/users/andlosers

Right. You see this Google ad, which has been on Youtube for three months and also aired in some kind of parade of superb owls they have on American TV?



It made me cry. Is it a very well-made ad invoking the power of suggestion, or do I weep way too easily at this kind of stuff? (Or both?)


Superb owl pun courtesy of a bunch of people. I wish I could claim it as my own, but I can't.

Okay, so the iPad is just an overgrown iPod Touch, really (and is a slightly better version of a netbook). I may buy one, eventually.

But iBooks? Game changer. It uses epub, which means it should be compatible with other ebook readers. Apple have just made a play to be the online bookstore, and the experience looks a lot better than Kindle and other existing handsets. They apparently give publishers a 70% cut, which sounds a lot better than Amazon's deal.

I think it's really exciting. That is all.

Introducing Ethelred the Unready, the pet robot that Celia made for my birthday (to her own design - zoom in to see the stitching). I expect he will become my mascot over the next year - expect him to turn up on websites and user icons. If I'm invited to speak on a panel, I expect he'll show up too. Because that's how professional I am.

jack's life lessons
Originally uploaded by iluvpepero

Someone's in Vegas for his birthday. Let the tackiness commence!

Really wish Celia was here though.

A bunch of people here seem to have discovered LinkedIn recently. I've been using this for genuine business networking for a while (I'm getting a steady stream of work and enquiries through it), and therefore want to keep it purely business. If we've done business together, you're in my industry or you think a business connection would be mutually useful, please feel free to add me. Otherwise, I'd love to hang out on Facebook, where I try not to make business connections. They're kind of yin and yang for me.

Please, please don't be offended if I don't make you a LinkedIn friend. It's only a website, after all.

If you haven't already, could you spare a few moments and contribute to this?

Dear diary,

Today they bombed the moon.

Stay well,

Ben.

People of Oxford! Badly in need of feedback (and, to be honest, a little reassurance), I'm starting a writing group. If you're in the area, we're meeting at 8pm on Wednesday at the Gardener's Arms on Plantation Road, in order to work out the scope of the writing we'll cover and the form it'll take. Come along.

I can't sing. As enthusiastic as I am about music, and no matter how much I enjoy singing my guts out from time to time, it doesn't change the fact that I sound not a little like a blue whale attempting to tackle a Mariah Carey track after half a dozen trips to the bar. The sad fact is, I can't hold a tune at all. (And it is a sad fact: not feeling like I can sing in front of other people, for fear of sounding like an elephant with a case of the sneezes treading on thumb tacks, makes me unhappy.)

So here's a question for my wise and wonderful friends: can this be changed? If I find some singing lessons, will it actually make a dent? Or am I doomed to be out of tune forever? (If it's the former, which I badly hope it is, can anyone around Oxford recommend any good - and relatively affordable - singing teachers?)

I haven't watched this, and I bet it's awful, but here's the talk I gave in Edinburgh a few weeks ago:

I've started a new personal website, Verada.org, which will be kind of a video zine. Here's the first entry, about Paul's stint on the fourth plinth (which is worth a watch):



There will be more, and I'll try to remember my tripod for the next one ...

I'm on the bus, but wanted to share this post about Gary McKinnon, which both sums up my opinions about the case (particularly re: the usual combination of anti-Americanism and British patriotism that has coloured the debate) and bolsters it with a whole bunch of actual facts. If you're interested in the case, or extradition in general, it's required reading.

http://strange.corante.com/2009/08/06/gary-mckinnon-the-truth-is-out-there-just-not-in-the-british-press

Brought to you by the iPhone's amazing! New! Copy! And! Paste! (And posted a full day after I wrote it because LJ wasn't accepting posts from my iPhone, presumably because it's still under attack from Russian political cyberterrorists or something.)

... Now in handy official Number 10 petition form.

If you're a UK citizen or resident who opposes the National Identity Register, please, please consider signing this.

In the UK? Care about the National Identity Register? (Did you know that although ID cards have been partially scrapped, the mandatory database behind it remains?)

Please join this Facebook group and invite as many people as you can. The more I think about this issue, the more I think it matters.