With Difficulty

In which FP muses on how hard it is to write something with all the distractions the modern world has to offer

Written by Forest Pines; published at 7:39 am on January 25th, 2010.
Filed under: Meta.

There’s one big problem with computers and pervasive connectivity. The problem is: it’s all at your fingertips. Which means, when you sit down to do some work, it’s all too easy to realise that there are other things you’d rather be doing; and there are a lot that can be done there and then.

In a lot of cases that’s straightforward to solve: disconnect yourself. It’s a bit trickier, though, when it comes to writing blog posts. Particularly, the sort of blog posts that need fact-checking, more information, and so on. Once you have to start doing that, you start getting sidetracked down a line of “research” which is very interesting and distracting, but doesn’t really help you with getting your blog post written. The inspiration fades away amid a mass of non-information.

What I’m going to have to do, I think, in order to get this process going properly again, is to make more notes. Get a notebook, and find a place far away from the internet. Hide my phone. Lie back in bed, maybe, and write my posts with pen and paper first. And after that, put all the links in and do the fact-checking, after the text is already down. It all goes back to something I wrote a long time back, wondering if having a Blog Editor would improve the quality of this blog. An independent Blog Editor is highly unlikely to appear, so I have to fulfil both roles myself; but if I do try to explicitly divide writing time and editing time, then maybe much more will get done.

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Keyword noise: blog, blogging, distraction, edit, editing, editor, internet, writing

Strange Loop

In which things get into a circular reference

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:14 am on January 2nd, 2010.
Filed under: Artistic, Geekery, Meta.

Things go around in circles. This site has been quiet for a while in the past, more than once, and it will probably happen again in the future at some point. I can’t tell when, but it will probably happen.

Still, a new year is as good a time for a new start as any, even though I try not to believe in arbitrary starting-points. It’s hard to avoid it at this time of year, though: forced to stay away from work, expected to visit the family, exchange gifts, rest for a week and recover ready for the new year’s start. I’ve been staying in and reading one of the books I received for Christmas: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter. It’s a long book, a complex book, and I haven’t finished it yet: but its essence is in loops, looping, and self-referentiality. How self-referentiality is necessary, as a minimum, before self-awareness can occur. It seems like an ideal thing to talk about on a blog which has always been highly aware that it’s a blog, but I’m not sure if I’ve taken in enough of the book to write about it yet. “It’s got a lot of equations in it,” said The Mother, giving it to me. It does have, true; it also has some truly awful puns, intertwined and nested ideas, and dialogues between fictional and/or appropriated characters who butt into the discussion on a regular basis.

Funnily enough, a letter came the other day from regular reader E. Shrdlu of Clacton-on-Sea…

The Plain People Of The Internet: Hurrah! We were wondering when that chap would pop up again. We were worried he’d got stuck putting shapes into boxes, or analysing what kind of linoleum he has in his kitchen.

Hush, you. As I was saying, a letter came, from semi-regular reader E. Shrdlu of Clacton-on-Sea:

“Gödel, Escher, Bach” is quite a work to try to emulate, isn’t it? Maybe you should try something simpler. Never mind the parallels between human consciousness, a baroque composer and a 20th-century artist: have you thought about the links between something simpler, like TV ghost stories and the British railway preservation movement? Or maybe: the parallels between the work of Robert Graves and books like “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. Something nice and straightforward like that.

It’s an interesting idea there. Maybe I should indeed be starting off along those lines. Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be writing a critique of a piece of writing I read for the first time a few days ago. It starts like this:

Things go around in circles. This site has been quiet for a while in the past, more than once, and it will probably happen again in the future at some point. I can’t tell when, but it will probably happen.

Still, a new year is as good a time for a new start as any, even though I try not to believe in arbitrary starting-points…

Somehow, I think I might be onto something.

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Keyword noise: Christmas, circle, circularity, Douglas Hofstadter, E Shrdlu, Godel Escher Bach, infinite loop, loop, ouroboros, reference, referentiality, self-reference

Recent Search Requests

In which we know what you’re looking for

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:09 am on April 20th, 2009.
Filed under: Geekery, Meta.

