Archive for the ‘WWW’ Category

Came across the Industrial Britain site via a report on the BBC – the images are stunning.

From Very True Things

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST

Remember how hot it was yesterday?

From Comedy Writing Secrets: How to Think Funny, Write Funny, Act Funny and Get Paid for It

I could be cruel and say buy the book for the punch line but here it is…

Well a dog was chasing a cat, and they were both walking.

I did have to think a bit about which book – not because I was selecting one just working out which one was technically closest since I have bookshelves to the right and left of where I’m sitting writing this. I decided right since I’m right handed and then since two books are equdistant because of a gap for magazines the one in front as my arm would move the shortest distance. Otherwise it could have been wxPython in a nutshell, the Dungeons and Dragons rules cyclopedia, an Ian Rankin novel, a Jack Higgins Novel, a guide book to Shanghai, Hey It’s that Guy or the Home Guard Manual 1941…

Apparently this blog rates 7 out of 10 on some rating site I’ve never heard of as an entertainment blog.

I could have had a higher rating if I posted more often about entertainment.

I’m so pleased. Really I am. My life is now complete.

Via Very True Thing. Below is the Entertainment Weekly’s list of 100 Classic Movies of the past 25 years. Bold the ones I’ve seen, italic the ones I plan to.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)
20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler’s List (1993) [I showed this twice when I was a projectionist but I've never seen it without breaks]
22. Rushmore (1998)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) [Why just Supremacy on the list? Identity relaunched the Eurothriller and Ultimatum has the cleverest structure of a thriller in a long time ]
30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996) [Seen the start but not the end]
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999) [Probably would but someone told me the twist]
40. Speed (1994)
41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006) [Wish I hadn't though. Not convinced it should be on this list]
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993) [Love the sound track never seen the film]
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006) [I'd rather see all three parts of Infernal Affairs with subtitles though]
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

A few very American choices on the list with a lack of international films that I would expect to make the list. A few big omissions

I don’t usually blog about work but today I’ve mostly been looking at Moodle. On the surface a pretty nifty e-learning solution with an extensive set of tools for building an online community. Another one to keep in the armoury of useful, open source solutions.

Tonight I have mostly been playing with the php5, the Zend Framework and the Gdata API. Nothing to show yet because I’m getting to grips with it although the impworks web site is now entirely php5 driven. Although thats not really very impressive as all I did was change a htaccess file so the php extension runs php5 instead of php4. Happily it all appears to be working without any hitches so far.

I posted this snowflake picture on my impworks web site ages ago. It normally gets a few visitors a week but nothing to blog about. A few weeks ago it started getting more and more visitors every day. Obviously it’s seasonal but that page doesn’t have great page rank in google or a high position in a search for anything as obvious as the word snowflake. A little digging later and I did find it has really good placement in Google Image search. So mystery solved.

Having switched to Google Reader I find the list of blogs I follow expanding. Here are three which I’ve started on recently that I think are worth sharing…

• That very British and yet somehow subversive institution which is Stephen Fry
• John August – screen writer currently out on strike in the US
• Ken Levine – TV Comedy writer

Having previously looked at Mambo today I found myself looking at Joomla which is so similar it might almost be the same but somehow in the end tastes slightly different. I can think of only one word to describe the difference based on a very quick look at each – Joomla felt cleaner. Which has to be just about the worst product review I’ll ever give. One thing that is starting to annoy me with open source projects is web sites without a simple, accurate feature list for the project. I’d write more but Heroes is about to start.

After a brief rest from all that blogging here is my last NaBloPoMo post this year.