Microlog
Microlog entries posted in August 2005
Google Talk is live
So this is the big surprise everyone’s been talking about. Shame there’s no Mac client, but I’ve got the IM set up through Adium. If anyone wants to chat, I’m macdara(dot)conroy(at)gmail(dot)com. Permalink ·
Making Sections In Text Files With SubEthaEdit
Invaluable advice, inspired by this article (also noted at 43 Folders). My current system involves three .txt files — one for blog drafts, one for linklog stuff, and one for thesis notes — which I could well see merging into one mega-file, yet for the time being keeping them separate but using LaTeX syntax has made navigating my notes so much easier. Permalink ·
Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory
Gravity didn’t make that apple fall on Newton’s head — the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it! Permalink ·
Wikipedia entry for the Flying Spaghetti Monster
See also: Touched by His Noodly Appendage Permalink ·
Boing Boing’s $1 million Intelligent Design challenge
They’re willing to pay out to anyone who can provide empirical evidence that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Brilliant! Permalink ·
What is a “graphic novel”? [c/o LinkMachineGo]
This answers the question cleary and concisely. And in pictures! Permalink ·
Comic Relief: Newsweek’s primer on graphic novels
It was written by committee, so caveat lector. Permalink ·
The Marvel Database Project [c/o Subtraction]
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In Memoriam: Joe Ranft of Pixar
He was the voice of Heimlich in A Bug’s Life. I loved Heimlich! Permalink ·
On behalf of the Kansas Board of Education, welcome to the new Devo Middle School
The only place for all you spudboys and girls. I hope you get a flower pot hat at graduation. Permalink ·
What motivates citizen reviewers?
Lots of ideas to get my head around here. Permalink ·
LibriVox [c/o Mat Honan]
An open source project to produce audio versions of books in the public domain. Why didn’t I think of that? Permalink ·
Foreword: A Book Design Blog [c/o Languagehat]
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To the girl in the pink Killers shirt at the Killers concert [c/o ToT]
Funny stuff. I’m tempted to say that it serves him right for going to a Killers concert, but I’ll hold my tongue. Permalink ·
South Africa tops road rage list
I’m not surprised. They drive far too fast and never slow down for pedestrians. But in a way, you can’t really blame them. I mean, who wants to get carjacked? Permalink ·
PHP Manual
I’m going to learn this some day, I really am. Permalink ·
The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Filing this for future reference. Permalink ·
Mo Mowlam: A moderniser, but never an apparatchik
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Mo Mowlam, former Cabinet Minister, Labour party stalwart, thoroughly decent person, has died
Why do all the good ones have to go? Permalink ·
Southern Records’ John Loder passes away [c/o del.icio.us/jack]
Scroll down through the comments for tributes from friends, colleagues, label partners and band members. Permalink ·
South Africa is trying to avoid Zimbabwe becoming a “failed state”, its deputy foreign minister has said
Too late: it already is. Permalink ·
Elephants storm Zimbabwe resort
“A team from Zimbabwe’s National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority is trying to find out why the animals seem to be moving closer to people’s houses.” You want to know why? I’ll tell you why — they’re trying to get away from being shot at in the national parks, that’s why! Permalink ·
Israel begins Gaza Strip pullout
Also, readers give their views (most of which are typically blinkered). Permalink ·
Astronomers have discovered a group of stars that look like the TV character Victor Meldrew
I don’t believe it! Permalink ·
“I remember being on holiday in Germany when I was young. I wanted to sit down and the only seat was reserved with something. It’s taken me 20 years to find out that this was illegal. Maybe that one event is what made me want to be a lawyer.”
