A lovely summer’s day at work.
Geek Wife
WW stated the other day that she would like some new T-Shirts and that she would like some “geek” ones! I’m overjoyed.
Her reasoning goes a little like this:
Everyone can buy a Superdry top and everyone knows it’s a Superdry top. If I can find a top that’s relevant to me and not obvious then that is a little more special to wear.
I couldn’t agree more. We did have some problems browsing the CafePress website because some of the designs looked nice but then had the TV show name as well meaning they aren’t obscure enough. There was a Lost t-shirt that had the Dharma logo (nice) but then also had the Lost logo (annoying). You want people who know to know and those who don’t to just think it’s another t-shirt.
For instance a t-shirt with
Redrum
written on it is cool whereas one with STANLEY KUBRICK’S THE SHINING is a little too obvious. I want people to work hard to discover the reference! My current favourites are:
Who shot first?
So say we all
What would Adama do?
Bartlett for President
African or European swallow
Latest T Shirt
Just received this T-Shirt from Cafepress. Really like it. Geekdom!
Keep It Tidy
Behave yourself in Eccles recreation ground or this chap will get you. He’s keeping watch!
Comparatively Refreshed
Wow! Son #2 just slept well! I feel much better having had about two weeks of him only sleeping for 45 minutes at a time and then waking crying because his teeth hurt. He’s even been awake and crying for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.
Last night he woke at 8:30, 12:30 and 3:30 and then finally at 7! It was, all things considered, relatively normal for a 11 month old.
That means I have had a few chunks of sleep of about three hours each. Brilliant. Having been tired since October 2006 this takes me back to normal levels of sleep deprivation.
Let’s see what tonight brings.
29 April Update
Last night was about the same. #2 only woke 3 times for milk and so once again we had a normal amount of sleep deprivation. I’m feeling almost human.
30 April Update
Back to very disturbed from just disturbed. Every 45 minutes until about 01:00 and then he slept until 6. Back to feeling hungover but without the benefits of having had a great night out.
Rare Thing
Here’s a rare lenticular cloud that formed over Kent.
One Of The Rules
I broke a cardinal rule today. Car windscreen wipers should ALWAYS be left at the “off” position when the car is turned off. I didn’t do that today!
The only time it is ok to keep the wipers in an “on” position is if you are driving a Le Mans prototype car or similar endurance car.
Local Names
When ww and I talk about routes for walking the dog we give names to parts of local footpaths so we can say the name rather than give a six figure grid reference. Here’s a snip of Google Earth with some arrows pointing at vague features.
A – Sports Field
B – Across middle field
C – George Corner (it’s where our dog did his first “on walk” poo)
D – Bushy Bushey Wood
E – Solar Farm Path
F – Rotary Hill
G – Cock Corner (there’s a graffiti picture of a penis)
H – Burham Route Road Return
I – Burham Route Field Return
J – Burham Route Path
K – School Path
L – Middle Vineyard
M – Vineyard Hill
N – Sheep Path
O – Aylesford Corner
P – George Gate (The dog once ran so fast he couldn’t stop at the gate and hit it hard)
Q – Pylon
R – Stake Corner
I’ve missed an arrow by I and J and this is called Burham Route Near Stream.
So there you have it. A list of terms used in a single household about the local area that is of no use to anyone!
My Favourite Car
The best and most fun car I think I ever drove is the Toyota Land Cruiser FJ60 (Australia edition). I spent a glorious weekend driving around Fraser Island off the east coast of Australia with Pom, Mel and ww.
This truck definitely wasn’t the newest on the island. There was gaffer tape holding up the passenger windows and broken bits all over it. There were loads of newer Toyotas and other 4x4s racing the fishermen to the best sports areas but I’m glad we had this one. It made us feel like we were really getting into the wilderness. Also, it made us rather relaxed about getting it dirty.
Pom and I took it in turns to drive over the world’s largest sand island. It’s a place where there is an 80kph speed limit on the main highway (or beach as we would call it) and you just have to go slower inland. Where in the world do you have to check the tides before you can drive the highway?
We had a couple of close shaves! We entered some soft sand within the first hour of being on the island and the truck slowed but didn’t quite stop and we continued on. From then it was rather uneventful apart from placing the bottles of wine in towels so they didn’t break as we went over the bumps and they jumped about in the boot. This truck was a hoot to drive.
