keep in mind, he can’t get laid without maybe going crazy. makes it funny

Cas is currently… blush smilie

I know I’ve already blogged today, but I am having a ten minute tea break to give the buzzing in my right arm time to settle down (not quite got the desk here at Meadow Towers at optimal anti-RSI configuration), and I found the following article:
Is Sex Necessary? on Forbes.com

I will leave you pondering the delivery mechanism of the mineral that strengthens teeth – never heard it compared to squeezing a tube of toothpaste before…
And challenge all you men out there not to wince just a teeny bit when you reach the end of the article.

a little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men

Cas is currently… laughing smilie

Spooky is a blog minion par excellence. Not only does he animate some very cute penguins, he also finds some of the funniest-slash-most surreal sites imaginable.

Just in case you missed his comment on this past week’s sunday roast, here is the site:

Lejo. You can choose to see the site in a variety of languages (warning, english is not the default), and there are some supreme videos to be seen. So beautifully stripped back and elegantly simple, yet so very very effective. Here’s a taster – DJ.

a trip to banana republic would have killed you?

Cas is currently… smile smilie

Last Saturday (the 19th), the Cute Canadian and myself took ourselves off up to London for the day. The trip was originally planned to celebrate my freedom from that hell known as “thesis”, and three months managing not to kill each other. Due to my total inadequacy and inability to finish what I bloody well started over six months ago now (ARG!), we came to a mutual agreement that, ok it wasn’t time to celebrate yet, but I still needed a day off before my head exploded.

We took in the British Library, the British Museum, the London Eye, and Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX. All in 9 hours. Oh, and we found time for some lovely food too at Azzurro, though by the time we ate I was so tired I think a Big Mac would have tasted good to me.

We had a wonderful time and, whilst it probably served the opposite purpose of de-stressing me because now I am even more behind and panicked, I wouldn’t have not gone. We even rode the tube an extra stop so I could get off at Mornington Crescent and get my picture take by a sign. I have no excuse other than that I grew up listening to Radio 4 and “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue“. (If you are still baffled, and you will be, read this article, then give up and just listen to a show. Trust me, you will laugh if you have one iota of humour in your body).

I have uploaded some of the better pictures to Flickr, and the set can be found here. You can also find them under the tag londontrip2005.

My favourite of all of them, though I can’t put into words why, is this one:

thames_wheel
(Click to see full set and to comment etc).

If you are ever in London, I really would recommend a trip on the Eye. I’ve been twice now and loved it both times. Do book online before hand, because it will cut a good 30 minutes off your queueing time, and you can specify (roughly) what flight you would like. One word of warning though, even if you book in advance you will be standing in a queue to board for about 30 minutes. The line moves quickly, and there’s plenty to see if you like people watching, but you will be standing. If you have any elderly/young/infirm in your party, I would suggest paying that little extra and getting a fast-track ticket, or investing in a shooting stick. The views are worth it though, and if you can time it for dusk, do so – beautiful.

don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. it’s already tomorrow in australia

Cas is currently help smilie

Things have, if anything, go even more insanely hectic this week. An actual hand-in date is 90% confirmed for Monday/Tuesday (ie tomorrow or the day after). As a result, forgive me if I go gibber quietly in the corner whilst you have fun digesting the Sunday Roast (and don’t forget the leftovers).

How to back up your blog. I’m in the midst of transfering servers and blogging platform, and it suddenly dawned on me today the sheer amount of data I stand to loose if it all goes wrong. Whilst the majority of my posts can go hang for all I care, I can think of at least five I really wouldn’t want to loose. Then along comes this timely post…

Frog Design Mind: Accessibility. Once again a blog that does in one post what I spend an entire thesis-chapter on. Ah well. I keep having to explain to people why accessibility isn’t just for disabled people. Now, I can just point them in the direction of this post and be done with them. Hurrah!

Sony BRAVIA bouncing balls advert. I finally saw this in the cinema last weekend and was, I admit it, impressed. Both the CC and Moose are determined that it is CGI. It isn’t. Really, really it isn’t. UPDATE: when seen on an IMAX screen, even more impressive.

10 Key Ingredients of a Great Blog. I’m not sure I want to know how people think I compare to these ingredients… Still, they are as good a way as any other to try and evaluate if a new blog is any good.

