Chawlk

1. Drawar
2. Fenxy
3. Decaflon
4. Two Credits
5. Wriging
6. Loose Suits
7. Chixe
8. Dud3s
9. Wing Colors

 

@Tyme - thank you. Those are some really nice things you've just said which have left me with a smile on my face on a day I needed it.

I didn't mean my writing was depressing though. I meant that what was depressing was that the posts (and titles) I didn't agonize over and re-write, were often more popular than the ones I spent hours carefully crafting.

To take your point, I would agree that we all need to be ourselves in our writing. Blogging, even in the business realm, is about personalities. We all have our own unique styles and ways of putting a sentence together; when you try to force a different pattern to the words that isn't true, then readers will sense that and respond, most times unfavourably. There are certain tones and conventions that apply to different genres, like business writing, for sure, but there are ways to get a personal voice across and that's what we all need to strive for.

This message, I hasten to add, is one I have been trying to batter into the heads of my colleagues at work for a couple of corporate websites I'm responsible for, and it is proving to be an uphill struggle. I seem to spend half my time re-writing copy to make it look like a human wrote it instead of a robot. I subscribe to the belief that if you can speak and put a coherent sentence together than you can write, but they seem to think it is an arcane science!

@Tyme Good to hear that even posts about chronic depression can have their funny side, which to be fair is what I was aiming for, because every situation needs a light moment.

@katelynjane - I sometimes find the best titles are the ones that come on the spur of the moment without much too much effort put into them. Don't get me wrong, I suck at naming things and frequently spend an age puzzling over the best titles (especially for stories), but the ones that chime most with my readers are often the ones that just flew off the top of my head without any conscious input on my behalf.

Like most of my writing, now I think of it, which is mildly depressing.

For me titles tend to be an after thought. The beauty of a personal blog is that I don't have to strive for professionalism. My readers have come (I hope!) to appreciate my screwball sense of humour. When I pick a title I try for something vaguely related to the topic at hand, and I like to paraphrase song lyrics or quotes if I can. The exception to this are the academic posts I write. With these I aim for something more informative and succinct that wouldn't look too out of place in a journal.

The Sunday Roasts Nils so kindly mentioned, all start "Sunday Roast:..." so people know what they are getting. In the second half of the title I use a quote or song lyric. They seem random, but actually I always try to tie the quote thematically to the content of the post or from something I've seen/heard/done that week. I have an ongoing game rumbling in the comments where people try to guess where the quote is from or what the connection is. No one has ever got it that I can remember in over three years of weekly roasts, which does lead me to think I am a bit more tangental than I previously thought!

Using quotes and lyrics has an unexpected side effect as well - you would be surprised at the number of people who have landed on Bright Meadow after googling for a lyric.

It's slick I will agree but it completely freaked me out when I logged into Facebook this evening and suddenly people were trying to chat with me. I guess it is because I don't use IM that much, that I have got used to my internet conversations being asynchronous through email, comments and the like. I am a grumpy cow who is very hard to entice into conversation, so I liked that I could have slow-running conversations with people when I had the time to give them.

Now there is chat on Facebook and *whimper* people keep trying to talk to me in real time when I am trying to do other things like write some much needed content for my blog! Then I disconnect chat or ignore them and they think I am being rude and...

*wah*

I am just throwing my toys out of the pram because people have been messing with something I use regularly without me knowing they were going to be messing.

Yes the implementation is pretty snazzy. Yes it brings another reason for people to live even more of their life in Facebook, but am I going to get much use out of it? I doubt it because the majority of the people I know on Facebook I either (1) talk to on a daily basis face to face or via the phone or (2) live in a completely incompatible timezone.

I make time. It is a very rare day I don't read for 15 minutes as I drink my morning cuppa and I nearly always read for at least half an hour before I actually go to sleep. It helps me wake up/wind down. In between, I've pretty much always got my nose in a book if I'm not on the computer or watching one of the few shows I watch on TV.

It's a habit I picked up young. Everyone was always reading around me, so I read too. Even now, if all the family are together, it's not unusual for us all to be lazing round the living room reading. It's a remarkably companionable pastime!

The book-a-month goal is good to get started. Or the chapter-a-day. Small chunks you can digest in ten or fifteen minutes are good.

The BBC has flying penguins

(If you are UK based, watched the iPlayer video. Perfect :) )

shadownsun: perfect, thank you! All the joys of an ARG without actually having to leave the comfort of my computer... Lazy, I will admit.

Would that I could! I'm still chasing down clues myself and am completely adoring the idea and am totally lost at the same time.

Brit or not, I need someone to help ME!

To answer your question first, no. On their own, breasts are not intrinsically pornographic. See everyone else's responses for the reasons why.

What I am actually more intrigued with is how your ISP knew in the first place?

