http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Noel/angl/cultes.htm#mithra
Doing web design stuff has changed a bit for me in the last year or so. I used to use Dreamweaver and Fireworks quite frequently, but since dealing with more CSS and dynamic content, I've moved to a sort of combination approach. I usually start in Fireworks to get an idea of how a page might look, then I try and duplicate it with stylesheets. These days I use Dreamweaver primarily for the code view and site management - not to create pages.
In the case of dynamic sites, I often find it easiest to edit the css online (via the templates in MT or the filebrowser in pMachine), which means that this brilliant Color Wheel that Rogi found is very handy indeed.
Apologies about the server errors when you post comments. It's a bit of a mystery, really. A 500 server error supposedly indicates a generic error, but I've had my ISP look at the server logs and try to reproduce the error but to no avail. It also happens when I post and rebuild and I'm having trouble exporting my posts. I can only assume that MT is not happy with the size of my blog (posting to the other blogs works fine).
It's not an uncommon problem, apparently. Meish is experiencing same as are people on the MT support forums. My solution, I think, is going to be to move to pMachine. It's MySQL and php-based, I've now set up 3 corporate sites with it and it integrates with Gallery (or so I've read). I've also nearly finished a new design, so I reckon it's a done deal.
Sorry about the building dust, etc, etc...
As it's the festive season, I suppose you won't need another reason to drink up, me hearties.
Nevertheless, scientists have found potential anti-cancer agents in red wine.
Acutissimin A blocks the action of an important enzyme, and in so doing might prevent the growth of cancerous cells. In preliminary tests, it has proved 250 times more potent than the clinical anti-cancer drug VP-16.
"Acutissimin A belongs to a broad class of chemicals called the polyphenols, which are present in fruits, vegetables and drinks made from them. Polyphenols in red wine, green tea and chocolate are known to be antioxidants, which might reduce the risk of heart disease and atherosclerosis. Polyphenols also react with components of saliva to produce the astringency that gives red wine its distinctive taste."
It does strike me that pharmaceutical companies want to take all the fun out of potential treatments by synthesizing the stuff, though.
I always have to Google this Panna Cotta recipe, although you'd think I'd have it memorised by now.
And then I ran across, Weasel Coffee.
Weasel coffee has been eaten and regurgitated by rare Vietnamese weasels. As you can imagine, the weasels' gastric goings-on radically alter the taste of the coffee and the result is a stronger, smoother, heady flavoured coffee that will appeal to serious connoisseurs of the mighty bean.
Not really interested in commenting about the whole Saddam thing, but in the interests of fairplay, here's a bit of Saddam photoshopping.
I also ran across this amusing snippet:
In Tikrit, about 700 people rallied in the centre, chanting "Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood" as US soldiers and Iraqi policemen yelled back "Saddam is in our jail".
I think I've got just about everything ordered now (short of the veg that I'll get at the market) but there are three things I miss from traditional American holiday meals and can't get here:
Candied yams. These are really just sugary sweet potatoes, not actual yams. When I was growing up, they were always made from the canned vegetable but they taste nearly the same from fresh and are easy to find in the UK.
American style stuffing. This one's more difficult because English stuffing uses very fine ground breadcrumbs while American stuffing uses dried bread cubes. My favourite is made with the pre-seasoned cubes, but I can approximate it by drying some white bread and cutting it into cubes. Wish I could get the spices right...
Eggnog. It's been years (and years) since I last had eggnog and I've had a craving for months now. Hard to describe (it's an eggy nog - ok, maybe not so hard). I guess I'm going to have to make it myself.
Buying your turkey online and wondering how big a turkey to get? Maybe not, but I was. Butterball has a Turkey Calculator.
Although I supppose those are American sized portions rather than rest of the world portions and of course, you have to convert from oldy-worldy style measurements to decimal.
Four months later, we can once again eat in the dining room. Not quite finished - I'm still "dressing" it - but it appears the rabbit approves.
