ME and Ophelia
Friday, October 31, 2003
BRITISH LIBRARY ARCHIVES WEBSITES
The new law was given royal assent on Friday
The British Library is now able to store web pages and e-mails in its archive after a legal change.
Under the new law, proposed in a Private Member's Bill, future mediums will also be able to be stored as they are developed.
The archive will comprise selective "harvesting" from the 2.9 million sites that have "co.uk" suffixes.
The library already has six legal deposit archives which hold a copy of everything published in the UK since 1911. The new formats - which also include CD-Roms - will join these archives, and be available for future study.
The number of journals published electronically in the UK is expected to jump from 52,000 in 2002 to 193,000 in 2005.
The deposit libraries already hold more than 51 million printed items.
The new law was given royal assent on Friday
The British Library is now able to store web pages and e-mails in its archive after a legal change.
Under the new law, proposed in a Private Member's Bill, future mediums will also be able to be stored as they are developed.
The archive will comprise selective "harvesting" from the 2.9 million sites that have "co.uk" suffixes.
The library already has six legal deposit archives which hold a copy of everything published in the UK since 1911. The new formats - which also include CD-Roms - will join these archives, and be available for future study.
The number of journals published electronically in the UK is expected to jump from 52,000 in 2002 to 193,000 in 2005.
The deposit libraries already hold more than 51 million printed items.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/31/2003
0 comments
____________________________________________
HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
Community and the Blogosphere
The meaning of life, social interaction, quarrelsome, unfriendly, people and neighbourhoods, troublesome self serving neighbours, the natural laws of the animal kingdom, ants and sheep, lack of community in the blogosphere, the World drowning in oceans of data (the equivalent of a 30-foot pile of books of data is produced for everyone on Earth annually), and the comments left by readers in this report Web guru fights info pollution ("Ultimately, time is a non-renewable resource. Once that day is gone, it is never coming back"). What's it all for?
These are the things on my mind lately, whilst thinking about a post on community in the blogosphere - or more to the point, about the lack of it. I've looked forward to blogging about this issue but feel unable. This is not a "lazy" post, I just cannot manage any in-depth composition at the moment. Here are two reports on ants by John Whitfield, courtesy of Nature.
ANT GROUP DYNAMICS
Decision-making en masse ensures an ideal home
Lots of little brains can solve problems better than a big one has captured the imagination of computer scientists:
It's hard enough getting four people to agree on a rental video. Several hundred ants, however, pick the best among possible nest sites with ease. Each small act of an individual ant ensures that, together, the colony makes the right move.
Laboratory colonies of the European ant, Leptothorax albipennis, were made homeless by Stephen Pratt, of the University of Bath, UK. Pratt triggered migration by dismantling the ants' artificial nest, and giving them a choice of new homes.
When an ant scout finds a potential nest site she inspects it. The ants, who nest in rock crevices in the wild, prefer wide, dark crannies with small entrances. The scout returns to the old nest, and leads another ant there in a nose-to-tail procession. The new recruit forms a second opinion, returns home to lead a third, and so on.
But an ant thinks twice before she recruits the next advocate; the less she likes her potential new home, the longer she waits, found Pratt. "The ants are taking a sort of poll of their nest mates," he told the meeting of the Animal Behavior Society in Corvallis, Oregon. Desirable residences attract recruits quickly, while dumps' popularity withers.
If an ant arrives at a new site and finds many nest mates already there, her behaviour switches. Instead of leading new recruits, she starts to move belongings: carrying ants, larvae and eggs from old to new sites. A point seems to be reached when the colony's collective mind is made up, and migration accelerates.
Many individuals following a few simple rules result in complex and powerful behaviour. "You don't need a complex set of rules for patterns to emerge," says Jennifer Fewell, who studies ants at Arizona State University in Tempe. Brains, embryonic development and ecosystems show similar complex 'emergent' properties from simple interactions, says Fewell.
Such patterns may be an inevitable result of the interactions, rather than being favoured by natural selection, she says - studying them requires a different way of thinking. "We've looked at things from the perspective of evolution, rather than how the pattern gets there in the first place," says Fewell.
The idea that lots of little brains can solve problems better than a big one has captured the imagination of computer scientists. "There's an entire field developing based on ant algorithms," says Pratt. This tackles complex problems such as designing distribution networks.
Robotics engineers also foresee that groups of many simple machines could be adaptable and robust, as each individual is expendable.
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - Animal Behavior Society Meeting, Corvallis, Oregon, July 2001 - by John Whitfield
_ _ _
ANTS SHAPE EUROPE'S BIGGEST CARNIVAL
Models of insect swarms teach scientists how to make street party safer
People in highly congested situations behave like a fluid - they move as one:
This weekend, almost a million people will pour into London's Notting Hill district for its annual carnival, Europe's largest street party. The authorities will treat them like ants in the hope of making their experience more pleasant.
Researchers have adapted computer models of insect swarms to work out the carnival parade route that is most likely to alleviate the crowding that can mar the event.
In the past, the parade has taken a circular route. This traps people in a small area and intensifies the crush. Two years ago, the Greater London Authority asked geographer Michael Batty of University College London and his colleagues to explore six alternative routes.
Last year, the team monitored the entry points into the carnival area. They combined this with information from transport authorities, first-aid providers and aerial police photos to work out how many people were going where.
The researchers then created a virtual Notting Hill. About 15,000 computerized pedestrians roamed simulated streets to find the quickest routes and prime attractions. People followed each other to entertainment hotspots, but were repelled by dense crowds.
This allowed the team to identify the potential crush spots and to predict the effects of different parade routes, blocked streets or closed underground stations.
The Notting Hill model predicted that an L-shaped parade route would reduce crowding most effectively. This foundered on the carnival organizers' desire to keep the route as circular as possible, and the wish of some local councils to keep the parade out of their area.
The compromise route is U-shaped - an interim solution, says Lee Jasper, a senior policy advisor to the Mayor of London. "We're taking an evolutionary approach," he says, to reconciling political and public safety concerns.
"The key thing is that we've now got several objective standards by which to make decisions, whereas in the past we've just had common sense and experience," says Jasper.
Mass movement
This type of simulation has been used to explain ants' behaviour, whereby many individuals following simple rules can produce complex and orderly transport networks without any outside control. "It's characteristic of how insects are attracted to food," says Batty.
Treating carnival-goers as individuals might work well for people heading into Notting Hill, comments computer scientist Jon Kerridge of Napier University in Edinburgh UK. But such simulations might not reflect the crush of the carnival, where freedom of movement is limited.
"People in highly congested situations behave like a fluid - they move as one," says Kerridge, who studies pedestrian movement. Often, for example, groups hold hands to stay in touch. Simulating individuals' movement might miss the effects of these behaviours on crowding, he says.
"Our model doesn't show the dynamics of crushing on a fine scale," admits Jake Desyllas of Intelligent Space, a London-based consultancy firm that collaborated in the project. "But it shows the key factors that influence crowds on an urban scale." The research team will be moving among the crowds at this year's carnival to collect information to refine their simulation.
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003, 22 August 2002 by John Whitfield
HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
Community and the Blogosphere
The meaning of life, social interaction, quarrelsome, unfriendly, people and neighbourhoods, troublesome self serving neighbours, the natural laws of the animal kingdom, ants and sheep, lack of community in the blogosphere, the World drowning in oceans of data (the equivalent of a 30-foot pile of books of data is produced for everyone on Earth annually), and the comments left by readers in this report Web guru fights info pollution ("Ultimately, time is a non-renewable resource. Once that day is gone, it is never coming back"). What's it all for?
These are the things on my mind lately, whilst thinking about a post on community in the blogosphere - or more to the point, about the lack of it. I've looked forward to blogging about this issue but feel unable. This is not a "lazy" post, I just cannot manage any in-depth composition at the moment. Here are two reports on ants by John Whitfield, courtesy of Nature.
ANT GROUP DYNAMICS
Decision-making en masse ensures an ideal home
Lots of little brains can solve problems better than a big one has captured the imagination of computer scientists:
It's hard enough getting four people to agree on a rental video. Several hundred ants, however, pick the best among possible nest sites with ease. Each small act of an individual ant ensures that, together, the colony makes the right move.
Laboratory colonies of the European ant, Leptothorax albipennis, were made homeless by Stephen Pratt, of the University of Bath, UK. Pratt triggered migration by dismantling the ants' artificial nest, and giving them a choice of new homes.
When an ant scout finds a potential nest site she inspects it. The ants, who nest in rock crevices in the wild, prefer wide, dark crannies with small entrances. The scout returns to the old nest, and leads another ant there in a nose-to-tail procession. The new recruit forms a second opinion, returns home to lead a third, and so on.
But an ant thinks twice before she recruits the next advocate; the less she likes her potential new home, the longer she waits, found Pratt. "The ants are taking a sort of poll of their nest mates," he told the meeting of the Animal Behavior Society in Corvallis, Oregon. Desirable residences attract recruits quickly, while dumps' popularity withers.
If an ant arrives at a new site and finds many nest mates already there, her behaviour switches. Instead of leading new recruits, she starts to move belongings: carrying ants, larvae and eggs from old to new sites. A point seems to be reached when the colony's collective mind is made up, and migration accelerates.
Many individuals following a few simple rules result in complex and powerful behaviour. "You don't need a complex set of rules for patterns to emerge," says Jennifer Fewell, who studies ants at Arizona State University in Tempe. Brains, embryonic development and ecosystems show similar complex 'emergent' properties from simple interactions, says Fewell.
Such patterns may be an inevitable result of the interactions, rather than being favoured by natural selection, she says - studying them requires a different way of thinking. "We've looked at things from the perspective of evolution, rather than how the pattern gets there in the first place," says Fewell.
The idea that lots of little brains can solve problems better than a big one has captured the imagination of computer scientists. "There's an entire field developing based on ant algorithms," says Pratt. This tackles complex problems such as designing distribution networks.
Robotics engineers also foresee that groups of many simple machines could be adaptable and robust, as each individual is expendable.
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001 - Animal Behavior Society Meeting, Corvallis, Oregon, July 2001 - by John Whitfield
_ _ _
ANTS SHAPE EUROPE'S BIGGEST CARNIVAL
Models of insect swarms teach scientists how to make street party safer
People in highly congested situations behave like a fluid - they move as one:
This weekend, almost a million people will pour into London's Notting Hill district for its annual carnival, Europe's largest street party. The authorities will treat them like ants in the hope of making their experience more pleasant.
Researchers have adapted computer models of insect swarms to work out the carnival parade route that is most likely to alleviate the crowding that can mar the event.
In the past, the parade has taken a circular route. This traps people in a small area and intensifies the crush. Two years ago, the Greater London Authority asked geographer Michael Batty of University College London and his colleagues to explore six alternative routes.
Last year, the team monitored the entry points into the carnival area. They combined this with information from transport authorities, first-aid providers and aerial police photos to work out how many people were going where.
The researchers then created a virtual Notting Hill. About 15,000 computerized pedestrians roamed simulated streets to find the quickest routes and prime attractions. People followed each other to entertainment hotspots, but were repelled by dense crowds.
This allowed the team to identify the potential crush spots and to predict the effects of different parade routes, blocked streets or closed underground stations.
The Notting Hill model predicted that an L-shaped parade route would reduce crowding most effectively. This foundered on the carnival organizers' desire to keep the route as circular as possible, and the wish of some local councils to keep the parade out of their area.
The compromise route is U-shaped - an interim solution, says Lee Jasper, a senior policy advisor to the Mayor of London. "We're taking an evolutionary approach," he says, to reconciling political and public safety concerns.
"The key thing is that we've now got several objective standards by which to make decisions, whereas in the past we've just had common sense and experience," says Jasper.
Mass movement
This type of simulation has been used to explain ants' behaviour, whereby many individuals following simple rules can produce complex and orderly transport networks without any outside control. "It's characteristic of how insects are attracted to food," says Batty.
Treating carnival-goers as individuals might work well for people heading into Notting Hill, comments computer scientist Jon Kerridge of Napier University in Edinburgh UK. But such simulations might not reflect the crush of the carnival, where freedom of movement is limited.
"People in highly congested situations behave like a fluid - they move as one," says Kerridge, who studies pedestrian movement. Often, for example, groups hold hands to stay in touch. Simulating individuals' movement might miss the effects of these behaviours on crowding, he says.
"Our model doesn't show the dynamics of crushing on a fine scale," admits Jake Desyllas of Intelligent Space, a London-based consultancy firm that collaborated in the project. "But it shows the key factors that influence crowds on an urban scale." The research team will be moving among the crowds at this year's carnival to collect information to refine their simulation.
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003, 22 August 2002 by John Whitfield
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/31/2003
0 comments
Thursday, October 30, 2003
TIP OF THE DAY
For anyone suffering from low self esteem
Sometimes it is very difficult to know what to say to comfort someone who is suffering from low self worth and confidence and can't see the wood for the trees. This "Tip of the Day" provided courtesy of ImmuneSupport, seems like a good one to keep in mind and pass on to anyone who may be suffering from low self esteem:
"Living with a chronic illness can have negative impacts on one's self esteem. Author and patient David Spero, R.N., writes, "Make a written list of things you do well - as many as you can think of, but at least five - no matter how small or large. Keep reading the list over and over until you have memorized it, and add more items as you think of them.
Now make a list of five or more things you like about yourself. Next, write a list of your positive attributes, of anything good anyone has ever said about you, and any positive adjectives you can think of that apply to you. Ask a friend or family member for help with the list (and help them with theirs!). Write these lists in big letters, and look at them at least once a day."
(Source: The Art of Getting Well: A Five-Step Plan for Maximizing Health When You Have a Chronic Illness, by David Spero, R.N. Published by Hunter House and available at www.hunterhouse.com or by calling 1-800-266-5592.)
For anyone suffering from low self esteem
Sometimes it is very difficult to know what to say to comfort someone who is suffering from low self worth and confidence and can't see the wood for the trees. This "Tip of the Day" provided courtesy of ImmuneSupport, seems like a good one to keep in mind and pass on to anyone who may be suffering from low self esteem:
"Living with a chronic illness can have negative impacts on one's self esteem. Author and patient David Spero, R.N., writes, "Make a written list of things you do well - as many as you can think of, but at least five - no matter how small or large. Keep reading the list over and over until you have memorized it, and add more items as you think of them.
Now make a list of five or more things you like about yourself. Next, write a list of your positive attributes, of anything good anyone has ever said about you, and any positive adjectives you can think of that apply to you. Ask a friend or family member for help with the list (and help them with theirs!). Write these lists in big letters, and look at them at least once a day."
(Source: The Art of Getting Well: A Five-Step Plan for Maximizing Health When You Have a Chronic Illness, by David Spero, R.N. Published by Hunter House and available at www.hunterhouse.com or by calling 1-800-266-5592.)
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/30/2003
0 comments
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
THE WORK FOUNDATION - iSOCIETY
Fat Pipes, Connected People - Rethinking Broadband Britain
Imagine a country with 20 million broadband users. Will it be better? Will it be different? It could be. Fat Pipes, Connected People, the result of a year-long study of everyday British broadband users in partnership with the Broadband Stakeholder Group, explains why broadband matters and how we can get more people using it.
_ _ _
Broadband and Behaviour - Defining Everyday Broadband
iSociety presentation by James Crabtree and Simon Roberts, October 2003.
_ _ _
Today is the first day, since starting this weblog three months ago, that I have not felt up to blogging. Cold and dark grey clouds are rolling heavily over the sea, air feels damp like we're in for a sea storm. Ophelia is snoozing on her chair by the fire and I'm on the couch nearby, covered in pillows and a throw. Laptop perched on pillow on lap.
I'll spend today reading the Burningbird weblog by Shelley Powers, which I was pleased to discover recently, and catch up on iSociety's blogging section and "Bloggers are like DJs" post by James Crabtree.
Ice cold rain is now beating sideways against my new (hence non-rattling and super quiet) windows. Everything's gone cold and grey. Sea, sky and horizon are melding into one. Thunder and lightening. We're in for a storm. I have a surge protector but Dell's advice is to unplug modem cables during a storm as telephone lines can be affected and do serious damage to a computer's hard drive. There. It took me a while, and it's a bit scrappy, but I did manage to blog today. :-)
Fat Pipes, Connected People - Rethinking Broadband Britain
Imagine a country with 20 million broadband users. Will it be better? Will it be different? It could be. Fat Pipes, Connected People, the result of a year-long study of everyday British broadband users in partnership with the Broadband Stakeholder Group, explains why broadband matters and how we can get more people using it.
_ _ _
Broadband and Behaviour - Defining Everyday Broadband
iSociety presentation by James Crabtree and Simon Roberts, October 2003.
_ _ _
Today is the first day, since starting this weblog three months ago, that I have not felt up to blogging. Cold and dark grey clouds are rolling heavily over the sea, air feels damp like we're in for a sea storm. Ophelia is snoozing on her chair by the fire and I'm on the couch nearby, covered in pillows and a throw. Laptop perched on pillow on lap.
I'll spend today reading the Burningbird weblog by Shelley Powers, which I was pleased to discover recently, and catch up on iSociety's blogging section and "Bloggers are like DJs" post by James Crabtree.
