| the comforts of clutter |
[10 Nov 2009|06:04pm] |
At this time of year I go into dormouse mode, and start lining my nest with things. Shiny things, gleamy things, dreamy things, pretty things, tasty things. Like most British mammals, I don't entirely hibernate, but I like to spend a lot of time in my cosy nest, and I like my cosy nest to be well-lined, like a winter coat.
I think that being surrounded by beautiful, interesting things, things that remind you of good times, mementos and souvenirs, gizmos and gadgets and bit and bobs is deeply soothing --especially when the weather gets grim and going out seems like less and less of an agreeable prospect. You feel set up, taken care of. There's no shortage of entertainment and interest.
This isn't to say that I bring everything home, or that everything I bring home I keep. There's a world of difference between despairing clutter and that excresecence of mindfulness, that fills the homes of people who love stuff.
It's time for late harvest now, time to look at all of those random things that have followed me home in spring and summer, and see what will stay, and what will be passed along. To ask of them the usual questions:
Is it beautiful?
Is it useful?
Does it make me happy?
Is it entirely itself?
Can it be used to make something else?
Will I actually get round to doing that?
And then some to keep, and some to pass on. Some to hold onto and some to let go. Until everything is in its place (more or less) and the whole happy round can start again.
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[09 Nov 2009|04:55pm] |
I absolutely love these things! The PTA used to sell them to raise money at my school and we would all sit around on a Sunday evening going "7 C of the R" and "1760 Y in a M". So far I have got 27 on my own and another 4 with a little discussion with Mum. Am possibly too addicted to go home before finishing the last two.
edit: Finished them with a consult from Alex & Mum. Always more fun with someone to talk it over :) What are those puzzles called anyway?
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| small presser at the weekend |
[09 Nov 2009|12:18pm] |
I woke up at 4am last night with my ears ringing and throbbing glandular pain. Presumably I picked up something else at Comiket (it was a very tight room, and we were rather packed in). This morning the malaise doesn't seem particularly worse, so whatever it is, I guess I fought it off at the price of no more than a little disturbed sleep.
Comiket was quite fun; the ICA's a pleasant location (I had beer and a gingerbread man for my afternoon snack!) and it was lovely catching up with various people. The Wetherspoons (UK comics events always seem to repair to Wetherspoons in the evening, we really ought to set up some sort of sponsorship deal) was full of servicemen and women in uniform, who must have come from the morning remembrance events I suppose. At one point someone fell downstairs.
We tried to put the world and our part-time jobs to rights, but I had to leave before any resolution was reached. A bunch more people were turning up just as I went so I expect ait all got sorted out! My best discovery of the day was that if you've forgotten to set up a float for your table, the change machines outside the toilets at Victoria Station will provide.
In other news, MOCCA is shifting to April, reputedly to avoid airconditioning charges, so we need another comics event in June to launch our Whores of Mensa Fabulous Cocktail Party. Any suggestions?
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| Bye Bye Browser? |
[06 Nov 2009|07:42pm] |
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We've been ferreting through Microsoft's job adverts, looking for hints about just what might be behind the viel of secrecy that has risen over Redmond since they started work on the Windows 8 series of operating systems. One came up with something very interesting, that fitted in with conversations we've been having with other IT journalists for some time:
What’s the future of the web?
On one side there’s Flash and Silverlight and the rich internet applications world, which is working on ways of taking the web outside the browser and onto the desktop, where it “lights up” applications and plugs them into a connected world of APIs and services. On the other is the HTML5 working group, and their vision of a browser that can do, well, pretty much anything. With HTML 5 there won’t be any need for applications – it’ll all be web pages running on super-speedy JavaScript engines and with CSS for look and feel.
Here comes the difficult bit.
They’re both right. There are things a well written RIA can do that a web page can’t, and there are things that web page can do that are impossible for a traditional application. With traditional code you need to push new applications to every desktop every time there’s a change. Even .NET’s click-once and AIR’s self updaters don’t make much of a difference – you still need the latest version of the code to get the latest features, and that (with a flagship RIA like Morgan Stanley’s Matrix) can be a hefty chunk to download. At least with a web page, one change and then everyone who uses it can get access to the latest version.
