• experiments with resin working well... and not the cannabinoid variety. Beginning to think we might have stumbled on our USP. Life is sweet #

"As it is capable of providing short updates of eyewitness observations, as well as spreading links to news outlets, Twitter has seen fast moving conversations about the Iranian election.

Twitter can be updated via a computer or a mobile device which means that instant messages can be sent to the service. Users in Iran are seeing blocks to mobile services and some websites and so are turning to proxies and work-arounds that mean information can get out, but heavily delayed.

The importance of this online service was highlighted as the U.S. government is reported to have been in touch with Twitter and other social networking websites to try and make sure that the possible flow of information is accessible to the rest of the world." link... as evidenced during the Mumbai terror attacks of November '08.

...and, obviously, social media allows the rapid organisation of mass demonstrations. Back in February, '09 this article contained the d'oh-quote: "Stone speaks of Twitter’s potentially being a new form of human communication, “like a flock of birds choreographed in flight.” That’s an extremely ambitious statement, particularly because it doesn’t seem to describe what Twitter does at all." (my bold)

Other forward-looking quotes from Twitter's originators include:

“It’s another step toward the democratization of information,” Williams says. “I’ve come to really believe that if you make it easier for people to share information, more good things happen.”

“Twitter is not about the triumph of technology,” Stone says. “It’s about the triumph of the human spirit.”

Chirp!

• #dream : at closed research facility with group. People started dying, so rest of us hatched plan to go back in time to before first death. #
• #dream : one person said "well, at least we'll be in the past. We'll know what's going to happen" #
• #dream Time-tech reply "No, you'll still be at the apex of a very narrow cone of experience, who knows how our arrival will change things?" #
• #dream : we had to be really careful not to negate the future/present we were in, because we had to go back one at a time. #

• just back from Skye: saw Eagles (Golden & White-Tailed) 5 days out of 6 without even trying. Spotted an Osprey too #birding #twitcher #
• On road home saw a Golden Eagle over pass of Glencoe, another near Tyndrum. several Buzzards, two Barn Owls and a Kestrel #birding #twitcher #
• Closest encounter: Flown directly over by mature White-Tailed Sea Eagle at height of treetops (15 feet / 5 meters) #birding #twitcher #

Last night I learned the final few moves of the sabre form. In just 14 months I have absorbed the empty-hand, jian and sabre forms. 51 lessons.

... plus all the training outside of class. Hopefully all the weeks where I managed to practice every day will balance out the weeks when I didn't practice at all. 50% Fu would do. It's only year one.

Sifu showed me the closing move and obviously saw the look of surprise on my face when I recognised the movement as a closing. He grinned. "That's it" he said, "Finish." I grinned too; just over a year and I had completed the form syllabus.

"If you practice this form just once a day" he said, "by the time your son is 20, you might be good at it."

Now that I've started training Ma Gui Bagua too, it's starting to look like about an hour of training just to go through everything I know - and that's without any combat drills.

It was warm and sunny a couple of days ago, so we're out walking the dog, wheeling Solly and making the most of pretty much the first spring-like day so far. A movement high above catches my attention, so I look up and see a couple of large Carrion Crows harrying a larger, soaring bird up and away.

I take a good look. Rectangular wings, hardly ever flapping. Grey underside. Not. A. Crow.

It's gotta be a buzzard.

But we're in the city. Not what you'd expect to see soaring over your house here.

Except...

It's not the first time I've seen this exact same situation unfold. About this time last year, perhaps the year before, I saw another (the same?) large bird getting pushed up and away by two large Crows. Could it be some kind of migration cycle? A regular stop-over on the way from a wintering lodge? That evening the entire Tribe of Crow (or so it seemed) chose to roost around our house in rattling, rasping mass - an event that has happened neither before or since in the nigh-on decade I've lived here.

In other ornithological weirdness, a couple of summers back we saw a bigger, higher, faster soaring bird over our house. Just at the moment we noticed it and stood up staring, agape in disbelief, it made a course correction of a few degrees which put a tree between us and its revised path. It didn't emerge from the other side. Like it knew we were watching and didn't want to be seen.

Kutiman mixes YouTube.

... nuff sed.

Solly has cut his first tooth! I noticed last night as he nommed my fingers while I bathed him. A tiny, hard protruberance from his gum: lower right incisor. We knew they were coming, you can see the little white dots of tooth-buds months before they break through, yet it was still a surprise to get proto-bitten.

All day today he's had his fingers on it, examining it, telling us all about it.

I feel both irrationally proud (it's a natural event in the process of growth) and slightly sad, since it's a clear reminder that he won't stay this tiny, tubby love-bundle forever. Lord Chunker of Monkerton is inexorably growing up.

Not much of a net-gadgeteer, but I've been playing around with tarpipe. A little like ping.fm, it allows you to set up "workflows" to automate posting to all of your various blogs, microblogs and photosites. It was suggested on the Evernote site as an app to integrate with.

So far, I've set it to post the same shout/tweet on Twitter, Identi.ca and Rejaw. It works, although Rejaw seems to think i posted 89 days ago.

And this from the fellow who has only just figured out how all you LoudTwitterers doo that voo you doo.

