Bifurcated Rivets

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12 October 1999

Thank the lord for Google! I deleted some old pages that I thought were no longer used, and of course they still were. A quick search and I could pull them back from google's cache.

A day full of meetings and business and no weblogging.

Synthetic zero is a new (to me) weblog with some thoughtful links.

Verbatim transcript of interview with Railtrack Boss. (via Gorjuss)

RIP Milt Jackson

11 October 1999

I need an espresso machine for my office. And a source of decent tasting water - the run to the tap on this floor is something like 100 yards.

Here is another Mojo magazine. This one is a listing guide for Jackson.

Should be a new Fortean Times soon, but they are fiddling with their website and so not updating it. And it's Mojo week as well. I am getting magazine withdrawal symptoms. You'll be proud for me that I have managed not to buy the last two issues of WIRED.

Death stories at Aint no way to go

Tom Tomorrow is, as always, spot on the mark.

I haven't worked out what Fierce is yet. But it pointed me at designiskinky which lives up to its name. And then to Invertebrae which has too much "tiny text" (tm) to be readable.

Another slow day - some nice links but duplicated by others so I won't do them again.

I just found OutofPrintMusic! And they have a CD of David Grisman's Mondo Mando. And they' don't insist on shipping by courier. Wonderful. I got there via Gemm which is an excellent resource for the music hunter.

8 October 1999

I really resent the recent fad for describing your browser as "old" just because you have chosen not to install flash or some other egregious extension. As it happens mine is as new as it could possibly be.

The local products of Chiba prefecture. (Big image) Or try the "Park Strolling" tour of Narita - it looks good. (The Narita English homepage offers "Massages from the Mayor", though I think it is a typo!)

Chris's Screech owls and Chris's garden. Glad to see that he is organic.

Couldn't sleep again last night. Bummer.

This "view through a cat's eye" thing is real mad scientist stuff. (via /.)

Nice interview with William Gibson in yesterday's Guardian. My copy of the new book is on its way.

In the style of Slashdot some quickies from various press sources yesterday:

7 October 1999

Japanese vending machines (via gmtPlus9)

Have we had the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy before? Good stuff anyway, so it doesn't matter. Here is the page on Husserl.

The Heinous Sin of Drunkenness or how about the Sinfulness of Flesh-Pleasing.

Hmm, "Temperance and the Profession of Arms" by someone at the Air War College.

On the basis of available evidence, one seems justified in concluding that Commander Stumpf had been unfairly tainted by the broad brush of Tailhook. While adultery is clearly wrong, one can argue that the punishment of Longhouser and Ralston was inconsistent with the offense. There is, in traditional Christian morality, a three-part formula for forgiveness and rehabilitation: confession to the appropriate person, contrition, and firm purpose of amendment. In the cases of Longhouser and Ralston, there is no evidence of which I am aware that they lied, disobeyed orders, or exhibited a pattern of infidelity reckless beyond measure. This is not to excuse the adultery. It is to say that where the national security or command integrity is not affected; where such instances are clearly family matters; and where the offense is limited to a single and short-term occurrence (and not habitual and seemingly endless adulterous assignations), we can perhaps believe that the truly repentant might be well instructed to "go and sin no more."

MP3s of Chinese music (link courtesy of one of my students)

Want an ironbed? (I saw this URL on the shutters of a new shop)

Oddly enough (or not) I saw a poster version of this for sale outside the Students' Union yesterday. (via Yuppie Slayer)

Seriously weird (and highly unlikely) page. (via Looka)

"The following items are made available to the general public. As you might guess from the above title, this page and it's contents are all biased toward God the creator. Due to variations in personal beliefs, you may or may not see any value in the information"

The only value I see is entertainment value. These people need to be given a sound lesson in what the word "proof" actually means. I have no objection to people holding what might be consider irrational beliefs by others (some of mine are pretty irrational to say the least!), but I really do object to their misuse of intellectual tools. Oh, and what he presents is only "information" in the strictly information theoretical sense - a string of bits. (My, I feel better after that.)

