This week has been an odd week, mostly marked me with feeling absolutely pants and wanting to do nothing but stay in bed and sleep. Unfortunately I have to work for a living so lots of sleep is just a pipe dream. This general feeling of malaise has affected my writing somewhat, making me overly grumpy and inclined to see the dark side – my apologies. I promise to beat whatever nasty virus is taking control of my immune system shortly. Till then, enjoy this weeks offerings.

The US House of Representatives has just approved the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) “tries to limit the access paedophiles have to networking sites”… How does it do this? By stopping the children using those sites. Um, am I missing something here? Surely it is the paedophiles you need to ban? I’m all for net safety but… This smacks very much of shutting that barn door after the entire herd has stampeded. That, and it punishes kids and is likely to make them rebel and me MORE unsafe rather than teaching them to be careful. That’s my original gut reaction any way.

In another attempt to combat this problem, a child online safety card has been unveiled This ‘NetIDMe’ relies on you, and the person you are messaging, both having a verified card, hence identity. More than that I can’t tell because the NetIDMe website is down at the moment due to unexpected demand… Yup, getting your story talked about on BBC News might do that if you aren’t prepared. Doesn’t bode well for the scaleability of the solution. Also, does it transfer to other sites, or do you have to use the NetIDMe site? Questions that will have to wait to be answered…

Good news – the BBC is supporting Top Gear’s current format. For those of you not familiar with Top Gear, it is a long running British motoring show that is, quite frankly, hilarious. Even my mother who freely admits she wouldn’t be able to pick a Jaguar out of a line-up, religiously watches the show each week. They have in the past determined that a car can get to the Alps faster than a plane, that it is possible to play football with cars, and that caravans (whilst the nemesis of all motorists) make a satisfying ‘kaboom kablooey’ when dropped from a height. A good chunk of what makes the program so funny is the interplay between the presenters, so it is reassuring to see that the BBC is standing by the team and the slightly… unorthodox… way they choose to do things.

Tara has a sweet post describing her fear of loosing readers which dovetails nicely with something Ben said this week – it should be fun. Yes an audience and technorati ranking is nice an’ all, but don’t get all neurotic about it (says the girl who goes into a fit of the doldrums when technorati slices two or three links off the total, or who went into transports when Feedburner reported a readership of 72! Yes, 72!) I think the point here is that whilst being ‘famous’ and loved is always nice, the most important thing is to enjoy what you’re doing. Passion shows. If you ain’t having fun, stop.

Which is exactly what Josh did. He dropped off the scene several months back after having the quintessential ‘what the frell am I doing here?’ moment. Now, refreshed, rejuvenated, reinvigorated (and all other good ‘re’ words you can think of), he is back. In fact he is back twice.

Women 2.0. No, not a new version of women (for starters you just couldn’t improve on the current model 😉 ) but rather Scrivs having a moment and realizing that women are a vast, untapped resource on the web. I leave him to explain it better.

I think I’ll leave the headline to speak for itself: Dog destroys £40,000 Elvis teddy. The photos of the carnage are really rather impressive. That was one pissed off dog.

Darren asks should blogs use the extended entry (more) feature? Personally I don’t like to use it – that extra click to get to the full content annoys me, but I can see the advantages to using it.

We’ve had the Web for fifteen years today. It’s hard to think I was 9 when Tim Berners-Lee released the software. I have, like the rest of my generation, grown up with the Web. I didn’t really start using it though till about 1998. So you could say I’ve grown up with Google.

Now I am something of a geek when it comes to chess. I love to play the game, though at the moment the only chance I have is on the rare occasions I go back to the Homestead – in fact last game I played was back at Christmas when I fought a long campaign against my brother and finally beat him 3 games to 2. I also have a small but growing collection of chess boards. I’m not sure what it is, but I just find them aesthetically so beautiful. So when I read this article the header image interested me almost as much as the text (it is an interesting read as well). This was a chess-set I had to have. So one email later, I was armed with the name of the company. Now all I need is $160, or an occasion to get someone buy me one… Hmmm, it is my birthday in just over a month…

And lastly, the weekly funny: Four men, eight treadmills… Some people have far too much time on their hands. (Thanks to Moose for forwarding me this).

Er, can’t think of a snappy introduction this week, so it’s straight to business.

For all you doubters out there, see it is possible to make stunning websites that are also accessible.

Good news for all you Dr Who fans – a date has been set for the screening of Torchwood.

