Stubblog

I've moved

2006-09-18T14:25:00.000+01:00

For no other reason that I wanted to try Wordpress ...

http://stubblog.wordpress.com

Making some coin Vs Crazy idealism

2006-09-13T12:25:00.000+01:00

"There is still a part of me that remembers when nobody on the Internet was "doing it for the money" - and everything was free. Crazy idealists twhere are you all now?" - Lucasdigital 13/09/2006

This post from LucasDigital on Flickr really has me thinking. On one hand I dislike the BBC using Flickr as a free source of photographs, but on the other hand, I love they way Google, Flickr and a whole slew of other companies offer their API's for free to the rest of the internet. I really am chuffed for Mark, and the fact that his pictures were chosen. The fact that the photographs are taken by an individual, and the API's are released by large corporations makes no difference, nor does the fact that one is a photograph, and one is an API giving access to data of one sort or another. Is it the fact that one is a large corporation giving away it's API to the little man, and the other is a little man's (sorry Mark, just a turn of phrase :-) ) content being used by a large corporation for their own gain. The photographer in me says "I've taken the time and effort to take these photos, why shouldn't I get paid for them?", but the web developer in me thinks what if Google, or Yahoo, or Flickr took that attitude?, but back to the point of making money ... when you get to the nub of things, all these fantastic idealistic companies with their API's do it for one thing. They let you and I have free access to their API's and webservices so that they can make money. Even if an API is just a crude tool to give the company some exposure, you can bet it was cheaper to develop the API or service than it would have been to employ some PR company to get the same exposure the API gives them, the tools that people build on top of these services also drive people to the site, and toward the product that they have to pay for, or adverts that the company earns revenue from. So you see at the end of the day, the modern day idealists, in it for kicks and the buzz are just the same as everyone else, they want their dollar. What the BBC is doing is exploiting the good will and the free manpower that sites such as Flickr offer, and then use this to drive people to their site, where they may buy the latest Postman Pat comic, Tweenies roadshow tickets, or Only Fools and Horses DVD. It's not crowdsourcing, it's exploiting the fact that everyone wants their "ooh! I'm on the BBC" 15 minutes of fame.

Links for 21/07/2006

2006-06-21T08:36:00.000+01:00

A video special this week ... Buz Albrin gives some chin music to a crazy conspiracy theorist. So nearly an entry for the Darwin Awards

Is this the secret to better education?

2006-06-21T08:18:00.000+01:00

Tell kids learning is like smoking crack?

Next time you get cought mapping in the office ...

2006-06-20T13:41:00.001+01:00

... simply say that your creating powerful solutions fuelled by your superconcious. Ok, so the article has a slight crackpot bent to it, but what he's saying does have some merit.

Back from my holiday

2006-04-22T11:21:00.000+01:00

No whinging or cartoon for this post, just a quick update on my jollies, it's mainly for relatives who didn't come with us ... We went to stay in a tiny Village called Ebberston, in between Pickering & Scarborough on the A170. I went with the in-laws and my family for a weeks "rest", and while there wasn't much resting, it was a great week away. On the Sunday we went to the Sea life Center in Scarborough, and while Matthew is still a bit young to appreciate it, the rest of us thought it was great. You can click on any of these photo's to see more. We saw the penguins being fed, and Matthew was convinced they were all Pingu. The sealions were a little dissapointing, and didn't really do much other than lie there, Matthew thought they were boring, and so did I. The sharks were better though, we got o watch them being fed, basically this guy skewered fish heads on a cane and stuck them in the water for the sharks to eat, that was pretty cool. I have a massive lump on my head after whacking it taking this photo of a jellyfish, the tank was above me, and as I stood up, something distracted me, and I forgot about the huge, water filled perspex tank above my head. It's fair to say that it hurt a little. On the way to Scarborough, we noticed a Point to Point meeting in a nearby village, Vicky's cousin usually visits these when they're in the North, and sure enough he was going to be at this one too, so we took the opportunity to go and meet him, and his family. I came away with 12 quid on the last race, and a few good photos too, Matthew had a whale of a time, saying Hello to all the horses & dogs. He didn't win any money though. Vicky's cousin takes photo's at these Point to Point meetings and makes them available to buy on his website A prett tiring day all in all, but Matthew still wanted to go swimming when we got back, he's really happy in the water, and doesn't need to cling to either of us. He's got arm bands and can really move when he wants to. We went swimming almost every day, Matthew loved the bubbles in the jaquizzi, and nearly fell asleep on Grandpa's knee. On Tuesday we took a train ride from Pickering up to Goathland, which is where the tv series Heartbeat is filmed apparantly. This was the only day that we had any problems with the weather, it chucked it down as soon as we finished lunch. I did manage to pick up some walking boots which will come in handy. Wednesday we had a trip up to Whitby, the day started off bloody miserable, and I had the strongest cup of tea for lunch, it almost stripped the enamel off my teeth. However, after lunch the weather cleared up, and I was able to get photo's like this!! We had a wander round Whitby for a while, had a look round a ship called The Grand Turk, it's been used in the TV series Hornblower and Longitude When we got to the beach, Matthew said "hello!" to the horses (donkeys) but refused to ride on them, he didn't like it at all, and after laughing nervously, decided he wanted to get off. Despite our best efforts he would only manage a few steps before wanting to get off again. Gandma bought him a bucket & spade, which Jon made full use of, and he (Matthew that is, not Jon) thought the sea was one massive puddle to be splashed in, until it started chasing him up the beach and he couldn't outrun it. On Thursday we found a farm where Matthew could go and meet some animals, he loves places like that. It was a little dissapointing though, only having 1 barn with animals, no horses or cows, and the hatchery was shut because of "bird flu scares" All in all we had a great holiday, and it's good to be back at work for a rest!

