Um, well… hello there.
My name is Samir Talwar. I make websites. I code in several languages, but speak one. I go to university. I live in London, in glorious and overcast England. I enjoy my life.
You can find my web projects, and a little more information on myself, at noodle sandwich. If you have any feedback on this site, or if you just want to talk, you can email me at samir@euphoricllama.com.
This is my link blog. I hope you enjoy it. It was created in Ruby on Rails, but the actual posts are from my Google Reader shared items. The content on this site is pulled in from the Atom feed, parsed, fiddled a little and chucked up here for your enjoyment.
Most importantly, I should point out that the posts I have shared — the blockquotes in dark blue — were not created by me and, as such, all rights to the content quoted belong to the original authors. Unless they're quoting someone else (and I can't help you with that), this means the website I'm linking to in the post title and footer. Thanks to everyone I've quoted for helping me create this blog.
If you are an author of something I've linked to and you don't like seeing it here, please contact me at the address above from an email address at the domain in question.
I love the Internet. Part of the reason is that my friends do too. Here are some of them — the ones that give something back, past cryptic Facebook status updates.
As you can probably see, there are a few things missing from this site—it's in a sort of beta state. Here's a quick list of things I'm currently working on.
Regarding the British translation of "Trash" in GNOME. I don't think I need to comment.
Clearly the correct UK translation is to remove the bin and put a notice about terrorism in its place.
People can take their rubbish home with them.
Alex.
The people on Twitter had told me how excellent Caitlin Moran's piece on Lady Gaga was to read, but they haven't done it nearly enough justice. It is, in a word, astonishing.
There’s nothing quite like watching a plane take off without you to really focus your mind on how much you want to be on it. As flight BA987 knifes off the runway, and begins its journey to Berlin, I’m watching it through a window in the departures lounge – still holding the ticket for seat 12A in my hand.
Due to a frankly unlikely series of events, I had got to Heathrow three minutes after the flight was closed. Although no missed flight ever comes as a joy, this one is a particular mellow-harsher because, in five hours, I’m supposed to be interviewing arguably the most famous woman in the world – Lady Gaga – in an exclusive that has taken months of phone calls, jockeying and wrangling to set up.
It’s not so much that I am now almost certainly going to be fired. Since I found out how much the model Sophie Anderton used to earn as a high-class call girl, my commitment to continuing as a writer at The Times has been touch and go anyway, to be honest.
It’s more that I am genuinely devastated to have blown it so spectacularly. Since I saw Gaga play Poker Face at Glastonbury Festival last year, I have been a properly, hawkishly devoted admirer.
Halfway through a 45-minute set that had five costumes changes, Gaga came on stage in a dress made entirely of see-through plastic bubbles, accompanied by her matching, see-through plastic bubble piano. You have to respect a woman who can match her outfit to her instrument. Although the single Poker Face is a punching, spasmodic, Euro-house stormer, Gaga took to her piano and started to play it as cathouse blues – all inverted chords and rolling fifths, with falling, heartbroken semitones on the left hand; wailing out like Bessie Smith sitting on the doorstep at 4am.
See guys, this is why I adore Metal Gear Solid far too much. Kojima's mind is insane, and I like insane.
This really cute ad for Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker features a little boy in a cardboard box.
Lies! It was sunny in London this afternoon. And in Cardiff yesterday. 'Course, it lasted a couple of hours each time, but that's OK, right?
Hello, British summer!
"Who is your daddy, and what does he do?" Spectacular.
via youtube.com
I can't say I'm surprised that police and the CPS overreacted to this, but it's still a sad, sad state of affairs. Should I hunt through Twitter and find anything where I might possibly have said something slightly "menacing?" It's my goddamn shoutbox—since when have we lost the right to make a freakin' joke?
Paul Chambers wrote an admittedly ill-conceived joke on Twitter in his frustration over Robin Hood airport being closed. What happened as a result of that is just shocking:
Chambers was arrested, questioned for seven hours (where he had to explain Twitter to the people doing the questioning), suspended from his job and banned for life from Robin Hood airport. Yesterday, almost five months after what he thought was an innocuous – albeit hyperbolic - joke tweet, Paul Chambers was found guilty of sending a menacing message over a public telecommunications network.Short URL: http://farukat.es/p450
Whut? There's already a band called "Pancake Breakfast?" I was gonna call my band that… aw, man…
You know my wife @antichrista from the Internet, right? And you know how she’s in an awesome band called Pancake Breakfast? They’re funding their new album on Kickstarter, where you can pre-order it and get a bunch of other goodies. There’s a cool video, too.
I don’t even usually like folksy bands, but PB are seriously great. They’re like the funnest, rockiest parts of the weirdest, strangest parts of Tom Waits. You can hear them here…
Y'know, if someone had just showed me this picture, this whole election business wouldn't have required nearly so much thought.
Illustrator @jonburgerman just described the “who do I go for… on Twitpic
I had no idea this study would be so… revealing. Incredible insights into the way people think. It made me weep a little.
Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
—Herman Melville, Billy BuddOrange, red? I don’t know what to believe anymore!
—Anonymous, Color SurveyI WILL EAT YOUR HEART WITH A FUCKING SPOON IF YOU AKS ANY MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT COLORS
—Anonymous, Color Survey
I'm fairly sure this is almost harassment, but not quite. When I'm earning enough to justify a fancypants credit card, I expect I'll be abusing it as much as I possible can.
Photo: Andres RuedaThe following post is a guest post by John Hargrave, whom I met in 2007 at SXSW.
If you find large-scale pranks (Super Bowl, anyone?), impersonating celebrities, and other clever mischief amusing, he’s the king of the domain. His book Prank the Monkey is a guide to unleashing your inner Loki.
Given my interest in outsourcing and pushing the envelope with concierge services, he suggested the following post, which looks at just how far VISA will go to keep you happy. I’ve run similar experiments with American Express Platinum Card with similar results. There are no credit card affiliate links in this post, so no ulterior motives. Just eager for you to reap benefits you’ve probably never taken advantage of. Enjoy.
Please share your success stories, past or present, in the comments.
