August 31, 2003
iVolume - a little application that fiddles with metadata in your MP3 files so that they all play at the same volume in iTunes or on the iPod. I haven't used it yet, but it can hardly be worse than Sound Check , which doesn't seem to work at all. I still have ringing in my ears from an unfortunate transition from very quiet Robert Johnson to gut-wrenchingly loud Merzbow this morning, so this is a timely discovery. [via 2lmc spool]
The Executioner - Good, if a little fawning, piece in the Observer on Alistair Campbell
A Day In The Life Of BBCi Search
August 30, 2003
The Joy of Concrete - Modern Architecture In Glasgow
There's a new Zeldman-inspired version of The W3C Markup Validation Service. This is a great move: errors messages are now helpful rather than obtuse, and 'fussy parsing' will catch technically valid but possibly problematic code
August 29, 2003
August 28, 2003
mobileMT - no files released as yet, but the project aims to enable posting to MT weblogs via a PHP-based WAP interface. Interesting. [discovered via SourceForge's New Releases RSS feed]Lay a flashfinger on Submit Response and I'll tear you a new meme, pal. [via anil's daily links]
No.73 Bus Blog - does what it says on the tin. Much more interesting than you might imagine
Macworld reviews FTP clients for OS XArs Technica reviews browsers for OS X
August 27, 2003
August 26, 2003
Those dreadful advertisments with the moustachioed twins may have made 118 118 the best known of the new directory enquiries numbers, but this guide shows it's far from the cheapest... And how come we still don't have a 411 service yet? (Americans call that number if they are lost and need directions/public transport info) [via LinkMachineGo]
August 25, 2003
Tommy Sheridan jailed for seven days after refusing to pay fine for Faslane protest. If you're getting deja vu, that's because the same thing happened back in 2000.
BBC: Fringe passes million tickets mark for the first time
iSpeak It - Take any document or web page and convert it into an MP3/AAC track in iTunes using your Mac's built-in text-to-speech capabilities. From there it's a quick sync to your iPod and away you go! [via BoingBoing]
August 24, 2003
August 23, 2003
August 22, 2003
Rhizome.org: Virtual Seduction
BBC: People living in Glasgow have the lowest life expectancy in the UK, according to statistics
I just noticed that Zenomap has had a big update - it's the site for Scotland's independent participation at the Venice Biennale
August 21, 2003
BBC: A campaign to get JK Rowling considered for a Nobel prize has failed... Not a single person sent a letter to the Nobel Committee. Last time I looked there wasn't a Nobel Prize for Writing Mediocre Children's Fiction Read By Halfwit Adults, so this story does seem to make sense.
The Gender Genie so totally reckons I'm a girl. Whether this is down to a feminine prose style or the algorithm being bullshit remains open to question. It piqued my interest, so I ran 10 weblog posts and five pieces for print through the Genie. It claimed that all were written by a woman. My prediliction for polysyndeton and overuse of contractions ("y'know" especially) are to blame, it would seem. Quite what makes these stylistic tics 'female' is a mystery to me.
Lone Brit on Perrier list - Who cares, it's an international festival? Odder is the fact that Adam Hills is widely tipped to win. Despite being a totally bog-standard observational stand-up with (to give him credit) a knack for dealing with hecklers. Not anyone's idea of a good, inventive comic. Excepting the Perrier judges, it would appear.
BBC: Holyrood cost could top 400m pounds
August 20, 2003
August 19, 2003
Social Software defined at The New Devil's Dictionary: Any arbitrary collection of algorithms, protocols and metadata that allows friendless agoraphobics to pretend otherwise. As in: “I’m having trouble deciding which node in my social software network I’m going to ask to the e-prom." [via Many to Many]
August 18, 2003
Mobile video hits Edinburgh Festival - show clips direct to your phone
August 17, 2003
Gary of Solitude on data: url (that is, information stored as a link): When permalinks meet data:urls, we have a way of storing entries as links. That is, we have bookmarks that will never break.. This is an interesting idea, but maybe only suited to low-traffic, short-post weblogs like this one, since appending a data: url to each entry doubles required bandwidth, and some browsers impose a limit on the amount of data one can squeeze in. (Should you wish to retain this post for posterity, here it is as a data: url)
BBC News: Book swap hits streets - Bookcrossing gets a big push in Manchester
August 16, 2003
Money, Community & Social Change - fascinating interview with economist Bernard Lietaer. I am afraid that if the United States had to live by the rules that are imposed on, say, Brazil, the United States of America would become a developing country in one generation. [via Oblomovka]
August 15, 2003
August 14, 2003
Austin Mitchell, MP for Grimsby and broadcaster, has a weblog.
August 13, 2003
Project Gramaphone - like Gutenburg, but with audio.
August 12, 2003
August 09, 2003
So Christian rewrites American Pie along blogging lines. Song then recorded by Pete Hoskins. What can one say?
August 08, 2003
Jonathon Delacour on Weblog Ethics - a belated take on the Winer/Pilgrim hullaballoo, and a response to Rebecca Blood's piece on ethics from a journo-blogging perspective. Personally, I edit all the time, in the spirit Jonathon suggests in the interests of improving the writing. Or, in my case, spelling.
Ground-breaking work in understanding of time - some bright spark has had a pop at Zeno's motion paradoxes. My head is hurting now. [via Frownland, via Howling Fantods!]
To The Victor, The Paradoxes - Pat 'Play Ethic' Kane is guestblogging over at Brainwaves