Mat Bowles

GIP* for @Paul0Evans1 / paulevans

matbowles@gmail.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:53:12 GMT

[*]Gratuitous Icon Post

The t-shirt is in the wash, but the text on the picture is accurate and answers his question.

Copy of this post on Dreamwidth, where there are comments I'd prefer it if you comment there if you are able to keep the discussion together.

clickbzzzz*reboot from start...

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:51:47 GMT

Apparently, if I stop posting here, people will start ringing me to check I'm ok, or wondering what I'm up to, or other similar things. This is especially true if I just, y'know, stop writing stuff and stop commenting elsewhere.

Well, I did. It started as a weekend break from t'internet in which I didn't even look at my email, then it turned into a few months where I simply scanned my email for important stuff, occasionally checked into Twitter, but otherwise didn't read any of my reading, friends or feed pages and simply turned off. Honestly? It's been good.

So, what have I been doing instead? Well, making money definitely wasn't one of them. Ah well, that'll have to start changing. What I have been doing is enjoying life in many respects.

Learnt how to bake and cook

I've learnt, not just how to bake (which is quite easy), but also how to actually, y'know, properly cook. I am no longer scared by a recipe that requires I chop an onion. I know what a vichyssoise is (but not how to spell it), and have even made one. My carrot, cream and orange soup, adapted from Mary Berry's recipe, is quite simply gorgeous, and I successfully made baguettes yesterday.

I've been helping miss_s_b in the garden, in which we have potatoes, beetroot, oregano and even scented geraniums growing well. The newly planted garlic is already sprouting, so that'll be nice for next year.

Biggest bestest cake in the world

I've been spending time with amazing_holly, reading, playing games, cooking and having fun. I managed to get her to teach herself the basics of multiplication and division while baking a cake. I even, as a reward for her for sticking with learning to be good enough at Speed Racer to actually beat Mummy in a championship cooked, with her, the biggest bestest cake that Mister Mat has ever made! which has, somehow, now become the biggest bestest cake in the world. Well, she is 6. It was fun making it though, even if it was so big it had gone dry before we finished it.

But also? I've been playing games. A lot of games. For this you can mostly blame liadnan. Y'see, awhileback I had a catastrophic OS failure involving a critical Fx vulnerability and a dodgy porn site, and we gave up on fixing Windows and switched to Ubuntu for the main desktop. I had some problems getting a few things to work, and he pointed me at the wonder that is the world of Linux repositories. So I installed some, to see what I could find.

Open source, extendable games

Mostly, I found games. Open Source, extendable, games. Based on some wonderful classics like Elite, Civilisation, Sin City and similar. I will, I hope, write up the ones I enjoyed, just so I can have a record of them. I may even write up the ones I hated, to remind me not to install them again. In the meantime, I'm back. I've been reading, and even commenting on, most of my reading pages, and plan to completely reorganise them to keep my sanity in place.

In the meantime, enough about me, what've you guys been up to, have I missed much?

Copy of this post on Dreamwidth, where there are comments I'd prefer it if you comment there if you are able to keep the discussion together.

Links, pics, silliness and stuff

matbowles@gmail.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:34:13 GMT

K, looks like I kinda forgot to update for awhile. Oops. You know what that means right? A backlog of silly, informative, thinkworthy or merely funny links. In no particular order:

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite". Sounds fun to me. Street View solves Dutch mugging. See? Useful. Random chance, but still useful.

Next up, researchers do study that finds obvious finding. Except it's not obvious, because if it were, you wouldn't still have idiot politicians the world over trying to pretend the exact opposite is true :-( Professor Kelly Musick and Dr Ann Meier of Cornell University have carried out a study of children whose parents stay together for the sake of the kids: ( more explanation with longer quote ) What matters is the quality of the parenting and the attitude they inculcate to opportunity, not whether they pretend to be happy for the kids sake.

Neologism of the Day—Huxleyed:

To have died with a degree of fame or notoriety that would have guaranteed extensive media coverage, save for the death of someone even more famous or notorious immediately afterwards. From Aldous Huxley, who died an hour before President Kennedy was assassinated. Usage: "Farrah Fawcett was completely Huxleyed by Michael Jackson."

And on that subject, this comic is particularly apposite:
( 'A famous person has died, we go live to somewhere tangentially related' )

One of my favourite authors is, as many of you know, Charles Stross, also known as autopope, he's up for the Hugos, again, this year, and has been writing an auto-biographical series of blog posts for the last week or so that I've been meaning to link to as they are, frankly, quite funny, and also count as a nice little rundown of the history of how the web came to be—you can blame the need for a robots.txt file on him, and his time working for a Demon subcontractor where part of my official job description was to keep Danny the tomcat from pissing on the modem rack is also amusing.

This is really cool to know, assuming that they're on the button: All of Earth's people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. Unlike in many other species, we have multiple possible mutations that could make us, for example, short, and populations famous for small stature, like pygmies, simply have a large number of them instead of one specific key change. Same applies to things like the ability to tolerate cows milk.

Now, simple little question, how many colours are there in the following pattern (via):
( Spiral image pattern with clever optical illusion )
Yup, that's right, there are ( look at the image first damnit! ) colours there, funny how our mind tricks us by filling in assumed blanks, full explanation at Bad Astronomy.

Not sure about this one: science explains why Yorkshiremen like pies so much. Um, I like pies, and I only moved up here 18 months ago (SRSLY, a whole 18 months). Shame that decent non-meat pies are a pain to get hold of. Still, really happy about this one: Alastair Reynolds scores unprecedented 10-year, 10-book deal from Gollancz for his 'mean line in alien cultures and technology'. Completely different writing style to Charlie, but one I also really like, and it's nice to see grand sweeping plots with a background that seems to make sense. In 'so obvious now you think of it' mode, I concur with rhodri, I really hope that the designer of The folding plug makes lots and lots of money, especially the multi-plug adapter design. I wants them I does...

