About This
You've arrived at the homepage of Stephen Stewart. The archive is available here for those who want it. This site is happily hosted by Dreamhost. Click for more?
More!? OK then, but I can't help feeling that this will be a disappointment to you.
I work as a web designer in Belfast, and I live by the sea in a shoe. You can see me here, doing my livejournal pose as idoru called it. If you need to you can email me at carisenda -at- gmail -dot- com.
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links to other people's sites
Recommended Viewing
- 300
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Does exactly what it says on the (comic book) tin. Loved it. - Little Miss Sunshine
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Very funny, disturbing (the beauty pageant) and completely messed up -- but in a good way. - Laputa: Castle in the Sky†
Story great, characterization a little on the weak side -- though the big robots are cool. - Porco Rosso
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Stylish, funny, exciting. - Grave of the Fireflies†
Very sad, which was a little unexpected since I didn't know much about it before watching it. Can be a little too slow in places though, otherwise it's very good. - Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind†
The story can get a little dense at times what with the various factions, but still really enjoyable, inventive and engaging. - X-Men: The Last Stand
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Opportunity, talent, money - all blown. Over 3 films X-Men has hinted of something great that could have been, this last one says "No, sorry - not going to happen". Bah.
flickr.com
Nelson Muntz: Ha-ha!
On a Saturday, whilst doing something or other, I listen to Virgin Radio on iTunes. They annouce each goal in the various leagues as they happen. It's pretty good.
Anyway, the guy just said "It's not a good day to be a Leicester fan".
Is it ever a good day to be a Leicester Fan?
In other news: the team I play for are going to try to get into either North Down Area League or Amateur Division 3e (anyone know how you're supposed to go about that?). You gotta start at the bottom wherever you start, and the bottom of Irish League Football is a whole bone-crunchingly different world from even Leicester's standard.
1 CommentsJanuary 31, 2004
31st January, 1953
" A car ferry has sunk in the Irish Sea in one of the worst gales in living memory claiming the lives of up to 130 passengers and crew.
The Princess Victoria, a British Railways car ferry steamer, bound for Larne in Northern Ireland, had left Stranraer on the south-west coast of Scotland an hour before when the stern gates to the car deck were forced open in heavy seas. "
"The highest civilian award for bravery, the George Cross, was given posthumously to the ferry's radio operator, David Broadfoot, who remained at his post sending out messages for assistance until the ship sank. "
The Princess Victoria went down just a few miles off the coast from here. There's a monument to those lost up in Larne.
0 CommentsJanuary 31, 2004
Honeycomb
This page design you see here would be an example of brute force design. I wanted to layer one pattern over another in the html and body tags but the html won't accept a background image if the body already has one. So I've made one great big massive image and forced it upon you. Not a good solution.
The point is to show you this pretty William Morris pattern which I spent last night making into an eps. It's called Honeycomb and the original (woven in wool) hangs in the William Morris Gallery in London.
2 CommentsJanuary 30, 2004
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
I worked under Captain Pugwash here. I give him credit for calling it Blacknet, if he was down with The Kids he'd have said DeathStar.
via MWK
0 CommentsJanuary 30, 2004
Today's Lesson
Did you know you can apply CSS styles to the <html> tag? I didn't.
2 CommentsJanuary 30, 2004
This one's for you Skippy
Imaginary friends have come on some since I was a lad. Some of these ladies [they've all sold now] even offer tangible benefits to an imaginary relationship.
Still, nothing can replace the hole in my heart that exists since my imaginary dog, Skippy, got run over by a bus. Even now the feelings are a little raw.
(The link is via Kottke, and Jaffs Trumpet)
0 CommentsJanuary 29, 2004
That Interview Question
When I went for my interview with Geoservices last year the nice french man asked me to explain Boyle's Law. The only Boyle I could think of was Danny Boyle.
Anyway, Karen has another interview question - though, I thought this one was pretty easy until MWK made it more complicated.
(My answer is backward, by the way - the balloon will go backward in reference to the passenger compartment.)
(I wished I'd googled before I spoke. I believe though if you accelerate hard enough it will go backwards, overcoming Archimedes.)
4 CommentsJanuary 29, 2004
Migraine 'may raise stroke risk'
Migraines. Nasty, nasty things. I get the migraine with aura type, though only rarely now. It means temporary loss of vision as well as the nausea and pain on one side of the head. So any research that suggests things could be worse is not entirely welcome.
Mind you it's not news to anyone who has a migraine that there may be tissue damage, the Troll who hammers away at the inside of your skull with an iron sledgehammer is bound to be messing something up.