From the past month or so:

1/64 scale castle. 1/64 scale is also known as “S Gauge” in the model train world. I have some photos of an S gauge model train on here; no castles, though.
addicted to prostitutes grimsby. I’ve seen what Grimsby prostitutes generally, and, well, grim is the word.
describe a seaside town in winter. “Grey” would be a good start, usually.
did horne and corden write there new sketch show?. If they didn’t, they should consider asking for a discount next time.
evening post crash bedminster. The junction of Winterstoke Road and Bedminster Down Road is still covered in flowers and mementos, after a woman died when a car crashed into a stone wall there late one night recently. I should pop down and take photos of it all before it rots away.
finding a deat bat meaning and symbolism. Well, I know what to do when you find a dead bat on your doorstep, if you’re British at least. Its meaning: erm, the cat managed to kill a bat, I think. As for symbolism, I’m at a bit of a loss.
mark bradshaw replacement bedminster surely has to be a bit of wishful thinking, because it’s a couple of years until Bradshaw (one of Bedminster’s city councillors) is up for re-election. He’s recently been tipped as an ideal Bristol Labour leader, despite his reputation for ignoring correspondants and being linked with misleading press releases.
men diamler did a very good performance and DJ set at The Cube on New Years Eve, despite being (by his own admission) the most alcohol-infused act of the evening, as I mentioned at the time. Still, as I said: rather good.
naked forestmen. That’s enough Recent Search Requests, I think.

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Keyword noise: bat, Bedminster, Bristol, dead bat, Grimsby, Mark Bradshaw, Men Diamler, prostitutes

Taking Notes

In which we list other things that FP is working on

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:55 am on April 15th, 2009.
Filed under: Artistic, Dear Diary, Meta.

Incidentally, one reason I’ve been missing the target of posting here every day recently is that I have been non-blogging about something else. Non-blogging, in the sense of a private diary; but about a specific topic, rather than vague everyday-life ramblings. In a few months, it will hopefully get published, either here or on paper; but I can’t say anything until at least the summer, and hopefully longer. But if you’re writing something like a diary, it’s best to do it as the events occur, while they’re still fresh in your mind; and it’s been soaking up the spare words in my head.

Last week I mentioned that we felt inspired to finish off our current artcraft projects. It got me thinking just how many creative projects I’m working on at the moment, that are at least vaguely concrete but haven’t been finished. There is:

• A crochet bomb
• A binary scarf
• Two model railway wagons
• A website that, as yet, is secret
• The aforementioned diary-blog-zine-thing that is also currently secret
• Something vague for the London Zine Symposium, heading towards us more rapidly than I care to think
• K’s sister’s wedding album, which we definitely should have done more of by now

That’s 7 or 8 things, depending on how you count. Plus there are many other ideas which haven’t yet made it outside my head, and vague concepts such as “a photographic portfolio on the theme of disused hotels,” or “a model railway incorporating the Ostrich pub”. Really, though, I should complete some of the started-projects before embarking on anything else.

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Keyword noise: art, craft, crafting, crochet, diary, knitting, laziness, photography, projects, zines

Photo post of the week

In which we spot a derelict hotel

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:27 am on March 13th, 2009.
Filed under: Meta, Photobloggery.

It took me until yesterday to realise that there was another bug, with the new theme, that nobody had so far noticed. Which isn’t too surprising: it didn’t affect any functionality, and it was only a problem on some days of the week. It’s fixed now, at least.

This week, there aren’t many photos; or, at least, not many cheerful ones. It’s all Bristol in dull January weather. Particularly: photos of the Grosvenor Hotel, the disused hotel, alongside a disused railway embankment, on Temple Gate. It’s due to be knocked down;* so here are some photos.

* well, it was due to be knocked down, to make way for a road scheme and a bus stop, before the City Council’s cabinet resigned the other week. What will happen to it now, I don’t know.

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Keyword noise: abandoned, Bristol, derelict, disused, Grosvenor Hotel, hotel, photo, photography, Temple, Temple Gate, Temple Meads

Misogynistic Stereotype Killers

In which Mario Reading is quiet, so we criticise Horne & Corden instead

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:23 am on March 12th, 2009.
Filed under: Linkery, Media Addict, Meta, Unbelievable.

Quick update on yesterday’s post: as those of you with your own blogs will know, if you link from one blog to another, your blog will send a thing called a “pingback” or a “trackback” to the other one, and the owner of the other blog can choose to display it as a comment.

Yesterday I linked to the blog of Nostradamus-interpreter Mario Reading, when writing about his prediction that George W Bush would be assassinated in 2006, and his later claim that this prediction was right all along. Mario* saw the pingback, followed it back here, and (presumably) read my post about him. Unfortunately, he decided not to display the pingback on his blog, and so far hasn’t responded to what I pointed out: that his claim of correctness fundamentally contradicts the prediction he’s claiming is correct. I’m disappointed. Mario, if you’re reading,** if you want to respond to what I’ve said, then whatever you want to say, I promise I’ll publish it here. I won’t just delete it, like some people would. That’s a fair offer.

Moving on, comedy of a more intentional kind.*** We couldn’t avoid noticing posters around the place for the new British comedy film**** Lesbian Vampire Killers, starring Mathew Horne and James Corden; and, thinking: oh my holy pantheon. Someone would really produce a film with a premise like that? I mean, I’m not surprised someone – probably a 14-year-old boy – would write a film with a title like that, but, produce it? Agree to appear in it?

