Monthly archive: July 2007

The grounds belonging to a mansion or country house. An estate. A realm; a domain.

Read more about demesne at Answers.com

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Invite Share – Everyone is invited!
  Have some invitations [to private betas] that you want to get off your hands? Why not share them with others and get new invitations in exchange.

• Mitch O'Connell Embroidery Patterns
  Stitching patterns with illustrations of 'hot 'n delinquent babes just for you. Sure, these gals look great, but just don't cross 'em'.

• Statetris
  Flash-based Tetris played with falling US states

• Video for Merlin Mann's 'Inbox Zero' talk
  Video of Merlin Mann's presentation at Google on the email 'Inbox Zero' concept.

• How not to be seen in Halo
  Very useful advice about how not to be seen in the video game Halo. With Monty Python audio commentary.

• Media Convert
  100% Free online file conversion from and into virtually any video format. Files can be on a local drive (browse to) or on a web server (enter URL).

• retweet
  A website that helps users discover Twitter bots (special Twitter users that provide you with information, either by request or whenever it becomes available).

Of or relating to struggle within a nation, organization, or group. Mutually destructive; ruinous or fatal to both sides. Characterized by bloodshed or carnage.

Read more about internecine at Answers.com

Strikingly appropriate and relevant.

Read more about apposite at Answers.com

1. If you play with a cod liver oil capsule for long enough, it will eventually pop and splatter all over your desk and the side of your keyboard. The very same side you probably clutch with your hand when typing and stopping to think. Marvel in astonishment when, three days later, your hand smells of fish and you have absolutely no idea why.
2. Michelle Ryan (EastEnders' Zoe Slater) is the new Bionic Woman.
3. I knew you could have Brita water filters that integrate in a fridge door, but Brita water directly from the tap, that's a new one for me. Slightly tempted.
4. Dr B.'s Sony PVR/DVD recorder is partial to DVD-R discs. It can record on DVD+R, but it takes as long as the recording being played, and stretches the image to a nasty widescreen format with black bands.
5. Having a machine that runs Vista can make you feel a bit left out. When I got onto the BBC iPlayer closed beta testing phase a few months ago, I had to install it on Dr B.'s desktop. I can only back up my text messages on my laptop with Jeyo Mobile Extender. And now I cannot join my friends on iLike but yeah, you guessed it, iLike requires Windows XP (if you are running Windows).
6. Our building's management company gets our (huge, loft-like) windows cleaned. And I thought it was the constant rain during the past few weeks.
7. Jeremy Sheffield appeared as a dancer in Queen's 'I Want to Break Free' video.

Don't you just love social networking?

I was looking for Soho Pride's rescheduled date (it was going to be tomorrow but was moved to 19 August) and found the Soho Pride Upcoming event. I clicked on 'I'm attending' and joined the list.

So far, we are going to be four. I'll bring the quiche.

A fine leather originally made of goatskin but now more frequently of split horsehide.

Read more about cordovan at Answers.com

The fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. Faithfulness; allegiance.

Read more about fealty at Answers.com

A heavy, unwieldy ship. One, such as a person or object, that is bulky, clumsy, or unwieldy. A wrecked or abandoned shell of a usually large object, such as a building or vehicle.

Read more about hulk at Answers.com

Property acceptable as security for a loan or other obligation.

Read more about collateral at Answers.com

To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand.

Read more about obfuscate at Answers.com

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Are you a Facebook RSS leper?
  Some Facebook users have a link to an RSS feed of their own status stories. Some don't. I don't, and went bonkers looking for it. Nobody knows why some have it though. Weird.

• Easily follow your Facebook friends on Twitter
  How to create a Twitter bot to syndicate your friends Facebook status RSS feed.

• SimplePie: Super-fast, easy-to-use, RSS and Atom feed parsing in PHP.
  'SimplePie is a code library, written in PHP, intended to make it ridiculously easy for people to manage RSS and Atom feeds.'

A difficult or disagreeable responsibility or necessity; a burden or obligation. A stigma; blame. The burden of proof.

Read more about onus at Answers.com

Most often enjoyed on Sundays at lunchtime, this simple British classic recipe goes very well with headaches, queasiness, the need to maintain a horizontal position, bad (yet compelling) TV and other signs of a hangover.

This sandwich is such an institution that experts at Leeds University have come up with a mathematical formula to make the perfect bacon butty:

N = C + {fb (cm) . fb (tc)} + fb (Ts) + fc . ta

More details on this formula in Scientists' 'perfect' bacon butty on the BBC News website.

Here is the quickest, simplest version you can have, as was lovingly prepared for me earlier today by Dr B.