It’s all a trade off. Not every web site suits every user, nor does every RIA have a fully engaged audience. That’s why so much work is going into getting those experiences right, whether its online design tools like Mozilla’s Bespin, or Sketchflow in Microsoft’s Expression or the designer developer workflow between Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder. But a web page and an application are outside the operating system, and if web-centric OSes ever become common, they need to have some way of supporting and interacting with the web. That’s why there’s so much interest in Google’s ChromeOS and Microsoft’s Windows 8. They’re going to be the first real operating systems of the modern web. Read more at 500 Words Into The Future on ZDnet...
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest |
[05 Nov 2009|01:15pm] |
The empire strikes backIn recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.
RSS feeds againIf you're addicted to , ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.
Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) c_s_i
If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.
Enveloped in postcardsLast week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.
Photos of the weekIf you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )
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| infected |
[05 Nov 2009|08:39am] |
I suppose that I must be getting older. Five days on from carelessly indulging in country dancing at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) glittertigger's wedding (for the first time since I was at primary school) I still have an ache in my feet, from dancing up on my toes. It's an odd moment, facing up to an old trauma like that. What next? Arguing for fun? Driving? Job interviews when not absolutely demanded by dire financial need? Well, we'll see.
This weekend is my Comica weekend. On saturday I shall be listening to Eddie Campbell in conversation -- hero of mine, an excellent speaker, plus I know from experience that I deal best with conversations with Eddie when someone else is doing the talking and I'm lost in the audience... On sunday I shall be behind a table at Comiket hawking tiny minicomics with ellenlindner (who will be hawking her shiny books!)
I wasn't looking forward to this at all because I caught a throat-and-chest infection following on from the colds. Looks like walking (and working) through the illness isn't quite so good a strategy for me nowadays (yes, growing older). Too miserable and sickly even to twitter! I just had to lie down and snooze/read old copies of New Scientist until betterness returned. This morning I am better enough, though, and the rest should follow.
OK, time to brave it. Let's take an umbrella and a scarf, though. Because out there it's autumn, on your head.
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| Pumpkin Abuse |
[03 Nov 2009|07:58pm] |
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Our neighbours still haven't tidied up the garden from their party on Saturday. This includes a pumpkin sat on the top step of the stairs up to the porch.
Today was the usual trick of filling up both the bins with their rubbish, then not putting them out for the bin men. It also follows that they then don't bring them back in from the street.
I just got home after working late and the bins are the last ones left out on the street, plus our recycling bin is missing. It's not their fault specifically that someone else has taken our bin but it had a better chance of not being taken if they had brought the bins back into the garden. Which they could at anytime, because they are in all day.
I was a bit annoyed as I will get, and um, well, I punted the grinning pumpkin off the top step of the stairs to a red-chipped stoney death. And now I feel bad :(
Misplaced anger is misplaced! Por ded pumpkin. I am sorry. I really wanted to kick your creators.
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| a farewell to owltober (among other things) |
[02 Nov 2009|11:37pm] |
Half term, half term. All week juggling kittens and IKEA trips, tip runs (the hoover decided to let off some fireworks early) and chore blitzes. Grouting and digging and assembling oh my. I planted green manure! For the first time ever. And then there was my half term break, just two days this time as (after moving house twice and getting married) I have very very little holiday left over this year. I went to see sister and neiblings (the slightly younger dinosaur at my wedding and most recent neice). Well, I say saw. I did see them a bit. But we'd taken quite a list of things to do with us.
We finally bought something decadent from Liberty's as per wedding instructions from smallbeasts. Not this £80 t-shirt, though; a deliciously steampunk lamp and that bright red cog-shaped modernist fruit bowl we saw in Prague but would never have got home in one piece.