I just typed "eclectricity" - is this some new kind of force for good in the world? Is this what powers weblogs? Aaargh - I just googled the word and you get 28 hits and there is even a .org. This one is a typo (like mine) but is a bit of a hoot anyway. Schulte.org is just plain strange.

Yukio Mishima cybermuseum (via gmtPlus9) - Mishima was a very confused man and I won't say any more than that.

I like this page on "Electronic Pearl Harbor" and its scaremongers. (via /.)

The Gravis Joystick Screwdriver Home Page - what can I say about this that it doesn;t say itself? (via LystWorthy)

Couldn't sleep last night.

6 October 1999

Read the two reviews of this book for a differing set of opinions.

This is scary (via rc3)

"You prove yours and we'll prove ours," he said. "In the end it comes down to who do you trust. We know who wrote the Bible. Now compare him to whoever wrote this or that scientific paper."

And this is supposed to be logical thought? (And it's whom do you trust anyway!) Oh, and the guy who said this is a professional chemical engineer. Pass that bucket of uranium please.

I can sing the song, but I have no idea what it is called or what it is about! (I think the word Yamabuki appears in the title so it may be a company song of some kind)

Yasale Izumi - home dietary consultant.

"Although we have advertised our service, we do not compel you to take our advice. On the countrary we do not always accept your request. Please understand that when you enquire, if Mr Izumi says "No" it will not be possible for you to consult with Mr Izumi, even if you pay a million yen."

Kobe commercial high school - much better than the run of the mill school pages you see around.

±Ñ²ñÏà ¤·¤Þ¤·¤ç¤¦¡ª! ÆüËܸ줷¤Þ¤·¤ç¤¦¡ª (I'm working on my "sorry, English only" line for this page. If I'm not mistaken (bwaahahaha) this says Let's speak English! Let's speak Japanese! Of course if you don't have any J-fonts installed all you'll see is gibberish.)

Webloogers take the pith...(via RobotWisdom) A lot of assumptions here - young? offbeat? Of course us webloggers don't like to categorise, or, hang on, maybe we do. Shut up and eat lunch Lindsay.

I just passed a sign advertising a talk on "Large-scale Explosive Pipe testing".

Jen also pointed me to Entity which looks very interesting - its a pity that it uses perl which is the programming language I most detest in the whole world (no flames please).

Thanks to Jen for the link on the history of Silly Wizard. I had some guitar lessons from Bob Thomas and used to know Gordon Jones when he worked in a record shop in St Stephen's Street in Edinburgh.

The report of the Paddington traincrash in the Guardian had a very poignant image of mobile phones ringing in the wreckage after all the survivors had been taken out.

By popular demand (well two people), the underlines return. I don't see them anyway so it doesn't matter to me.

5 October 1999

I have specicifically styled this page so that links are not underlined - I've always had underlines turned off anyway as I hate them. Now you have too - if it causes you a problem let me know.

Pink Pineapple (but not on pizza) Or Black Package if you prefer. Isn't it nice that so many Japanese pages apologise for being in Japanese only - how many English pages have you seen that do something similar?

Dan says I should like Sam Sloan's homepage, hmm, not sure - it does have a high weirdness factor, but it's weird weirdness. Seriously weird weirdness.

Fantastic - the Hiragana Times. This lets you practise reading Japanese whilst you are still learning Kanji. It even lets you adjust the page for different levels of Kanji ability. So useful! Hmm, Netscape won't do Japanese in forms properly.

The best 100 waterfalls in Japan. Pretty pictures.

Erik's Chopstick Gallery. Some lovely ones too.

Lenin's Notes of a Publicist.

Taka's Rules is (are?) strange. There are some nice Lomo shots here though.

Thanks to the View from Here for the pointer to Yobs - very true.

I just found another set of Book Reviews hanging off Screenshot. Amanda has several book related pages and her book resource list is v. useful (though she doesn't have a section for personal book lists etc.)

A useful of explanation of Modes in ABC format so you can print it out with musical examples.

