Life Online

Way back in the mists of time, I read an article about some guys who were creating a thing called Netscape. Their vision was that everything would be done remotely through the web browser, preferably theirs. Sadly for them, Micro$oft muscled in and flattened the emerging competitor by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. By the time the lawsuits finished, the damage had been done, and though Netscape is still around, it's use seems to be limited to die hard fans. But the vision has taken up by others, and slowly we are seeing seeing it come to the fore. Web 2.0 is the buzz nowadays, and though people's thoughts on what that term acutally means differ, everyone seem to agree it signifies a leap in how we use the internet. Online applications are growing in size and number. Online email has been around for years, but now we have online calendars, project managers, whiteboards, spreadsheets, word processers: the list goes on. Our online experience has gone from passive (browsing) to active (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking). Online storage is becoming cheaper, larger and easier to access, and eventually - if the rumours from Google and Microsoft are correct - infinite. So all the files you need are available wherever you are. I'm writing this piece using a web application called Zoho Writer, which means I can start it at work (in a break of course) and finish it at home, without having to send it in an email or transfer it by flash drive. When finished, I could publish it straight to my blog or a number of other locations. (The only drawback with Blogger being that I'd have to host any pictures separately or edit the post in Blogger to include the pics on Blogger's servers.) The ultimate end is being able to sit at any computer and have it look, feel and act just as if you were at home. There's still a long way to go, of course. People will be wary of placing their precious data into strangers hands, and the systems will have to be stable (Firefox crashed as I was finishing this). But then, we've put up with Windows all this time......

Word Processors Writely Zoho Writer Writeboard
Calendars Google calendar 30 Boxes
Storage Box.net eSnips Multiply Mozy

Chasing the Cheese

This shows that English eccentricity is alive and well and living in Cheltenham. Welcome to the 2006 cheese rolling championships. The premise is simple: a cheese is rolled down a hill and people chase after it. First down the bottom wins the cheese. The fact that the hill has a 2:1 or even 1:1 gradiant doesn't seem to deter the competitors. There were only 24 injuries this year, including one person who got hit by a cheese. Unsually, there were no broken bones. If you think this is crazy, there are also races uphill, with nothing to chase...

Thoughts on blogging

A couple of pieces on blogging, one light-hearted, one vitriolic. The author of the second would go apoplectic if he saw this. It gave me a migraine, so you've been warned....

Da Vinci World Cup 2006 Mission Impossible Code

I can't really comment on either the book or movie of the Da Vinci Code, having not indulged in either, and don't have any inclination to do so. But it seems everything at the moment has a tie-in with either Dan Brown's licence to print money or the World Cup, (that's the world cup of football - I mean soccer for our North American friends, who don't even seem to realise their country is taking part....) with an honourable mention to MI3. Speaking of Mission Impossible, England begin their World Cup campaign on June 10th against Paraguay. Fans will not need any barbed wire wrapping round their thighs to feel pain or torture. News of Wayne Rooney's metatarsals does that job.

Things You Didn't Know About Your Body

Some interesting facts about the human body. Some you may know, others probably not, but there's plenty of really good tips here. For example: "Starting 48 hours before your next long flight, take a baby aspirin each day. It'll thin your blood just enough to prevent clots from forming in your legs" A good read...

read more | digg story

Who's gonna tell Worf.....?

Carrying knives is a serious issue. IMO, this wasn't the best way to get the message across. This picture was in the Metro yesterday, illustrating a piece on the knife amnesty that the police are currently running. Now I don't know about you, but I haven't seen many Bat'leths in our neck of the woods lately. For non-geeks, it's a weapon used by a race called the Kingons in Star Trek. They're also usually made of wood, as metal replicas cost upwards of $90. The attacks recently that have highlighted the issue of knives on the streets and in the playgrounds will have been made using much more prosaic, but no less lethal, impliments, It's these we need to deal with. Things like this only detract from that....

Tenant Time

This week I'm landlord to Culture Kills.... He's a Canuk with an er... let's say, unusual taste in blog background. But get past that and he has some interesting posts. Slide down the sidebar and give him a click. While you're there, check out some of the other links, or have a wander in the archives see what gems are waiting within....

Burning by eggtimer

For those of your who think your DVD rewriter takes an age to burn a copy, take a look at this low-tech, old-skool version. The site's in German, which is fine if you read German, but if not, you can get the drift from the pics....

....then afterwards you can play it on this fully featured turntable, which can be also be plugged into your computer via a USB port. If you've any old vinyl LPs (younger readers may need to look up some of these terms) hidden in a cupboard, can pull on your lint free gloves, pull out that precious slab of black from its sleeve (anti-static of course) and give it a spin (the turntable connects to a regular home stereo). Or record them directly onto the hard drive using the Audacity software provided.

Lordi Rules

After an amazing evening, congrats to Lordi and his fellow Finnish creatures for a storming win in the Eurovision Song Contest. They cut a swath through the leggy blonde ladies, scaryily eyebrowed gents and dull French to take the Grande Prix with their Hard Rock Hallelujah, despite (or perhapes because of) the usual voting for the neighbour tactics (which means the UK will never do well). So it's off to Helsinki next year. Terry and Bruce had better wrap up warm...

Linguistic Loopiness

A bit of research I was doing at work caused me to peruse the Guardian Unlimited website. Not being a Guardian reader (I take The Times at home and read someone else's Sun at work.... ok, so you don't exactly read the Sun....) I was pleasantly surprised. I especially like the Comment Is Free.... section. One piece deals with the notion of Britishness (my opinions on which I'll leave for another time). Amongst the comments was this by someone called GwashaBaby:

AS A FOREIGNER WHO IS FLUENT IN ENGLISH, BELOW IS ONE OF THE REASONS I LOVE ALL THINGS BRITISH...........................................

If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. Peruse at your leisure, English lovers........................................................

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

AND FINALLY.....................

There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?

One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do:

People recite at a play and play at a recital?

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

The beauty and strength of the English language is that it's constantly evolving, absorbing words from other cultures, changing the meanings of ones it already has and discarding ones it no longer has any use for. Contrast this with the attitude of the French, who are very protective of their language, and are making a concerted effort to preserve it against change. Whether that's the right path, only time will tell....