ICANN idiocy, yet again. Rather than go for the more logical approach (as far as I can see) of dividing new TLDs into large types of site (my suggestions would be .kids, .gay, .news, .xxx, .info to start off with), which allows for the possibility of companies with the same name but working in very different businesses to co-exist on the web, ICANN are pretty thinking of replicating the current categories of the web, with a couple of minor additions. [via metafilter]
The next UK weblogger meet is this weekend in Cambridge, but another one is being proposed for next week in London – I’ve been fighting for Maida Vale as a venue, but that’s really only because I live there. If you want to keep up to date with what is being proposed, then meets.gblogs.org.uk is the place to be.
The Guardian comes up with yet another quiz designed to show up your inadequacies as a human being. This one even has the snappy title: “Are You Dumb?“. More designed for the English than for Johnny Foreigner, my department at work has managed to score as follows:
How do you measure up?
I just want to reassure people that at no point in the past did I write a book called Creating a Self-Portrait.
Have you heard of Extenuating Circumstances? No? But you’ve heard of Daily Doozer, right? Daily Doozer was always a great read – bloody ace weblog. Well. Dan wrote DD, then took a break from weblogging and came back with Extenuating Circumstances. Anyway – seems to me that a lot of the people who loved the Doozer don’t even know about the new site, which is a crying shame. So get your arses over there now, or I’ll come around your house and kneecap your pets.
In the spirit of resistance, here are a couple of snippets of important information from adbusters.org.
First comes the event that should be de rigeur for every intelligent, creative weblogger – the Creative Resistance Contest. You have until December 1 to produce a poster, performance, spoof-ad, storyboard, video or anti-logo. I’d like to append this advert with a personal appeal to Jason Kottke to submit the parody ads that he made last year: Simply Porn.
Secondly, international Buy Nothing Day is fast approaching (Nov 24th). Give yourself an opportunity to think about the “shop-till-you-drop” imperative before the consumer glut of Christmas. I’m thinking of taking to the streets that day, holding banners outside major London shops. Anyone with me?
Naomi Klein, author of the wonderful No Logo is going to be answering questions this afternoon (1400 GMT) over at the BBC’s site: [Quiz Naomi Klein]. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her work, here’s a brief summary from the site:
“The Canadian journalist Naomi Klein has become an unofficial spokeswoman for the anti-globalisation movement.
Her best-selling book, No Logo, documents the popular backlash against the increasing economic and cultural reach of multinational companies.
She claims that the anti-globalisation protesters represent a more democratic alternative to corporate domination of the world economy.”
For those of you that didn’t know, plasticbag.org is brought to you live from sunny London, where the sun never sets and where ‘party, party, party’ is the name of the game. If you are interested in reading more weblogs from London and around the United Kingdom, why not check out this pop-up box of recently updated uk weblogs courtesy of GBlogs. With their cheeky-cockney-chappie ways, lack of electricity and running water, and oh-so-amusing natural reserve, English men and women never fail to satisfy!
A few really well (and recently re-) designed corporate sites, as mentioned by zeldman: hesketh.com and hiwire.com.
This is a post specifically not aimed at young Fran from timeout.com. There’s a really interesting article that might interest you over at the BBC: “Women ‘getting dangerously drunk’.“