The Daily Grind

Charles Arthur in the Guardian tries to compare inflation-adjusted fuel prices for the last century, gets things a bit wrong, gets in a bit of a muddle, and accidentally ends up providing a superb demonstration of how to handle criticism and comport oneself online.

I’m particularly impressed that he’s left in much of his initial analysis, only struck through it, so you can see how the post itself has developed.

The data’s interesting, too.

I’m slightly surprised to learn that I’m living in the third-largest population centre in the UK.

This via some sterling work undertaken at Trinity College, Dublin, working out what the best-connected Wikipedia page is. Turns out it’s ‘United Kingdom,’ which perhaps shows we’re not quite done with that whole faintly-embarrassing Empire nonsense just yet.

I’m mostly quite pleased with my Samsung 206BW 20″ LCD monitor. It flickers annoyingly on mid-greys, there’s considerable black-level compression, and the colour shift with vertical viewing angle is pretty bad. But hey, it was cheap, and it’s better than most displays I’ve seen in the price bracket.

At some point soon, however, I’m going to need another monitor, and I’m doing enough colour grading that I want something ‘good’ rather than ‘decent.’ So I’ve been reading up on Dell’s displays, but the latest 2408FPW doesn’t look like it’s what I want. An excellent screen, sure, but I want something with a bit more colour consistency, and that appears to mean S-IPS panels, which this thing isn’t.

Trouble is: how do you know if the display you’re about to buy has the right kind of panel?

There are two approaches. The first is to search at this website, which is terrific. The second approach is to… er… buy Apple’s monitors. In the UK, at least, they’re around the same price as the equivalent-size Dells, once you go above the 20″ models. While I’d love multiple inputs (DVI, VGA, HDMI…), I’ll take a S-IPS panel over the Dell, thanks.

The only thing that’s really galling is the suggestion that roughly the most advanced panel you can currently get is the one in the 24″ iMac. But not, note, in Apple’s 23″ Cinema Display. Darn.

However, the Cinema Displays haven’t been updated in two years. I think they’re now the oldest products in the range, and it seems unlikely they’ll remain as they are for much longer.

I’ll hold out a bit, then…

Oh, arse. The nice chaps behind OpenTech 2008 have asked if I’d take point on video for them again.

Last time around it was 20 hours+ of tape. Digitize, top/tail, export, compress, upload… it’s a lot of work. Not hard, just time-consuming. Since I already have a significant backlog of paying projects, I really should say no.

Unless… unless… there may just be a cunning way. Hmm…

Must. Think. Carefully.

Beautiful trailer for a new film: The Fall. Oooh, pretty colours.

No idea when it’s out in the UK, though.

…wading through business cards gathered from NESTA’s Innovation Edge event yesterday.

…planning other meetings through the week.

…meeting somebody whose job title actually is ‘Information Architect’.

…filing (& bumping) bug reports for the SciCast site.

…hoping to make it to my first Tuttle Club on Friday, partly to find out exactly how frustrating people found the sessions at the aforementioned event yesterday.

…and wondering whether and how to reply to a film-maker who’s aggrieved that we’ve rejected his film on safety grounds. I don’t mind disagreeing with him, but his blogged misrepresentation of my position rankles more than I’d have expected. I should probably let it go.

(Note to self: when MT4.15 appears, update, move to Universal Template Set, and integrate Action Streams. Durr. Oh, and properly fix commenting, though I think the update might mostly sort that.)

I hate compiling expenses claims and doing accounts so much, at least my kitchen is clean and tidy.

Somebody tell me this story isn’t ripe for a movie. A rousing tale of underdogs… staying underdogs. And then not being able to pay the toll on the Dartford Tunnel.

Genius.

More detail here.

A taxi driver the other day, having seen me load camera bags into the back of his car, asked me if I’d been involved in the video shoot round the corner ‘the other week.’ He expressed incredulity that I hadn’t noticed – apparently it had been somewhat disruptive.

Turns out it was a year ago, while I was in Dublin: Paolo Nutini shot a video for ‘New Shoes’ about a hundred yards from my flat in Tantallon Road.

So if you want to see what a street just off mine looks like, check out the video on YouTube.

Gosh.