0 CommentsJanuary 28, 2004
Selectutorial
From the people who brought you Listamatic and Floatutorial, now comes Selectutorial!
0 CommentsJanuary 28, 2004
Lord of the Rings: The Metallica Soundtrack
Book V, Chapter 10: The Black Gate Opens
As the Captains of the West come at last to the Morannon, 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' plays.
"Make his fight on the hill in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
...
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know"
Also, and in no particualar order:
Sauron's Theme: One
Pippin's last stand - Fade to Black
Strider at the Prancing Pony - Wherever I May Roam
The Witch King leaves Minas Morgul: Harvester of Sorrow
Scene with Sauron and Witch King Moshing*: Blackened
And so on.
* It's in Unfinished Tales, honest.
4 CommentsJanuary 27, 2004
S.E.R.P's Competition Update
Search for SERPs on google and you'll see that today at least I am now placed second behind 'SEO Dave'. Link to me! Link to me!
0 CommentsJanuary 27, 2004
Search Engine Ranking Positions Competition
My SERPs entry is 10th, which isn't as good as it sounds as there are only like 15 people entered. Pfft.
0 CommentsJanuary 25, 2004
Long Moon Night Goodbye
My Moon Calendar arrived at the start of this week, it's groovy. The 'Long Night Moon' has now past and we're coming into the 'Ice Moon', it'll be visable tomorrow with moonset of the new crescent moon at 18:29. Full Moon this month will be at 00:03 on Friday 6th Febuary. Cool and the gang.
0 CommentsJanuary 22, 2004
Some things should never be forgotten
This was the sign that greeted us one cold January afternoon in 2002. After months of fine pies, taken while gazing down the Parisian-esque walkway that is Linen Hall Street, our hearts had been broken. Gary Moore himself could not have articulated the pain, not even had he a guitar right there and one of those we portable amps like in Crossroads. Crossroads, was there ever a better film starring Satan?
4 CommentsJanuary 21, 2004
SERPs
There is a SERPs competition, started I believe by alt.internet.search-engines USENET group. Cool! Coincidently, search for All You Know About The Human Heart and you get this site, kinda odd but there it is.
Anyway, this is my serps entry, humble me who lives in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland. Link to this individual archive page (newly created for serps), using the word SERPs, if you wanna help.
<a href="http://green.carisenda.com/legend/000941.shtml"> SERPs </a>
:)
Update: Thank-yous'ns to SWM, MWK and Jaffs!
13 CommentsJanuary 19, 2004
True
"Among those whom I like, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh."
W.H. Auden
0 CommentsJanuary 19, 2004
CSS Font Property
Do this:
.foo
{
font: font-style font-variant font-weight font-size/line-height font-family
}
Instead of this:
.foo
{
font-style: x;
font-variant: x;
font-weight: x;
font-size: x;
line-height: x;
font-family: x;
}
In the above font short hand the bold properties are always required, the rest are optional. The order is important.
eg.
font: italic small-caps bold 12px/18px verdana, sans-serif;
Produces This Fine Mess
0 CommentsJanuary 19, 2004
XP Signal Strength Monitor
Does anyone know where I could find a piece of software to monitor signal strength on a wireless network?
1 CommentsJanuary 16, 2004
The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai, this is my type of film, romance, tragedy, heroism and people beating each other up. I think I feel confident enough in my heterosexuality to say that Tom Cruise is a very Good Looking Man (though I will say that Koyuki, who plays Taka -- Mr. Cruises love interest -- is one Good Looking Girl, just to redress the balance.)
There is poetry in this film, in the cinematography, in the characters - Ken Watanabe was just awesome. Last Samurai is the best film I have seen in a long time.
3 CommentsJanuary 15, 2004
Funny Trailers
0 CommentsJanuary 14, 2004
An Arundel Tomb
Over on Blue a few of us post any poems (or maybe poems) that we like, reader comments on the posts have always been varied. Mostly it’s school kids researching some project or other - carried there by the strong currents of Google they feel the need to proclaim to the world the qualities of someone else’s mother. But today we struck gold, commenting on ‘An Arundel Tomb’:
bq. This poem is about badgers rolling and frolicking through the fields, making sweet sweet love to each other, trying to copulate before the end is nighThat has made my day.
0 CommentsJanuary 13, 2004
retsaoT yartS
In light of my inability to say anything original I will now mirror MWK's most recent post.
My Leader Test Result says I am Sadamn Hussein, and my Classic Movie Test Results says I am 'The Godfather'. Basically I'm not a good person to be around, not if you want to live long.
