Listening to: Melt - Leftfield

Zef has a great post on the little
design issue that we have in the boys loos. I have also tried moving the bin a
few times…

Listening to: Space Shanty - Leftfield

Check out this
post for an idea of what LINQ will look like. I have to say that I like what I
see (I am assuming that the XElement.Load() method has an overload that allows for
a URL… hello distributed database system! (must check)).

UPDATE: Flag the need for a method that takes a URL… you should be able to do it
with streams…

Listening to: Low Tide - Op Shop

Being a bit of a fan of graffiti,
urban art and the such
like I really enjoy it when the artists describe their processes. The BLF have started
a series on how they do what they do.

Listening to: Lovesong (Acoustic Version) - The Cure

Robert X. Cringely has some interesting
observations to make about Google AdWords:

AdWords isn’t as simple as it seems at first. With Google, things
rarely are. As usual for Google, there be algorithms at work here, and the nature
of those algorithms is alluded to, but never fully explained. What Google does admit
is there are forces that can drive an advertiser’s listing up or down, making them
appear on the first page of results or push them down to second and subsequent pages.
Both effects, it is strongly implied, are in the control of the advertiser. Advertisers
can move higher in AdWord ranking by paying more money for the key words they have
chosen. But they can also move higher — or lower — based on the quality and desirability
of the ad, itself.

Listening to: The Bizness (w/Common) - De La Soul

The LiftPort guys have posted
some info on their 1000-ft test… including
photos and a video.

Listening to: Rites of Spring - The Bravery

I found this post fascinating:

Earlier this year, I wrote “So
you can’t afford bespoke”, which covers the main hierarchies of tailoring:
“ready to wear”, “made to measure”, “bespoke” etc.

After receiving a lot of e-mails from English Cut readers, it’s pretty obvious
that there’s plenty of people out there who would love to have a handmade suit from
any of the wonderful tailors on
Savile Row. But the reality is; they don’t come cheap. Not everybody has £2000 to
spend on a garment.

What if you have only £200 to spend? [approx. $350-400 US] For that money, I’m
afraid all you’ll get on Savile Row is a very good meal for you and your friends at Sartoria,
a lovely restaurant on the corner of Savile Row and Old Burlington Street.

Realistically, for £200 you’ll probably have to settle for a standard ready-to-wear,
unless you get very lucky and find a good second-hand bespoke in a charity shop (which
does happen occasionally), or you happen to know the name of a good tailor in the
Far East.

That being said, for £200 you actually can get a ready-to-wear decent enough to
convince us in the trade that you spent more around the £600-700 mark (approx. $1000
US). Just as long as you ignore the labels and follow these points:

If anything it makes the walk down Lambton Quay a bit of a trainspotting exercise

Listening to: Distant Skies - Strawpeople

Pablo forwarded this to me… it’s kinda trippy:

Heres the skinny: Blizzard adds in a new instance, Zul’Gurub. Inside
is the god of blood, Hakkar. Well, when you fight him he has a debuff called Corrupted
Blood. It does like 250-350 damage to players and [also] affects nearby players. The
amazing thing is SOME PLAYERS have brought this disease (and it is a disease) back
to the towns, outside of the instance. It starts spreading amongst the general population
including npcs, who can out generate the damage. Some servers have gotten so bad that
you can’t go into the major cities without getting the plague (and anyone less than
like level 50 immediately die).

UPDATE: BBC World have a story on
the plague.

Listening to: Telegraph Road - Dire Straits

Congratulations Mr and Mrs ten Have your son has made it to 30. No much else to say…
Onwards. *looks around* In that direction!

Listening to: Starlight - Jor-El

Phil has a
great post on the importance of fudgeability in applications, a description of
apps that deal with unstructured data and how the two concepts are related.

Listening to: Massive Attack

Pablo forwarded this to
me:

You can’t accuse Nintendo of not being imaginative:

The controller for Nintendo’s upcoming Revolution home console system is a cordless
remote-control-like device designed to be used with only one hand. Two small sensors
placed near the TV and a chip inside the controller track its position and orientation,
allowing the player to manipulate the action on screen by physically moving the controller
itself. For example, you could slash an in-game sword by actually swinging the controller
from side to side, turn a race car just by twisting your wrist, or aim your gun in
a shooter by pointing the controller where you want to fire.

UPDATE: A the controller promo video (click
the ‘play’ button).