On the way back to the mainland we had a bit of an issue with a large wave that spread water up the beach and over the highway. I swear we were close to turning over! The truck lurched sideways and bounced around a lot. It was very exciting. On the ferry back to the mainland lots of people were laughing at just how dirty our truck was. It proved we had a great time.
Once back on the main land I drove along the beach (why use tarmac?) and we tried to find somewhere to rejoin the main road. Someway along the beach we came to a blockage. A tree had fallen over and there were two choices. Drive into the sea and hope or turn around and go back the way we came. I just drove straight on into the sea. We probably went about a foot deep and then with luck on our side we managed to get out the other side and keep driving. It was hilarious at the time although later that night we would whistle about it!
Here’s a glorious shot of the Toyota:
I want one.
Making It Look Easy
Recently I have taken up jogging. This is a normal summertime hobby with the aim of helping lose my winter blubber and get fit. This year is slightly different as ww has decided to do this also. There is a little bit of competition there but it is rather unfair at the moment as ww has slight activity-induced asthma!
We have found a 5Km route around the vineyards and fields surrounding our village. There is a bit of vertical work to do as we live at the base of the North Downs and there are ups and downs on the route!
At the moment I can run the 5Km in about 32 minutes. Let’s say that this is about 6 mile per hour. Which would give a pace of about 10 minutes per mile. Now for the scary bit. . . . The current world record for the mile is under four minutes. If we take the four minutes as the correct time for ease of calculations then that is 15 mph or 2.5 times my current speed. An athlete I am not!
The London Marathon was recently run in a time of just over 2 hours. Assuming it to be about 2 hours you get a speed of 13 mph which isn’t that much slower than the speed for the mile and yet these athletes keep it up for 2 hours. VERY impressive. The human body is quite stunning! An athlete I still am not.
I think this is part of a bigger social phenomenon that professional people make things look very easy because they do it all-day every-day. Professional footballers make playing in the premiership look easy (although for £50,000 a week I’d make sure I could hit the net EVERY time). Professional athletes make it look easy, professional sports drivers make it look easy.
Even in my profession (teaching) I think we make it look easy. I have had people come and observe my lessons and I think they think it looks easy. Then when they get the chance to do it themselves a lot of them are rubbish and have no idea and to be honest won’t be able to do it after lots of practice. It takes the right kind of person with the right kind of practice to be good at their chosen profession. Not everyone can do it. The following is a misnomer:
you can do anything you set your mind to
Unfortunately this was said by Ben Franklin whom I would normally hold in high esteem. Perhaps it should be re-phrased:
you can do anything you set your mind to as long as you have the natural ability
How Many Bottles?
The latest Robinson’s Juice promotion involves handing over some profit to transform playgrounds around the country.
Transform your patch
Here’s what it says on the back of a large juice bottle:
Sometimes people get caught up on this sort of thing and don’t think about the numbers involved.
Let’s consider a small playground of size 6 metres by 4 metres, which might just be enough for a set of swings. To pay for the transformation of this mediocre patch of land Robinson’s would have to sell 600 x 400 = 240 000 bottles of juice. SERIOUSLY?
If Robinson’s sell nearly a quarter of a million bottles then they would have to cough up for the transformation of a patch on land into some swings and soft surface. I reckon this conversion would cost about £6000 (a severe guess but probably about right) and this represents a cost per bottle of 2.5p and given a profit margin of, say 40%, this means Robinson’s are laughing all the way to the shareholders’ meeting.
Essentially this is an ingenious piece of marketing and I think they should be congratulated. Well done Robinson’s. It looks like they are doing wonders for the community but in reality they are doing little.
A similar scam, sorry marketing ploy, was run by Pampers when they said that for each pack of nappies sold they would donate a single vaccination to UNICEF. This is marketing at its worst. Trying to make companies seem like they care when in reality they are just doing it to make more money (the basics of capitalism I know!).
If these companies were truly serious about changing playgrounds or helping vaccinate the world they would publish something along the following lines:
We have decided to turn ALL profits for one year over to XXXX charity so that they are able to further our combined missions to improve the health and well-being of the children of this fragile Earth.
If a company did volunteer ALL the profits from one product line then I would happily buy them over another but when it’s just part of the marketing campaign then be cynical.