Ice cold rain is now beating sideways against my new (hence non-rattling and super quiet) windows. Everything's gone cold and grey. Sea, sky and horizon are melding into one. Thunder and lightening. We're in for a storm. I have a surge protector but Dell's advice is to unplug modem cables during a storm as telephone lines can be affected and do serious damage to a computer's hard drive. There. It took me a while, and it's a bit scrappy, but I did manage to blog today. :-)
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/29/2003
0 comments
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
FREE WEBLOGS ON BLOGGER HAVE NO SPACE LIMITATION!
Thanks to BLOGGER for fixing my Permalinks
Happy *sigh*. Emails are pinging into my Inbox again. Some are three days old. But better late than never.
BLOGGER's reply arrived with good, bad, great and stupendous news.
The bad news is that they cannot advise me on how to open the comments box on this page because they do not provide support for third-party applications. I can read the comments by logging in to BlogSpeak but can't write a reply. This is the thing I am most disappointed over, as I was hoping to get some two-way dialogue going here.
The good news is that they know why my Permalinks were not working: my template was missing some of the code needed for Permalinks to work correctly.
The great news is that they've already fixed this in my blog by adding: $BlogItemNumber$ to my Blogger code as well as the $BlogItemPermalinkURL$ tag. If anyone else has had this problem, and needs more information, please visit the Blogger Knowledge Base.
The stupendous news is that although BloggerPro upgrade is no longer available, and there is a BlogSpot Plus upgrade which is associated with hosting space - they've assured me not to worry about running out of space on my free BlogSpot as there is not a space limitation put in place currently.
Wow, or what?!
Thanks for all that to BLOGGER and Support Technician Christine. It's good to see there's at least one female amongst all the Jasons over there at BLOGGER ;-)
Thanks to BLOGGER for fixing my Permalinks
Happy *sigh*. Emails are pinging into my Inbox again. Some are three days old. But better late than never.
BLOGGER's reply arrived with good, bad, great and stupendous news.
The bad news is that they cannot advise me on how to open the comments box on this page because they do not provide support for third-party applications. I can read the comments by logging in to BlogSpeak but can't write a reply. This is the thing I am most disappointed over, as I was hoping to get some two-way dialogue going here.
The good news is that they know why my Permalinks were not working: my template was missing some of the code needed for Permalinks to work correctly.
The great news is that they've already fixed this in my blog by adding: $BlogItemNumber$ to my Blogger code as well as the $BlogItemPermalinkURL$ tag. If anyone else has had this problem, and needs more information, please visit the Blogger Knowledge Base.
The stupendous news is that although BloggerPro upgrade is no longer available, and there is a BlogSpot Plus upgrade which is associated with hosting space - they've assured me not to worry about running out of space on my free BlogSpot as there is not a space limitation put in place currently.
Wow, or what?!
Thanks for all that to BLOGGER and Support Technician Christine. It's good to see there's at least one female amongst all the Jasons over there at BLOGGER ;-)
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/28/2003
0 comments
___________________________________________________________
15 PEOPLE KILLED IN MOST SEVERE WILDFIRES TO HIT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FOR HALF A CENTURY
Eyewitness: 'You cannot breathe'
A few days ago I was thinking about how terrible and terrifying it must be right now for the residents of southern California and, with Californian bloggers in mind, I blogged about the fires (started deliberately last Tuesday) that were sweeping through that part of the US and spreading into Mexico. Just awful.
Yesterday I posted an update that a State of Emergency had been declared, and emailed my favourite Californian blogger James Lee to ask what was happening there with him and his family, friends etc. I wondered how close he was living to all of this and hoped he was far away enough and keeping a close check on the weather and wind reports.
James emailed back, "the fires are down near Los Angeles. That's southern California. I'm near San Francisco which is considered northern California, which is somewhat strange to non-Californians since there is a lot more California to the north of San Francisco.
Anyway, we're about 350 miles north of where the fires are raging. But I know the affected area well. I'm sure a lot of people are in shock and distress. Fires have broken out in the same areas before. This seems a lot worse than some of the other years.
The problem is that a lot of these houses are built in a known fire hazard area. Definitely taking your chances in these areas. There's also a whole bunch of houses in southern California that are in known flood-hazard areas. There's usually no problem but a few years ago, a whole bunch of houses got flooded out."
Thanks for that James. Glad you are safe. If anyone's thinking of moving to California, this post may help decide which areas to avoid settling in!
_ _ _
Happy news update on my NASA postings: The outgoing crew of the International Space Station has arrived safely back on Earth after six months in orbit. NASA spokesman Robert Navias told reporters: "It was a dream landing. It's almost as if they hit an x-mark on the ground." Russian Yuri Malenchenko got married while in space - he was the first person ever to get married in orbit!
15 PEOPLE KILLED IN MOST SEVERE WILDFIRES TO HIT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FOR HALF A CENTURY
Eyewitness: 'You cannot breathe'
A few days ago I was thinking about how terrible and terrifying it must be right now for the residents of southern California and, with Californian bloggers in mind, I blogged about the fires (started deliberately last Tuesday) that were sweeping through that part of the US and spreading into Mexico. Just awful.
Yesterday I posted an update that a State of Emergency had been declared, and emailed my favourite Californian blogger James Lee to ask what was happening there with him and his family, friends etc. I wondered how close he was living to all of this and hoped he was far away enough and keeping a close check on the weather and wind reports.
James emailed back, "the fires are down near Los Angeles. That's southern California. I'm near San Francisco which is considered northern California, which is somewhat strange to non-Californians since there is a lot more California to the north of San Francisco.
Anyway, we're about 350 miles north of where the fires are raging. But I know the affected area well. I'm sure a lot of people are in shock and distress. Fires have broken out in the same areas before. This seems a lot worse than some of the other years.
The problem is that a lot of these houses are built in a known fire hazard area. Definitely taking your chances in these areas. There's also a whole bunch of houses in southern California that are in known flood-hazard areas. There's usually no problem but a few years ago, a whole bunch of houses got flooded out."
Thanks for that James. Glad you are safe. If anyone's thinking of moving to California, this post may help decide which areas to avoid settling in!
_ _ _
Happy news update on my NASA postings: The outgoing crew of the International Space Station has arrived safely back on Earth after six months in orbit. NASA spokesman Robert Navias told reporters: "It was a dream landing. It's almost as if they hit an x-mark on the ground." Russian Yuri Malenchenko got married while in space - he was the first person ever to get married in orbit!
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/28/2003
0 comments
Monday, October 27, 2003
THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS BRAIN
The future is already here
Artist Jonathon Keats has put his brain up for sale.
The idea is that Keats, 32, sells the rights to his brain, and with it his original thoughts, for perpetuity.
This relies on new technology - not yet invented - which will keep his brain alive and functioning, even after he has died. His aim is immortality. Investors could see a big payout. He just has to die first.
Among some of the comments listed at the end of this this story, Luke in the UK wrote: If his brain will still be alive and functioning, in what sense will he be "dead"? I'm confused!
The future is already here
Artist Jonathon Keats has put his brain up for sale.
The idea is that Keats, 32, sells the rights to his brain, and with it his original thoughts, for perpetuity.
This relies on new technology - not yet invented - which will keep his brain alive and functioning, even after he has died. His aim is immortality. Investors could see a big payout. He just has to die first.
Among some of the comments listed at the end of this this story, Luke in the UK wrote: If his brain will still be alive and functioning, in what sense will he be "dead"? I'm confused!
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/27/2003
0 comments
_______________________
NO NEW MESSAGES
There are no unread Mail messages in your Inbox
If it's not one thing, it's another. Twice over the past few days I have emailed Blogger.com for advice on why my permalinks won't work, why comments box won't open up on screen, and - now that it's no longer possible to upgrade to BloggerPro, what do I do when I run out of blogspot space and how will I know when it happens. The second email was sent because I did not receive their usual automated receipt. I've received nothing in reply to the second email.
My incoming email is not working. I've not received any emails for over two days. Yesterday I emailed my ISP and, from another email address, sent two test emails to myself via Yahoo. Nothing, zero, zilch has arrived in my Inbox. I don't even know if the emails I sent to Blogger and my ISP arrived safely. If anyone tries to phone me it'll give a busy signal because I am on the Internet and have only one landline. This leaves me with my mobile phone on re-charge and having to login to BlogSpeak to read any comments left here. I'll update this post later on.
According to a survey, computer users need to stem the stress their machines cause them before it damages health. Nine out of 10 are regularly annoyed by slow, crashing machines, while time wasted fixing problems makes it worse, say security experts Symantec.
"As people work longer hours and become increasingly reliant on computers and technology to communicate and do their work, minor irritants can soon snowball into larger problems. A recent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) survey of 700 managers said £1.24 billion a year was lost because of stress-related sickness and lost productivity."
Wow, £1.23 billion A YEAR. And that's only the figure for here in Britain? Imagine the costs in lost productivity around the world.
The solution to this problem is given as advice to users: 'Keep cool' over computer hassles. What, like it's OUR fault for reacting and something that WE must learn to live with!? All these highly paid techies, and their management, ought to concentrate on fixing all this stuff NOW. Life is for living today, in the here and now. Tomorrow never comes. Once upon a time, my parents had a pub. For a laugh on their opening day, they chalked up a message onto a blackboard, saying "free beer tomorrow". The locals kept on returning and asking for their free beer.
Update: I am keeping my cool but can't help feeling disappointment over the loss of two days of emails. Hazel, thanks for your two emails which have just arrived today at 11.20 a.m. Their arrival tells me that something is beginning to work again and that they've taken a whole day to reach me. Still no response from my ISP or receipts from Blogger. Goodness knows what has happened to my two Yahoo 'test' emails.
Update at 15:33 hrs: So far, twelve emails have trickled in, one by one. Most were sent to me three days ago. My second Yahoo test message arrived plus a reply to my second email to Blogger.com. Still nothing from my ISP or the first messages I sent to Blogger and via Yahoo two days ago.
NO NEW MESSAGES
There are no unread Mail messages in your Inbox
If it's not one thing, it's another. Twice over the past few days I have emailed Blogger.com for advice on why my permalinks won't work, why comments box won't open up on screen, and - now that it's no longer possible to upgrade to BloggerPro, what do I do when I run out of blogspot space and how will I know when it happens. The second email was sent because I did not receive their usual automated receipt. I've received nothing in reply to the second email.
My incoming email is not working. I've not received any emails for over two days. Yesterday I emailed my ISP and, from another email address, sent two test emails to myself via Yahoo. Nothing, zero, zilch has arrived in my Inbox. I don't even know if the emails I sent to Blogger and my ISP arrived safely. If anyone tries to phone me it'll give a busy signal because I am on the Internet and have only one landline. This leaves me with my mobile phone on re-charge and having to login to BlogSpeak to read any comments left here. I'll update this post later on.
According to a survey, computer users need to stem the stress their machines cause them before it damages health. Nine out of 10 are regularly annoyed by slow, crashing machines, while time wasted fixing problems makes it worse, say security experts Symantec.
"As people work longer hours and become increasingly reliant on computers and technology to communicate and do their work, minor irritants can soon snowball into larger problems. A recent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) survey of 700 managers said £1.24 billion a year was lost because of stress-related sickness and lost productivity."
Wow, £1.23 billion A YEAR. And that's only the figure for here in Britain? Imagine the costs in lost productivity around the world.
The solution to this problem is given as advice to users: 'Keep cool' over computer hassles. What, like it's OUR fault for reacting and something that WE must learn to live with!? All these highly paid techies, and their management, ought to concentrate on fixing all this stuff NOW. Life is for living today, in the here and now. Tomorrow never comes. Once upon a time, my parents had a pub. For a laugh on their opening day, they chalked up a message onto a blackboard, saying "free beer tomorrow". The locals kept on returning and asking for their free beer.
Update: I am keeping my cool but can't help feeling disappointment over the loss of two days of emails. Hazel, thanks for your two emails which have just arrived today at 11.20 a.m. Their arrival tells me that something is beginning to work again and that they've taken a whole day to reach me. Still no response from my ISP or receipts from Blogger. Goodness knows what has happened to my two Yahoo 'test' emails.
Update at 15:33 hrs: So far, twelve emails have trickled in, one by one. Most were sent to me three days ago. My second Yahoo test message arrived plus a reply to my second email to Blogger.com. Still nothing from my ISP or the first messages I sent to Blogger and via Yahoo two days ago.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/27/2003
0 comments
Sunday, October 26, 2003
GREENWICH TIME: BRITISH SUMMER TIME HAS ENDED
British clocks fell back one hour today until the last Sunday in March
Greenwich, England has been the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884. GMT is sometimes called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
During the Summer the UK is on British Summer Time which is 1 hour ahead of GMT (GMT+1). From the last Sunday in March until the last Sunday in October the UK (The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) moves it's clocks forward from Greenwich Mean Time by one hour (GMT+1). This is known as British Summer Time or BST for short.
Remember: Clocks Spring Forward & Fall Back (Fall = Autumn) but GMT remains the same all year around.
The Greenwich Meridian (Prime Meridian or Longitude Zero degrees) marks the starting point of every time zone in the World. GMT is Greenwich Mean (or Meridian) Time is the mean (average) time that the earth takes to rotate from noon-to-noon. GMT is fixed all year and does not switch to daylight savings time. GMT is World Time and the basis of every world time zone which sets the time of day and is at the centre of the time zone map. GMT sets current time or official time around the globe. Most time changes are measured by GMT. Although GMT has been replaced by atomic time (UTC) it is still widely regarded as the correct time for every international time zone. Greenwich Mean Time is international time, the basis of the world time clock. Marks precision time and military time (sometimes called Zulu Time). Defines date and time and exact time. The atomic time clock is adjusted by leap seconds to maintain synchronicity with GMT.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT): Home of World Time (GMT) since 1884 Greenwich Mean Time is where you can find: time zone, time, daylight savings time, world time, world time zone, time of day, time zone map, current time, official time, time change, atomic time, correct time, international time zone, Greenwich Mean Time, international time, world time clock, precision time, military time, date and time, exact time, atomic time clock, New York time, Eastern Standard Time, daylight savings time, time zone converter information easily!
PS: It's the first time I've noticed a website tagged with http://wwp (instead of http://www). I've posted this just after 8 a.m. - now I have to find out how to change my blog clock, video recorder, clocks, TVs, microwave. Magically, the clock on my laptop made the change automatically.
British clocks fell back one hour today until the last Sunday in March
Greenwich, England has been the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884. GMT is sometimes called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
During the Summer the UK is on British Summer Time which is 1 hour ahead of GMT (GMT+1). From the last Sunday in March until the last Sunday in October the UK (The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) moves it's clocks forward from Greenwich Mean Time by one hour (GMT+1). This is known as British Summer Time or BST for short.
Remember: Clocks Spring Forward & Fall Back (Fall = Autumn) but GMT remains the same all year around.
The Greenwich Meridian (Prime Meridian or Longitude Zero degrees) marks the starting point of every time zone in the World. GMT is Greenwich Mean (or Meridian) Time is the mean (average) time that the earth takes to rotate from noon-to-noon. GMT is fixed all year and does not switch to daylight savings time. GMT is World Time and the basis of every world time zone which sets the time of day and is at the centre of the time zone map. GMT sets current time or official time around the globe. Most time changes are measured by GMT. Although GMT has been replaced by atomic time (UTC) it is still widely regarded as the correct time for every international time zone. Greenwich Mean Time is international time, the basis of the world time clock. Marks precision time and military time (sometimes called Zulu Time). Defines date and time and exact time. The atomic time clock is adjusted by leap seconds to maintain synchronicity with GMT.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT): Home of World Time (GMT) since 1884 Greenwich Mean Time is where you can find: time zone, time, daylight savings time, world time, world time zone, time of day, time zone map, current time, official time, time change, atomic time, correct time, international time zone, Greenwich Mean Time, international time, world time clock, precision time, military time, date and time, exact time, atomic time clock, New York time, Eastern Standard Time, daylight savings time, time zone converter information easily!
PS: It's the first time I've noticed a website tagged with http://wwp (instead of http://www). I've posted this just after 8 a.m. - now I have to find out how to change my blog clock, video recorder, clocks, TVs, microwave. Magically, the clock on my laptop made the change automatically.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/26/2003
0 comments
_____________________________________
CALIFORNIA BATTLES MULTIPLE FIRES
Thousands of people evacuated from LA suburbs
Here's an update on yesterday's post re the fires that have been sweeping the south of California, USA since Tuesday. Yesterday thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the Los Angeles suburbs. Winds from the desert and sea were fanning the fires making them difficult to contain. The fires, which have darkened the skies in the Rancho Cucamonga area, are believed to have been started deliberately. Houses and property have been destroyed and hundreds more are under threat. Reports say a mountain lion was spotted running through an empty smoke-filled neighbourhood. At least 2,500 firefighters are now on the ground fighting six separate fires. The fire has burned onto the campus of California State University, San Bernardino, where a car park was reported to be on fire. San Bernardino County officials have asked the governor to declare a state of emergency and requested state fire aid to get more firefighters. Courtesy of BBC online In pictures.
