plasticbag.org

Here’s a snapshot of what the rest of the world looks like when you’ve just returned from Helsinki:

• Boy breeds beetles in his body;
• Iraqi man hid 22 years in a wall;
• NetNewsWire’s new views is 24/7 plasticbag.org;
• Jeffrey Archer gets out on my birthday;
• Someone explains Buffy Season Seven;
• The best asses are mobile;

So I’m back in the UK after the Aula MOM 2003 event and I’m feeling a bit flat. I was talking about “The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything”, which is kind of an old thing of mine that I’ve never really written about properly. It’s directly inspired by Clay’s Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing and indirectly insired by Dan Hill’s thoughts on Adaptive Design. I was on a kind-of-panel with Matt Jones and Dan Gillmor. Fun new people I met (alongside the whole awesome Aula crew) included the terrifyingly uber-connected Joi Ito, the insightful JC Herz and the charming Eric Wahlforss. And it was nice, as ever, to bump into Cory.

So why do I feel flat? I don’t know – I suppose a variety of reasons. I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I presented my piece, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I presented myself. Maybe I was unsure with the contribution I made generally. I don’t know. People said really interesting things, really interesting people said really interesting things. But I felt a bit … I don’t know … Unconnected? Unproductive? Maybe I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep…

So here’s a tiny thing that I’d be really interested in seeing in a subsequent version of Movable Type. It’s so small it’s barely worth mentioning – particularly as the proper search function has now been integrated. But nonetheless it would make my life slightly more simple.

When I’m editing an entry, I’d just like a link that would take me to the current live version of that post. That’s all. Just a link which would allow me to bounce out of my MT installation to see what it looks like live, without having to battle to find it amid nearly four-years of almost-daily posting… Obviously, this is also an indictment of the terrible way I currently have my search engine configured. But I just think it could be useful and it should be pretty easy, I think…

Caption: Helsinki at midnight. Currently: Nervous about Aula Meeting of Minds 2003.

Being a feeble transcription of some things that seemed really funny once over lunch with Cal, and which we tried – and failed – to get Webb interested in.

The Ten Commandments of Weblogging

1. I am the log of the web. You shall have no other blogs but me.
2. You shall not make for yourself other weblogs on other content management systems and look at them and get all wistful and think about changing to them instead.
3. You shall not mention dodgy weblog CMSs in the same breath as proper ones like Blogger and Moveable Type. Bloxsom is not a proper weblogging system. It’s a potato.
4. Remember the Bloggie nomination day. For it is truly a holy day and if you don’t remember and self-nominate and vote for yourself lots of times and get your friends to do so too, then you’re probably screwed. But be careful, ‘cos if Choire finds out you’re in serious shit.
5. Honor your blog-father and your blog-mother at blogtree.com – or get blog-smacked-around-the-head by Dave Winer.
6. You shall not murder the English language (or whatever language it is you speak) just because you’re l33t. Particularly not if you’re a teenager. Especially not if you like Linkin Park.
7. Thou shalt not commit weblog-adultery with other people’s hard-earned links unless you carefully mark them with a “via” credit. The same applies to their girlfriends, boyfriends and members of their immediate family.
8. Thou shalt not steal your design (except from Kottke).
9. Thou shalt not lie on your weblog (seriously, that’s bad).
10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s domain; you shall not covet your neighbour’s html, nor his homemade CMS, nor his hosting arrangement, nor anything that is your neighbour’s. Except maybe his traffic.

So there’s a guy outside the back of my flat who has lit a bonfire against the back wall of my building. The flames are licking up the wall. There is a large empty courtyard behind him. But no – the bonfire obviously has to be lit on the building. I asked him what he was doing with the whole “lighting a big fire against my building” thing. He evidently thought I was reacting entirely strangely about his completely legitimate arson attempts because he looked quite surprised by my question. Maybe he’s been setting fire to things for about ten years and no one in England has felt able to comment before. “I’m sure he’ll go away eventually dear… Just grin and bear it, eh?”

So anyway, it turns out he’s trying to getting rid of paper “with the name of god on it” and didn’t want to be disrespectful by putting it in the bin. He thought he’d best light the bonfire against my building (flames licking up the wall) during the day, “because [he] didn’t think people would be at home”, so clearly it would be less inconvenient for them. Unless of course they got home and they didn’t – you know – have a flat any more. I was terribly polite. I asked him if he knew what he was doing, he asserted he did. I looked a bit uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to be rude. So I came back inside and left him to it. Funny old world.