FlipSkipper.com I’m in two minds about this one. Part of me thinks that it could work really well, but a large chunk of me is worried about not having control over the posts that get automatically added to my blog. I mean, just because *I* tag something “design” doesn’t mean everyone else uses that tag in the same way (which is one of the big downsides to tagging anyway). As I said, I’m on the fence. I’ve flagged this one up for a personal “go play when not tearing hear out over polishing chapters”, so expect feedback soonish.

Plushie Magical Trevor. Oh. My. God. I sooo want one! All together now “everyone loves magical trevor…”

Boing Boing: Gang drugs victims with a kiss. Even if this is a hoax, it’s so very funny, if only because it happened in Firefly! (the ‘Our Mrs Reynolds’ ep if you are curious)

Literary classics become txt msgs. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! This is (to me) even worse than the bible-in-sms-form I mentioned a few weeks back. *breaks down into tears of inconsolable misery and frustration* I love Pride and Prejudice and have read it through more times than I care to admit, and I wouldn’t have got the plot from their sms-summary. *wails*

My brain on extisp.icio.us. This is a very groovy program that takes your del.icio.us tags and creates a visualization – items with more links are larger. I’m not entirely sure how the positioning works, but I suspect that tags that often appear together on an item are located closer together. Pretty amazing. Such a simple idea, so elegantly implemented, and a rather accurate mapping of my cognitive space. Not surprisingly, sundayroast is HUGE in the image. (Click on the link to see the real-time version, which allows you to click on any of the tags in the image and go directly to my list of links in that category).

safari bookmark exporter. One thing that has kept me from making firefox my default browser is the sheer weight of bookmarks I would have to wrest from Safari’s grip. I found this wonderful program today, and voila! 30 seconds, and I had all my bookmarks in FF, with the same folder structure, the same bookmarklets, everything. Sweet.

More HD-DVD/Blu-ray madness. It’s been so long now, I honestly can’t remember what the differences between these two are. I do have a vague feeling that I was coming down on the side of Blu-ray, but that might just be because the name is groovy. Oh, and they’re the square ones, right? Either way, I wish they would get their arses in gear and sort it out. I’m getting real old waiting over here. *grump*

blogher: True or false: Do “women warm the podcast bench”? I’m not a podcaster and I doubt I ever will be, but this did get me all riled up. There’s this one quote in the linked article “cool mediums tend to attract guys at first”… Grrr. Anyway, read it all for yourself, make up your own minds, then be nice to any female tech people you might run into, because we are starting to get a bit miffed at being overlooked, and we don’t let you stare at our breasts when we are mad. You have been warned wink smilie

Feel the Bra*climbs up off the floor where she was laughing so much* *wipes a tear from her eye* I think every woman out there is just sniggering at this point, and most men should be taking notes. Oh, and no, I won’t be sharing any of my own bra stories today. Last time didn’t end too good. Way to spoil everyone’s fun, anonymous smilie tongue

Laser-etched designs on your powerbook. Oh my good god, this looks divine. Can you imagine what a penguin would look like? *sobs with jealousy*

drawgirl. Oh, I wish, I wish I had this sort of talent.

Microsoft Technology Preview – flickr set. Do take the time and view this set of 52 pictures, and read the comments. The degree of vitrolic hatred voiced in some of the comments shouldn’t have surprised me (this is Microsoft after all, we’ve all done it), but it did. There’s a couple of slides in there that should be labeled “how not to do a powerpoint presentation”. Confusion much!

i just love finding new places to wear diamonds

Cas is currently clap smilie

It’s very, very hard not to love a startup that not only goes to the trouble of linking to one of your things on the first post of their new blog, but then takes the time to track down your blog and personally comments on it, and as if that wasn’t enough, sends you an email telling you about how their new innovations would be good for you. Oh, and the CEO has created a Wish List page for me.

I repeat, how can you not love a company that does all that?

I do hold by what I said in that previous post about Kaboodle. The lack of search is a big issue for me when I bookmark the quantity of stuff I do and have the appalling memory that I have. I’m still not sold on it for the Sunday Roast, though yes, for pretty much the same reasons as I have niggles with del.icio.us (the interrupted nature of when people are pointed at it for one). Basically, I’d love a way to flag past posts without deleting them from the archive – you could see all things I’d ever Sunday Roasted if you were curious/wanted to find something you half remembered from a month before, but you would have an obvious visual clue as to what was new and what wasn’t.

With regard the Must See Movies, I’m leaning toward Kaboodle again. There’s more room for commenting than you get with del.icio.us, you can include the picture which is a great way of quickly identifying a film, and you can vote.