This has put me in the notion to watch nothing on TV, I have played no video games this week, the kids are very silent Aisha.
4 CommentsJanuary 11, 2004
Where have all the reindeer gone?
I wish, and I have been wishing for some time, that I had something interesting to tell you. I wish I could write great stuff that would make me feel like I was creating something worthwhile, and that you'd feel that too. But no, my life is not interesting -- or at least it's no more interesting than anyone else's -- and come the time anything interesting actually happens I can't even write about it because, well, because.
Ever wish you could just up sticks and dissappear off to some island in the Aleutians? Maybe live in the Alaskan wilderness in some sort of 'Northern Exposure' setup, except without the need to script in sexual tension with Maggie, just get it on first time and always.
So what's brought on this mild (way-)pre-midlife mini crisis? Seeing all your friends getting on with their lives, sprouting weans and going off to Disneyland? Seeing your major ex at Christmas and realising what a retard you are? Listening to too many country songs? All of the above? Whatever it is I don't believe any amount of Beautiful Girls viewings are going to fix this.
(Which reminds me, where are all the beautiful girls? In the movies the world in packed full of attractive, witty, single women in their late 20's. So where are they? Do the movies lie?)
If I was any good at writing, even blog writing (and how low is that yardstick?), I might be able to round this off with a suitable conclusion and you'd think 'How witty!' or 'How deep', but no, just this.
4 CommentsJanuary 8, 2004
A quick post of no real import
Message to terrorists everywhere: don't make your menu system in Java, JavaScript or flash - it will eventually cave in.
0 CommentsJanuary 6, 2004
The Open Guide to Property
Does exactly what it says on the tin. Find all listed properties within a radius, within a city, within a county. See what other people said about it. Decentralised management means properties are up to date (or at least the seller is responsible for keeping it up too date). Find out when properties come available in your chosen area (via XML feeds, for example).
I think this idea rocks!
0 CommentsJanuary 5, 2004
Coming Soon: Open Guide to Northern Ireland
I have been busy over the holiday period setting up an Open Guide to Northern Ireland to replace the curent Wiki thing we're doing.
An Open Guide is pretty much like a Wiki, the spirit of everyone being able to add, remove or improve content is the same but with an Open Guide you can also have spatial relationships between items, assuming you know it's lat/long. If you're looking at the page for The Crown Liquor Saloon and want to know if there's anything within 100m on the Open Guide you can do that.
Locales and categories are something too, you can include a place in a locale so people can find, for example, all the items in the 'City of Belfast' locale (which would include The Crown Liquor Saloon, among others things). Pubs can be a category, so The Crown Liquor Saloon could appear there too if someone was so inclined. Categories within locales, locales within categories - the mind does indeed boggle.
OpenGuides uses Template Toolkit, which is also new to me but seems pretty much like the way MovableType works, at least notionally, and so I'm happilly messing up the default templates with my filthy designer ways...
Installing the OpenGuides software may or may not be easy, I can't tell because this is the first time I've ever installed Perl modules, never mind as non-root. If I were to relate the experience to say, driving a car I would say it's not easy at all, if I were not in polite company I might even swear and spit some.
I found putting this in my .cshrc setenv PERL_INSTALL_ROOT /home/wiglaf helped a lot. Not all the modules I installed seem to listen to the perl makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/wiglaf black magic incantation. Many times I cried and said "Please God, please make it install this time...".
Anyway, to cut a long story short it almost all works now (Open Guides is based on a Great Britain OS coordinate system, we need OSIE/NI (Slugger geography doesn't work in this case either)) but soon it will come together and then we can all play around with the beast.
0 CommentsJanuary 4, 2004
Once in a Blue Moon
There is a Blue Moon this year, 24th July 2004. A Blue Moon is the second Full Moon to occur in a single calendar month. I did not know this.
I might buy me one of them there Moon Calendar's, and I quite fancy a watch which tells me the phases of the moon like the Baby-G I saw in that wee shop opposite Lunn's. Boy that shop is wee.
0 CommentsJanuary 3, 2004
Oh and you know, I miss you
The last album I bought in 2003 was Alison Krauss + Union Station, Live (bought after watching the concert on BBC 4). The first album of 2004 is Goldfrapp, Black Cherry. My buying this had nothing to do with Mr. NME's review, and everything to do with it playing in HMV when I walked in. I imagined HMV man saying in a High Fidelity moment: "I will now sell 5 copies of 'Goldfrapp, Black Cherrry'".
And sure didn't I get off to a quick start with the business of a broken heart this year? Someday I will make a good choice.
1 CommentsJanuary 2, 2004