_ _ _
Update on Monday, October 27, 2003:
A state of emergency has been declared in four counties in southern California where wildfires have killed at least 11 people. BBC update
Are you in California - what are your experiences of the fire?
CALIFORNIA BATTLES MULTIPLE FIRES
Thousands of people evacuated from LA suburbs
Here's an update on yesterday's post re the fires that have been sweeping the south of California, USA since Tuesday. Yesterday thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the Los Angeles suburbs. Winds from the desert and sea were fanning the fires making them difficult to contain. The fires, which have darkened the skies in the Rancho Cucamonga area, are believed to have been started deliberately. Houses and property have been destroyed and hundreds more are under threat. Reports say a mountain lion was spotted running through an empty smoke-filled neighbourhood. At least 2,500 firefighters are now on the ground fighting six separate fires. The fire has burned onto the campus of California State University, San Bernardino, where a car park was reported to be on fire. San Bernardino County officials have asked the governor to declare a state of emergency and requested state fire aid to get more firefighters. Courtesy of BBC online In pictures.
_ _ _
Update on Monday, October 27, 2003:
A state of emergency has been declared in four counties in southern California where wildfires have killed at least 11 people. BBC update
Are you in California - what are your experiences of the fire?
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/26/2003
0 comments
Saturday, October 25, 2003
HEADACHES AND DIZZINESS AND INABILITY TO THINK CLEARLY
The latest space crew flew despite 'fears'
Supplying the International Space Station (ISS) without the shuttle is a problem, reports the BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse.
Britain's Michael Foale, Russia's Alexander Kaleri and Spain's Pedro Duque entered the International Space Station on Monday October 20, 2003, two days after their Soyuz transport craft blasted off from Kazakhstan.
Astronaut Duque is to remain aboard the Station for eight days before returning to Earth with American Ed Lu and Russian Yuri Malenchenko, who have been aboard since April 28, 2003.
Dr Whitehouse writes about a growing array of hardware problems that are preventing NASA from assessing the quality of air, water and radiation levels aboard the ISS. Some medical officials have said that equipment problems had been growing for more than year, with ISS astronauts complaining of headaches, dizziness and, according to one official, "an ability to think clearly".
More than a year eh? Gulp. Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko have now been in space for nearly six months. Ed Lu said that the monitoring equipment problems began about six weeks ago and were limited to measuring minor trace gases on the ISS.
"Limited to measuring minor trace gases" sounds like there was no way for anyone to monitor the quality of air, water and radiation level aboard. Perhaps nothing else could be monitored either, not even the astronauts' health. Scary huh? Speaking onboard the ISS, Michael Foale said he had been aware of the problem several weeks earlier.
Michael Foale is one of the most experienced astronauts in NASA history. He was born in England in the Lincolnshire market town of Louth in 1957. After boarding school in Canterbury, he studied physics at Cambridge University, completing a degree in astrophysics in 1982. He then moved to Houston, Texas, to work for the US space programme and was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1987. He is married and has two children.
He and Kaleri are now settling down to work, beginning a more than six-month stint focused on Station operations and maintenance. It's not difficult to imagine that they'll be focused on fixing the equipment which monitors the quality of air, water and radiation levels aboard the space Station. And it's easy to imagine how Foale, Kaleri and Dugue must have been eagerly awaited and warmly welcomed and greeted by everyone when they arrived at the Station on Monday!
What a shame that not more is made in the news of these astronauts and the three returning to earth in a week's time, especially after spending six months in space in those conditions. It must be appalling up there. Don't you wonder how they fared during the six month stint, or how they will settle back to their normal routine on Earth? All those medical tests and health checks. Surely they cannot feel as fit and healthy as they were before they left Earth. Astronauts, I suppose, are like the crews of nuclear submarines keeping a safe watch for us - all unsung heroes, until something sinks their ship.
God bless all the astronauts in space right now. Thinking of you and wishing you a safe return home.
Meanwhile here on Earth, a Russian mine rescue begins and a California blaze gathers speed. A fire burning out of control in southern California has grown four times bigger in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of firefighters are trying to contain the blaze in San Bernardino county, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Los Angeles. Strong winds mean the direction of the fire is hard to predict.
It's mind boggling when you think about what everyone in this world is experiencing RIGHT NOW!
_ _ _
Further reading re Nasa in previous post October 4, 2003 A sad story about the engineers at NASA. (Note: sorry, "permalinks" has stopped working here, I've emailed Blogger for advice on this and why still cannot open comments on screen).
The latest space crew flew despite 'fears'
Supplying the International Space Station (ISS) without the shuttle is a problem, reports the BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse.
Britain's Michael Foale, Russia's Alexander Kaleri and Spain's Pedro Duque entered the International Space Station on Monday October 20, 2003, two days after their Soyuz transport craft blasted off from Kazakhstan.
Astronaut Duque is to remain aboard the Station for eight days before returning to Earth with American Ed Lu and Russian Yuri Malenchenko, who have been aboard since April 28, 2003.
Dr Whitehouse writes about a growing array of hardware problems that are preventing NASA from assessing the quality of air, water and radiation levels aboard the ISS. Some medical officials have said that equipment problems had been growing for more than year, with ISS astronauts complaining of headaches, dizziness and, according to one official, "an ability to think clearly".
More than a year eh? Gulp. Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko have now been in space for nearly six months. Ed Lu said that the monitoring equipment problems began about six weeks ago and were limited to measuring minor trace gases on the ISS.
"Limited to measuring minor trace gases" sounds like there was no way for anyone to monitor the quality of air, water and radiation level aboard. Perhaps nothing else could be monitored either, not even the astronauts' health. Scary huh? Speaking onboard the ISS, Michael Foale said he had been aware of the problem several weeks earlier.
Michael Foale is one of the most experienced astronauts in NASA history. He was born in England in the Lincolnshire market town of Louth in 1957. After boarding school in Canterbury, he studied physics at Cambridge University, completing a degree in astrophysics in 1982. He then moved to Houston, Texas, to work for the US space programme and was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1987. He is married and has two children.
He and Kaleri are now settling down to work, beginning a more than six-month stint focused on Station operations and maintenance. It's not difficult to imagine that they'll be focused on fixing the equipment which monitors the quality of air, water and radiation levels aboard the space Station. And it's easy to imagine how Foale, Kaleri and Dugue must have been eagerly awaited and warmly welcomed and greeted by everyone when they arrived at the Station on Monday!
What a shame that not more is made in the news of these astronauts and the three returning to earth in a week's time, especially after spending six months in space in those conditions. It must be appalling up there. Don't you wonder how they fared during the six month stint, or how they will settle back to their normal routine on Earth? All those medical tests and health checks. Surely they cannot feel as fit and healthy as they were before they left Earth. Astronauts, I suppose, are like the crews of nuclear submarines keeping a safe watch for us - all unsung heroes, until something sinks their ship.
God bless all the astronauts in space right now. Thinking of you and wishing you a safe return home.
Meanwhile here on Earth, a Russian mine rescue begins and a California blaze gathers speed. A fire burning out of control in southern California has grown four times bigger in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of firefighters are trying to contain the blaze in San Bernardino county, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Los Angeles. Strong winds mean the direction of the fire is hard to predict.
It's mind boggling when you think about what everyone in this world is experiencing RIGHT NOW!
_ _ _
Further reading re Nasa in previous post October 4, 2003 A sad story about the engineers at NASA. (Note: sorry, "permalinks" has stopped working here, I've emailed Blogger for advice on this and why still cannot open comments on screen).
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/25/2003
0 comments
____________________________________
EARTH PUT ON SOLAR STORM ALERT
One big sunspot and another on the way
By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor
Imminent disruption is predicted for satellites, power systems and even mobile phones because of a solar storm. It comes from one of the largest groups of sunspots seen for years. Several times in recent days superhot gas has erupted above them. The events, called Coronal Mass Ejections, have sent 10 billion tonnes of superhot gas speeding towards Earth. As well as communication blackouts, aurorae - polar lights - may be seen from mid-latitudes as the gas arrives.
Target Earth
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an explosion of gas and charged particles into space from a solar flare in the corona, the outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere. They are associated with sunspots. The current large sunspot group is one of the largest for years. In area, it is 10 times larger than the surface of the Earth.
The Sun has been active
It has been captivating astronomers for days and has already produced several powerful solar flares - huge explosions on the Sun's surface. One of its flares was designated as X-class - the most powerful category. Astronomers say that the latest CME sent nearly 10 billion tonnes of matter toward Earth. It is expected to reach Earth on Friday, and when it interacts with the planet's magnetic field it could create a significant geomagnetic storm. Geomagnetic activity associated with CMEs can dramatically disrupt electrical and communications systems.
Satellite shutdown
CMEs can create voltage surges in electric power grids, disrupt radio communications and navigation systems, and prevent normal satellite operations. In 1997, such a storm shut down an AT&T Telstar 401 satellite that provided television broadcasts. The following year another storm disrupted a Galaxy IV satellite that supported automated cash machines and airline tracking systems. Such storms are also known to affect mobile phone operations and may disrupt wireless internet services.
And there is more to come
Another sunspot group is rotating into view onto the solar disk, showing even more signs of activity. That particular region caught the attention of solar physicists while it was still on the far side of the Sun. Using a technique based on the velocity of sound waves through the Sun's outer layers astronomers have realised that a second sunspot cluster was on the Sun's far side. It could produce more geomagnetic storms in the next two weeks.
UPDATE Sat 25, 13:48 PM
Solar storm buffets Earth
The Earth has been buffeted by a cloud of superhot gas thrown off the Sun a few days ago. Scientists report it caused a moderate "geomagnetic storm".
EARTH PUT ON SOLAR STORM ALERT
One big sunspot and another on the way
By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor
Imminent disruption is predicted for satellites, power systems and even mobile phones because of a solar storm. It comes from one of the largest groups of sunspots seen for years. Several times in recent days superhot gas has erupted above them. The events, called Coronal Mass Ejections, have sent 10 billion tonnes of superhot gas speeding towards Earth. As well as communication blackouts, aurorae - polar lights - may be seen from mid-latitudes as the gas arrives.
Target Earth
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an explosion of gas and charged particles into space from a solar flare in the corona, the outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere. They are associated with sunspots. The current large sunspot group is one of the largest for years. In area, it is 10 times larger than the surface of the Earth.
The Sun has been active
It has been captivating astronomers for days and has already produced several powerful solar flares - huge explosions on the Sun's surface. One of its flares was designated as X-class - the most powerful category. Astronomers say that the latest CME sent nearly 10 billion tonnes of matter toward Earth. It is expected to reach Earth on Friday, and when it interacts with the planet's magnetic field it could create a significant geomagnetic storm. Geomagnetic activity associated with CMEs can dramatically disrupt electrical and communications systems.
Satellite shutdown
CMEs can create voltage surges in electric power grids, disrupt radio communications and navigation systems, and prevent normal satellite operations. In 1997, such a storm shut down an AT&T Telstar 401 satellite that provided television broadcasts. The following year another storm disrupted a Galaxy IV satellite that supported automated cash machines and airline tracking systems. Such storms are also known to affect mobile phone operations and may disrupt wireless internet services.
And there is more to come
Another sunspot group is rotating into view onto the solar disk, showing even more signs of activity. That particular region caught the attention of solar physicists while it was still on the far side of the Sun. Using a technique based on the velocity of sound waves through the Sun's outer layers astronomers have realised that a second sunspot cluster was on the Sun's far side. It could produce more geomagnetic storms in the next two weeks.
UPDATE Sat 25, 13:48 PM
Solar storm buffets Earth
The Earth has been buffeted by a cloud of superhot gas thrown off the Sun a few days ago. Scientists report it caused a moderate "geomagnetic storm".
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/25/2003
0 comments
Friday, October 24, 2003
DANNY O'BRIEN'S
Brilliant blog discussion pit
Last month I was pleased to discover that Danny O'Brien has a weblog. I've always enjoyed reading Danny's technology column, ever since it started (seems like ages ago) in the Doors section of The Sunday Times.
Featuring the latest on personal computing and the Internet, the Sunday Times published Doors in a stand alone booklet and magazine format until it was incorporated into their weekly TV guide magazine. Recently, it was moved onto a double page spread in the News Review section but I preferred it in the handy TV guide where it was easy to refer back to during the week.
Danny's weblog is called Oblomovka. In his latest post, life hacks, he invites his readers to stick their suggestions down in "this here discussion pit" and provides a link to a discussion space which he has set up through QuickTopic, a free web forum.
Last night, I spent an hour playing around with QuickTopic and, so far, think it's simply brilliant.
_ _ _
QUICKTOPIC
Your preposterously easy instant discussion space
QuickTopic is a free bulletin board (message board) and collaborative document review groupware.
"For any one-topic group discussion, you can use the QuickTopic free bulletin boards instead of just email. Your messages will be in a private central place, and each of your friends can opt to participate by email or just use the web forum. That's because QuickTopic's super-easy single-topic web bulletin boards are also fully email-enabled: you can get and post messages via email. Use it on your web site too. Over 200,000 served."
Tonight, I shall read up on the most frequently asked questions about QuickTopic, together with Upgrade to QuickTopic Pro - QuickTopic bulletin.
_ _ _
THE STRENGTH OF WEAK TIES AND THE HUMAN NODE
It's not so much who you know, but who you vaguely know
Joi Ito recently blogged about Jeff Howe's post in Wired entitled "the connectors, the hypernetworked nodes who secretly run the world".
Some of us bloggers noted a glaring omission from Jeff's list: THE EUROPE NODE. Why no European Node? Where's our European Node? We must have a European Node!
Here's Jeff Howe's list of names and descriptions, to which I have added links. Apologies for not finding a better link, except for this by Jeff Howe, for Martin Garbus (wonder why he is an entertainment node and not a law node?).
THE TECH NODE
Clay Shirky: Consultant, writer, and adjunct professor at NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program.
THE MUSIC NODE
Ted Cohen: Senior VP for digital development at EMI and a liaison between the file-sharing and music communities.
THE GAMING NODE
Seamus Blackley: Co-creator of the Xbox and its chief evangelist both inside and outside Microsoft. Blackley, 35, left last year to start a game development company, Capital Entertainment Group. He writes an influential column for UK gaming mag Develop.
THE FINANCE NODE
Nancy Peretsman: Partner at Allen & Co., Herb Allen's media and technology investment bank.
THE SCIENCE NODE
Jan Witkowski: Director of the Banbury Center, a biotech confab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York.
THE VALLEY NODE
Linda Stone: Former Microsoft ambassador: currently advises the power elite and consults for Segway's Dean Kamen.
THE ENTERTAINMENT NODE
Martin Garbus: Longtime First Amendment lawyer: defended Emmanuel Goldstein, aka Eric Corley, in the DeCSS DVD copy protection trials.
THE TOKYO NODE
Joichi Ito: Runs a $40.6 million VC firm, Neoteny, from his hometown of Inba, Japan; best known for his must-read blog, Joi Ito's Web.
Brilliant blog discussion pit
Last month I was pleased to discover that Danny O'Brien has a weblog. I've always enjoyed reading Danny's technology column, ever since it started (seems like ages ago) in the Doors section of The Sunday Times.
Featuring the latest on personal computing and the Internet, the Sunday Times published Doors in a stand alone booklet and magazine format until it was incorporated into their weekly TV guide magazine. Recently, it was moved onto a double page spread in the News Review section but I preferred it in the handy TV guide where it was easy to refer back to during the week.
Danny's weblog is called Oblomovka. In his latest post, life hacks, he invites his readers to stick their suggestions down in "this here discussion pit" and provides a link to a discussion space which he has set up through QuickTopic, a free web forum.
Last night, I spent an hour playing around with QuickTopic and, so far, think it's simply brilliant.
_ _ _
QUICKTOPIC
Your preposterously easy instant discussion space
QuickTopic is a free bulletin board (message board) and collaborative document review groupware.
"For any one-topic group discussion, you can use the QuickTopic free bulletin boards instead of just email. Your messages will be in a private central place, and each of your friends can opt to participate by email or just use the web forum. That's because QuickTopic's super-easy single-topic web bulletin boards are also fully email-enabled: you can get and post messages via email. Use it on your web site too. Over 200,000 served."
Tonight, I shall read up on the most frequently asked questions about QuickTopic, together with Upgrade to QuickTopic Pro - QuickTopic bulletin.
_ _ _
THE STRENGTH OF WEAK TIES AND THE HUMAN NODE
It's not so much who you know, but who you vaguely know
Joi Ito recently blogged about Jeff Howe's post in Wired entitled "the connectors, the hypernetworked nodes who secretly run the world".
Some of us bloggers noted a glaring omission from Jeff's list: THE EUROPE NODE. Why no European Node? Where's our European Node? We must have a European Node!
Here's Jeff Howe's list of names and descriptions, to which I have added links. Apologies for not finding a better link, except for this by Jeff Howe, for Martin Garbus (wonder why he is an entertainment node and not a law node?).
THE TECH NODE
Clay Shirky: Consultant, writer, and adjunct professor at NYU's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program.
THE MUSIC NODE
Ted Cohen: Senior VP for digital development at EMI and a liaison between the file-sharing and music communities.
