<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<opml version="2.0">
<head>
<title>02.opml</title>
<dateCreated>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:06:38 GMT</dateCreated>
<dateModified>Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:41:08 GMT</dateModified>
<ownerName>Tom Morris</ownerName>
</head>
<body><outline text="Changes are afoot at Grazr - see &lt;a href=&quot;http://feedonomics.grazr.com/index.php/archives/225&quot;&gt;Adam's blog post&lt;/a&gt; on the subject." created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:41:08 GMT"/><outline text="&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.buffalobeast.com/122/50mostloathsome2007PF.html&quot;&gt;The 50 Most Loathsome People of 2007&lt;/a&gt;. I agree with most of them actually. U.S. politics is so incessantly moronic that contempt for everyone involved, including the celebrity-obsessed media machine that cultivates such idiocy, is the most rational reaction. But I'm not supposed to be angry." created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:33:36 GMT"/><outline text="&lt;a href=&quot;http://heathen.tv/videos/happy-heathen-new-year/&quot;&gt;Sylvia Browne&lt;/a&gt; gets the YouTube fisking treatment. The Internet is helping to invigorate our cultural memories. This video comes from &lt;a href=&quot;http://heathen.tv&quot;&gt;heathen.tv&lt;/a&gt;, a new video site that links to stuff about religion, science, quackery and atheism. (Via &lt;a href=&quot;http://stupidevilbastard.com/index/seb/comments/how_well_did_sylvia_browne_do_with_her_predictions_for_2007/&quot;&gt;Les at Stupid Evil Bastard&lt;/a&gt;)" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:06:38 GMT"/>
<outline text="The year ahead" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"><outline text="Since &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/cubicgarden/design/?permalink=My-New-Year-Resolutions.html&quot;&gt;Ian&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://adactio.com/journal/1397&quot;&gt;Jeremy&lt;/a&gt; have blogged their new year's resolution, I thought it's maybe time to do the same thing. Think of this as a little bit of &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt;-time on my blog - &#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="First, though, 2007. I made one and only one resolution. I would not pay more than twenty pounds/Euros/dollars (delete as appropriate) for entrance into a conference or event. I succeeded. The most I paid to get into any event was fifteen pounds. The vast majority of events I went to this year were free. Although the formal requirement of last year's resolution is satisfied, I will be keeping up the principle for this year. The reason behind it is quite simple - because the more conferences cost, the less they are worth. There was an event planned earlier this year called Ajax2007 which &lt;a href=&quot;http://tommorris.org/blog/2007/02/14#When:21:14:19&quot;&gt;I blogged about here&lt;/a&gt; - it was going to cost over two thousand pounds for a two day conference in central London on a technology that you can learn quite well from &lt;a href=&quot;http://worldcat.org/oclc/84906088&amp;&quot; rel=&quot;read&quot;&gt;a book&lt;/a&gt; that won't cost you more than &lt;a href=&quot;http://urlb.at/4p4&quot;&gt;twenty quid or so from Amazon&lt;/a&gt;. Compared to &lt;a href=&quot;http://barcamp.org/&quot;&gt;BarCamp&lt;/a&gt; which is &lt;em&gt;free&lt;/em&gt; (or close enough not to notice), what is the point?&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="That's the formal book-keeping of 2007 out the way. What else happened? Well, the one thing I'm most gratified with is fuddling my way through my degree. I've always had a rocky relationship with formal education, but getting a high 2.1 degree from London and completely acing the dissertation makes me feel &lt;em&gt;vindicated&lt;/em&gt;. I &lt;em&gt;showed the bastards&lt;/em&gt;. So much so that I'm going back this year - hopefully - to go further into the realms of impractical ideas, dodgy cardigans etc.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="That's the first resolution then - &lt;em&gt;kick arse&lt;/em&gt; academically and intellectually. No slouching. In the cloying and greetings card jargon of our times: be the best one can possibly be. Achieve - at least on the bookish front - some level of &lt;em&gt;eudemonia&lt;/em&gt;. I'm thinking about how I can achieve this, and have a few ideas that are maybe too shocking for my geek friends to contemplate.