Category: Random

Possibly the most actually useful thing ever done by UK webloggers launched yesterday: ToThePolls.com is a balanced newsfilter for the upcoming General Election.

Just in case anyone is wondering what’s happening with the Barbelith Underground, the problems that we’ve been noticing for the last few weeks have finally started making the server wobbly and so pair.com have shut the board down. I have no intention of turning them on again until I’ve reinstalled the board, which will mean everyone will have to reregister and start posting afresh. All the old threads are there intact, but they’ll have to be moved someone separately. I’m as depressed as you are by the state of affairs. Bear with me as I try and get it sorted out over the next week or so…

Jesus! I just completed a high-speed, late-night HTML test hosted by Brainbench on my knowledge of forms, HTML, frames and CSS. On the site they stated that using reference books was sort of ok – if appropriate to the situation (or something equally obscure). Of course, I’m not in the least bit sure that it was appropriate in this case, because no one mentioned that I might need them to me. Or indeed told me much about the test at all. Which might explain why I decided to do 40 questions (with a time limit of 1 1/2 minutes per question) just after midnight on a Monday evening.

In the end, with the help of my two life-saving books, I completed the bloody thing (complete with questions about PICS, every property of the text-decoration element and what a server receives when you select two checkboxes with the same name but different values). But now – particularly since I kind of feel like looking things up is kind of immoral somehow – I’m kind of slightly pissed off by being described as if I were some kind of slow child…

“You appear capable of working on most projects in this area with moderate assistance. You may require some initial assistance with advanced concepts, however.”

I’m working for four days in a web design company called Arehaus based between Chancery Lane and Farringdon. I’m doing basic HTML scut-work, but I’m actually quite enjoying it. The atmosphere is relaxed and creative, the environment is extremely pleasant and obviously designed to be conducive to good design work, and there doesn’t appear to be any notceable office politics at all. Ironically, Arehaus were the people who designed timeout.com – a site that I have been hacking around in for the last year and a half…

Virgin Atlantic have announced that they are to provide net and e-mail access to passengers on their jets [CNN.com]. For those of us who are obsessive net-philes, clearly this would be a wonderful thing. I can easily pass nine or ten hours with e-mail and web access. Except that it could cost you $2 per e-mail, and you’ll only have access to ten or twenty sites. Still, I suppose it’s a step in the right direction…

I went to see a short film this evening. My flatmate, who works in the film industry, organised a screening for one of her directors and asked if I’d like to go. I decided that I should simply because it made me feel slightly worthwhile – which is possibly the wrong reason. The film was about cloning and loss of identity.

The strangest thing for me, though, was that in the credits (as well as thanking ‘Tilly the dog’), there was a URL mentioned: WITNESS.org. When I got back home and looked at it, I found it to be a site supported by Peter Gabriel which ‘uses video and technology to fight for Human Rights’. It’s an excellent idea, and well worth looking at further.

Terrifying though it is to admit, with a shave and some hair gel, the BBC’s reconstruction of the face of Jesus (via Link Machine Go) would look remarkably like my mate Toby.

I’d been planning to watch the Oscars with Nick last night. But at the last minute he and I decided that we weren’t feeling perky enough to justify staying up until four or five in the morning (my insomnia, of course, was not as evident at that point of the evening). So instead we watched advance episodes of Buffy, borrowed from my contact in the TV section of Time Out (thanks Noam).

From all accounts, it wasn’t a particularly sensational evening. The BBC’s list of winners contains very few actual surprises – although there are a few disappointments. Steven Soderbergh clearly deserved to win Best Director for Traffic. Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous deserved more than just Best Original Screenplay. The depressing part of the evening was clearly the Gladiator win for best picture and best actor. This was not a sensational film.

E-mail from Big arrived, much to my surprise. This man is either nicer than I expected or considerably more unpleasant. The banner and poster went down extremely well, it seems, and we have agreed to meet up again – in hopefully less tense circumstances – in two or three weeks time. That’s one less thing to worry about then.

Computer sold to Catherine for princely sum of £100. Printer and scanner remain unpurchased. This cannot, unfortunately, be allowed to continue.