Slightly more seriously, denise got interviewed for American NPR, and it's another case of stating the obvious until people listen—social networks that try to make money from ad revenue are going to be in trouble, much better to provide a service people actually want (in DW's case, damn fine blog hosting with a good feed aggregation service bolted on) and charge users for it in some way. By the way, no link for this one, Livejournal is soon going to allow people to host their own adverts on a revenue-sharing model; I personally have less of a problem with this than the way they're plastered all over the dormant basic accounts now, but some of you might like to know...

On the subject of blogging, one of its principle strengths has always been what's called "the long tail"—( defined )this tail is getting a lot shorter. Charles Arthur at The Guardian explains why. ( I mostly agree )

Back to silliness. The US economy was too reliant on crap made by General Motors. Have a look at this: Ten Vehicles That Bankrupted GM. Seriously, these things sold? Ouch.

Now, it can't have escaped the notice of most of you that have met me that my wardrobe is, shall we say, a little bit monochrome. susannah_banana claims I'm not a goth because I'm not goth enough. She's one of the DJs at one of the top goth nights in the UK, but she's wrong, here's why: About Goth [stereo] Types - All Types. I am #19, and I claim my £5. (created by sinju, a now defunct journal that was very very cool while she was still documenting her time in Japan).

WANT

More sciency stuff: Flourescent lightbulbs are not the saviour they're being sold as and incandescents have still got some light in them yet. Personally, I can't stand reading by the horribly light they output (we use candles by the bed) and they set of my photic sneeze reflex something chronic.

BASTARDS

One of the best uses of animation within a webcomic I've seen, very cleverly done.

Royal British Legion to Nick Griffin ~~MEP~~, leader of the BNP: Stop it, Mr Griffin. Just stop it. First rule of politics: don't piss off the veterans association.

OK, that's loads. I've cut the images and longer explanations, but left the rest open for easy clicking—if I do a post this long again is that still the best plan?
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Apes aren't monkeys damnit!

matbowles@gmail.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:28:48 GMT

Dear BBC.

You've just assaulted my eardrums with some music—in a news report on Radio 4, a radio station which has as a selling point a lack of music.

In it, the reporter revealed, once again, a complete lack of basic understanding. Chimpanzees are APES, not MONKEYS. Please send your reporters on a refresher course. I'm sure this little guy is upset enough, you don't need to insult him as well.

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Brain fried—send aircon

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:30:42 GMT

Those of you enjoying this supposedly "glorious" weather? Spare a thought for those of us that just cannot function in this heat. At all.

Notwithstanding the photic sneeze reflex making going outside (and even driving) a little annoying, the massively high risk of skin cancer groups I'm in from both sides of my family, my brain just seizes up when it's this hot.

I moved to the North to get away from this sort of weather damnit!

I have 7 tabs open for a post about the elections coming up on Thursday. It would be a glorious, erudite marvel of exposition explaining the system, the policies, the psephology and possibly, y'know, some options (as well as a withering critique of the godawful system Labour forced on us for counting votes)^[1]. But I can't. Have a YouTube vid about why the EU Parliament is REALLY IMPORTANT, Andrew's post about UKIP racism, a Guardian article by the Lay Scientist about the anti-science policies of the Greens (I know not all Greens are anti-science, but that's the policy platform and we have to vote for parties in this one) and finally a link to the guy who got me to take blogging seriously, this one on the whole X% of our laws come from Brussels lies that UKIP peddle with no substance whatsoever. Reading the rest of his recent posts is probably a plan.

Coherence might happen tomorrow, if I a) get some sleep and b) have a good brain day.

In the meantime, if you're registered to vote in London and haven't decided yet, it's possibly the only region where a specific vote can be fore a specific person and get that person elected. Jonathan Fryer only just missed scraping in on 2nd quota in 2004. Jonathan's a top bloke, I met him several times while in London, he bought me beer and is bloody sound on the issues. I don't live in London anymore, but he's so close to scraping in, if you're not sure, etc, vote for him? In the rest of the country? Party lists, so look at the manifestos, use one of the votematch survey thingies, and just go vote. It really does actually matter.

Sorry, I said my brain was fried, right?

In the meantime, miss_s_b dragged me to B&Q today so she could buy more plant pots and stuff to put in them. We got more basil, rocket, oregano and other useful stuff. She also bought a chilli plant. It's a chilli that'll burn your mouth off at 50 paces. It's sat next to her at her computer desk as it needs to be brought in at night.

She's called it George.

I'm doomed.

[1]Honest, it would be.

Baking suggestions: What should I cook?

matbowles@gmail.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:48:02 GMT

OK, miss_s_b cooked us a lovely veggie cottage pie this evening, with cheap garlic bread using a baguette from Tesco's bargain bin.

So I need to cook pudding after Shrub's gone to bed. I've done loads of steam puddings recently, as well as cookies, muffins, biscuits and bread variants (recipes might get posted on request, I still have the bread recipe in drafts somewhere). So...

Any suggestions?

Preferably not involving nuts (because I'm allergic) or chocolate (as Jennie's allergic). Stuff involving syrup or jam is an added bonus but not essential.

Europe, books, maps and snails—MOAR linkspam

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:48:18 GMT

A nice little mix of stuff in this lot, though the politics averse amongst you should be warned that with elections next week there's a fair bit on that, though not much of it is serious.