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="Second thing is I'm going to teach myself Java. Ian is teaching himself Python - being one of the few self-proclaimed designers I know who preaches that old time &lt;a href=&quot;http://tomcat.apache.org&quot;&gt;Tomcat&lt;/a&gt; religion! - but I'm going in the other direction. There's lots to dislike about Java - and, boy, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.jwz.org/doc/java.html&quot;&gt;people&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/javacrit.htm&quot;&gt;sure&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.advogato.org/article/624.html&quot;&gt;don't&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.arizona.edu/projects/sumatra/hallofshame/&quot;&gt;hold&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://del.icio.us/tommorris/javahate&quot;&gt;back&lt;/a&gt;. But for the things I'm working on in my spare time - centered, as they are, around &lt;acronym title=&quot;Resource Description Framework&quot;&gt;RDF&lt;/acronym&gt; - it's something I'll have to live with.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="Those are both quite academic - philosophy and Java - but crafting these New Year's Resolution things requires one to be a bit more honest and personal, something I tend to avoid in my blog. And there are a lot of things I need to fix.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="I need to calm down &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt;. Some might say I have &lt;em&gt;anger issues&lt;/em&gt;. London brings that out a lot in me. I take the train and everything and everybody on the train puts me on edge. I get off the train and start walking, and people get in my way, slow me down. Grr. Irritating as hell. Then I find out the Tube's not running and I'm getting quite close to boiling point. I'm getting angry just thinking about it. I feel that I'm surrounded by people who are trying hard to irritate me at every opportunity. I don't explode, though. I just feel huffy and quietly infuriated the whole day. I try hard to control it, and not be rude or discourteous to people. This is one thing I've got to fix. I'm a bloody grumpy old man, and I'm still in my early twenties. So, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.apa.org/topics/controlanger.html&quot;&gt;fix my anger issues&lt;/a&gt;. Don't worry - even if I don't fix 'em, I won't be going &lt;a href=&quot;http://imdb.com/title/tt0106856/&quot;&gt;Falling Down&lt;/a&gt; or Columbine on you or anything. This is Britain, after all, so I'm more likely to send an angry letter to &lt;em&gt;The Times&lt;/em&gt; (and have a cup of tea) than I am to commit mass murder.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="Furthermore, I've got to exercise every single day and stop eating crap. This is pretty self-explanatory, and I'm expecting that quite a few people will be trying to push themselves towards healthiness in the next year. Rock on.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="Another thing I'm doing this year - ensuring that &lt;a href=&quot;http://barcamp.org/SemanticCampLondon&quot;&gt;SemanticCamp London&lt;/a&gt; happens and that it rocks. I'm still in e-mail limbo at the moment trying to get sponsors on board and so on, but I hope we'll be able to start giving out tickets very soon. Watch this space.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="Finally, I'm going to really knock my &lt;acronym title=&quot;Getting Things Done&quot;&gt;GTD&lt;/acronym&gt;-fu into overdrive (and mix Eastern and Western metaphors with gay abandon). Off to town it is to buy folders for paper-based reference. Or maybe I should rig up a scanner and scan all this stuff in. All my actions go into &lt;a href=&quot;http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper&quot;&gt;TaskPaper&lt;/a&gt;. All my e-mails get answered promptly (sorry to those still awaiting responses - it's all pure laziness, I guarantee). Everything borrowed goes back. Every penny accounted for. Which goes back to where I started - &lt;em&gt;kicking arse&lt;/em&gt;. That's what all New Year's Resolutions come down to - just being a better, more kick arse human being.&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="&#13;" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/><outline text="Right, now I've aired my laundry, we can get back to the business at hand: &lt;a href=&quot;http://flickr.com/photos/_lynn/2157945814/&quot;&gt;unbelievably&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://flickr.com/photos/loveablelamb/2156985429/&quot;&gt;cute&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://flickr.com/photos/calanan/235278742/&quot;&gt;pictures&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://flickr.com/photos/nsukhia/228269740/&quot;&gt;of&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://flickr.com/photos/samlara/535363735/&quot;&gt;puppies&lt;/a&gt;!" created="Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:27 GMT"/></outline></body>
</opml>
