Writing
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External scaffolding
I’ve started taking notes when reading non-fiction, in an attempt to hammer facts and ideas into my broken sieve of a brain. So I though I might as well put them online, starting with three books.
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Homeostatic envelope
The idea that there are boundaries defining the limits of normal experience, from joy to depression, and
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Belgrade and Novi Sad
Lots of traffic, even more sports shoes and a couple of photos.
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Goof of the day
The official Parliament website plumbs new depths of cluelessness.
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The Balkans by Mark Mazower
The fact that the recent troubles in the area only get a couple of the 135 pages shows what a…
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Audioscrobbler
Having lots of fun with Audioscrobbler, which is, really, kind of like a social networking site without all the annoying “Are you my friend” stuff, and with lots and lots of music.
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Donald Barthelme’s reading list
81 works recommended by Donald Barthelme, and why such reading lists are far more intriguing than ‘50 Essential Albums You Must Own’ style lists.
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Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger
I never expect much from net-related books, assuming I’ll have heard it all before elsewhere.…
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Bye bye HyperCard
HyperCard has been put out of its misery, which seems inevitable but a shame. But you can download a stack I made a dozen years ago. About tea.
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Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly
Reading this for the first time, ten years after publication, it’s a mix of comfortingly…
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Powergen’s negative energy
How can one company do so many simple things wrong: Powergen sent me a gas bill a while back,…
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Goodbye frames, hello CSS
Live After Dark, a site I developed at Poke around the New Year, went live last week and despite the design’s flouting of many of today’s best web design practices, I’m proud of certain aspects of its construction.
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Houston’s transport
Houston’s got light rail. But it didn’t when I was there, and I’ve provided a handy set of bullet-points outlining my experience of travel in the city.
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Goodbye spam
A graph demonstrating what a difference using Knowspam.net has made to my incoming email over the past month.
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California photos
My photos of sunsets, palm trees, blue skies, and few people, from my recent trip.
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Goodbye fabius@well.com
I’m unsubscribing from the the Well after seven years. It was OK.
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Back from California
Etcon highlights, a couple of days in LA, and a tempered enthusiasm for America.
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Why not to buy a Roomba
The cute little robot vacuum cleaners have rather less ethical cousins.
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Pre-conference fun
What I got up to on Monday in San Diego. Walking, CDs, books, burger, horse shoeing, Mexican.
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I forgot to pack my cynicism
A worryingly seductive train journey from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
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I’ve had it up to here
After 5,000 MyDoom emails in the past couple of weeks I’m signing up to Knowspam, to get my email back.
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Whither Ikeaphobia?
Many people say Ikea and Starbucks are evil. Adam Greenfield says they’re fine. I say the world’s not so simple and these black and white arguments don’t help anyone.
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MapQuestster
My frustration at spatial annotation ideas and social networking nonsense spouted gently onto the Geowanking mailing list.
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Their first movies
Quotes from ‘My First Movie’ on how driven (or otherwise) first-time directors have to be.
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Back when 1KB was more than enough
A photo of my family gathered around the roaring flicker of a ZX81’s black and white display.