A quick guide to the British voting system for the EU elections | Nosemonkey's EUtopia

There are elections next week across the UK. In Britain, the votes are counted using the D'Hondt closed list PR system. This is one of the few electoral systems I've encountered I consider to be worse than the one we use for Westminster, when you get critics attacking "PR", they're having a go at this pile of arse, which no one sane suggests for Westminster (and Labour had to force through the Lords after a lot of opposition). If you're not sure who to vote for, and don't want to spend too much time thinking about it, go out and vote either Lib Dem or Green; there's a small chance the BNP could win a seat in the North West. Giving Nick Griffin a tax funded salary and the ability to hire a bunch of staff just doesn't appeal. It's unlikely he'll get in, but it could happen. So just go vote, please? Even if the system is arse, the EU parliament does actually have power these days, even if it's not as much as would be liked.

(tags: elections europe eu BNP electoral+reform d'hondt)
Self destructing product catalogue

Not a bad bit of viral marketing this: what happens when the stuff on the display screen starts falling over. A nicely animated product catalogue as it slowly blows itself up.

(tags: humour funny flash marketing)
Blogging in the 19th Century: The Future of Journalism | The Lay Scientist

I pretty much agree with this. Most of us writing our own personal blogs and journals are copying the old small press pamphleteers and chain letter writers. We're just doing it with better technology. Most of the established newspapers grew out of various small presses—the biggest blogs online now have copied this model, bringing in lots of individuals to create a more coherent whole.

(tags: blogging journalism pampleteering campaigning)
Jon Worth » Some wacky ways to improve the EU

Some of them really are a bit daft, yes, but still worth thinking about. What the antis always seem to miss is that most supporters of EU membership also constantly argue for reform of the system. That it's a bit crap isn't disputed, how to improve it is. Bit like everything else in life really.

(tags: EU europe politics reform)
UKIP's "Britain paying the EU £40 million a day" claim vs the REAL costs of UK EU membership | Nosemonkey's EUtopia

A UKIP campaign slogan that doesn't make sense and is based on unfounded and uncosted hyperbole? really? Never would've guessed.

(tags: UKIP Europe EU elections misinformation)
Spawning A Campaign - diffrentcolours

There are Euro elections due. One of the issues the EU legislates on is software patents, the Free Software Foundation thinks we should ask the candidates their views on this. Makes sense to me, go do it...

(tags: software patents freedom europe EU elections)
Annals of Innovation: How David Beats Goliath: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

The underdog can always win if enough effort is put in. Being able to put that effort in is the main barrier. Does this apply to any walk of life, if at all?

(tags: activism sport inspiration psychology)
The Cute Cat Theory Talk at ETech » My heart's in Accra

Makes sense to me: a successful web technology will have cute cats, porn and activism. If it doesn't have a mix of the three, something isn't working right.

(tags: cats theory internet activism web2.0)
386 - My Kingdom for a Beer? Heineken's Eurotopia « Strange Maps

This, however, is one of the crazier ideas for solving the EU governance issue—when the paranoid fringes talk about 'plots to break up Britain'? This is the sort of thing they're referring to. But, y'know, interesting idea, even if he does make godawful beer.

(tags: europe EU maps)
105 — The Tory Atlas of the World — Strange Maps

Apparently from a Spitting Image annual from the mid 80s. It's really quite funny and rather accurate. Note to those supporting Cameron's modern Conservative party (or even those that can remember Major). Yes, Thatcher's Tories really were like this. Some of them still are. That the majority of MPs after the next General Election will be 'untainted' by this association doesn't mean those of us that can remember will trust them.

(tags: funny maps tories politics Thatcher)
The perils of an identity system - The Web of Evil

If your identity has been used by a fraudster, and you're required to log all your movements, the authorities will keep trying to arrest you. And a national mandatory identity scheme WILL get cracked by a fraudster almost instantaneously. WebOfEvil shares a personal anecdote

(tags: NIR ID+cards identity)
Warner Music to Warner Music: You are pirates! - Boing Boing

Dear Warner. Getting YouTube to remove your subsidiaries officially posted music vids because they infringe your copyright means that people won't see your videos. You know, the ones you paid for to advertise your product? Is there a chance that, at some time soon, the recording industry will grow up and get a clue?

(tags: dmca video youtube warner stupidity)
Would be Bond villain seeks femme fatale - m4w

Paging George! This bloke seems perfect for you girl...

(tags: funny ads personals supervillains)
Kid keeping a lending library of banned books in his her locker - Boing Boing

Heh—banning books from teens makes them more likely to want to read them. So a kid running a library of banned books is encouraging her schoolfriends to read more. Cool

(tags: books subversion censorship)
How Ursula K Le Guin led a generation away from realism | Books | guardian.co.uk

I never did understand the whole "he'll grow out of it" approach to my liking of SF and fantasy when I was a teen, why would I WANT to grow out of it? Just because I like Asimov and Stross doesn't mean I can't appreciate Nabokov (who wrote some SF anyway) or the likes, just as liking Therapy doesn't prevent me also liking Dvorak or Gershwin. Silly elitist snobs. Still, at least we're winning...

(tags: writing culture fantasy sf books)
Hoversnail goes WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRVOOM.

Really. It's a hoversnail. It's cool. Go look.

(tags: funny pictures)

Also posted to DW with comments open, linkspams don't crosspost easily due to limitations at Delicious.

Why I grew up hating Tories—Sir Anthony Steen

matbowles@gmail.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:17:02 GMT

Ever thought about the influence geography has on the way you vote? You probably ought to, it's had a massive effect on me. Y'see, I grew up in the 80s and did my GCSEs and A Levels in the 90s. that's under Thatcher and Major. But that's not the main reason I distrust the Conservative party, nor the main reason I hate the Tories^[1]. That can be explained by a very simple statement.

