That bloke

Commenting on Dreamwidth

2009-11-30T19:56:08Z

I've had a few anonymous comments on Dreamwidth that turn out to be from LJ people I know. You don't have to be anonymous if you're logged in to LJ. Here's what you do.

Log in to LJ, but then go to a Dreamwidth comment page.
Pick "OpenID" and enter exampleusername.livejournal.com (but use your name, silly).
Write and submit your comment, and LJ asks you to confirm.
If you say yes, your comment is submitted to Dreamwidth, and I can see who's talking. 8~)

This works on other sites too.

Nice LJ ScrapBook feature

2009-10-29T00:07:08Z

I found this yesterday: the "Let's tag" page in ScrapBook, which I'd never seen before. It's lovely, as is the tag cloud page.

Buildings

2009-07-25T16:30:23Z

Where's J?

2009-05-19T00:12:03Z

I'm pleased with dreamwidth. If you want to read my stuff it's available on LJ here: jbanana_dw. I'll be mostly posting on there, but still trying to read on here.

Dressing up

2009-05-16T15:28:49Z

You may already have seen this, but just in case you haven't, have a look at the three women dressed up as Daleks. It shouldn't work, but it does.

I can't cope with the word "cosplay", and I had to look up "gijinka" - I think "dressed up as Daleks" is fine.

On the fiddle

2009-05-13T13:41:28Z

There are daily reports about MPs' expenses. Someone may have had his moat cleared out at the public expense. Why don't I have a moat? I plan to become an MP just so that I can claim expenses to get one dug.

But how important is it to know that someone fiddled a few thousand? Almost nothing gets said about the billions to be spent on ID cards, or on the lives still being lost in Afghanistan and Iraq (see pie chart). And let's not forget the money given to the banks that caused the credit crunch. It's almost as if someone were trying to divert attention from the real issues.

Dreamwidth

2009-05-06T22:11:36Z

I am jbanana at dreamwidth.

I'm not sure how this will work out. I don't post here much nowadays, so why do I need another journal? I already have a Vox account that I don't use. But whereas I have no great interest in Vox, I want DW to succeed.

Paint the meadows with delight

2009-05-03T22:59:45Z

It's been warm this weekend. The guinea pigs have been out on the lawn. We've eaten outside and played table tennis at the bottom of the garden. Lilac is blooming, oak leaves and katkins are fresh and bright, and several unidentified bushes are in flower. The children are happy to be away from games consoles, at least some of the time. Mostly they're just happy.

Sometimes life is good.

Why are Bad Things allowed to happen?

2009-05-03T22:40:29Z

I posted a version of this in reply to one of cynnerth's posts recently.

God (gods, goddesses, whatever) could have created any one of an infinite number of universes. Unfortunately he (she, etc) realises that all of them involve Bad Things happening. Fortunately he can tell which possible universe is the Least Bad. This is the one that he creates. He doesn't interfere in the day-to-day (or eon-to-eon) running of the universe because he already knows how it plays out. There are plenty of bigger problems to which to apply his infinite omniscience.

Or the universe happened all on its own at random.

Either way, humans (during breaks between eating and reproducing) try to grasp What's Going On. The finite contemplates the infinite. Unsurprisingly, this does not go well. We don't get it, and we hate that we don't get it. We can do all those clever technological things and appreciate the arts and be kind to small animals and make scientific discoveries, but none of this stops the nagging feeling that there's something bigger going on that we don't understand, which might explain why earthquakes and terrorism and disease happen (please?). Some people codify their intuitions about What's Going On into religious beliefs, and others deny that there can possibly be anything "going on".

I'm no nearer knowing What's Going On, but I can see why it's hard to know.

Cat video

2009-04-29T13:52:46Z

The entire purpose of the web is funny cats. I haven't posted nearly enough (any) of these. Time to put that right.

It's not my cat (I think it's a Japanese cat). I didn't even find the video (I got a link from the free newspaper). But I did watch the cat playing with the big box, and it's good.

Units of measurement

2009-04-23T15:21:05Z

millihelen: enough beauty to launch one ship
beard-second: length an average physicist's beard grows in a second (5 nanometers) - short enough to be useful in nuclear physics
kilowarhol
: famous for 15,000 minutes (a bit more than ten days)

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement

Cocteau Twins

2009-04-13T21:54:01Z

I'm still excited about Spotify. I've just queued everything they have by the Cocteau Twins. I don't know much of their stuff, so I don't know how much I'm going to like it, but I can listen to it all for nothing. It's like Napster used to be, but without the legal problems. Whoopee!

Trip to Brighton

2009-04-11T18:28:30Z

We went to see the Brighton Pavilion, where you may not take photos. I did take a few at the beach, though.

1st of April

2009-04-01T21:29:23Z

The popular theme for April Fool attempts this year is Twitter. Yawn.

But here's one that's actually amusing: http://labs.opera.com/news/2009/04/01/

It may help if you've used the Opera browser or you know what mouse gestures are.

Holi photos (Batman!)

2009-03-17T10:40:04Z

Holi, the Festival of Colours
Boston Globe's Big Picture excellent as ever

Garden photos

2009-03-16T00:53:33Z

I took a few spring pictures in my garden. I like the macro feature on my new camera, but I can't find how to focus manually, which means many of these close-ups aren't as good as they could be. Anyway, these leaves don't look too bad:

XHTML: just say no

2009-03-10T14:42:16Z

Skim assist category: tech yawn

I could never see the advantage of XHTML but I thought this was my fault. Seems I may be right. Plain old HTML for me, then.

Sadly the reason I was reading about this was because I wanted to imitate <marquee> with CSS, for which I apologise.

What <marquee> does is make text slide - it's annoying and non-standard, but the text slides!

Too much music

2009-03-05T00:18:42Z

I got an invite to spotify. I'm only three songs in, but it seems like a marvellous idea. I can listen to pretty much anything I want. Now what do I want?

Hmm - no spotify detection in semagic...

Carnival pictures

2009-02-24T12:39:35Z

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/carnival.html

It's from The Big Picture - an excellent compilation of news agency photos, done by someone at the Boston Globe. It's available on LJ at bostonbigpic but beware if your friends page is broken by large pictures. Better still, fix your friends page!

What's this?

2009-02-23T01:20:41Z

Any suggestions as to what this could be?

The answer is work-safe.

Baaa! meme

2009-02-23T01:12:49Z

J needs relax battle
J. needs an adoptive family who will love her unconditionally." J. adds that it wouldn't hurt if they were wealthy.
juicy j needs to be squeezed
J Needs To Stop
J NEEDS TO PICK DANGER SHE A NICE GIRL FOR HIM
J needs to have a cap (or hat)!
J. Needs. List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server
Mr. Alan J. Needs' Profile. "alanneeds". (REAL NAME).
J needs to learn the definition of a "clean lead."
Flying J needs extension to meet environmental rules at Shell refinery.

Google "your name needs" and post the results.

News story of, er, yesterday

2009-02-20T14:57:05Z

Polish immigrant Prawo Jazdy "worst driver in Ireland"

Well, until they figured out what his name meant...

Photo of the day

2009-02-09T11:54:34Z

Jean Simmons, 1954

Error message of the day

2009-02-05T17:26:48Z

SQL*Plus lost patience with me today and tried to give me a newbie hint, but it made my head spin:

...and to leave enter EXIT

Drinks

2009-02-04T20:49:29Z

Who has end-of-quarter drinks on Feb 4th? My company does. So I helped them out with the drinking. It's the least I could do.