prolific.org » love

Bookmarks for November 11th through November 13th

Caroline — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:00:05 +0000

These are my links for November 11th through November 13th:

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US Elections 2008 | ‘Secret’ Obama code name revealed – But known as POTUS to the rest of us.
e-solex – want
BBC NEWS | Health | ‘Love handles’ raise death risk – Ah well at least I'm no longer 'obese', only 'overweight'. Another 10kg and I'll be perfectly 'normal'.
Flip launches an HD version of the Mino with 720p | Technology | guardian.co.uk –
Team Zie.nl – And I has another blog. This one's for work and hopefully my colleague's will join in the fun.
Zie.NL Video – De nieuwe video sharing website van Nederland. – The video site I've been working on for the last 4 months has just gone live (beta).
How to Change the World: Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter – Twitter just jumped the shark

Back to the future of weblogs

Caroline — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:53:33 +0000

For the past couple of weeks I have been mostly blogging at Vox, where I can set my posts to ‘private / friends / family’. Yeah, like LiveJournal, but I’ve never felt at home at LiveJournal – it doesn’t look or feel like blogging to me there, and I’ve never got my head around its bizarre GUI.

Back when I started (98/99) blogging appealed to me because of the small and friendly community of people involved in it. A couple of hundred webheads, mostly American. When blogging spread and reached The Netherlands, things quickly got nasty.

The second wave of early Dutch bloggers took delight in bullying. I quit my Dutch blog very soon after and retreated back to my English blog(s) where things were still quite peaceful. And then blogging went world wide, it went A/N, it went political, it went… fucking mental. And part of me went: ‘oh, you’re no fun anymore’.

In an article in Time Out Chicago Mena Trott says:

“When we were developing Vox, it was for the type of people who didn’t have blogs. But along the way, we found that our early adopters—people already really comfortable with blogging, who were testing it out and giving us feedback—fell in love with it.”

“Being online can be fun. We want to capture that. This is supposed to be pleasurable. If you want to write posts that never get troll comments, that are just for your friends, that’s completely acceptable.”

“What we’re trying to capture is how we felt about blogging in 1999, 2000, 2001.

“That your community is small enough that you’re just with people who care about you. You’re communicating with people you know. And that’s a way to express yourself more.”

And that’s exactly how I feel. So I’m blogging at VOX for the smallest group of people you can imagine and it doesn’t matter because I stopped caring about readership numbers (which have dwindled dramatically) on my personal weblog quite some time ago.

I still have to figure out what to do with eachman.com, but I may just make it a link or aggregate blog.

Still crazy after all these years

Caroline — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 02:42:35 +0000

Performing in Amsterdam for the first time in ten years, Maria McKee seemed surprised (though you never know with her) so many had come out to see her.

Personally, I had expected a bigger crowd. The Paradiso staff had made their main room more intimate, putting tables and large plants down and moving the soundstage up a good way towards the stage.

She played all my favourites. Even the oldies: Breathe, Dixie Storms, Shelter, Wheels… fabulous to hear them all again, as well as tracks off her new album ‘Peddlin’ Dreams’. Unpredictable and slightly mad (she says) as ever. Another one of those ‘criminally’ underestimated artists I like so much.

Setlist: You Are The Light, I Can’t Make It Alone, Am I The Only One, Peddlin’ Dreams, High Dive, Wheels, The Horse Life, Shelter, Turn Away, Sullen Soul, Worry Birds, If Love Is A Red Dress, Dixie Storms, Barstool Blues, People in the Way, In Your Constellation, Everyone’s Got A Story, Breathe, Life Is Sweet.

Some photos

Second thoughts about this malarkey

Caroline — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 00:54:51 +0000

Hmm. I don’t like WordPress at all. I don’t like that I don’t have a linky blog. I hate that I have to add a plug in to be able to do something as simple as upload images. I have to click around so much, my pen tool’s worn out. And most of all I hate having 1000+ ‘draft’ posts and no way to either publish or delete them in one go. I’m not keen on its GUI either.I like the design of my site, though, even if the bulk of it isn’t mine. I just made it prettier. But WordPress has to go. Soon. Maybe I’ll go back to MT for a while, until I figure out how to port this design (with the ‘first post – different look’) to Pivot.Elsewhere, Tom Coates minimalises even more — up front, in your face, lovely.

