stuff

This is a fascinating video, one very pertinent to the current economic situation. It’s the sort of video that makes you wonder why you never asked the question “Where does all the money come from?” The answer is not what you think. (Via Euan.)

I find it weird when I hear people on TV saying things like “Underfloor heating is quite new in the UK” when the Romans were doing it two thousand years ago. Never fails to amaze me how slow we are to rediscover stuff our ancestors knew.

I just deleted the last five comments on CnV by accident. Sorry! If you commented and your comment is gone, please don't take it personally!

OK… I think this is the most bizarre piece of spam I have ever received.

Dearest Internet Personality,
My name is Cabe Unger, and I have a passing interest in occult symbols.
I am trying to spatially define the mythic “Odegra”, but have been unable
to find matching illustrations from independant sources.
I have thus far seen a bas-relief serpent, a crude ink drawing, and a written
description that likens the Odegra to the M25 London orbital motorway,
but I would really like some more input, preferably one from a historical
source, or a fraud so well done that it can pass for historical.
As you come up as one of the major Odegra hit pages on internet search
engines, I, of course, assume you to be one of the world's leading specialists
in Odegra research.
If you do ndeed have any background information on the actual visible shape
of the dread sigil Odegra, I would be exceedingly pleased to recieve your
correspondance.
Yours in Almonsin-Metatron,
Yogsotot Neblod Zin,
Shalom, Zie Gezunt,
Cabe Unger

Huh. I'm one of the world's leading specialists in Odegra research. Who knew? The only time I have ever mentioned it was the day that I found Neil Gaiman's blog. The really bizarre thing is that if you Google for 'odegra', that post does indeed come up tops, just above 'Odegra Limited'. Neil comes 5th, and after that the results appear to be in Polish.
I'm not sure what this means, on a day when I am supposed to be going to karaoke tonight, with a hot, itchy, infected tooth. Probably that it's going to rain the whole day. Oh, wait, the evil portent foreshadowing that was Wimbledon.

I rather stupidly put 70 quid's worth of silk skirt through the washing machine. It is, to say the least, a shadow of it's previous silky black self. I mean, the dye hasn't washed out completely or anything, but it now has a grey sheen to it that it didn't have before but which makes it look old. I know silk is tricksy stuff. Any tips on restoring it to its former glory?

My boyfriend's friend's friend's boyfriend to his boss:

“I really am trying to see things from your point of view, but I just can't stick my head that far up my ass.”

Cameron: I'm listening to the show. you make me laugh
Suw: glad i make someone laugh. although, weirdly, i listen back to the show and somehow make myself laugh, even though i know what i said.
Cameron: I'm sure there a psychiatric condition for someone who laughs at themselves
Suw: narhahassicism?

Just fyi really, I'm on Radio Five Live again tomorrow morning, live at 10.30am on the Julian Worricker show talking about blogging and, more amusingly, life blogging the whole thing. So keep hitting refresh and leave your comments on the blog for the show's producer to read through.
Tomorrow afternoon, I'm talking on a panel discussion about copyright at RESFEST, along with I think about a gazillion other people. Apparently Cory Doctorow is going to be on the same panel, which sort of makes me somewhat superfluous as we'll just be in violent agreement with each other, except he'll be far more eloquent about it.
And whilst I'm at it, I'm going to be MCing and speaking at BlogOn 2005 this year, 17-18 Oct, Copacabana, NYC. You probably already know that, but it's worth mentioning just so that you can ensure you get your tickets in time. More to the point, I'll be in NYC for a few days afterwards, so if you want to meet up for a vodka then let me know.

But very funny. (Thanks Kevin.)

Now we've won, maybe I can get over my sudden and illogical interest in cricket.

So The Guardian launches it's new 'Berliner'-sized and redesigned paper today, and I will freely admit that I love it. I never could figure out how people read The Guardian (or any of the other broadsheets) on the tube - they are so big and clumsy and annoying and the ink comes off on your fingers and makes everything you touch grubby - that 'everything' usually including portions of my face as I brush away a stray hair or scratch an itch. I used to see people doing intricate origami folds with it to get it into a size that's manageable, that won't result in you accidentally thumping the person sitting next to you in the face as you turn pages, but I could never quite figure that out myself.
I always used to end up buying the thing, reading the front page, noting nothing of value on the back page, stuffing it in my bag and promising myself I'd read it later when in fact, deep down, I knew that it'd more likely grace the kitty litter tray in pristine condition than ever be actually read. Sometimes I'd keep them, maybe for months, with the forlorn hope that one day I'd sit and read them. But I never did.
Yet today I did something I've never done before. I bought the Berliner and I read it, cover to cover, on the tube. I have never done that before, and it really was a joy. I actually, for the first time, enjoyed reading a newspaper. How can a simple format change make such a difference?
On thing I do miss, though, is the old 80's masthead. I've had a soft spot for The Guardian's old masthead since uni days. I worked on the student newspaper at Cardiff, Gair Rhydd (Free Word), and ours was strikingly similar to The Guardian's despite, if memory serves, being older. You can see that masthead, unchanged since I was there, on the Gair Rhydd site.
(Aside: I am astounded and delighted to find that Gair Rhydd has its own online edition now, although there's not much up there because it's still 'summer', but there's stuff in the archives. It was an award winning newspaper when I was there, although the year I went to the ceremony, they decided that they couldn't possibly give us the accolade yet again - excellence apparently is not supposed to happen consistently in the UK. I still have all the editions I contributed to stashed away somewhere in my parents' loft.)
After uni, it became a ritual to buy The Guardian once a week for the media job ads, which I would pour through with a fine toothed comb, looking for my way into publishing or TV or something. It took me a year and over 50 applications to finally land an 'editorial assistant' job at a science publishing house. Seems the media back then weren't entirely sure why a geology student should want to work, er, in the media. Me, I see it the other way round. I'm not entirely sure why a writer started off hitting rocks with big hammers.
Then, last year, I was published in The Guardian myself. Just the once, mind, because I ended up being so busy that thinking of articles to pitch to editors became something that I 'really ought to get round to some time', instead of an imperative. I really had ought to start pitching again, because I rather like writing and I rather like The Guardian so how much more would I really rather like writing for The Guardian? Of course, it's easier to just say things here than go to all the hassle of working up a pitch and hassling editors, but I guess nothing worthwhile is easy.
In short, I think the Berliner is bloody great. Congratulations to everyone at The Guardian who had a hand in it - it's good job well done, and it will almost certainly turn me back into a regular reader again.
Oh… and did I mention it's all in colour now? How cool is that!

