notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

Whenever I have a tag field, I use it, and I try to be consistent. So Tumblr finally having some sort of global support for tagging is nice. Because I was away today, I first noticed it when looking at other people’s posts on my dashboard (although this example is one of my own):

My first thought was “why the fuck are they using a hash in front of the tag? This isn’t bloody Twitter; Tumblr have more sense than to force metadata into the body of a message (well, except for all the post types that don’t have titles, but that’s another matter)”.

My second thought was to try clicking on the links, and it turns out that despite the post (which I eventually got to after wading through some Facebook nonsense and promotional rubbish) claiming that tags are normalised, they’re not. Or maybe they are, but not all tags. In any case, the ‘victoria line” tag page is coming up empty.

Still, one hurrah for highlighting tags, a half hurrah for a global tag search (that sort of works), and a big fat raspberry for pointlessly aping Twitter’s use of # to indicate a tag when there’s no bloody need to.

vexappeal:

I’ve started a new project to keep track of life and encourage activity, called Achievements Unlocked (pictured), inspired by a friend who suggested I “make a list of what you’ve done, rather than what you haven’t.” It’s a small, private Tumblr-blog that I let myself post on anytime I do something new or interesting.

What a good idea.

iamdanw:

In summary, kindle books can only be resynced to a kindle or iPhone a limited number of times. The number of times varies book to book. The number of times is not publicly listed. Once you exceed the number you have to buy the kindle ebook again.

From reading the follow-up post, it turns out that the limit is actually on the number of devices; the number of downloads is unlimited per device.

There’s a parallel here: when iTunes music was DRMed, you could authorise five computers to play the tracks. (iPods and iPhones didn’t count, because it’s harder to copy the music to them.) There are obvious differences. Apple made it clear what this limit was (five), when you added a computer (either via the iTunes menus or putting a password into a dialogue box), and it allows you to deauthorise machines (even, once a year, doing a full reset and removing all authorisation).

As the follow-up concludes,

You are able to redownload your books an unlimited number of times to any specific device.
Any one time the books can be on a finite number of devices. In most cases that means you can have  the same book on six different devices.
Unfortunately the publishers decide how many licenses, that is devices, a book can be on at any one time. While most of the time that will be five or six different devices there will be times when it’s only one device.
At the present time there is no way to know how many devices can be licensed prior to buying the book.
According to the customer rep, there is a project to try to get that information available to the customer but it’s not yet available.

The last part is key. If Amazon insist on DRM, then allowing people to register (and de-register) devices would, while not solving its problems, at least give users the tools to avoid being bitten quite so badly by them.

I’ve been trying to post a couple of entries on notes.husk.org this morning, and (as often happens) getting distracted. One thing that came up was a link to an Alice Rawsthorn piece in the IHT, but when visiting it, I got this unhelpful message.

It turns out, as the paidConnent story makes clear, that the New York Times, which owns the International Herald-Tribune, has just closed the site and rebranded it as its own. I could live with that (although the IHT design was much cleaner), but killing over five years of archives (including popular stories like these) is pretty unforgivable in my book.

To be charitable, I’ll hope this is a temporary issue, and that soon the archives will be back. If they’re not, though, I’ll be pretty upset with the Gray Lady.

I appear to be covered for zorbing whilst on holiday. Sadly, I didn’t discover anyone willing to let me go down Lombard Street protected only by a large inflatable transparent ball. (Warning: PDF.)

Edit: Turns out I could have done the (similar) wirlball riding in Dolores Park.

Via Dan Hon, the source of the quotes that the Daily Mail picked up on today (see my previous entry): a House of Lords debate on the 12th of February. Her remarks conclude:

Of course we cannot turn back the clock, nor would that be any solution to maximising the individual’s potential in this new century. However, surely the Government could consider investing in some kind of initiative, the goal of which would be the identification of realistic alternatives—be it in the classroom, on the screen, in conjunction with the media, or in society as a whole—for developing a sense of privacy and identity and, above all, a real appreciation of friendship.

Gail Trimble is the team captain for Corpus Christi, Oxford:

“In the quarter-finals, Trimble racked up a record 15 starters-for-10 as Corpus Christi raced to 350 points.”

Watching the semi-final, it struck me that allowing postgrads onto the teams is probably about as unfair as allowing each Oxbridge college its own slot on the show. A university focussed on teaching, as opposed to research, will have to draw on a pool that doesn’t include older twentysomethings, who have more experience and a deeper understanding of their subject.

Oh well, I suppose it’s only a game.