I own one of these - the Sir Toby rather than the King John. Great instrument. I found the Fylde page via the South Shields Folk Club page. I went to look at the Ibanez page to see if they still make banjos. They don't seem to which is very sad as my Ibanez 5-string is simply fantastic. My Mandolin and Octave Mandola were made by Oakwood - also highly recommended. (The pictures aren't my actual instruments of course)

Hmm, slow again today - lots of recycled links around. I was listening to Andy M Stewart singing Rambling Rover in the car this morning - this is a bizarre transcription of the words: "When barkin was no pleasure" - should be parting!! And they cant spell bollockitis either.

4 October 1999

Someone just Asked Jeeves for "Lindsay Marshall's Weblog" - how surprising!

Who on earth is Georgie Hayes and why would I want to rent a flat in Milton keynes via his website?

I just saw a new edition of Alice with illustrations by Helen Oxenbury  UK  USA . If you are buying someone a copy of Alice (and everyone should own a copy of Alice) then seriously think about this one. The illustrations are fantastic and numerous. They are modern, yet there is a tinge of homage to Tenniel in there. Fantastic. I was actually out looking for the new William Gibson All Tomorrow's Parties  UK  USA , but it isn't in yet, so I'm trying to get a signed copy just for the hell of it. (He's in London today signing I at Forbidden Planet I gather, and Forbidden Planet still don't have a webpage that I can find.)

List of Saints of the Church of Reality.

Miriam Joan Hill and Robert Anton Wilson's Encyclopedia of Conspiracies Home Page. Which took me to these Lost Elvis Diaries. pages

Need a job in Finland? Here's the Ministry of Labour homepage. (I told you it was a slow day!)

Mars weirdness. Some very strange and highly deluded stuff here. I wonder what these folks would make of aerial photos of the Arizona desert if they didn't know all those rock formations were entirely natural? I suppose it's like all those people who see images of Jesus or writing in aubergines.

Slow day on the web - nothing there at all. (Well, you know what I mean) This weekend I put compost on my asparagus bed and spent a lot of time wondering how a nuclear installation could employ people who thought it was safe to carry uranium in a bucket. The assumption has to be that this has happened on a regular basis but nothing has gone wrong before. Which puts me in mind of a URL I saw in the press over the weekend - Creation Day8.com. Europe's first independent renewable electricity producer and supplier. At least they are honest about their prices etc., but I bet there are people out there who think that if they sign up they actually get electricity that was generated from one of Unite's plants! Probably the same people who carry uranium in buckets.

1 October 1999

Purdue Online Writing Lab. Even more loads of that good stuff.

Mindtools - helping you live an excellent life! Warning: Edward de Bono influenced site, watch out for bullshit.

Page on avoiding gender bias in pronouns. Sound advice.The page is part of The Write Place and there is other useful material here.

Thought: I wonder if there are Japanese weblogs that point to lots of western sites? I found a diary anyway.

Japanese lessons at japanese-online and also here. (Two of many in fact) This is another excellent site - lots of applets and stuff that are actually useful - the stroke order movies for characters are great. Another writing tutor - also good.

I finally got Imagineradio to (sort of) work for me. I looked at their folk section. They have a bizarre idea of what constitutes folk music!!

Thing's you cant find on the Internet: Cuddy's Cave - one of my favourite cheeses.

The current Need To Know grayday page contains much that is true. In fact, it's all true!

Today, Judith has an item about someone writing in a notebook on the subway - for some reason I find it most disturbing.

My friend Keith just got back from spending a month in Cuba.

I got a bogus "award" from StudyWeb because they link to one of my pages. However, that being said, the site, which is a collection of classfied links with descriptions, is rather good. For example, I found the Mudcat Cafe Blues Museum, and this Blues harp page with its harmonica museum. There is a ton of stuff here and its well worth exploring - I might even pin up that award.

30 September 1999

The Association of Internet Researchers. No commentary as yet as I haven't quite worked out what it is all about. The site is horrendously slow from here. Seems to be just a mailing list at the moment.

Hadn't come across Archipelago before. (This is not the Archipelago which is a journal webring.)

Not much today as I have been playing with a new look (that comes of reading design books!) - not ready for comments yet though.

I was going to put a link in to the Programmer's Stone that everyone else is mentioning, but I'll wait till I have read it and decided if it is worth it!

Jen points me to this. I want one, though it is probably too bulky and unwieldy, but it has tweezers and mine doesn't.

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