Anthony Steen was my MP. He's still the MP for my parents, both surviving grandparents, two aunts and four cousins. Yes, that Anthony Steen. For a very very simple reason to hate the git^[2], have a listen to this^[3]:
( BBC flash embed of the audio of the interview. I can listen to this again and again and again, it makes me happy )
I've met him. He visited my school a few times when I was a kid, and I met him subsequently. He really is like that. That interview has effectively ended his fairly undistinguished career. The great shame is that he's been forced out, because despite him representing one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, his behaviour since re-election in 2005 has been, well, interesting, and I reckon he'd have lost without the most recent revelations. Here are some highlights:
( A summary list of some of the more egregious idiocies he's managed )

So, there you go. Due to the nature of the first-past-the-post electoral system, if you have a git like that as your MP, if you want to get rid of him, you have to vote for the candidate most likely to beat him. If you get used to voting for that party time and time again because they're the best chance of beating the incumbent git, many people begin to consider themselves supporters specifically of that party.

In 1997, I voted in my first General Election, and specifically voted against Steen. It was a vote for the Lib Dem candidate, but also broadly a vote to get the bastard Tories out and replace them with Blair. I often wonder what, if any, my partisan allegiance would be if I grew up in a part of the world where the Lib Dems were a distant third and Labour were challenging the Tories. Let alone if I'd grown up in a safe Labour area where the Tories had no chance.

One of the stupidities of the UK system is that where you live matters a lot more than who you support. I think it's about time we changed that, how about you?

( Footnotes )

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Family, donchajustlovem?

matbowles@gmail.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:58:34 GMT

So, today was the 2nd annual visit of the parents. They do a lot of weekends away, spent last weekend in Cheshire at an event and have an event next weekend in North Yorkshire, so they come to visit us today and tomorrow.

So we have an attack of planned vs actual.

Planned: Parents turn up mid to late afternoon, as discussed as per last year. If they arrive early enough, we might go over the hills to Holmfirth where they film Last of the Summer Wine, which I grew up watching with them, and it's local.

Actual: Text message from Mum at 12.15 saying they're driving through Holmfirth now and will be with us in about 45 minutes. I know how far Holmfirth is from here. We've got half an hour.

Problem: We're both knackered. Really really knackered, SB did a long shift yesterday and neither of us could sleep last night. So after getting amazing_holly to school, we'd both gone back to bed, and fallen asleep. The SMS woke us both up.

I haven't finished tidying the living room yet. Worse, Mum announces in the text that the "we might, possibly, if we can fit it in" plan to maybe bring up my freezer from storage in their garage has actually happened, and they'd like to unload it on arrival. So I need to clear the cellar as well.

Objective achieved, and stairs vaguely finished being hoovered (not that you'd notice) as they started knocking on t'door.

Plan: Go into town for a snack lunch, then see about doing something else, possibly Holmfirth or elsewhere in the area.

Actual: We went to The Old Ship, took our time going over the menu, then got to the bar to order just after Katie took 3 different food orders, and it was only Mark in the kitchen. Ah well, it's a nice place anyway.

Problem: Mum misread the menu a bit. Y'see, when she saw the prices, she assumed the portions must be really small, so ordered a side order of chips and a cheese board as well as the meals we each ordered. Of course, they weren't really small.

We're in Yorkshire, the Ship is considered fairly expensive by local standards (and worth every penny when we can afford it, they're both damn fine cooks). So there was a mass of food, and we couldn't finish it. Yup, those reading this that know SB may find this hard to believe, but there was food left when Mark cleared the table.

So we finished eating at about 3.30pm. Holly finishes choir at 3.45pm. So we trot off up the hill to collect her, then arrange to meet again later at the restaurant for evening meal.

Planned: Go to Street for their buffet all-you-can eat Pakistani food. Two reasons 1) they're open on Mondays, which, confusingly, is unusual up here and 2) the food is damn good.

Actual: We do actually go. But we're all feeling absolutely podged from lunch. So, despite it being all you can eat, we manage to not eat very much. But what we do eat? Damn good, even my spice-averse palette can handle a lot of their stuff.

Problem: There wasn't one, it was good. Well, except that my body is now in rebellion because I've had two oversize meals in one day and not much exercise.

Tomorrow? We might go to Holmfirth. We might go to Wakefield for the National Sculpture Park (if only just to annoy Germaine "call me Professor" Greer). Don't know yet. I do know it requires us meeting my parents and the ungodly early hour of 10am. Wish us luck.

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Linkspam for 14-5-2009

matbowles@gmail.com — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:46:17 GMT

Neil Gaiman's Journal: Entitlement issues...

The shorter Neil: George R.R. Martin is not your bitch. I still don't get why people can't understand that authors and other creative types don't have on/off switches. I wan the next book too, but I want it to be good, and released when it's ready. In the meantime, I have a whole library full of other books to read.

(tags: writing neil+gaiman george+rr+martin entitlement)
Stumbling and Mumbling: Immigration & GDP

Oh look, something else we already knew but have to keep repeating because people refuse to believe it. Immigration makes us better off. All of us.

(tags: immigration economics freedom)
Stumbling and Mumbling: MPs' pay in historic context

Chris has a historical analysis of MPs pay compared to the average. Does show that they've been going down, comparatively, since the early 80sâ”strangely, allowances have been going up since then, can't think why. Oh, wait, it was a fiddle created by Thatcher to keep the troop in line but keep the headline salary low. That worked REALLY well didn't it? Can we scrap the stupid allowances scheme, reduce the number of MPs, abolish safe seats and give the replacement lot we elect fairly a decent salary so that there're less absolute numpties and careerist arseholes please?

(tags: parliament economics MPs)
Is There Anything Good About Men? - Roy F. Baumeister

Interesting talk on how society exploits both men and women, but traditionally in different ways. In many ways it similar in analysis (if not conclusion) to the feminist patriarchy critique, and definitely worth a read as a good contribution to the debate.

(tags: equality feminism gender men patriarchy makes+you+think)
One Div Zero: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages

Does exactly what it says on the tin. And is probably more accurate than my actual real knowledge.