THE GAMING NODE
Seamus Blackley: Co-creator of the Xbox and its chief evangelist both inside and outside Microsoft. Blackley, 35, left last year to start a game development company, Capital Entertainment Group. He writes an influential column for UK gaming mag Develop.
THE FINANCE NODE
Nancy Peretsman: Partner at Allen & Co., Herb Allen's media and technology investment bank.
THE SCIENCE NODE
Jan Witkowski: Director of the Banbury Center, a biotech confab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York.
THE VALLEY NODE
Linda Stone: Former Microsoft ambassador: currently advises the power elite and consults for Segway's Dean Kamen.
THE ENTERTAINMENT NODE
Martin Garbus: Longtime First Amendment lawyer: defended Emmanuel Goldstein, aka Eric Corley, in the DeCSS DVD copy protection trials.
THE TOKYO NODE
Joichi Ito: Runs a $40.6 million VC firm, Neoteny, from his hometown of Inba, Japan; best known for his must-read blog, Joi Ito's Web.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/24/2003
0 comments
Thursday, October 23, 2003
BLOGGER BOOZE-UP IN BLIGHTY?
London bloggers' gathering Friday
First thing this morning I posted a comment to Chris O'Neills London Blog which went something like this:
London Bloggers' Gathering this Friday evening, 18:30 hrs at the Red Lion, 48 Parliament Street, Westminster. I found out about it over at Dan Gillmor's Silicon Valley.com blog (in California, USA) where he has provided a link re Red Lion. Spread the word. I am blogging it today and hope others do the same. I'd be interested to read how it went, if you see any blogs reporting on it, please blog it or let me know. Thanks.
My previous post is about Dan Gillmor's blog and iCAN. Dan is a technology journalist living in California and is currently in London interviewing people at BBCi, which I guess explains his blog about a bloggers' gathering in London. Who knows, he may even be there on Friday. Lucky you if you can get there.
If you can't get there, here's a list of London Bloggers to visit.
London bloggers' gathering Friday
First thing this morning I posted a comment to Chris O'Neills London Blog which went something like this:
London Bloggers' Gathering this Friday evening, 18:30 hrs at the Red Lion, 48 Parliament Street, Westminster. I found out about it over at Dan Gillmor's Silicon Valley.com blog (in California, USA) where he has provided a link re Red Lion. Spread the word. I am blogging it today and hope others do the same. I'd be interested to read how it went, if you see any blogs reporting on it, please blog it or let me know. Thanks.
My previous post is about Dan Gillmor's blog and iCAN. Dan is a technology journalist living in California and is currently in London interviewing people at BBCi, which I guess explains his blog about a bloggers' gathering in London. Who knows, he may even be there on Friday. Lucky you if you can get there.
If you can't get there, here's a list of London Bloggers to visit.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/23/2003
0 comments
___________________________________________
BBC'S BIG EXPERIMENT IN CITIZEN ACTIVISM
iCAN launches November 3, 2003
American journalist and blogger Dan Gillmor is currently in London interviewing people at BBCi, the interactive arm of the BBC, about a new project called iCan. "If the project succeeds, it'll be a big deal in the world of journalism," blogs Dan, a Mercury News Technology Columnist working and living in the Silicon Valley area of California, USA.
iCan is a new BBC service which aims to help people start doing something about issues in their life. You can find advice, inspiration, and a growing number of people able to help you. The site doesn't officially launch till 3 November 2003, but they've put it out now in a "beta" version so you can start using it early. If you want to find out how iCan can help you, why not take their quick step-by-step tour, which should be available today.
Dan says of iCan, "The basic idea is to arm citizens with information and tools so they can become political activisits. BBC journalists will closely observe what citizens say and do, and adjust their reporting to some degree to reflect what's happening". For now, his immediate reaction is, quote: "This could make a difference".
Look forward to following Dan's interesting blog as he intends to write a lot more about this in coming days.
BBC'S BIG EXPERIMENT IN CITIZEN ACTIVISM
iCAN launches November 3, 2003
American journalist and blogger Dan Gillmor is currently in London interviewing people at BBCi, the interactive arm of the BBC, about a new project called iCan. "If the project succeeds, it'll be a big deal in the world of journalism," blogs Dan, a Mercury News Technology Columnist working and living in the Silicon Valley area of California, USA.
iCan is a new BBC service which aims to help people start doing something about issues in their life. You can find advice, inspiration, and a growing number of people able to help you. The site doesn't officially launch till 3 November 2003, but they've put it out now in a "beta" version so you can start using it early. If you want to find out how iCan can help you, why not take their quick step-by-step tour, which should be available today.
Dan says of iCan, "The basic idea is to arm citizens with information and tools so they can become political activisits. BBC journalists will closely observe what citizens say and do, and adjust their reporting to some degree to reflect what's happening". For now, his immediate reaction is, quote: "This could make a difference".
Look forward to following Dan's interesting blog as he intends to write a lot more about this in coming days.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/23/2003
0 comments
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
COMPLAINT: TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES NEWSPAPER
Who cares? It's only me and ME
On September 9, 2003, I received an email from Scott King of Meditainment informing me that The Times were attending Meditainment's cinema premiere in Brighton the next evening and would be writing an article on Meditainment for their new Saturday October 18, 2003, Health Features supplement called ‘Body & Soul’. He said that The Times wished to speak with me about my use of the product and asked if this was okay.
I'd barely recovered from responding to his emails re a BBC TV interview the previous week. BBC TV South were putting together a feature on the health aspects of Meditainment and wanted to speak with someone who was using Meditainment. Scott emailed me asking if I might be happy for them to do a little bit of filming and a short interview with me the following day, and wanted to know asap as "these TV people are very impatient!!"
A dozen or more emails back and forth about the Case Study, the BBC TV interview and The Times article took its toll on my health. It was intrusive and stressful because I was too ill to handle it all and felt under pressure at having to respond right away and explain, in writing again, that I am too ill to even receive my own callers and visitors nevermind newspaper and TV interviews, film crews coming round here, phone arrangements, appointments making me more ill, and having to answer more questions.
That week, even after I had put in the time and effort to provide whatever was necessary to know in my blog of July 9, 2003 and in the Case Study for Meditainment's website, messages continued to ping into my email box re the journalist's urgent request for more details about my work and personal life.
My work on the Case Study alone involved another dozen or so emails, to and fro, explaining how I managed to sleep well but awake unrefreshed....how over activity causes restless and near sleepless nights....and that Dr Betty Dowsett, a leading ME specialist here in Britain, advised me to eat five times a day immediately followed by 30 minutes of rest - and how the specialist GP from my local NHS Chronic Fatigue Clinic recommended, in addition to Dr Dowsett's programme, I rest for five minutes after every 20 - 30 minutes of activity.
Given all that painstaking work to provide useful first hand information to help other sufferers, this is what journalist Damian Barr and The Times published about myself and the value of Meditainment, in Body & Soul supplement on Saturday October 18, 2003.
Damian Barr wrote: "But I don't sleep much.....A specialist GP from her local NHS Chronic Fatigue Clinic recommended resting for five minutes after every 30 minutes of activity". This is not true, I do manage to sleep well AND he omitted the most important and crucial piece of NHS medical advice. Not to mention his "hokey" review of Meditainment and the merits of meditation, and his question "Sounds like a cult thing?"
For readers who know nothing or very little about ME, this article leads one to think that if I could sleep more or better I wouldn't be so "tired". Like ME is all about being tired. What an insult to all severely affected ME patients. I am sick and tired of the media portraying this "living death" illness in such a dismissive way. They have great opportunities to help ME patients (and their carers) by raising awareness of this serious and widespread disease. Well written articles in influential newspapers, such as The Times, could help enormously towards changing the public's perception and help attract and encourage more urgent medical research. Thoughtless and carelessly written articles, such as this, only serve to spread the reporters own ignorance to a wider audience, thus perpetuating huge misunderstandings about this profoundly disabling illness from which most severely affected ME sufferers never recover, and some choose to take their own lives.
I've taken The Sunday Times for 30 years and would never have believed such shabby and cavalier reporting could end up on their pages. The Times did no favours to their readers - Meditainment - to myself or the millions of patients around the world. Who did the article benefit? And who really cares?
The journalist, Damian Leighton Barr, states here that he lives high up in a big house by the sea in Brighton where he writes for The Independent, The Times and The Guardian raising funds to feed his two hamsters and his boyfriend. He concludes his report on Mr and Mrs Michael Portillo, entitled Sir! Did You Swallow?, with the words "...even in this day and age, there can still be such a thing as bad publicity". My point exactly.
I cannot afford to rant or vent or get stressed. It'll cost me too dearly. Throat is already sore just writing this post. Just want to publish this for the record today, so that when I have a better day I can take it further. Maybe I'll just email the Editor of The Times my blog URL and publish the response here.
Who cares? It's only me and ME
On September 9, 2003, I received an email from Scott King of Meditainment informing me that The Times were attending Meditainment's cinema premiere in Brighton the next evening and would be writing an article on Meditainment for their new Saturday October 18, 2003, Health Features supplement called ‘Body & Soul’. He said that The Times wished to speak with me about my use of the product and asked if this was okay.
I'd barely recovered from responding to his emails re a BBC TV interview the previous week. BBC TV South were putting together a feature on the health aspects of Meditainment and wanted to speak with someone who was using Meditainment. Scott emailed me asking if I might be happy for them to do a little bit of filming and a short interview with me the following day, and wanted to know asap as "these TV people are very impatient!!"
A dozen or more emails back and forth about the Case Study, the BBC TV interview and The Times article took its toll on my health. It was intrusive and stressful because I was too ill to handle it all and felt under pressure at having to respond right away and explain, in writing again, that I am too ill to even receive my own callers and visitors nevermind newspaper and TV interviews, film crews coming round here, phone arrangements, appointments making me more ill, and having to answer more questions.
That week, even after I had put in the time and effort to provide whatever was necessary to know in my blog of July 9, 2003 and in the Case Study for Meditainment's website, messages continued to ping into my email box re the journalist's urgent request for more details about my work and personal life.
My work on the Case Study alone involved another dozen or so emails, to and fro, explaining how I managed to sleep well but awake unrefreshed....how over activity causes restless and near sleepless nights....and that Dr Betty Dowsett, a leading ME specialist here in Britain, advised me to eat five times a day immediately followed by 30 minutes of rest - and how the specialist GP from my local NHS Chronic Fatigue Clinic recommended, in addition to Dr Dowsett's programme, I rest for five minutes after every 20 - 30 minutes of activity.
Given all that painstaking work to provide useful first hand information to help other sufferers, this is what journalist Damian Barr and The Times published about myself and the value of Meditainment, in Body & Soul supplement on Saturday October 18, 2003.
Damian Barr wrote: "But I don't sleep much.....A specialist GP from her local NHS Chronic Fatigue Clinic recommended resting for five minutes after every 30 minutes of activity". This is not true, I do manage to sleep well AND he omitted the most important and crucial piece of NHS medical advice. Not to mention his "hokey" review of Meditainment and the merits of meditation, and his question "Sounds like a cult thing?"
For readers who know nothing or very little about ME, this article leads one to think that if I could sleep more or better I wouldn't be so "tired". Like ME is all about being tired. What an insult to all severely affected ME patients. I am sick and tired of the media portraying this "living death" illness in such a dismissive way. They have great opportunities to help ME patients (and their carers) by raising awareness of this serious and widespread disease. Well written articles in influential newspapers, such as The Times, could help enormously towards changing the public's perception and help attract and encourage more urgent medical research. Thoughtless and carelessly written articles, such as this, only serve to spread the reporters own ignorance to a wider audience, thus perpetuating huge misunderstandings about this profoundly disabling illness from which most severely affected ME sufferers never recover, and some choose to take their own lives.
I've taken The Sunday Times for 30 years and would never have believed such shabby and cavalier reporting could end up on their pages. The Times did no favours to their readers - Meditainment - to myself or the millions of patients around the world. Who did the article benefit? And who really cares?
The journalist, Damian Leighton Barr, states here that he lives high up in a big house by the sea in Brighton where he writes for The Independent, The Times and The Guardian raising funds to feed his two hamsters and his boyfriend. He concludes his report on Mr and Mrs Michael Portillo, entitled Sir! Did You Swallow?, with the words "...even in this day and age, there can still be such a thing as bad publicity". My point exactly.
I cannot afford to rant or vent or get stressed. It'll cost me too dearly. Throat is already sore just writing this post. Just want to publish this for the record today, so that when I have a better day I can take it further. Maybe I'll just email the Editor of The Times my blog URL and publish the response here.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/22/2003
0 comments
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
SPOOKY
Halloween Lantern
Yes this is Spooky - and so simple too - it'd be a neat design to keep in mind when carving a pumpkin into a lantern for Halloween.
With thanks to American blogger Jim O'Connell, author of the excellent Wirefarm - A sporadic Journal of his life in Tokyo.
Be sure to check out Jim's brilliant pictures and QuickTime clips, including One Minute in Harajuku and One Minute in Tokyo - A little film of Akasaka - traffic's choreographed to great music!
Halloween Lantern
Yes this is Spooky - and so simple too - it'd be a neat design to keep in mind when carving a pumpkin into a lantern for Halloween.
With thanks to American blogger Jim O'Connell, author of the excellent Wirefarm - A sporadic Journal of his life in Tokyo.
Be sure to check out Jim's brilliant pictures and QuickTime clips, including One Minute in Harajuku and One Minute in Tokyo - A little film of Akasaka - traffic's choreographed to great music!
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/21/2003
0 comments
Monday, October 20, 2003
WEBLOG COMMENTING FACILITY
Testing BlogSpeak
This morning I deleted the the HaloScan commenting facility from my blogspot template and felt sad at losing the comments already received :-(
Instead, I have replaced it with the BlogSpeak commenting facility codes but still have the same problem as with HaloScan: I can see the facility on my weblog page but when I click on "comment" it won't pull open a comment box on screen (yawn).
At this stage, BlogSpeak's registration and editing set-up does not allow further progress until I have notified their webmaster of the problem.
So, now all I can do is wait and see if it can be fixed before I can get access to BlogSpeak's edit section to delete the lonely looking "0" zero from the comments title (hint, hint, nudge, nudge - please say hi!).
Hopefully, I'll have some news of progress, to update here later on today.
_ _ _
Update:
Discovered I needed my Blogger ID number. This took half an hour to find and submit to BlogSpeak.
BlogSpeak webmaster then suggested I close any popups I have onscreen and try clicking into "comments" again. Emailed him back saying that apart from the two ads at the top of my blog page (which I cannot do anything about because it is a free blogspot from Blogger.com) I do not have any popups on screen. Now I'm waiting for his reply.
While that was going on, "0" changed to (1) comments. Clicked into it but nothing happened. A few minutes later, an email notification arrived via BlogSpeak (yippee!) with the comment from Hazel (you sweetie pie! thanks too for your email).
Next, came another lovely surprise, by direct email, from someone called Stephanie in America: "I accidentally found myself reading about your life while, oddly enough, searching for a Halloween costume. It's funny how you can be taken from unexpected place to place while looking around on the computer. I am a 33 year wife and mother of three in Alabama and thought I would just take the time to say hello and that I hope today was a happy day for you and may tomorrow be even brighter. (Thanks Stephanie, I'll email you back when I get BlogSpeak sorted).
Incase you are getting as bored as I am with these elementary technical problems, here's Bali Surf Blog produced by BaliBlog.com, and the BaliBlog Daily News. This behind-the-screen look at Bali, Indonesia is due to non-blogger Nick's suggestion - in Chris O'Neill's London Blog - that I provide some links to blogs in Bali. Thanks Nick.
Testing BlogSpeak
This morning I deleted the the HaloScan commenting facility from my blogspot template and felt sad at losing the comments already received :-(
Instead, I have replaced it with the BlogSpeak commenting facility codes but still have the same problem as with HaloScan: I can see the facility on my weblog page but when I click on "comment" it won't pull open a comment box on screen (yawn).
At this stage, BlogSpeak's registration and editing set-up does not allow further progress until I have notified their webmaster of the problem.
So, now all I can do is wait and see if it can be fixed before I can get access to BlogSpeak's edit section to delete the lonely looking "0" zero from the comments title (hint, hint, nudge, nudge - please say hi!).
Hopefully, I'll have some news of progress, to update here later on today.
_ _ _
Update:
Discovered I needed my Blogger ID number. This took half an hour to find and submit to BlogSpeak.
BlogSpeak webmaster then suggested I close any popups I have onscreen and try clicking into "comments" again. Emailed him back saying that apart from the two ads at the top of my blog page (which I cannot do anything about because it is a free blogspot from Blogger.com) I do not have any popups on screen. Now I'm waiting for his reply.
While that was going on, "0" changed to (1) comments. Clicked into it but nothing happened. A few minutes later, an email notification arrived via BlogSpeak (yippee!) with the comment from Hazel (you sweetie pie! thanks too for your email).
