Category: Random

Does this, or does this not, look like the Best Desktop Ever. There are benefits to this current job.

I went to see a studio flat today in Marylebone – probably it will be outside my financial limits, but it was astonishingly nice. Semi-separated kitchen and studio with lots of power-points and a long corridor down the side of the building towards the bathroom. Plenty of space for book-shelves down the corridor too. I was shown around by a strange tall birdlike woman – all rapid movements and nervous repetition. She started the tour by taking us to the back terrace garden – a wonderful, calm space unfortunately inhabited by a rather surprised half-naked fat old man with partly-scraped-back white-hair and a kind of tai-chi like serenity. “He’s probably a sitting-tenant,” said Bird Lady, “Probably been here for years….”

Overheard this morning – a woman confuses ‘backwards-compatible’ with ‘reverse-engineer’, and I wonder – should you have a license to use words as oneupmanship weapons? [Edited to add – could I possibly start a whole new Sarah Jessica Parker inspired column called ‘Geek in the City’ all about the tremendously amusing antics of new media workers in London. Or would that be totally lame? Vote lame!]

Can someone explain to me how I’m still at work at nearly eight in the evening, pissed on Pimms, working on templates for an internal work process interface for a project designed to make the BBC the best place in the entire goddam universe? Because frankly I’m drunk and not a little baffled by the whole thing…

“Dance for me disco monster! Dance!”

So tonight I said goodbye to Davo for the third time in three days, and it was just as difficult this time as it was all the others. I can’t imagine anything I want less than for him to leave the country. He will be terribly terribly missed.

Oooh. Aaaah. I’ve got a new toy at work.

So I finished reading Emergence about a week ago, and it’s fall of all this conversation about ants and the ways in which they collaborate with one another in order to form huge functioning units, without any of the individual ants ‘planning’ anything or being ‘in charge’. And this morning, what do we see but the largest collaborative venture every created in the history of the world – and it’s been made by ants. [Plus: Really cool animated gif from CNN]

Today on Barbelith: Shamanism in a nutshell (2): “Shamanistic practice has an incredibly vast range of applications including, business, warfare, prosperity, employment, children, love and friendship, all designed maximise the health of the spirit. JanFreya investigates. “

Blutac is smurf-poo. You heard it here first.