Minimal

Here comes the flood

I love it when, every now and then, someone’s usually-quiet weblog is filled with comments from a raft of people who are nothing like regular readers, probably coming into the site as Google refugees. Instantly, there’s a mix of culture and language that’s almost completely absent at other times. Often amusing as a juxtaposition, it also serves to remind you just how many different communities are out there on the web. And how little you cross the boundaries between them.

Phil seems to do particularly well on this front. First time I noticed it was for his post about Adnan Osmani’s XWebs browser. The latest influx is a crowd of Dizzee Rascal lovers, using language that my ailing 28-year old brain can only describe as “street”. When I were a lad, the word “heavy” meant “bad”. Not any more, it seems. And what’s this with complimenting people on how beige they are? Sorry, buff. I just don’t get it. I must be turning into my dad or something. ;)

Long jump

They’re still there. They look immensely bored now. Cold as well, no doubt. Still, there’s some nice lighting going on down there. If you’re walking around the quayside tonight, just pop up the alleyway between CocoMo’s and the Akenside pub on Side for a quick butcher’s.

Actually, they’d probably not appreciate the interruption, but given the readership of this webshite, I figure they’re safe for a while yet. :)

Jump Newcastle?

I’m reliably informed by my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the office that the guys who did the recent Channel 4 documentary, Jump London, are now doing Jump Newcastle — right outside our building. Certainly there’s a fair bit of action in the quadrangle at the base of Cale Cross House, but I’m not impressed with the crash-mats. I thought these guys were fearless?

Update: Okay, I was nearly right. It is those French free-runners, but it’s not Channel 4 — it’s the BBC. Again.
Update 2: Just heard a thump from outside the window. Guess someone jumped. Bugger, I missed it.

Peace in the Middle-East?

If you’ve got some time to kill, how about reading the draft Geneva Accord for a settlement between Israelis and Palestinians (via ongoing)? I might even read it myself, in time.

The Vessels’ single, delayed

The Vessels’ new EP, Look For Me First In Any Crowded Room, has had its release delayed for a fortnight till the 8th December due to duplication problems. Bah! :(

I wondered whether something was up when I couldn’t find it in HMV or Virgin this morning. Whoever their label is, they’ve messed this up royally. After a week of great publicity from Mark & Lard, what better way to drop the ball than delay the release at the last minute? I really want to see these guys succeed (I’m staggered they’re not bigger than they are already), but this can’t help. :/

Something from my wishlist

It’s been a long time since I last checked out the Get Your War On comic strip, so the book, which includes plenty of stuff from the war in Iraq, would be a great way to catch up. Not only that, but the money goes to a good cause: landmine relief in Afghanistan. Mutha, Fatha — are you listening? (If you are, please ignore all of my swearing... *cough*)

Take the power back

Luke Hutteman suggests a tactic to hit blog-spammers where it hurts: right in the PageRank. Not that it affects me or anything, what with my lack of commenting system / popularity. Still, it’s an interesting, refreshing approach that might just work.

The Vessels

I first saw The Vessels live on my way to the Inspiral Carpets’ gig at Evolution earlier this year. Their blend of pop, rock and country was a really pleasant surprise and, although I only heard 2 or 3 of their songs, it was enough to get me interested.

Tonight, I saw them again, this time at The Cluny, under the Byker Bridge. This time, they were excellent. In fact, they were so good, I’m staggered they’re still playing venues as small as the Cluny (which, incidentally, is an excellent small venue). With any luck, the fact that they’re currently Mark and Lard’s single of the week should propel them towards the sort of recognition and sales that they deserve. Take my advice: use them as an excuse to try Virgin’s new try-before-you-buy listening posts. Highly recommended.

Christmas list... 2004?

I started listing the spec of my ideal contact-synching, MP3-playing, data-storing, photo-snapping, web-accessing, rss-feeding, blog-publishing, dictation-taking, event-reminding, genital-vibrating mobile phone recently, but now I’m wondering why. Wouldn’t a wristwatch that did half of this stuff be a better idea? We could leave the phone to do what it does best — the making noises bits. And vibrating genitals, of course.

On a separate new-technology-related note, it seems like everyone wants a slice of the Segway action. First, some guy makes his own for less than half the price. Next, Bombadier makes a motorbike-aping, single-wheel wonder that looks infinitely cooler than the nerd’s toy around which cities would supposedly be designed. In the words of JeffK, “TEH PROPHESY HAS BEEN FULFILLED AND WE ARE IN AN AGE OF SUPERNOVAS FOR SURE”.

Face/Off

Nope, not the movie, this is for real. Egads.

Don’t mention the score!

