Should be sleeping

… as I'm due at the gym in the morning. Instead, I've just added another 500 songs to my iBook from my ol' external drive. Rather stupidly, I've also spent quite some time properly tagging half of them, to the detriment of my wrist.

I am depressingly obsessed by correct meta-data. Still, I've now got something to listen to in the gym!

Only another 51 tracks to go until I crack 4000. So, when my next 8 CDs arrive (I buy too many!), I'll also be well over the 12 day barrier. Sweet.

Posted at 2005-01-10 15:50:24 by Richard • Link to Should be sleeping
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Apple bloatware

My hard drive was getting so full it wouldn't fit on my backup drive. Thanks to OmniDiskSweeper, I found that iDVD was 1.1GB (mostly template movies), GarageBand had 1.8GB in the /Library/Application Support directory (loops and instruments), and my drive was swelled by 228MB of Epson printer drivers. Let alone my own gigs of data…

Dumping iDVD was enough (I don't have an internal DVD writer!). GarageBand will move to an external drive.

Posted at 2005-01-10 14:15:35 by Richard • Link to Apple bloatware
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Listening with affection and excitement

This is a wonderful piece of writing; it has certainly stimulated me to interact differently with other people in future. It's impossible to pick just one quote, but I'll have a go.

Then suddenly you begin to hear not only what people are saying, but what they are trying to say, and you sense the whole truth about them. And you sense existence, not piecemeal, not this object and that, but as a translucent whole.

Read, then listen.

Posted at 2005-01-10 11:25:33 by Richard • Link to Listening with aff…
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Beach photos

As promised… enjoy the male model photos.

I promise you, the poses are all ironic.

Posted at 2005-01-10 10:28:01 by Richard • Link to Beach photos
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Waterstone's bookseller sacked for blogging

Here's his blog. As a blogging bookseller, I'm slightly concerned, and very sympathetic.

If Ottakar's tried to do that to me (not that I mention them at all, and not that they would!), firstly my store management would back me, secondly they'd get a lot of bad feeling from the rest of the shop, and thirdly they'd get a tribunal. I find it hard to believe that a company like Waterstone's feels they can get away with that kind of treatment of staff, particularly valuable, experienced booksellers.

Hell, I've seen people retained or politely let go for lots worse than mentioning the company online.

It's a mad world.

One of the commenters (anonymous; you'll see why) made a good point about anonymity:

These days, it is best to keep your offline identity a secret. I've heard that HR people are now Googling people to see what they have posted online before hiring or moving forward with them. Another example — if you don't hide your real identity and you have any intention to run for a political office in the future, don't be surprised when something you said in a huff or that was meant to be taken humorously, is twisted against you.

Sad state of the world, but that's the way it is. Better safe (and anonymous) than sorry down the line…

That's definitely something that is in the back of my mind. Of course, there's a positive side, too, as Russell Beattie has observed.

I'm not going to stop any time soon. In fact, it feels wrong to write things down offline, even more so on paper, because it's inaccessible, unsearchable, unlinkable, and there's only one copy. I'm a bit addicted.

Posted at 2005-01-10 01:57:45 by Richard • Link to Waterstone's books…
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