marramgrass

• NT Wright on The Colbert Report. I don’t know how this happened, but it’s cool.
• Princess Bride redux.
• Keep religion out of welfare provision. I was emailed this at work. So ill-informed it’s astonishing — I alternated between anger and laughter as I read it.
• The truth about working from home. No comment ;-)
• ‘Practise’ or ‘practice’? I learned something new. Now I need to remember it.

• Stuff Christians Like. This is great.
• The Prime Minister on the Twitter. Sort of.
• How to break a bottle on a ship. Apparently it’s not as simple as you’d think.
• Innocent photographer or terrorist? This keeps coming up over the last few years. It’s a debate I keep an eye on, since I appreciate and enjoy good street photography.
• Powerbook to Desktop. Looks like turning an old laptop into a basic desktop machine would be pretty straightforward and fun. But my wife would not be pleased.

Real posts to follow soon, I promise.

Not too long since the last one, but here we are again.

• Google’s Street View raises privacy concerns in the Guardian. Bizarre and tremendous :-)
• Leave a camera tied to a bench, see what happens. It’s kind of sweet.
• A Victim Treats His Mugger Right. Uplifting, inspiring, humbling.

A couple of videos I found when we were looking at a new lawnmower at the weekend:

• How To Mow A Lawn Using A Petrol Lawn Mower.
• How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds — Explained. It’s been doing the rounds for a long, long time, but it’s great. Surprisingly useful, too, if like me you are almost entirely incapable of folding clothes neatly.

And finally, an interesting one that is well worth a read for the author’s observations, even if you have no interest at all in science fiction or its production.

• Steal This Pitch: The Coming War Between Religion And Super-Science

I might have to try working some of those themes into a story or two…

• Cory Doctorow on security in the real world. Worth a read in these hyper-paranoid aware times.
• Cool business card designs to feast your eyes on.
• Open Source Community. Going through my wallet at the weekend, I found a card I picked up at a Tearfund partners’ conference last year. It was advertising this site that features various policy documents and successful funding applications available for reference. I haven’t had a chance to explore it in detail, but it looks like a resource worth remembering.

And to finish, a couple of videos:

• RSS in Plain English is a creative explanation of what I tried to say a couple of months ago. Geekness aside, it’s very nicely done.
• Getting a cork out of an empty bottle. Simple, elegant, fun.

• A half-hour documentary on a traditional bespoke tailor. The blog of the main gent, English Cut, is eminently readable, and is where I found the video.
• Barack Obama on race in America. I have been watching the current election shenanigans in the US with interest — not least because the resident of the White House can have a real impact on the state of the world. Obama has struck me not only as a very talented orator, but as a guy with his head properly screwed on, even as he catches flak over comments made by his former pastor. UPDATE: See/hear the speech on YouTube.

And a few from the BBC News service:

• How to remember your dead dog. Over the last few years I have become very much a dog person, and have been repeatedly astonished at how stupidly attached I have become to an animal. But I just don’t get this at all.
• Course-work in the internet age. Sorry to admit that when reading this I found myself idly wondering if I could offer my services to some students out there. Then I wised up.
• Arthur C Clarke has died.

• Some great non-traditional wedding photos on Slate. I forget where I spotted these.
• The People’s Mario. Via Wil Wheaton.
• “The romantic light started to fade fast.” I’ll say. Via Jordon Cooper.

After the death of Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax last week, these last two are topical and affectionately humourous.

• The influence of D&D. I never played Dungeons & Dragons, but many of the games I do play are heavily influenced at least by its mechanics. For the best of the laugh, follow the line from the top-left corner along ‘No’. Via a tweet from Wil Wheaton.
• Ultimate Game. RIP Gary on xkcd.

I have decided to stop the highly disagreeable practice of splicing my del.icio.us links into the feed for this site — there’s too much random and uninteresting rubbish in there you don’t care about.

Instead, I am following the example of many other esteemed bloggers (for example, Brother Maynard and Jordon Cooper) and instituting a series of posts where I throw some interesting links out there. Bizarrely, these are some of my favourite posts to read on other bogs, so hopefully this will be a welcome development.

Without further ado, let the first Irregular Linkdump begin!

• Ruth’s experiences of baking French bread. Read some of the links — it’s mental.
• TweetFilm. 140 character movie reviews. Sweet.
• Andy Ihnatko’s first impressions on the Neuros OSD. It’s not a PVR as such, but it looks interesting in the way that makes me wish I had an excuse for one.
• Very interesting interview with the Bishop of Durham. via Brother Maynard.
• An investigation into all that Sharia law debate. via Maggi Dawn.

Garfield Minus Garfield.

Exactly what it sounds like. Really. Check it out.

(HT Gruber)

I’ve just discovered (via Kottke) Why We Write. It’s a daily (ish) series of essays, mainly (but not solely) by writers who are currently striking members of the WGA.

It’s in my nature to be sympathetic to this strike, enthusiastic as I am about many American drama and comedy shows. Independent of that, though, the essays on the site that I’ve had a chance to read yet are fascinating and fun.

So check the sidebar over there for a new link, and I suggest you plug it inot your reader.

I have discovered a new webcomic. It’s called Questionable Content, and it’s rather good fun. It’s also currently at edition 1026 — so plenty of scope for distraction there. Which just now may not be such a good thing.

By the way, when looking for it you really want to get the web address exactly right, or you might turn up some decidedly questionable content. Be ye warned :-o