(tags: humour history language software)
Pasty wars flare after Devon wins 'Cornish pasty' prize | Metro.co.uk

Of course, the Cornish aren't too happy about this. But then, the Cornish never seem to be happy about anything.

(tags: pasties pies devon silly)
British Pie Awards : winners

On the subject of the best things coming from Devon, this does of course include pasties. (USiansâ”that's a type of pastry pie, not a silly thing moralists make strippers wear, the A is soft, paaasteee). The British Pie Awards says the best Cornish Pasties are made in Devon. And everyone knows the recipe comes from there anyway.

(tags: pasties pies devon awards silly)
2D Goggles » Lovelace - The Origin

The (true?) story of how Ada Lovelace became the worlds first superhero crime fighter. Or something. It's cool. And silly. Computers. Invented in Devon. Like all the best things.

(tags: computers ada+lovelace charles+babbage)
Time to safeguard public service broadcasting - Common Endeavour

Paulie suggests that ISPs should contribute money to content creators out of the money they make selling us connections and similar. Not sure I agree with him, but it's an interesting argument. Much prefer it to the special pleading and subsidy requests some of them are doing at the moment.

(tags: media newspapers funding ideas ISPs)
Ariane Sherine: If fish do feel pain, should we stop eating them?

Have I mentioned how much I dislike terrible puns? I have? Well, I'll mention it again. Ariane is gorgeous, funny, and smart. But this is one of the biggest collection of terrible fish based puns ever. Even if she is, on balance, having ago at those annoying pescetarians

(tags: pescetarians puns ariane+sherine food)
Interesting Moments - You'll Love these Photos

Well, you will if you like a lot of pics of animals either being cute or in strange poses. I especially like the MeerCat, while SB preferred the snake & robin.

(tags: photos animals cute)
Ironic Sans: Thsrs - The Shorter Thesaurus

It's a Thesaurus that only throws up shorter synonyms. Useful if a) you use Twitter/SMS a lot or b) you're a verbose git. Like me. Works in the Firefox search box as well, which is nice.

(tags: thesaurus twitter wordplay geekery)
TVSciFi - The Q Asks the The Last Surviving Star Trek Red Shirts

TVSciFi attends a Red Shirt convention. It's utterly daft, but amusingly so.

(tags: Star+Trek humour)
Great Liberal Speeches: George Tierney on sacrificing the constitution on the altar of public security | Mark Pack

The good Dr Pack demonstrates that I'm nowhere near the biggest hostiry geek in online Lib Demmery witha pretty good analysis of this classic speech. This REALLY OLD classic speech. Surprising how much it still resonates really, still, those who refuse to learn the lessons and all that...

(tags: speeches history freedom security George+Tierney)
99.873% of statistics are made up « Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

Andrew makes the point about the damage that can be done to YOUR cause if you, or people on your side, make things up or inflate statistics. One I completely agree with

(tags: research statistics campaigning)
Race for Life - Sisters in Harmony Fundraising Page

My (future) mother-in-law is doing a charity run with a friend. She'd appreciate donations. I appreciate a happy mother-in-law. I'm sure you understand, right?

(tags: charity family cancer)

Star Trek and the Small Person

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:55:29 GMT

I knew, when I moved in with miss_s_b, that I was moving in with a massive SF geek. What I didn't realise at the time was the extent that I was moving in with two SF geeks, one of whom was 4 and will be 6 next month.

Today, we took her to see her first film in the cinema. Given she's watched every single episode of TOS and has the Animated Series in her pile of favourite DVDs, the choice was obvious and we figured there was a good chance she'd enjoy it.

We were slightly worried, as it's certificate 12A, which means kids only with an adult, but I did look it up on the rating site and the reasons given made it look like it was fine for her. It was—she had to hold Mummy's hands a few times and give her a hug when Mummy got upset and emotional, but, y'know, what are 5-year-olds for if not to look after their big soppy mother?

I'll spare you the acclamatory review. The casting was excellent, the characters were played perfectly, the whole establishment of the parallel universe thing was cool, the science was suitable crap and full of PSB, they made up at least two impossible plot devices, and I didn't want to kill Simon Pegg. Nimoy was cool, the girl playing Uhura was gorgeous (#29), and there were lots of big bangs and cool explosions.

They didn't destroy the Golden Gate Bridge, but came close—perhaps an actual Trekkie can explain to me why they built the HQ of Star Fleet, the most important institution in the galaxy, on the wrong side of a major fault line?

Anyway—go see, and if the kids like SF, take 'em, just be prepared to hold their hands a few times.

Her review? As the credits rolled:

Is it over? I don't want it to be over.

On the way to the car:

Me: What was the best bit Miss Holly?
amazing_holly: All of it.

She was genuinely upset that there wasn't more to see. Wrath of Khan with her soon then (we've got two copies of the DVD after all).

ETA: Jennie's write up is here.

This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/362717.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

[DW] Profile link icons update.

matbowles@gmail.com — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:29:01 GMT

In my Monday post about icons, I gave replacement codes for the 5 icons that DW commonly uses as well as the 3 that LJ commonly uses. I missed one that DW uses, namely direct links to LJs using the new custom site code.

If you didn't know, rather than the old [lj-user="matgb"] code, DW has replaced it with [user name="matgb"], ie removing the LJ bit given, obviously, it's not on LJ. But cunningly, they've also added another option, if you code [user name="matgb" site="livejournal.com"] it will link to matgb on LJ, not DW. And it'll take the LJ usericon from the LJ server as well.

Which would be cool. Except it doesn't auto-discover whether it's a person, community or feed. So my post Tuesday mentioning the Russian President's blog displayed it as a person, not as a community. Which I think is slightly unintuitive and misleading. So I've fixed that.