Which brings me to something that bugged me straight away last time I used it – when someone votes, you had no way of finding out about them. I’ve just noticed that they have instituted it so now, when someone votes, their name is now a link back to their own pages. A great way of fostering community.

The Wish List, on the other hand… Now the Wish List might just be moving on over to Kaboodle. (Though I can’t get the images to show that mach did when he created me a wish list confused smilie).

Score card? Well, big bonus points have to be given for the sheer stalkerish glee with which they are selling themselves. On top of that, the implementation is sweet, there is no doubt about it. (Though I am running out of room for all my bookmarklets, they’re getting so ubiquitous now). In Kaboodles favour is that you have much more room to comment on something than you get in, for example, del.icio.us. I do like having room to explain why I have this desire to see what is guaranteed to be an appalling film.

On the downside, the lack of search is really really bugging me. It would also be nice to see, maybe, “see who else kaboodling this” for example. And tagging. Yes, I know we’re tagging anything that sits still long enough these days, but it has its uses. As already mentioned, some flagging mechanism would be nice as well. RSS would, of course, be a must at some point down the line. Maybe someway of controlling how many items appear on one page?

(Just re-read the email, and it turns out that both search and RSS are being worked on as we speak – woot!).

I don’t know. I think I want Kaboodle to be something that it isn’t designed to be. I have my issues with del.icio.us, and I want Kaboodle to fill the gap. It isn’t really fair or realistic to compare the two – one is a social bookmarking site, the other is designed to compare things. Yes, there is overlap, but one shouldn’t be seen as a substitute for the other.

In conclusion? I’m greedy and unrealistic, but I want an uber-program that will solve everything for me. I want a social bookmark site, a comparison site, an RSS reader, email, something for images, some easy way to do my Sunday Roasts, search, (that isn’t Google-branded), etc, all in one place. And it will make me a nice cup of tea and give me a neck massage every few hours just to show me the love.

Is Kaboodle such an application? No. Is Kaboodle a great program? Yes. Will I keep using it? I’m not sure. I want it to succeed, I really do, but for me it’s just easier to stick with the fudged del.icio.us & blog & traditional bookmarking combo I use now than add a fourth to the mix. I want to be using fewer programs and solutions, not more. I’m a fundamentally lazy person. Something has to be demonstrably better before I will switch.

Whatever happens, you can be sure I will keep you informed. Why don’t you go and have a play with Kaboodle for yourself? The way something like this gets bigger and better is when a community of people start using it, tweaking it, and just generally having fun. Take a piece of software, make it your own.

Technorati Tags:

i’m crazy for muppets, i’m just trying to act cool

Cas is currently angel smilie

I think I’m going to have to start another another tag-collection entitled ‘gifts’, or “toys Cas really wouldn’t mind getting for Christmas/birthdays/just because she is special”.

What prompted this? Well, this did, a Disney branded USB hub:
Akihabara News - Disney USB hub
(click image to see source site)

The Toy Story aliens really work for me. Far superior to the ugly-black-brick I’ve got hidden under a pile of CD-Rs on the corner of the desk. Who knows what the specs are, how good the build quality is, or even how much it costs? It’s cute and evoking a response out of all proportion to the fact it is an inanimate lump of greenish-plastic.

I know, it really is pathetic how excited I get over peripherals. Still, if anyone has some spare yen hanging around, and a yen (meaning urge, see what I did there?) to gift their blog-overlordess (I need a better title, I really do) a little something to show their appreciation? Well, I wouldn’t be so ungracious as to refuse.

Oh, and that del.icio.us tag? http://del.icio.us/brightmeadow/gifts wink smilie

Housekeeping

Cas is currently lightbulb smilie

Because I am devoted to you, my readers, and I enjoy trying to find new and exciting ways for you to interact with the blog, I have added a new way to subscribe to the site: email.

I am a fan of RSS, never more so than when I was in dial-up/illegal wi-fi hell during the move when I could get all my daily reading downloaded into Vienna then read offline at my leisure. But I am aware that many out there, for numerous reasons, don’t use RSS.

Well. trying to be helpful as ever, I’ve got me Feedblitz, so now if you want a non-RSS way of getting the blog delivered, just pop your email address into the box in the sidebar, press the button, et voila.

As always, it’s a work in progress. If it doesn’t work let me know. Conversely, if it does work and you love it, let me know as well.

The bit in the sidebar looks like this:

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