Permalink ·
Got Game?: Images and history of board and card games from 3000 BC to the present [c/o Interconnected]
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A History of Role-Playing Games [c/o MetaFilter]
I had the AD&D Player’s Handbook when I was younger, but I didn’t have anyone else to play with. That, and I couldn’t make head nor tails of it. Permalink ·
Flying cats! [c/o kottke.org]
They’re cats! And they’re flying! Permalink ·
Observer review of Jonathan Lethem’s The Disappointment Artist
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Dan Chung’s photographs of Niger
Forget the words. The pictures say it all. Permalink ·
The Fall of the House of Saud
Note to self: Print this out. Permalink ·
Robin Cook: 1946 - 2005
You never expect these things to happen. At least he went out while he was living the life he wanted. Permalink ·
Logos by the Numbers [c/o del.icio.us/magnetbox]
I had no idea there was a classification system for logo designs. Wonders never cease. Permalink ·
Poets, dadaists, and word nerds: Rejoice
Some useful hints, tips and exercises here. Permalink ·
Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait [c/o del.icio.us/magnetbox]
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Podcast of the BBC’s Reinventing Radio presentation at ETech 2005 [c/o del.icio.us/cityofsound]
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On Current TV’s on-air graphics
It all seems so impatient; always looking forward to the next item before you’ve even considered the one you’re watching. Watching the news shouldn’t be like using an iPod. (Douglas Rushkoff has a more detailed critique.) Permalink ·
We Are the Web
Wired’s special edition celebrating 10 years of the world wide web. Permalink ·
Plagiarism Test
I scored 90% first attempt. I wish they’d tell me what I got wrong, though. Permalink ·
Yummy! Personal PDF Library [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
It’s like del.icio.us, but for PDFs. Now if only they could do something about the downtime… Permalink ·
Try Before You Buy Fonts
Why didn’t anyone think of this before? Permalink ·
Garrison Keillor appreciates his mobile phone [c/o del.icio.us/cityofsound]
As do I. Most people, you see, just don’t know how to use them. I’m getting tired of people complaining about their phones always ringing, the ‘never being out of contact’ thing or whatever — no one ever said your phone has to be on all the time! Permalink ·
Banksy at the West Bank Barrier
I’m amazed he wasn’t shot to pieces. Permalink ·
Morning Hike
My, Corvallis is beautiful country. Permalink ·
Learn to Program (with Ruby) [c/o plasticbag.org]
Something else to read when I finish my thesis. Permalink ·
JSAN: JavaScript Archive Network [c/o JayAllen.org]
A comprehensive resource of JavaScript goodies. Permalink ·
Nvu: The complete web authoring system for Linux, Windows and OS X [c/o What Do I Know]
Looks great, but you get what you pay for. Permalink ·
Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ
“Holy Mom, mother of me.” Ha! Permalink ·
Gavin O’Reilly thinks participative journalism is a “dangerous precedent” for the newspaper industry
Sure, if you’re lost behind the times, maybe… Permalink ·
The message of Hiroshima
I’m preparing a longer entry to mark the 60th anniversary of the bombing. In the meantime, here’s something I wrote two years ago. Permalink ·
The Big Fish: The story of Suck.com, the first great website
A fascinating look at what went on behind the scenes on the web before I first logged on; I didn’t catch on to Suck until just before it closed forever. Permalink ·
Smart City Radio: Podcasts on cities and urban life [c/o del.icio.us/cityofsound]
Lots of great stuff here to fill up my iPod with. Permalink ·
Brian Eno on Working with Strict Structures
Eno speaks the truth. One could write an entire thesis on how limits foster creativity. Not me, though; I’m busy with my own one. Permalink ·
Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass [c/o del.icio.us/cameron]
Boy am I glad my thesis hasn’t turned into something like this! Permalink ·
Talk Digger: Check who’s linking to you [c/o del.icio.us/jack]
Handy tool for checking linkage across multiple tracking services. Could do with some better icons, though. Permalink ·
John Gruber’s Notes on Notes
I like sidenotes, I do. Wish there was an easier way to implement them, though. Permalink ·
Robust CSS Drop Shadows [c/o Alt Text]
I’ll definitely be experimenting with this. Permalink ·
Idiot Toys [c/o del.icio.us/jack]
A gadget blog with a sense of humour. Excellent! Permalink ·
HopStop.com: Subway Directions and Bus Directions for New York City
Filing this for future reference. Permalink ·
Flickr images now rated by ‘interestingness’ [c/o Onlineblog]
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Amputator: an ampersand-encoding plugin for Movable Type [c/o Subtraction]
Nice. Requires template edits to set it up, but it’ll save me the trouble of hand-coding the bloody things. Permalink ·
Astronomers detect ‘10th planet’
Seems like these discoveries are happening all the time now. For a name, Matt Webb suggests the distinctly un-Roman-god-like ‘daes’. Also: Farewell Pluto? Permalink ·
Patent Room: The art of industrial design [c/o MetaFilter]
The proprietor also runs the interesting Adventure Lounge. Now, if only there were more hours in a day… Permalink ·
Ask MetaFilter thread on sprawling post-modern novels [c/o kottke.org]
Yet another list, I know! As for this one: I’ve got a breeze-block sized paperback of Infinite Jest waiting to be delved into. Permalink ·
South Africans’ long wait for land
See also: Land reform or revolution?: Africans and others give their views. Permalink ·
We are all threatened by this plague
I find it more than sad that HIV/Aids is only posing a threat now that it’s registering as a ‘national security concern’. Permalink ·
SA minister cleared in Aids row
In all seriousness, what the fuck? Permalink ·
The making of internet terrorists…
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“No doubt Tony Blair doesn’t consciously think in terms of ‘darkies’ or Mahometan savages, but the grim and very dangerous truth is that the terrorists he will never negotiate with or give an inch to are Asian by birth or descent and Muslim by religion, whereas the terrorists he propitiates are Catholic, Aryan, white Europeans.”