I've added another bit of code for DW so that off-site links to LJs instead display the LJ pencil, to show it's something on LJ, not a bloke regardless of what it is on LJ. So, if you look at this post on DW using my style, it'll show the little pencil when I repeat the link. Look: blog_medvedev. I suspect I could keep doing these for ages—if you regularly link to IJ, WP, JF or whatever people, y'know what? Sort your own code out, ask me if you need help.

This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/362303.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Social media inward looking wankery

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:19:09 GMT

Couldn't resist writing this one up: In post-Soviet Russia, President blogs you. The President of Russia has a Livejournal (blog_medvedev) and updates it (or gets someone to, anyway) fairly regularly.

( LJ, its future, DW not a threat and SUp taking it in the wrong direction )

Ah well. I'm supposed to be writing up what's wrong with the OpenID implementation on both LJ and DW, but I keep getting distracted.

Short version: ( Both sites are problematic, DW has the excuse of being new, LJ has no excuse at all )

That's pathetic. Hopefully the competitive pressure from DW will push them into making more improvements, like it has done elsewhere. Competition is, after all, a good thing, and LJs been stuck in its own little rut with nowt but a bunch of clones for too long.

Meh, rambling. Time to go do something constructive.

This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/362185.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

[LJ/DW] Making profile icons look cool in your layout

matbowles@gmail.com — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:13:13 GMT

One of the things I like about journalling platforms based on the LJ codebase is the easy shortcut for usernames that'll link to both the blog itself and the profile, with that nice little logo for the profile link.

	LJ	DW	Mine
User
Community
Feed
Others

Thing is, the nice little logo doesn't always suit the style of the place it's appearing in, or the colour scheme of the layout. So, given I know how to replace them, I thought I'd update the code and add some new tweaks. As always, CSS hackery, playing with CSS is both fun and easy, I highly recommend it for people of a web-savvy nature.

I have, naturally, chosen a Doctor Who theme to my replacement images—feel free to replace them with something else if you wish. I forget where I got the original code for to do this, it's heavily updated now, but I'd like to credit the author, so if you know, gimme a link?

.ljuser img {
width: 0;
height: 0;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-color:transparent;
/* so that IE users will still see an image */
background-image: url(http://pics.livejournal.com/snapesbabe/pic/000fxssg);
padding: 19px 15px 0 2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src="http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png"] {
background-color:transparent;
background-image: url(http://dammitja.net/lj/opp/drwho06.gif);
padding: 19px 15px 0 2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src="http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png"] {
background-color:transparent;
background-image: url(http://pics.livejournal.com/snapesbabe/pic/000fzf79);
padding: 18px 11px 0 2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src="http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png"] {
background-color:transparent;
background-image: url(http://pics.livejournal.com/snapesbabe/pic/000fxssg);
padding: 18px 15px 0 2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src="http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png"] {
background-color:transparent;
background-image: url(http://dammitja.net/lj/opp/drwho05.gif);
padding: 18px 15px 0 2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src="http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png"] {
background-color:transparent;
background-image: url(http://dammitja.net/lj/opp/flibble.gif);
padding: 18px 15px 0 2px !important;
}
.ljuser img[src="http://www.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif"] {
background-color:transparent;
background-image: url(http://www.livejournal.com/img/pencil.gif);
padding: 17px 17px 0 2px !important;
}

Anyway. Dreamwidth users should go to the DW Custom CSS page and paste the code into the big box.

Livejournal users should go to the LJ Custom CSS page and, go on, have a guess...

Yup, copy and paste the code into the box. One little caveat—it's replacing images taken from l-stat.livejournal.com, if LJ changes their CDN again, then the URL might change and the code'll stop working, I'll update it as soon as I know to, it's likely to be a simple change the letter hack (it used to be p-stat.*)

The Colin icon is taken from allah_sulu's Ten Doctor's. If you want to use different images, then replacing the image location is fairly easy, just make sure you also change the dimensions in the 'padding' area, the first two are effectively height and width.

I deliberately haven't done one for OpenID accounts, I might change my mind on that but I think the OpenID logo ought to be got used to. I'm considering a DW staff replacement, but not sure what I should go for (either Five or appeal a bit). Haven't bothered with sponsored Comms, probably ought to, not doing so means the image won't show up at all.

As always, feel free to link or comment with questions, etc.

This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/361968.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Look, a poll in a post

matbowles@gmail.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:26:03 GMT

OK, testing again. Using the Dreamwidth poll wizard, then looking to see if/how polls crosspost to LJ. Odds are you'll need to login with OpenID to vote, etc, but it's about time you did that anyway.

View poll: Poll wizard testing

Baking Cinnamon Biscuits

matbowles@gmail.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:41:33 GMT

So, SB gets home from Liberal Drinks (Manchester), several sheets to the wind and craving biscuits. So I baked biscuits. Loosely based on a recipe for Ginger Nuts from Delia (for USians, if you've not heard of her, she's Alton Brown in a twin set. Who runs a football team as a hobby. Also, they're a type of biscuit. Which is sort of like a cookie, but not. And yes, we get the 'nuts' joke).

2 oz Self Raising Flour
1 (large) teaspoon of ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
1 oz granulated sugar
1 oz butter/margerine
1 tablespoon golden syrup
Preheat oven to 190C (375F apparently). Grease a baking tray (I use sunflower oil and spread it out with my fingers, it works, it's cheap, and I'm lazy).

Sieve the flour, cinnamon and bicarb into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, grate in the butter (seriously, grate it with a cheese grater, saves loads of time), then rub it in until you get a crumbly mix.

Now add the syrup. If you're not sure, less syrup is good, if you put in too much (as I did in the ones I just took out the oven) then they spread too much and don't crack properly on the surface. Stir in, then you'll probably need to use your fingers to squash it all together near the end. If it's sticky, add more flour. Seriously, that matters.