Pudding and pie... My friend Angie sent me some photos of lil' ol' George lookin' hot.
Last week Joe passed on a story about how Burma's government was building a platform on the Bagan plain to international outcry. This reminded me that I had some more photos to post.
It certainly does seem a little unnecessary to build a viewing platform as there are several newly reconstructed large pagodas from which to get an amazing view of the site. Alternatively, you could see Bagan from a hot air balloon.
Watching (as I do) Countryfile this morning, it was quite stunning to see the difference between free range turkeys and barn-reared ones. As Compassion in World Farming pointed out, consumer pressure is the best way to ensure compassionate treatment for turkeys. Frankly, I don't want to eat a turkey that's been reared in such close quarters that it needs vast amounts of antibiotics to stay alive or that's been bred so that its breast is so heavy it can barely stand.
I wondered where I was going to find a free range turkey, and while I'm hoping my local butcher stocks them, the CIWF also publishes a guide to free range and organic turkey outlets.
I remember voting in the BBC's Big Read contest some months ago. Now the results have been announced and I'm not sure if I should be pleased with the winners or disappointed that my tastes are so plebeian. are top of my favourite novel list as well. Hitchhikers Guide, the third most popular, probably ties for third with Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, although I'd have a hard time picking a favourite out of all of them.
I've never read numbers 4 or 5 but here are some more of my top reads:
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
Issac Asimov, Foundation's Edge
Michael Crighton, Jurassic Park
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Umberto Eco, Focault's Pendulum
Bush's trip to Iraq on Thanksgiving is having a few repercussions. The Washington Post reports on the unhappy troops that got turned away from dinner. What's worse, British Air Traffic controllers are livid that his flight "broke international regulations, posed a potential safety threat and exposed a weakness in the air defense system that could be exploited by terrorists."
Amazing what you find when trawling around the internet. It's an old Salon story, but it made me laugh.
How do you design a "Keep Out!" sign to last 10,000 years?The Department of Energy is creating a vast monument to scare future trespassers away from radioactive waste sites. Their plan: A granite Stonehenge thing with warnings in Navajo!
My daughter and I skipped school today to go on a bit of a jolly. Actually, since she attends a "media college" it could possibly be considered schoolwork, but then she'd probably need to write a report or something. Bah.
Anyway, it was quite a good day. We went out to the Beeb's Elstree Studio to watch the filming of Bamzooki, CBBC's new TV gameshow. We were able to go, of course, because my client Gameware created the Zook-builder toolkit. It wasn't the first television studio I'd been in - it's hard to grow up in California and not manage to find yourself in a studio at some point. My daughter wants to be a director when she grows up so this was a good opportunity to show her what's involved. I think she found some of it a little slow-going and has now decided she wants to be a camera-person rather than the person who has to ask the on-screen talent to do their bit over and over again. I'm sure she'll change her mind another 400 times before she's a grown-up.
One thing we hadn't realised was how many famous films that had been made at Elstree. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars and 2001 - A Space Odyssey are just some of those that I saw listed on the studio walls. These days, Holby City and Eastenders are filmed at Elstree and I was a little disappointed not to run into Cat Slater or Alfie Moon in the cantine, 'though we did see rather a few hospital gowns at lunchtime.
Since we were up that way, we decided to take Jag's recommendation and hopped on a bus to Colindale and Oriental City. It was a very, very long bus ride and, had I realised, I probably would have caught a cab and got there in 10 minutes rather than the 45 it took on the bus, but nevermind. Great place with an absolutely huge Asian supermarket and all sorts of shops. It was all I could do not to buy myself a cheongsam but in the end, we went away with only a sushi dinner and a set of chopsticks.
Yes, I know, but really... how could I resist these?
Poor old Boudicca really needs a new friend so I guess a new rabbit is inevitable at some point. Luckily, the American House Rabbit Society has a handy guide to introducing rabbits.