Links for w/e 14th April 2006

2006-04-13T16:05:00.000+01:00

Some crazy machines on display here, fascinating stuff. The Sheffield Flickr group have a new blog. Are you too rich for free email services? Then why not buy one of the exclusive millionaires24.com accounts at only $399 a month. As we all know "The Internet is for Porn"

Cute kittens are not as stupid as they sound.

2006-04-10T11:41:00.000+01:00

It's about time someone came up with a new way of recognising that someone is human, and not just another script trying to register on your phpNuke website, I mean what the fuck is this supposed to say? You may have already seen this, but the guys at www.thepcspy.com have come up with a novel way to both check that the user is human and also female (or a Python developer) Now it might look like a ridiculous idea at first, but when you think about it it's not as daft as it first appears. At least with this method you don't have to try and decypher random letters from some garbled image, it much easier & quicker to see 3 cats in amongst squirrels, weasels & beavers, so it saves the user time. You could also customise it to say pick 3 company logos from random images in your product catalogue, or why not have it dislay 3 images of the sites author amongst historical figures? The act of having to actually click on the images too is another barrier to scripts, until this method becomes more widespread at least, then it's back to the drawing board trying to keep 1 step ahead of the spammers.

2006-04-03T23:11:00.000+01:00

Back at the end of February, I made a post about my frustration at not being able to find a decent calendar application that met my needs. Well since then I've been spending a lot of time at my companies other location, and every time I'm there I have to shift from desk to desk to get some work done as I wait in between meetings. I suggested a laptop would help, but didn't want anything too bulky. I ended up with a Powerbook G4. I have never used a Mac before, save for a few brief tests on Safari in the designers office. It's taken less than a weekend for me to be totally converted. It has solved every problem I posted about, I can enter meeting requests straight from the mail client into the calendar, then sync that to my phone without any fuss.

Links for w/e 31/03/06

2006-03-30T14:16:00.000+01:00

Open Source Web Design - a whole array of free, open source web page designs. Spoke POV - I'm not one for riding a bike, but these things are pretty cool ... DIY Studio - A whole site dedicated to DIY photography equipment.

Stuart Grimshaw Photography

2006-03-27T15:25:00.000+01:00

One of the things I promised to do during 2006 was to become a better photographer, and I've posted recently about some kit that I'd made to help that along. I've also launched this week my new website, www.stuartgrimshaw.co.uk to publicise my work. It mainly focuses on a project of mine to take sports photographs in and around Sheffield, and sell them to the players, the idea being that it will fund more equipment (such as lenses & filters). My cousin Jon Hodd does something similar with www.point2pointing.co.uk and that's where I got my inspiration from. Stuart Grimshaw Photography lets team managers or secretaries book a photo session for their team, during practice, training or even social events such as prize giving ceremonies, prices start from £50, which includes a team photo, individual photographs taken during the shoot start from just £5. It's still early days yet, but hopefully it will be an interesting and entertaining venture ... -S

Sold my 1st photo

2006-03-08T16:42:00.000Z

One of the things I set out to do in 2006 was improve as a photographer, and one of the milestones was to sell my 1st photo. Well, that happened this week. It's not a special photo, and I didn't make a vast some from it, but it's still pretty exciting. All my stock images so far are of landscapes, which are pretty much two a penny and hard to sell, so I've built myself a light tent, in order to take photos of things I think will be more sellable. Also, Spore looks like it's going to be awesome.

Links for w/e 03/03/2006

2006-03-03T21:09:00.000Z

The best bits from my del.ico.us bookmarks this week:

http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official/classic Old style templates to help you organise yourself.
http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent The DIY instructions I followed to build my light tent, not used it in anger yet, but there are a few images on my Flickr stream.
MC Hammer's Blog ... needs no further introduction.

