Recent Entries in Arbitrary Constant
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On blogging in 2011
I've recorded an audioboo on what you can expect from this blog in 2011. Click below to listen. Listen!...
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Man walks into a column, no.1: Resolution
There are, apparently, many reasons not to make New Year's resolutions. So it's with those many reasons in mind I should point out that I decided upon this course of action a full day in advance of the dawn of 2011. A full day, I tell you (alright, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was on in the background at the time, so it was probably a little less than a full day). My non-resolution is to write...
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2010: A year in blogging
As the year reaches an end, I thought I'd crunch the numbers on blogging here on arbitrary constant. Over the course of the year, there were 579 posts (average of 48 per month). The busiest month was May (due to the General Election) and the quietest was February (because it's a short month). In January the site averaged 455 visits per day, rising to 1,102 visits per day by December 2010, averaging 755 visits per...
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Holiday break
I'm on holiday for the next 10 days or so. Blogging is therefore likely to be light....
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#healthwhitepaper posts summary
For ease of reference, below are links to the series of posts published here on the subject of the Health White Paper, the focus of which on this site has been patient voice and equity. Patient voice in the Health White Paper Where's all the 'equity' when the NHS has been 'liberated'? (a guest post by Christine Burns) The Health White Paper and social care The BMA and the Health White Paper Democratic accountability in...
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Revisiting my #ge10 prediction
Before the election, I gave my detailed prediction for the General Election 2010. Let's see how I did: I think the Tories will be the biggest party and I think they'll have enough for a majority. I've already posted that I think their majority will be between 30-40. This means a vote share of over 41%. Though I probably don't agree with myself now (I think it will be a bit tighter - vote share...
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And we're back in the room...
After some significant technical problems over the last week, in which the behind-the-scenes of arbitrary constant became worryingly shaky, I'm pleased to say we're now back up and running. Fortunately for us - and potentially unfortunately for you - this means we can cover the lead-in to the General Election next Thursday with our usual mix of insight, naivety and sheer optimism in the face of all known facts and received opinion. Bet you're pleased...
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Debating the debate: responding to my fisking
The 3 leaders' debates have been and gone. Stef gave me a good fisking after the first debate, based on a post I wrote a few weeks ago. Now taking the long view, I thought I'd respond to each of his points. Note: my original points in italics; Stef's argument in italics below. 1. Debating points and issues in the debates won't really be the aim. Instead, it will be used as an opportunity to...
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Our General Election / #GE10 predictions
Your three humble resident bloggers got together on Tuesday night for a drink at a fashionable North London pub. For a laugh, we entered the quiz that night under the team name "Vince Cable and Nick Cleggs". Ironically enough, we won. Fresh from our success, we decided it would be a good idea to write down our predictions for the upcoming General Election. These, then, are they. The first is the specific range each of...
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Darling's daring (and the C4 Chancellors' debate)
Alistair Darling can't rightly be described as 'daring'; even so, it made for a good post title. This is just a short post celebrating the fact that, for once, I was right when I wrote (back in January!) that Darling is key. His solidly boring budget and the finding that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling (33%) are more trusted to run the economy than Cameron and Osborne (27%) all go to further demonstrate the point....
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Friday puzzle, no.9 (Monday edition)
The occasional weekend away, no matter how lovely, does play havoc with the Friday puzzle publishing schedule. I should have had more forethought and called it just 'puzzle' instead. Nevertheless, in this special Monday edition of the Friday puzzle, we plough on with the answer to last week's puzzle: Are there more inches in a mile or Sundays in a thousand years? As any units converter [there's an app for that — ed] will tell...
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Welcome to the new design
I don't want to navel gaze on the redesign of arbitrary constant too much: blogging on blogging is never much fun at the best of times. But I did just want to briefly outline the main reason for making the change. I set this site up in 2003, mainly as a personal space to get a few thoughts down. Comments were originally available, but the spammers soon took over and I didn't have the technical...
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Your RSS patience, please
A quick note to ask you to keep with us whilst we make changes to the site over the next few days.
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Change you can believe in
Details of some big changes happening to arbitrary constant over the next few days.
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Introducing Phil Copestake
I'm delighted to announce that Phil Copestake will be joining Stef and me here at arbitrary constant, contributing his thoughts and insights across a wide variety of topics to the blog. In an attempt to mitigate the significant risk that all 6 readers of this site will fail to return, I will resist the temptation of recounting the entire work and friendship history between Phil and me. Suffice it to say that he's a fantastic...
