EOTW #0b10110

Fire up your V.22 modem and untangle that IEEE-1284 DB25M cable; yes, it's a newly-compiled Euphemisms Of The Week, as featured in this month's COBOL Magazine*

Recently observed on the web of shame:

• Opening a back channel
• Grabbing a Yahoo pipe
• Cooling down the router
• Tweeting a hard return
• Yanking the Tardis

More to follow...

* no, not really

A is for Agnew

If you're a bit cricket mad, like what I am, you should definitely check out the Alternative Cricket Dictionary from The Wisden Cricketer website. Collated from reader suggestions via email and Twitter, it's a somewhat irreverent alphabetical look at the names and events that have shaped the great game.

So far we're up to 'G' but recent highlights include:

Ball-tampering -- Emotive and complicated grey area, the seriousness of which depends on whether the accused is from Pakistan or not.

Cricket, Mr -- Nickname of Michael Hussey. The brilliance of the moniker hangs on the fact that the subject plays cricket.

Engineer, Farokh -- Lancs and India wicketkeeping legend who recently saw his most-prized record “Most Brilliantly Named Indian Cricketer Whose Name Begins With ‘E’” come under threat from the new generation. See Einstein, Napoleon.

Gripper, Trevor -- Hardest-sounding man in cricket ever.

Enjoy :)

Titter

If you're not on Twitter, you're missing out on a plethora of stand-ups and comedy writers testing out material on a willing and discerning audience - for nothing! Graham Linehan, Armando Iannucci, Chris Addison, Richard Herring (to name but a tiny few) all regularly lob out 140-character morsels of mirth. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't; sometimes they're topical, sometimes they're utterly random, but on a good day it's like a free, endless, online Comedy Store open mike night.

One who I hadn't even heard of until earlier this year is Gary Delaney; master of the throwaway one-liner and with a show at Edinburgh later this year. Here's some of his recent tweets which have grabbed me; YMMV :)

• I could tell it was a Monopoly board from the word go.
• Should depressed gravediggers just throw themselves into their work?
  
• Tried to get a refund on my Arctic Animals playset; they refused as I'd already broken the seal.
  
• I like to think I'm the best at wasting paper, by quite a large margin.
  
• Currently watching 'V'. Will it still make sense if i haven't see I to IV?
  
• If anybody steals my identity, at least I’ll know who to look for.
  

And so on. Worth a 'follow' if you like a mid-morning chuckle with your coffee...

Font Of All Knowledge

That nice Mr Andronov pointed me at typekit just now.

Bit of javascript in the of the template, pick a font (or two) and which tags you want to use it and blam! New look for blog (in compatible browsers, obviously, but if you're not using one you should be :) and you can tweak it - live - to your heart's content.

Love it.

GettaBetterTwitter?

Some thoughts on the changes that have been/are being made to the web interface of everyone's favourite waste of time, Twitter. I'm sure much of this is echoed elsewhere on the intertubes but I moan about this stuff every day and I thought I'd put it down in words. Feel free to ignore me.

Retweets

I like the new in-line retweeting button/function; it makes it simple to pass on things that have caught my eye in my timeline. However, the UI is not brilliant, as follows:

1) Why is the Retweet button placed where the Reply button normally is? For users who have protected their updates (who you can't retweet like this) the Reply button is far right. For users who haven't, the Retweet button is suddenly far right and Reply jumps inside. This makes no sense:

2) If I retweet something, the picture in the timeline shows the person who originally tweeted it as well as a little grey icon to indicate it is a retweet. Fine, I'm all for credit where credit's due. But I also want to know why it has suddenly shown up in my timeline i.e. who reweeted it to their followers, of which I am one - I want to know the credibility of the retweet, if you like. At the moment, there is a tiny line of text informing of this, easily missed and not great UI:

As Alex has just shown me, Tweetie does this much better, showing both pictures overlapping and a coloured corner indicator, making it much easier to spot when skimming through the timeline.

3) If I retweet something, the retweet doesn't show up in my timeline. It could be argued that this is duplication, but it's not; I would like a record of when I passed it on to my followers, so I can keep track of the conversation.

4) Replies to the retweet go to the original tweeter; again, this might be argued to be correct behaviour to accredit the originator, but my followers might reasonably want to say "Why have you retweeted this, you muppet?", rather than replying to the content of the original tweet. Perhaps an option to do so would be helpful.

