I'm using a Mac, which very kindly displays attached images in the body of an email as well as being an attachment. That's usually a good thing, except when people receiving my images have MS 2007. They only get an embedded image, not an attachment.

Does anyone know how to fix this? At the moment I have to zip everything.

Tony Abbott, [...] has told a Sydney conference a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband, but that is better than no boss at all.

"He might be a bad boss but at least he's employing someone while he is in fact a boss," he said.



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Tagged by girliejones and I think we all know that one must not disobey Ms Jones

1. I am ridiculously addicted to Mocha Chills

2. That thing in your head that's supposed to make you worry about consequences is set to only kick in once it's too late to back out of stuff. This has me doing stuff like saying yes to running a Swancon and quitting my job to work freelance. Thankfully it's given me mad skills in meeting deadlines and surviving the what-the-hell-am-I-doing freak-outs, but the laws of nature says that caution needs to go somewhere, and for me it's usually re-doing embarrassing moments and arguments past over and over in my head.

3. Spiky things, like those fish and caterpillars and porcupines - sometimes even pin cushions - make my skin crawl.

4. I find it annoying when people break rules because they don't know what they are, but I enjoy it when people break them on purpose. I refuse to read blogs by people who don't know how to use apostrophes, but I love LOL speak. And I find it rude when people barge in to social situations and don't bother to learn how things work, but I find it amusing when people do it knowingly.

5. According to my physio I have hypermobile joints. I used to hate wearing heels because I fell off them all the time. It was a relief to discover that it wasn't due entirely to a lack of coordination.

6. I love lifting weights, and I am more proud of my biceps than is probably justified.

7. I can usually tell you what I wore to any given event.

Kate Harding writes:

I mean, that's what's so fascinating to me about the pro-Polanski arguments here. In many cases, there's overlap between two of the most common defenses of him: "He only pled guilty to sex with a minor, not non-consensual sex," and "We should listen to what the victim says -- she doesn't want him prosecuted!" We should listen to what the victim says now, as a 45-year-old woman, when it fits with the narrative that Polanski's already suffered enough and shouldn't endure further indignities. But what about listening to what the victim said then, at 13? What about listening to her testimony that she said no, that she asked him to stop, as he raped her orally, vaginally and anally? Some people are making very curious arguments about when, exactly, it's important to listen to the victim.

Read the whole thing.

Thanks to redbraids I got to meet (well, meet online) and do some work for two lovely ladies from the UK who write about all things corsets. Their new site launches on 15 October, and you can register now. It's here: http://www.foundationsrevealed.com, go look!

Due to the new marketing tactic of "Twilighting" covers of classic books, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is running a competition.

Here's my entry. It probably isn't as ridiculous as it needs to be - because given some of the more stupid examples, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that they've already done it. Old-school abusive boyfriends and self-absorbed friendless heroines and all...



And for girliejones since you are probably due for a reprint:




 

Anyone who cares about design will be disappointed to read that IKEA is dumping Futura (or IKEA sans, a customised variant made for them) in favour of Verdana. Except for catsparx who will probably be jumping for joy.

The font that they put on the moon has been given the gold watch in favour of something young and bland. Hitler has won.



Originally from here, but the site seems to have disappeared now, sadly.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy - August 12, 1980

Ridiculous stoushes on the internet are their own reward, really. But sometimes you get given a little something extra as well, like links to things like this.

Some useful advice.

Hilarious typeface geekery

Tonight's episode just reminded me of this song.

6 great moments in movies. I've ruled a few out already because I was too slow to post and others have already appreciated some of the songs, which is annoying but also good, because it helps narrow down the list. So hopefully most (some?) of these are new.

( Click for youtube heavy movie moments )

For pharaoh_katt who just appreciated Dawn French, here's Alison Moyet with French and Saunders being funny.

More Helen Gurley Brown than Andrea Dworkin, here are 6 girl power songs to dance to Bridget Jones style.

( Click for youtube heavy girl power )

6 excellent lady ballads that are sure to stay in your head all day:

Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2U


Billie Holiday - God Bless the Child


Wendy Matthews - The Day You Went Away


Heather Nova - Doubled Up


Ella Fitzgerald - Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most


Judy Garland - Over the Rainbow

The most common response, I guess because it seems obvious at first, to the lack of women in the Hottest 100 is that women just "don't fit the style" of the songs who won, or the people who voted.

So I thought that one way of showing how wrong that actually is by naming songs that didn't make the list. It's only 20, and as soon as I posted I thought of more. I'm sure you will too.

At my new blog.

... who has been suffering through annoying songs on television commercials recently.

Hope this helps.

Dear Mr Rudd

I am very disappointed to read that the Government 2.0 Taskforce is running a design competition rather than paying a graphic designer a fair price in acknowledgement of their skills and experience.

I find it difficult to imagine any other instance in which you would run a competition asking the general public to create a policy document, build a website, or administer a community service "rather than send the job off to the department's usual [...]".

But the skills and experience necessary to create a logo and a website banner seem to be so under-valued by the Taskforce, and by extension the Rudd Government, that you are willing to say that "pride in your work and the opportunity to have that pride vindicated and acknowledged publicly - in short a platform to show the world how good you are!" are an appropriate substitute for a fair wage. As a government elected on the basis of opposition to Howard's WorkChoices this is especially depressing.

When governments decide that the "department's usual [insert employee here]" is not enough - perhaps because you believe you need some new input, fresh ideas, or perhaps because the employee is busy with other jobs - it is common to outsource jobs to the private sector. I am not suggesting you shouldn't do that. It could work out really well. You could even limit your search to small design firms or freelancers to share the government spending around. But still, surely outsourcing still involves payment.

Perhaps you will argue that it's only a small job; that it's not a big deal. But that makes it worse, doesn't it? That the hours spent designing the work, and the hundreds of hours spent developing the skills before that, will only be rewarded with the kudos of having their work chosen for a not-very-important job?

And what about the many hundreds of people whose work is not chosen? What is their compensation for their hard work? Would you pay your policy-makers that way: only the people whose recommendations are included in the final draft will be paid?

At a time when more and more jobs are being taken off-shore, please don't reduce graphic design to a children's colouring-in competition.