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Long weekend break
I'm enjoying a long weekend break with family in Newcastle, so there will be no blogging from me. Updates on Twitter (see right) for those intrigued by my experiences of the north east....
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The 343 bus
We like to cover the key issues here at arbitrary constant. Politicians swearing? We've got that covered. Application of planning laws to barmy farmers who try and hide their self-build castles behind hay stacks and tarpaulin? Right here. And, one from the history banks this, UKIP using European law to challenge a very British issue? We're happy to oblige. To continue this high quality coverage, we're pleased to report that the frequency of the 343...
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Mr W's welcome return
Just in case anyone is confused, I'm very pleased to say that Stef Webb is back and blogging here on the blog. You can normally tell the difference between my posts and his by the more revolutionary and potty-mouthed tone of his. Good to have you back, Stef....
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Back to the love affair with delicious
For a very long time (nearly a year) I didn't save one bookmark to delicious, mainly as the result of a combination of factors — more use of Google Reader, my iPhone, more Twitter, a lack of practical integration between these things and delicious, plus an uncooperative work computer. But I'm pleased to say I've started again. Thus, all pages I bookmark on delicious, plus any additional comments or extracts, will appear in the column...
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Unique searching points
They say that blogs need to have a unique selling point. Unfortunately, I'm a bit too interested in too many things to have that, you know, one thing anyone might come here for. This said, I'm particularly proud of the three people who made it to this site by searching for, respectively: I've put 30,000 pounds towards house, girlfriend, nothing and Willie Thorne, annoying commentary and Carol Vorderman's bottom...
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The Watts & Wrighty podcast: coming soon
I'm very pleased to say that my good friend Wrighty and I have been working on some podcasts for the last few weeks. We've recorded a few and, having listened through them, are going to unleash them. The first one will be out soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview from yesterday's recording, where I briefly explain AudioBoo to Wrighty: Listen!...
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Holiday break
My apologies for the lack of posts over the last week — work called. There will be no updates over the next week since I'll be on holiday. Normal blogging will resume after that....
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Holiday interval
After braving Ryanair staff, I'm now on holiday for a few days. Blogging will resume on Thursday....
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Quotation of the week
It is true that we had 10 years of record growth when I was Prime Minister. I have, unfortunately, come to the conclusion that it was luck. — Tony Blair. See my last post for a related question: "Does Brown believe in God?". This is quite an amazing quote, and obviously does Gordon Brown no favours. However, David Cameron and the Conservatives still need to turn the quotation, and the prevailing economic conditions, so that...
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Normal service resuming
It's taken over a month for arbitrary constant to calm down from the excitement of the US presidential election. A lot has happened in that time, the most important of which is, clearly, that the BBC has dropped Crufts from its scheduling. Although they claim this is due to something to do with dog breeds, it's clearly to do with the fact that Crufts makes for shit television. So, with that piece of analysis,...
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Bank Holiday break
Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few days. To be honest, I haven't stopped laughing since (1) Chelsea lost the Champions League Final with (1a) Didier Drogba being sent off, and (1b) John Terry missing the crucial penalty. Anyway, service will resume later on this week....
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Redesign
Taking advantage of a short holiday, I have completed work on a redesign for arbitrary constant. Whilst I enjoyed the old design, I wanted to go for something a bit simpler that concentrated more on the writing than anything else, and that looked a bit old fashioned. This design should also be more consistent across browsers, too. As with the previous redesign there are still plenty of things to be sorted (not least of which...
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The streets of Peckham
Reader, I'm sorry to have worried you. You are sure to have known that I live in south east London (occasionally known as "the enclave", though more commonly known as "Peckham") and would therefore, if that area's parliamentary representative is to be believed, have worried about the lack of posts on arbitrary constant and the implications for my safety. Fear not, though, for the 343 bus route is both safe and reliable, and the need...
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Easter break
arbitrary constant is passing the Easter weekend by completing a jigsaw and not doing much more. As such, blogging will resume next week. Have a great break, wherever you happen to be....