Now cut em up. Either 8 large bikkits or 16 small ones (I tend to make 4 large, 8 small).

Put em in the top of the oven for 10 minutes or so. Don't overcookem. If you do, you'll get a much darker brown colour and a very dry taste. Still edible (*munch*) but not as yummy.

When they're done, take them out of the oven, leave them to cool in the tray for a little bit (they need to firm), then transfer them to a wire rack to cool properly.

I'd do a picture, but I both overcooked them and used too much syrup, so they look a bit of a mess. Oops. Still taste OK.

Eat. If there are any left (weirdo), then store them in an airtight container. There are never any left in this house. eats them all.

(Crossposted to OMNOMNOM on DreamWidth)

HBO makes deal with terrorist over GRRM books

matbowles@gmail.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:13:56 GMT

In amazing news released today, HBO television and renowned author George R. R. Martin have announced they have made a deal with a convicted terrorist(s^?[1]) in order to film a series based on Martin's Game of Thrones in territory controlled by the terrorist.

OK, the convictions may be over 30 years old, and McGuinnes might now be a senior Northern Ireland politician and deputy first minister, but even so, how cool is this?

During our recent trip to Los Angeles, the First Minister and I met with senior executives from HBO to help finalise the deal to bring the TV production here
~~Martin McGuinness

It's confirmed, not only are they making a series based on the books, but it's going to be flimed in Belfast, and the two most senior NI politicos were heavily involved in negotiating the deal and made a joint statement announcing it's been finalised. (via)

Of course, the real question is---how many Starks will die in the first episode?
[1] See comments, Nicholas Whyte asserts that Robinson is also a former terrorist, and knows more than me on these issues.

Gotta love the Gu

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:08:37 GMT

So, a lot of the recipes I've been looking at going Hmm, yes please last few days have required ramekins to cook them in. We don't have any ramekins.

So while in Sainsbury's today, we had a look. Because Jennie thinks the idea of home cooked creme caramel is a good one, and I wants to make me some mouse.

Options:

Individual ramekins in the cookery/homeware isle= £1.50 each.
Gu chocolate puds, complete with nommy chocolate pud and perfectly acceptable ramekins= £1.50 for two, on offer.

Hmm, that was a tough choice. So now I need to cook up and eat 3 more gu puds. Because I had one earlier, and it was lovely. Although I reckon I could make them just as good now I know what I'm doing.

I need a food/cooking icon. Someone want to make/recommend me one?

Holy electronic cover version, Batman!

matbowles@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:28:44 GMT

I am having difficulty figuring out words for describing how cool this is:

My quote of the day is from the description:

Keep in mind the scanner and floppy drive are not musical instruments. These are mechancial devices whose frequencies tend to drift and can cause some notes to be out of tune.

Seriously, how cool is that? (via)

Also, I'm testing the DW crossposter, apparently there are issues with post edits and embedded videos that we need to iron out. So comments off on LJ and on on DW, I don't plan on making a habit of this until it's way out of closed beta, but you all know me and plans...

This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/360502.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
ETA:Um, yeah, some horrible glitch, for some time, this was displaying as the tesla orchestra 1812 I posted awhileback, now fixed to the correct cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Digital dreams redux

matbowles@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:41:24 GMT

OK, forgot to tick a box on the crossposter, let's try that again.

If you're already on Dreamwidth then really, nothing to see here...

This are a test post. There is nothing really to see. However, if you fancy following the link and saying hello to test the OpenID login, that'd be cool.

Gotta love beta testing features, this might not even work...

ETA: not only does it work, but apparently it auto-edits as well. How cool is that?

This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/360244.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Dreaming in digital

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:49:23 GMT

So, I've mentioned previously the Dreamwidth project, taking a fork of the LJ code, going back to first principles, and building a really good blogging/feedreading/social media platform out of the nascent ideas that LJ had but never did well, right?

I've also, previously to that, talked about other alternative platforms, specifically trying to build a distributed platform with the social/privacy features of LJ but without the reliance on one centralised point of failure. The specific idea being to try to Reclaim the Web.

our sort of blogging

Well, I never did get that project going. Partially because, well, it was fairly reliant on a few other individuals. All of whom are involved in Dreamwidth. All of whom share the idea of a distributed social model for our sort of blogging, a way to write about whatever you like, keep in touch with friends, but be able to interact with others on other sites easily and effectively, and crucuailly allow them to interact with you.

Dreamwidth is doing all that.

The Friends Page is replaced

But more importantly, they've taken so many little annoyances or stupidities out of LJ and replaced them with something that makes sense. The Friends Page has gone, it's a Reading Page. If you add someone to your friends page, you subscribe to them. You might also want to Grant Access to your privacy enabled posts, or you might not. Essentially, find someone interesting, follow them for a bit, learn to trust them, you can grant them access. Meaning I can follow the execrable j_rentoul's outpourings but not let him read my private thoughts.

OpenID actually works!

OpenID is substantially improved. You can tie an OpenID to your DW account if you've got one, and you can use your OpenID to control any syndicated feeds from any sites you've got (so LJers can turn off comments to the Dreamwidth feed of their stuff if they want, which is good). Well, you'll be able to anyway, that's not quite working yet.

easiest backup I've ever done

Most importantly, the import feature isn't finished yet. It's still the easiest backup of everything I've ever done—all my stuff from LJ is over there, including my icons, filters, bio, etc.

So, even though I still hope to set up my own server running the code eventually, I'll wait until the code is in a proper release model to do it first. In the meantime, I'll be going there properly as soon as they've finished a few features.

I won't be leaving here

Most importantly, I'll be going there, but I won't be leaving here. They're building a cross poster, so when I write a post there, it'll turn up here. You'll be able to follow links there and comment there using your LJ ID without problems, and I'll still be reading everything here.

