Month: May 2002

Public Lettering (via Prolific, via Zeldman) Fascinating and involving.

Reminds me of some advice my father gave me about my home city of Glasgow. “Look up.” Typically in cities these days, most of the older buildings have been shelled out and converted to shops. Their lower floors vandalised and replaced with large, featureless pieces of glass. Most of them still feature the original architecture and features in the upper floors and roofs, we just don’t notice it. It’s amazing to think that there are more things you don’t notice, than those you do.

I should point out that there are some places in Glasgow that have managed to blend into the city, Princes Square, the new Buchanan Galleries, and the Concert Hall, to name a few, all now ‘work’ as part of the city.

OK I’ve only skimmed a few pages of this, but it looks good so far.

What is it? “A few months ago a group of writers with Web sites decided to get together and make a book. The idea was for each writer to compose a story on the theme ‘How-to,’ to result in a bound volume titled ‘Manual.'”

So go ahead and Read the Fucking Manual – RTFM indeed.

To comment, or not to comment…
The majority of the sites I visit have a comment facility of some sort, and I’ve been toying with adding one myself for sometime now. The one thing that keeps stopping is maintenance.

Battleground God
Answer 17 questions about your religious beliefs (this is aimed a those of christian denomination): “Our battleground is that of rational consistency.”
Play Battleground God or Check my results.

Carey gets back to basics, and I must admit I’ve been thinking something similar as I’ve recently been pondering the ‘why’ and ‘who’ of this very website. Of course when Carey does it, it looks good, like a post ironic take on neo-modernism… or something…

Anyway it again brings up the subject of ‘why’. I’ve written about my ‘need‘ for a website, and I think that most personal websites serve the same purpose.

The sole requirement for owning a website is because you, the author, designer, fuhrer of your webspace, want one. How you use it is down to you, no-one else. There are no rules, merely suggested guidelines, and they are only softly suggested (count how many bend, break, and completley ignore them).

Do it for you. If you want to post, post, if you want to write a 5000 word dissertation about the fate of tsetse fly in Western Africa, go right ahead. If you want to become a linkwhore, and are only in it for the pseudo celebrity, hey, that’s up to you (but ask anyone who doesn’t surf the blogging/design channels who Zeldman is and watch the blank stares).

Simplification? I don’t care. Well I do care, but about you. It’s your website, do what you want.

…

The funniest thing has just popped into my head, and ideal April Fool, think I’ll keep it to myself for the moment though (Ohh and I give Carey about a month before he explodes back in a glory of technicolor.. although I’m merely basing that on my own lack of self-will and addiction to this funny little place we call the web).

I remember, as a child, receiving a toy car. I don’t remember the exact make or model, but I do remember that, on the underside, were the words “Made in Taiwan”. Taiwan. It sounds exciting and different, although growing up in Dumbarton ANYTHING sounds exciting and different, but this was other-worldly, and for the first time I felt a sense of adventure. What was this Taiwan place like? What type of people lived there? Where exactly was it? It must be millions of miles I away, I thought, what a journey for a little toy car!

It was a moment that made me realise that there was more to life than my little world, that the world was a big place, with many different places, people, and ‘stuff’.

However that moment has since faded into the memory of childhood, and the reality is one of a diminishing world, where boundaries blur, distances shrink and communities flourish and die.

Blame the Internet? I’m not sure, too many other factors involved. How do children today see the world? Is it an exciting place, with limitless experiences and possibilities, or is Taiwan just where their friend from the Pokemon chat room stays?

The joy of the internet gave us instant communication, but what about the longer, deeper effects? Should we limit the time our children spend on the PC, or watching television? How will they experience this kind of wonderment?

This kinda thing worries me you know…

A community-edited guide to Kuro5hin! Ko4ting. Probably best to start with What is Kuro5hin?

The religion of Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola in Latin America: “Coca-Cola plainly stands as an unvarnished symbol of neoliberalism and modern corporate mercantilism”

Again globalization hits the news, but it is beginning to become more and more unbelievable. This article shows, once again, how little we know of what goes on around the world, and how dangerous the creeping of branding, that is evident in many regions and continents, can become. Shouldn’t the world’s politicians be slightly curious as to the vested interests a soft drinks company has with the President of Mexico?

More clever stuff
OK, I think I’m up and running now (it’s a bit unnerving when Blogger goes down for maintenance just after you’ve been trying out a new script. You can’t help thinking… oops was that me?).

a href=”http://www.thinkblank.com/metalinker/”>Meta Linker is now in full effect y’all. A simple idea, but could prove useful/fun/annoying. Have to wait and see which. Simply click on the [~] after each link to get a listing of other sites linking to the same article or website. (via Plasticbag as I’ve mentioned already I think).

Philosophical Quote
“Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.”
Consider me infected. Or does he (Peter Abelard in Letter 8 to Heliose) mean real writing, you know, novels, and stuff like that, after all this isn’t even journalism, or is it?

Football
With apologies to Vaughan, I should forewarn you all (all? ha ha ha, makes it seem like there are more than four or five people reading this…) that over the coming weeks I will probably (although possibly not) be talking about wonderous goals, ludicrous refereeing decisions, and last minute winners. Yes, ladies and gentlemen [cue drum roll] THE WORLD CUP IS COMING.

To be honest the sooner it starts the better, that way we will stop getting the news filled with reports about David Beckham accidentally being hit in the nuts/knackers/gonads/testicles with the ball during training. With pictures. Good grief.

Saturday was spent pottering about the house, cutting the grass etc etc A neighbour past at one point and we started chatting. I happened to mention we were planning to build a rockery the next day, and he said he had some rocks lying round the side of his garden, and I could help myself if I needed any. Good news as I was pretty sure we’d have needed some more.

On Sunday morning we attended my niece’s first communion. What a strange place the Catholic church can be. I am admittedly non-religious (but not atheist) at the moment, having been brought up in the Church of Scotland. I can see many easy comparisons between the Catholic church and ‘hokey’ religions: chanting, sacrifice, control of the congregration. It’s all there. Anyway, my religious beliefs aside, my niece enjoyed her day, we all had a nice lunch with family and close friends and the sun even made an appearance.

About 2pm on the Sunday we headed home to meet my parents. They were coming over to help us build a rockery in our back garden. This is the first major piece of gardening we’ve done since we moved in 10 months ago, and as I grew up with a rockery filled garden I was determined to have one in mine.

We stopped off at the shops for some groceries, and bumped into my parents (and my sister who had tagged along). A quick shop later and we headed for home. Unpacked the shopping and I glanced out the kitchen window, a large, very dark, cloud was heading our way.

The large, very dark, cloud decide to stop over head and unload. I’ve not seen rain that heavy for quite a while.

I should explain that our garden is made up of very heavy clay like soil. So when it rains… you get clay… Not great when you want to dig up a large part of it. Not great at all.

We battled on. It was a holiday today (for some people) so we got back to it this morning and at about 4pm today, we finished!

In total I lifted about 18 wheelbarrow loads of large rocks across from our neighbours house, and I ache. I just know that tomorrow will be painful but the sense of satisfaction makes it all worthwhile.

I’ll even show you the photos once they get developed (yes I use real film..). One thing does worry me though. Am I getting old? 😉

Anyway, enough about me, how was your weekend?