Volume 41
27 Nov 2002
26 Nov 2002
New Party for Britain (.org), apart from the really bad name, these guys are clearly right-wing nutters. Note the keywords like "Well ordered society" and "progressive policies". Why do rightists always think they are progressive?
24 Nov 2002
23 Nov 2002
I was going to join the "webloggers over forty" webring, until I read the terms and conditions for signing up to it. Ridiculous. I wonder if there is such a ring elsewhere without the ludicrous legal (possibly) crap? Not that I am a sheep looking for a flock. Definitely not. What would make you think that?
Oooh, a Martin Millar website (via Wibbly weblog) - I like Martin Millar and there are a couple of books mentioned here I didn't know about.
22 Nov 2002
21 Nov 2002
20 Nov 2002
19 Nov 2002
Hoax photo test - I got 9/10 (and really should have got 10, but persuaded myself out of a correct answer)
Hmmm, nobody seems to have setup www.myfirstweblog.com
RIP James Coburn
18 Nov 2002
16 Nov 2002
Went to see Phil Cunningham and Ali Bain last night - as good as always (bound to be, they keep playing the same tunes and telling the same jokes...)
15 Nov 2002
A Photographic History of Michael Jackson's Face With blithering, yet witty commentary - I may have linked to this before, but there are some recent pictures at the end. Scary stuff.
The 1901 census is back on-line but it is still entirely unusable. It would be easier to train monkeys to read the records!
14 Nov 2002
13 Nov 2002
Did BBC Radio Newcastle again this PM - 15 minutes of websites. Quite the little media tart, me.
Some Hawk in the USA says that Europe lacks moral fibre - I suspect he wouldn't know moral fibre if his underwear was woven from it!
I had a play with the beta of the new version of the Opera browser and was underwhelmed - they needto realise that what people want is speed and simplicity - all those flashy extras just get in the way and annoy people.
12 Nov 2002
Bullying Techniques for Catholic children part of the British Conservative Catholics website. Hmm, has this been around before I wonder - the semen detection cream sounds familiar!
11 Nov 2002
"A backbeat, narrow and hard to master" - what an astonishing line that is. As are the rest of the words in fact, but the actual musical arrangement is pretty silly in places which rather spoils an otherwise fabulous piece. (Yes, I've been listening to LA Woman)
*sigh* a bad night for typing URLs last night - all fixed now I hope.
10 Nov 2002
Pseudodictionary - the place where words you've made up can become part of an actual online dictionary!
There goes Tokyo - not sure what this is about, but I shall go and see them at Lime Street.
9 Nov 2002
Pop Cult Mag - the obsessive journal of quality pop culture. Wonderful stuff! Wonderful stuff!
I hust saw a sign for a show featuring "modern clowning". Theonly thing scarier than that would be post-modern clowning!
8 Nov 2002
I know that Distributed Proofreaders was on /., but it is really worth publicising as much as possible.
7 Nov 2002
Gil asks whether sleep is a little like defrag. I think it might be more like background compression with a touch of fsck....
6 Nov 2002
My daughter is doing exercises upstairs and the ceiling is rattling.
RIP Lonnie Donegan
I went to see Kimmo Pohjonen on Saturday night. He is a Finnish accordion player who plays unusual stuff. Unfortunately there was very little accordion in evidence in the pieces he played. The first piece - kluster - was with a sampler and was terribly self-indulgent - lots of mouth sounds, playing with echo machines and hitting the accordion. (If I were 30 years younger I would have probably thought it was amazing though - just the sort of thing that I would have wanted to do myself). The other piece - kalmuk - was played with 2 percussionists and a small orchestra (violins, bass, oboe/cor anglais, flute, clarinet, french horn and bassoon). This was much more successful and I really enjoyed this - the bassoon players were very rock 'n roll too.
5 Nov 2002
I've linked to Dr. Estrella's Incredibly Abridged Dictionary of Composers before, but Dr. E has added a couple of new sections - books and CDs - which are really rather good.