~~It’s the season of giving! No it’s not, but I’m feeling generous. No, I’m not, but Flickr just awarded me a couple of free Flickr Pro accounts to give away. Want one?~~

24 comments:

what are some of the perks of the pro account? I wouldnt mind one.
Allen – 08 May 2005 – 09:56

yes please i’d love one!
Kid A – 08 May 2005 – 09:56

I would love one. I’ll even drum a special song for you.
Stephen – 08 May 2005 – 09:56

Want one ? would kill for one is more accurate :)
Ozh (link) – 08 May 2005 – 09:57

It’s strange – all I hear about WordPress are complaints. It’s made me decide to steer well clear.

As for the linklog, well – flattery will get me everywhere, I know – but your linklog was one of only three that I actively browsed and clicked on the links. Maybe it was because the subject matter more often appealed to me . . . I don’t know. All I do know is that in general I loathe linklogs with a passion, but I liked yours. And I really like this super-cool minimal design too.

And honestly, all that flattering build-up was genuine, and not just a way of subtly moving into begging for a Flickr Pro account. Really, it wasn’t. I promise. :-)
Vaughan – 08 May 2005 – 09:57

If you ask on the support forums I’m sure you would find plenty of people willing to help you out. For example you can run a one-liner to clean up draft overloads caused by bad imports.
Matt (link) – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

a pro account would rock! and id have to say the same, all i ever hear about WordPress is complaints…why the move to that rather than just using/sticking to MT?
Kavi – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

textpattern
proph3t – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

Kavi, as explained in a previous post – my site has become too big for MT on the servers I am running it on. My other sites run fine on it, but for some reason, this blog never has. Perl is just too slow for it. PHP does a better job. But I don’t know enough about PHP, (=nothing!), to make WordPress work for me. I´m having problems getting plug ins to work for me, etc, just because I don´t know enough about PHP syntax, or maybe they don´t work anyway. Sorry Matt, potentially a great product, but at this point in time, it´s not what I need. I don´t even know what you mean when you say ‘run a one-liner`. This is exactly what I mean about WordPress. I´m sure it´s great for a developer, but I don´t happen to have that kind of skill set. I have been to the support forums, that´s the first place I go. Other people with the same problem never got a response from anyone.

proph3t… textpattern, what? Dropping one word in a comment box is really helpful. Not. Textpattern – I´ve played with it, but it´s not my thing.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 09:58

Not sure if you/ve looked at drupal recently but it might be something to consider. You have the choice of digging into the PHP all the way, or using the php template engine which you can edit instead. It’s really quite flexible, with a bunch of modules and themes ready made that you can tweak.
Herb – 08 May 2005 – 09:59

I’ve just started using Flickr for sharing classroom photos (I teach 4th grade) and really like it. A Pro account would be really cool if there are any to spare. :-)
Christopher (link) – 08 May 2005 – 09:59

Oh, and it is my birthday in 9 hours and 40 minutes…
Christopher – 08 May 2005 – 09:59

Use Expression Engine. It’s built on PHP and it’s incredibly easy to use and set up, no ‘one-liners’ or anything. The only hack I used was to change the way it does URLs, which you can copy’n’paste off the forums (which are excellent btw). I never got on with WordPress, it just seemed to be a load of effort to get set up and then a load of effort to get it going.

Sorry for sounding like an advert, I’m a bit of an evangelist about it these days…
Aegir – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

Thanks for all the advice on what other software to use, you damn zealots, you! Rest assured I am aware of them and have toyed with most of them before.

I should have investigated WordPress a bit more before implementing it, but Dreamhost offered a one click install that was too tempting to resist and I needed the change too much to wait.

