Ban cluster bombs

http://www.avaaz.org/en/ban_cluster_munitions/12.php?cl=91429987
(The UK, as ever, has dirty hands.)

Number crunching

It cost me more to buy a bunch of flowers than to get my bike serviced.

NVCF 2008

This was good fun (as much fun as you can have in a barn full of decaying electronics, to say nothing of the punters); I think Keith P and myself have become part of the supporting cast as we have now attended most of the fairs since about 2001. I particularly enjoyed a chat with a man who services record-cutting lathes (as you can imagine, he is one of the very, very few people who do). Also
talked to a bloke who reckons he’s listened to more than 1,000 pairs of the iconic BBC LS3/5A loudspeaker. Not all at once mind you.

• The NVCF site
• Disc cutting lathes: this looked fun
• LS3/5A: unofficial support site; very old ‘vintage equipment’ review; another interesting site (note link to the 1986 review)

HTML, over in a Flash

Should the newly-opened Flash format take over mainstream web development, forcing HTML into decline, then presumably the semantic web will be dead. There will end a notable experiment in creating a coherent system that ties the visual world of graphic design and typography with their fascinating subtlety of inflection to the editorial and data-centric, largely systematic world of structure; structured formats will simply become a gothic addendum to electronic data interchange as real users simply download endless binary files. Rather a pity.

At the same time I struggle to imagine how Flash usage can proceed without acquiring some notion that structure and visual form can align. Something, perhaps, driven by a markup language:

Dynamic text also has many formatting capabilities that static text does not have. These rich formatting capabilities are expressed as a subset of HTML text-markup tags.
(Source: Shockwave file format v.9 specifications)

But I don’t know much about Flash: the last time I looked it was for making little animations with.

Shipleys’ advertise Seeking Inspiration conference at St Bride Library

I was pleased to see Shipleys’ in Charing Cross Road have the conference poster designed by Agata Wycichowska in pride of place on their front door; last weekend I was able to get a picture taken for the record, thanks to Toby. It’s a rather nice speciment of screenprinting with metallic ink (the poster, that is).

Reading Beer Festival 2008

Went along last night to this convivial event. The following were very nice:

Dr Hexter’s Healer, West Berkshire. Straightforward and accomplished bitter

Hoppit, Loddon. Bit like Lapsang Souchong crossed with stout

Doom Bar, Sharps. A tangy bitter for old time’s sake really

Medium Dry perry, Gwynt Y Ddraig. Very polished perry; rounded things off as far as I was concerned.