Category: online culture

	“Interactive fiction tells you the beginning of a story. Then it puts you in charge and lets you decide what your character should do. You type commands for the main character to carry out, and the story replies by telling you what happens next.”.
“If you enjoy interactive fiction, you’ll find a wide variety of other works available to you. And, like books, works of interactive fiction come in assortment of genres: fantasy, mystery, horror, and science-fiction, romance and historical, surreal and slice-of-life. See my PDF Manual on playing IF.”. (Emily Short)

Top: a detail from the home page of Gargoyle, an IF player.
Bottom: Bronze (Emily Short, 2006), cover detail. Interative Fiction created with Inform 7.

“We’ve learned a lot from dismantling Trans Ams, and we intend to post some of this info (along with some humor) on this site.”.
The Killed Trans Am Page, from Hoghead’s Firebird and Trans Am Parts.
By Brian Morelock and Joe Bays.

Shoefiti (or shoe tossing) “is the term used to describe shoes hanging from powerlines.
Shoefiti shares some similarities with graffiti, such as the artistic statements of the work, possible connections to nefarious activity, and correlation with troubled neighborhoods.”.

“Every morning I would grab my tea and stare out of the window wistfully for no particular reason other than to see the outside world.
One morning I saw a woman looking out of the window of the building opposite and realised that she was waving to me.”.
Lucy the Girl in the Window. A true story by David Raho, from The First Word Blog.

I Will Knot “is a site about knots: how to tie them, how to appreciate their beauty.”.

“Love to watch people coming in unsure of what they want, peering up at the board, realising they can”t really read it and they’re keeping everyone waiting and ordering something random in a panic.”.

“Then there’s eggbaconchipsandbeans which should be fairly self-explanatory and a good place for a cup of tea and a think, which is similarly obvious.”.

“Crispy little chips and a triangular egg. Formidable!
A big pile of bacon and a mass of beans with a splendid smear of juice up the side of the plate.”.
By Russell Davies.

“The intention of the magazine is to return dignity to the art of loafing.”.

“The current edition of The Idler is titled How To Save The World Without Really Trying
and argues that idleness is eco-friendly and that to save the planet we need to do a lot less.”.

"And what would you like to be when you grow up?"
I asked my 5 year old grand-daughter.

Blythly she came back with a show-stopper of an answer:
"A butterfly."

(Joan Bakewell, On Not Having A Career)

The Idler, by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

English “Hello, the engine is on fire” Italian “Ciao, il motore è in fiamme”

“In August 2001, a worn out Fiat Strada began a journey from Stroud to Turin where it was handbuilt (by robots) 25 years ago…”.
(from fiatstrada.co.uk)

Above: Fiat Strada (1978), blueprint detail, from fiatstrada.co.uk.

Two disclaimers, so far the best I have ever seen.

“This is a free service provided for the Internet community.
It has not been endorsed by The Church.
If you have any doubts about using this service you should consult your priest.

We, absolution-online, disclaim everything we may legally disclaim under the laws of the USA, UK, EEC and all other nations.
We make no claims as to the effectiveness of an online confession, rosary or anything else on this site.”.
(from absolution-online.com)

“Do you have a disclaimer statement?

Yes. You are 100% responsible for your own actions.
Using this site, visiting a link, downloading a program, in short, living, is done entirely at your own risk (and joy).”.
(from Tinyapps.org)

“Humanclock.com shows a photograph of the current time,
with the photo changing every minute of the day (all 1,440 occuring minutes on Earth!).”.

The Human Clock – A Clock Photo for Every Minute of the Day. By Daniel Craig Giffen.