For all you people out there interested in social media, social software, and social networks, danah boyd has compiled a “Best of Apophenia” list. There’s some good reading in there – plenty to stretch the brain. Ok, so you might not want your brain stretched on a Sunday afternoon, but I do recommend bookmarking the page (hell, the whole site) for future reading 🙂

No squashed hedgehogs this week, rather a recipe for basic tomato sauce. I cheat with tomato sauce normally, buying ready-made from the supermarket. Just think how impressed people will be now when I say “Oh, I made the sauce for the pasta from scratch…”

I just have a ‘LOL’ for this one: John August’s crisis of infinite celebrities. It’s his response to David Hasselhoff and hot tennis players that really make me giggle.

This should come under the title “too good to be true”: firm that stops spelling mistakes on the internet lets through typo’s in own press release. Oh the iorny irony! (Thanks Moose for finding this).

When technology goes too far:
LED knitting needles and LED crochet hooks. This could actually have a purpose, I don’t know as I don’t knit or crochet, but… It just seems so surreal!

Everyone’s favourite tech-writer (David Pogue) has an interview with everyone’s favourite (ex-) gossip blogger (Ana Marie Cox, late of Wonkette). Makes for some interesting reading. Slightly disturbingly she feels that:

Ah well, who needs fame anyroad? I’ve got my minions to keep me warm 😀

I’m feeling crafty this week (anything to keep me from finishing the quilt the Crazy Canalman’s been waiting on for a year and a half). This neck tie school bag appeals to me. I like handbags. I like to be individual. This seems near perfect. (Though the page is quite slow to load).

To be serious for a moment, just because you have dark skin it does not mean you won’t get skin cancer. As someone who’s had family die of malignant melanoma trust me, you do not want to get skin cancer. Use that sun block and reapply regularly. If nothing else, lobster red and peeling is just not a good look for anyone!

Those living in the UK might have noticed that we’ve been living through a bit of a heatwave at the moment. Well, Wednesday night there were some very impressive thunderstorms storms around our neck of the woods. Look at picture ten – that’s the reason I didn’t get to see the end of “Weeds” as the TV reception died.

I think my geek-hat is showing: BarCampLondon. Oooh, I so want to go.

My thanks to Tammie for finding the perfect way to finish off the Roast. Cows with guns. There really is nothing else to say (expect that, once again, male cows are portrayed as female cows. Udders = female. It’s not that complex people). Very, very funny 😀

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…

A short and late Roast this week because I spent the middle of the day running 5 km round Southampton common, down the Avenue, and back round the Common again – raising money for a good cause, but still exhausting. I now just want to curl up on the sofa with a five liter bottle of water and a couple of episodes of Dead Like Me.

I have a feeling I might have linked to this before, but if I have it’s worth it – I.T. Department Confessions. It’s the one about the stapler that cracked me up…

This police Segway is just too surreal for words.

US detainees to get Geneva rights. Finally.

I bring this article to you not because of the subject matter, though it is interesting, but because of the picture the BBC chose to illustrate it. They do have a point – what other picture could you choose to illustrate an article on how circumcision could cut the risk of HIV.

I love the original Seurat painting, so this real life reconstruction is amazing.

Demon ducks of doom. The quote says it all really.

Is there a better way to start a Sunday morning? Probably not. When I’m through with this whole healthy eating mlarky, I’m definitely making me some of these!

Some days a girl just needs a little oggle to cheer herself up. So I bring you Molly’s top ten hotties of the web list. I can think of a few of my own I’d like to add to the list, but who is for me to know and never to tell 😉

You have to ask yourself, why didn’t this writer sue Disney a long time ago. I mean, the film was based on a theme park ride that’s been around for years… Right? Why now?

Short one this week – didn’t get back from the Homestead till late, and then there was Lost to watch and… ah, I’m just a bad person. Enjoy 🙂

We had this self same conversation the other week at a BBQ – what super power would you have? (I also chose flight if you’re curious. Don’t know what that tells you about my personality. If I could have two super powers, I’d be telekinetic/telepathic. So I’m greedy 😉 )

For if you are feeling a bit bored and crafty: a paper model of the Wicked Wench, a pretty stunning model from the new Pirates ride at Disney.

I’m curious – do people follow the comments left here at Bright Meadow? I know I do, and frequently get into long conversations in the comments thread, but at the same time I know Moose doesn’t so much. For those of you that do follow the conversation, is the option to subscribe via RSS enough for you, or would you like the option to subscribe to comments via email? Personally the thought of my inbox filling up with comments I’d subscribed to leaves me cold, but that’s just me – if people want it, I will supply it.

Every now and then you come across an analogy that just works for you on some level. And so it was with Stowe’s idea of social feng shui. It is a great way of describing the sites and tools I enjoy using most – simple, everything with a purpose, and an elegant design.

A salutary reminder that people do read what you put online. Muppets.

Yes, I blubbed like a baby at the end of Series Two of Dr Who (it ended on Saturday). Like the pathetic wimp that I am. I do not want there to be a new assistant, but at the same time, the Dr without an assistant is like… chocolate without orange.

