Yzabel / July 31, 2005

A Glimpse Into VectorTown

Here’s VectorTown, a site I’ll be keeping under close scrutiny for now, since it may become an interesting venture:

Vectortown.com is aiming to be a global community of serious illustrators, designers and artists who have a desire to showcase their vector artwork. Our goal is to promote the artists within community and to further the exposure of this exciting and vibrant art form. Our mission:

In the past years, my own work has turned more and more toward the vector style, and thus I’m always on the look-out for such places and websites. This one probably still looks a little empty for the moment; however, for the interested ones, you can read there an interview of Cristiano Siqueira, which art is pretty much representative of the good kind of work that is found in the vector world.

Yzabel / July 30, 2005

French-Styled Blog-Mania Broadcast

This will be of interest only to people who can understand spoken French, but I decided to post it anyway. Fortunately for me, I stumbled by chance this morning on a recent entry on Pointblog.com, titled “Questions autour de la Blog-mania sur France Inter”) and pointing to the page of Radio France Inter’s broadcast Le téléphone sonne. On Thursday, July 29th, said broadcast was focused on blogs, and even though I had missed it at the time, it is still possible currently to listen to it on France Inter website.From what I’ve listened to so far, the confirmed blogger probably won’t find there any exclusive information; however, for anyone who appreciates having access to varied points of view, even if this implies going back to the bsis of the phenomenon at times, this broadcast will probably turn out to be an interesting one (it notably raises questions on the importance of comments, or the way marketing talk is perceived here).

Yzabel / July 29, 2005

A’Female’Android

True or not? She sure looks like it. Seen on the BBC News online page, this article mentions how Japanese develop ‘female’ android:

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised – a “female” android called Repliee Q1.She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.

Putting aside all the considerations that can be had regarding how technology in that domain has progressed, going from barely able to stand pieces of metal to an almost human-looking one, I can’t prevent myself from thinking furiously to Philip K. Dick and to his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. There are implications and ramifications here, that could ge way beyond what one would expect. Real androids, that could one day pass for humans and fool even the most observant minds… perhaps even starting by their own. Fascinating and yet frightening thought, too, for us who are so bent on our identity.For the moment, though, perhaps it’s best to simply take it as what it’s meant to be — technical progress in action?

Yzabel / July 28, 2005

Why I Like Reading About Blogs

Today, I changed my “Current Read” in the sidebar, to reflect what I’ve indeed been reading since yesterday evening. This made me realize that in the past few weeks, I’ve read quite often about blogs, blogging, how it all started and evolved… Let’s check: I first started with Rebecca Blood’s The Weblog Handbook, back in June (Rebecca writes theblog What’s in Rebecca’s Pocket). Almost immediately after having finished it, I jumped on Biz Stone’s Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content; I had never read Biz’ blog before that, but it didn’t matter. Now, I’m onto his second book. Among my regular reads, I follow several blogs “about blogging”, in order to keep in touch with what happens in this little world, and because I find these interesting (as long as they’re not the only thing I read). Am I obsessed?

I came to the conclusion that it may, all that simply, be my usual tendency to want to go deeper, to the roots of a phenomenon. Yes, blogging has skyrocketed in the past two or three years, compared to what it was in the beginning. Yes, I am myself quite a “newcomer” to this scene, given that I haven’t really blogged before 2004 (except for some “online diary” on AMV.org that doesn’t present much interest for anyone else than myself). Yes, this may explain why I like knowing more, because it teaches me interesting things, how to behave, what not to do, and what gave birth to all of this. In all of this, there’s a real social analysis; bloggers are, after all, social creatures, in a way (how can one write that much if they never communicate with others — and why would they blog in first place?)Obsession? Perhaps. However, I’m learning a lot regarding internet behaviors, and this remains pretty interesting no matter what. I’ll die a little less stupid, I guess.

Yzabel / July 27, 2005

Choosing a Blog Client

In a few words, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the matter:

“Blog client (weblog client) is software to manage (post, edit) blogs from operating system with no need to launch a web browser. A typical blog client has an editor, a spell-checker and a few more options that simplify content creation and editing.”

Truth be told, my first introduction to such tools was done through the excellent Semagic for LiveJournal. Semagic just has one huge flaw: it’s meant to update your a LiveJournal blog, and no other, which was leaving me somewhat in the cold regarding all my nice WordPress-powered blogs (and others, in case I’d like to try different ones). This is the reason why I went looking for a a blog client, and evidently a good one.What would be the interest for these, might one ask? Depending on the people, the answer will range from “none” to “plenty”. All blog systems available out there come with a posting interface that will basically let you write and save your entries before publishing, thus seemingly making such editors a moot point. The thing is, it’s really about comfort, and this can be quite important in the process of writing (after all, I blog for my own pleasure, not to see it turn into a chore with a depressing interface on top of it).Read More

Yzabel / July 27, 2005

Simulating Color Blind Vision

I had first spotted a link to this website on Bombast.org, so later on, I went and checked it for myself for a little longer than just clicking and having a quick look. The website is called Vischeck, and provides interesting information about color blindness, as well as examples and a page to check how your website will appear.

