I really want to get a cat, but after seeing how awesome these rabbits are I might get one instead! Note: I will need a house to put them in first.

Okay so I may have a hand in a room rental site myself, but I never dreamed a room ad could be so completely awesome. I keep imagining someone from the Wire or maybe Achewood totally laying this down. If estate agents wrote ads like this, how *amazing* would it be to look for a new place to live?

Thanks to Geekologie.

Edit: Just noticed the Twitter handle at the bottom of the ad – someone’s going to get a lot of new followers!

Many thanks to unsupervised

Every so often I think I should be reading Achewood. Introduced to it at university by two fellow Philosophy geeks, I read the whole back catalogue in three days and logged on every day for two years to read the next installment.

Now, with “better” things to do (a job, a life…), I’ve only got a high resolution, archival quality digital print to remind me how good Achewood is. One of these days I’m going to catch up. Until then, here are a few of my favourite story arcs…

Cartilege Head, in which Ray proves himself a coward who would leave a dying man.

The Great Outdoor Fight, in which Ray upholds a family tradition.

Leon Sumbitches, in which Ray is a toilet seat that smokes a cigar.

And a link to my favourite strip of all time – Ebay, What’s The Best Thing You Got?

The West Yorkshire Archive Service have a new website, Tracks in Time, that lets you view old Tithe Maps of Leeds and the surrounding area against present-day maps of the same place. The website could be a bit easier to use, but basically if you go to the “Tithe Map Digital Resource” you can search for maps of your town/village etc and see them online.

It’s pretty cool – my only criticism is that the old maps are quite small and you have to zoom in to see the details. I also wonder if the resolution could be improved since when you zoom in the image is pretty pixellated – maybe this is something the Archive Service will improve. Anyhoo, I’ve been playing around with maps of Aberford and Boston Spa and it’s cool to see how the villages have changed in the last 100 years

Thanks for this go to my mum who is something of a local historian and author (she wrote a history of Aberford School). You can also find her on Twitter (causing trouble no doubt!)

Wow! Just got back from the most hectic/fun/crazy weekend – I’m sat here with my first cup of tea in 48 hours still buzzing from what’s been an amazing Think Visibility conference.

First I want to say hello to everyone I met this weekend – speakers Yoast, Judith Lewis, Fiona Thomson and Rob Manuel – all of whom I’d never met before but are completely awesome/nice and made me feel really welcome as a new speaker.

Also all the attendees I chatted to – I’m missing loads of names and I know I missed a few people at the conference but Dan, Carla, Anthony, Ben, Scott – great to meet you all for the first time. Steven, James, Joanna great to meet you for a second time! Karyn, Elaine & Dave, Al, Simon, Gaj – always a pleasure to see you And of course Dom who made the whole thing possible.

At the last Think Visibility the best thing about the conference for me wasn’t just the talks, but the time given over to chatting before and afterwards. This time as a speaker I got to hang out with all the other speakers, which made the whole experience really different in a good way. Some speakers were obviously conference veterans, and some were first-time speakers just like me.

Without exception though everyone was encouraging and helpful and supportive so I’d like to say thanks to everyone who made me feel a bit more confident about getting up in front of a room full of people

My talk was on ‘How to Win at the Content Network” – so it was aimed at Adwords advertisers who maybe haven’t used the content network before or who wanted a few tips on how to get the most out of it. I was aware that most speakers talk about SEO, or about blogging, and with most of the attendees being quite experienced anyway I wanted to pick a topic that SEO folk or website owners generally don’t know a lot about.

I was pretty nervous all day waiting for my time to talk – being up on a stage was pretty cool and I think I got through it okay! My slides looked good and I got a few nice comments about my talk being useful and having things in it that people could go away and implement themselves

There were a few things I’d do differently:

- Have a microphone. It was a really big room and I know I talk quietly – I tried to talk loud but it’s hard to make sure you talk loud when you’re trying to remember what to say Plus it’s hard on the voice – if I ever present again I’m going to ask for a microphone.

- Have clearer notes. I hand-wrote loads of notes for my talk in a little notebook. By the time I’d started talking though they just went out the window and I know I missed a couple of things out I’d like to have included. I felt like I should keep talking instead of stopping to find where I was in my notes, but I think I wouldn’t be afraid to refer to notes a lot more next time.

- Have a different laptop setup. This is related to the last point – my laptop was hooked up to the big screen, so my presentation slides showed on the big screen behind me. Unfortunately this meant my laptop screen was BLANK so I didn’t know what was coming next. Coupled with a lack of notes I had to turn round a bit to see what was on the screen. Yoast said that KeyNote on Macs lets you see the slide you’re on, your next slide and your notes, so maybe I should use a Mac from now on!