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Stef — happy birthday
Today is the birthday of my esteemed friend, co-writer, policy wonk, swearer, dancer and wearer of blonde highlights, Mr Stefan Webb. If all readers of arbitrary constant will excuse the indulgence, I'd like to record the fact that Stef is a tremendous man on many levels — as an intellect and as a friend — and he is valued both here and in the real world very much indeed. Happy birthday, Stef....
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Happy New Year from me, as well
A Happy New Year from me (Rich), as well. Posting from me will continue to be light. However, I am posting a lot to del.icio.us at the moment, so please keep an eye on the column to the right for what's catching my eye....
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Temporary service until next week
Things will be a bit quiet here over the next few days, whilst one of us gets used to a new job and the soreness associated with cycling every day, and the other runs London. Please accept our apologies in advance....
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Amazon astore
A large part of arbitrary constant is given over to reviewing books and film. Having also added some links to amazon over the past few weeks, I've decided to also add what is known as an "astore" — an amazon store that reflects the books, film and interests of arbitrary constant. You can find the store here: arbitrary constant's astore. The store isn't complete, but I thought it best to get it up and running...
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The downsides of Amazon
Having added an Amazon link to arbitrary constant, I do, of course, have to take the rough with the smooth. So whilst I would whole-heartedly recommend your viewing Goodbye Lenin, for example (review here), I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend your reading or watching John Pilger, Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky, all of whom have appeared in the Amazon links. You have to take the rough with the smooth, I guess, and that particular triumvirate is...
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Amazon links and category descriptions
There haven't been many changes to arbitrary constant for a good while — the design seems to have been holding up well. With a resurgence in the reading habits of the site, however, it made sense to formalise the link with a site arbitrary constant uses regularly — amazon. Thus, a banner has been added down the left-hand side of the main index and all category pages (but not individual pages). I've also added descriptions...
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On rejoining flickr
For some while, I had let my pro account (or membership) of flickr lapse. This was partly due to a lack of taking photos, not having the time to process and upload photos when I did take some, and generally falling out of love with the much lauded "Web 2.0". As a consequence, I couldn't access all of my photos (a fair limit of 200 is applied to those accounts which aren't "pro") and had...
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A long silence
Dear patient reader, arbitrary constant would like to apologise for the long silence that has befallen it over the past few weeks. As the closest observers of this website will know, one of its proprietors has gone and got themselves married and with it enjoyed the customary honeymoon that often follows. Thus, the silence. It is an unfortunate fact that the real world cannot be avoided for long, and it is with a call upon...
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Bank Holiday break
There will be no posting over the Bank Holiday weekend. In the interim, I'd suggest you enjoy the cricket and good weather (though, in England, both are notoriously difficult to enjoy)....
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Blogs don't kill opinion — people kill opinion
An eery silence on arbitrary constant over the last few weeks, caused by failed internet connections and work. I'm not sure what else can be said. Except that I am a bit sure: is it really worth blogging? I'm still debating that, along with Stef, but in the meantime would like to point you to the debate that has, in part, led to this question. The debate is represented by that between Norman Geras at...
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Interval
Sorry for the lack of posts over the last week or so. Again, I'm afraid this will continue through the weekend, but I hope to start posting at least daily again from early next week. Thanks for your patience! Update: Posting should start in earnest on this Tuesday coming, when I'll look at why Brighton's decision to allocate places at popular schools by lottery was a good one. In the mean time, two very interesting...
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Contact arbitrary constant
It has never been possible to submit a comment on arbitrary constant and, I'm afraid, due to technical problems, it is going to remain impossible to submit comments to arbitrary constant. This said, a little bit of work has gone on behind the scences to make an email address dedicated to the site. As such, if you'd like to get in touch about anything written here — or beyond — then please feel free to...
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Mini-break
Apologies for the lack of regular posting here over the last few days. Unfortunately, this will continue for the rest of the week and posting will resume on or around Sunday — probably with something on the fairly healthy, though could-do-better state of rights in the UK....
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Feed updates
To reflect the new authorship of arbitrary constant, the two columns on the right now contain links and photos from both Rich and Stef. Why don't you have fun trying to figure out which is which? (Or, erm, not as is probably the case.)...
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Introducing Stefan Webb
I'm pleased to say that Stefan Webb, some time contributor to arbitrary constant and Guardian obo foe is joining the permanent writing staff of this website. Stefan brings with him plenty of substantiated opinions and will put forward, I have no doubt, many positions that will challenge not only those reading arbitrary constant, but also my pragmatic left-of-centre politics. I've no doubt there will be ructions in some areas — notably proportional representation — but...