I did say I was the world's slowest DIYer, didn't I? It's getting desperate though - I need somewhere to put the Christmas tree. So it's all go around here today...
Had to find room for the books that were in the dining room and while the stairs were going to be a temporary measure, I quite like them there. It's not so terribly odd - I saw it in a magazine once, I think...
Another sobering example of the here and now dangers of rapid population growth:
"Our own drugs had help create these superbugs. TB began to reappear in cities where only a few years before it was all but eradicated."In cities like London and New York, where people are crammed in living closer than ever before, the TB parasite has found its perfect breeding ground.
"Passed by coughing and sneezing, rates of TB are starting to approach epidemic proportions."
Any economy that requires constant, unrestricted growth to survive is clearly unsustainable and it appears that so are we. Nature will win one way or another, but will it be a painful and hard-fought battle or will we try to negotiate with her?
Interesting article about the decline of PC games and the rise of the console.
A lot of vitriolic responses, as well, but the guy who wrote the article is in the biz and knows of what he speaks. The debate, however, is not necessarily whether PCs are better or worse gaming platforms than consoles, but is about whether a publisher is willing to pay enough to cover the costs of developing PC games when they can make much higher margins on console titles. Without an income, PC game developers can not survive. Clearly.
Advertising is a funny thing, isn't it? After months (maybe a year?) of watching the adverts for BBC Digital, I only just noticed that you could get the extra BBC channels just by buying the box.
I remember the ads, can tell you who was featured in them, but I never paid attention to the one message that would make me go out and buy the thing. Funny, huh?
Kevin Sites Blog is back (since October by the look of it). No longer constrained by the big mojos at CNN...
One hundred thirty four trillion people by 2300? Even at 9 billion, it's a horrifying thought even though I can't see humans making it that far in any event.
Nevertheless, it's numbers like these that really get me wound up over people insisting on fertility treatments on the NHS and wailing that "their lives aren't worth living if they can't have children".
Party on, kids.
We don't really call it a "blog" per se, but rather a "Studio Diary". Nevertheless, what I've set up is essentially a collaborative blog over at Gameware.
Sorry, I have no deep thoughts about the rise of corporate blogging or the highjacking of blogs by marketing weenies or the relative merits of blogging in the "mediasphere".
It just is. And I think it's rather good.
As much as I enjoyed the rugby (even as I thought I wouldn't), ordinarily I wouldn't mention this, but the English team's fans bringing London to standstill is pretty incredible stuff.
Not a big deal to Americans who are used to these sorts of ticker-tape parades on a fairly regular basis, but the English don't often go in for this sort of celebration. All that red and white is quite a sight (if you'll pardon the rampant rhyming).
Of course, I can't help but mention that Jonny will never be Rugby's answer to David Beckham if he doesn't start smiling a little more often...
I'm way late with this one, I'm sure, but first result in a search for "miserable failure" comes up with GW's biog. Or so says BBC NEWS.
And whadya know? It's right. Big heh.
A little quizzlette called Not All Americans Are Stupid is supposed to prove that Americans are not as ignorant as the world seems to believe. Unfortunately, the Americans are not really doing as well as the rest of the world.
Oddly, the company that wrote it appears to be a British company, which explains why some of the questions seem designed specifically to point out misconceptions that Americans are prone to. Take the test and you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, 15 out of 20 for me. (via GromBlog)
I love this. An Indian mobile operator has fitted a fleet of rickshaws with mobile phones so they can function like moving phone boxes. The rickshaws are fitted with a battery, phone and printer (although charging the battery by pedal-power seems like it would be a good idea as well).
There are also plans for wireless laptop equipped rickshaws and even camels for desert areas. Fab.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Playboy magazine. they've put all 50 years worth of magazine covers online. Some fantastic cover art. It's a shame that magazine covers aren't the graphic design masterpiece's they once were. The newer covers look cheap and nasty in comparison. I'd say they started going downhill in the 70s... (Thanks to Andrew for the link)
Sort of like a 2D wireframe version of Gameware and the BBC's Bamzooki, an online game called Sodarace is a competition to design and race over 2D terrains.
