IMS_Blog

As Neil Gaiman points out: There’s a worthy tradition (a recent tradition, but a tradition) of getting Hugo nominated short stories up on the web to help level the playing field and allow the voters to read as much as possible. Fortunately that means we, the general readership, get to read them too (well, the short categories—Short Story, Novelette and Novella—anyway). So these are my choice of winners in those categories (I haven’t read/seen everything in the other categories so can’t really choose; though if you’re going to pick one of the three Doctor Who nominations in the Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form category it has to be Girl In The Fireplace).

There’s not much of this left but I’m going to put my winners after the cut on the blog front page, just to build the tension ;-)

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These are just a few more thoughts on microformats now I’ve had time to reflect and read a bit more.

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Microformats have been the new buzz around those building semantic websites for a while now. I’ve thought of playing with them before, but I’ve never really got them. To be more accurate, I’ve got the concept, and the idea behind them, but I’ve never felt comfortable with the implementation details. Anyway, when I wrote a recent review on this blog I decided to have a bit of a play. These are my thoughts having gone through that process; I’m still not convinced…

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Last night James played a gig at Newcastle Carling Academy. Short version: They were fantastic!

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Well, last night I suppose now (Monday). James. Absolutely fucking amazing. I’ll probably get round to a proper review when I’ve recovered (various bits ache from dancing) but, wow!

I’ve just noticed that Gateshead Libraries (or maybe, given the site’s banner image, Gateshead Council are taking the credit) have managed to finally get their local studies photography collection online. I’m pretty sure it’s later than they said it would be but it’s a large project and probably took quite some effort so one can’t really complain if the schedule has slipped a little. It’s a fascinating resource for those connected with the area, as I discovered whilst browsing through it. While browsing I also discovered something else—whoever put that site together has sadly made some quite basic errors.

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Today is Sunday. I bloody swear it. It’s Sunday because yesterday was Saturday, and the day before Friday. This has been going on since at least Thursday, er, no, I mean Friday. Damn it, I want my day back!

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Decrypt Text (If you're: Able to successfully elicit the password)

This is George. He’s a fireman. This is him in action, sprinting to help his colleagues, hose in hand.

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xkcd really is quite good at times. I’m trying to work out if this is me, or if I’d be jumping from black square to black square:

Jurer qvq V snvy? Fubhyq V unir fgrccrq ba gur juvgr vafgrnq?