The rest of the piece pretty much whitewashes over the conditions that brought the Provos into being — it almost insinuates that the oppression of Catholics in the North is a mere belief in the minds of Gerry Adams and co. — but the point made here is spot on. Permalink ·
Nick Sweeney on Scientology
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Simon Waldman on Wikipedia’s success
An old piece that’s been floating around in my tabs for months, but well worth a read. Librarians and other information professionals should pay close attention. Permalink ·
Although I Like a Good George W. Bush Joke as Much as the Next Guy, Some of Them Seem Gratuitous and Mean-Spirited
“Did you hear that Bill Clinton hired a new intern? It turns out that his old intern had to go home and spend time with her family after her brother was killed in Iraq.” Permalink ·
Michael Palin’s travel books online for free
Nice one! I always liked the TV series. Now, to copy and paste… Permalink ·
100 songs in 78 minutes and 19 seconds
Don’t worry, the majority of these are from bands and independent labels who won’t sue you indisriminately. Permalink ·
For the Music
A short feature on John Zorn’s new live venue in Manhattan. It’s child-friendly too, which is a refreshing change. I’m all for educating the young folk. Permalink ·
lift yr. skinny fists like antennas to heaven!
An Irish music blog that — shock horror! — actually looks beyond the Irish music scene?! It must be some kind of trick… Permalink ·
The Daily Mail Watch
Because somebody needs to keep an eye on them. I can’t even touch the rag myself; their newsprint has cooties. Permalink ·
What if they had a protest and everyone came? [c/o Interconnected]
On Live8 and the logic of protest. Permalink ·
An open letter to Jan Hommen, chairman of Reed Elsevier [c/o del.icio.us/gleuschk]
Like Leuschke says, another reason to despise Elsevier. Permalink ·
Is Knowing The Cultural Reference Better Than The Culture Itself?
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On Terry Pratchett’s feelings for JK Rowling
I tend to side with Pratchett on this one. Rowling misunderstands the genre, and just appropriated the imagery and iconography; Pratchett, however, is the real subverter. Permalink ·
Birnbaum v. Camille Paglia
I won’t get around to reading this till my thesis is done. It’d be great if there was a recording, too. Permalink ·
Internet companies that should have been bigger, but weren’t
I think Blogger did pretty well, actually. But they didn’t adapt fast enough to deal with their popularity, and targeted the service towards novices at the expense of their older, more experienced users. Permalink ·
PingMag [c/o MetaFilter]
A Tokyo-based magazine about design and making things. Not bad. Permalink ·
Summer Reading Assignment
Another reading list! Though most of my reading so far this summer has been research for my thesis… not that I’m complaining. Permalink ·
What the papers say about George W. Bush’s support of ‘intelligent design’
Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Permalink ·
About Going Solo
Some of these tips apply for freelance journalism, too. Permalink ·
The Reactionaries (recorded at George Hurley’s Shed on 17th St, San Pedro, CA, January 1979)
Oh happy day! Merlin and Mat, I know you’ll both appreciate this one. Permalink ·
Five simple steps to designing grid systems [c/o del.icio.us/merlinmann]
If you like that, Part 2 is here. Permalink ·
information aesthetics
A weblog tracking things that look really fancy. Permalink ·
The New York Times explains the editorial process for Op-Ed columns
Treating their readers like equal partners, eh? That’s refreshing. But I have to ask, would we be seeing this today if not for the Internet? Permalink ·
Newsmap
A graphical representation of popularity of news stories via Google News. (more info here). Nicely done. Permalink ·
GIGANTICIDE [c/o Fireland]
It’s a bit like Schott’s, but not quite. If you read it you’ll see what I mean. Permalink ·
Star War: The Backstroke of the West [c/o The Morning News]
Long time ago in the faraway galaxy… Permalink ·
Did Penn Jillette invent the Aristocrats gag? [c/o WaxyLinks]
It’s been pretty much confirmed that he didn’t… but I wouldn’t have put it past him. Permalink ·
“I think that as a Mac user, I’ve become very complacent about security. And that’s [a] problem. As more and more people come to the platform, we’re going to start seeing more and more exploits.”