Basically, it looks damn cool. It's what LJ should already be, and they've not finished yet.

Interested? ~~First person to click this can use my last invite code~~ Gone to akicif. I'll ~~likely~~almost certainly get more.

PSA: Lime Muffins

matbowles@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:15:58 GMT

If anyone is interested, this BBC recipe for lemon muffins works just as well, if not better, if you substitute all references to 'lemon' with the word 'lime'.

I've had 2, SB and Shrub are eating 2 each upstairs, and I'm tempted to go downstairs and get another one.

Free B-movies, all legal and legit like

matbowles@gmail.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:54:08 GMT

How cool is this?

And apparently I can embed one using this autoposting widget. Let's face it, it has to be Dark Star

It works too. See, how nice I am, watch an entire movie right here on my journal. There are a bunch o others, but, y'know, Dark Star. Oh, you can watch it full screen at the site itself. (via)

Linkspam: The Return (11-4-2009)

matbowles@gmail.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 08:09:18 GMT

Finally got around to fixing the settings and started using Delicious again. Which means you get context with the links. I'm clearing out the saved folders full, this is a random assortment of stuff I had in a folder called "Cool". Make of tht what you will.

Charlie vs Cory, who wins?

Wait, they're on the same side. The good one. Anyway, Open Rights Group Event - Doctorow and Stross: Resisting the all-seeing eye, Friday May 1st, down in That London. No chance I can make it, but you should go. Yes, you.

(tags: privacy charles+stross cory+doctorow)
The Sci Fi channel rebrands as SyFy

Except, obviously, in Poland. The reasons given seem to actually make sense. Doesn't make it a good idea, but it makes sense. But, um, it's still a stupid name. then again, I said that about Dave, ad I reckon I watch that more often than any other channel.

(tags: SyFy Dave TV marketing rebranding)
Ignorant jurors threaten fair trials

Pretty sure this'll be happening over here as well. So many people have little to no understanding of the legal system or why it works the way it does. FS, if the Judge says don't do it, don't do it

(tags: justice internet)
Really cool antique map collection

Jonathan Potter's collection of rare antique maps was up for sale so the Telegraph nicely gave us a set of pictures of them. I've got some reproduction Speeds, but, well, when I've won several lotteries and robbed a few banks...

(tags: maps)
the Asus Eee Keyboard

I wants one my precious, I wants one I does. Such a cool idea, but the whole computer into the keyboard and plug it into a decent TV. Oh, wait, I had a Spectrum when I was a kid. Except that, well, the Spectrum is outspecced by my mobile phone these days.

(tags: computers eee cool)
Chelmsford 123 (AD)

Utterly dodgy YouTube upload of one of the daftest TV sitcoms ever. Helped launch the careers of so many people and, well, it's fun. If you like the idea that the Roman governor of Britannia is based in Chelmsford.

(tags: comedy tv chelmsford123)
Jack Kirby's Comic Version of The Prisoner

I had no idea this even existed. Then, looking at it, I can see why. Kirby was a great visionary, but so horribly dated today.

(tags: comics tv the+prisoner i+am+not+a+number)
Best guitar solo ever?

This is brilliant. Acoustic guitar player doing a version of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, incredibly haunting and well done. ETA: insomnia and spoombung appear to be competing to find competitors in the comments, here's an alternative Japanese player of the same tune.

(tags: music video)
Homo Evolutis-what species will our grandchildren be?

Starts with the economic problems, moves onto technology trends, and then goes into what we're likely to become. Some of his answers may or may not be right, but he sure as hell is asking the right questions.

(tags: science technology evolution economics trends)
Time travel cheat sheet-in T Shirt form

If you've ever wondered how you'd handle being stuc back in time (or like Miriam in another dimension), this handy t-shirt is a must-wear.

(tags: clothes t-shirt funny)
Colonial history-the geek notes version

Bullet point summary of why England ended up colonising "Virginia", start from the bottom entry and move up. An old, and sadly defunct journal linked to in the comments at a post by Steve on something else entirely

(tags: history funny)

And yes, LoudTwitter is now posting to a private filter, at least for a bit.

Shiny

matbowles@gmail.com — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:40:56 GMT

When you're younger you can eat what you like, drink what you like and still climb into your 26 inch waist trousers and zip them closed. Then you reach that age, 24 / 25, your muscles give up they wave a little white flag and then without any warning at all, you're suddenly a fat bastard^[1]

Strange how an out of context sample on the opening track to a great album stays with you for years.

Sheriff Fatman was at, IIRC, #2 in the top 40 the week I got my GCSE results. When I was doing my A-levels (well, turning up to lessons, anyway), my friends were divided over music--Grunge was popular, naturally, Teen Spirit was released at the time, there were a lot of fans of mainstream pop, many simply didn't care. But, with a few exceptions, everyone like Carter USM.

But then, most of us liked Red Dwarf as well. Never saw them live, but you can just about make out Rimmer in this grainy vid of their last show--and yes, the head roadie did tend to do a warmup act wearing nowt but a sock. And yes, he really always was a Fat Bastard.

I lost all my CDs over the years, fortunately Jennie has the best of, but not 30 Something, and the tape is both a little dead and, well, devoid of anything that will still play it.

But I think it counts as one of the best albums of the 90s^[2]. Partially, of course, because Damnations came out in '89. What's your nomination?

[1]When you see this, post a quote from Red Dwarf, I found this one here, although Total Red Dwarf seems to have a better collection, even if the site is infuriatingly badly configured, not only using iframes, but also disallowing internal links entirely, stupid bad SEO unaccessible practice.

[2] Martin started it, he listed several (in a locked post), I just thought I'd start with one. Look, I managed to combine two memes in one post, just, well, because. Because what?

New Red Dwarf on Dave tonight at 9pm

Woo Hoo!