I don’t often link to movie reviews because, well, if you are curious about a film you’re all capable of finding them on your own 😛 But this one from the NYT about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is worth it if only for the following line “Mr. Bloom, as is his custom, leaps about, trying to overcome his incurable blandness, and is upstaged by special effects, musical cues, octopus tentacles and pieces of wood.”

This entry just made me laugh today when it popped up about five minutes after I’d been reading/participating in a few such debates of my own. 800 X 600 or not – which resolution should you design for?. And as a tech-user who still benefits from 800×600 designs, especially when on the laptop, 😛 at all of you lucky bastards with displays the size of my desk who insist I don’t exist as a user. I do, and when your design doesn’t work for me I get very pissed off and the chances are I won’t come back. *humph* rant over.

If you haven’t been following JB on his mission to visit 52 Fujis, why not? It’s funny. He’s on station number seven now.

*EDIT* Thanks everyone for letting me leave that up there with a typo on the first line for over 24 hours! 😛 See, I was testing y’all, and you failed. I still love you though.

I can’t believe that it is one of the hottest days of the year and I am stuck inside blogging. Damn not having a garden I can laze in. For those who are curious, it took near three hours to write this weeks offering, mainly because the PowerBook keeps getting hot enough to fry eggs on. God bless the inventor of the desk fan is all I can say! So you’d better enjoy it. I’m off to try and find a cool spot in the flat. Wish me luck!

Last week I talked about the Conservative’s plan to replace the Human Rights Act – seems I’m not the only one who thinks it is a bad idea.

I, like most other bloggers, am fighting the good fight against spam. A few weeks back I tried Bad Behavior on recommendation – it made no impact, if anything the amount of spam I had to wade through went up, so I’m back to working with just Akismet. Happily, there’s a new extension on the block that snuggles up cosily to Akismet. The “Worst Offenders” extension lists the most common offenders in your Akismet queue, batching them up so you can delete them in one fell swoop. It needs the latest version of Akismet, something I haven’t got around to installing yet, so I can’t tell you how well it works, but it seems like a good idea 🙂

The BBC has launched a new blog, The Editors, written by (you’ve guessed it) the editors of the BBC News team. They explain the rationale behind it a bit more here. Not saying it’s going to be something that stays in my regular reads, but on the first weeks showing, it’s thrown up some interesting pieces:

• Paul Brannan has a muse about whether the revisability of websites over time is a good idea. He has a point – people’s views do change and should past entries be edited to reflect this? I am firmly in the “no they shouldn’t” category. Publish a retraction/admendum certainly and link to this from the original article, but the original article should stay as is.
• Kevin Marsh clears up a few misconceptions about the term ‘editor’

I bring you (ok, Tara brings you, I’m just pointing you in their direction) the eleven rules of engagement for community building.

How could I not link to a story about fluffy penguins in a zoo? Especially when the penguins in question are called Piglet and George.

In a staggering win for common sense, it has been proven that the feeling of being watched makes people act more honestly. I’m paranoid enough that I always think someone’s watching me so act honestly, but this little trick would be great for those who weren’t dragged up as well as I was. Wonder if it makes a difference what sort of eyes are used? Male/female? Human/cat? Adult/child?

Firda little tale about how a famous photographer’s work was judged to be not very good made me think (as it made her) about reputation. How do people get to be considered ‘worthy’ in the first place? Endless are the tales of people toiling away in obscurity till just one person decides they are the best thing since bread came sliced. Take Van Gogh – infamous for never getting a break in life, now he’s judged as one of the greatest painters ever. Where along the line did that happen? Who was the first to go “Hang on, this chap’s really rather good”? Perhaps more importantly, what was so special about this person that made everyone listen to them? Everyone says that good work always get recognised eventually, and maybe it does, but it definitely helps if you’ve got a name. Or a name decides to take you under their wing.

Fox has officially announced Wolverine the movie. Excuse me whilst I take a moment to give a large “Woo Hoo!!!” of excitement. Yes, I am a fan. I can’t help it – Hugh Jackman makes my knees go all wibbly. Tall, dark, and ever so slightly brooding… Just as I like ’em 😉

I love Liverpool for many reasons, not just because their museums are wonderfully forward looking. I mean, how many museums do you know of that have even heard of Flickr, let alone leveraged it into an exhibition? I’m laying money on the Scouse One having something to do with this. If only he would answer his frelling email, I’d find out!

Blog layout is one of the more contentious subjects in certain circles at the moment. Do you support two or three column layouts? Perhaps you are daring and have a one column layout (*gasp*). Should you have an ‘about’ page? What needs to go in your sidebar? Liquid, fluid, or static? Lots of colour, or lots of whitespace? What exactly constitutes ‘good layout’ and design none agree on, but all can point to it when they see it. Edrei’s been brave and had a stab at what constitutes a good layout. On the whole I would have to agree with him – focus on the content, think carefully about whether you really need all that crap in your sidebar (if you just can’t live without it, have you thought of shunting it onto a sub-page?), and never be afraid to tinker.