Roughly 1 in 20 people have some sort of color vision deficiency. The world looks different to these people: they often find it hard to tell red and green things apart. This often means that they sometimes can’t see things that ‘color normal’ people can see.Many pictures, documents and web pages are hard for color blind people to read because the people who designed them didn’t think about the problem. Vischeck lets them check their work for color blind visibility. It is also interesting to anyone who is just plain curious about what the world looks like if you’re color blind.

This may not seem more than a curiosity; however, for a graphic-designer or for anyone who dabbles in web-design and wants to obtain the most accuracy possible when it comes to displaying a site, this is a “detail” that not many people usually take into account.(All in all, once tested through Vischeck, this blog remains readable. It’s a good beginning, I think.)

Yzabel / July 26, 2005

All About Feeds

There used to be this mysterious little word, “RSS”, which meaning I couldn’t understand… However, now that I’m myself more used to the world of blogging and of reading news slightly more often than on a sporadic basis only, I found that these weird entities of “feeds” are almost a necessity to keep track with everything; bookmarking one’s favorite blogs in a browser can only take you that far.In a nutshell, feeds are files that are generated in the background and gather data everytime a blog, news source or similar website is updated. Not every blog will have a feed, mind you, but with those that do, it’s quite convenient, since it hands the readers a quick and convenient way to keep up to date with the blog, instead of having to bookmark and manually check it. What may seem like an easy and normal behavior when you read two blogs only becomes a hassle when you want to check a half hundred of them. Or more, way more.So, each time you see these cryptic acronyms of “RSS” (Really Simple Syndication), “Atom” and other “Syndicate this site (XML)” links, these are feeds. What you need next is an aggregator – in other words, a tool that will keep all your feeds in one place, and will check them regularly and warn you when they get updated. This basically comes down to two types of readers: offline and online ones.Read More

Yzabel / July 25, 2005

“New”Blog

Alright, I pondered this over the whole week-end, and yesterday, I finally made my choice.Highly influenced by Loïc Le Meur’s way of doing on his own blog, I’ll freely admit it, I’ve decided to reconsider my bilingual approach to this blog, and actually make two blogs – one in English, the other in French. Let’s not fool myself, I like writing in both languages, but having them contained in one post each time I want to share something will probably get tiresome (it has already begun for me, actually). I’m not sure that I, as a reader, would exactly care about having two versions shoved under the nose each time, especially given the fact that I can often write long posts as well.So, here it is:

  • The English version of this blog remains here, where it has always been. (You can also access it through the domain name ylogs.com.)
  • La version française se trouve à présent à cette URL. Elle sera accessible par le biais du petit drapeau placé sous “About”. Beaucoup plus facile comme cela, non?

Over the past two days, I’ve moved most of the existing posts and comments to the French blog. The remaining ones will very likely be translated and added there as well when I actually finish the whole move (well, not exactly a move, but you get the drift).Of course, this is NOT meant to be a hassle on anyone, feel free to follow one RSS feed only and not both, and so on. Same goes for the comments: I would never expect anyone to comment twice just because the posts exist in both languages. In fact, these blogs can be viewed as quite independant from each other. I may at times post one entry in French only because it relates to something that doesn’t need to be in English, or the contrary, but when I can, I’ll “translate”. You probably won’t miss a lot if following one of the blogs only.Now to fully realize that I’ve added yet another thing to do to my growing list of activities… it’s a good thing that I write fast!

Yzabel / July 24, 2005

Second-Rate Movies on the Sat

Let’s admit it, even if most of the time I can’t find anything worth being watched on the gazillion of channels that TPS kindly gives me access to, sometimes, yes, sometimes, there are a few movies or series that could… deserve to be checked, in a very sarcastic way. Along the traditional lines of “perhaps this won’t be as lousy as it seems”, here comes Bloody Mallory, which made me laugh quite a little. Worth being mentioned is the fact that “laughing” for me can stem from really funny movies as well as from really stupid ones. Or, all considered, second-rate movies may make me laugh even more, since one never knows whether it was lousy on purpose or not. After all, being able to take a movie at the 10th degree is also a quality… I think.To be watched with the same mindset as for a Buffy episode – with a pack of beer and a few pals under the hand. It’s almost like an episode fromDamned, with more money and less private jokes (actually, I really like Damned, even though understanding all the references in it probably categorizes me forever). I still quite digged the cardboard sceneries and the old plot twists that can be smelled ten miles ahead; for a roleplayer who likes betting on what the next scene will be, it’s fun. Most of the acting was frankly bland; however, given that from the start I didn’t intend on taking this movie seriously, it oddly fit.Aye, aye, I also want my version of the Necronomicon in an e-book.

Yzabel / July 22, 2005

Dragons, a Key Theme?

While travelling through our dear Lorraine in which I’m currently expatriated, why not hop by Malbrouck’s castle in Manderen? From April to October 2005 is held there a dragon-themed exhibition, organized in partnership with Paris Natural History Museum.Artworks, goldsmith’s works, paintings, statues and manuscripts from many eras… The exhibition totals about 200 pieces from public and private collections from throughout the whole world, presented according to the following themes:

  • Origins of the European dragon
  • Dragon’s treasures
  • Shapes and symbols of the Asian dragon
  • Zoology of the dragon

The exhibition is open everyday (Monday 14H – 18H, Tuesday to Friday: 10H – 18H, week-end and holidays: 10H – 19H).