In one of those memes that goes around, swisstone asked me to explain seven of my user icons. ( So here they are. )

The online Miieditor can save out Miis as 100 x 100 jpegs.

So I had a go with it, and ended up like this:



Oh dear... I'm not sure if it's convincing, but it's certainly fun, tweaking all the options to try and get the right image!

So how quickly will having a mii become a miime?

...using LiveJournal's bandwidth to post to my Livejournal, while waiting in a meeting room at SixApart...

It's been a while since I followed any memes, but this one is interesting...

Look at your LJ userpics list. If you have fewer than 50 icons, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five icons, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five icons, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em.

List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly why you have it, why it's interesting to you, what significance does it have.

So here is every seventh image from my 57...


Piro at work. From the Megatokyo webcomic, and used when I'm talking about writing. My desk looks a little like this one (but is usually messier, and has more screens).


"It's our ride". The Serenity from Joss Whedon's "Firefly". I made this from a screen cap I took from a Firefly DVD, while experimenting with screen capture software and a new graphics software package.


Lavie and Klaus. An illustration by anime character designer Range Murata, from my favourite anime, the excellent "Last Exile". Steam punk with politics, and rather nifty flying machines. An default icon of old. I have the same picture on a mouse mat...


Cat and Girl. One of my favourite webcomics, everyone I introduce it to seems to run away from its excoriations of hipster culture, and its regular excursions into literary and artistic philosophy. Ah well, I say. Go buy the t-shirts.


The happy iPod. I use this one for music-related posts. Hand edited pixel-by-pixel from a Joy of Tech. Yes, it's another web comic...


A Range Murata character study of Lavie, again from "Last Exile". This used to be my default icon...


Hello Root Kitty. I don't like DRM, though I do understand why some people argue for its use. As a content creator I'm occasionally ambivalent - I want my writing to be free for anyone to read, however they want. But I also want to be paid, and I don't want my work used in ways I don't approve of...


A photo I took of an error message on our Scooba.I use this one for robot related entries. They're such dear little things as they scurry round the house cleaning up after us. Of course some day they'll rebel...

It's been a while since I've done anything to the look and feel of this ole blog. So, I've switched theme to something that gives it a look that's a bit more like my other blog.

With the launch of the new CSS-based Expressive style today, I've switched to using its London Cityscape theme from the grey Component theme I was using. I've quite liked the idea of a London cityscape look, and as this is a London-based blog. There are some nice touches too, including a Tag browser and proper permalinks for each entry, so you don't have to go prying through the comment HTML to link to an entry.

There will be some CSS tweaks to come (I want to change some of the fonts to start with).

If you've got a jabber IM client - like AdiumX, Gaim, or Trillian, you can now connect to LJ's own jabber server.

One of the more interesting features, is that it lets you work with your mutual LJ friends list as your jabber roster/buddy/contacts list:

your Jabber Roster ("buddy list") is integrated with your LJ friends list. If you friend bob and bob friends you, both of you can see each other online. It has to be mutual. Friends that haven't friended you back show up as "pending subscription" in your jabber client, kinda grayed out, depending on the client.

This looks to be quite, quite useful.

Still, err, somewhat alpha.

...from wendyg on the issue of advertising on LiveJournal at newswireless.net.

LiveJournal, home to approximately 1.3 million active blogs and 10 million overall, announced this week that it's inaugurating ads on its site, following on from a post on the subject from the founder about six weeks ago.

The general idea isn't all that dissimilar to what Salon has been doing for the last five years with its Premium service: you pay for the value you receive with either ads or money, your choice. LiveJournal has always offered free and paid accounts, basing the incentive to pay on limiting the features available to the free accounts. Now, it will offer an intermediate "Sponsored" level which will include ads. If you're a logged-in paid user you will never see ads; if you're a free or sponsored user (or visitor) you will see ads on LiveJournal's main site and on sponsored journals. No one has to display ads on their journal.

Almost simultaneously, Six Apart, the owner of LiveJournal, announced that it had secured $12 million in venture capital funding. LiveJournal was a cooperative community; now it's a business.

More here.

Just testing out the Pocketposter LJ client while we spend a weekend on the road, up in the frozen north visiting pdcawley...

Looks decent so far...

Sign spotted on our local pub (which is currently being renovated): "Demolition by Ferrari".

Is latexiron moonlighting?

And is this the real reason for the jet engine?

So, I've taken the plunge and have switched over to using an S2 layout for this here blog.

Enjoy. After all, tags work now!