Next, came another lovely surprise, by direct email, from someone called Stephanie in America: "I accidentally found myself reading about your life while, oddly enough, searching for a Halloween costume. It's funny how you can be taken from unexpected place to place while looking around on the computer. I am a 33 year wife and mother of three in Alabama and thought I would just take the time to say hello and that I hope today was a happy day for you and may tomorrow be even brighter. (Thanks Stephanie, I'll email you back when I get BlogSpeak sorted).
Incase you are getting as bored as I am with these elementary technical problems, here's Bali Surf Blog produced by BaliBlog.com, and the BaliBlog Daily News. This behind-the-screen look at Bali, Indonesia is due to non-blogger Nick's suggestion - in Chris O'Neill's London Blog - that I provide some links to blogs in Bali. Thanks Nick.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/20/2003
0 comments
Sunday, October 19, 2003
US VOTE 2004
The Guardian newspaper's brand new weblog
On October 16, Guardian Unlimited Weblog | Weblog US elections 2004 was announced as the brand new weblog of the Guardian newspaper group - in addition to their existing Guardian Unlimited Weblog. They know they have not chosen a particularly original name and ask, if you can do better, to suggest another name. There might even be a small prize for anyone who comes up with a name they choose to adopt.
The blog will be devoted to discussing the US elections 2004, with a particular focus on the presidential race. As the campaign progresses you will be hearing from the Guardian's correspondents in the US, its London-based commentators, and various members of the Guardian Unlimited news team. They also want to hear from you. If you have seen an article that has infuriated or delighted you, want to suggest a useful link for their blogroll or to comment on something you've seen on the weblog, drop them an email to weblog@guardianunlimited.co.uk with the subject line 'US vote'.
As an opening gambit, they'd like to recommend Andrew Gumbel's piece in the Independent on the electronic voting technology that is starting to dominate the US electoral landscape and its potential to distort outcomes. For more links and stories on e-voting, check out the excellent resources at PoliticsOnline -- Fundraising and Internet Tools for Politics. You have to register but it is free.
The Guardian newspaper's brand new weblog
On October 16, Guardian Unlimited Weblog | Weblog US elections 2004 was announced as the brand new weblog of the Guardian newspaper group - in addition to their existing Guardian Unlimited Weblog. They know they have not chosen a particularly original name and ask, if you can do better, to suggest another name. There might even be a small prize for anyone who comes up with a name they choose to adopt.
The blog will be devoted to discussing the US elections 2004, with a particular focus on the presidential race. As the campaign progresses you will be hearing from the Guardian's correspondents in the US, its London-based commentators, and various members of the Guardian Unlimited news team. They also want to hear from you. If you have seen an article that has infuriated or delighted you, want to suggest a useful link for their blogroll or to comment on something you've seen on the weblog, drop them an email to weblog@guardianunlimited.co.uk with the subject line 'US vote'.
As an opening gambit, they'd like to recommend Andrew Gumbel's piece in the Independent on the electronic voting technology that is starting to dominate the US electoral landscape and its potential to distort outcomes. For more links and stories on e-voting, check out the excellent resources at PoliticsOnline -- Fundraising and Internet Tools for Politics. You have to register but it is free.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/19/2003
0 comments
______________________________
BRITISH BLOG AWARDS 2003
All participants get more visitors
Hello there British bloggers. The moment British bloggers have been waiting for is here. Guardian Unlimited has launched the British Blog Awards 2003. The 2002 awards attracted some outrage from the blogging community, but also drew hundreds of entries. They are hoping this year's awards will provide a showcase for the best of British blogging.
You can now enter your site in the Guardian's competition to find the best British bloggers. Please enter the competition. It gives a fun sense of community in the blogosphere and is a good laugh. I am entering ME AND OPHELIA for those reasons and because it could open the door for a few more visitors who may know of someone who thinks they may be suffering from ME.
Here's hoping that one of my favourite British bloggers Blogjam: like Salam Pax, but reporting from Cricklewood wins this year. He puts so much fun, time, thought and effort into his blog, pictures and video clips and appeals to all age groups. He is such an imaginative, amusing and thoughtful writer, has a unique way with words and uses rude ones only to make a point, not just for the sake of swearing or trying to sound down to earth and 'cool' (which I find off putting in a lot of blogs - not because I'm a prude, I just find it ugly and unnecessary when there are so many better and more beautiful words to choose from).
Scaryduck, my most favourite British blogger, I think at times is Blogjam - at other times I think Blogjam is Scaryduck - depending on who is the funniest. Those two guys are so clever and funny - and big softies at heart really - you can't but help adore them when you get to know their blog personality, character and humour.
If you would like an introduction to the history of British comedy, take a read of Scaryduck's October 11 2003 post entitled "He's fallen in the water". It's a great introduction to the Goon Show: "perhaps the finest example of radio comedy these isles have every produced....You have not experienced comedy until you have heard the Goons"....The Goons (Prince Charles's favourites) are the people who influenced the Monty Python team, who influenced the Alternative Comedians, who influenced today's stars".
Simon Waldman, Chairman of the judges, blogger of Words of Waldman and director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers Limited urges all British bloggers to enter.
The 22-strong judging panel includes the Scaryduck (Alistair Coleman), Baghdad blogger Salam Pax, blogging MP Tom Watson, blogger and musician Moby, and Sixapart.com's Mena Trott.
The panel will pick winners for five different categories: design, specialist, photography, under 18, and best written. You can enter your blog in as many categories as you like. The winners will be announced on December 18. The winner of each category will receive a cheque for £500. The deadline for entries is November 21.
Best British Blog 2002
Last year's winner was Alistair Coleman's Scaryduck. Scaryduck had the highest vote for writing, Blogjam had the highest marks for design and LinkMachineGo got the highest marks for its links.
"Alistair Coleman's witty, irreverent blog Scaryduck has beaten 300 rivals to take the title of Best British Blog 2002 and claim the prize of £1,000. His blog features intelligent, confessional and entertaining rambles on everything from September 11, nuclear war and football hooliganism to the latest antics of a local dolphin nicknamed Randy. It impressed the judges with its originality and personality: "Magnificent - well-written, focused and insightful," said one judge. Another said: "The best writer of the bunch, the content is excellent." He was closely followed by two highly commended blogs Green Fairy and iMakeContent, both of which contained excellent writing, design and links along with strong personalities." Here is the shortlist of bloggers.
This year the Guardian introduced some changes for the British Blog Awards 2003, which means that the mightiest British blogger Scaryduck gets to retain - forever - the one and only, first and last, title of "Best British Blog". If you read some of the gems in this link to the archive of Scaryduck stories, you'll understand why that's just fine with everyone.
BRITISH BLOG AWARDS 2003
All participants get more visitors
Hello there British bloggers. The moment British bloggers have been waiting for is here. Guardian Unlimited has launched the British Blog Awards 2003. The 2002 awards attracted some outrage from the blogging community, but also drew hundreds of entries. They are hoping this year's awards will provide a showcase for the best of British blogging.
You can now enter your site in the Guardian's competition to find the best British bloggers. Please enter the competition. It gives a fun sense of community in the blogosphere and is a good laugh. I am entering ME AND OPHELIA for those reasons and because it could open the door for a few more visitors who may know of someone who thinks they may be suffering from ME.
Here's hoping that one of my favourite British bloggers Blogjam: like Salam Pax, but reporting from Cricklewood wins this year. He puts so much fun, time, thought and effort into his blog, pictures and video clips and appeals to all age groups. He is such an imaginative, amusing and thoughtful writer, has a unique way with words and uses rude ones only to make a point, not just for the sake of swearing or trying to sound down to earth and 'cool' (which I find off putting in a lot of blogs - not because I'm a prude, I just find it ugly and unnecessary when there are so many better and more beautiful words to choose from).
Scaryduck, my most favourite British blogger, I think at times is Blogjam - at other times I think Blogjam is Scaryduck - depending on who is the funniest. Those two guys are so clever and funny - and big softies at heart really - you can't but help adore them when you get to know their blog personality, character and humour.
If you would like an introduction to the history of British comedy, take a read of Scaryduck's October 11 2003 post entitled "He's fallen in the water". It's a great introduction to the Goon Show: "perhaps the finest example of radio comedy these isles have every produced....You have not experienced comedy until you have heard the Goons"....The Goons (Prince Charles's favourites) are the people who influenced the Monty Python team, who influenced the Alternative Comedians, who influenced today's stars".
Simon Waldman, Chairman of the judges, blogger of Words of Waldman and director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers Limited urges all British bloggers to enter.
The 22-strong judging panel includes the Scaryduck (Alistair Coleman), Baghdad blogger Salam Pax, blogging MP Tom Watson, blogger and musician Moby, and Sixapart.com's Mena Trott.
The panel will pick winners for five different categories: design, specialist, photography, under 18, and best written. You can enter your blog in as many categories as you like. The winners will be announced on December 18. The winner of each category will receive a cheque for £500. The deadline for entries is November 21.
Best British Blog 2002
Last year's winner was Alistair Coleman's Scaryduck. Scaryduck had the highest vote for writing, Blogjam had the highest marks for design and LinkMachineGo got the highest marks for its links.
"Alistair Coleman's witty, irreverent blog Scaryduck has beaten 300 rivals to take the title of Best British Blog 2002 and claim the prize of £1,000. His blog features intelligent, confessional and entertaining rambles on everything from September 11, nuclear war and football hooliganism to the latest antics of a local dolphin nicknamed Randy. It impressed the judges with its originality and personality: "Magnificent - well-written, focused and insightful," said one judge. Another said: "The best writer of the bunch, the content is excellent." He was closely followed by two highly commended blogs Green Fairy and iMakeContent, both of which contained excellent writing, design and links along with strong personalities." Here is the shortlist of bloggers.
This year the Guardian introduced some changes for the British Blog Awards 2003, which means that the mightiest British blogger Scaryduck gets to retain - forever - the one and only, first and last, title of "Best British Blog". If you read some of the gems in this link to the archive of Scaryduck stories, you'll understand why that's just fine with everyone.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/19/2003
0 comments
Saturday, October 18, 2003
THE PERILS OF COMMENTING
Beware of what you are linking to
Hopefully, this is the start of a new daily blogging routine. My new ISP package allows me to access the Internet anytime between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays but not at all during weekends. On 10 November it will change to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for seven days a week. An hour or two daily, either side of those hours, could incur charges in excess of £60, if I don't watch it.
Ophelia and I are usually awake by 6 a.m. We get up straight away and head for the kitchen where I open the back door for her to outside. She scuttles off around the corner - leaps up through a 4' high gap in my courtyard wall, lands on a rooftop, jumps down into the ancient grounds of a nearby Norman church surrounded by long, lush soft grass - and disappears.
Brush my teeth and switch on the hot water which takes an hour to heat. Open the curtains and some windows, switch on the lamps, fire and laptop, plump up all my pillows and settle on the couch for an hour to read emails, blogs and stats to see if I recognise anyone who has visited me and Ophelia during the night. We get around 50 unique visitors daily from almost every part of the world.
Same routine after dinner and until bedtime around 10 p.m. Summer is noisy here with tourists and late night music from a nearby theatre. I enjoy the peace and quiet of very early mornings when it's just me and Ophelia and the wide open sea with not a soul in site. It's magical.
The day before yesterday, BLOGGER went haywire and corrupted what I was trying to post. Half of my post disappeared and the other half became jumbled and somehow mixed in with a string of alarming looking RSS type codes and garbled text, from someone's else's blog I presume, containing murderous and hateful words about religion and brides.
BLOGGER's troubles started on the day before. One of their pages, in the place of their usual slogan, was the name, in large capital letters, of a "medicine" which 'speeds' people up. It starts with an A but I am not spelling it out because I've had a few visitors via Google searching for "celebrity females without clothes in mink fur coats" - which led them to posts about Ophelia (hah!).
Sometime during the previous two days, which I spent on trying to get HaloScan working for this blog, I visited a great British blog and left a comment with a link to something which was meant to be humorous (a site which I thought was for a white "404 error page cannot be found" actually).
Not long afterwards, I returned to the blog to check that the link worked. On clicking the link, a dark and heavily coloured page started to unroll, very slowly, onto my screen. A dreadful feeling of unease crept through me. Something sinister and menacing was unfolding. I was sensing evil.
Jittering onto my screen, inch by inch, was the body of a white adult female, totally unclothed, with yards of rope carefully coiled in single layers around her neck - like a gigantic snaking African necklace - ending in a large and heavy hangman's knot and noose. It was a horrible degenerate scene of murder by torture or hanging. An enactment or for real, I just don't know, I was too stunned and didn't hang around to find out.
My mind raced to the link still dangling in the comment box. Swiftly, I submitted another comment, urgently requesting deletion of previous comment and sent an email.
All I could do was wait - with niggling doubts like, what if he doesn't get the message or my email...or is away... what if he is away for two weeks...there'd be nothing I could do about it...
God bless the British blogger, he got my message almost immediately, deleted the post and notified me by email. Phew. What a relief.
It will be a long time before I provide a link within a comment box again. That'll teach me for trying to be funny.
I have not led a sheltered life but it came as a shock because there was no warning and it was one of the weirdest things I have even seen.
There sure are some scary weird people around. I doubt if they look scary weird either. It takes a lot to make this world go around.
Beware of what you are linking to
Hopefully, this is the start of a new daily blogging routine. My new ISP package allows me to access the Internet anytime between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays but not at all during weekends. On 10 November it will change to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for seven days a week. An hour or two daily, either side of those hours, could incur charges in excess of £60, if I don't watch it.
Ophelia and I are usually awake by 6 a.m. We get up straight away and head for the kitchen where I open the back door for her to outside. She scuttles off around the corner - leaps up through a 4' high gap in my courtyard wall, lands on a rooftop, jumps down into the ancient grounds of a nearby Norman church surrounded by long, lush soft grass - and disappears.
Brush my teeth and switch on the hot water which takes an hour to heat. Open the curtains and some windows, switch on the lamps, fire and laptop, plump up all my pillows and settle on the couch for an hour to read emails, blogs and stats to see if I recognise anyone who has visited me and Ophelia during the night. We get around 50 unique visitors daily from almost every part of the world.
Same routine after dinner and until bedtime around 10 p.m. Summer is noisy here with tourists and late night music from a nearby theatre. I enjoy the peace and quiet of very early mornings when it's just me and Ophelia and the wide open sea with not a soul in site. It's magical.
The day before yesterday, BLOGGER went haywire and corrupted what I was trying to post. Half of my post disappeared and the other half became jumbled and somehow mixed in with a string of alarming looking RSS type codes and garbled text, from someone's else's blog I presume, containing murderous and hateful words about religion and brides.
BLOGGER's troubles started on the day before. One of their pages, in the place of their usual slogan, was the name, in large capital letters, of a "medicine" which 'speeds' people up. It starts with an A but I am not spelling it out because I've had a few visitors via Google searching for "celebrity females without clothes in mink fur coats" - which led them to posts about Ophelia (hah!).
Sometime during the previous two days, which I spent on trying to get HaloScan working for this blog, I visited a great British blog and left a comment with a link to something which was meant to be humorous (a site which I thought was for a white "404 error page cannot be found" actually).
Not long afterwards, I returned to the blog to check that the link worked. On clicking the link, a dark and heavily coloured page started to unroll, very slowly, onto my screen. A dreadful feeling of unease crept through me. Something sinister and menacing was unfolding. I was sensing evil.
Jittering onto my screen, inch by inch, was the body of a white adult female, totally unclothed, with yards of rope carefully coiled in single layers around her neck - like a gigantic snaking African necklace - ending in a large and heavy hangman's knot and noose. It was a horrible degenerate scene of murder by torture or hanging. An enactment or for real, I just don't know, I was too stunned and didn't hang around to find out.
My mind raced to the link still dangling in the comment box. Swiftly, I submitted another comment, urgently requesting deletion of previous comment and sent an email.
All I could do was wait - with niggling doubts like, what if he doesn't get the message or my email...or is away... what if he is away for two weeks...there'd be nothing I could do about it...
God bless the British blogger, he got my message almost immediately, deleted the post and notified me by email. Phew. What a relief.
It will be a long time before I provide a link within a comment box again. That'll teach me for trying to be funny.
I have not led a sheltered life but it came as a shock because there was no warning and it was one of the weirdest things I have even seen.
There sure are some scary weird people around. I doubt if they look scary weird either. It takes a lot to make this world go around.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/18/2003
0 comments
Friday, October 17, 2003
THE PERILS OF COMMENTING
Beware of what you are linking to
(blog in progress)
It is 7.16 a.m. right now. Ophelia is fine all curled up asleep on her chair by the fire. I am not doing well after the past few weeks. Things are taking their toll. As of this week I aimed at posting just after 8 a.m. daily but my routine is all upside down. Too much household activity and too much going on in the techie side of things here.
My ISP package has changed. BLOGGER has had problems over past few days. HaloScan is working for users. I can see the facility on my blog screen but receive no email notification. I cannot open up comment box in blog page to read and reply, so I login to HaloScan to read comments.
I am working on a blog for today. Unsure how long it will take to complete or when it will appear here.
Thanks for visiting. Enjoy the weekend. Live everyday like it's your last.
