A lovely busy couple of days at Graeme and Fiona’s for a bit of horse riding, lots of eating, some obligatory bouncing and the odd drink…! Brilliant fun as always. Sally, Simon and Olly came up there too, so it was a bit of a family do.
Poor Angus
Had a good giggle at this post from my brother Phil’s blog.
Are You Worthy?
Found a great Photoshop Contest called “Are you worthy?”. Some top public information-type images that are poignant at times and downright hilarious at others.
Web 2.0 – it’s a great era and now we’ve got the validator
Thyere’s loads of stuff come to the fore over the last few months since someone somwhere coined the phrase “Web 2.0” – I can’t deny that the concept excites me. This article by O’Reilly sums it up really, especially the first page or so of it (it’s a long read).
In basic terms, the Web 2.0 concept (forgive me if i’m patronising you here) is about the new era the world wide web has now entered, and how bloody exciting it all is. “Web 1.0” was all about static info being pushed out to people – personal web sites, companies marketing things to people – but suddenly (it seems) the web’s turned very interactive and personal sites have now been replaced by blogs, online dictionaries have now been replaces by Wikipedia, Directories (Taxonomies) have now been replaces by Wikis (Folksonomies).
Anyway – the point of this post is just to say that I’ve stumbled across a brilliant Web 2.0 Validator – a way of testing whether your site (or any site) is of the new breed…. as if you didn’t know already! Optimistic times.
A clampdown on the freedom of artistic expression
Yes – I’m afraid all my paranoid fears are coming true. I was filling in time whilst changing trains at Birmingham New Street station by taking some photos of peoplle moving around the station, when I was ‘picked up’ by two undercover police officers interested in what on earth I was doing documenting a potential terrorist target like Birmingham New Street station. They took down my credentials and had a look at some of the photos. I didn’t even have time to edit the images and apply all the necessary filtering and cropping to make them look good – so slightly embarrassing on that score. I was a bit upset that they didn’t find my photos suitably controversial to censor them. Thast would have made me a more robust and convincing artist, but at least it means I’ve formally struggled to defend my art in the eyes of the law. Sort of.
A visit to see the Hughes family at Ripple
A great weekend away from the manic DIY ! Had a great stay with Andrew, Denise and WIll (Thanks!!). Also a couple of pics from a snowy weekend in Helmshore and of Olly on Sally’s birthday.
Frozen barbed wire
Strange things afoot in Helmshore today. Ice winds and driving sleet and snow combined with a temperature above melting point – all the trees and fences had this layer of ice on them and thre trees made a crackling sound in the wind. Chilly. Background is our house in the distance.
Cycling kept me sane, says Gerald Ratner
Great story. Profiling Gerald Ratner (the jewellery entrepreneur), the Telegraph newspaper accused the entrepreneur of being “borderline compulsive-obessive†because he rides a bike in racing kit. Here’s the
full article
Why the Chicken Didn’t Cross the Road
Ace photo on my friend John’s Flickr site. I seem to be having a bit of a Flickr intensive revival at the moment. John’s travelling around the world (again – twice in three years!) and sending some ace shots back. Have aloot at the set if you’ve got time…. gorgeous snaps.
San Francisco, the model city
A lovely bit of photo-tweaking and a nice Photoshop tutorial showing you how to make normal cityscape photos look like those architectural cut-out models.
Snowd-on ia.
A perfect weekend of walking in dream-like conditions with brother Phil, cousin Adrian and five otherlucky people. Can’t wait til next year! Day one; Carneddau – including the second highest point in Wales, Day 2; Moel Siabod and a good ridge and great views of all the 3,000 footers from the summit.
Driving me mental
Microsoft’s Virtual Earth: “Now you can have maps that don’t just have satellite views: Microsoft’s Virtual Earth now lets you walk or drive around the streets and see a street-level view”.
Hmm.
You can explore street-side views by ‘driving’ (with your mouse or with the arrow keys on your keyboard) our ‘Sports Car’ or ‘Race Car’ along streets in the map or you can also ‘Walk’ along the street. When the car is on a street that has street-side images, the car headlights turn on and you can view the front, right, and left views through the car windows above. When there are no available views, a ‘no view’ screen is displayed. Simply drag (or ‘drive’ with keystrokes) the car to a different place to continue browsing.”
It’s just dreadful, but young technology always improves. It looks like the bastard son of Google Earth and a bored tourist’s photo album.