And so it begins… Permalink ·
Ryan Adams vs Pitchfork II: The Rematch
That Adams guy’s one crazy damn fool, yo. Permalink ·
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Legal Guide for Bloggers
I haven’t read this yet. I really should. Permalink ·
Space shuttle to get critical fix
This comes after Nasa announced that they’d been “playing Russian roulette” with their shuttle crews since launches began 24 years ago. Permalink ·
The Non-Exciting, Non-Adventures of Han and Chewie
“No Chewie, those were my sandwiches.” Ha! Permalink ·
Make the Web Mobile With IYHY [c/o Asterisk]
Very handy tool. See, for example, how this site looks stripped bare. Permalink ·
Barbelith discusses political correctness
Ooh, hot button! My own view on political correctness is simple: it’s only a problem when people take things out of their intended context, and that happens pretty much constantly. Idealogical chauvinism and all that. Permalink ·
Bursting the magic bubble
How the audience lets itself be tricked by magicians. Permalink ·
Archive of Steve Bell’s cartoons for The Guardian [c/o LinkMachineGo]
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Vision on
For anyone interested in the context of popular music, this is a must read — and a great taster for Reynolds’ book. Permalink ·
The Chalets play ‘Feel the Machine’ [c/o WaxyLinks]
Yes, the very same Chalets who’ve been gigging around Dublin for the last couple of years. They’re not too bad, actually. Great video, too. Permalink ·
Introducing: Yacht Rock
Thank Jebus for Channel 101. Where would we be without House of Cosbys? Permalink ·
Variations of the Letter M, and Other Metro Logos of the World [c/o kottke.org]
Oh boy! I love this! I’m such a closet transport geek. Permalink ·
Shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture 2005 [c/o Culture Vulture]
Nice to see an Irish entry in the list. Shame it’s in Cork, though… Permalink ·
Yat-Kha play post-punk
I don’t know what to say, really. Permalink ·
Online Papers in Philosophy [c/o Tesugen]
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“I made some hamburgers on the George Foreman grill … which involved adding Worcestershire (spelled it right on my first attempt bitchez!!) sauce and mustard and grated cheese to the raw meat.”
Last month I made burgers just like that, too. But I used ketchup, not mustard. Next time I’ll use mustard. Dijonnaise, maybe. I love dijonnaise. Permalink ·
Electronic Games of the ’80s
I had Caveman when I was younger (the Tomy version). It lasted well into the ’90s, too… They don’t make ‘em like they used to. Permalink ·
Philosophomon: Great philosophers’ heads on Pokémon bodies [c/o Boing Boing]
I like Descartle. Needs more work, though. Permalink ·
Throwing Tables Out the Window
Tables will always be a necessary evil for certain layouts until IE bites the dust or starts supporting universal standards. And that’s never gonna happen. Still, it’s nice to dream… Permalink ·
Story of a street
I love stories like this. Permalink ·
Sigur Ros have a Flickr account [c/o del.icio.us/jack]
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Why Bugs Don’t Belong on TV
I’m rarely bothered by on-screen idents. In fact, I quite like some of them (the BBC’s in particular) and am disappointed that other channels didn’t keep theirs (like Channel 4, who experimented with them for a while on late-night programming). But some are just eyesores. Like the National Geographic Channel (the yellow window should be enough!) and CNBC Europe (it takes up about 5% of the screen space, far too big). Thankfully we’re not plagued by the animated ones over here; only music stations and kids channels use them, to my knowledge. Permalink ·
Anthology Books: Manhattan Portage Bags
I need to get me a new bag soon. These look nice. Expensive, though. Permalink ·
Where did all the money go?
Not to the Iraqis, that’s for sure; it was their money in the first place! Permalink ·
Ernest Lehman, Hollywood screenwriter, 1915-2005
As a tribute, here’s Lehman’s working script for a true noir classic, The Sweet Smell of Success (c/o MetaFilter). Permalink ·
“Should reporters blog? Absolutely. Readers are moving online. We need to follow.”
Another link for my thesis. Permalink ·
Blog Day is coming on August 31 [c/o The Big Drought]
That’s 3108. Get it? Permalink ·
Is Not Magazine
What a novel idea: a magazine as a fly-poster. But why can’t they provide a PDF version? Permalink ·
Popular books in the blogosphere
You’re all nerds! Permalink ·
Michael Chabon on his attempt to get the scriptwriting gig for Fantastic Four
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Far Flung Magazine
Looks interesting. Permalink ·
Underground typography [c/o Megnut]
You know what else has great typography? The London bus network. From the destination scrolls to the bus stands, the standard font is just superb. It’s something so simple, and yet so effective. Dublin Bus should take note (though I’m sure they won’t). Permalink ·
On the buses
I love stories like this. And I love London buses, too. Permalink ·
The Last Days of Fulton Fish Market [c/o MetaFilter]
I love stories like this. Permalink ·
About
This is the personal website of MacDara Conroy, a production journalist, music writer and mediavore in Dublin, Ireland. Read more »
Details
This page is a reverse chronology of Microlog entries by MacDara Conroy published in August 2005. You will find many more in the Archives.
Continuum
↑ September 2005
→ August 2005
↓ July 2005