I've looked. I've nabbed the profile names that are pertinent to me (I just hate the thought of there being cas' and brightmeadow's that aren't me basically), but I can't see how FriendFeed is going to fit into my life.

I get the RSS feeds coming into one place but I have a feedreader to do that with the few people I don't mind getting overwhelmed with.

I get the commenting on things but... one more place to keep up with comments on? I'm with Scrivs on this one. I only have so much mental energy to throw around the web and I think this might be one service too much.

I of course reserve the right to take it all back when I fall in love with it in a few weeks time.

My poor blog, that's where!

I am getting completely and utterly hammered at the moment. It's not unusual to see 500 or so in the Akismet queue when I log in in the morning, and on top of that I have three or four pieces that slip past into moderation every hour.

Clearly, you two are to blame. Grrr. Just tell me what you did and how to fix it, and I'll not set the penguins on you!

I always said that I could sleep through an earthquake and now I know that's true! (Joking aside, I live on the south coast, same as OIlie, so it's hardly surprising I didn't feel anything!).

Oooh, cute notebooks Mike. I really didn't need to see that because now I have an urge to go out and buy more to add to the stack...

We have a bad habit in our family of giving our animals odd names.

There are Bilbo Baggins, Tate and Lyle, aka the Ginger Nuts. I used to have two cats called Ziggy Stardust and Twigglet. Then there are the rabbits Gilbert and Grace. Assorted fish have been named everything and everything including Marty, Arthur, Daisy, Cassandra, Humphrey and Shanks & Tilley (Archaeologist in joke). And my lovely dog was called Jason. In our defence that was the name the RSPCA gave him - but we got him when I was young and in a Jason Donovan phase so I spent the rest of my teen years explaining that that WASN'T who he was named for!

At work I can't stand post it notes.

My team on the other hand seem to adore them, so I am fighting a constant battle to reduce the amount that get used. I will (and frequently do) refuse to do work if people pass it to me on a post it note. My main problem is that post it's get separated very easily from the file/piece of work they were originally attached to. In my line of work a misplaced post it can mean big trouble for lots of people, so I really try and do away with them if I can. My other problem is that they are just wasteful. A good 99% of the things people write on post its don't have to be written on bits of coloured paper with an adhesive strip at all! It's the people who use them as notepads that annoy me most of all. Grrr.

To aid my campaign, I strictly control the amount of post it notes in the office (I order the stationary, so that's easily done) and do a roaring trade in notebooks made out of scrap paper.

At home on the other hand me and post its have a trickier relationship. I went through a phase in my research where I used a LOT of post it notes, but then I started to loose track of them and my supervisor told me off :( I then switched to keeping all my notes on a wiki and a notebook where bits couldn't go astray. Neater and much more organised.

Now, I have a bundle of post its in my drawer but I haven't used one in at least six months. On the other hand I have a stack of notebooks which could really do with taming, so I'm not sure that's much better!

@Kami - it's a dilemma, and one I get a few times a week (nothing like your regularity I'll admit). Personally, I prefer them all to sit in moderation. That way, I can ponder quietly and, most often, if I am still on the fence I'll strip out the link and let the comment through. If anyone comes back to me about it, (1) I'll know they are not spam! and (2) I can point them at my comment policy which states I will strip out links to blogs I think are spam.

Other short-term solutions? Instal a captcha? (Though I am not a fan of them) Do some of the other anti-spam tricks like moving your comments page from /comments.php to /completelyrandom.php?

I wanted a lock on posts that were 14-15 days (Half a month) old

I guess it depends what you want from your blog. But also how often you post. For example, I only post twice or three times a week and my front page displays the last ten posts. If I was to follow the half-month rule, then a portion of the posts on the front page wouldn't allow comments from readers.

So you could argue why have so many posts on the front page? Most of my regulard readers aren't that tech savvy. They don't use RSS. They only visit once a week or so. By having more on the front page, there is more for them to read without having to delve through archives and the like. Keeping more on your front page also means that random visitors have more to grab their eye - a casual surfer is NOT going to click a "next page" link unless they are already three quarters hooked on your content.

And can you really dismiss older posts so easily? In this day of deep-linking with search results from Google finding everything and anything, regardless of how long ago you posted it, you can never underestimate when something from the archives is going to become relevant again.

I guess my own experience of working on a slower cycle with lots of old posts getting resurrected - with valuable contributions I might add - makes my spidy sense tingle when you talk of shutting of conversations after only a little time.

At least stick a caveat on your locked posts explaining what you've done and why, so people can email you if they want to say something!