Beware of what you are linking to
(blog in progress)
It is 7.16 a.m. right now. Ophelia is fine all curled up asleep on her chair by the fire. I am not doing well after the past few weeks. Things are taking their toll. As of this week I aimed at posting just after 8 a.m. daily but my routine is all upside down. Too much household activity and too much going on in the techie side of things here.
My ISP package has changed. BLOGGER has had problems over past few days. HaloScan is working for users. I can see the facility on my blog screen but receive no email notification. I cannot open up comment box in blog page to read and reply, so I login to HaloScan to read comments.
I am working on a blog for today. Unsure how long it will take to complete or when it will appear here.
Thanks for visiting. Enjoy the weekend. Live everyday like it's your last.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/17/2003
0 comments
Thursday, October 16, 2003
EMAIL REPLY TO MY FRIEND
A great thinker and genius
It's always a wonderful surprise to receive an email from you, so thought provoking and full of interest once again. Thank you. I'll be thinking of your journey to the hospital in Exeter today. And hope your ears are tucked up all nice and warm.
Right now it's 7.17 a.m. and a chilly wind is blowing in the dark outside. Lamps and fire are on. Ophelia does not want to go out. Strange that. Usually she is the first up and rearing to go out for her morning business and patrol.
Whenever she acts out of the ordinary I wonder what's up. Landslides are usual around the cliffs of this seaside area, especially after heavy rain. The geography of Britain's coastline is ever changing through natural erosion. Throughout history this island has been falling, inch by inch, into the sea. Ophelia told me about last winter's landslide by spending two days huddled up in fear beneath the kitchen table (where she never sits) - BEFORE the event.
Another cat, the late, great, deaf and dear old Cinnamon, who holidayed here for a few weeks while my friends (her guardians) were in India, acted very strangely and vociferously for three hours BEFORE a mini tornado struck this area. Cats sense atmospheric changes through their whiskers. They are like radar and better than any scientific instrument.
Reminds me of two alarming earthquakes experienced by people living in Japan this past month. Some bloggers in Japan were actually blogging online when a quake struck - measuring around seven on the Richter scale - in the early hours. Other bloggers from as far away as America commented online with real time news they were receiving re the quake that Japan was just waking up to. It was very interesting but frightening. Japan has hundreds of tremors annually and bloggers are speculating on the big one, yet to come, flattening Tokyo. Every household in Japan ought to keep a cat and get to love and know it well.
Sometimes I wish that Ophelia could speak. She does have a spoken language but it is brief and to the point. So far I have detected only five phrases and they are not easy to mimic. It's difficult thinking up good responses because she doesn't seem to hear my replies, unless they are sounded at high pitch. It makes me wonder if cats hear by vibration only.
Cats see and sense many things differently too. When I hold Ophelia up in front of a mirror her eyes do not pick up on the movement reflected by the mirror, even if I cradle her back and forth, her head moves inquisitively but her eyes do not zoom in on her reflection. And yet she can spot a spider moving from 10 feet away - or other things, not discernible by the human eye. She can freak out sometimes like she sees a ghost. I see nothing but her eyes get as huge as saucers, staring fixated at a wall or one particular spot, the hackles and hairs standing up on her arched back, as if electrified. Other cat owners know exactly what I am describing.
She has a great sense of humour and has no need to speak. Her body language is out of this world and tells me everything I need to know. The sun is now shining and it is noon. She is sitting on her chair by the fire with her front paws folded underneath her chest. Her ears are not hot and her nose is not dry (a sign if she is off colour). I can tell exactly what she is thinking and feeling. She is intelligent. We are not in for a landslide. It's just too cold for her to go outside.
A great thinker and genius
It's always a wonderful surprise to receive an email from you, so thought provoking and full of interest once again. Thank you. I'll be thinking of your journey to the hospital in Exeter today. And hope your ears are tucked up all nice and warm.
Right now it's 7.17 a.m. and a chilly wind is blowing in the dark outside. Lamps and fire are on. Ophelia does not want to go out. Strange that. Usually she is the first up and rearing to go out for her morning business and patrol.
Whenever she acts out of the ordinary I wonder what's up. Landslides are usual around the cliffs of this seaside area, especially after heavy rain. The geography of Britain's coastline is ever changing through natural erosion. Throughout history this island has been falling, inch by inch, into the sea. Ophelia told me about last winter's landslide by spending two days huddled up in fear beneath the kitchen table (where she never sits) - BEFORE the event.
Another cat, the late, great, deaf and dear old Cinnamon, who holidayed here for a few weeks while my friends (her guardians) were in India, acted very strangely and vociferously for three hours BEFORE a mini tornado struck this area. Cats sense atmospheric changes through their whiskers. They are like radar and better than any scientific instrument.
Reminds me of two alarming earthquakes experienced by people living in Japan this past month. Some bloggers in Japan were actually blogging online when a quake struck - measuring around seven on the Richter scale - in the early hours. Other bloggers from as far away as America commented online with real time news they were receiving re the quake that Japan was just waking up to. It was very interesting but frightening. Japan has hundreds of tremors annually and bloggers are speculating on the big one, yet to come, flattening Tokyo. Every household in Japan ought to keep a cat and get to love and know it well.
Sometimes I wish that Ophelia could speak. She does have a spoken language but it is brief and to the point. So far I have detected only five phrases and they are not easy to mimic. It's difficult thinking up good responses because she doesn't seem to hear my replies, unless they are sounded at high pitch. It makes me wonder if cats hear by vibration only.
Cats see and sense many things differently too. When I hold Ophelia up in front of a mirror her eyes do not pick up on the movement reflected by the mirror, even if I cradle her back and forth, her head moves inquisitively but her eyes do not zoom in on her reflection. And yet she can spot a spider moving from 10 feet away - or other things, not discernible by the human eye. She can freak out sometimes like she sees a ghost. I see nothing but her eyes get as huge as saucers, staring fixated at a wall or one particular spot, the hackles and hairs standing up on her arched back, as if electrified. Other cat owners know exactly what I am describing.
She has a great sense of humour and has no need to speak. Her body language is out of this world and tells me everything I need to know. The sun is now shining and it is noon. She is sitting on her chair by the fire with her front paws folded underneath her chest. Her ears are not hot and her nose is not dry (a sign if she is off colour). I can tell exactly what she is thinking and feeling. She is intelligent. We are not in for a landslide. It's just too cold for her to go outside.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/16/2003
0 comments
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
HALOSCAN
Still not working this end
Thanks Hazel and James for your comments. I wanted to reply in the comment box but it refuses to open up on my screen.
You would not believe what I am going through to get this commenting facility working.
Yesterday it took more than five hours of ISP time and four emails back and forth with HaloScan to get to this point.
I have not been playing around with anything fancy in HaloScan. I simply selected a template, widened the comment box and deleted "0" from the first comment. The email notification is not working so I have to login at HaloScan to read the comments.
Last night I emailed HaloScan my user ID and password so they could see that I had placed the codes correctly. Their reply this morning says it is working fine.
It is definitely not working this end. They asked for name of my browser and operating system. I emailed the info and explained my ZoneAlarm Pro firewall.
Their reply asked if I have a popup blocker, or the google toolbar, or something similar, and if so, disable it and try clicking the link. And check that my spam filters aren't blocking the HaloScan's email notification address and that notification is activated in the Settings page.
God give me strength. I wouldn't know where to start looking for spam filters. Had to find and disable the popup blocker on google tool bar. I recall paying my ISP for a monthly anti-spam service, which I do not wish to cancel.
Besides, my ISP is a nightmare to deal with. Emailing their customer service is like talking to a wall. Replies are processed by a machine and provide only partial answers. It has taken over a month to order a new internet access package starting October 10. But on the day they switched me to the wrong package and now say there is nothing they can do to change it until November 10. It has to go through a month of their billing cycle.
So, until November 10, I am on a package which incurs high charges each minute during weekends and outside the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m weekdays. I would not have minded so much if they had not assured me I'd be switched to the right package on October 10.
As for HaloScan, I have just clicked on comments and still it does not work. I have disabled popups in Google bar and checked that the email notification is activated in HaloScan's Settings page.
Surely they cannot expect bloggers not to have or want spam filters.
Yesterday, Hazel kindly emailed me a link to BlogSpeak - free remote commenting system for Blogger based weblogs. Maybe I will have to delete HaloScan and start all over again with BlogSpeak. Groan.
Still not working this end
Thanks Hazel and James for your comments. I wanted to reply in the comment box but it refuses to open up on my screen.
You would not believe what I am going through to get this commenting facility working.
Yesterday it took more than five hours of ISP time and four emails back and forth with HaloScan to get to this point.
I have not been playing around with anything fancy in HaloScan. I simply selected a template, widened the comment box and deleted "0" from the first comment. The email notification is not working so I have to login at HaloScan to read the comments.
Last night I emailed HaloScan my user ID and password so they could see that I had placed the codes correctly. Their reply this morning says it is working fine.
It is definitely not working this end. They asked for name of my browser and operating system. I emailed the info and explained my ZoneAlarm Pro firewall.
Their reply asked if I have a popup blocker, or the google toolbar, or something similar, and if so, disable it and try clicking the link. And check that my spam filters aren't blocking the HaloScan's email notification address and that notification is activated in the Settings page.
God give me strength. I wouldn't know where to start looking for spam filters. Had to find and disable the popup blocker on google tool bar. I recall paying my ISP for a monthly anti-spam service, which I do not wish to cancel.
Besides, my ISP is a nightmare to deal with. Emailing their customer service is like talking to a wall. Replies are processed by a machine and provide only partial answers. It has taken over a month to order a new internet access package starting October 10. But on the day they switched me to the wrong package and now say there is nothing they can do to change it until November 10. It has to go through a month of their billing cycle.
So, until November 10, I am on a package which incurs high charges each minute during weekends and outside the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m weekdays. I would not have minded so much if they had not assured me I'd be switched to the right package on October 10.
As for HaloScan, I have just clicked on comments and still it does not work. I have disabled popups in Google bar and checked that the email notification is activated in HaloScan's Settings page.
Surely they cannot expect bloggers not to have or want spam filters.
Yesterday, Hazel kindly emailed me a link to BlogSpeak - free remote commenting system for Blogger based weblogs. Maybe I will have to delete HaloScan and start all over again with BlogSpeak. Groan.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/15/2003
0 comments
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
WEBLOG COMMENTING BY HALOSCAN
New registrations now being accepted
On 18 September I donated $10 to Enatation and installed their weblog commenting facility into this blog but it only lasted a few hours. Found it impossible to edit the 'comment title' and ended up with three test titles: 'speak to me - talk to me - say something' all on one line. Tried three times to delete, emailed Enatation webmaster, had no luck and deleted the whole thing.
Not only that, there was no 'preview' comments facility, and I was not keen on the slow response box for users or how the facility sat on my page. It didn't suit the style of this page - too many bright highlights taking up too many lines and I could not find a way to adjust it. Got the whole template in a right mess at one point, including the archives.
While I was doing all of this (it took me nearly all day) I got to thinking that the people who email me may not be the type to leave comments, and I might not enjoy waking up to "zero" comments each morning. Maybe it's better I don't find out that no-one wants to talk to me. My late father always said "expect the least and you won't be disappointed".
So, knowing I still had an email facility in my sidebar, I chickened out of re-installing Enatation and told myself that if I do not expect to hear from anybody, and then do hear from someone, it will come as a lovely surprise.
After reading about comment box flaming and spam, I dropped the whole notion of having a commenting facility and decided to leave it until a later date, when HaloScan starts accepting new sign-ups.
Earlier this morning I was thinking about community in the blogosphere and the lack of it (except for a few places like Harvard and Joi Ito's world) and looked into phpBB :: Creating Communities. I wondered how something like that would work as a commenting facility, but there was too much stuff to take in. I had to give up after an hour of reading and filed it in my 'Favorites' for later on. Then, I found HaloScan again and discovered they are now accepting new registrations.
A few minutes ago, I signed up with them and am working on it now, trying to install. If a facility for leaving comments appears on this blog, please do leave a message - even if it's just to say hi - that way, I will know that it has installed correctly and working fine.
If no commenting facility appears on this blog - check on the time of this post and you'll see how long HaloScan is taking me, between rests, to figure out and install!
If a commenting facility does appear but then, after a while, disappears - it means I have chickened out with cold feet again.
Unsure how far I will get with this today: I'm having trouble writing this post - concentration has slowed up badly. Must rest but I don't feel like resting - have lots of interesting things to do. If I don't re-charge I will just get more ill, slow and dim, like a torch battery on the blink. Resting all day and night, everyday, month after month, year after year, is so boring and lonely you would not believe.
New registrations now being accepted
On 18 September I donated $10 to Enatation and installed their weblog commenting facility into this blog but it only lasted a few hours. Found it impossible to edit the 'comment title' and ended up with three test titles: 'speak to me - talk to me - say something' all on one line. Tried three times to delete, emailed Enatation webmaster, had no luck and deleted the whole thing.
Not only that, there was no 'preview' comments facility, and I was not keen on the slow response box for users or how the facility sat on my page. It didn't suit the style of this page - too many bright highlights taking up too many lines and I could not find a way to adjust it. Got the whole template in a right mess at one point, including the archives.
While I was doing all of this (it took me nearly all day) I got to thinking that the people who email me may not be the type to leave comments, and I might not enjoy waking up to "zero" comments each morning. Maybe it's better I don't find out that no-one wants to talk to me. My late father always said "expect the least and you won't be disappointed".
So, knowing I still had an email facility in my sidebar, I chickened out of re-installing Enatation and told myself that if I do not expect to hear from anybody, and then do hear from someone, it will come as a lovely surprise.
After reading about comment box flaming and spam, I dropped the whole notion of having a commenting facility and decided to leave it until a later date, when HaloScan starts accepting new sign-ups.
Earlier this morning I was thinking about community in the blogosphere and the lack of it (except for a few places like Harvard and Joi Ito's world) and looked into phpBB :: Creating Communities. I wondered how something like that would work as a commenting facility, but there was too much stuff to take in. I had to give up after an hour of reading and filed it in my 'Favorites' for later on. Then, I found HaloScan again and discovered they are now accepting new registrations.
A few minutes ago, I signed up with them and am working on it now, trying to install. If a facility for leaving comments appears on this blog, please do leave a message - even if it's just to say hi - that way, I will know that it has installed correctly and working fine.
If no commenting facility appears on this blog - check on the time of this post and you'll see how long HaloScan is taking me, between rests, to figure out and install!
If a commenting facility does appear but then, after a while, disappears - it means I have chickened out with cold feet again.
Unsure how far I will get with this today: I'm having trouble writing this post - concentration has slowed up badly. Must rest but I don't feel like resting - have lots of interesting things to do. If I don't re-charge I will just get more ill, slow and dim, like a torch battery on the blink. Resting all day and night, everyday, month after month, year after year, is so boring and lonely you would not believe.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/14/2003
0 comments
Monday, October 13, 2003
GOOGLEJUICE FOR RAFE
Be nice, work hard
On 6 October Rojisan blogged about the extraordinary Rafe Esquith.
With high hopes and inspiration, Roj decided to "throw his googlejuice" behind this awe inspiring person to see how far he could swim against the tide of book sellers and book reviewers and other "non-content" hits. It has worked. Content is now on Google's front page.
Roj hopes his readers will learn about Rafe Esquith - and be inspired. Here, is why -
The Hobart Shakespeareans:
It's a May evening in Koreatown in central Los Angeles, a neighbourhood remembered for the 1992 riots and forgotten by prosperity. If anything, things have gotten worse for this mostly immigrant community besieged by crime and poverty.
But inside Hobart Elementary School, tonight is St. Crispin's Eve and Henry V is calling on his troops to unite against the French. "And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers...." It is one of the most spine-tingling speeches in the English language delivered with a force belied by Wayne Kepner's youth. Sitting in the audience, the acclaimed Shakespearean director Sir Peter Hall is moved to tears.
He wasn't the only one. So many people started to cry during this year's performance that director and teacher Rafe Esquith remembers ten-year-old Kepner telling him that he wanted to stop and say, "Hey - it's just a play!"
But perhaps the audience recognized that for Rafe Esquith and his 5th and 6th grade students, performing Henry V was only part of a far more powerful drama that has been unfolding year after year at Hobart, one where Shakespeare literally transforms lives.
"No one has any expectations for them," Esquith says of the students who crowd with boundless enthusiasm into his small classroom. "Eighty percent come from alcoholic families, nobody has two parents at home, and nobody speaks English as a first language."
When Esquith reasoned that studying Shakespeare after school was the ideal way to improve their language skills, the school board asked him to reconsider and do something "academic" instead. Thankfully, their advice was ignored. Esquith's class now reads eight full plays every year, going through each one line by line, examining every allusion and symbol.
And of course, there is the annual production, which is open to any child in the school. So impressed was Sir Peter Hall with Esquith's students that he cast them as fairies in his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Los Angeles this summer. Previous classes performed in England with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and actors Sir Ian McKellen and Hal Holbrook are passionate patrons.
"These kids can learn," says Esquith. "I've got kids at Harvard and Yale and they did not get there because of affirmative action: they got there because they have 1,400 on the SAT, and they're brilliant scholars." They also get there because the 45-year-old Esquith spends almost every waking hour working to give them the opportunities and the mentoring that "catch them up" to middle class children.