Apparently, there are eight ways to kill someone by using an iPod Nano. My favourites are 5 and 7.

I bring you this not because anything the ‘Hoff does interests me in any way, but because the headline was just supreme: Hasselhoff in chandelier accident. I won’t spoil your fun by telling you anything more than that.

I’m not going to get into a debate about whether films should be made about 9/11 – you should be able to make movies about anything, but that doesn’t mean I will want to watch them. I sincerely doubt whether I will ever go to see ‘United 93’, or Oliver Stone’s up and coming ‘World Trade Centre’, but that is for personal reasons. My problem with this is Nicholas Cage’s comments. When talking about how the upcoming movie is not meant to entertain, Mr Cage says:

“I see it as storytelling which depicts history… This is what happened… Generation after generation goes by, they’ll have ‘United 93’, ‘World Trade Centre’, to recall that history”

For one it is a film – a dramatization, not a documentary. So they have tried to be factual, but… Oh, go badger Moose in the comments for the debate on this one. She says it so much better than I ever could (well, she has spent the past semester teaching a course on the subject, so I hope she can!)

I couldn’t give a flying monkey’s how desert ants measure distance. I’m just boggled that scientists stuck stilts on ants’ legs!

Lastly, I’ve been indulging in a little archive-browsing this week, and I came across this gem, which set me thinking – do you think I would look good as a blonde?

For some reason I was under the impression that this week had been a light week with regard Roast-able material, then I open up the folder have my usual 20+ tabs. Bugger, just when I was wanting a short one because my wrist and RSI are playing up again. Ah well, since your wish is my command and y’all seem to enjoy the Roast, I will just suck up the pain and get on with it.

A while back I pondered why I had Antarctica listed in my server stats as a place people could possibly visit my blog from – I mean, Antarctica. Just a lot of penguins, right? A few months later I was proven wrong and had a merry time looking through lots of blogs written by people having fun in the snow with the penguins. One of the blogs I keep reading is that of Phil Jacobsen. He has a wonderful sense of humour and a great writing style that is always interesting, even when he is talking about stock inventory.
I recommend to you his post on outsourcing jobs in Antarctica as an example that you never know where being a humble dishwasher will take you.

Well done to Rebecca Holdcroft for speaking up over discrimination about her tattoos. I can see both sides of the story here – a company has a right to institute a dress policy and that level of tattooing can seem intimidating, but on the other hand she isn’t dealing with members of the public and appearances really shouldn’t be that important compared to how well you do your job.

Part of the problem I was having with comments last week came when I was playing around trying to get trackbacks to display differently. If only Paul had written his how-to on showing text for trackbacks a few days earlier! I’ve yet to institute this, but I will be playing today – be prepared for the entire site to die again!

Top of the Pops has ended! This is sad, sad news indeed. Not that I watch it any more – if music and TV are combined it’s normally TMF here at Meadow Towers (the videos are just so preeeetty!) – but it’s always been a big thing for a band to appear on TOTP. At least in this country. As I said, a sad day 🙁

I don’t care if it is true or not, this story about how knitters are making jumpers for Little Penguins caught in oil-slicks is just too brilliant for words.

I haven’t tried to boot Windows on my Mac in a good six months – I just don’t have to any more. When I did, I had to use Virtual Desktop which always made my poor PowerBook seem on the verge of falling over and dying. New IntelMac owners though, can experience the joys of Parallels for Mac OSX which lets you run Windows in a window, like any other app. How great is that?!

Every so often I come across a story I just don’t have a pithy come-back too. This is one of them. A Theatre critic calls for performances attended by disabled people to be flagged so he can avoid them.

I remember the last time Moose went to London and came back to tell me the front of St. Paul’s had looked a little odd as she crossed the Millennium Bridge. As she got closer she realised this was due to the front being swathed in fabric to cover scaffolding – on the fabric they had drawn the bit of the building that was obscured! I never did get a chance to see what the frell she was talking about, so I’m glad I stumbled on this photo yesterday. Not only is it an amazingly pretty picture, it is pretty much the exact same view that Moose got that fateful day.

Time breakdown of modern web design. LOL. In fact, maybe even a RAOTFLMAO

David Cameron wants to scrap the Human Rights Act (and replace it with something else). Bad Conservatives, bad!

Shoppers want longer Sunday opening hours. Yes, yes I do. I rarely go shopping on a Sunday, but I would like the option to. It always threw me whenever I was in the States or Canada, that shops were open all day on Sunday, and nobody thought anything of it.