Elly Williams’ Weblog

As has been noted elsewhere, it’s conference season. And, like last year, Meri and I shall be heading off to Austin for SXSWi. And I’m pretty certain I’m going to end up having this conversation (or something fairly similar) with a number of people:-

Other person: So, Elly, what do you do?
Me: I’m an Architect.
Other person: Information Architecture?
Me: No. Buildings.
…..
Other person: So, why exactly are you here?

After 4 months without checking, I have 8632 unread posts in my feedreader. Eeek!!!

This email puts me in mind of one of those puzzleboxes where you have to shuffle all the pieces around in order to see what the picture is. I’m not entirely sure what’s happened - even changing the browser & font sizes didn’t fix this… not that I was particularly interested in what they had to say.

Just to add to the “Holy Cow” sentiment of teleporting becoming a near reality, it appears that they’re now working on suspended animation too…

Scientists have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

Pittsburgh’s Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject’s veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.

And there I was assuming that most people were perfectly happy with sci-fi staying fictional…

Boffins create zombie dogs | The Other Side | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (27-06-2005)

I don’t know, first The Queen gets and iPod, and now she’s a usability consultant for Sony. Next thing you know she’ll be hacking government websites and playing counter-strike in the basement.

I don’t have an unusual surname…this causes fun and games all the time.

My Dad’s name is Jim. This means he shares his name with a famous Thai silk company. People find it hilarious to buy him ‘Jim Thompson’ handkerchiefs.

My mother and I share a first initial. We’ve both arrived at the theatre before to be greeted with “Oh we thought you might be Emma Thompson“. We also share initials with a rather famous little alien… telling me to “phone home” is pretty much punishable by death.

My Brother shares his name with a phenomenon… and a serial killer I think…

What about you? Seen your name anywhere strange?

J Clark, originally uploaded by mollyeh11.

There have been a few occasions recently when I’ve been reading something which states “under 25s thought [whatever], while over 25s thought [the opposite]”. And more and more I am finding myself agreeing with the ‘over 25s’. Despite not being 25 yet.

Add to that the fact that Meri & I are buying a house, and getting married, and getting a mortgage, and maybe a puppy too ….. I’ve a nasty feeling I’ve grown up, and I’m not quite sure when it happened or how…

I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more Toto.

I’m not a huge fan of flying. Waiting for an hour to be treated like a criminal by airport security and then squeezed into a tin can with a hundred other people is not my idea of a fun time.

But a 40 minute flight, with a window seat and views like this is about as good as it gets!

Imagine the Eddie Izzard version. We come in peace, Deputy Prime Minister, and we bring you solar panels… roof insulation and ….er… low energy lightbulbs

Up to 20 Greenpeace campaigners climbed on to the roof of the deputy prime minister’s home in Hull on Tuesday and tried to install solar panels….A Greenpeace spokesman said the panels were being left as a present, along with roof insulation and low-energy light bulbs.

Update - Later on the day of posting
BBC NEWS | Prescott roof activists arrested

[Prescott] called the protest a “deplorable” publicity stunt and said the protesters had terrorised his wife….[The Protesters] were then handcuffed and taken to a waiting police van where they were arrested for “harrassment of a person in a dwelling”.Supt Gavin Collinson said they would be interviewed at a nearby police station. He said “It’s not pleasant to be invaded in the privacy of your own home and it is being treated seriously….She’s very distressed but she’s pleased with the happy outcome.”

I keep getting phishing emails pretending to be from banks I don’t have accounts with…. am I meant to be fooled or am I eventually going to get one which would apply to me if it was real?

Meri’s just upgraded. Lucy and Jo have just moved to it. Dave upgraded a while back and Ben’s moving sometime soonish. Not to mention many thousands of others.

And here’s the question…. because Wordpress removes punctuation in post-slugs, are we going to confuse Google into thinking there’s a Wordpress 15?

Not only is it the longest place name in Britain (with its 58/51 letters - depending which alphabet you use), but it’s also the longest registered domain name.

www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk

I’m so glad I spent time learning to pronounce it

Uncyclopedia

Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia full of misinformation and utter lies. It’s sort of like Congress or Parliament. Unlike Congress or Parliament, however, we do have a sense of humor. Nonetheless, this one of the only factual pages, before everything turns into a puddle of utter confusion and disarray. Savor it. And for the love of Sophia, we know you like disarray, but stop adding confusion to this page to spite the disclaimer.

There are a growing number of things which we don’t refer to in full. From everyday things like TV and PC to shortened expressions like LOL and (the infuriating)IMHO. And that’s before we start on the multitude of web based acronyms (CSS, XHTML, DOM, etc, etc)

What’s my point? Well other than I’ve just proved that I can write a post which contains more markup than content, in order to not confuse too many people I may have to learn to spell “acronym”

Amazon.co.uk is recommending that I buy World of Warcraft. It is also recommending that I buy it with EverQuest II. Because if your life has already been eaten by one MMORPG (incidentally, mine’s been eaten by this one for the last few months) what you really need is another one.

I don’t think I’ll be taking up that particular recommendation. There aren’t enough hours in a lifetime.