Real life meets web2.0

2006-03-03T07:58:00.000Z

One of the biggest buzz's around the whole web2.0 thing is creating a social aspect to whatever your site is. Outside in the real world one of the more sociable things to do is go for a pint with your mates. Some bright spark in the states has hit upon an idea to mix the two, www.coatr.com. Pity it's limited to the States, perhaps the one country that brews the worst beer in the world.

OMGWTFBBQ!!! It's not a cartoon

2006-02-27T08:34:00.000Z

If we had any fans, I'd apologise to you for not posting a cartoon, instead you'll have to make do with this bit of a rant, about integration. We're trying to sell our house at the moment, and after several mishaps writing appointments down on various bits of paper, I'm trying to keep a calendar my PC of all the viewers etc, it's working, but it'd be great if I could then actually take my PC with me and access them. I could use the 3G stuff on my phone to get at it no doubt, but why should I have to pay extra for that when the phone has a perfectly good calendar app already on it? It seems that if you want to sync your appointments on anything other than Windows, using Outlook, you're buggered. Calendars, and the lack of any meaningful integration between them has been a pet hate of mone for a long time, and with the glut of ajax calendars out there at the moment, I can only see things getting worse. I'm not the only one who has problems with calendars too. Why is it so hard to integrate them with other devices? These apps have been around for almost as long as computers have, in fact it was probably the first thing Tommy Flowers wrote for COLOSUS, but was unable to share meetings with ENIAC, keeping the progress of computing back years. (Ok, that's a lie) As I'm typing this, I've just received an email from my boss, it's a meeting request, but god knows when for, or what it's about, it's in vcalendar format, and Thunderbird can't read it. I've given up trying to find an affordable solution to this, in an ideal world, I would have a nice sub-notebook or an Apple Macbook Pro, but both these things are far from my grasp, I'm not some young new media luvvie in London, and I don't work for Yahoo, or Google, I'm 31, married, mortgaged, 1 child, 1 on the way .... So I've gone Old School on the problem, I found this website, which is a collection of productivity templates like to do lists, and a diary planner. I've printed out copies of the templates I want, and put them in a folder. Yes it's low tech, yes it works. I don't have to worry about synching it with anything, I can have all my notes of previous meetings, my todo list & my calendar, and it's all the same size as a notebook. -S

On the writing process ...

2005-12-21T14:23:00.000Z

This image pretty much represents how the comic gets drawn. I write the scripts (the next one was written way backin June) then Chyndyllan takes an age to draw them. I usually resort to badgering and pestering until he bends to my will and finishes the drawing. From start to finish I estimate it takes him approx 2 hours of actual work, the rest is filled with procrastination and faff, oh yeah, and he has a job or something. Anyway, enjoy the latest comic, until July .... -S

It's a good job we're thick skinned northern types ...

2005-06-09T18:50:00.000+01:00

"It's a good job we're thick skinned northern types, otherwise we might have been insulted by comments like this. This person obviously didn't think we put enough effort into the strip, but then couldn't be arsed herself to offer anything more constructive. Ok, so Jenny169 is entitled to her opinion, and she has as much right to say we suck as I do to say she's a fucking ass clown, neither are probably true, but this is the internet when did that start to matter!!" If I hadn't read Gabe of Penny Arcade's post the other day, that's what I was going to write about Jenny169's comment on The Webcomic List. He puts it pretty well when he says "I hope that if you read Penny Arcade you laugh, if you don't laugh then I hope it pisses you off." That's a pretty good attitude to take, and kinda makes me wish I hadn't sent that reply so quickly :-) I suppose the whole point of doing any creative writing, be it a humongous novel, or a small 3 frame webcomic is to make people think and react, so why get all bent out of shape when someone does? -S

I guess you had to be there.

2005-06-05T10:03:00.000+01:00

I think we just learned our first 2 lessons about drawing cartoons: 1) Always write things down when they're funny. 2) What’s sauce for the goose isn't always sauce for the gander. Todays toon comes from Jon's ranting about some photo's he'd received through the post, at the time we thought it was funny, and to me it still is, but I guess you had to be there. We've all been in a situation where someone in a customer dis-service department is so blatantly lying to you it's makes your blood boil. I once punched a hole in a door after one particularly bad experience. It was a flimsy door, don't go thinking I'm trying to be all movie physics with you or anything, it hurt, and made me bleed. -S

You really are super!

2005-06-02T12:05:00.000+01:00

Now there's nothing wrong with taking games seriously, some people make good money doing just that, but it is possible to take it far too seriously. A part of me likes to imagine a development office in San Jose filled with the sounds of chuckling developers, content knowing that they're providing entertainment not only for those of us that play the game, but also for people who just like to laugh at people dressed like dorks. It would be great if providing something that funny was the sole driving factor behind the development of City of Heroes, but I doubt it was -S I still haven't watched BB6

Sheer Velocity

2005-04-26T15:25:00.000+01:00