Talk is Cheap.
The above image will be deleted once it’s been downloaded from my server 100 times.
Brilliant…
Rob found this on the internet today… I thought it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen!
After some consideration I decided to post it on my blog in order to stick it to the conformists out there.
Poor kid - I’m glad we didn’t have photo sharing sites when I was 14!
Impossible Gherkins vs. One Touch Jar Opener
Having spent 99p on a jar of pickled gherkins that no one could open, I hit Google in search of a solution and quickly found a device that appealed to the Heath Robinson in me and was only a mere 20 times what I paid for the gherkins in the first place.
The device is called the One Touch Jar Opener and is available exclusively (I think) from Best Direct, although I got it via their Amazon store… it’s one of those only available via our T.V. store (and website) companies.
The box turned up as promised and something in my head told me that it’d be hilarious to film and put on YouTube… even if the jar didn’t shatter potentially blinding me for life, the very fact that both a silly gadget and a jar of pickled gherkins were involved guaranteed a certain comedy value.
As you can see below, despite the promised 25 pounds of torque the Jar Opener did struggle with the problem jar. This made me feel slightly vindicated for not being able to open it by hand… although this feeling soon turned to anxiety when it looked increasingly likely broken glass was shortly going to be everywhere. Yes, I did jump when the lid finally gave in!
So below is my first (and potentially last) YouTube video… enjoy!
[SPOILERS] Death Note: Another Note
I’m a huge fan of the Manga series Death Note and have just finished the spin off novel Death Note: Another Note, The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases. The story is a prequel that sees my hero L team up with the future wife of doomed FBI agent Raye Penber in a battle of wits with another of L’s bitter heirs, B.
As the story progresses L’s investigation-by-proxy uncovers some increasingly tenuous clues that leave the reader wondering how the investigators could possibly have come to the conclusion that they did… until the inevitable twist is revealed and then all falls beautifully into place.
In some ways I did feel the huge plot twist was a bit unfair, as it relied solely on the original Manga’s audience making an assumption that someone new to Death Note wouldn’t necessarily have made, but it did turn what had been a slightly frustrating read into something really worth telling your friends about.
There is just one little geeky thing that does really bother me though. A huge part of the original Manga’s story was the rules that governed the supernatural Death Note world, they were misleadingly simple and very specific. These rules were at the centre of most of the plot twists and were a big part in what kept the reader trying to work out what was coming next… and this is where my geeky little problem with Another Note is.
The only real crossover with the original series (other than it shares some characters) is that the murderer was by chance born with the Shinigami Eyes, which normally would only be available to a Death Note’s owner in exchange for half their remaining life span. Through Shinigami Eyes you can see people’s true name and their remaining life span, unless they own a Death Note too, something that Rem tells Misa is due to a Death Note owing human becoming closer to a Shinigami and to prevent them from going mad with the knowledge of their own remaining life span. Misa later uses this rule to her advantage to spot another Death Note owner in a crowd, as he was the only one who’s life span wasn’t visible to her. In Another Note the murder’s attempted suicide fails because, essentially, it isn’t his time to die and the story implies that had he been able to see his own remaining life span he would have known that… but technically as he didn’t own a Death Note his life span should have remained visible to humans with Shinigami Eyes, including him self! A small thing… but it really bugged the hell out of me. I mentioned it was really geeky, right?
All in all the book is well worth reading for all Death Note fans - many of whom I’m sure might disagree with my interoperation of Shinigami Eyes rules!
Bendy Busses: A Controversy Born
Tags: London, Politics Buss Design.
So this morning I was woken up by a ring at the door and thinking I was probably the only person home (it was nearly eleven) I made my way down stairs in my dressing gown.
I heard someone open the door and the start of a conversation so I headed back up stairs until one phase caught my ear: “Bendy buss…” This got my attention and I continued down to see what the situation was.
Turns out it was the local Conservative party canvassing for support in the upcoming mayoral elections and they were talking about how Boris has pledged to get rid of bendy busses because they’re unsafe and blah blah blah. I wanted to pipe up in support of the new busses because I (as an avid user of public transport) really like them but then I came to a sudden realisation. The debate about bendy busses isn’t political, either they work or they don’t. It’s a debate for buss designers and engineers not for politicians.
Walking with Trolls
One of things I love about my job is talking to other developers. You never get more ideas and hear about cooler new technologies than when your having a good chinwag with another developer - it’s impossible to subscribe to every blog and attend every conference but by some strange three degrees of separation I like to think the highlights of what you’re missing out on are more than attainable.
When I look back over the past couple of years I can think of some real gems that I’ve picked up over a pint or a coffee, be it the genius idea of having negative IDs for objects stored client side waiting to be written to the database (mentioned by a .Net developer) or the nuances of SEO… Come to think of it I think my original introduction to OO at age 19 was over a pint in The Rising Sun on Tottenham Court Road.
However, every now and then while enjoying an open conversation you meet a troll. The first time I met a troll was on the forums of macscripter.net. I was just starting out in the world of scripting and I made the foolish mistake of differentiating between a compiled binary program and a runtime interpreted script by using the word “real” - the implication being that writing scripts wasn’t really programming and with it being a forum dedicated to writing scripts… Needless to say the next day I registered a new account.
Trolls take many forms… There are the fanboys (something I worry I’m guilty of from time to time…) and their mirror twins the haters who just plain have it in for something. Then there’s the luddites who think if it’s not coded by hand in assembler then it must be newfangled and inefficient. That’s just to name three, I’m sure you can think of more! The Design Pattern Fanatic? The Semantics Sadist? The Linux Lunatic?
So what do you do when you meet a troll? I argue best with my hat: I put it on and leave. Truth be told, the majority of trolls probably have something to say worth hearing but the sad fact is they are seldom interested in hearing your opinion, unless it’s to dismiss or belittle it. Trolls certainly exist in real life too and they certainly exist outside the world of computing… Ever been to a pub quiz? Exactly…
The best we can do is try to live side by side with our troll friends, try not to excite them and help them avoid direct sun light for fear they turn to stone. While they may never acknowledge, or even be aware, that they needed the help of a puny human they may one day help you out when there’s some heavy lifting to be done.
