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links to other people's sites

Recommended Viewing

• 300†
  Does exactly what it says on the (comic book) tin. Loved it.
• Little Miss Sunshine†
  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†
  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†
  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

Dr. Strangelove

You may not have noticed because (until I make this post) it's been bubbling below the surface but StrayToaster and Journalesque are waging a secret war over equality. Mostly it's been of a cold war nature, subtle digs in posts that only the securocrats notice, tensions released away from the public eye.
However this morning at approximately 1000 hours local time AWACS over Greenland spotted ICBM pre flight heat signatures in Northern Siberia. Shortly after SAG confirmed that one Titan class ICBM was inbound on Stray Toaster central.

Intial casualty reports are sketchy, the total yield has not yet been confirmed. Full report at 2300.

1 CommentsJanuary 31, 2005

The Princess Victoria goes down in high seas†
52 years ago today 130 die in the Princess Victoria ferry disaster, the ferry goes down off the Copeland Islands, a few miles from here.

Summary of 2004 Critics Top Ten Lists†

The Cheerleader Toss†

Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town

Stray Toaster threw some Emmylou Harris mp3’s my way this week. Heart breaking stuff, I won’t ever mock his NMEness again.

From bash:

<blazemore> omg i love this song
<blazemore> Now playing: Unknown Artist - Track 2 @ 128 Kbps. (0:47/3:24)
<Javi> blazemore: yeah, that’s a bad ass song

And Jaffs is appearing (then disappearing) on IRC these days. Incredible.

1 CommentsJanuary 29, 2005

Gaze long into the abyss, and the abyss gazes into you

Godwin’s Law (from wikipedia):

“There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress”

“They [the Nazi’s] gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews in the same way that people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children an irrational hatred of Catholics, in the same way that people give to their children an outrageous and irrational hatred of those who are of different colour and all of those things,”

So said Mary McAleese during the ceremonies to mark the 60th anniversay of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Amry. Who writes for the Irish President? “..and all of those things”?? It’s the speech writers equivalent of playing thunder and lightening - I’ve said my bit (rang the doorbell), “…and all of those things”, now I’m running down the street!! Ha ha! Can’t catch me!

0 CommentsJanuary 28, 2005

Professor of Loserology David Miller Makes The Belfast Telegraph†
'Talking out of his backside' in the words of Gail Walker.

Google Video Search†

MT Photo Galleries

Doug Bowman's use of MT and Photon to build a photo gallery is pretty cool, to say the least. Read about how it was all achieved here.

I believe that you could avoid using the php snippet to sort album thumbnails by creating an additional 'Album Thumbnail' category and adding the one representative photo from each category into this category also, then you'd simply use standard MTEntries tags to sort and display entries in the 'Album Thumbnail' category and link to the main album category using key values associated with the thumbnail entry.

2 CommentsJanuary 25, 2005

Foxy

My friend Emily (who is Hot) is running in the Bath half marathon on 20th March, Emily's running with my friend Victoria (who's also Hot) and together they are trying to raise money for the British Heart Foundation through sponsorship.
Emily and Victoria have been getting ready for this half marathon by spending Tuesday Monday nights engaging in Foxy Boxing.

5 CommentsJanuary 24, 2005

Professor David Miller, Strathclyde Tech

As reported on Samizdata, Slugger and the Guardian, Professor of Sociology at Strathclyde University, David Miller, has decreed that the Red Hand of Ulster is a symbol that represents loyalists and is “not signed up to by the majority”, “Nobody seriously thinks that it is a symbol for Ulster or Northern Ireland” the Professor reveals.

Now I know this’ll all just quietly go away and Prof. Miller will go on spouting nonsense with no apology or retraction because that’s the way the world works, but I thought I’d try and badger him just a little to see if he could offer anything in the way of support for his claim that “Like the swastika the red hand is a symbol that has been misappropriated. It is the symbol of the unionists…”, and no surprises, he didn’t reply. I also emailed Strathclyde University’s Press Office, and they did reply:

“…the University is a strong defender of the principle of academic freedom and encourages its staff to engage in public debate in areas of their research expertise.”

