So if people are arranging events which you don’t want me to attend and stumble round drunkenly with my pants on my head you  should run them on the 21st or the 22nd.

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The big problem for me is that the book is not broken. In fact it’s about as popular as ever. So while I can see this being useful for certain types of document, I can’t see it replacing the novel. But for manuals, guides, reference books – things that are read out of order or in small chunks, books that benefit from being searchable and generally shorter items such as blogs or articles it could be useful.

The price is $400 at the moment which is a lot (iPhone or a Kindle?). And this is the sort of functionality that I want to have in existing things that I own – I don’t want to have new bespoke e-reading device weighing me down.

What’s good about it?

• It can still be read in bright daylight (how many expensive laptops still can’t do this?).
• It has a long battery life and batteries are easily replaced.
• It’s small and light.
• Amazon remembers what you’ve bought so if you lose it or it gets wiped you can re-download your e-books.
• You can get RSS and Blogs.
• It has free EV-DO wireless so you don’t need to hook it up to your PC
• While it has its own Kindle format it supports pdfs and word docs

A friend of mine is a knitter. This is an actual friend not as opposed to those other “a friend of mine has a problem” friends. She loves to knit. She occasionally blogs about knitting and reads the blogs of other knitters. And she’s not the only one. There’s a huge, incredibly passionate, online community of knitters.

When one knitter (who was a photographer by day) wanted to create a photo-project of knitters sent out a request for participants, he was inundated with offers. This has led to the 1000 knitters project where he brings in knitters and photographs them as they knit a wool scarf, each person taking off where the last person finished.

The traditional image of old ladies being the only people who knit is apparently quite dated, despite advertisers telling us otherwise.

One of the interesting things about knitting is that it’s a very social hobby. The knitting circle is a centuries old entity where people (usually women both then and now) would gather together and knit and chat.

So why the blog about knitting? My friend told me about a website she frequents, www.ravelry.com, what she described as knitting 2.0. Unfortunately it’s in a closed beta so you can’t just sign up (I tried but there’s a huge waiting list due to its viral popularity). I did however borrow her log in and go have a shufty about. It’s one of the best examples I’ve seen of a community-oriented web 2.0 site.

The members of the community are passionate and involved – they can set up and participate in groups and they can post their current knitting projects online for other s to view and comment upon as the project progress. They can rate the materials they use (the types of yarn and the patterns they work from) and compare their experiences of using them with those of others. You can easily find people who’ve worked on the same pattern and ask advice.

The point is that social networks do not have to be like the facebooks or myspaces of this world – with a goal of having everyone in the world sign up. A focused involved passionate community can be much more successful. Ravelry is successful because it’s a friendly, inviting community; where people are happy to help each other out (often complete strangers) because they have something in common or can relate to each other.

Leisa Reichalt mentioned that connecting to others comes from exposing just enough of yourself to allow others to relate to you; it doesn’t matter whether it’s about an interest in social networking ot knitting and it doesn’t have to be earth shattering or phenomenal.

The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

So I was informed that Uber and Fatz were coming to London, Xaosseed was poked until he agreed to come and it was also Graham’s first weekend during his stay here. All was set for mayhem. The first day was marked by a public transport nightmare and rain any time Uber and Fatz decided to venture under the skies. Thankfully this didn’t affect me much since they were coming to me and hence I didn’t have to travel.

London has an excellent transport system – though you do tend to have to plan ahead a bit more than in Dublin particularly if you plan on taking a non tubular method such as a bus. Normally the tube is great, however at weekends they tend to do maintenance work on many of the lines. It is usually still possible to get around but again you kind of have to do a bit of planning. Eventually Uber, Fatz and Graham managed to arrive in Camden and due to their lateness we were able to get a table at the restaurant I wanted to go to (this is not a given on a Summer weekend in one of London’s most popular tourist destinations). We ate burgers which were very tasty and then proceeded to one of my favourite bars – the Edinboro Castle. It is a frankly excellent establishment with a wide range of beers, an excellent beer garden, and a barbeque which sells overpriced burgers but which when you’ve been drinking and the smell of cooking meat overwhelms you is hard to resist. We called it a night round closing time and I dropped them off at Mornington Crescent for some novelty value.

Saturday morning Xaosseed Alex Fatz and Graham hit borough market – an excellent food market. I gave it a miss and turned up a bit later on at which point we walked down to the Imperial War museum laughing at amusing graffiti and amusingly worded signposts. Xaosseed exited stage left at this point to do something – but arrangements had been made to meet at Angel at 8 and reservations for dinner would be made (Oh ho ho). We arrived into a hall of tanks planes and artillary and fatz declared “I’m home”. We spent quite a while wandering round the various exhibits but much like many of the museums here there’s just too much to see in one visit. Hence we decided to give the holocaust exhibits a miss, spending time with Xaosseed is depressing enough without adding to it (I blog so I get to make the jokes).

From there we wandered down to the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Southwark Palace??) and then along the southbank to the Houses of Parliament. We crossed over had a wander round waiting to rendezvous with Ian (Carroll). We walked by David Michell (of Peep show fame) and eventually found Ian. We were hungry gamers at this point but decided that we could hang on til 8 for food since the trip to Angel would take a while too.

We arrived at Angel and since there was no word from Xaosseed we went for a pint. We were very hungry gamers at this stage and hunger does not a happy gamer make. I wont go into details about the Stoke Newington incident, except to say we had to go somewhere random and didn’t get our main course til 11pm. We were very hungry gamers at that point. From there we made our way back to Angel then on to Old Street. Uber Fatz and Ian hit the gay bars while myself Bill and the others hit Club Fanny.

On Sunday Uber Fatz and Graham did some more stuff – went to the HMS Belfast and the Science Museum (I think) and I caught up with them in Kensington in the evening for a  showing of Transformers. It was excellent. Graham wandered home afterwards while myself Alex and Fatz wandered the streets of Kensington in search of a open pub or somewhere to eat. We were partially successful and then I wombled on home. Alex and Fat probably did something on Monday – but I didn’t get to see them before they went home so I don’t know. He can fill in the blanks.

More people should come to London to visit. It’s great. I promise I won’t bring you within a 3 mile radius of Stoke Newington (trust me that isn’t hard). It looks like I’ll be here for a while as I have accepted a job. A real job. I’m working a couple of days a week till I hand in my thesis then following a couple of weeks of doing something in the sun that doesn’t involve usability starting full time.

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

The speed at which it has been updated is amazing; I was looking at Michael McDowell’s page and it had been updated within 24 hours of his result, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it had been updated within a fraction of that time. Similarly the results of the pages for each constituency have really detailed results on 1st preference votes and which count candidates got elected.

The fact that people go to the trouble of constructing and maintaining those pages without glory or reward or even credit is amazing. I often get the urge to do things like that but I rarely follow through. I’m glad that others are less fickle.

–Hammertime

Edit – Just noticed that Jakob Nielsen replied to the blog in a comment. Interesting to see.

P.S. Rambo Trailer