All the Flickr Pro accounts are given out. Thanks for enquiring!
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

http://www.technorati.com/tags/textpatte.. may be of interest…
Robert Brook – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

You could always go “old school” and do it all by hand. :-)
Rachel – 08 May 2005 – 10:00

Guys, guys, none of you has made the only correct comment on this post…

“Why don’t you just roll your own?”

Tom A. has kindly offered to help me fix some stuff in WordPress so I can continue using it until I get my Pivot templates written.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

Totally agree that WordPress requires some ‘under hood’ knowledge.

And I was gonna suggest your write your own but you had already said ” I´m sure it´s great for a developer, but I don´t happen to have that kind of skill set” so I kinda presumed you wouldn’t be able to.

I’ve never used MT, but coming from Blogger to WordPress was pretty good, but I totally understand your frustrations. I think if Tom gets you through the initial pain you MIGHT grow to like WP.

Anyway, I’ve got a Flickr Pro.. ohh never mind.. ;-)
Gordon – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

Yup, pretty much unskilled labourer here when it comes to programming. In a previous job I volunteered to learn ASP. I read chapter one of a big ASP book and thought ‘ok, I get that’. I read chapter two and thought ‘yeah, that’s easy.’. Then I read chapter three, found the language had changed to gobbledegook and I put the book down, never to pick it up again. I had the same experience in high school with maths.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

The power of WordPress lays in its framework, which is easily hackable and extenable is the form of plugins. However, it is also it weakness when it comes to those who know little or nothing about coding.

If you want to invest a little time and explore the WordPress Codex you may find the answers to many questions.

Good luck
Sean (link) – 08 May 2005 – 10:01

I know some things are still tough and I wouldn’t expect anyone to know all the ins and outs WordPress, but we have tons of people waiting in the wings on the forums to help you out with whatever ails you. Software is software, but what makes WordPress right for many people is the community around it. There are hundreds of plugins including ones expressly made for making it easy to do Asides (like on my site), link blogs, Flickr and Delicious integration, whatever. I’m a fan of your sites so I wouldn’t mind even helping, but going on what’s in your post I wouldn’t know what to suggest.
Matt – 08 May 2005 – 10:02

I explained some of my problems in more detail at plasticbag.org today and Tom A.’s comment there also defines quite well why WordPress isn’t the right tool for me. For someone who has gone from hand coding to Blogger to Greymatter to Movable Type over the last 5 to 10 years, the switch to WordPress feels like a step back in ease of use. I don’t care or want to care about what’s powering my site, I want to run the site the easiest way for me — at the moment, using WordPress is not the easiest way. It may be in future, who knows.

Is everyone else making a bigger deal out of this than I am myself, or what? Usually I’m just talking to myself on this page – suddenly it’s like grand central station.
Caroline – 08 May 2005 – 10:02

Corbijn directs Ian Curtis biopic

Caroline — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 22:20:47 +0000

God, sorry, Anton Corbijn is set to direct a biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. It’s going to be Anton’s first feature film. This is great news and hopefully only the beginning of this new twist to his career.

More details at NME.com, who seem to think Anton’s German. Arseholes.

nine comments:

I hope the actual title will be something decent. “Isolation”, maybe?

Not “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, I hope!
tomcosgrave (link) – 08 January 2005 – 01:07

I’m very curious about this movie. I enjoyed Sean Harris’ take on Ian Curtis in 24 Hour Party People. It’ll be interesting to see who gets the lead in the biopic.
Simon – 08 January 2005 – 23:57

Het Parool of January 8 has an article about this too… Pretty interesting :-]
e – 09 January 2005 – 13:07

Dat boek van de weduwe van Ian Curtis,dat is erg mooi geschreven .
swanz (link) – 09 January 2005 – 18:51

Simon, I remember reading somewhere Jude Law was in the running for the role?
Caroline (link) – 09 January 2005 – 19:05