Ah, so by debate they must mean when you say something in a forum where no-one can really question you, like spouting to the Guardian. Interesting.

“The university notes that the head of Blue Peter has apologised for the inappropriate use of the red hand of Ulster.”

Oh well then, case closed. Incidently, an apology which didn’t satisfy the good Professor:

“The outstanding issue which arises from the compliant is who gave the erroneous advice that ‘both communities are equally attached to it’?”

Finally from Strathclyde University PR:

“Professor Miller is a recognised expert in the area of media representations of Northern Ireland”

You heard it here first, the experts at Strathclyde University couldn’t tell an arse from an elbow.

0 CommentsJanuary 24, 2005

Chilblain - you don't want one†

University Professor makes fool of himself†
I'm assuming he wasn't always a fool, which is probably assuming too much

The First Inaugurial Ards Tea Party - Sponsored by Adagio

On Saturday, just before I headed out for the Mournes, the postman delivered a present from Adagio Teas - a black tea sample set! (Not being as all powerful as Stray Toaster I didn’t get a tea pot, but I have a few of those already.)
So, I supplied the tea:

Emma supplied the cake:

And thus the The First Inaugurial Ards Tea Party was instituted. As some wag quipped, we know how to have fun, yes sir. The teas were great, except Pu Erh Dante, it smelt fishy to me. The others thought it tasted of the Ulster Folk Museum which I think means ‘peaty’ - I’ve tasted neither so I stuck with ‘fishy’. My favourite was Golden Monkey, as I write this out I’m enjoying a cup of Keemum, very nice.

In a totally unrelated incident:
bq. 13:17 <@MartyMC> swm: did you get iWork?
14:41 <@idoru> is there an imUnemployed for those that don’t work?
15:00 <@beowulf> it’s called iLazy
15:08 <@StrayTaoist> iSponger? (Oh, hang on, that was supranova, wasn’t it…)
15:28 <@idoru> iWork, iRest and iPlay. I can see the future.
15:28 <@idoru> an iMars a day
15:31 <@beowulf> iLaugh
15:31 <@beowulf> iCry
15:31 <@beowulf> iDie
15:32 <@beowulf> iPrick
15:32 <@beowulf> iNotbleed
15:32 <@beowulf> iAm # God’s version of iLife
15:37 <@idoru> iWank - the Apple Pornography Store
15:37 <@idoru> for use on your iPod photo
15:37 <@idoru> sorry.
15:37 <@idoru> please kick me.
15:37 <@beowulf> iBathos # this thread

It made me laugh anyway.

0 CommentsJanuary 23, 2005

Tim Burton - Corpse Bride†
Nightmare Before Christmas stylee, yummy.

Doogle - The Feckin' Search Engine of Ireland†

Cassini-Huygens is no Apollo

Recently there was an off topic discussion on Slugger about the ESA/NASA Mission to Titan, Cassini-Huygens. Précising the comment thread some people believe that the profits of mankind should not be spent on such endeavours, and concentrated solely on other endeavours. It's a subjective argument but my position is that such binary thinking is rarely the work of intelligent lifeforms, but that isn't what I wanted to write about.

During the course of the discussion my good friend Stray Toaster made some inspirational comments on the topic of space exploration. To wit:

"We can't tell what will come out of this, but we are better as a civilisation for doing it.", and
"No, we *need* such research ... it defines us as humans."

Whilst I have little disagreement with the gist, the sentiment bothers me. The Space Age is not what it was, simply because man is not involved. Projecting a lump of metal and silicon to the farthest reaches of the universe is simply a matter of time and pressure (to quote the geologists) - given enough time and resistance to pressure we'll get there - on the other hand, putting a man on the moon was a substantially more complex affair, simply because it involved a man. When a man or woman risks all they have to achieve something for the betterment of others that defines man, or rather that is how I feel man should be defined.

