Upset about something? Take a picture and help Mr Hicks promote the whygodwhy Flickr tag.
PS This is a great song and great video, the perfect antidote to the new Coldplay album.
Last Thursday was our graduation. This is one of my favourite photos (don’t you think Tony looks like Lucius Malfoy?) but the full set can be found here
- Some good tips on avoiding identity theft when you move home
- Molly provides an update on the WaSP work with Microsoft. My confidence in this initiative increases every time I see one of these updates, mainly because this level of transparency means we’ll notice if it dies
- At SXSWi, John said that Eris would be the “sleeper hit of the festival”. Today, I think I agree with him, as I read this brilliant article about how being a great designer is first & foremost about choosing appropriate tools
- That some people notice this kind of thing gives me faith that not everyone is buying into this “We great democracy. They filthy terrorist scum” bullshit
- The War on Terror — Unix style!
- Want one
- This collection of quotes from Harry Potter that seem dodgy when taken out of context is hilarious!
- Flash animations like this are strangely compelling. Great song too
- The middle section (post para 4) of this article is pure hilarity. Wrapped around a healthy helping of truth
- My dad sent me this brilliant spoof of the Citroen car ad
- This collection of shopping lists is great. I especially love the guy’s critiques of them.
- Some nice concise advice on Writerisms
- Eric asks if recent deaths are evidence of a Disney conspiracy
- I want this keyboard. Desperately. I really hope it becomes reality sometime soon
- Ouch
- I have to say, seeing this comment on Michael Howard, I find myself thinking the same thing!
- These solar-powered street lamps look like a great idea
There are hazards to hybrid blogging. Today, I noticed two posts from Eric in my feed reader. The first was all about hoping that his child would be perfectly formed and being made to re-examine this when confronted with a woman who wasn’t.
The second was titled Universal Child Replacement — which gave me quite a shock until I read it and realised he was talking about some CSS dohickey. After all, what was I meant to think??
I absolutely adore Firefox. Not because it’s open source (although that’s nice). Not because it’s safer and faster than the alternatives (although that’s nice too). I love Firefox because it lets me overindulge on information. I can open literally hundreds of tabs and just work my way through them, following every interesting link in an article, every interesting blog I find and anything else that is representable by this wonderful little browser.
Unfortunately, my information addiction was starting to impact rather negatively on my life. I’d fail to get all my tabs read before I needed to abandon the computer for the day. Firefox has a solution for this of course — you can bookmark all currently open tabs in a folder, so the next day you simply select that folder and issue the wonderful command “Open In Tabs”. Problem is, if the next day is as busy as the last, then your bookmarks list — like mine — just fills up with increasingly large folders full of pages that you absolutely have to read.
Recently, a combination of a hard drive crash and a change in computers meant that every copy I had of my Firefox profile and bookmarks list was inaccessible to me. I’ve lost two year’s worth of great unread articles, saved passwords and things I really should get around to reading & learning about. At first, I was horrified. I think in the last week I’ve progressed through all the stages of grief. Which is sad in itself, really, since at the end of the day it was just a collection of bits.
I’m glad to say though, that now I’m letting go. I’m reading Rands’ Nuke & Pave backup advice and pretending this was all planned. I’m revelling in the absence of several thousand links that I should be reading rather than packing up.
Proof, once again, that just because technology lets you, doesn’t mean that you should do something.
Maggie Mason, a lady who I rate very highly, has a lovely message on her blog about the London bombings:
“After the London bombings last week, I wanted to offer my condolences to the UK. I am so sorry. All of this is awful, bewildering, and needless, and the rest of the world is as stunned as you must be. We are with you in your grief.” Source
The sentiments are lovely. But I think a lot of people are missing a big point with regard to the London bombings. They were not a surprise. Partly because of what has happened around the world in recent years. Partly because as I mentioned yesterday, London has dealt with terrorism before. In fact, one of the big reactions amongst people my parents’ age in the UK after 9/11 was along the lines of “Well, yes, it’s a terrible shame, but perhaps now the US will stop supplying the IRA with weapons”. Harsh, but nowhere near as bloody stupid as what Fox have to say (no change there then!).
Maggie is right, the people of England are grieving. We think it’s terrible what happened last Thursday. But we are not surprised. We have been expecting this. I think there are two things that are helping the most at this point in time: firstly, we did not think we were invincible. We have been attacked on our home soil before. Secondly, there is an overwhelming feeling that we should be sensible. At last the “stiff upper lip” mentality has a use. People are getting on with their lives — as quickly as they possibly can. Because if we stop, if we falter, then the attack has succeeded. There is outrage in the UK at the news that UK-based American soldiers have been ordered to stay away from London. We must remember and honour the dead, but they would not want us to give in. I am proud of the Londoners taking the tube to work this morning. I hope they are proud of themselves too.
Well, here we all are sitting in a rainbow.
I started my new assignment in Newcastle on the 1st of July, but unfortunately the sore throat & cold that had snuck up on me as soon as exams ended went into spasms at the thought. So I’ve spent the last 10 days miserable, flitting between hospital and hotel and generally unable to breathe. Worst of all, I’ve been completely lacking in net access for over 240 hours!!
Being off work meant I got to watch the tragic events of last Thursday on TV as they unfolded. To be honest, my main feeling right now is pride. People forget that London and England in general have had to deal with many terrorist attacks in the past. I am so impressed at the lack of backlash (so far, fingers crossed), the will to continue life and business as usual and the general sensible-ness of the reactions. These are not my people, but this week I am proud to be among them.
Over the next few weeks lots of things will be going on — I’m going to learn all about my new job and doubtless attend many training courses and meetings where I will understand little of what is going on. Elly & I hope to finalise our house purchase this week and get workmen in to make the place habitable soon. And next week I graduate, which appears to involve dressing silly and prancing around a lot just to get the bit of paper that confirms I got a First. To be honest, I’m more excited about getting the final breakdown of results, but that’s just because I’m sad and don’t particularly like churches, however pretty they may be.
As soon of things start to return to anything like normal, I’m going to talk to you all about developing desktop applications with Python and wxPython, as well as some other interesting bits and pieces from my final year project. Now, don’t be too shocked, but yes we may actually have some technical content here for once! Either that, or you’ll end up having to enjoy a treatise on DIY. I’d hope for the former, if I were you 