5) It has become quite common practice to annotate retweets with your own comments, which you cannot do with the button; it is a straight carbon copy of the original tweet. Again, this could be argued to be fairer as there is no opportunity to mess with the wording, but being able to give a reason why you have sent this message on adds context to the retweet for your followers. However, I have heard that Twitter are actively working on this functionality.

@replies

There was much debate about how @replies work and indeed Twitter changed this quite early on, so people weren't swamped with every reply from everybody linked to anyone else in your follower list. However, who you put first when replying to a number of people will have a bearing on which of your followers can see it. For example:

fourstar @sarahbrown @greatbiglizard What the hell are you two babbling about?

is quite different from

fourstar @greatbiglizard @sarahbrown What the hell are you two babbling about?

in that only people who follow sarahbrown will see the first one and only people who follow greatbiglizard will see the second one. Admittedly, many people follow both of them (they're lovely people; why wouldn't you?) and would never even be aware of the issue but this feels like a bug to me. I can understand there might be a distinction between a 'reply' (at the start of a tweet) and a 'mention' (within a tweet) but surely someone who follows me and any one (or more) of the people I @reply to should see that tweet, no?

I'm sure I have more niggles (and maybe I should get out more) but I've missed 30 tweets since I started this so I'd better go and see what everyone is so excited about.

Oh look, today it's an octopus :)

First person...

...to hack into Peter Mandelson's home internet connection and download an illegal torrent of Transformers 2 using his account, wins a date with Megan Fox.

Get to it, geek squadron.

Made Of People

I quite like this from Flickr:

Flickr! It’s made of people

We’ve launched People in Photos, a new feature that will help put a face to the Flickrverse and enable you to highlight members that you’ve photographed in a whole new way. People in Photos lets you add a member to a photo, find photos of people you know, and manage which photos you’re in.

I gather from various sources that being tagged on photos without your knowledge is the thing that people moan about most on Facebook (I wouldn't know, as I flatly refuse to be on Facebook). However, it does seem like Flickr has taken heed of all that and built in a load of personal choices about who can tag you, how you are alerted and removing yourself. You can also prefer to never be tagged if you wish.

So big Twitter/Flickr hook up in 2010, anyone? That would win.

UPDATE: of course, you can tweet your pics direct from Flickr already, you just set it up like publishing to a blog.

Something To Say

This morning, I was reading a load of reviews of last night's Arsenal -v- Celtic match, in particular the furore around the Eduardo dive* which led to the penalty. The Telegraph, the Times and the Mail all had articles which asked for Your Comments but then required you to 1) register your details, 2) wait an unspecified time for an email from them with a confirmation link, 3) click the link, 4) re-enter your now approved login, 5) continue back to the original page to add your comment, 5) wait an unspecified time for it to be moderated and then eventually 6) see it posted -- by which time someone else has probably already made all the salient points you were so keen to express.

I didn't bother.

Now I fully realise the need to moderate comments on a national newspaper site. I also understand about comment spam and email address confirmation. But it doesn't feel much like the 'conversation' they so desperately claim to crave with their readers. It just feels slooooooooow.

1-0 to Twitter (at least)

UPDATE: I have since signed up for the Times to test how long it actually takes to get a comment published, more later...

UPDATE 2: It took three hours from start (clicking the Register button) to finish (seeing the comment at the bottom of the article). Sheesh.

* yes, he dived and yes, I am disappointed in that from such an apparently genuine guy.

Shall We?

Three phrases you don't generally want to hear from your wife in quick succession:

1) "Do you like this?"

2) "I saw it on the internet."

3) "It's quite expensive."

However, I found myself responding:

1) "Yes, I do as it happens."

2) "OK, let's click on the link."

3) "Keeeerrriiiissssttttt!!!!!!"

I'm thinking we may have to sell one of the children...

Tooled Up

This is amazing; a free online browser-based Flash audio composing and recording tool:

Hobnox:Audiotool

Yeah, yeah, seen them before, I hear you say? No, you haven't:

(click to enlarge)

Need another gate, compressor, delay, parametric EQ, splitter, sequencer, etc? Sure, just drag it on and cable it up. Just like being on stage (apart from knocking lager all over the laptop mid-set...). Have fun.

