Live from the blog awards
I’m not on the shortlist, but I’m here anyway to mingle.
Technorati tag: moblog
Ickle and I are sitting in urbis, waiting for the manchester blogger awards to start and pondering the possibility of paper bridges. Blue Peter sent paper huts to Africa, so it’s possible to build structures from it. Links to follow if/when I find any.
(sent to loofahs and spinneyhead simultaneously, because I can.)
Update Ickle sent me this link to Inhabitat, about a flat pack all-cardboard house.
Technorati tag: moblog
50 strategies for making yourself work. These are specifically for writers as well, so doubly useful to me at the moment.
Technorati tag: Productivity, Writing
HELP is the Home Energy Loan Plan, administered by Manchester Care & Repair, from which home owners can get money for energy saving improvements to their homes.
Also of use and interest will be the council’s energy efficiency page, which has links to information about grants and energy advice.
Technorati tag: EcoHouse, Manchester, Grants, Loans
It’s been nearly ten years since I first read Microserfs, and it is the only book I’ve ever re-read three times. Despite the changes and technological advances of the intervening decade the setting still rings true. Insert Web 2.0 over multimedia and throw Google into the mix and you’re halfway to bringing it up to date.
The heart of the story, what really keeps it from dating, are the relationships of Dan- the narrator- and his family and friends. Trapped in Microsoft shipping hell at the start of the story Dan and his housemates slowly develop lives, escape the corporate comfort that is stunting their growth, find love and mature. The diary entry structure is shot through with emails, musings on the human-machine interface and word games (entries re-imagined without vowels or remixed by file corruption). The ending, mimicking life, is totally unexpected but somehow manages to draw on several of the themes running through the book. And it can still make me cry with its downbeat optimism.
In 1996 the BBC gave us This Life, a TV series allegedly about people my age. I could see no-one I knew and quickly grew tired of it (Attachments, an attempt by the same people to do a geek program, was even worse). Microserfs, despite being set in the, to a geek, exotic locales of Redmond and Silicon Valley, was full of characters I recognised.
Ten years on I’m still feeling some of Dan’s malaise, a fear that I haven’t managed to grow up and get a proper life. Coupland himself remixed/covered the story earlier this year with Jpod, a dark pastiche that he wrote himself into.
I want to write a story like Microserfs, optimistic but honest, about a lost geek’s travails. Yes, I know it would end up being a little biographical. After the current novel’s finished (first draft being typed up when I finish this) I’m returning to Post & Publish, my tales of a blogger from a few years ago.
Technorati tag: Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
In the spirit of my questions to Spinneyhead’s readership this week is justcurio.us. You have to answer a question before you can ask a question, and the answers are more silly than useful, but you might find out what you need to know.
Technorati tag: justcurio.us
When is the discovery of two men with “the largest amount of chemical explosives of this type ever found in this country”, a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological protection suit in their houses not treated as front page news? When they’re not muslim, but BNP members with “some kind of masterplan”. The sad part is that I’m not surprised that coverage of “terrorism” is biased like this.
A few weeks ago we convinced Alex to buy a domain for his birthday. The problem is, we convinced him to buy www.lesbianswithloofahs.co.uk.
Strangely, he’s chosen to call the blog there Stream of Unconsciousness, which seems silly given the domain name.
Technorati tag: Lesbians, Loofahs, Unconsciousness
If you’re old enough to remember and want to replay this classic game, you can download a copy from the site. If you’re too young or not geeky enough, it was a forerunner to Worms and many other similar games in the genre.
If you do download it and find it a bit fast, try running it via DosBox, an Open Source PC emulator.
Apparently, October is the start of boyfriend hunting season. Or so I was told last night. It’s some sort of hibernating instinct, this is the time of year for snuggling, staying in, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, that kind of thing.
After a week and a half of productive scribbling at my desk, today my mind is a blank. It’s quite frustrating.
I’m on the lookout for a new printer, probably inkjet. Are there any that can have special colour cartridges put in? Specifically gold and white (white for printing on acetate and clear transfer paper.)
Metallic inks would also be cool.
It’s incredible, but everyone who calls a helpdesk is certain their problem is absolutely the most important thing the helpdesk should be dealing with.
On the one hand, the Government is telling us that we’re all living too long and that we won’t be able to get our pensions. This would obviously cease to be a problem if either there was a mass injection of money into the system, or if people had the decency to die younger, allowing the survivors to cash in.
On the other hand, when approximately 1 in 4 Britons are helpfully eating themselves into an early grave and several million others are doing their bit by smoking, the Government is doing all it can to persuade them not to.
Am I the only person to spot the irony?
What’s the tax situation on cash gifts?