Thursday, May 08, 2008

A Screen that Ships without a Mouse Ships Broken

Clay Shirky's talk from O'Reilly's 2008 Web Expo points out just how much free time we actually have to "waste" on social participtation projects. The next time you roll your eyes at someone for editing Wikipedia or Musicbrainz or for playing about on Facebook remember, at least they're doing something rather than contributing to the billions of hours of free time spent in front of the latest reality show.

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Saturday, May 03, 2008

"And then they bring out Maria..."

Angharad has been going to the gym for a couple of months and in some sort of masochistic way has been enjoying it. Of course when one enjoys something the first thought is to share it with your friends and loved ones which is why the little darling gave my name and phone number so I could have a free trial.

I found out about this today when Roberta, the peppy Spanish fitness instructor, called me to bully me into going down.

Me (confused because my phone is ringing on a Saturday afternoon): Hello?
R.T.P.S.F.I: Hallo Mr. Ryan, this is Roberta from L.A. Fitness. You have been referred by a friend who thinks you need to go to the gym. How about a free session to see what you need to do.
Me (battered by the combined attack of peppiness and Spanishness): Uhm. Yes. That sounds like a good idea.
R: Great. Can you come down in five minutes.
Me: Woah there lil horsey. I can come some time next week.
R: I don't think that's enough motivation, why don't you just skip along right now.
Me: No. Really. Next week.
R (Showing her true alien side, for all fitness instructors are from a dying alien planet come here to steal our hard earned flab): Now really Mr. Ryan, don't you want to be fit. It's in your best interest to come down tomorrow.
Me: But it's a three day weekend. I'm being lazy!
R: That's not good enough. You have to make an appointment now.
Me (starting to sob): Okay okay. Tuesday evening.
R: That's better. We'll see you at 6pm on Tuesday. Don't forget, we know where you live...

Help.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

We shall overcome

Forget Obama, forget Darfur, forget upsetting world-travelling flames, this is a grass-roots movement I can get behind.

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Now playing: Mattafix - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Doomed to repeat its mistakes

Never one to pass off the excuse to post without writing anything substantial, I give you the history meme:

history|awk '{a[$2]++} END{for(i in a){printf "%5d\t%s\n ",a[i],i}}'|sort -rn|head

105 p4
51 cd
39 ls
30 perl
30 lastfmfpclient.exe
29 for
28 grep
10 export
9 wget
9 python


Skins in its present form had its final episode last night. True to form it was a rather stylised presentation of an A-level results day with some smashing music and a hard hitting performance from Larissa Wilson. Next year's series will feature a while new cast of rowdy teenagers with Sid and Cassie popping in occasionally. I'm not sure how it'll work as, for me, it was the characters that made the show, but I'm prepared to give it a chance.

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Now playing: Malvina Reynolds - Little Boxes

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Monday, March 31, 2008

All Roight Moi Luvvers?

In lieu of any proper content, have a gallery of images from our recent trip to Cornwall. Included are Tintagel (the alleged birthplace of King Arthur), Land's End, and Goonhilly Earth Station (site of the first parabolic antenna in the world).

In other news, the RSS feed for the site has changed. Please update your readers to point to here.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Godwinned

Wikihistory is a wonderful short short story which portrays time travel as a Wikipedia edit war.

Happy Easter folks. I'm off to Cornwall.

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Monday, February 25, 2008

Elbow Patches, Redux

This is the time of the year when the excitement of a new set of books and a new course with the OU fades with the onset of the first Tutor Marked Assignment. For the past couple of years, I've been leaving these to the last minute, which has ended up with me writing all night before it needs to be in and trying to buy time travel delivery from the local Post Office. This year, however, I'm trying to be grown up so I've decided to get cracking a week and a half early. I've used Mind Maps before when taking notes so tried this open source application. I've managed to create my entire outline in the time it's taken the boss to have a bath. Maybe I won't be sneaking envelopes through my tutor's door this year.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Bob the Angry Flower tells you how it is

Required reading for anyone who intends to write on the Internet.

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Monday, February 04, 2008

You Don't Sing me Love Songs

Has the magic gone?

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Monday, January 14, 2008

Even Stevphen - Drinking

Her indoors thinks I have a new drunken twin. Who agrees?

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