Ingredients

• Bacon (any kind, but 2 to 3 rashers of back bacon are recommended)
• Bread (any kind, but traditionally you will need two thick slices of white Farmhouse bread)

Preparation

1. Fry bacon
2. Slice bread
3. Sandwich bacon between two slices of bread, add brown sauce (optional, to taste)

Commonwealth English slang for an unspecified contagious disease, generally one considered inconvenient and non-fatal with obvious symptoms, such as influenza or the common cold.

Read more about lurgy at Answers.com

• Emoze plans to extend support for Thunderbird in late 2007.
• I've been eating imitation Mozart balls (flat-based Mozartkugeln in a golden wrapper, unlike the perfectly round original Mozartkugeln in a silver wrapper) all my life. Not even made in Austria. I am gutted.
• Steampunk (a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction) is a tongue in cheek variant of cyberpunk
• Ethan Haas Was Right (alternate reality game that has been driving me a bit cuckoo lately) might be tied-in with 1-18-08 a.k.a. Cloverfield a.k.a. Slusho (one of the code names of an upcoming science-fiction movie produced by J.J. Abrahams).
• Happy Tree Friends (cartoon with cute, cuddly animals involved in horrid accidents and violent deaths, not unlike Itchy and Scratchy) is being turned into an XBox/PC video game. Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm is scheduled to be released in Autumn 2007.
• Servalan has a blog (via overyourhead).
• Hitting a can of WD-40 makes it explode. Spraying it over a lit lighter turns WD-40 into a flame thrower. In fact, most search results for WD-40 on YouTube are dangerous, illegal or just plain stupid stunts. Silly silly people. Never play with fire.

This morning Dr B. bought the adult edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

And I have just come back from Tesco across the road with the children's edition – so we don't mix them up, I claimed, but really it's because it matches the previous six in the box in the back of a cupboard. A bookcase? That would mean dusting, so no thanks.

Two years ago I was pining for not being able to buy Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince straight away. This time I was not too bothered, but it was going for a fiver if you spent over fifty pounds – which I was going to anyway, as we are having a birthday boy over from France for pre-Duckie drinks tonight, and he treated us for dinner last night at Amici, and we were going to buy champagne anyway.

Great. I have just added another 607 pages on my ever-expanding reading list, and all I seem to be able to do these days on public transport is play solitaire on my mobile.

Foolish nonsense.

Read more about tosh at Answers.com

The unfermented or fermenting juice expressed from fruit, especially grapes.

Read more about must at Answers.com

It had been so long since I'd just sat on the couch to take in what TV had to offer. Well, recorded and watched mostly at 1.5 speed skipping all the ads. And a few boring bits.

So tonight I made the most of Dr B. being out meeting with his company's lesbian gay bisexual transgender group and watched:

• Dirt S01E02: American, crass, wanting to be shocking (ooh look, it's Monica from Friends moaning with a vibrator) and failing, with me at least. Intriguing schizo pap character though, played majestically by Scouser Ian Hart.
• Sensitive Skin S02E04: British, subtle, subdued, disarming and oedipically unsettling.
• Victoria Beckham Coming to America: actually not as bad as everyone made it out to be, and the the 'mockumentary' angle was at times believable. However, a one-off is more than enough.

And now excuse me, but I have to catch up with the Nazi Pop Twins that started fifteen minutes ago.

A female fox.

Read more about vixen at Answers.com

A steel plate used in making the shells of steam boilers. Inconsequential, formulaic, or stereotypical language.

Read more about boilerplate at Answers.com

A leave of absence or vacation, especially one granted to a member of the armed forces. A usually temporary layoff from work. A leave of absence from prison granted to a prisoner

Read more about furlough at Answers.com

It's been one month since I was at Hack Day London. The memories are still vibrant, and here is a list of links about it, for me to remember and for you to discover.

• Del.icio.us tag: hackdaylondon
• Flickr Hack Day pool discussion
• Backstage.bbc.co.uk Hack Day blog
• Hack Day on the Guardian Technology blog
• Tom Coates' Hack Day review
• Hack Day London on BBC News website
• Ben Aldred's Hack Day review
• Matt Jones on the 'geekend' (Interesting2007 and Hack Day London)
• Video: Raining indoors at Hack Day London
• Hackday: The overall winners point of view
• The Hack Day London Winners List
• The Yahoo! Research Berkeley team hack demo viewer

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Brown Zune finds meaning in Hide-a-Pod – Engadget
  Tired of having your iPods stolen from you? Hide your next one in a brown Zune shell. Mean – and so very true.

• Utako Wakamatsu & Jean-Sebastien Fecteau OK GO!
  Canadian skating champions reenacting OK GO!'s 'A Million Ways' backyard dance routine on ice. Cooool.

• RobotReplay
  RobotReplay lets you record and watch your website visitors in action. You include a piece of JavaScript on your site that lets you view recorded sessions of every mouse movement, click and keystroke. Web usability for all.