Well, fortunately, you don’t have to listen to me ramble on about how awful, ugly, and misogynistic we thought it sounded when we haven’t even seen it,***** because the excellent not-quite-worksafe blogger Bitchy Jones has written a similarly-kneejerk castigation of its low concepts. You only need to look at the URL of that to realise that she’s not-quite-worksafe; and she has done a far better critique of it than I’d manage. There are comments, too, from people who have actually seen it. If you also thought: “what, that’s a real film?” go and read.

Talking of Horne and Corden, I feel like I can’t get away from the buggers at the moment, because every time I switch the telly to the BBC, there’s a trail for their new sketch show; well, unless it’s BBC4. Being a sketch-show trail, it shows sketches. Sketches without jokes in. Their writing strategy seems to go something like this:

1: comedy set-up, relying on recognisable situation (eg. the movie “Ghost”
2: err …
3: … that’s it

No joke. No punchline. What’s the point of that, then? Is this some new zen-comedy, are there catchphrases that I haven’t noticed yet, were the trailers wrecked in the editing, or is it just lazy writing? Answers on a postcard, I guess. The trailers certainly don’t inspire me to watch it.

* or, whoever moderates his blog for him, if he doesn’t do it himself

** fighting my pun-instinct is really really hard here, you know

*** The blog title is about this bit, by the way, and completely unrelated to Mr. R.

**** words which, already, are not a promising start

***** See, at least Mario Reading gets criticised on the grounds that I’ve read his books and his blog and can spot the flaws in them, and not just on me thinking it sounds like it might be wrong.

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Keyword noise: Bitchy Jones, comedy, film, future, hatred, Horne & Corden, James Corden, Lesbian Vampire Killers, Mario Reading, Mathew Horne, misogyny, Nostradamus, prediction, prophecy, prophet, stereotyping, television, telly, tv, unfunny

Public Information

In which people are alerted

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:25 am on March 4th, 2009.
Filed under: Meta.

Just a quick post to say that: readers who normally use their RSS reader to look at this site might want to click through today. To see what everything now looks like. There aren’t many of you, but you are all regular readers, so I thought I’d let you know.

7 comments so far. »

Keyword noise: announcements, blog, blogging, design, information, web design

The size of things

In which we measure monitors

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:14 am on March 3rd, 2009.
Filed under: Geekery, Meta.

The redesign is now almost done, which means that soon you’ll be saved from more posts on the minutiae of my redesign. It’s got me thinking, though: to what extent do I need to think about readers’ technology?

When this blog first started, I didn’t really worry about making it accessible to all,* or about making sure that the display was resolution-independent. It worked for me, which was enough. Over time, screens have become bigger; and, more importantly, more configurable, so I’ve worried less and less about it. When it came to do a redesign, though, I started to wonder. What browsers do my readers actually used.

Just after Christmas, for entirely different reasons, I signed up for Google Analytics, rather than do my own statistics-counting as I had been doing. Because Google Analytics relies on Javascript to do its work, it gives me rather more information about such things than the old log-based system did. So, last week, I spent an hour or so with my Analytics results and a spreadsheet. Here’s the graph I came up with:

The X-axis there is the horizontal width of everyone’s screens, in order but not to scale; the Y-axis is the cumulative percentage of visits.** In other words, the percentage figure for a given width tells you the proportion of visits from people whose screen was that size, or wider.

Straight away, really, I got the answer I wanted. 93% of visits are to this site are from people whose screens are 1024 pixels wide, or more. It’s 95% if I take out the phone-based browsers at the very low end.*** The next step up, though, the graph plunges to only 2/3 of visits. 1024 pixels is the smallest screen width that my visitors use heavily.

Admittedly there’s a bit of self-selection in there, based on the current design; it looks horrible at 800 pixels, and nearly everyone still using an 800×600 screen has only visited once in the two-month sample period. However, that applies to most of the people who visit this site in any case; just more so for the 800-pixel users. Something like 70% of visits are from people who have probably only visited once in the past couple of months; so it’s fair to assume that my results aren’t too heavily skewed by the usability of the current design. It will be interesting to see how much things change.

I’m testing the new design in the still-popular 1024×768 resolution, to make sure everything will still work. I’ll probably test it out a fair bit on K’s phone, too. But, this is a personal site. If you don’t read it, it’s not vital, to you or to me. If I don’t test it on 800×600 browsers, the world won’t end. The statistics, though, have shown me where exactly a cutoff point might be worthwhile.

* For example, in the code of the old design, all that sidebar stuff over on the right comes in the code before this bit with the content, which does (I assume) make it a bit of a bugger for blind readers. That, at least, will be sorted out in the new design.

