A Donkey on the Edge

Spotted this bus heading down Golders Green Road. The picture shows an open laptop with the caption Notebook. Photo album. Jukebox. Check-in desk.

Does BA understand its target market’s digital lifestyle?

For an above-the-line ad this is pretty unusual… I guess one could interpret this one of two ways. Firstly, we understand how important your digital lifestyle is and we’d like to suggest that BA can be a part of it and this is most likely the intended message (of course, it could just mean you can now book online using your laptop).

But you could also read it the way I did, as I absentmindedly pulled up behind the bus: the BA site now offers all the integrated tools you need for your travel activity

I guess I was thinking they had grabbed the Flickr api and done something really nice with it (a club to share images along a theme - like all the BA customers flying to Barcelona for 3GSM could share there Flickr folders) and more along those lines (imaging being able to share iTunes playlists with other people on your long-haul flight)…

Anyway it was a bit of a daydream and even though it’s not gonna happen I’m still pleasantly surprised they’re now talking digerati:-)

His blog is called technogoggles.

Interesting read over on noodlepie it’s primarily a blog about foodie stuff, but recently, Graham Holliday has started blogging some pieces he is writing for the NMA (a UK new media rag). What’s neat is that he is trying to open up the process of writing as much as possible and is benefiting from the feedback of fellow digerati. Of course, the NMA is a print publication so they’ve frustrated his attempts to publish early and often…

noodlepie: Writing a feature

So it looks like Movable Type 3.3 is going to have some advanced entreprise goodies, like LDAP… I can’t wait :-)

So I’ve been doing the information architecture for a site about Flora (a margarine product from Unilever) and the thing has finally gone live. On the whole, it’s pretty usable, makes a good effort towards being accessible (bit of work needed on colour contrast), and is actually very unusual in its web-saviness. You don’t get a lot of brand sites doing semantic markup and organising things in such a way as to be both helpful and informative…

Anyways, in the process of working on the site, I started to find out about the different kinds of fats (so what the hell are polyunsaturates anyway?) and am now thoroughly confused. According to the Flora site’s more about fats page (and their competitors I should add—in fact this appears to be the generally held opinion), polyunsaturates are good for you and can do no evil. The bit that confuses me (need to get an expert to respond to this one) is that a number of websites disagree.

This one states

Unsaturated oils, especially polyunsaturates, weaken the immune system’s function in ways that are similar to the damage caused by radiation, hormone imbalance, cancer, aging, or viral infections.

So my guess is that this is either scare tactics or folk aren’t comparing like with like. Either way, it’d be good to hear from a propper expert.

Cally has taken the time to reply. Thank you Cally:-)

Dug asks whether or not polyunsaturated fats are good for you. He quotes a site he has been working on, and in particular, the page about fats from the same site.

Well…

About polyunsaturates. I wonder if the bad stuff is actually about hydrogenation, which is the process used to increase shelf-life on polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)—it creates trans fatty acids which are bad. Also, when some polyunsaturated fats are heated to a high heat, the chemical structure changes and they act like saturated fats, which is also bad. But, n-3 fatty acids are PUFAs (in fatty fish such as mackerel, sardines, tuna, cod, etc.) and in some circles, they are thought to be the new wonder nutrient, and wide ranging. Involving blood pressure, cardiac function, cardiac electrophysiology, anti-platelet and anti-inflammatory—all of which are good. I’m convinced I must say.

It might be the trans fat issue that some have been worried about.

Legislation has recently come about in the U.S.—trans fats now must be recorded on all some food labels. However, yes, there is a loophole. Evidentally restaurants don’t need to display same which means FAST FOOD restaurants such as you know who, can pretend the new law doesn’t exist!

Having said all that, caution still needs to be heeded with the consumption with n-3s, because although n-3s are good, they are still fats and if too much of them are consumed there’s the whole obesity argument to contend with.

So that’s that really.

So Clemmie, it was a Tuesday afternoon, the 7th of February 2006. When I got home early you didn’t seem surprised and you didn’t notice that Mom was writing times down on a piece of paper and bouncing with intent on her large rubber ball.

We put you to bed at seven. Mom spilled the beans and told you that Dug and Nicki were going to the hospital that night and that donut (you christened the bump) was going to come out tonight.

Well, it’s eight thirty, you’re still jumping up and down up in your room (and playing with the princess Aurora lamp you picked out in Homebase when you were three-and-a-half) and Mom is having 60 second contractions every six minutes. With any luck, you’ll have a little brother by morning.

OK all, no time to reply to emails, have just woken up and must rush back to hospital. The potted bits:

• Haldane Edward Falby born 04:30 04:52 on Feb 8 2006 (why is it always in the middle of the night? Maybe to prep you for not sleeping anymore)
• Weight 7lb6oz
• Delivered by emergency ceasarian section at 8cm dillation (why they ask you to spend all day suffering to get dillated and then just cut it out. Could have c-sected at breakfast and cut out the contractions bit!)
• Both boy and mother are doing well (except that Nicki feels like she’s been run over by a bus)
• Visiting status not yet sorted, but prob ok from this pm onwards and it looks like Nicki and Hal will be on the ward for at least three days

Thanks to everyone for the messages and emails:-)

Well it’s been a week now and Hal is eating non-stop (even makes sucking noises in his sleep, Nick’s nipples are taking a serious battering) and developing well. Last night early this morning I had a session with him and he managed to look me in the eyes. His limbs are still all folded up and we’re swaddling him, but I’m guessing (because my memory of Clemmie as a baby has been erased by her growing up…) he’ll limber up soon.

It’s funny having a cesearian baby, when he came out, his head wasn’t squashed (Clem came out looking like a butternut squash) and a couple of skull plates were lined up in preparation for the big squeeze. Over the last few days, the plates have settled down and he now has a perfectly formed wee head.

Another thing I’m experiencing differently to when I was caring for Clementine is beeing peed on. I was warned about the ‘little fountain’ concept and was ready with a strategically positioned wipe when he went for it. Of course the other difference is the guy has a huge, uncut cock. His testicles are like ping pong balls! This whole boy thing is going to take a little getting used to…

In days of yore, before Donkey was published using movabletype, I wrote an application to publish this blog. Like most of the software I’ve created, it was pretty rubbish, but in fairness, it did support three growing blogs well enough in the early days.

The thing that started it all off was my trying to get started with Blogger.com (I thought I’d start the easy way) and finding the whole experience really unpleasant. Back then, the javascript (no, not ajax, just unnecessary, crap, pointless and intrusive badly coded javascript) required to use the site wasn’t very mac-friendly so I got some unpredictable results.

I was reminded of all this by James Governor (James Governor’s MonkChips: Blogger: The home of spam blogs and suckage) he reminded me that I can never seem to comment on a Blogger blog because No. I. Don’t. Want. To. Be. A. Blogger. User. alright?

Anyhow, just wanted to chime in and strongly agree with his point about google’s implication in this mess:

So Adwords is open to clickfraud, and now Blogger is emerging as the spam bloggers friend… Come on Google you can surely do better. Why not put some of those geniuses to work solving existing customer problems rather than inventing the future behind the GoogleWall?

Hi Hal, it’s half-past twelve in the morning and you finished struggling with your insides about half an hour ago (looks v. sore, lots of grumbling and crying). You’re almost three weeks old and are sleeping in your little chair on the dining room table. I’m doing some writing at the same table and giving your wee rocker a nudge whenever it looks like you’re stirring…

Just wanted to write this down because the house is dark and quiet around us and I’m happy to be your dad:-)