This is remarkably similar to the mantelpiece in my own lounge room, which is also in greyscale. (From English Homes Vol III no. 1, Late Tudor, published in 1922.)
My micro life: 4:09pm, 11 October 2009
If you gave your employer a document prepared using MS Word’s default styles, the only conclusion your employer could reach would be that they’d hired Charles Manson.
My micro life: 4:40pm, 9 October 2009
Always a bit sceptical when I hear The Wiggles claim that Dorothy is their favourite dinosaur.
What basis for comparison do they have?
Found object: 3:37pm, 5 October 2009
My micro life: 11:55am, 4 October 2009
The delivery label for my IKEA goods had them addressed to “chris miks”. Which I guess is appropriately minimalist and Scandinavian.
The middle-class guide to the galaxy
As the publication date nears for Eoin Colfer’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy continuation novel, the Guardian surveys the place of the original work (which is to say, the radio series, novels and TV series combined) in the British psyche. “The Hitchhiker stories make up a sort of folk-art depiction, like on a tribal carpet, of the late-1970s English middle-class cosmic order,” says Jenny Turner.
My micro life: 10:01am, 3 October 2009
At IKEA. The Verdana, the horror.
Found object: 6:53pm, 2 October 2009
From the Manuel Typographique, utile Aux Gens de Lettres, published in 1766. That was a good year for quaint pointy hands. (Though of course they weren’t quaint back then.)
Found object: 8:37am, 2 October 2009
Either I used to own this book, or the cover artist has access to my childhood nightmares.
My micro life: 12:45pm, 1 October 2009
Opened bin to find wasp in there. Put bag of incredibly soiled nappies on top of wasp.
Humans: 1
Vespidae: nil
My micro life: 1:50pm, 29 September 2009
The best kind of cheese is four kinds of cheese.
Found object: 7:28pm, 18 September 2009
Because clearly something had to be done about that spate of unofficial histories.
Going vintage to get things done
Freelance writer Riccardo Mori steps back in time to a Mac running System 7.1 (connected to an old iBook running System 9 as "a bridge between the 'old' world and the 'new' world" of his regular setup) to avoid the shiny, internet-connected world of distraction that OS X offers: emails, RSS, spur of the moment research on the muddy muddy web. Great photo of his barebones setup; I felt instantly calmed (and envious).
My micro life: 6:20pm, 15 September 2009
Slivering almonds must be a bastard of a job.
My micro life: 1:06pm, 11 September 2009
Managed to flick a vibrant yellow stripe of poo onto myself. Not my own, if that makes it any better.
My micro life: 6:24pm, 4 September 2009
If you need to come to my house to convince me of the benefits of your product, I suspect it’s because there are none.
My micro life: 3:09pm, 3 September 2009
Melbourne’s weather is like the Jeckyll and Hyde of, um, weather.
Yeah, I was up pretty early this morning.
My micro life: 1:35pm, 2 September 2009
Nothing like glorious spring sunshine to put you in the mood to draft your will. Thinking of leaving everything to the Elves of Rainbowland.
My micro life: 7:59am, 28 August 2009
Confirmed! Robot dancing to an incorrectly-sung version of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ is not amusing to child who is, at that moment, defecating.
Karl von Frisch’s Decoding the language of the bee
Frisch translated the meaning of bees' waggle dances, by which a hive compares incoming reports from individual bees about nearby food sources to make collective decisions. According to Alex Wright in his book Glut: mastering information through the ages, other studies have shown that while a single bee can retain a piece of data for up to six days, a hive, through this collective information management enterprise, can retain the same data for up to three months. This page offers a PDF download of Frisch's 1973 Nobel Lecture on the subject.