- An hour on the phone fries one’s brain, even when it’s with a good friend and colleague and "delivered good outcomes". #
- I wish people would stop sending me interesting things to read. Just for an hour or so, so I can make a client a bit happier. #
- Apparently yesterday was "Commonwealth Day". Did this actually have any relevant to anyone? #
- We can all give up this web development and media stuff now, check these guys! http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/239803/ #
- Hmmm… reducing a client to tears just how wasn’t quite the intended outcome. And there isn’t a field for that in my CRM system… #
- How daft is MYOB? Just sent me a promo fax (3 copies!), headed "Start the year fresh". START? It’s the MIDDLE of MARCH! FAIL! #
- @NickHodge Which "data gone"? MYOB’s of the tear-filled client? #
- @NickHodge Data OK. Had kept morn free for client, but no call. Now committed until day’s end. They called wanting instant fix. I vented. #
- @mpesce No, children of your cousins are "cousins once removed". #
- Twitter is excellent. Instead of having to look up Wikipedia, you just ask here and someone else looks it up for you. #
- Hey this so-called "National Binge Drinking Strategy" is to STOP binge drinking! WTF? #
- @Fifikins Re Westpac ATMs, you may like this little sketch then… http://youtube.com/watch?v=OAknJSsXQRY #
- Hmmm… is there any way to FORCE Twitter to use something like tinyurl.com, even if the URL fits into the message? #
- @zhasper "Michelle the bank-slut" LOLZ. Yeah her logic is shitty. Offers a receipt and then says I can’t have one so there. Ignorant bitch. #
- @mpesce Careful what you say, or you’ll end up sounding like what I write. 😉 #
- About to disconnect the client-whinge feed… #
- @aglick35 Hi, new Twitterstalker(tm)! I hope you find something entertaining, controversial or at least mildly erotic. #
- OK, already I don’t like seeing a daily digest of my tweets. Too scary! http://tinyurl.com/2mwv2u #
- @NickHodge Don’t worry, you fucking bastard, I’d never censorship myself! Arsehole! #
- @Fifikins Just take a deep breath and remember, with Westpac we’re… saving penguins or something. With harmonica music. #
- Ah! Absinthe and Bickfords Lime works quite nicely. Genius! #
- @NickHodge My pleasure. There’s a few more words I can use, if you like. Some of them are truly excellent. #
- What’s wrong with this headline? "Govt invites sports chiefs to binge drinking conference." [smirks] http://tinyurl.com/33pwdb #
- @Fifikins This is what you need then! http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/r/crownhim.htm Crown HIm with Many Crowns! And lots lots more! #
- @Fifikins Oh dear! I Keep running into choristers! And I wasn’t even a Catholic! #
- @NickHodge The LOLbible has already been started, running on MediaWiki somewhere.\ #
- Indeed the lolcatbible is at http://www.lolcatbible.com/ and I blogged about it 9 October: https://stilgherrian.com/religion/lolbible/ #
- 1. Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. #
- 2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. #
- @kcarruthers @kcarruthers nickhodge I am a prophet to my people! #
- @NickHodge Thoroughly agreed re the importance of Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing, but sorry, never could get into the nasal, droney NZers. #
- @kcarruthers Sorry, but as a Discordian I am forbidden to believe anything I read. All hail Eris! #
- @crispin_harris @vandra Twitter needs a wall-to-wall display mode – though certainly not in this specific instance. #
- OK, Twitterverse, you are my moral compass. Should I have another drink before bed? #
- @Fifikins Didn’t think Catholics did the Bible? Catholics will do ANYTHING. And you don’t even need to buy them a drink first. #
- @kcarruthers Oh, yes, I quite frequently commit random acts of discord. What’s "DS9"? #
- @bronwen ‘Pong http://www.outtospace.com 😛 #
- @bronwen Yep, that’s @ApostrophePong and his current obsession with abandoned furniture. The portfolio is more representative though. #
- I find it very scary that I’m at least acquainted with 6 of the Top 100 at Tweeterboard. #
The Man in the Window
I took this photo with my phone the other night at The Duke Hotel. The man stood at the window in exactly this position for about 15 minutes.
Norway’s NHK groks The Torrent
While the music and movie companies rail against BitTorrent, Norwegian broadcaster NRK recently used the torrent’s capabilities to distribute a HD TV program to 80,000 people for just $350 total in storage and bandwidth.
[P]roject manager Eirik Solheim… estimated that the bandwidth bill would have been roughly $8000 had NRK chosen a more traditional delivery method…
All the HD video files were stored and delivered using Amazon’s S3 data service, which has optional bittorrent capabilities. NRK syndicated the .torrent episodes over an RSS feed, which allowed the program to work something like a podcast.
NRK recommends that people use Miro to subscribe: it’s the easiest way for folks to use BitTorrent and it fits their public-interest mission. The estimate that a high percentage of their downloaders (50% or more) are using Miro.