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Categories
With the current design of arbitrary constant, it is not feasibly possible to navigate by category. For this reason, this post lists and links to all of the current categories available, and will be linked to from the Etc. link in the navigation bar above. Arbitrary Constant Art & Design Film Friends in e-places General Interest Literature Music Newspapers Personal Politics Quotation of the Week Society Sport...
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Updated post
It has kindly been pointed out to me by two readers that a substantial point I made in a recent post was based on a misunderstanding of some source material. This mistake relates to the location of Lehigh University in this post. As such, I have updated the post. Please accept my apologies for this mistake....
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Guest writer
Whilst I continue to settle into a new work place and house, a guest writer will take over at arbitrary constant for the next week or two. He goes by the name of Stefan Webb (readers might recall the name from the obo battles that have been taking place recently) and will, I am sure, entertain and challenge over the time ahead....
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No posts
I'm afraid that, once again, there will be no posts this weekend whilst the internet connection at my new house still doesn't exist. I'll be back bright and early next week, however, with some thoughts on the yearly moaning concerning A-Level results and the not-entirely-unlinked matter of the possible solution to the Poincaré conjecture....
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Moving house
I am in the process of moving house this weekend, so posting will be light both for today, tomorrow and for the early part of next week. Please accept my apologies for this. In the interim, I would recommend to the interested reader any one of George Orwell's fine essays — especially Why I Write and Politics and the English Language....
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Weekend away
I won't be posting any updates from today until Monday evening because of a weekend away. In the meantime, I'd recommend keeping track of the second test between England and Pakistan on the Guardian's over-by-over coverage....
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Redesigned arbitrary constant
Having been pleased with the first major redesign of this site for a while, the itchy fingers started playing around with the white space and ended up with this latest offering. There are still a few bits to sort out and tweak — and I've no idea what it looks like in other browsers (probably knackered at a guess) — but I'm much more pleased with the header and navigation at the top, as well...
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Thumbnails and visited links
The design of arbitrary constant has settled down of late, following the initial changes and tweaks that took place over a short-ish period of time (see here) for more details. Two details have changed of late — one large and one small. The first is the introduction of thumbnail images to try and make the site more visually interesting and break up the often endless text that is found on the front page. An example...
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Search button
After concentrating on arbitrary constant's content for a while, I made a few more tweaks to the site's design a week or so ago. First of all, the search button over in the left-hand column has been changed so that it's a bit more lively. This was inspired slightly by the search button at flickr. The change was effected by adding a class tag to the search form's input code and the associated css as...
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Short break
Posting will be light until at least early next week because of work commitments, I'm afraid. In order to soften the blow, here's an interesting thing I learnt this week: the word "quango" is actually an acronym for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. Indeed, a quango is defined as:[a]ny administrative body that is nominally independent but relies on government funding; for example, the British Council (1935), the Equal Opportunities Commission (1975) in the UK, and the Environmental...
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No quote
I have been reliably informed by a, well, reliable source that the "quote of the week" category was, in its category name, gramatically incorrect. You cannot have a quote since "quote" is actually a verb. Thus, the proper usage I am after — and that a great many other people are after, if I read into the fervour with which my intelocutor told me of this misnomer correctly — is "quotation of the week". I...
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New header
As you can see above, I've added a new main header to the site. I've moved away from the explicit reference to the London Underground — specifically the Victoria line — though I have retained the light blue colour of that line. The new header hopefully gives the site a minimal, fresh feel and helps to draw the eye towards the main centre content. If you have any comments on it, please let me know....
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Categories
Having sorted out the individual entry template, I've also changed the category template. Now, whenever you click on any one of the categories in the left-hand column, you'll be greeted with a list of all the posts in that category plus the first 40 or so words of the post. See, for example, the film category. All that remains to do is determine what the main archives page will look like....
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Underlines
One small tweak made this afternoon has been to add light blue, dotted underlines to all headers in the side columns. This provides an easier way of finding what else can be done in the columns by breaking them up slightly. I've also removed the bottom line from the small information container at the end of each post. This is because I've added a dotted line between the post title and post category for each...