"I really started to love learning," recalls Matt Parlow, now in this third year at Yale Law School. "Rafe was so charismatic and so personable, I just remember meeting him and saying, I want to be part of this program - whatever it takes."
What it "takes" is starting class at 6:30 a.m. and finishing at 5 in the afternoon. It also takes studying everything from classical guitar to chemistry - and studying hard. Esquith takes the increasingly unusual view that success comes from instilling a strong work ethic and not from trying to convince the kids that learning is always fun or easy. As the large sign above the chalkboard reminds the children every day, "there are no shortcuts".
And 5th and 6th grade with Esquith is no shortcut either. Even though his class scores in the top 10 percent in the country on the standardized tests, two years is simply not enough time to acquire the skills and discipline to get into college, says Esquith. So on Saturday mornings, he started what he believes is his most important program, "Wake Up with Will," a combination of two hours of Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, and two hours of SAT preparation taken by over 50 of his former students.
"He makes such a difference for these kids, he gives them such opportunities," says Mindy Jones of the Ahmanson Foundation, which normally funds only independent schools. After listening to Esquith and visiting his class, the foundation broke its own rules in order to give Esquith a capital grant.
For his devotion to his students, Esquith won Disney's Teacher of the Year Award in 1992, and the resulting publicity helped a lot with fundraising. Nonetheless, Esquith and his wife are broke, spending every spare dollar on their programs. Esquith rises at 4:30 a.m. each weekday to walk to school. His family doesn't own a car, and after returning home and eating a quick dinner, Esquith gives tutorials to help raise money for his class.
Asked where he gets such superhuman energy, he replies simply: "My former students literally write me letters every day saying I saved their lives."
EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE
There Are No Shortcuts -
Changing the World One Kid at a Time
Award winning teacher and inspiring speaker
"There Are No Shortcuts. In a world hell bent on quick fixes, this may be a hard lesson to learn. But Rafe Esquith, an award-winning grade school teacher, is living proof that patience, understanding, love and imagination can work miracles" - Lavin
"Rafe Esquith is one of that rare breed to teachers whose influence extends well beyond the classroom. His remarkable career as a fifth and sixth grade teacher in Hobart Elementary School stands as a testament to what passion, imagination, and energy can achieve" - Sir Christopher Meyer at the presentation of an honorary MBE to Rafe on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen
Be nice, work hard
"I used to be a mean kid. I wasn't much of a hard worker. But that's two things this class teaches you - be nice, work hard. This program has changed me" - former student of Ralph Esquith MBE.
Be nice, work hard
On 6 October Rojisan blogged about the extraordinary Rafe Esquith.
With high hopes and inspiration, Roj decided to "throw his googlejuice" behind this awe inspiring person to see how far he could swim against the tide of book sellers and book reviewers and other "non-content" hits. It has worked. Content is now on Google's front page.
Roj hopes his readers will learn about Rafe Esquith - and be inspired. Here, is why -
The Hobart Shakespeareans:
It's a May evening in Koreatown in central Los Angeles, a neighbourhood remembered for the 1992 riots and forgotten by prosperity. If anything, things have gotten worse for this mostly immigrant community besieged by crime and poverty.
But inside Hobart Elementary School, tonight is St. Crispin's Eve and Henry V is calling on his troops to unite against the French. "And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers...." It is one of the most spine-tingling speeches in the English language delivered with a force belied by Wayne Kepner's youth. Sitting in the audience, the acclaimed Shakespearean director Sir Peter Hall is moved to tears.
He wasn't the only one. So many people started to cry during this year's performance that director and teacher Rafe Esquith remembers ten-year-old Kepner telling him that he wanted to stop and say, "Hey - it's just a play!"
But perhaps the audience recognized that for Rafe Esquith and his 5th and 6th grade students, performing Henry V was only part of a far more powerful drama that has been unfolding year after year at Hobart, one where Shakespeare literally transforms lives.
"No one has any expectations for them," Esquith says of the students who crowd with boundless enthusiasm into his small classroom. "Eighty percent come from alcoholic families, nobody has two parents at home, and nobody speaks English as a first language."
When Esquith reasoned that studying Shakespeare after school was the ideal way to improve their language skills, the school board asked him to reconsider and do something "academic" instead. Thankfully, their advice was ignored. Esquith's class now reads eight full plays every year, going through each one line by line, examining every allusion and symbol.
And of course, there is the annual production, which is open to any child in the school. So impressed was Sir Peter Hall with Esquith's students that he cast them as fairies in his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Los Angeles this summer. Previous classes performed in England with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and actors Sir Ian McKellen and Hal Holbrook are passionate patrons.
"These kids can learn," says Esquith. "I've got kids at Harvard and Yale and they did not get there because of affirmative action: they got there because they have 1,400 on the SAT, and they're brilliant scholars." They also get there because the 45-year-old Esquith spends almost every waking hour working to give them the opportunities and the mentoring that "catch them up" to middle class children.
"I really started to love learning," recalls Matt Parlow, now in this third year at Yale Law School. "Rafe was so charismatic and so personable, I just remember meeting him and saying, I want to be part of this program - whatever it takes."
What it "takes" is starting class at 6:30 a.m. and finishing at 5 in the afternoon. It also takes studying everything from classical guitar to chemistry - and studying hard. Esquith takes the increasingly unusual view that success comes from instilling a strong work ethic and not from trying to convince the kids that learning is always fun or easy. As the large sign above the chalkboard reminds the children every day, "there are no shortcuts".
And 5th and 6th grade with Esquith is no shortcut either. Even though his class scores in the top 10 percent in the country on the standardized tests, two years is simply not enough time to acquire the skills and discipline to get into college, says Esquith. So on Saturday mornings, he started what he believes is his most important program, "Wake Up with Will," a combination of two hours of Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, and two hours of SAT preparation taken by over 50 of his former students.
"He makes such a difference for these kids, he gives them such opportunities," says Mindy Jones of the Ahmanson Foundation, which normally funds only independent schools. After listening to Esquith and visiting his class, the foundation broke its own rules in order to give Esquith a capital grant.
For his devotion to his students, Esquith won Disney's Teacher of the Year Award in 1992, and the resulting publicity helped a lot with fundraising. Nonetheless, Esquith and his wife are broke, spending every spare dollar on their programs. Esquith rises at 4:30 a.m. each weekday to walk to school. His family doesn't own a car, and after returning home and eating a quick dinner, Esquith gives tutorials to help raise money for his class.
Asked where he gets such superhuman energy, he replies simply: "My former students literally write me letters every day saying I saved their lives."
EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO THE FUTURE
There Are No Shortcuts -
Changing the World One Kid at a Time
Award winning teacher and inspiring speaker
"There Are No Shortcuts. In a world hell bent on quick fixes, this may be a hard lesson to learn. But Rafe Esquith, an award-winning grade school teacher, is living proof that patience, understanding, love and imagination can work miracles" - Lavin
"Rafe Esquith is one of that rare breed to teachers whose influence extends well beyond the classroom. His remarkable career as a fifth and sixth grade teacher in Hobart Elementary School stands as a testament to what passion, imagination, and energy can achieve" - Sir Christopher Meyer at the presentation of an honorary MBE to Rafe on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen
Be nice, work hard
"I used to be a mean kid. I wasn't much of a hard worker. But that's two things this class teaches you - be nice, work hard. This program has changed me" - former student of Ralph Esquith MBE.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/13/2003
0 comments
Sunday, October 12, 2003
ADULTS HAVING FUN DURING THE HALLOWEEN SEASON
Pumpkins and seeds
The Ghost of the Happy Mac - Nitrozac's Mac-O'Lantern Tutorial
If you like The Ghost of the Happy Mac (awwww, what a cute little fella!) featured in Geek Culture's amazing Mac-O'Lanterns, you can now build one of your own. Here is Nitrozac's tutorial on how to make your own Mac-O'Lanterns, and the latest additions to his pumpkin family.
Extreme Pumpkin Carving Contest
Tom Nardone decided to make a pumpkin carving site Extreme Pumpkins that included shocking, funny and gross pumpkin designs. The concept is about adults having fun during the Halloween season.
If you want to be a part of Tom's Pumpkin Contest, why not email him photos of your own carved pumpkin. He has prizes that he is giving away to everyone who's photo they use. So send them in now.
Eating Pumpkin Seeds - Recipe
One of the great joys of pumpkin carving is eating the seeds. Tom likes eating his with Budweisers - here is his (American) recipe:
Step 1 - Turn on the oven to 350. I know you don't use it much so make sure it is really on. It should be getting warm.
Step 2 - Separate the seeds from the other stuff. Don't rinse them off, just get them separate.
Step 3 - Put them on a cookie sheet that you already sprayed with something like Pam. Shake some seasoning on them. I use something that says "Cajun" on the side. Sometimes I use salt. You can taste one at this point to see if you have enough seasoning. If you put on too much seasoning, take 1/2 the seeds. Rinse them. Mix them back in.
Step 4 - bake for 15 - 20 minutes.
Take them out of the oven and eat them.
[With thanks - courtesy of meta-roj]
Pumpkins and seeds
The Ghost of the Happy Mac - Nitrozac's Mac-O'Lantern Tutorial
If you like The Ghost of the Happy Mac (awwww, what a cute little fella!) featured in Geek Culture's amazing Mac-O'Lanterns, you can now build one of your own. Here is Nitrozac's tutorial on how to make your own Mac-O'Lanterns, and the latest additions to his pumpkin family.
Extreme Pumpkin Carving Contest
Tom Nardone decided to make a pumpkin carving site Extreme Pumpkins that included shocking, funny and gross pumpkin designs. The concept is about adults having fun during the Halloween season.
If you want to be a part of Tom's Pumpkin Contest, why not email him photos of your own carved pumpkin. He has prizes that he is giving away to everyone who's photo they use. So send them in now.
Eating Pumpkin Seeds - Recipe
One of the great joys of pumpkin carving is eating the seeds. Tom likes eating his with Budweisers - here is his (American) recipe:
Step 1 - Turn on the oven to 350. I know you don't use it much so make sure it is really on. It should be getting warm.
Step 2 - Separate the seeds from the other stuff. Don't rinse them off, just get them separate.
Step 3 - Put them on a cookie sheet that you already sprayed with something like Pam. Shake some seasoning on them. I use something that says "Cajun" on the side. Sometimes I use salt. You can taste one at this point to see if you have enough seasoning. If you put on too much seasoning, take 1/2 the seeds. Rinse them. Mix them back in.
Step 4 - bake for 15 - 20 minutes.
Take them out of the oven and eat them.
[With thanks - courtesy of meta-roj]
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/12/2003
0 comments
Saturday, October 11, 2003
A PRESENT GIVING KIND OF DAY
A lovely insight on English poet laureate and architectural historian: Sir John Betjamen
A Year in Cornwall - Hovering Somewhere Over The Atlantic -
is a blog about a family of four leaving Marin, USA, looking for a simpler life.
Blogger Frank, his wife Rachel, and their two sons, four-year old Nathaniel and six months old Sebastian, are currently living on the North coast of Cornwall in England - near Tintagel where legend has it that King Arthur's castle stood (and not too far down the coast from where I live).
Frank is British and blogs about being back in England after living abroad for thirteen years. And just like the time he first time he landed in America, he is struck by the cultural differences between the two countries, although this time in reverse. He says England does not appear to have changed much but he finds he has. In comparison to the Brits, he feels more like an American.
Recently, Rachel returned to the States for a week or so "straightening out the cats that we left behind". The cats are going to be shipped to England for the remainder of their quarantine period.
That sold me on this family. What a bunch of softies. I look forward to reading about the cats, their journey and how they (and the family!) settle from America in England.
A Present Giving Kind Of Day is Frank's lovely story about Sir John Betjeman and a trip down memory lane to St Enedoc Church, the place of Frank and Rachel's wedding. Frank's grandparents are buried there and nearby is a very pretty gravestone for Sir John Betjeman, poet and architectural historian.
Sir John Betjeman, England's poet laureate for many years, was devoted to that part of Cornwall and featured the walks and scenery of that area in many of his his poems.
Here are some more Betjamen Links.
A lovely insight on English poet laureate and architectural historian: Sir John Betjamen
A Year in Cornwall - Hovering Somewhere Over The Atlantic -
is a blog about a family of four leaving Marin, USA, looking for a simpler life.
Blogger Frank, his wife Rachel, and their two sons, four-year old Nathaniel and six months old Sebastian, are currently living on the North coast of Cornwall in England - near Tintagel where legend has it that King Arthur's castle stood (and not too far down the coast from where I live).
Frank is British and blogs about being back in England after living abroad for thirteen years. And just like the time he first time he landed in America, he is struck by the cultural differences between the two countries, although this time in reverse. He says England does not appear to have changed much but he finds he has. In comparison to the Brits, he feels more like an American.
Recently, Rachel returned to the States for a week or so "straightening out the cats that we left behind". The cats are going to be shipped to England for the remainder of their quarantine period.
That sold me on this family. What a bunch of softies. I look forward to reading about the cats, their journey and how they (and the family!) settle from America in England.
A Present Giving Kind Of Day is Frank's lovely story about Sir John Betjeman and a trip down memory lane to St Enedoc Church, the place of Frank and Rachel's wedding. Frank's grandparents are buried there and nearby is a very pretty gravestone for Sir John Betjeman, poet and architectural historian.
Sir John Betjeman, England's poet laureate for many years, was devoted to that part of Cornwall and featured the walks and scenery of that area in many of his his poems.
Here are some more Betjamen Links.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/11/2003
0 comments
Friday, October 10, 2003
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
First Phase: Geneva, 10-12 December 2003
The World Summit on the Information Society will be held in two phases. The first phase of WSIS will take place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003. It will address the broad range of themes concerning the Information Society and adopt a Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, addressing the whole range of issues related to the Information Society.
The Preparatory Committee for WSIS (PrepCom-3) met in Geneva, Switzerland, from 15 to 26 September 2003. A resumed session of PrepCom-3 will take place from 10 to 14 November 2003.
The second phase will take place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005.
Click here for some of the most frequently asked questions with regard to the World Summit on the Information Society and the associated process.
WSIS related websites.
_________________________________________________________________
WHO CARES ABOUT THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY?
Disagreement between rich and poor countries could derail the world summit on the information society
Will it matter? Writes Bill Thompson:
"When it comes to bridging the digital divide and trying to make the information society a fairer, more equitable place to live than the industrial society ever was, the grand principles espoused in Geneva seem to matter a lot less than support on the ground for wireless networks in the Punjab, refurbished computers in Peru and internet access for all who can use it, wherever they may live.
As luck would have it, it seems I'll be going along to the event itself as a reporter with the BBC's World Service, so I'll get to see for myself whether I'm right about this. Part of me hopes that I'll be proven wrong, and that WSIS will really be a significant step forward - but I'm not betting on it."
Bill's Links:
BBC covers preparatory meeting: Discord at digital divide talks
The Register on the WSIS
WSIS World Summit on the Information Society
_ _ _
andfinally.com about:bill
Bill Thompson is a 'controversialist' - at least according to The Guardian - and pioneer of new media in the UK. Founder of The Guardian's New Media Lab in the mid 1990s, he ran the world's first live Webcast from the ICA in 1994, created the first Website for an elected representative within the EU (Anne Campbell, 1995) and ran the first and so far only online debate for the Prime Minister's Office (Nexus, 1997). Now he writes and talks about this stuff and, among other things, is one of the external editors for the Media and the Net section of openDemocracy.
Bill Thompson is British and lives and works in Cambridge, England, UK. He has two children. If you'd like to have some fun online, then why not join Bill's daughter at Welcome to Neopets!
First Phase: Geneva, 10-12 December 2003
The World Summit on the Information Society will be held in two phases. The first phase of WSIS will take place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003. It will address the broad range of themes concerning the Information Society and adopt a Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, addressing the whole range of issues related to the Information Society.
The Preparatory Committee for WSIS (PrepCom-3) met in Geneva, Switzerland, from 15 to 26 September 2003. A resumed session of PrepCom-3 will take place from 10 to 14 November 2003.
The second phase will take place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005.
Click here for some of the most frequently asked questions with regard to the World Summit on the Information Society and the associated process.
WSIS related websites.
_________________________________________________________________
WHO CARES ABOUT THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY?
Disagreement between rich and poor countries could derail the world summit on the information society
Will it matter? Writes Bill Thompson:
"When it comes to bridging the digital divide and trying to make the information society a fairer, more equitable place to live than the industrial society ever was, the grand principles espoused in Geneva seem to matter a lot less than support on the ground for wireless networks in the Punjab, refurbished computers in Peru and internet access for all who can use it, wherever they may live.
As luck would have it, it seems I'll be going along to the event itself as a reporter with the BBC's World Service, so I'll get to see for myself whether I'm right about this. Part of me hopes that I'll be proven wrong, and that WSIS will really be a significant step forward - but I'm not betting on it."