Cassini-Huygens is no Apollo, and that has nothing to with science or technology and everything to do with what's at stake and why.

8 CommentsJanuary 21, 2005

Muppets Overtime†

Rolling with Ruby on Rails†
Excellent O'Reilly Rails tutorial for beginners

Animelds†
Coyoyotes, Diplomacus and Roofters...

Beer Fights Cancer: Official†
This has made MartyMc's life. Longer. Possibly.

Woman gives birth to 17lb baby†
Women, is there nothing they can't do?

Million Dollar Baby scores 85/100 at metacritic.com†

Ta-da List: to-do lists from 37Sigals, built on Rails†

Fantastic Four Trailer†
Jessica Alba who plays Nancy Callahan in Sin City (hubba hubba) is in it. Hubba hubba.

Hello

I think it's only fair that since I give some other people a hard time on their webpages, they should have the opportunity to come over and create a stink at my place. So Green is, er, a go. Go-go-go. Again.

Expect the usual content-lite navel gazing but with the photographs - now with added comments - and links, also with comments (the almost invisible dagger over there, click it).

Oh and things are new and likely to break, apologies.

6 CommentsJanuary 20, 2005

Second Term from Jib-Jab, Ye-Haa!†
"Who will save us from con-ser-va-tiz-eum?"

Adagio Teas, because one link is never enough†

Origins of the swastika†
The EU has been urged to ban the swastika because of its Nazi associations with hate and racism.

Alternative Motivational Posters†
I definately need focus

How and when to use sIFR†
sIFR stands for 'scalable Inman Flash Replacement' and is a technique for producing customised type in a web page

The (very good) Six Apart guide to combatting comment spam†

My first properly paid job, on the web, was with BlackStar, and this is the first thing I did there†
This is the second (I think).

Adagio Teas - Gourmet Tea (Oh, how I love Tea)†

Watch the Web Design World Boston Keynote Address from Jeffrey Zeldman†

Lomoisland is devoted to the depiction of any island through the medium of lo-fidelity photography, so it is.†

I may want this strip on my tombstone.†

Random Image Rotation

Here are my simple Ruby random image scripts, they are the work of a Ruby Nuby so no warranty and all the usual caveats.

The first version finds a random file, reads it, then outputs the contents. This has the downside of not providing an absolute URL for the image.

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

# get files with extensions 'jpg', 'png' and 'gif' from img/ directory, then pick one at random

def randFile
files = Dir["img/*.{jpg,png,gif}"]
no_of_files = files.length
randfileno = rand(no_of_files)
filename = files[randfileno]
end

# Read the randomly picked file in and print out the contents along with a CGI header describing the content type

File.open(randFile, "r") do |aFile|
whole_file = aFile.read
print "Content-type: image/" + randFile[-3,3] + "\r\n\r\n"
puts whole_file
end

The second version simply sends the location of the randomly selected file in the CGI header, the server then redirects to the file. This provides an absolute link to the file in the browser and this is the version I'm going with for now.

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

def randFile
files = Dir["img/*.{jpg,png,gif}"]
no_of_files = files.length
randfileno = rand(no_of_files)
filename = files[randfileno]
end

# Print out the location of the randomly picked file in the CGI header

print "Location: " + randFile + "\r\n\r\n"

For a more complete rendition you could try the PHP random image rotation script on ALA.
I await my mauling from those who know more. :)

0 CommentsJanuary 3, 2005

Blog Television - videos appearing on weblogs†

The TEXTAREA

I wish for a TEXTAREA that has a little more. It should be scalable like a window so I can see more if I type more, it should have a spell checking option, the ability to save to a sidebar clipboard.
Yes, I hear you say this is Notepad or Wordpad and a simple C&P, but this is 2005, it's time for the Textarea to stand on it's own two feet.

1 CommentsJanuary 1, 2005

Print your own T-Shirt†

A website all about T-Shirts†