Anyway, I’m really really pleased I did it – I’ve said before it’s way outside my comfort zone but now I know it’s not so bad, and if I ever present again I know how I’d do it better.

Thanks to everyone who came to see my talk – I hope you found it useful and liked the pictures of cats.

I’m about to post my slides up on here….so check back soon!

Do you like dressing up in outlandish costumes? (Who doesn’t?) Do you like cats? (YES) Have you always wanted to live in a cave? (Erm…)

This Could Be Your Perfect Job

Wookey Hole near the city of Bath are looking for a resident witch to recreate the magical atmosphere of times gone by. Although slightly draughty, I imagine this unique job opportunity will attract a lot of applicants. Unfortunately I’m a novice in the ways of spell-casting (although I do own a copy of Madame Fabia’s The Book Of Fortune Telling), otherwise I’d be grabbing my pointy hat and getting the next train south…

The Advert

There are a lot of disgruntled witches living around the country. Wearing pointy black hats and black hessian drapes they’re reduced to casting spells whilst sitting on a sofa in front of a 38” flat-screen TV in a suburban semi, using own-brand potion ingredients sourced from the local Sainsburys. Not the des res, executive, no mod-cons, wind-swept blasted heath of their dreams.

For one lucky witch though, these ancient yearnings could soon be fulfilled. There’s a unique job on offer at Wookey Hole in Somerset. It’s a job which comes with witch-perfect live-in accommodation in a spacious cave, and a 50K salary. £50,000. Enough to buy designer-label rags, frogs from Fortnum and Mason’s and a Le Creuset cooking pot.

Wookey Hole wants the appointee to go about her everyday business as a hag, so that people passing through the caves can get a sense of what the place was like in the Dark Ages. This was when an old woman lived in the caves with some goats and a dog, causing a variety of social ills including crop failures and disease. She also turned the local milk rancid.

Eventually, an Abbot called Father Bernard was summoned from Glastonbury. Armed with a bible and a candle, he entered the cave, spotted the witch and tried to reason with her. She started screaming and casting curses, and ran off into the depths of the cavern. His efforts at conflict resolution through dialogue exhausted, Father Bernard scooped up some water from the cave, blessed it, and then threw it at the witch who turned to stone. And there she stands to this day.

So the job is straightforward: live in the cave, be a witch, and do the things witches do. Wookey Hole is advertising nationally and hopes to attract a strong field of candidates, with the £50K salary serving as a major incentive. Interviews for the post, which will involve on-site assessment incorporating a range or standard tasks, will take place on Tuesday 28th July at 11am. Given the nature of the role, Wookey Hole has decided to run the process on an “open audition” basis. Ambitious witches, looking for a key career move, should turn up dressed for work and bring any essential witch accoutrements. A limited range of potion ingredients will be available.

Reluctantly, Wookey Hole is allowing BOTH men and women to apply. A common misconception is that male witches are “warlocks”. Wrong. Male witches are witches. According to specialists in magic lore “warlock” is just an insult. Wookey Hole HR has accordingly been advised that under sexual discrimination law, unless it can provide documentary proof that the original witch was female (which would allow them to advertise for women only according to the exclusion to Employment and Training Law No.1661 (2003), pt.II, para 7, clause (a) – no, honestly), it can’t issue a gender-specific JD. Since Wookey Hole can’t furnish the required, legally binding proof, it has had to accept that the post might eventually be awarded to a man.

The authorities hope that Wookey Hole will employ a trans-gender witch, preferably recruited via a youth training initiative.

For further information please phone Wookey Hole 01749 672243 or email witch@wookey.co.uk

I haven’t bought a CD in years so it was complete accident I came across the front cover of Empire of the Sun’s album (it was on Spotify). It’s possibly the best album art I’ve ever seen, I can’t even express how much I think it rocks:

It’s got tigers, the future – all the elements of success. I really hope the band look like that in real life.

This is absolutely fantastic:

This artist’s impression from the ESA shows the 50,000 or so bits of space debris currently in low-earth orbit that are large enough to do damage to space craft or satellites. That’s right – this huge cloud is only a part of the flotsam that’s been put into space in the last 50 years.

Over 6000 satellites have been launched since the dawn of the space age. Some of them have come back to earth or continued on into the depths of the universe, but the vast majority are still wandering around up there. Over 4500 are not operational – they’re just slowly breaking up and forming a dangerous obstacle course for current missions into space.

Sometimes space debris falls back to earth, and each time a new rocket is launched bits of it come down without even reaching orbit.

I’m not sure who took these pictures, but I found them here. They’re evocative images – maybe they’ll remind us to look up every once in a while.