Gold star design

Well. Not really. Though I do like the everything old is new again white look I’ve got going on now… if you’re a feed reader and haven’t checked it out – swing by.

You might also notice (though probably not – I never look there) that my sidebar (over on the far right now has a little thing called “Starred”. At the moment it just features posts I’ve personally given five stars. But you can join the fun.

All my posts have a star rating feature. Vote down my five starred ones and start giving out actual stars to good posts and those posts in the sidebar will change. We’re all about reader interaction here at St. Eutychus.

While I’m on the subject of reader interaction – if anybody wants to supply some guest posts about anything that loosely meets the categories already existing – just let me know. Perhaps you’re a professional animator and you’d like to talk about drawing, perhaps you’re a person who designs cool stuff you think is worthy of featuring in the Curiosities column, perhaps you’d like to review books or you’ve found cool stuff around the web, perhaps you’re theologically minded and want to write some great arguments criticising atheism (or another batch of great articles), perhaps you’re my little sister and you already have an account and could post funny puns whenever you want…

Also, while I’m just shamelessly self promoting and writing a post with almost no purpose… are you on my blogroll? Am I on yours? If you’re not on mine and I read you (or I should) tell me. If I am on yours – check to see if it’s going to the old nathanintownsville address – that no longer works.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled fodder.

January 13, 2010

Storage Story

I have more storage capacity on my keyring than the first five or six computers we owned combined.

Here’s a nice storage infographic from geekologie.

January 12, 2010

Shirt of the Day: Hulk it up

Want to look tough and scare off some weak kneed lilly livered opponent?

You should get one of these pre-perforated Hulkamaniac singlets so you can psychologically cut loose on just about anybody.

Sadly they don’t seem to actually exist…

Via here, from here (in Russian).

January 12, 2010

YouTube Tuesday: Puntastic

The Governator has been playing with words for many years – so it should come as no surprise that he issues such classy vetoes.

Here is a selection of puns from his bad guy in whichever Batman movie it was that Mr Freeze appeared in – they all look the same to me…

The tags on this post indicate I actually do know which Batman movie it was in…

January 12, 2010

The Facebook booby trap

Am I the only person (not just male surely) who is sick of the Facebook phenomena of females posting the colour of their underwear as their Facebook status.

Yes, for the slow people, that is why you have been seeing colours as statuses.

I hate breast cancer. Everybody does. Nobody is unaware of it. And seriously. Posting a colour to raise awareness does nothing for the cause.

Has anybody been compelled to make a donation to breast cancer research as a result of the colour “blue” or “chartreuse” (whatever that is).

I know many of you reading this have taken part in the exercise. And I understand your motivation. But either you’re responding to a friend telling you what is going on – or the originally circulated spam that read:

Some fun is going on….just write the colour of your bra in your status..just the colour, nothing else, and send this on to ONLY girls no men… it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…thanks ladies!

Fun? Posting colours and keeping secrets is fun? No. It’s childish.

Here’s a more scathing analysis from Jezebel…

But what good has it really done for breast cancer awareness? Does anyone on Facebook really not know about breast cancer to the point where someone posting “purple lace!” and eight dudes responding, “Ooh, hot, lol” is really doing to anything to really help the cause in any possible way? If anything, the constant sexualization of and cutesy-poo approach to breast cancer pushes people to take it less seriously. As Tracy Clark-Flory of Broadsheet notes: “This bra color movement seems a similarly desperate attempt to get guys to simply give a crap about breast cancer by making it sexy and flirtatious, which I find not only embarrassing to women but insulting to men.”

And, you know, spreading awareness of an issue that statistically is much more predominant in women by keeping the men out of it… that’s a good idea.

Bollocks.

You don’t see guys running boxers or briefs social networking campaigns to raise awareness for prostate cancer. No. We grow moustaches and collect money.

It seems equally stupid. But there’s a difference. Movember raised awareness and almost $20 million (in Australia – and about the same world wide) for the cause.

A public awareness campaign with no call to action is just stupid. Having a strong call to action is the key to any marketing or public relations campaign. A call to action says: “if you care about this, do this”. Marketing that says “care about this” serves no purpose but to get people to care about an issue they probably already care about. A public awareness campaign where the call to action is “keep this a secret from the guys” is even dumber.

This “Bra Colour” Facebook campaign is stupid, juvenile, and almost completely pointless. Unless all the outcry about how pointless it is leads to some people actually donating.

And I’m proud to be a part of that.

If you really want to make a difference regarding Breast Cancer then do this:

Donate online

Help the National Breast Cancer Foundation to fund research into the prevention, treatment and cure of breast cancer. (If you would like to set up an ongoing donation, please call 02 9299 4090.)

Click here to donate online

January 12, 2010

Would you like caffeine with that?

You’ll never catch me drinking decaf. But it’s not because I drink coffee for the caffeine hit. You can get caffeine from so many other places that it’s just not worth the effort of drinking a less than optimal coffee.