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Post titles and text colour
Alongside the repositioning of the four main columns, I made some changes to the typography of the site. First of all, the post titles have been made to stand out a bit more by increasing their size and making the text black. To counteract this, I've moved the category to which the post belongs up to the top of the post, below the title. In addition, the category text is in red. This helps on...
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Repositioned columns
A trip home to Birmingham provided me with the time needed to affect a change to arbitrary constant I've been hoping to make for a while. I had noticed that the front page was taking some time to load up. This seemed to be down to the time it took both the del.icio.us links (via Feed Digest) and the flickr external feeds to load up. Indeed, when you are reliant on three external sites to...
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Acronyms
It's not just me that thinks little changes over time make a website better: 456 Berea Street thinks so too:Far too many website owners don’t realise that if you want a great website you have to work on it continuously — you can never stop keep thinking about your content, site structure, and how you can improve things.One small change made today is the styling of acronyms: I've made them small capitals and added a...
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Whois it?
A bit scary this, but there we go: [Querying whois.nic.uk] [whois.nic.uk] Domain name: arbitraryconstant.co.uk Registrant: richard watts Registrant type: UK Individual Registrant's address: The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their address omitted from the WHOIS service. Registrant's agent: Easyspace Ltd [Tag = EASYSPACE] URL: http://www.easyspace.com Relevant dates: Registered on: 23-Oct-2003 Renewal date: 23-Oct-2007 Last updated: 30-Nov-2005 Registration status: Registered until renewal date. Name servers: ns.34sp.com ns2.34sp.com WHOIS lookup made at...
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View along the Thames
This is a photo test post, which will hopefully work....
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Britblog link
Following on from my last post, I've also added a Britblog link to the right-hand side column. Britblog isa directory of blogs that are written by British citizens from all over the world.It so happens that my good friend Simon's blog - Minor 9th - has been ranked 34th in the top blog table at Britblog. Good for him! Note: I didn't set out to use the word blog - and derivatives of - eight...
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London bloggers link
Added the wonderful London bloggers widget to the right-hand side column this morning. London bloggers isa directory of weblogs written by people who live or work in london, organised by the rather iconic London Tube map (and also the central london suburban rail network, docklands light railway and croydon tramlink).There are a number of other blog aggregators I hope to add arbitrary constant to over the coming weeks. In addition, I'll be sorting out a...
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Blockquote style
Having written a long post earlier that contained lots of quotes, it became clear that unformatted blockquotes - that make the quoted text stand out - weren't going to do. Too much white space; or - more - too little refinement to the lines containing the white spaces. I've made some adjustments to the CSS tags that deal with blockquotes to make the start you see exemplified below:blockquote { background-color: #F5F5F5; padding: 10px 18px 10px...
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Technorati profile
I've been trying to sign up to Technorati and claim this blog. That's why there was a peculiar post up late last night that said, in a rather minimal way:Technorati Profile.Nothing much came of it, though, since I couldn't get Technorati to actually claim this site. There was a spinning wheel of doom (Mac) / hour glass of impending inevitability (PC) which signalled not much was going on. On top of this, having switched on...
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List details
To bring a bit of delicacy to the bulleted lists I've made the default bullet a circle, changed its color to a light grey and kept the text black. This has been done by using the following simple CSS:li { list-style-type: circle; color: #A3A3A3; } li span { color:black; }This was achieved with help from Listamatic and A List Apart....
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Column spacing
With a fair bit of text at the top of the site, the four columns looked slightly too packed together. I have added 10px of extra margin and padding to the two left columns to help make it easier on the eye. I have also added some text padding on the left to the .info class of paragraphs - the paragraph with dotted blue borders that appears at the end of each post and at...
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del.icio.us links column
I have updated the del.icio.us links column on the site, using Feed Digest to read the RSS feed from my del.icio.us profile and the bit of html it has generated using that feed. There are several ways of incorporating del.icio.us links into a blog, descriptions and explanations of which are available at these links:Common Craft. Movable blog. Jeffrey Veen.It is the latter technique that is used on arbitrary constant....
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On the new arbitrary constant
arbitrary constant was first launched in 2003. At that point, there was a wealth of blogs that purported to write about a great deal but actually covered very little. I wasn’t keen to become involved with that rush to publish everything online and lamented the poor use of what I considered to be an exciting medium. Soon, my interest in the internet and its discursive, academic possibilities increased – partly through the maintenance of the...