(via the b3ta newsletter)

Disgraceful

Read this: The FootyTweets “Cease and Desist” Story

Now read this: Wikipedia: Football DataCo

Especially this:

The company has been racked by controversy in the UK media, after a 2004 European Court of Justice ruling that the Premier League and Football League cannot use the European Database Directive to demand payment from media and pools companies for the publication of fixture lists.

Football DataCo refute the ruling, arguing that a legal precedent was set in the UK back in 1959, when the Football League won a landmark copyright victory against Littlewoods, claiming income from the pools company for their use of the fixtures list.

Staunch opponents of Football DataCo argue that the ruling is long out of date, and needs to be brought more inline with the advances in information collection and delivery that we are seeing with the world wide web.

Small, independently owned football fan sites have been the worst hit by Football DataCo, who charge even non-profit making enterprises the standard fee for use of single club fixture data. Many fanzines have been threatened with removal of the fixtures by Football DataCo. The company has also challenged many not-for-profit websites over their use of football club badges on their websites.

Legal precedent from 1959? For internet-based distribution? What a set of tiny-brained idiots.

There have always been genuine football fans who want to support their club through fanzines and websites - it has even been proven that traffic to the clubs' official sites has increased as a direct result of the service from FootyTweets. It would appear that the self-centered mindless fools at Football DataCo (and how that awful US-style company name sticks in the craw) care not a jot for the average fan; blinkered protectionism is their default - and apparently only - setting.

So, in the interests of my fellow Gooners, I am now going to list the remaining 2008/09 Arsenal fixtures, right here, right now:

Saturday, 11 April 2009: Wigan v Arsenal, 15:00
Tuesday, 21 April 2009: Liverpool v Arsenal, 20:00
Sunday, 26 April 2009: Arsenal v Middlesbrough, 13:30
Saturday, 02 May 2009: Portsmouth v Arsenal, 15:00
Saturday, 09 May 2009: Arsenal v Chelsea, 15:00
Saturday, 16 May 2009: Man Utd v Arsenal, 15:00
Sunday, 24 May 2009: Arsenal v Stoke, 16:00

Bring it on...

TwitFace

So I have been right all along :)

Facebook (blinks, copies Twitter, still gets it) wrong

Although it seems like elements of FriendFeed are better thought out, Twitter is where all the action is. Hey, maybe they'll merge and we can all look forward to a brighter, 140-character future. Here's hoping...

Social Schmocial

All true:

A Completely Unscientific
(Yet Accurate)
Look at Social Sites

No further comment; I'm AFK at the moment...

Over By February?

I noticed yesterday that the Guardian website has decided that the Premier League title is such a foregone conclusion, there is even no point in displaying the leaders in the table:

Sadly, I'm inclined to agree :(

Bus (Reloaded)

b3ta does it again: Bus Slogan Generator

And here is my effort:

Age Before Beauty

Hugely addictive: http://howoldareyou.net/

(Yes, I am on there and no, I am not 57)

Back In Your Boxxy

Feel free to ignore this post if you are over the age of fifteen, or have a life, or both. It will make no sense to you. Run away now.

*waits*

OK? Anyone still here? Right then...

The Rise Of Boxxy

The Fall Of Boxxy

The same internet machine that could propel you to the top of the Youtube charts and hand you online fame will happily chew you up and spit you back out just as quickly, with zero remorse or consideration for the consequences. This is the reality of the internet today, this case is not the first, and surely not the last. Catie, at least, well and truly learnt the power of the world wide web. Somehow, I doubt that will be of much consolation to her.

Utterly. Bonkers.

How To Watch Football

OK, so I'd rather be actually at the match but this is working pretty well for me today:

uStream.tv + Twitter + Guardian online commentary + BBC live text = one happy Gooner

Of course, we still need to avoid throwing away an early lead for once *sigh*

Obamicon Yourself

Everyone else is doing it, so:

Yes, I was wearing a wig. Long story. Have a go yourself (wig optional) here: Obamicon.Me

PythonTube

Brilliant idea. Who would have thought it, eh? Fans of your oeuvre might want a place to go to get high-quality versions of your archived work. Amazing. Yes, we might even click a few ads and buy a few DVDs, T-shirts and the like.

MontyPython's YouTube Channel

Now, if you wouldn't mind going and having a quiet word with the buffoons at the RIAA...