If you’ve been reading for a while you would have caught this infographic about how healthy different drinks are for you based on sugar content.

Here’s a complementary (and complimentary – as in free, not as in it says nice things about you) infographic that gives you the caffeine content.

January 12, 2010

How to know if nobody likes you

The word “douche” traditionally means something very different to the current pejorative definition given below. I would, perhaps, not use it. If I were you.

“The term refers to a person with a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and engaging in obnoxious and/or irritating actions without malicious intent.”

I suggest redeeming this flowchart by replacing douchebag with the more culturally appropriate (from an Australian perspective) “tool”… at least that’s how Joel described the type of character here.

And so, I give you, via “bits and pieces” the “Are you a Tool” flowchart…

For Ben – who is back blogging and has decided he likes the third person.

P.S. Ben is not a tool (unless he fails the flowchart test). And I am glad he is back blogging.

P.P.S. Oh yeah, if you got here because you googled “how to know if nobody likes you” then you probably should do the flowchart, and if you pass it, you should probably consider that actually needing to ask that question is probably a sign that you’re doing something wrong.

January 12, 2010

Typesetting Acronyms

Should you set acronyms in small caps like some style guides suggest?

Computer says no.

This nonsense, promulgated by snobs like that bore Bringhurst who have not read anything written after Jane Austen croaked, ostensibly improves typographic colour. What it actually does is inhibit reading: Acronyms are not regular words. All-small-caps setting fools the reader into thinking an acronym is a real world. That discomfort you feel is a reverse fixation you underwent trying to reread the word.

This was always a bad idea, but it’s much worse with abbreviations that mix case (ATypI) and, indeed, with alphanumeric abbreviations (H1N1). Then what happens when you pluralize one of those? Plural s is almost exactly the height of the small caps.

But wait. You say. Acronyms are initialisations designed to be read as words.

Or there’s the equally nonsensical habit of using small caps solely for word-pronounceable acronyms, some of which are mated to acronyms you read letter by letter.

Like this example:

The conclusion…

Use of small caps for acronyms and abbreviations is a surefire indication your compositor is a snob. Stop acting like acronyms are dirt you need to sweep under the rug.

January 12, 2010

How online content works

I’d love to be at the top of this pyramid. But generally sit somewhere between the second and 4th.

It’s ironic that in creating this diagram the author no doubt fell victim to those at the bottom of the pile. Read the original post for a description of the types of people operating online.

This is the author’s description of the “Aggregator” which aptly describes both himself and myself…

The third tier are people with an interest in a subject but with no real insight of their own. The kind of people who retweet the aggregators or make a list of “10 Great Resources” from stuff they’ve read in the papers that week. You’re looking at the kind of content that is read just by a small circle of people.

I class my own blog in that kind of sphere – I could probably give you the names of 50% of my daily visitors and I don’t really write anything of consequence there. But! The people who come there have a laugh and remember it. There are a lot of these blogs out there, and they touch each other in unexpected ways. You might not get relevant links from a site like this, but the ripples can spread quite widely. These people are probably also susceptible to a little flattery or cash

This is a similar idea, in many ways, to the “five types of blogger” I came up with last year.

January 11, 2010

Pencil moustache

Can you balance a pen between your lip and your nose?

If you answered “yes” to that question then these might come in handy.

January 11, 2010

Making “headlines” today

I’m reconsidering the Sydney Morning Herald’s place as my news source of choice. What do other people use?

The writing is as good as ever – there is no political commentator as astute as Annabel Crabb, and few sports correspondents can match it with the likes of Peter Roebuck and Will Swanton.

But when your banner of featured stories looks like this you’ve well and truly jumped the “sex sells” shark…

January 11, 2010

On arguments…

Two of the things I commonly say in arguments are the phrases “you aren’t listening to me” or “you don’t understand me”…

What I mean is “you don’t agree with me. Idiot.”

January 11, 2010

How to get rid of telemarketers

Sick of your dinner being interrupted by telemarketers? Too stupid to put yourself on the “do not call register“?

Follow this scientifically tested script.

Or you could try my trick – engage them in conversation, pretend you’re interested, and then just stop talking. Works every time.

Via CafeDave.

January 10, 2010

Typography Textbook

Useful.

Tips like:

“In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period [full stop]. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon or any other mark of punctuation.”

And:

If you do need to insert more than a single word space between sentences, or any other characters, then use one of the many space characters available in Unicode. Even if the character itself isn’t included in the current font, Unicode-aware browsers will display a good approximation. Avoid the temptation to use a non-breaking space,  , as this has a meaning in and of itself.

For example:

  •   en space
  •   em space

January 10, 2010

Bohemian like youse

It seems that everybody on the Internet wants to be known for a unique version of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

Here are a few different videos for your prog-rock listening pleasure.

There are more where that came from…

January 10, 2010