(The whole idea of shutting off comments runs contrary to the whole point of blogging in my mind. If you don't want it to be part of a wider conversation and to have feedback, why post it in blog-format in the first place? Sorry)

I try not to close comments on old posts - you never know when someone is going to stumble across and old post and have something valid to say. Case in point, an old friend I haven't spoken to in years stumbled across an three-year-old post just last night through googling something random. He left a comment and then sent me an email to say Hi! If I'd closed comments as a rule after six months or so, he wouldn't have been able to do that and we'd still be out of touch (which would be sad).

That being said, I do keep track of all the comments that slip through Akismet and into moderation (all comments from people who haven't commented before or that have links in require moderation). If I notice a particular post is getting lots of hits from spam bots, then I will close the comments on that post if I think it is unlikely someone is going to want to comment on it in the future.

It's a judgement call. Yes, spam and 'false positives' are a hassle, but I would rather the hassle than real people be denied the chance to comment.

I prefer to be a "when I have something to say" poster - I find forcing a post out daily (or whatever the schedule) makes it into a chore and no longer enjoyable. The tone of what I write tends to be upbeat and slightly off the wall. It's really hard to strike the right zany note when I'm not having fun with the writing. It definitely shows.

That being said, I do make sure that I write a Sunday Roast each week. If nothing else, my readers know they will at least have that to keep them going whilst I go live my life so I have fun things to write about!

@robwilkerson - "persistent memory". I like that.

I mainly get connections and the chance to talk to people I wouldn't otherwise get to talk to.

Mine's been up and down like a yo-yo lately, though I don't check all that often. I did have a small heart attack when I checked this morning and saw 50 had been lopped off my count - I'm not quite up there with Scrivs and his thousands, but when a quarter of my subscribers disappear I do have to wonder if something beyond my control is happening.

Easy answer? Feedburner has its hiccups. It's known for it. Breathe through the pain, wait a few days to see if it rights itself, and if you're still in stat-checking mode, instal another way of checking as a back-up.

I've been switching between the whole exercise/no exercise thing for ages now, till health issues 6 months ago finally gave me the kick up the arse I needed to get started. And, more importantly I've kept going! My tips would be start small and start simple. There's no point in going full pelt into a five-session-a-week programme from nothing. You're just going to get demoralised, exhausted and not going to stick to it. Start with fitting a 30 minute slot into your schedule three times a week where you do something. That could be go down the gym, walk the dog, walk round the block, anything. Just fit it into your day and make it a regular thing. When you've got used to a fixed pattern, start switching in more intensive exercise, extending the periods you exercise for, and maybe increasing the number of days you exercise a week.

It takes about three weeks for a new routine to fit in and start to feel natural - stick it out for that long, and you should keep to it.

My other suggestion is find someone to start exercising with you. If you've got someone else to guilt you into exercising when you're not feeling like it (and vice versa), you're more likely to stick to the plan. You can also get the whole competitive thing going on (who looses most, quickest for example).

My last pearl of wisdom before I go do the housework my other half is now yelling at me to do, is that exercise on it's own probably isn't enough. You need to start thinking about a whole healthy lifestyle. Boring I know, but it really does work!

Good luck :)

I spent last weekend at a conference with a girl who was just raving about tiddlywiki.

Like Peroty, my most interesting picture is the same as my most viewed, I'm also going to put up number 2...

This is a shot of how I had my computer set up when I went away on holiday last week to get some writing done. I holed up in a slightly shabby hotel on Guernsey, plugged in the PowerBook and let the muse descend. I can't understand how it is so popular/interesting, other than people do seem to have a fascination for how other people work.

(I do recommend viewing the picture on Flickr as there are oodles of explanatory notes.)

I hadn't uploaded as many pictures as I thought last year :S

This is my 'favourite', not because it's my best, but because of what it represents - a blissful week of sitting on a deserted beach, soaking up the sun, completely chilling, finally getting some writing done, and quite simply having a supreme holiday.

I want to go back...

960 views - not bad. And that, actually, is a picture taken for an old 9rules photo challenge!

To be fair, being in Explore probably helped this one along some! But then my next top one also has near 900 views without that. Who can understand the arcane Flickr magic?

I've taken a bit to think about this. It would take me a lot to stop blogging where and how I am blogging at the moment. Bright Meadow is my personal dumping ground and it has become such a facet of my life that it is hard to think of not writing there.

That being said, there have been times where I have not wanted to blog and subjects I have deliberately not blogged about because they just bite too close to the bone. Those things I still write about, but I keep them locked in a private diary with no plans to publish them straight. The themes might make it into my fiction, but that's another matter.

The day that blogging is no longer enjoyable, then I'll give it in.

External factors that have stopped me blogging, albeit temporarily, in the past were a simple lack of time from my day job, and physical inability to type from RSI. Other than that, even my server going fritz didn't stop me for long!

For me, I like to keep it simple. Few things annoy me more than a never-ending sidebar.

