May 2013
8 posts
2 tags
“A startup is like a mosquito. A bear can absorb a hit and a crab is armored...”
– PG is so good
How to Make Wealth (via davehyndman)
9 tags
6 tags
“Go, be a language and lifestory vampire. Go to parties and bars and suck...”
– Chuck Palahniuk, on novel writing. (via allieswan)
3 tags
WatchOverdosing on bacon
April 2013
5 posts
8 tags
9 tags
March 2013
2 posts
“You’re always haunted by the idea you’re wasting your life.”
– Chuck Palahniuk, Diary (via sirqaisbenosama)
February 2013
1 post
OMG rm -rf ~ in a valentine bash script and its...
williamedwardscoder:
A valentines day bash script (no, really) turned up being promoted on Hacker News. The instructions to run it were:
bash <(curl http...
This downloads a script from the internet and runs it straight away. The user doesn’t get to inspect the script and ensure it does what they suppose it to do.
No, really. Not at all a good idea to encourage people to execute anything...
December 2012
5 posts
Salad Onions: Thoughts On An Edit →
saladonions:
I don’t really write about writing. I don’t really write about me, because I’m not sure there’s enough to say, and it seems like an easy way to spill words without really creating anything - the act of writing, without any meaningful content. Indeed, when I first wrote For Sale at the end…
6 tags
Marriage Equality is about Respect not Rights
The British government is finally moving towards marriage equality, a very good thing in my opinion and a long time coming too. This should just be a rubber stamping exercise as far as I’m concerned. There are people against the idea and their main argument being is that gay couples don’t want marriage equality. That gay couples in a civil partnership have 99.9% of the legal...
Writings for Winter: if a photographer falls in... →
writingsforwinter:
There’s a kind of inherent loneliness in the world of photography, a subtle hunger that underlies all still frames. There’s almost a sense of loss, as if whatever has been captured with the click of a button is gone forever. If a photographer falls in love with you that sense of loss will be…
4 tags
WatchTweet a wish to add a snowflake
12 tags
November 2012
9 posts
5 tags
Leveson Enquiry Tweet Wordcloud
best viewed full screen
Built using Python slurping in tweets over 24 hours (around 21k tweets in total), dumped into couchdb. On which I ran map and reduce functions to get word frequencies and then finally put into a word cloud using d3.js
6 tags
DirectGov Job Search: Secret Intelligence Service:... →
nevali:
I doubt this one will hang around for long:—
From time to time the UK government has a need to remove people whose continued existence poses a risk to the effective conduct of public order. So we require particularly skilled professionals who are prepared to work on a non-attributable basis to deal with these problems.
The role will involve international travel to a number of...
“ Me phoning Finland: “Oh hello, do you speak English?”Everyone in Finland: “Yes...”
– True story
4 tags
twitter vs @hollybrocks: Let's do this! →
hollybrocks:
I’ve had the idea of letting Twitter make my decisions for a while, but I chickened out last time. Well, the time is right, so I’m going for it.
I’m not currently working full-time, which means there are lots more decisions to be made during the hours of the day, and I have more hours to keep…
5 tags
7 tags
3 tags
October 2012
11 posts
7 tags
6 tags
1 tag
8 tags
9 tags
The Cleanup
Our local driver, Bopu is taking Rakesh and I to the home of our opium connection. His car is a Soviet Lada, an unreliable heap of junk. It’s engine wouldn’t start this morning. We told him to drive in our Land Rover instead.
We are out of the city and crashing through hedges and small trees in the countryside in no time at all. This part of Afghanistan has a river flowing through it...
9 tags
5 tags
Idea: Self-Hosted JustGiving Alternative For...
It seems that JustGiving is doing pretty well, and good on them for not only making sponsoring your friends easy but creating a whole industry:
Everyclick who take 4.8% of transaction fees
help.co.uk who seem like a shady operation that opts in all registered charities and then sends a cheque to the registered address if anyone donates through them
globalgiving takes 10% of dontations, but is...
5 tags
6 tags
“I always thought it was very very important that you printed your own prints;...”
–
Albert Watson (photographer)
I always think of this video when I hear designers arguing about whether they should learn to code so they can implement their own designs. I think it’s analogous to what Albert is saying here about creating prints from his pictures.
4 tags
“Romney was correct that a portion of America backs President Obama because they...”
–
Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner
September 2012
48 posts
9 tags
Kandahar
The roads are terrible in Afghanistan, there are no villages just random smatterings of farms. It felt like an eternity driving through these remote places. So far we haven’t seen a single Afghan face apart from the checkpoint on the Afghan side of the border. Thankfully that checkpoint was uneventful and they waved us straight through.
Ever since the incident at the border, Kalpesh, Dahab...
8 tags
The Checkpoint: Part 3
Outside the crossing office we come to a halt, Kalpesh keeps the engine running. When I say office I mean small wooden hut.
“Keep your guns out of sight” he says.
The guards in the office wake up and argue for a minute about whose turn it is to go. The short bald one comes out, his shirt is covered in sweat stains, slops of food and dirt run down his chest.
“Papers...
9 tags
The Checkpoint: Part 2
Sitting in the house waiting; we see the flickering of a candle as the door slowly creaks open. Then a loud whisper. A voice calls out.
“Is anybody there?”
Instinctively my hand reaches for my pistol, from the sound of holsters being unbuttoned I know that everyone else thinks the same thing.
“I’m from the revolutionary army. I’m your friend. I bring food and...
9 tags
The Checkpoint: Part 1
We’re sitting in a Land Rover, going over the dunes towards Iran, our plan is to cross the border where it is unprotected and that means avoiding roads. On the other side we can rejoin the road and rendezvous with the rebels in the south.
In the car there is Kalpesh who is driving, Dahab who is sitting in the front and Rakesh who is in the back with me.
Kalpesh goes over the plan once...
8 tags
Handling Steel
The sun streaks through into my room. A maid has opened up the wooden shutters. I look outside, the window has a view into the back yard. The yard is covered in a raised wooden deck, but it still needs to be swept everyday or the sand will build up and cover it. On the far side of the deck there are some boxes with broken pieces of clay.
Been here two weeks now. My arm is healing nicely and...
8 tags
Diagnosis: Part 3
I retreat to my room. As usual the night in the desert creates an eerie and lonely atmosphere. Outside the window is darkness, the kind of darkness that makes you feel like you’re the only person in the world and the walls of this room are all that stand between you and being lost forever. The excitement of the last few days is swirling around my brain. This must be a dream. Did I die on the...
8 tags
Diagnosis: Part 2
X-ray in hand I’m back where I started, Dr. Metha’s surgery. There is nobody here. The shutters are closed. I decide to go back to Bay View. It’s an odd name, it’s not actually a Dental Practice and I’ve just realised there is no view of a bay.
This time the guard is not so hostile and lets me go straight through to the courtyard. Asim is the man from earlier; a fat...
8 tags
Diagnosis: Part 1
A guard showed me out of the dental practice and told me to go across the road to see the Doctor. The doctor’s surgery was off the main road. There was a small woden sign on the junction with a red cross to let me know where I had to go. The office was on a raised platform with some steps up till the entrance. In the waiting room were stinking fisherman with cut fingers, missing arms, there...
8 tags
Jettison: Part 2
Before leaving Rangpo, I filled the rickshaw with fuel and took an extra jerry can of kerosene to cremate Jaynti’s body in the countryside but now I’m going through the fields I can’t bring myself to do it. His body still occupies the back seat. Covered in a blanket. I’ve been driving back for two days straight, except for tea breaks and naps. I don’t want to stop...