[…] Technically, the cost to the producer for distributing to a handful of viewers, say 300, is basically the same as doing so for 1,000,000 people. This is because after a point, distribution is handled by the viewers themselves; as the number of viewers rises, the work that NRK does stays constant.
I think I should be playing with Miro more…
Stupid uses of “solution”
Pet gripe: the use of the word “solution” in (originally) the IT industry and now, seemingly, everywhere.
Wikipedia doesn’t give it it’s own page, merely saying:
In business, a solution is a product, service, or combination of both which is said to solve a business or consumer’s problem; the term is often considered an overused and unimaginative buzzword.
So when I saw this truck (pictured) in Stanmore yesterday afternoon I wondered, “WFT is a ‘tree solution’?”
I assume this guy is an arborist, or “tree surgeon”. The former ain’t great marketing in the 21st Century ‘cos it’s latinesque, but I can live with the latter — after all, he’s a bloke what cuts down or fixes trees, yeah?
Other annoying buzzwords for me: “business ecology”, “DNA” (when used to talk about “our business’ DNA”), “space” and “Web 2.0”. Any others?
Twitter updates for 2008-03-10
[Note: Although labelled as the tweets for 10 March, the current Twitter Tools date function isn’t localised properly and this appears to be for 10 March UTC, not AEDT, ‘cos the one starting “Emerging” (3rd from bottom) was the morning of 11 March for me. They’re in chronological order, top to bottom.]
- Finally! Zukerberg’s speech at SXSW has pushed the JCal war off the top of Techmeme. #
- @crispin_harris Thanks (though you missed an "r" in my name). Did you see the longer piece I posted about an hour ago? #
- @crispin_harris Cool. It’ll be interesting to see how the Cult of the Internet Start-up fundamentalists respond to such an open challenge. #
- @ApostrophePong Useful meta-review of Nikkor 18-200mm DX lens. http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2008/03/09/4901 #
- @duncanriley Welcome back to Oz. Time for you to trigger another shit-fight on teh internetz! 😉 #
- Monday re-planned (well, re-chaos’d): Heading to St Ives to fix client problem. #
- Waiting for a cab at Pymble. School (all private) is out: noisy! #
- Schoolchildren interfere with cab-hailing gesture. FAIL! #
- @mpesce Agreed, but last I checked I’m not authorised to shoot children under 15. #
- Reinstalling 2007 Microsoft Office system which failed to activate properly. FAIL! #
- Ah, my work St St Ives is, essentially, done. Now to potter for a moment and de-stress before re-stressing in the traffic. #
- Latitude decreasing… stress neutral… back aching… sun shining… earth turning… #
- @eskimo_sparky Welcome, new Twitterstalker(tm)! Twittering on a laptop at the bus stop is weird. That’s me, not you… 😉 #
- @eskimo_sparky Let’s drink to weird people then! One shot each for each one we know. #
- Monday re-plan, v3.0: gym & dinner cancelled; on train returning to civilisation; evening options open #
- @SilkCharm Does your sister also have a flower name? A psychic told me you do. #
- Oops… Nokia N80 battery about to fail. Laptop to Internet via Bluetooth to said N80 about to fail. I NEED MORE VOLTS! #
- Home! #
- @SilkCharm Psychic was a he, didn’t specify partic plants, just that I’d met a woman with a plant/flower name, who had sister with one too. #
- @zhasper Am I that pedant? *slightly confused* I mean, I AM a pedant… #
- @SilkCharm Apparently Plant woman is important to my next major change(s) in life! (Keep your ego in curb, girl!) #
- @SilkCharm He said that I’d been to a meeting or something with this woman, and also described @nickhodge and @mpesce (sort of). #
- @NickHodge Shortly after that dinner in December, a psychic happened to mention a "meeting" I’d had and you match the photofit. 😉 #
- @NickHodge Yeah @Fifikins is so right, H O T Z ! @ApostrophePong is so dumped! #
- @bck Tempting, but nah @nickhodge still wins. It’s those superb rolls of fat and the saggy y-fronts for me! And especially the back hair #
- As a random thought, how long are Tweets archived for? #
- Oh shit! My Tweets also go on my website, and the National Archives keep my website FOREVER! #
- @kcarruthers Nah I’m actually quite used to what I say being on the public record. Too much time as a broadcaster. #
- @bck Maybe you could show us a different part of your body each weeknight, and then on weekends… #
- @weatherbot sydney australia #
- Emerging. Today is all tea, no coffee. Wonder when headaches will start. (I’ve previously done 1yr no caffeine. Time to do it again.) #
- Dumping planned breakfast meeting. Just a supplier wanting to whore new products. Why START the day with crass commercialism? #
- @jjprojects guess I’d better start following you. Half the people I see talk to you and I’m getting confused. Or tantalised. #
Twitter digests: an experiment
As an experiment, I’m going to publish daily digests of my Twitter updates. Let me know what you think. If you don’t know WTF I’m talking about, go to Twitter and then look at twitter.com/stilgherrian. The most recent 10 tweets are visible on my website, but I’m starting to do quite a few more than that every day.