We also went to see Anish Kapoor at the RA, and ever since I've had this story unfolding in my head called "Anish Kapoor's Cannon Club" which alas really must not be written ever. I tried to photograph the spiders living in his 3-printed turdnests, but I was prevented. I wonder what they eat. Tiny modern art flies? Oh, and the Turner Prize:
And the Turbine Hall. And Michael Clarke Company doing Bowie/Reed/Pop, about which I will not spoil, as it's on for another week and I'm fairly sure that others have yet to go. Two days of cold cures, well, a week of cold cures, really. When will I get better? Not yet. Here's the last of Owltober:
Fans of Harlequin might like to know that she caught Teasel's eye infection, and is now being bundled up in one of my more reassuring hoodies and having her eye gooped twice a day, while mewing pathetically. Or not. She's also started purring when things near her are stroked, which presumably represents some sort of philosophical crisis.
Also, good news on the house front! We took up a floorboard in the damp corner, and it wasn't a fetid space, writhing with slugs. It was dry, dusty, and empty save for a single ancient split pencil. Great! But also puzzling.
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| The Claw Is My Master! |
[02 Nov 2009|07:28pm] |
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Las Vegas is the strangest place on this weird old planet. It's a prime example of the peculiarities of humanity, the highs and the lows.
Deep in the bowels of Bally's, on the way to monorail, we saw an old fashioned arcade claw machine. Oooh, we thought, a touch of old school deep in the heart of the Strip. Then we realised what the claw was picking up. That machine suddenly became one of the lows. But in a weirdly cool way...
It was picking up lobsters.
Live lobsters.
Straight out of the tank. Pay $4 and if you manage to grab a squirming crustacean, your dinner is free.
It was really quite disturbing, imagining the lobsters scurrying away from the descending claw, in some obscene parody of a scene from Toy Story.
Las Vegas, Nevada
October 2009
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| Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein |
[01 Nov 2009|10:23pm] |
 Frankenstein (1818)
Written by: Mary Shelley
Genre: Horror
Pages: 231 (Hardcover)
The premise: seems kind of silly to discuss the premise of Frankenstein, given the fact that the book and its monster is such a prominent figure in pop culture. But in a nutshell, scientist discovers the secret of life and animates a man made up of various parts of different corpses. The experiment works, but our good scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, is horrified by his creation and rejects the monster. The monster pursues, and Dr. Frankenstein's life is never the same.
My Rating
Glad I Borrowed It: that rating's a kind of cheat, but let me explain: 1) I read my husband's copy, which means I didn't spend money for my own copy and 2) it's hard to rate a re-read, let alone a book that's a classic. I firmly believe that Frankenstein is a book that ALL science fiction and horror fans should have under their belt, because it simply says so much and it has most certainly earned its pedestal in both genres. I'm glad to have re-read it, but I feel the same about it now as I did back in high school: it's a good book, but it's not an absolute favorite or anything. It's the writing style that keeps me from connecting, and now that I've read it once, it's easy to see where the book is going in terms of its message and what happens in the plot. Still, the fact that Shelley tackled such huge and heavy topics in her time astounds me, and I have nothing but respect for her. I can only hope that other fans of the genre do too.
Review style: stream of conscious, with questions for those of you who've read the book for the book club. Spoilers? Uh, yes. In all honesty, considering how old the book is, I really shouldn't have to call them spoilers, but some people want the warning, so here it is. SPOILERS. :) Which may be found in my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)
REVIEW: Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN
The November Book Club selection has already been announced: Alaya Dawn Johnson's Racing the Dark! I really, really want lots of participation, so please, give the book a shot! Details may be found here.
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| LiveJournal Major Notes: Search super-tweak, postcards, and amazing user content! |
[29 Oct 2009|10:53am] |
In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.
Super-tweak for Yandex searchSome of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.
Postcards from the edgeSeveral years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.
Conquer Writer's BlockHere are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:
If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?- I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
- Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
- This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
- I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
- Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
- SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
- I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
- I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
- I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
- Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.
For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!
Spotlight community of the weekWe can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.
halloween_fan
Photos of the weekWe received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!
CurtainsThanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.
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