever you happen to be with what the time is. ๐
When I lived in the States I went to a college football game once. The first 30 minute half lasted 2 hours, and they kept swapping the entire team at once depending on whether they were playing ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’, which quite frankly is cheating. Needless to say I didn’t see the second half.
Nils – now I understand why I’m not into social networking. I never did like nightclubs ๐
I forgot to send this to Cas in to to Roast, and I think it’s worth sharing – ‘Newscaster’s on-air Paris protest’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6252290.stm
You have been tagged with the Eight things about me meme.
๐
So last night DID make the roast, in a round about way ๐
It was much fun and I got even more epically drunk after you left… then there was dancing…
Next time?
American football is a silly ridiculous game. Bringing it to Europe is just a silly, silly idea that never should have been attempted in the first place. Kinda like the XFL.
OOO is One Race your one-stop-shop for all your Vin Diesel needs? I think I’ve seen every film they mention on the site. Pitch Black / Chronicles of Riddick being personal favorite movies. I’m a bit of a Vin fanboy as well. And he’s a huge geek which is never a bad thing. ๐
I hope your iPod is all better. I lose hours in my day too, but it’s usually become I become so involved in something I lose myself.
I want to return to the time before cell phones and have an old skool rotary phone which were so much more fun to dial and couldn’t leave your house. I miss those days. When you went out, you were out and unable to be found unless you had prearranged a finding place.
Nils – yeah, the MSM has been going crazy over the iPhone too. Grrr.
Moose – I love that in the comments on that story, the only one that is slagging it off is anonymous!
Anne – thank you. I shall see what I can do about that meme ๐
Neko – told you you’d make the Roast. And next time definitely ๐
peroty – I think One Race is Vin Diesel’s production company, so it would make sense there are lots of his films there! And no, my iPod isn’t better. It’s lost five minutes so far today. Now I’ve got to decide between a รยฃ50 ‘battery replacement’ which MIGHT solve the problem or might not (apparently they replace other bits as well as the battery as I don’t think the battery is the problem) or รยฃ180 for a new iPod… As for the mobile phones, I do think they have their place. I certainly like to be able to contact people in an emergency but it has gone a BIT too far, I would agree. And yes, rotary phones were just so much more fun ๐