Meanwhile, on the ‘B’ Ark

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I’ve been tasked with “doing something with Twitter” on the project I’m working on just now, which is still under wraps. Well, I’ve “done stuff with Twitter” before, and I’ve been on Twitter. And I found it creepy and really, but really disturbingly superficial.

But anyway, I’m supposed to be being paid to do what I’m told, so I though a quick refresher might help, and I’m reading The Twitter Book by Web 2.0 Cult High Priest Tim O’Reilly (who I also find creepy and superficial) and Sarah Milstein (who she?).

The book design follows a sort of playschool format, with big letters and big pictures on small pages, which I guess is the designer’s wonderfully subtle way of referring to Twitter itself. Whether or not that is a good thing is somewhat open to question.

By page 120 of 240-ish my eyelids feel like steel shutters and my body is invaded by narcolepsy. It is so, so, so dull. It really doesn’t help that it parades the same old Web 2.0 names in cutesy referential ways, or that all of the examples have a very strong gee-whiz San Francisco air about them.

Above all, it is so remarkably self-glorifying, self-referential and vapid. Which, actually, is well matched to the subject, I guess.  “Be interesting to other people”, preach the authors. They could start by taking their own advice to heart.  Well, I’ve got a message to all you Twitterers: the ‘A’ Ark is coming real soon now.

Antisocial networking

Monday, April 13, 2009

I’ve decided to terminate my Twitter account with extreme prejudice. I just find it disturbingly inane to the point of being creepy. I cannot communicate anything I would want to let anybody else know in 140 characters, and the people I’ve been “following” are not telling me anything interesting either. I also really can’t get why it’s a good idea to be “followed” by total strangers.

I’m not hiding from anybody. My email address is easy enough to find, and this website should give you a good indication of the value of my thoughts…

Unfortunately I need to keep an eye on Facebook for professional reasons, but please don’t try to engage with me there. You’ll be wasting your time.

When you really want a screw-up….

Monday, February 23, 2009

It really is like taking candy from kiddies, but one thing that never changes is how incredibly good f***ing Microsoft is at stealing your money and f***ing everything up.

Today’s screw up:  I needed to move my virtual installation of my paid-for legal copy of Windows XP from one computer to another. Move. Not “duplicate”. Windows XP noticed this (well, that’s amazing in itself) and screamed to mommy, wanting REACTIVATION!!!!

Ok.

So I reactivated. And got told I wasn’t allowed to, ‘cos I’d done it too many times (like about 4).  So I get this amazing dialog:

Yes, I have to call a helpline (probably hosted by HeidiSoft in Alpenschwizerpfloangliswurstelikon, where they speak nothing but some bizarre inbred swiss german dialect) (and have no sense of humour) and read out, yes, Fifty-F***ING-FOUR digits.

I’ve no idea how it would actually pan out, because the phone number given doesn’t work, and the help URL on the page before is invalid.

Maybe I’ll just forget it.

Turning icelandic ?

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

There’s no getting away from it. I’m totally addicted to Iceland. Some days I practically live there in my head. I listen to Icelandic music - Bang Gang, Hafdis Huld, Emiliana Torrini, for example. And of course Sigur Ros, although I have to confess I don’t actually like them all that much. Late Talk Talk is far better if you like that sort of thing. Whenever I can I read books by Icelandic authors, old and new. I have over 7000 photos from Iceland, and I’ve been there more times than any other place (except maybe Italy and Estonia) in the last few years. And I’m always thinking about the next time.

A lot of people visit Iceland - apparently as many tourists go there each year as there are inhabitants, mostly in the summer months. And of course it is a magnet for photographers, although, frankly, unless you live there, you can’t really expect to do much original work. Most of the obvious stuff has been done time and time again. And photography is a big reason for me to go, but it isn’t essential, and is becoming less so.

The combination of a remarkable, evocative and romantic landscape, intelligent and resourceful people (although quite often a bit weird, let’s be honest), and a fascinating history all adds to the magic.

Perhaps the clear air, the wide open spaces, the sense of newness and discovery all help. I don’t know. I don’t really understand exactly why Iceland has got so deep under my skin. The only other place that came even close was Ireland, some time back, but not that close.

And maybe ... maybe it’s because it is so different from the stuffy, constricting claustrophobia of mainstream Europe.

Old Dog. New Tricks

Friday, December 05, 2008

Well…

I’ve been playing around with sketches and designs to give this website a full refresh for over 2 years. Apart from a lack of time, talent and design skills, not to mention an attention span a goldfish would envy, I’ve been thwarted by technology. First, a dreadful and very expensive hosting service, and second, the increasingly arcane, complicated and plain slow Movable Type. I solved the first by moving to meirhosting.net, a truly wonderful service, after a false start with another company I won’t mention, but which reveals the lack of a key feature only after you’ve paid up. Merci, les gars. After a bit of fiddling with Code Igniter, and an experiment with WordPress, I finally settled on Expression Engine to build the whole site, pages, blogs, photo galleries and all. It’s a great tool. I’m not sure if it would scale up to epic industrial proportions, but for this sort of site, provided you know a bit of HTML, it’s perfect.