Bill's Links:
BBC covers preparatory meeting: Discord at digital divide talks
The Register on the WSIS
WSIS World Summit on the Information Society
_ _ _
andfinally.com about:bill
Bill Thompson is a 'controversialist' - at least according to The Guardian - and pioneer of new media in the UK. Founder of The Guardian's New Media Lab in the mid 1990s, he ran the world's first live Webcast from the ICA in 1994, created the first Website for an elected representative within the EU (Anne Campbell, 1995) and ran the first and so far only online debate for the Prime Minister's Office (Nexus, 1997). Now he writes and talks about this stuff and, among other things, is one of the external editors for the Media and the Net section of openDemocracy.
Bill Thompson is British and lives and works in Cambridge, England, UK. He has two children. If you'd like to have some fun online, then why not join Bill's daughter at Welcome to Neopets!
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/10/2003
0 comments
_________________________________
WORLD WIDE WEB CONSORTIUM
SVG Mobile Competition - Entries due 3 November
Design a SVG Tiny greeting card in 30k or less, and win a Nokia 3650 tri-band GSM handset.
The best entries will be featured on the W3C Web Site, linked to their designers' Web pages, with an interview with the winning designer.
Enter as many times as you like through 3 November. The SVG Working Group will choose the winner who will be announced on 24 November.
WORLD WIDE WEB CONSORTIUM
SVG Mobile Competition - Entries due 3 November
Design a SVG Tiny greeting card in 30k or less, and win a Nokia 3650 tri-band GSM handset.
The best entries will be featured on the W3C Web Site, linked to their designers' Web pages, with an interview with the winning designer.
Enter as many times as you like through 3 November. The SVG Working Group will choose the winner who will be announced on 24 November.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/10/2003
0 comments
Thursday, October 09, 2003
A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE ON $87 BILLION
A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there...
On September 7th, 2003, President Bush announced on national television that he was asking the Congress to grant him an additional $87 billion dollars for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1, to continue the fight on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But $87 billion is an impossibly high number for anyone to visualize. Take a look at $87,000,000,000.00.
With thanks to Gen Kanai via Metafilter
A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there...
On September 7th, 2003, President Bush announced on national television that he was asking the Congress to grant him an additional $87 billion dollars for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1, to continue the fight on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But $87 billion is an impossibly high number for anyone to visualize. Take a look at $87,000,000,000.00.
With thanks to Gen Kanai via Metafilter
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/09/2003
0 comments
__________________________________
FOURTH ANNIVERSARY
Living with ME
Yesterday I received an email from a fellow ME sufferer who recovered 80% of his functioning within eight years. What made the turning point happen for him? For some sufferers it happens within 2 - 8 years, for others it takes longer and, in a lot of cases, never. What is happening to these people? Is something healing or deteriorating - and if so, what? No-one knows.
Today is my fourth anniversary of living with severe ME. I am a shadow of my former self and it has taken a lot of getting used to. I have been unable to venture beyond my post box for the past seven months. I am up and about for less than half an hour of each day now, and did not achieve last year's goal of making it to the beach at the end of my road. Worse things happen at sea. Hopefully, things will get better next year.
Three months ago, I hired a fit young mother to visit here four times a week. She is very helpful and spends five hours weekly keeping everything spic and span and prepares daily portions of ten fruit and veggies so that I can maintain my energy management programme which involves strict resting and eating five times a day, every few hours.
It certainly makes a difference to my quality of life. Less burning muscle and joint pains - fevers and sore throats are weekly not daily - brain functions better and concentration lasts longer. I am able to enjoy my computer and blog which brings me into contact with lots of interesting new people.
Since acquiring my computer in June, I have had a lot of fun and games and laughs with some super bloggers but struggled with energy sapping techie stuff and time consuming downloads, firewalls, anti virus and Microsoft updates, blogs heavy in colour and graphics, RealOne webcasts, QuickTime (wrong name) and a grindingly slow (but still loveable) Blogger at peak times and weekends: not to mention unclear instructions when trying to fix or figure things out. Still can't get my head round RSS, XML, wikis and IRC - concentration wanes after fifteen minutes, before I can take it all in.
Home computing is a godsend but the techie know-how needed is time consuming, frustrating and costly. Have managed a defragmentation (thanks to the visiting Dell engineer) but not yet backed up onto CD or used my new scanner, webcam and speakers. The computer takes up so much energy and concentration, I have to use it instead of (not in addition to) watching TV, reading and writing. I read blogs and information online and use email instead of pen, paper and diary. Rarely speak on the telephone now. More than one visitor and telephone conversation saps a whole day's energy.
My goal for the coming year is to walk 50 yards down to the beach and back without it setting me back 24/7 in bed for 3 - 6 months on end.
Never in a million years could I imagine being stricken with such a disabling illness. If anything, I thought it would be cancer. Not this kind of life.
So, if you are fit and healthy and get to feeling low, cheer up! Make the most of life and appreciate good health. You never know what's around the corner.
FOURTH ANNIVERSARY
Living with ME
Yesterday I received an email from a fellow ME sufferer who recovered 80% of his functioning within eight years. What made the turning point happen for him? For some sufferers it happens within 2 - 8 years, for others it takes longer and, in a lot of cases, never. What is happening to these people? Is something healing or deteriorating - and if so, what? No-one knows.
Today is my fourth anniversary of living with severe ME. I am a shadow of my former self and it has taken a lot of getting used to. I have been unable to venture beyond my post box for the past seven months. I am up and about for less than half an hour of each day now, and did not achieve last year's goal of making it to the beach at the end of my road. Worse things happen at sea. Hopefully, things will get better next year.
Three months ago, I hired a fit young mother to visit here four times a week. She is very helpful and spends five hours weekly keeping everything spic and span and prepares daily portions of ten fruit and veggies so that I can maintain my energy management programme which involves strict resting and eating five times a day, every few hours.
It certainly makes a difference to my quality of life. Less burning muscle and joint pains - fevers and sore throats are weekly not daily - brain functions better and concentration lasts longer. I am able to enjoy my computer and blog which brings me into contact with lots of interesting new people.
Since acquiring my computer in June, I have had a lot of fun and games and laughs with some super bloggers but struggled with energy sapping techie stuff and time consuming downloads, firewalls, anti virus and Microsoft updates, blogs heavy in colour and graphics, RealOne webcasts, QuickTime (wrong name) and a grindingly slow (but still loveable) Blogger at peak times and weekends: not to mention unclear instructions when trying to fix or figure things out. Still can't get my head round RSS, XML, wikis and IRC - concentration wanes after fifteen minutes, before I can take it all in.
Home computing is a godsend but the techie know-how needed is time consuming, frustrating and costly. Have managed a defragmentation (thanks to the visiting Dell engineer) but not yet backed up onto CD or used my new scanner, webcam and speakers. The computer takes up so much energy and concentration, I have to use it instead of (not in addition to) watching TV, reading and writing. I read blogs and information online and use email instead of pen, paper and diary. Rarely speak on the telephone now. More than one visitor and telephone conversation saps a whole day's energy.
My goal for the coming year is to walk 50 yards down to the beach and back without it setting me back 24/7 in bed for 3 - 6 months on end.
Never in a million years could I imagine being stricken with such a disabling illness. If anything, I thought it would be cancer. Not this kind of life.
So, if you are fit and healthy and get to feeling low, cheer up! Make the most of life and appreciate good health. You never know what's around the corner.
# posted by Ingrid J. Jones @ 10/09/2003
0 comments
HOMEPAGE
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Thank you to Blogger for this weblog - you can start yours for free now at:
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Email: Ingrid Jones
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
WHERE IS YOUR JOB GOING?
'Offshoring' is the new redundancy - millions are likely to be hit
For such a bland name, offshoring is making a big noise, write Dominic Rushe and David Robertson in The Sunday Times, October 5, 2003:
British executives privately fear the trend is about to become political dynamite.
Glaxo Smith Kline's chief executive, Jean-Pierre Garnier says: "This emerging structural change in employment patterns represents a significant public-policy challenge for governments and societies, especially in the US and Europe."
According to Roger Lyons, joint general secretary of white-collar union Amicus, and president of the TUC, "unless something is done, Britain could end up a nation of fat cats and hairdressers, with nothing in between". He says offshoring will hit the British workforce from call-centre staff to senior management.
Forrester, a research firm reckons 750,000 British jobs will go offshore, including about 50,000 from senior management, over the next decade.
Offshoring, this decade's recession problem solver involves shipping jobs permanently overseas to countries where labour is cheaper. A cursory glance at Britain's steel or textile industry shows the effect offshoring has had on manufacturing.
Now the trend is moving steadily up the management ladder, as globalisation and technology make it possible for companies to move white-collar work wherever the costs are lowest.
In America 3m jobs have been lost since 2001. The vast majority of jobs lost were the result of permanent changes in the US economy and are not coming back, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Middle managers - especially those who do not meet clients face to face - are now competing for jobs in a global market with skilled, educated workers from India and China who, thanks to a far lower cost of living, can do the work at a fraction of the price.
Forrester predicts that 3.3m American jobs will go overseas by 2015.
In Britain, Amicus, the largest private-sector union believes 200,000 finance-sector jobs will be lost in the next five years to India alone.
A recent report from Deloitte Consulting, ominously titled The Cusp of a Revolution, estimates that 2m jobs in the financial-services sector could migrate to lower-cost countries in the next few years, including 730,000 from Europe. The attraction for businesses is obvious. Deloitte estimates that moving those jobs overseas will save companies $356 billion (£214 billion).
Chris Gentle, director of research at Deloitte, says: "This could be the start of the flight of service-industry jobs in the same way that we saw a flight of manufacturing jobs in the 1980s. Financial services have been the focus so far because they are at the leading edge of this trend due to the collapse in stock markets and competitive pressures forcing companies to drive down costs.
There are private and public-sector opportunities to lower costs by going offshore but there are logistical challenges, and also the question of how people will react to this. It is quite an emotive issue."
Professor John Quelch of Harvard Business School, who is also a former dean of London Business School, says people, especially in Britain have so far taken a "myopic" view of the job migration.
"It is not about some call centre being shipped off to India, it's so much bigger than that," he says. "If you look at the speed with which the Chinese economy is developing, in 10 years' time white-collar jobs we once thought of as invulnerable will move overseas."
He says that jobs not only in financial services but in the pharmaceutical sector and other areas of research and development will be up for grabs. "If you are going to pay some bright graduate to search the internet for research, why would they need to be in London? They could just as well be in Bangalore," he says.
It is all part of a long-term trend for goods and services to move where the costs are lowest, says Quelch. The difference this time is that it is grey matter not muscle that has been commoditised.
Garnier says there are clear reasons why India is emerging as such a force in the offshore market: "India took an enlightened decision some years ago to focus resources on ensuring that its vast population of young people are as highly educated as possible.
"This decision is now reaping dividends for India and resulting in it attracting large numbers of skilled jobs, which until now have mainly gone to the West or the Far East."
Change is painful but inevitable, says Philip Middleton, head of retail banking at Ernst & Young. And Britain should look to India not as a threat but as an example of what can be achieved.
"It's part of the creative destruction of capitalism. I do not think we will see Britain hollowed out by it. We will adjust and find new things, and skills.
"When the UK economy was moving out of shipbuilding, coal, steel and textiles, people were arguing that Leeds was going to be an economic desert. "Look at it now - it's a thriving centre for financial services, fashion, PR. Or Newcastle - shipbuilding and coalmines closed and now it's a tourist attraction with better entertainment and nightlife than London."
Britain has to raise its game in terms of education and the services it offers, he says. There is little to be gained, he believes, in attempting to turn back the tide.
Offshoring can even be good for countries. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute recently suggested the American economy receives at least two-thirds of the benefit from offshore outsourcing, with reduced costs and larger profits that can be reinvested in more innovative businesses at home.
New and expanding sub-contractors abroad create new markets for US products. And, theoretically, sacked workers will find new jobs in more dynamic industries in the long term.
India too may soon feel the heat of offshoring. Cheaper, more efficient companies in China and elsewhere are eyeing India's success and hoping to steal its jobs. Some time soon a richer, more complacent sub-continent may wake to find that its jobs are also rapidly drifting offshore.
But for those now caught in the riptide of this phenomenon, the economics of offshoring are a cold comfort.
'Offshoring' is the new redundancy - millions are likely to be hit
For such a bland name, offshoring is making a big noise, write Dominic Rushe and David Robertson in The Sunday Times, October 5, 2003:
British executives privately fear the trend is about to become political dynamite.
Glaxo Smith Kline's chief executive, Jean-Pierre Garnier says: "This emerging structural change in employment patterns represents a significant public-policy challenge for governments and societies, especially in the US and Europe."
According to Roger Lyons, joint general secretary of white-collar union Amicus, and president of the TUC, "unless something is done, Britain could end up a nation of fat cats and hairdressers, with nothing in between". He says offshoring will hit the British workforce from call-centre staff to senior management.
Forrester, a research firm reckons 750,000 British jobs will go offshore, including about 50,000 from senior management, over the next decade.
Offshoring, this decade's recession problem solver involves shipping jobs permanently overseas to countries where labour is cheaper. A cursory glance at Britain's steel or textile industry shows the effect offshoring has had on manufacturing.
Now the trend is moving steadily up the management ladder, as globalisation and technology make it possible for companies to move white-collar work wherever the costs are lowest.
In America 3m jobs have been lost since 2001. The vast majority of jobs lost were the result of permanent changes in the US economy and are not coming back, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Middle managers - especially those who do not meet clients face to face - are now competing for jobs in a global market with skilled, educated workers from India and China who, thanks to a far lower cost of living, can do the work at a fraction of the price.
Forrester predicts that 3.3m American jobs will go overseas by 2015.
In Britain, Amicus, the largest private-sector union believes 200,000 finance-sector jobs will be lost in the next five years to India alone.
A recent report from Deloitte Consulting, ominously titled The Cusp of a Revolution, estimates that 2m jobs in the financial-services sector could migrate to lower-cost countries in the next few years, including 730,000 from Europe. The attraction for businesses is obvious. Deloitte estimates that moving those jobs overseas will save companies $356 billion (£214 billion).
Chris Gentle, director of research at Deloitte, says: "This could be the start of the flight of service-industry jobs in the same way that we saw a flight of manufacturing jobs in the 1980s. Financial services have been the focus so far because they are at the leading edge of this trend due to the collapse in stock markets and competitive pressures forcing companies to drive down costs.
There are private and public-sector opportunities to lower costs by going offshore but there are logistical challenges, and also the question of how people will react to this. It is quite an emotive issue."
Professor John Quelch of Harvard Business School, who is also a former dean of London Business School, says people, especially in Britain have so far taken a "myopic" view of the job migration.
"It is not about some call centre being shipped off to India, it's so much bigger than that," he says. "If you look at the speed with which the Chinese economy is developing, in 10 years' time white-collar jobs we once thought of as invulnerable will move overseas."
He says that jobs not only in financial services but in the pharmaceutical sector and other areas of research and development will be up for grabs. "If you are going to pay some bright graduate to search the internet for research, why would they need to be in London? They could just as well be in Bangalore," he says.
It is all part of a long-term trend for goods and services to move where the costs are lowest, says Quelch. The difference this time is that it is grey matter not muscle that has been commoditised.
Garnier says there are clear reasons why India is emerging as such a force in the offshore market: "India took an enlightened decision some years ago to focus resources on ensuring that its vast population of young people are as highly educated as possible.
"This decision is now reaping dividends for India and resulting in it attracting large numbers of skilled jobs, which until now have mainly gone to the West or the Far East."
Change is painful but inevitable, says Philip Middleton, head of retail banking at Ernst & Young. And Britain should look to India not as a threat but as an example of what can be achieved.
"It's part of the creative destruction of capitalism. I do not think we will see Britain hollowed out by it. We will adjust and find new things, and skills.
"When the UK economy was moving out of shipbuilding, coal, steel and textiles, people were arguing that Leeds was going to be an economic desert. "Look at it now - it's a thriving centre for financial services, fashion, PR. Or Newcastle - shipbuilding and coalmines closed and now it's a tourist attraction with better entertainment and nightlife than London."
Britain has to raise its game in terms of education and the services it offers, he says. There is little to be gained, he believes, in attempting to turn back the tide.
Offshoring can even be good for countries. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute recently suggested the American economy receives at least two-thirds of the benefit from offshore outsourcing, with reduced costs and larger profits that can be reinvested in more innovative businesses at home.
New and expanding sub-contractors abroad create new markets for US products. And, theoretically, sacked workers will find new jobs in more dynamic industries in the long term.
India too may soon feel the heat of offshoring. Cheaper, more efficient companies in China and elsewhere are eyeing India's success and hoping to steal its jobs. Some time soon a richer, more complacent sub-continent may wake to find that its jobs are also rapidly drifting offshore.
But for those now caught in the riptide of this phenomenon, the economics of offshoring are a cold comfort.
ME and Ophelia
is the personal blog of Ingrid J. Jones
I live by the sea in England, United Kingdom
Here on my laptop I communicate to my friends
About things in general and my life with M.E. and cat Ophelia
Home user technology and business services
Food and household management
How it all impacts on my *lifestyle management programme*
And my battle for more energy.
My Blogger Profile
My other blogs:
Archive:
HOMEPAGE
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
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