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Fri Jul 7 2000 at 12:58:01 (23.7 years ago )
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most recent writeup
August 4, 2020
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Hi. I just thought I should point out that I'm not active on this site any more. I really haven't been for a couple of years or so. Sometimes I come along and have a look around, maybe vote on a couple of things, but I haven't felt the urge to add anything for a long time.

I guess I like the idea of the site, but like many before me, I was put off by the bickering of the users. So much that I ended up put off the whole system. I was never even involved in the community that much, but just from looking around I was constantly coming across nodes where people slagged each other off, despite the editorial policy seeming to lean toward factual content.

Anyway, it's a shame, but I have no hard feelings towards anyone. I hope the site goes on for years and years to come, for it has got plenty of positive aspects. I know I will continue to use it as a resource of information at times.

Take it easy....
These are the books I read from September 24 '01, most recent first.

Countries I have visited: England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, Austria, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Greece (well, Corfu), Malta, Hong Kong, China, and the US, but sadly, work's slowing me down recently.


I have decided to try and comment all my bookmarks as a side project.

In alphabetical order...

 

  • A Higher State of Consciousness: My all time favourite clubbing track. Each time I hear this I wanna reach for the lasers and lose myself in the throbbing crowd.
  • can't take my eyes off of you: A fantastically romantic song.
  • catting weird things to /dev/audio: I wish I had read this when I still used unix machines. It's such a geekily creative thing to do.
  • Culture Ship Names: A list of loads if not all of them. Wit.
  • depo provera: A contraceptive people don't seem to know much about. We were never told about it in sex education. We should have been.
  • Dman: An E2 user who seemed to be in the late stages of a big argument when I was first here.
  • Dog Day Afternoon: A great film, starring a young Al Pacino in a bank robbery gone wrong. Watch it before reading the node because there's a real spoiler in there.
  • dustfromamoth: She's good at answering my millions of questions, kind of sarcastic, and deliciously creative.
  • Dyson Spheres: A Treatise: I believe we need people who can think long term and this is a good example. It's also pretty amazing if you just take it as a thought experiment.
  • ED-209: Best film robot ever. It's well animated, has character, growls like a big scary animal and behaves like an insect at times.
  • Fire: Well it's a fundamental thing as any of toy, tool or terror.
  • getting to know you noders fucking sucked: I love this. However it's intended it says so much about the silliness of the E2 community that I can't help appreciating it.
  • gameplay: This is the point of my career, to make games that are gripping and fun to play. Games that people will love and remember.
  • Guinness: As a student, this was my favourite drink. I drank it every day at home or the pub and even in clubs sometimes. These days I drink it in the pub whilst going for lager at home and lucozade and vodka when clubbing.
  • Horses: the other red meat: I could eat a horse.
  • How precious can human life be? There are six billion people on the planet!: Rubbish writeups that are totally superfluous under the magnificence of this noe's title.
  • how to display the "second hand" on a digital clock radio: This is a fabulous trinket of trivia that you'd find nowhere else. Shame it didn't work on my alarm clock, though.
  • how to kill a clown: Instructional.
  • how to impress women: This node has some laughable content and some that's tragic. You should read it just to laugh at the freaks.
  • Iain M. Banks: Banks writes 'normal' fiction and sci-fi, but only uses his middle initial for the latter. It's those that I read first and that got me hooked. He writes about events on a grand scale of space and time and he loves his high technology, but enjoys mixing it with the low. Takes Culture clash to extremes. His M-less novels are great too withe The Bridge as my favourite.
  • Idlewild: A band I saw when they were pretty new. They had to stop early when one of them dropped his guitar showing off.
  • In Event of Moon Disaster: Always be prepared. If this is genuine it's a nice insight into considering the worst. However, the shocking bit is that it makes it look like they were prepared to cut off comms with them while they still lived.
  • I'm going to be a programmer!: The original writeup in this node seems to have taken a bit of a hammering to me, but I could not agree more with the sentiment in which it was written.
  • Itzhak Rabin: A man whose assassination struck me quite profoundly, even though I previously had little interest in him or his politics.
  • Jackie Chan: Jackie is great. His kung fu is fantastic, but he mixes it with so many acrobatic tricks that it's fascinating to watch. He also brings across a very strong sense of right and wrong and an innocent humour that makes him an endearing and almost accidental hero. His Hong Kong films were better because he didn't have to bother with Hollywood style sets. Give him a chair or a bowl and chopsticks and you could watch him for hours.
  • Larry Niven: Author of some of my favourite books, I've returned to him since I was a lad. Niven's novels have scope and ambition. On some he collaborated with Pournelle and Barnes.
  • mandelbrot set: I like this educational node because lazyr actually tells you how to write a program that generates an image of the set. Well done.
  • Masturbation FAQ: Because everyone needs a hobby.
  • me love you long time: Fun to say in inappropriate situations, eg. when being fined for not carrying a tube ticket.
  • Morse code, sorted by codes: It's not often that you need Morse code these days, but if you ever come across any, maybe just as part of a puzzle, this node will be invaluable.
  • Neal Stephenson: Author of some great cyberpunk, contemporary eco-fiction and a smashing little read known as Cryptonomicon.
  • punch thyself: A gift. A node that enables an E2 user to reduce their xp.
  • Quad Damage: Only deeply meaningful to a human that has spent long periods of time staring at a piece of glass and wiggling a plastic paddle around on their desk with adrenalin coarsing through their veins.
  • speed chess: The formatting of this node struck me as a fantastic reflection of the subject matter.
  • Teenage Dirtbag: A nice bit of analysis of a song that's been growing on me. I can identify with it, but I guess that's the point.
  • The Content Rescue Team: Nodes: A good place to go to find some inspiration if you're not sure what to node next. You may find there's something on here that needs attention that you know loads about.
  • The metanode metanode metanode: Sometimes taking a point too far can end up getting you places. This is a good starting point if you want to browse around E2 and find out what sort of shit's out there.
  • TheMoog: A good friend and colleague. A coder, vodka drinker and fun bloke to hang out with.
  • The New York City Subway Lines Project: Professional. Useful. Interesting. Great nodage.
  • The Russian sub stuck at the bottom of the Barents Sea: A news story that nobody could just ignore. I know someone will mention this in years to come and we'll remember it in great detail.
  • Tom's Diner: It's a great song, but Tom is also my name. I think of Tom's Diner as an insurance policy, so if all this high technology, computer work I do all goes to Hell I can still fall back and open a cafe with this name.
  • Vietnam Veterans Memorial: I was lucky enough to visit Washington DC on a short holiday and I managed to see a lot of the sights, but this one was the most moving for me. I have no link to the Vietnam War other than that I have been 19, yet I still found it a fitting and proud way to remember not the event, but the people who were lost there.
  • What's half of 13?: It's almost cheesey, but it's a nice example of how to encourage people to think further than the obvious conclusions and maybe ask questions about how much there is to a concept.
  • William Gibson: He writes good books.

OK?

I've decided to start noting the date when I visit, as it's not exactly frequent. Everything2 is one of the few places I've been a member of for over twenty years without it shutting down, so it's nice to swing by and it makes me feel seriously melancholic.

 

Vists:

4th August 2020