1. Search
2. RSS feed(s)
3. Link to About if this isn't a really obvious page in the head-bar or something
4. Latest comments
5. Interesting articles
6. Category and Archive listing
7. Random Flickr pictures
8. Stats/meta

Where I've just been involves a picture taken whilst dancing, in a dark nightclub, on the rather bad camera that comes with the Motorola Razr - hence the weird blurry effect that's going on in the shot.

And bioneural - talk about coincidence! I've got very fond memories of taking the boat down that very stretch of canal a few years back!

I went through a period a couple of years ago trying every feedreader out there and I settled on Vienna. It did what I needed it to do and it just fitted into my life. At the time, NetNewsWire had a crippled free version which limited the number of feeds you could read. I tried it but didn't love it enough to pay for the full version. Now it's free, I might have a trial of it against Vienna, but I have a suspicion that I'm going to stay with my first love. The lack of synching doesn't bother me and from what I can tell, NNW has nothing else to make me prefer it.

I tried Google Reader and lasted all of ten minutes before I gave up in frustration. I can't see why so many people love it.

I try and keep a very clean FB page - no vampires biting people, no sheep flying through the air, no need to worry about a zombie lurking round the corner... I use it as it says on the tin: to keep in touch with people.

You seem to disparage this and prefer MSN which is a valid point of view. I used to be an MSN/IM junky then I got RSI and other interests so my online time got cut drastically. I still live a full online life, but it's much more asynchronous. With Facebook I don't have to rely on my friends being online at the same time as me. I can leave them a private message or write on their wall safe in the knowledge that they will respond when they can.

I have my beefs with Facebook. The sheer gaudiness of some peoples profiles is a little distracting and their whole take on privacy and ownership of data is... concerning, but in general it fills a gap and does what it I need it to do rather well.

Erin - I am pretty certain that 28 Days is actually a closer adaptation of Wyndham's Day of the Triffids. In fact, pretty much the entire film (and definitely the first half hour!) are lifted straight from the book. With the dramatic replacement of zombies for killer alien plants.

Article19 - it's not exactly that the ending of the book is 'pro-vampire', it's that it asks you what is the everyday and what is the monster. If the dominant species is vampire and humans are reduced to just one person (so no hope of revival), and that last human is waging a bloody war killing every sentient being (vampire) he comes across just because they are different from him with no effort to talk or compromise, why shouldn't the vampires defend themselves?

I will agree that there is a lot of "yay, book! grr, film!" going around. Personally I think you should evaluate the two seperately as they are distinct genres. What makes a good book quite frequently does not make a good film (and vice versa). So long as you enjoyed the movie (or book), that's what's important. But I'll agree with the majority and say that the zombies in I Am Legend (film) were disapointing and the ending just blew the whole film for me. Not because it was different to the book ending, but because it just didnt' work with the rest of the movie.

Like a few other people here I'm punctual to a fault normally. People always joke I'll be early for my own funeral - it's just the way I was brought up. My mum hates to rush, so she always planned an extra chunk of time "in case of accidents", and even now I find myself doing the same thing.

I actually have to plan to be late for anything, which just seems bizarre!

I have friends however who are never, ever, EVER on time for anything. I automatically build that into when I'm going to meet them. If one in particular says "meet you at 7pm", I'll straight away plan to meet her at 8pm. Even then the chances are I'll be waiting!

If you want the really tecky answer, it is because HTML was conceived as a markup language as opposed to a language that controlled the style.

Proper HTML should mark up the elements (this is a paragraph, this is an address, this is something I want to emphasize, this is a link, this is a quote, this is a list, this is an image...) and style-sheets and all that other fun stuff control how those various elements should actually look on the page.

Doing it "properly" makes for a much better semantic web that is more readily readable by machines and is much more interoperable between platforms...

As for why the sudden change? Oh, that way lies one whole chunk of my thesis, so I'm not even going to go there and bore you all rigid!

Wrapping presents (me and Jo are having our Christmas tonight before our respective families claim us for the hell joy that is a "Family Holiday"), how lucky I am to work with people who I can have fun with, wishing that I hadn't eaten so many nibbles at our Christmas party, how to make proper popcorn, when I can sleep...

Santa has already been very, very good to me and got me a pair of red cowboy boots which I have been wanting for about two years now.

Other than that, I don't really care. I don't celebrate Christmas and I don't get hung up of the presents I do/don't receive. For me it's a time to hang out with the people I love most in the world. The best gifts I'm going to be giving this year are not arguing with my brother in front of my mother (hell, we're both in our mid to late twenties now, it could happen!) and finally giving my father the quilt I've been promising to make him for the past three years.

That, and doing the washing up so my mum can put her feet up like she deserves :)