** “visits” is of course a bit of a nebulous term, but that is a rant for another day.

*** Most of that 2% consists of: K reading the blog on the bus on her way home from work.

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Keyword noise: blog, blogging, browser, design, monitor, monitor resolution, resolution, screen, screen resolution, web browser, web design, width

Development

In which we anticipate the new design

Written by Forest Pines; published at 10:05 am on February 19th, 2009.
Filed under: Geekery, Meta.

Incidentally, the Grand Redesign plans, as mentioned here several times previously, are still trundling along at their own pace. Parts, indeed, have already been finished and are up on the server; although, as they’ve not been linked-to, nobody can get to them yet.

The slowest part, though, has been: backtracking through the entire post history and editing every post to conform to the new type: proper tags, proper excerpts, and so on. It’s a long slog, given that there are 3 1/2 years’ worth of posts,* and rereading them all has been hard work. It’s been a strange experience, too, because in many cases I’d forgotten an event, and reading all the posts jogged my memory in unexpected ways.**

The end is in sight now, though; so it won’t be long before I can check everything over, finish tidying up the new design, and put it all live. Fingers crossed that when it does go live, it’s all going to work.

* about 750ish, following the long hiatus last summer

** In some cases I’ve completely forgotten events – there are some posts where, if someone had showed them to me, I wouldn’t even have realised that I’d written them myself. And there are plenty of “guarded posts” where, now, a few years later, I’ve forgotten exactly what events I was describing

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Keyword noise: blog, blog design, blogging, design, filksonomy, folksonomy, memories, memory, reminder, rereading, tagging, tags, template design, web design, Wordpress

Classification

In which we discuss tagging and filksonomies

Written by Forest Pines; published at 9:40 am on January 28th, 2009.
Filed under: Meta.

Another design point that’s come up as part of the Grand Redesign I keep promising you: tagging. The little bundle of links at the bottom of each post that I didn’t really think did very much.

I was a latecomer to tagging. When this site first started, it didn’t have any for the first month or so. After a while I started adding them, pointing them to Technorati. Back then, Wordpress was still on version 1.5.something, and it didn’t have any built-in tagging support. I don’t like to have too many plugins, and I didn’t think that tag management* mattered that much; so I wrote all the tags manually. Like this:

<small>Keyword noise: <a class=”tag” rel=”tag” href=”…”>tag</a></small>

Which worked, quite well; there was a visually distinct “tag” class, because I wanted tag links – which all led to Technorati – to be visually distinct from the rest, which would go to something more topically relevant.

Things move on, though, and Wordpress has since gained built-in tagging functionality. Given that I’m redesigning the whole site, and putting in new built-from-scratch layout templates, I thought I may as well switch to using a more organising tagging system. For one thing, it means less typing each time I write a post. All that code up above is replaced by one little chunk in the template:

<p id=”thetags”><small><?php the_tags(‘Keyword noise: ‘, ‘, ‘ ,”);?></small></p>

I know all those commas and quotes look a bit confusing; but really they’re not that bad. And the point is: that bit of code there only has to be written once; the previous chunk had to be typed out every time. The most awkward part is that Wordpress isn’t flexible enough to let you set the class of each link individually, hence the <p class=”…”> at the start.** The big change this leads to, though, is that the tag links no longer point to Technorati. Now, they point back to the site itself: you get a page containing every post with that tag on. And, already, that’s shown that people do indeed click on the tags. People, particularly people coming from searches, do seem to use them. Whether they find them useful or not is another matter, of course;*** but they do get used.

Doing it this way means that I put more tags on each post, simply because there’s much less typing to do. Conversion, though, is going to be a bit of a job. There are 760-odd posts on this site, all of which I’m having to reread and re-tag. It’s going to take a while, but hopefully the majority of it will be done by the time the new design is finished.**** The only problem with this transitional phase is that: the current template is, because of its age, completely unaware of tags. So it doesn’t really know what a tag-based archive page is; so when you click on a tag, there’s no explanation as to what you’re looking at. I’m not sure if this is going to be a problem for you readers or not; and, hopefully, it’s only going to be a short-lived situation.

The word “folksonomy” has often been used to describe this sort of tagging system. I’m not sure it’s an ideal term for what I’m doing, though. “Filksonomy” might be more relevant: a bit like a folksonomy, but rather more whimsical and silly.

* as opposed to tagging itself.

** it has also buggered about with the quote marks in that fragment of code. Whatever you do, don’t copy and paste it – if you want to use it, retype it!

*** particularly now they point back within the site rather than outwards to see what other people have said on the topic.

**** In any case, there are other parts of the new design that also need each post checking and editing.

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Keyword noise: blog, blog design, blogging, CSS, design, filksonomy, folksonomy, HTML, tagging, tags, web design, Wordpress