I’m not sure if this is still worth doing now that third parties fill the gap, but here’s another batch of Twitter archives (see previously). I only started archiving them because I didn’t trust that Twitter would last, and maybe in the long run that’s still true. I’ve been using it mainly as a links blog anyway, and have posted many of those links here this year, but not everything has made it across. I couldn’t be bothered checking for link duplication below, but have omitted a few course-related tweets and some featured in earlier posts. Either way, there’s bound to be a link or retweet here worth a look.
Read More · 
28 April 2012 · 
I wandered past some daffodils
One sunny afternoon,
A pleasant sight that always thrills
A chap who’s prone to swoon.
They danced and fluttered in the breeze
Like golden hummingbirds,
A host of flowers bound to please
All fans of florid words.
I photographed their laughing forms
In macro, in a crouch,
And now a glimpse of sunlight warms
My cockles on the couch.
Of all the blooms, the daffodil
Is one that I have heard’s worth
Pondering at length, until
One gets one’s eighty words’ worth.
27 March 2012 ·
Nagging conundrum of the week was courtesy of a knife manufacturer who confounded all expectations by replacing two kitchen knives with cracked handles that J. had sent them under warranty on the off-chance. They recommended not putting their knives in the dishwasher in future, as (to paraphrase, because we’ve thrown out the letter) “although our knives are dishwasher-safe, they are not dishwasher-proof”.
I’ve spent days wondering what the difference could possibly be. If they’re safe from the dishwasher, surely that means they’re dishwasher-proof? Aren’t the terms synonymous?
But I think I’ve solved it: by “dishwasher-safe”, they must mean that the dishwasher is safe from the knives.
These knives will not cut your dishwasher; they are gentle, dishwasher-safe knives. But your dishwasher, in a cruel role-reversal, could well scald them to death.
17 March 2012 ·
I shouldn’t have blown all those links in one post last night, should I. Now it’s late, there’s a blog entry to do, and I’d rather go and watch telly. Here is a photograph of some moss.
15 March 2012 ·
The Holga D [via Mefi] isn’t a real product, but even as a concept there’s something irksome about it. Oh, here it is—how it supposedly “brings back the joy and delayed gratification associated with good old analog photography”:
In the age of digital photography many photographers agree that the anticipation and delayed gratification of analog photography made the overall experience of photography even sweeter!
Do they, just. I remember the excitement of getting my photos back from the developers, but I don’t attribute that to some romantic idea of delayed gratification: I attribute it to getting my photos back. When that process went from taking weeks to seconds, I was still just as excited; actually, no, I was much more excited. Now I take it for granted, but haven’t forgotten what a pain that “delayed gratification” really was.
Read More · 9 March 2012 ·
Western Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart has attached some awe-inspiring lines of self-penned verse to a 30-ton iron ore boulder [via Mefi], which is a waste of a perfectly good boulder, not to mention 171 perfectly good words. I don’t know who’s cringing more, the Australian in me or the occasional poet. If the world hadn’t noticed Rinehart and her staggering wealth before now, it will surely notice her staggering way with rhyme.
This demands a riposte from an Australian with an empire with an estimated value of A$0.0001 billion.
Read More · 17 February 2012 · x1
Can cabbages really converse?
So it seems, though their blabber is terse:
They confer using gas,
Warning others, “Alas!
Things look bad, and about to get worse.”
The irony is that, once beaten,
And shredded, steamed, buttered and eaten,
Their gases again
Serve as warning—to men.
“He ate cabbage: consider retreatin’.”
8 February 2012 ·
You know those stories of great scientists who wake up in the middle of the night with a dream image in their heads that provides the answer to a problem they’ve been working on? Like that chemist who dreamt of Ouroboros and came up with the structure of benzene?
I woke up in the middle of the night with two words burnt into my brain, convinced at that moment that they were incredibly significant:
Cat flip-flops.
Read More · 21 January 2012 · x1
My Australian sister-in-law is visiting with her German boyfriend, and the conversation turned, as it does, to the subject of Aussie food that you can’t get in Europe. Exhibit A: musk sticks. I’d forgotten all about these, but they’re a key component of bags of mixed lollies in Oz. You can get them in the UK, too, provided you’re prepared to pay £3.75 for a measly 200g bag of Black & Gold ones. But the Internet always provides: turns out you can make your own, as long as you can find some musk oil. So, all you have to do is boil down a passing musk ox, and you’re in the pink.
7 January 2012 ·
Whatever in 2011
