I have strong opinions on what constitutes good porridge and how it differs from what A. calls “oatmeal”, but these people are positively obsessed.

Link: The Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship

I love castles (it’s platonic, don’t worry) but I know very little about Japanese castles so I was happy to stumble on this beatiful and informative website.

Japanese castles seem strange to me. Compared to the castles of Europe, China, India and the Middle East, they look beautiful but fragile, more like fortified palaces than fortresses. The base of Japanese castle buildings tend to be very strong stone, but the top half is just begging to be burned down.

It’s also nice to see them in colour, as I’m used to seeing them in black and white Akira Kurosawa films.

Link: Guide to Japanese Castles

The tale of Jack Black, master rat catcher, celebrity, and fancy rats pioneer. I had no idea that Queen Victoria kept pet rats.

Link: Jack Black (rat catcher) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not Harry. Beatrix. Project Gutenberg has a nice selection of B.P stories, with pictures.

Beatrix Potter would get my vote as Best Childrens Author Ever. Her characters are fluffy, but her world isn’t: there’s adventure, but also danger. I think this is better for children than cosy ‘WInnie The Pooh’ type stories, although I remember I found some Beatrix Potter a little scary…

Reading the line ”But Nutkin was in his waistcoat pocket” in a whisper can make still me shiver.

Link: Browse By Author: P - Project Gutenberg

Advice on when to use RoR, and when to use Java, etc: look at requirements, choose the most appropriate tool. Always have more than one tool to choose from.

Link: PragDave

Llamas hum. They can also orgle when the mood is right.

Link Llamapaedia: Behavior: Sounds

“FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER - THE GAME”

Good! Want more. Aaarh.

Link: FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER - THE GAME

Worthy of a full blog mention, not just a bookmark.

Update: I can’t actually get it to run on my T5. :-)

Link: Zquake unoffical site

Not by me, though, by the time I heard about the preview in Manchester all the tickets had gone :-(

Looks promising!

Link: A review of Joss Whedon’s “Serenity”… (plasticbag.org) Link: London Serenity Preview

C4 News recently did a report on Google Talk, Google’s new Jabber service with intergrated SIP. As a Jabber developer I was particularly interested in this. Their ‘How Does It Work?’ presentation was refreshingly, erm, uncomplex, so I was pleased to find that The Triforce has a screen capture, which I’ve nicked and present here for your education:

Update: Erm, they aren’t using SIP yet, although they plan to.