Gary is dead on the money. Again.

What's happened in New Orleans this week has been a complete disgrace. The American government should be ashamed of itself for callously allowing the poorest, sickest and most vulnerable people to starve, dehydrate and die in the stricken city. Questions are now being asked in the blogosphere and the press about why a federal response has taken so long, but so far the stuff I've seen coming out of the American government and press about rebuilding remains deluded.
Anyone who's seen the results of even a small flood will know how long it takes to clean up afterwards. Houses that were sound before get torn down afterwards because they are uninhabitable. And that's only from a few feet of water.
With 80% of New Orleans underwater and much of the city structurally damaged, no one is going to be able to go back there to live for months and months. Much of it will have to be torn down. Houses that have been up to their eaves in water, and which may remain drowned for another three months yet, are simply not going to be habitable once the water's gone.
Mould will set in immediately, giving off toxic spores which will stay in the wood and start growing every time that wood gets damp. Bacteria will spread. The sewerage and chemicals will impregnate every bit of wood and give off toxic fumes. The wood itself will swell, breaking every joint. Plaster and plasterboard will disintegrate. Plywood will de-laminate and come apart. Wooden houses will have to be torn down.
Brick-built houses will have to be dried out and wooden floors, ceilings, windowframes, roofs replaced. Plaster will have to be stripped and replaced. The bricks and concrete will have to be dried using dehumidifiers - it takes one dehumidifier of average size to dry out one room of average size, and you'd have to seal the house because otherwise all you're doing is dehumidifying the atmosphere (and NO is not the driest place in the world at the best of times). There aren't going to be enough dehumidifiers in America to dry out all of the city.
All the electrics will have to be replaced, heating systems, gas fires and cookers, fridges, lighting. Everything will be ruined by the water. Obviously all furniture will have to be thrown out - the chemicals and sewerage will have penetrated and irreparably everything.
Houses which do survive will be shells, but the majority of the flooded buildings will not be saved. It really is not just a case of draining the city and then having a bit of a wash down and redecorate - it's a case of tearing down what's left and starting again from scratch. And that's going to take a very, very long time.
Yet no one seems so far to be talking about where you are going to house all the refugees whilst this happens. Who is going to feed them for the months and months that they will be displaced? Who's going to educate the children? Who's going to provide work for the adults? How are they going to keep people's spirits up?
Bush and the other officials have to stop talking in terms of weeks, and start being more honest about the impact that this disaster is really going to have. If it takes three months to fix the levees and drain the city, how long is it going to be after that before any place is habitable? How are the authorities going to deal with people coming back to the city before the city is ready? How will they stop people moving into dwelling that should be condemned and torn down? If people do move back into the city before the clean up has been finished, they will get sick - the public health threat is massive.
If the American government thinks that the situation is improving, and that it's all downhill from here, well, they just aren't thinking far enough ahead.
So what could be done? It's a massive humanitarian and economic disaster and it's going to take some considerable strength of character to get through it. A good place to start would be to find a location, immediately, for a temporary city - New New Orleans, if you like. Get in the contractors to build it, but make them train and employ the displaced inhabitants of Old New Orleans so that they have jobs and an income, as well as somewhere half-decent to live. (A tent city is not going to cut the mustard, not for the time people might be there.) Then when New Orleans is drained, employ those same people to work on fixing it up.
This is exactly the sort of tactic used after natural disasters in the developing world - get local people involved in rebuilding their own town, give them work, an income, and a feeling of doing something worthwhile and valuable. What America absolutely must not do is parachute in a bunch of contractors from other parts of the country who do all the work, earn all the money, and leave the people from NO to fester.
The government has to think about what's best for the individuals of New Orleans on a day-to-day and ongoing basis and what's best for the communities within which they now life, not what's best for the Government, the contractors or industry.

I am listening to England attempting to do something unmentionable to Australia in the Fourth Test (apparently those capitals are appropriate) on Radio 4 Longwave.
Jones has a fine leg, or so they say. I wish I could see Jones' fine leg, but I'm going to have to take their word for it. I have no idea what they are talking about, until they mention a close formation flight of pigeons and the way that a light breeze is moving the trees. Certainly the commnentary is worth listening to, purely for the discussion of Manx Knobs, which apparently are good for sucking on and come in a variety of sizes.
Cricket and knob jokes. Forgive me if I feel terribly confused for a moment, would you?