Stolen Chicken have a great selection of cards and craziness for everyone to see; here I have a copy of their ‘verdue’ card which is, in my opinion, astonishingly beautiful, but we’ve established my obsession with cards already. You either take my word for it because I know so much about it, or you think that I’m nuts and not to be trusted. Either way, Stolen Chicken, it’s hot.
Archive for May, 2005
I know there’s a bug in my code for this site, or at least there will be until tonight. I don’t often get to look at the way the site renders from a Windows machine because I write from an Apple Mac where the Safari browser renders pages correctly instead of in some crazy messed up way according to some unknown laws of the universe.
The problem is, when I’m not at my computer as normal, can’t edit the files that I need to change because they’re only writable from an FTP client, a way of uploading files directly to a server. I need my FTP client and passwords and settings in order to do this, a situation that means that when I identify problems with the code, I can’t actually edit them from the Windows machine and see the intended results because I can’t change the file.
There’s a bank of white space at the top of the page when viewed in Windows’ Internet Explorer, whilst in everything else the site has a beautiful broad sweep of light blue. Not so for half of my readers, for they get the ugly version. I’ve just identified the solution (I think!) but will have to hold it in my head, nagging me all day, before I can get back to my desk and correct it.
This is maddening.
From the website of the Seattle Coffeehouse Victorla’s coffee roaster comes the photoset of latte images: designs and swirls and creations from coffee.
The site was in the news yesterday because they’d decided to shut down their free wireless internet over the weekends. Laptop users had turned the place into a library by taking over all the seats for hours on end, not buying drinks, and stifling discussion and human interaction between members of the public, a quality of the shop that had been previously very highly valued.
Free wi-fi is electronic cocaine.
Every staff meeting we had, the topic of wi-fi became the most heated. The cafe had become quieter, the tip jar was getting lighter and a small minority of difficult and demanding users were making things unpleasant for the baristas. At the same time, a great number of our favorite regulars were good citizens and managed to use the wifi at length while still being friendly, sharing tables, buying stuff, flirting with our staff, etc.. Pulling the plug wouldn’t be an easy option.
But as is being reported all over the globe, Victrola is pulling the plug on weekends. If this past weekend was any indication, its the right move. The place was noisy and jumpin’ - people actually conversed! A few customers were in painful enough withdrawal that they stayed home, finding time to send email about how upsetting it was. But the overwhelming response was positive.
tonx.org post and discussion
Wi-Fi Networking news
Victorola Coffee
From Slashdot comes the news that w00t, the hacker and gamer term used as an exclamation of joy/elation/bravado at a great frag, is currently third in Marriam-Webster’s competition to find the public’s favorite word not included in the dictionary.
I think it’s a perfect candidate. And the slashdot forum’s a laugh too:
From the mass disbelief over the prospect of a French vote against the European constitution, a document that many claim would strengthen the French position within the European Union, comes this explanation from the Guardian newspaper:
- They feel that when the president, the government and the mainstream opposition combine to trumpet the merits of something and to implicitly denounce its opponents as half-wits who have understood nothing, it is their moral duty to revolt-
They feel ditto, but even more strongly, when virtually every newspaper, TV and radio commentator more or less explicitly backs the constitution and expresses amazement at the very possibility of a no vote-
They are worried about the expanded (and expanding) union and about its impact on their lives, particularly the arrival in France en masse of the key bogeyman of this debate, the Polish plumber (don’t even mention the Turkish taxi-driver)
It was wednesday night and all across Europe there was a football evening going on: Liverpool were playing AC Milan in the Champions league. It went to extra time and then to penalties after Milan scored 3 goals against Liverpool in the first half, with Liverpool taking back nothing. However, after the start of the second half, all within 6 minutes, Liverpool came back with 3 goals of their own. What was interesting was the tension developing from that time on. Kristin and I had headed down to the pub for the second half after being unable to get out of the building beforehand.
We didn’t go crazy like some people did, but when Liverpool eventually won, we still enjoyed it, laughing all the way into our pints.
On the mile-long walk back home, one of my Dutch friends, Anne, took her shoes off because her red ruby slippers were hurting so much. I thought it was a stupid idea because there’s always bits of broken glass lying around and getting into ones shoes, so what might happen with bare feet?! She said she’d be fine, just paying attention to where she was walking.
As she was looking down she saw, to our great surprise, a little shape moving across the ground, which turned out to be a tiny frog. To everyone’s great disgust, I picked it up and showed it to them. The French were disgusted, the English were disgusted and the Dutch were alarmed. I thought it was cool; I love wildlife.
Wel, I should qualify that; I love wildlife as long as it loves me. I loved the frog a little less after it peed on me. I thought at first that it had started raining and then realized. No rain about, I just had a sopping wet frog in my hands which I promptly put down in some long grass. I wasn’t carrying it after that!
The Mo and the Fiz and the Walker all took me out tonight. We were having a massive water fight in one of the Victorian houses around here and, for some strange reason they all turned on me. I was shocked. In the middle of trying to plan an impromptu attack on one of the boys, I open a door to find three jugs full of water being sprayed across me. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I weren’t fully dressed, but I was in full length jeans and long sleeved t-shirt. The girls with breasts out and still somehow not getting hit, me with clothes on and getting soaked.
We started out by watching R being chased around the building by ad guy with two jugs full of water. That was hilarious, not able to run as fast as him she was always going to be at a disadvantage, but he was carrying water at the same time, trying to to spill it, so that definitely slowed him down. To see a a poor defenceless girl being chased by a big guy with water jugs was just taking the piss. After we four started targeting him the whole situation got rather out of hand and we had to, just had to get back at one another with jugs, Coke bottles, and garbage cans full of water. The whole building is soaked.
I don’t know how it’s going to dry out but there are going to be a lot of open windows tomorrow, and tumble dryers running on full blast.
Later stoners!
Why is it that Costco can treat it’s employees so well whilst Wal-Mart pays them a barely living wage. Why is it that Costco can sell quality products without screwing the supplier? Is the basis a funamental difference in markets exploited by the two groups or is it simply a different way of doing business, a method that says it’s best to take care of employees because then they’ll take care of your store; they’ll actually care? The Seattle Weekly asks the questions:
Given the overpowering influence of Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer and the world’s largest retailer, at times there has seemed no way out from the downward competitive pressure it exerts. Which is why Costco’s defiantly different approach has grabbed the attention of the folks who study these things. Annette Bernhardt, a policy analyst at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, says she and her colleagues frequently bring up the Costco/Wal-Mart dichotomy in order to illustrate high- and low-wage business models. “It has really given researchers and activists a language to talk to the American public about these issues,” she says. Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School, plans to analyze the differences between the two companies for an upcoming study. Rutgers University labor economist Eileen Appelbaum pronounces Costco a company that “shows that you can compete without having to drive down the wages of employees.”
Says Chris Martin, in New York to promote the new X&Y album that’s also being pushed by every vendor on the block who wants to cash in on the latest craze. The New York Metro has a quote from him discussing the process of selling and selling and selling oneself on the corporate treadmill:
“We study the most popular products and we try to sing about it as much as possible. That’s why the next album is called McDonald’s: Over 4 Billion Served.” Reminded of the chain’s recent offer to pay rappers to name-check burgers in their songs, Martin composes one on the spot: “ ‘I’ve tried heroin, and I’ve tried crack, but nothing gets me high like a big Big Mac.’ You think it’ll work? I just earned $50.”
From the Graffiti pool on Flickr comes a reinterpretation of the classic I Love NY image