Tony Blair's asked for some "improving literature" for Christmas and the Beeb's commentors have come up with a rather good selection of books. I'd skip right past the BBC's recommendations, however.
Michael's latest post happened onto the subject of Buddhism, which is obviously a subject of great interest to me. One of the many things that fascinates me is its depth and multitudes of levels. At it's most basic, it is simple rules of ethical conduct for lay people. Like the 10 commandments, only fewer...
Normal people need only worry about the first five sila:
1. Refrain from taking life (don't kill)
2. Refrain from taking that which is not given (don't steal)
3. Refrain from improper sexual conduct (don't use sex to manipulate people, cheat, etc.)
4. Refrain from incorrect speech (don't lie)
5. Refrain from intoxicants that lead to carelessness
During periods of intense meditation or during special observance days, the precept regarding sexual misconduct is extended to any sexual relations at all and adds on 3 more:
6. Refrain from eating after noon.
7. Refrain from singing, dancing, watching entertainments, wearing garlands, perfume or cosmetics
8. Refrain from sleeping on a raised or luxurious bed
In Burma, over a million people live as monks or nuns and the Buddha felt that life within the Sangha, or community of monks, was the best way of achieving the ultimate state of nirvana. Nirvana, or true awakening, requires a devotion to to the teachings of the Buddha and faith that their practise will lead to enlightenment. Novices must observe the same practises as above, but precept 7 is split into two and an additional prohibition on the handling of money is added. Anyone can become a novice by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha and by agreeing to the ten precepts. This is not a lifelong committment, but rather one that can be entered into or left at will.
Should the novice wish to be ordained, the rules become rather more specific with 227 rules for Bhikkhus (monks) and 311 for Bhikkhunis (nuns). These rules are very specific and rather amusing, covering such things as how, when and from whom robes and other neccessary items can be obtained, how and where to bathe, how to relate to fellow monks and nuns and are phrased in such a way as to make skirting the rules pretty difficult.
I should also point out that the Burmese practise Theravada Buddhism, also called the "Doctrine of the Elders," which draws its scriptural inspiration from the texts of the Pali Canon, or Tipitaka. The dominant form of Buddhism in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, and Laos) and Sri Lanka, it is differentiated from the Mahayana Buddhism of China, Tibet, Japan and Korea in its emphasis on individual development through monastic practise.
Mahayana's goal is to become a Bodhisattva - one, who out of an infinite compassion, deliberately pauses on the edge of attaining Nirvana so to help others to achieve enlightenment. It tends to use more ritual and chanting while an adaptation of it, the Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism of Tibet, makes use of difficult and complicated rituals as a sort of "fast-track" to Bodhisattvahood.
Speaking of the environment, it appears that we can help protect wild plants and animals and that it can work. Personally, I think hubris is our biggest problem at the moment. We now (mostly) know that biodiversity is good for us but need to recognise that nature actually knows better than we do and our best tactic is to learn from it, rather than conquer it. I mean really - how can we expect to know better than 3.85 billion years of trial and error?
One of the things that was really obvious about Myanmar was the lack of waste products visible on the ground. Never saw any plastic bag covered trees and not many corners full of plastic sandwich boxes, plastic drinks containers and plastic wrappers (like what blows into my front garden of a day).
Even in the best hotels, you never found little disposable bottles of shampoo, but rather refillable glass bottles or little wooden containers with shampoo and lotion. I loved that.
I like this recyclable plastic breakthrough which may mean that plastic recycling is far more viable. I alsways wondered why plastics weren't recycled more often and apparently re-heating it causes the material to degrade. This new plastic is created by squeezing, rather than heating and so may avoid the issue of polymer breakdown.
Using less packaging would be a quicker and easier solution, of course. Stupid marketing people.