Now, what was I actually supposed to be doing?... ahhh yes. Washing dog wee out of doormats. See ya!

... or really busy?

I've just had a look to see how this LJ comes across to anyone not me - Y'know, logged out and followed my link.

Only one post since I wished you Gung Hay Fat Choy for the Rat and already the Ox is upon us.

Hmmm. Well, Gung Hay once again. May your Steady Effort at the yoke bring the Prosperity you deserve.

Awwww... Maaaaan.

Somebody already registered "mixmage" on Twitter.
Not only is the name taken, but the [expletive deleted] has zero followers or followings and has only ever made one post.

"hi"

... back in June of 2008.

What a waste. I'd be a much better mixmage.

A Happy Lunar New Year to all of you, and all the best for the next spin of the Wheel.

The Illustrious Rat has returned (my sign, my partner's sign and our summer-due baby's too!) ushering in the new twelve-year cycle. Last time the Rat led Buddha's animal parade I was living in Hong Kong and Southern China was experiencing "the worst cold snap in recent memory". Funny how things come around ;)... plus ça change.

Now is a good time to think about where you want to be and what you want to be doing next time our Rodent Host comes calling. To be honest, I really couldn't have guessed what my life is like today back in '96... I didn't expect to still be alive, certainly never expected to be expecting - the broken branch of the family tree has sprouted afresh and is ready to bear fruit.

The keynote appears to be Expect the Unexpected: Resourceful Rat didn't get to where he is without a trick or two and a flick of the tail. I'm living proof, it seems.

May the next Twelve Years bring health, prosperity and Good Fortune to you and your family.

We learn how to deal with it...

valve goes out

New problem? Old thinking.

but... only if your kanji allows both to be portrayed separetelya

It's the people in the land
that sets the blood upon the iron
that sets the form upon the knife
that sets the sword upon the land

I drink to the player, without the game.
I drink to the author, without the story.
I drink to the key, without the lock.

I drink to vocabulary, without explanation.

So, the gradual increase begins again. Every day the sun grows a little stronger, the day gets a little longer. The promise of Spring in the midst of Winter. As a little calendrical bonus, today is also a Tzolkin Day (in the Arguelles stream)...

Rhythmic Moon day 10
Year of the White Lunar Wizard



kin 203: Blue Galactic Night
I Harmonize in order to Dream
Modeling Intuition
I seal the Input of Abundance
With the Galactic tone of Integrity
I am guided by the power of Accomplishment
I am a galactic activation portal    enter me.

Wishing you all the best for this next spin of the rock.

hmmm... first time LJ has ever asked to restore a deleted post. The entry below was a post I made to the facebook Chaos Magick group. Despite copying it across (because I'M LEAVING THE GROUP. hnh! involuntary caps), I decided to not bother posting it. Seems LJ had other ideas.

( Optional text here )

If you didn't manage to catch Bruce Parry on BBC2 last night, you missed an important heads-up. Deforestation and loss of habitat really doesn't seem to be that important to the general public. It is seen as being part and parcel of this whole "climate change" issue.

Which really, really switches most people off so quick that it's become the conversational equivalent of pulling the plug. Turning invisible. 35mm slides of your holiday to Tenerife with your family back when you were a baby.

Not interested. It's huge boring, long-term tedious things ... what yawn difference can I make? glazing over especially as an individual person crashing... and there's China... beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Flatline. Time of Death?

The kind of person hinted by the above is probably intractable, even the human interest factor of the Penan's plight won't pierce such a jaded heart but, regardless, I'll tell you about a peaceful people with intimate knowledge of and living within the primary forest of Sarawak.

Defenseless people. People of the distant past meeting the machine of the twentieth century and finding that you cannot reason with it, cannot turn it away, cannot stop it.

Compound this by the fact that the poorer, harsher secondary forest that takes over where the primary has been felled still looks like forest. Skews the perception of how much has really been lost.

It's a clear cut case of that old equation: Loss of Habitat = Extinction of Species, except that the extinction in this case is that of a human culture. Not only are we losing the plant allies that have patiently and steadfastly supported a people, we'll lose the minds that remember who and how to use them.

Look. All that anyone can do is raise awareness... petitions and direct action aside.

A flying visit, combined with responsible consumption of alcohol, made for an unusual Barbmeet last night. Unusual in the sense that it couldn't have been predicted by studying previous form. Anomalous perhaps, but not stochastic.

Before we start cracking open the soft-drinks and toasting the dawning era of sense and sobriety in Mixtonia, might I remind you that the whole episode was a mad mission in itself... thus perfectly acceptable to the old regime.

Yet lurking behind the apparent reckless abandon lay purpose and forethought.

mordantcarnival heading off to and prayinmantis visiting from the Yewess, and many happy returns to spyinthehaus... plus an embarassment of others I barely got a chance to chat with: a whole bunch of conversations which were just greetings and farewells. Sigh. All before the backdrop of that dark, glittering river - with me wanting to run over and take a good look, jump up and walk along the wall... but not wanting to look as it would, exactly as I am: A little kid from outta town, set loose in the big city.

And presiding over it all, just to remind me, a huge clock built into the side of a building. I seem to recall there being no sky, sat under a bridge as we were. Weird. Somewhat like watching in widescreen, but letterboxed.