Jude Law? He always seems a bit posh when he’s on screen. David Thewlis, Ian Hart or Christopher Eccleston would be my choices.
Simon – 10 January 2005 – 11:55

The title of the film will be ‘Touching from a distance’.
Caroline (link) – 11 January 2005 – 09:09

U2log.com first among many, not money

Caroline — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 16:25:46 +0000

I was just going over to Plasticbag’s to steal their comment disclaimer for u2log.com when lo and behold, Tom writes:

“U2log.com – one of the first and best single-subject magazine-style weblogs. I’m not a great fan of U2, but it’s still an impressive site – and more importantly was created way before Gawker media and the current fad for commercial webloggery. I wonder if it makes any money…”

Finally, someone recognises U2log.com. I always feel it’s been ignored by web pundits — probably because they find its subject matter distasteful. I think I entered the site into the Webbies twice without being short listed while the much younger and more derivative Whedonesque got in without problems.

Do we make any money? No, we don’t. We don’t make any ‘big’ money. We make pocket money. Enough for me to buy my many editors a Christmas gift. Enough to pay for bandwidth over-usuage. We’re probably in the Top 5 U2 fansites, but nowhere near the largest. We get 5000 to 7000 (front)page hits per day and just had our busiest day last week at 23000 page hits.

We started this site as a joke, just some old IRC friends mucking about. Our style reflected this. We were irreverent, with a Brit/Aussie type humour – unlike any other U2 sites. Always taking the mickey out of the band. These days we’re rather professional, with press accreditation and access to big events, old skool reporting and what have you, but we’re still doing it because we’re obsessive about documenting the band and still in love with the music.

Joss Whedon posts to Whedonesque.com

Caroline — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:55:56 +0000

TV- and filmmaker and creator of the Buffy, Angel and Firefly series Joss Whedon posts to our site, Whedonesque.com:

Honestly, I come here so often it’s embarrassing. But this is the source. I get to find out what my actors and writers are up to, what movies I’m directing… it’s excellent! See, I’ve secretly been kind of a fan of me for some time now. I’ve seen everything I’ve ever done. I’d love to meet me, but I’d probably just stare and not be able to say anything witty or anything.

But also:

So many people are acting like there’s little difference between Kerry and Bush and that is not the case. If you’re for Bush I doubt I can sway you but if you’re one of those people grumbling about politicians all being the same I’m begging you to look hard at the facts and at the smirking face of the man who is doing more damage to this country than any president in my lifetime. We cannot let apathy decide our fate. I’m sounding all soapbox-y but I am truly afraid for our economic infrastucture, our dwindling natural reserves and most of all our place in the world. We need to act.

Whedonesque.com is a relatively new site to the Buffyverse, unlike places like The Bronze where Joss and the other Mutant Enemy writers generally post. Which is why we’re quite chuffed.

MeFiSwap

Caroline — Tue, 25 May 2004 20:37:38 +0000

For this year’s MeFiSwap (the first time I participate while my burner is actually operable) I procrastinated as usual and then quickly threw a compilation together last night. Read on if you want to know the playlist which has no agenda at all. The U2 track is on it for its rarity (an unreleased track), the rest is simply ‘tunes I have enjoyed at some point in time’.

Silverman – Love me too
Woven Hand – The Good Hand
Colder – Crazy Love
Das Pop – The One
Gavin Friday – Billy Boola
Martina Topley Bird – I Still Feel
Anthony Stewart Head – This Town in the rain
Clinic – Come into our room
Arab Strap – The Shy Retirer
Scissor Sisters – Comfortably Numb
U2 – Neon Lights
Mary Margaret O’Hara – Dream I had

Sony Hi-MD

Caroline — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 02:38:26 +0000

Big big love to Sony for introducing the Hi-MD. (1 GB MD, digital upload to PC… rrrrowrrr). It’s likely I’ll eventually upgrade my MD to this new 1GB version once they’ve sold the first generation recorders.

Grey Expectations

Caroline — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 12:50:31 +0000

Noah Grey’s back with a daily photolog. Love the design on that.