1 Nov 2002
Dumb Warnings (and what ad appeared at the top of the page? "Security Alert: Your Computer's Data is Currently at Risk" - one of the dumbest warnings I have ever come across)
31 Oct 2002
RIP Adolph Green
RIP Jam Master J
30 Oct 2002
29 Oct 2002
General Dennis J. Reimer Training and Doctrine Digital Library Does anyone else think that the General bears a resemblance to Mr Humphreys from Are you being served? I'm free!
Great Encrytpion - amazing gibberish. Some people simply won't learn about what makes good cryptography.
E-puja "It is a unique way of worshipping. It is an interactive presentation where the devotee can offer flowers, light the lamps, play the dhak, and do aarti."
Well, I'm back at work today, though I can't say that I feel much better than yesterday. The connectivity is better here though. I have a big backlog of links that people have sent me, so if you sent me something and it hasn't shown up, I may not have got to it yet!
27 Oct 2002
Magic Lineage Project or Geniiology - great resource for finding original sources of conjuring moves etc. Of course, it doesn't tell you how to do them.
Unhooked Stars "Science fiction yarns featuring strange futures, exotic romances, high technology and low comedy." (Not a lot of it though)
26 Oct 2002
Songee "Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, thrice Welcome to The Sanctuary of the Holy Breath, the home of Songee, the Energy of the Earth Mother and The Second Well Trust"
25 Oct 2002
24 Oct 2002
Still ill. Who the hell is John Leslie anyway? For all he is supposed to be some kind of senior television presenter, I have never heard of him. (And if you don't understand why I am asking, it really is of no importance)
23 Oct 2002
RIP Bashful Brother Oswald
Back from the galleys, but now I am sick....
18 Oct 2002
I'm off (on a narrowboat...) - back on Wednesday
17 Oct 2002
RIP Derek Bell
The Visual Thesaurus - Now with even more complexity! (And it still doesn't work properly for me....)
16 Oct 2002
"The founder of Reasons to Believe presents a rational Christian look at UFOs and extraterrestrials." Oxymoron alert! Genuine, 20 carat nonsense contained on this page!
15 Oct 2002
I was thinking about the difference between a web master and a webmaster last night.
Mel's Hole - a discussion forum about a supposed bottomless pit. The discussions (not the hole) are filled with ghastly spelling and worse grammar.
Xaphoon - the bamboo sax. I want one! I want one! I want one! It sounds great, but I can't really afford it. *sigh*
I'm sure you've all seen that sharpeworld is back and have checked out the Scopitone of the week.
lost in translation "through a glass darkly" comes back as "of the crystal incomprehensible"
14 Oct 2002
At home with sick kid today so probably no links today.
11 Oct 2002
10 Oct 2002
Well, now I am typing in this in the new office. Surrounded by piles of stuff that I have to sort out. *sigh* I have a whole shelf and a half of books with no home.
9 Oct 2002
I am moving office again today. My new office is the furthest away from a proper machine room that I have ever worked.
A weblog called Rivets - not bifurcated though. My Portuguese is not up to reading it though.
8 Oct 2002
7 Oct 2002
AntiJuve - you need more than my restaurant Italian to get the most out of this site, but suffice it to say that it is dedicated to showing that Juventus players get away with all kinds of rule breaking without being penalised.
5 Oct 2002
4 Oct 2002
3 Oct 2002
2 Oct 2002
The Sensitive New Age Cowpersons - they look as though the music be right up my street, but no samples anywhere, so I am reluctant to buy them on spec....
1 Oct 2002
(Well Europe and USA wide anyway - look at the Europe price and then the USA price and then think about why Bush is so keen to invade Iraq)
Don't go to hell "At first this sounded like the ravings of a lunatic or religious fanatic", and at second and third and any n + 1 for n >= 1.....
Cochrane library - ugh, it does browser specific stuff. WHy should I tell it what browser I have? (And if you tell it you have IE and you don't it flips the flag anyway so what is the point of asking?)
