It had to happen eventually. I posted a kitten to BiNS by mistake. I got rid, but if you get feeds… well that’s why there was a bonus ginger cat in a box for you.

I wanted to write something in order to solidify my thoughts on why blog comments seemingly are more likely to be negative rather than positive, this isn’t going to be interesting or original. Probably it’s something to do with how if there’s something you don’t like it’s more important to “vocalise” it than when you like it. But there’s more to it than that.

No more so than with buildings and design, as they are subjects everyone can have an opinion on. As a sometime professional graphic designer (well, more layout really, but unless you’re a design star that’s prety much all you get to do) I detest showing artwork to clients as they have opinions which they can’t back up with anything but a gut feeling. You end up trying to explain design theory, or just giving up and doing whatever they want - so guess what happens more often. The best you can hope for in these cases is that you end up with all the graphics at the right resolution and things spelt correctly without Comic Sans.

As for commenting myself I try to be as polite as possible, sometimes even not saying things I mean in order not to offend. While not quite “if you can’t say anything good…”, you’ve at least got a chance of getting your point across.

If you’ve read my rantings on ’survey culture’ on the BiNS blog, or heard me go on about it as part of the reason for Talk Like A Brummie Day, you might not be surprised to see me link to this article - which is about how a ’survey’ for Veet (which is Imac - am I right?) was constructed and then ‘backed-up’ by buying a team of experts.

The press release they sent out even dissregareded their paid experts - and this sort of thing goes on ther whole time, and the press swall evey time. So when you see an article saying that ’something is the top, or bottom, for something’ or ’something has been voted..’ just read the article down to the bit where it tells you who’s paid for the ‘research’ - and then dismiss it as the shite that it is.

Not often I recommend people going to that London, but…

may I draw your attention to the exceptionally rare opportunity to ascend to the top of the Gherkin and to stare down on London from the 40th floor. Only 500 Londoners will get the chance, and you need to be ready on the Open House website on Friday morning (17th August) to have any hope of booking your place.

from diamond geezer

I don’t seem to be able to stop blogging. Not much here, I grant, but there’s the B:INS blog (which has really been running in one form or another for about 4 years), The Kitten Channel (which is mostly pictures of kittens), and a new one which I’m not going to link to until it fills up a bit.

Add in a couple more that I contribute to, a few freelance articles here and there, my Flickr pics, my del.icio.us-ing, the odd Digg - I’ve a horrible feeling that I barely have a thought that I don’t write down (well type).

Is this healthy, I don’t know.

My new website. Lowest common denominator stuff I admit, but pictures of kittens just make you happy. If not try an otter with a bib.

The Kitten Channel : All Kittens All The Time