Tag: Holy Shmoly

Why Do You Work So Hard? – excellent, excellent.

Our culture allows almost no room for creative breaks. There is little tolerance for seeking out a different kind of “work” that doesn’t somehow involve cubicles and widening butts and sour middle managers monitoring your e-mail and checking your Web site logs to see if you’ve wasted a precious 37 seconds of company time browsing blowfish.com or reading up on the gay marriage apocalypse.

More and more people are saying goodbye to the hectic pace of today’s world. They’re doing what they want, and they’re very happy.

Looks like grilling can be just as bad for you as frying. I hardly eat any red meat these days.

Did bombs go off in London this morning?

Jacinta texted her brother over there. Can’t remember if he works in the City or not. They’re fine.

The Technorati London tag has links to a lot more blogs and the britblog lists blogs in London, althought not by update time unfortunately.
The BBC and Sky websites have more -> Multiple blasts paralyse London.
Explosions in London – lots of links including the Wikipedia page.

Was Scotland Yard warned before the event?

The BBC news feed is excellent, and their site is holding up very well to the load. Looks like the site is down. There’s a traffic camera at King’s Cross but of course not available now that the BBC site is down. (via gmaptrack)

The Guardian Blog has lots of coverage.

A moblog with photos from the Underground.

“Major power failure. ALL tube network shut. Got of train at Gloucester Road without moving after being told only of a power failure. On the way out just caught the announcement of a major security alert.” (link)

“Just taken mobile calls from my very scared and frightened 11 year old and her equally distraught mother who are caught up in this morning’s events.” (link)

“People at work were talking about this and I can hear police sirens outside my building” (link)

dear fools – a letter to the G8 rioters.

Early this morning we discovered a pigeon lying on the ground outside our front door. He had his head tucked into his plumage but was obviously alive. We tried to resuscitate him with Rescue Remedy but apart from feeble attempts to turn himself around he quickly became comotose again.
We couldn’t leave him outside, cats would get him, and a guy from Tesco was delivering our groceries so I climbed into the attic and brought down a cardboard box. I gently lifted the bird into the box and brought him into the porch.
Jacinta rang a local vet and he said to feed him water and oatmeal. We have millet so we sprinkled some in his box but he still didn’t move.
We left him in the porch to recover while we went to work.

Later the Tesco delivery man came and the pigeon hardly budged, even though we were bringing in large cartons of goods! Later still I looked out the door, the pigeon sprang up out of the box and flew a foot or two to the ground! He was recovering! You can imagine the grin on my face seeing that!

The postman wasn’t so lucky. A few hours later he delivered the mail, I heard a flurry of wings and noise from the front of the house, looked out the window to see him adjusting his cap. There was no sign of the pigeon when I went down to collect the mail., so he’s gone, and hopefully well on the way to recovery!

Here’s a great article on starting out in business. You still need a good business plan and an idea, but the easier it is to get going, the more will survive!
Here’s some advice for high tech startups. (all via delicious)

Important Events in Human History to 1 BC, or it all happened 5,000 years ago, around tea time.

Great article about the Batmobile!
Did anyone else see bits of Chicago in the film? I remember an aerial view of the Wrigley Building and North Bridge, and I could almost swear that the blur of American flags in one chase scene may have been the flags outside Marshall Fields on State Street!

That T-Engine sounds mad! Computers everywhere talking to each other!
I could bring home my camera after a hard day taking shots only to have the photos transfer by wireless comms to my desktop PC when I drop my bag next to my desk!
When I’ve been working too long at my PC it could order the kettle downstairs to turn on and then chime a bell when the tea’s made!
Ah yes, interesting times ahead!
The slashdot discussion has a few more bits, including a better explanation of why i-Tron is better than past attempts at ubiquitous computing.

If you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss about patents was about, read this article by Richard Stallman in the Guardian.
He lays out a clear example of why patents are not the same thing as copyright and why they are bad.

A novel and a modern complex programme have certain points in common: each is large and implements many ideas…
Imagine patents with broad claims, like these:

Communication process structured with narration that continues through many pages.

A narration structure sometimes resembling a fugue or improvisation.

There you go! Every book in existance would infringe those!