Ability Hub - useful info, but then products - surely there must be some free technology out there! (And if not, why not?)
OK, so the previous item wasn't exactly up to the minute news, but I hadn't heard about it.....
All Creatures "We are dedicated to cruelty-free living through a vegetarian - vegan lifestyle according to Judeo-Christian ethics. Unconditional love and compassion is the foundation of our peaceful means of accomplishing this goal for all of God's creatures, whether human or otherwise." A fine idea, though quite how they square Judeo-Christian ethics with veganism I am not sure.
30 Sep 2002
27 Sep 2002
23 Sep 2002
20 Sep 2002
Tommy Johnson - great bluesman. Read about the fight over putting a headstone on his grave.
A new MPhil student from China brought me some gifts including a lovely metal bookmark which has this on its package : "It's product with an expensive metal. Superh craftsmanship excelling nature. Walking in the sea of the book with you as a good partner and building a good life for you" I really love the idea of walking in the sea of the book!
19 Sep 2002
A warehouse of social deviance and cad consciousness - much weird stuff : Crowley, Osman Spare, Jack Parsons....you have been warned!
Updates will be sporadic for the next couple of weeks as I am teaching an intensive course as well as my normal modules....
18 Sep 2002
Not for the offendable, but this flash intro is so cheesy that it is hilarious. (You have to have sound on for the full effect)
17 Sep 2002
Hrithik Roshan - Bollywood star. He has a webbed double thumb on one hand. Imagine a Hollywood star with any kind of blemish!
Damn it, my doctor just wrote to us saying "we will no longer provide health care for anyone who lives in your area. bye bye". I am seething.
The only possible advantage that I can see with kids.us is that a lot of kids will learn some interesting computing skills in circumventing any blocks.
16 Sep 2002
15 Sep 2002
13 Sep 2002
Big list of alternate identity tests (e.g. I am a processor) **** Warning - there may be a trojan at this site, click at your own risk*****
Switch to crack and an Ellen Feiss fan site - I must to confess to having no idea at all who she is.
12 Sep 2002
Skulls Unlimited International Inc. - The World's Leading Supplier of Osteological Specimens
I have been playing around and I would suggest that the best URl to use for getting here is now http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/bifurcated/rivets/
11 Sep 2002
And when you have watched Brain Juice, find American Jedi....
Check out Brain Juice on this page. And then watch the Floetic video that you will find linked on the next screen - great SFX
Small World Research Project - I can't work out if this is the same experiment I heard of a while back or another one!
10 Sep 2002
Tensegrity seems to be used in two senses! One is a bizarre Carlos Castenada thing, and the other is a structuring concept which Buckminster Fuller was connected with (though it seems that it was one of his students, kenneth Snelson, who really did the stuff). The structuring stuff is rather spiffy.
An 11th September memorial - this is the kind of thing I cannot make my mind up about. One part of me says that it is entirely pointless (and in fact some people may be offended at the names being put on an overtly christian object and context) and another applauds the sheer dedication. I wonder how they feel about it all now, after a year has passed and all the work that it has taken to put together?
The Movie Version of The Lord of the Rings - this is entirely brilliant. Best thing I have seen for ages.
Did the zoo format news roundtable on BBC Radio Newcastle this morning which was fun.
9 Sep 2002
6 Sep 2002
The Utah Baby Namer - An online help for parents looking for that distinctive name that says "I'm a Utah Mormon!"
Steel Radio just played a song called "I'd rather see you fat and happy than see you skinny and sad"
A Savage Plan for a Gentle America: New York Mean Time. Some nutter will take this seriously I bet.
5 Sep 2002
A Polish tongue twister: "W Szczebrzeszynie chrzascz brzmi w trzcinie"
George Bush is the Anti-christ - in fact it is quite clear from the "EVIDENCE" that he isn't since the Anti-christ would nOT make it so blatantly obvious!!!