• KeepVid: Download videos from most video sites
  Download videos from Google, Youtube, iFilm, Putfile, Metacafe, DailyMotion, by copying the URL of the page with the video on it and paste it at keepvid.com. Downloads .flv files, you need a flv player or to convert them.

• PHP 4 end of life announcement
  PHP 5 was released three years ago. PHP 6 is on the way. PHP 4 will be discontinued at the end of 2007.

• 'Gay' Blocked as Legitimate Surname at Facebook
  'Hitler', however, appears to be perfectly OK.

• How to make an eyeball pin-cushion
  Easy to make – creepy to use. A photoset on Flickr

• YouTube – Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World
  Outrageously funny South Park-humour gay themed animation series starting on 10 July 2007 on Logo.

• rememberize
  Rememberize uses flashcards with a Leitner-style learning schedule to help you remember all the things that you wished you could.

One's acquaintances and relatives. One's relatives.

Read more about kith and kin at Answers.com

Another French-themed dinner last night, this time in honour of Bastille Day (and to reciprocate on two dinner invitations received well over two years ago – what took us so long?).

We had the baked camembert with home-made bread as a starter, and tarte Tatin for dessert (this time served with some gorgeous home-made cinnamon icecream prepared by Dr B.).

The main course was based on Delia Smith's coq au vin recipe,with a couple of changes to make it more user-friendly (read: we are breast men).

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 1 chicken leg or breast per person, with skin
• 1 bottle red wine (preferably Bourgogne)
• 25g + 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 200g streaky unsmoked bacon
• 18 button onions
• 250g button mushrooms
• thyme (fresh or dried)
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 cloves garlic

Preparation

1. Melt 25g butter and oil in a large frying pan
2. Brown 3 chicken breasts, skin-side first
3. Repeat with the other chicken breasts
4. Place chicken breasts in a casserole where they fit snugly
5. Chop and brown the bacon in the same frying pan, then add it to the chicken
6. Brown the onions (keep them whole) and add them to the chicken
7. Add crushed garlic, thyme and bay leaves to the chicken
8. Season with pepper and just a little salt
9. Pour the bottle of wine on the chicken
10. Cover and simmer on moderate heat for 45 minutes
11. IMPORTANT: refrigerate for 24 hours minimum, to let the flavours develope and merge
12. Just before serving, place whole mushrooms on top and simmer for another 15 minutes
13. Discard thyme and bay leaves
14. Place chicken, onions, bacon and mushrooms in a serving dish and keep warm
15. Bring the remaining liquid to the boil and reduce by one third
16. Make a paste with the tablespoon of butter and the flour
17. Stir the paste into the liquid
18. Pour the liquid on the chicken and serve

Coq au vin, originally uploaded by bitful.

A machine for shaping a workpiece by gripping it in a holding device and rotating it under power against a suitable cutting tool for turning, boring, facing, or threading.

Read more about lathe at Answers.com

1. Diabulimia is an eating disorder whereby people with diabetes skip insulin injections to lose weight.
2. Velcro is a contraction of the French words 'velours' (velvet) and 'crochet' (hook).
3. The white beads I keep finding on my face (cheek, eyelid and now a third one on my forehead) are milia, trapped skin cells that become walled off into tiny cysts that appear like white beads below the surface of the skin. But I do exfoliate!
4. Double-clicking on any word in a New York Times online article (but not the homepage) opens a pop-up window containing a reference search on the word powered by Answers.com and NY Times-branded.
5. People often wrongly use the term OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder, which symptoms include the need to repeatedly perform ritualistic actions) when in fact they mean OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, a tendency to stress perfectionism above all else, and feeling anxiety when things are perceived not to be "right".)
6. Zipf's law describes data where a few elements score very high, a medium number of elements have medium-sized scores, and a huge number of elements score very low. Words in a natural language, popularity of library books and web use follow a zipfian distribution pattern.
7. People with 100+ moles on their skin live longer. I will bury you all then.

If my iPod had GPS, it would adjust its volume and music genre according to where I am, the time of day and some manual settings.

It would detect one of my gym locations and switch to my sports playlists provided it was 7am or 1pm.

It would increase its volume if it lost reception, 9 times out of 10 it's in the tube and it's noisier.

It would switch to work-friendly music and low volume if I turned it on at my work location.

And once at home, RFID would detect if Dr B.'s iPod (both appliances would be tagged) was in the vicinity, in which case it would only play music both Dr B. and I like.

It would also create playlists on the fly mixing both my and Dr B.'s tracks and streaming them via Wi-Fi.

Then, if either desktop computer was on, it would detect it from the wireless network and stream music from them too.

And I could go on and on…

We have all the technology. We spend an unhealthy amount of time tagging and organising. It's about time it all came together.