Five-star Chelsea thrash Magpies [Soccernet]
Good grief. Couldn’t they have declared once they got to three? Right, time to go on the record. While I’ll give the team all of my support at the matches, it’s fair to say we’ve had something like this coming for a while. Well, maybe not 5-0, but a good kicking nonetheless. Despite our on-paper resurgence (which was all against poor opposition, btw), we've yet to really catch fire.

It’s also no surprise that Andy O’Brien (he who put the ball in the mackems’ net, god bless him) was in the thick of it today. He’s been a very weak link in the Newcastle back line this season and has deserved his marching orders more than once. Clumsy, lacking confidence and with shocking distribution, he’s really not up to Premiership standard at the moment. While Bramble could be equally accused of dodgy distribution, at least his wayward passes are thumped harmlessly out of play miles upfield. At the back, making tackles where it matters, he’s solid. I just wish I could say the same of O’Brien. Woodgate can’t come back too soon.

At both full-back positions, we’ve struggled too, although moreso on the right than the left. Olivier Bernard’s greatest weakness has been a tendency to drift too much into the centre, leaving his man wide open. He’s also had a couple of games where he’s made alarmingly rash tackles time after time, but got away with it. He is improving, mind, and other than the drifting, he’s a bit of a star. Over at right back, though, Aaron Hughes is having a pretty awful season. Poor distribution, easily dispossessed and a certain lack of confidence have seen my head in my hands far more often than I’d like. A season or two back, he was great in a right-wing partnership with Solano, but all that’s gone since Bobby took a dislike to the Peruvian. At least Bowyer’s helping out.

Elsewhere on the pitch, and on the bench for that matter, we seem to be pretty well stocked. In midfield, we’ve got the sort of situation only top clubs can get — plenty of star players on the bench or in the reserves, no doubt getting agitated. Up front’s not bad either, as even a lack of Craig Bellamy doesn’t seem to have caused too many problems. It’s only really the back line that needs a bit of reinforcement. Woodgate was an excellent acquisition by Bobby. All we need now is about 3 or 4 more like him so that we’ve got a first rate first choice, plus the depth of quality we have elsewhere on the pitch. Roll on the January transfer window.

Update: re the Andy O’Brien thing — what was I thinking? Bring on Stevie Caldwell! If it’s confidence you want, this lad does everything in his power to provide it. Give him a decent run and I reckon we could have a star in the making. The lad was made to marshall back lines. :)

The power of 37signals?

Remember petrolhead? That weblog I started about my on-track, motorsport-related experiences? (Actually, it started out as motoring, full-stop, but evolved as 7days7cars stole its material.) Well, despite it rarely being updated and having very few page hits, it’s #2 on a Google search for “petrolhead”. Given that there are loads of magazines, opinion columns and entire domains called petrolhead, that’s pretty impressive.

Wondering how on earth this ranking came about, I checked out the backwards links. Other than the link from this page, the only other page linking to me is a thread on Signal vs. Noise, where I accidentally entered the petrolhead URL as my web page (a copy and paste error). Can a link 37signals.com really wield this much power in Google’s searches? Bizarre.

C’est la mort

One of my aunts died last week. Sure, that’s sad, but the really sad thing is that I never even met her. In fact, I’ve never even seen a photograph of her. All I knew of her was her name: Alma. That’s not how it’s meant to be, is it? Rest in peace, Alma. Sorry I never got to say hello.

On a semi-related issue, is it wrong that I’ve lived 28 years on this planet and, despite seeing a number of relatives die (mostly grandparents), I’ve yet to truly feel grief? I’ve been more affected by the death of Freddie Mercury or the Shuttle astronauts than some of my close family. Even the sudden death of a colleague I’d met only 2 or 3 times had a greater impact. I’ve got no explanation for this apparent cold-heartedness. Sometimes, that’s just the way things pan out.

Dude!

Like... whooooah! And congratulations! :) Maybe I should stop berating Steve for not blogging and get out there and follow his example! :)

New definition of ‘essential’

Have you ever downloaded and installed the Apache web server? It staggers me at times just how anally retentive some people can be. No, not you — the Apache foundation. On the download page, they insist that:

It is essential that you verify the integrity of the downloaded files using the PGP or MD5 signatures.

Essential? Really? That’s odd — I never feel the need to verify other software I download. Still, the site offers further explanation of why it’s essential, so I followed the link. What I found was the most hideously drawn-out, complicated and plain old inconvenient authentication procedure known to man. This little snippet, taken from half-way through the process, sums it up nicely:

A good start to validating a key is by face-to-face communication with multiple government-issued photo identification confirmations.

And this is essential, is it? Already exasperated with the obscene display of nerdiness in front of me, that tipped me over the edge. Expletives flew at my monitor and Blogger was called upon to chronicle my disbelief. It’s stuff like this that gives us geeks a bad name, so please note this: I am not one of them.