Toys of the Son Part 14
Today’s toys that number 1 took to nursery.
Lovely Clouds
You can see why people think Heaven is upwards. Me? I see beauty and mystery but definitely no imaginary homes for imaginary souls!
Mutiny?
Had a naughty thought last night. Having heard that DTM will be broadcast on ITV4 and if that coverage is any good and if it’s in HD and if Eurosport keep showing FIA WTCC then I might, just might, give up watching Formula 1.
I only have so much time to myself to watch these things and I try to drag myself away from F1 but keep going back to that mistress. I feel kinda sick just thinking about leaving. Mind you I only watch about half the races all the way through and trying to avoid the result is very tricky. Oh no, where is this argument going?
Right.
Let’s see what Hockenheim is like on ITV4. Then I’ll think about deserting again! More to follow. . .
Published
In November 2009 I was moved to write a letter to the editor of Private Eye after the architecture critic, Piloti, suggested that living near electricity transformers was dangerous to human health. The letter was published and I have kept that copy of Private Eye for the future. Looking back through my emails it would appear that I have written to Private Eye 5 times. So that’s a 20% hit rate so far.
Sir,
I was disappointed to read that Piloti (Eye 1249) has reinforced the incorrect view that magnetic fields from electricity substations are a danger to health. There is no scientific evidence to link electricity substations with an increase of ill health. Piloti’s use of the specific term “radiation” only reinforces peoples’ prejudices against such structures. EM radiation covers everything from radio waves to X-Rays and beyond and does nothing to describe what is actually emitted. Should your excellent staff of humanities graduates want to further their knowledge I point you in the direction of: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/magnetic-fields
I shall, however, not be cancelling my subscription for this minor transgression.
Kent Rainbow
Here’s a rainbow I saw while out having a jog.
BBC Headline #8
Headline from the BBC website.
Scientists create “Dr Who sonic screwdriver”
This fails on the following levels:
Quotation in Headline
Extrapolation
Bull
Quotation in Headline
I’m pretty sure they used the quotation marks here to show that they “just made it up”. Having looked at the article the reference to Dr Who was made by one of the researchers who is obviously trying to get into the news cycle so he can keep his research grant. In reality it’s an ultrasound device that can turn objects under specific conditions not just make them move backwards and forwards as sound waves would normally do. Now this is very clever but I’m pretty sure that Dr Who doesn’t use an ultrasonic screwdriver. All the references in the shows are to a sonic screwdriver that is the biggest deus ex machina device I have seen and turned me off the show.
Extrapolation
The BBC writers researchers obviously got a little excited and decided that if they followed the technological line for a few thousand iterations then we could link this current device to the Doctor’s sonic screw driver. This is rubbish. It’s like saying that because cars have improved their fuel efficiency over the last decade we should be able to travel miles on a thimble of fuel some time in the future.
Bull
It’s just rubbish to suggest that this device is anywhere near a sonic screwdriver.
Looking Forward to Watching
I am really looking forward to watching the following things with my children when they are old enough.
- Star Wars episodes IV, V, VI
- The Back To The Future trilogy
- The Fifth Element
- Star Trek films
- Firefly – tv series
- Akira
- Battlestar Galactica
I hope they get the same enjoyment out of them that I have done for ages. The biggest problem is knowing when to introduce them to these wonders!
BBC Headline #7
BBC headline from the iPhone app from a while ago (18 March 2012).
Neutrinos “slow down” in new test
This headline suffers the following issues:
Quotation in Headline
Oversimplification
Bull
Quotation in Headline
As I have demonstrated many times you can get any old crank to say any old shit and then put it in a headline. Heck, you could even ask the desk jockey next to you to say something and then include their quotation. “He has a double direction reversible torch to see daylight, he’s that far up his own arse” says industry insider!
Oversimplification
Science and the method of science doesn’t follow a simple narrative or allow for simplification of its ideas. The original neutrino results were released because the scientists wanted criticism of their experiment, not because they believed the results to be true. Now, after nearly a year, they are closer to understanding the problems with the original experiment and are ready to try again. One scientific result does not a whole new paradigm make.
Bull
The neutrinos NEVER went faster than the speed of light and so they can’t have slowed down!
Thanks Jase
Many many thanks to Jase for this most excellent 40th birthday present for me. I got him a megalodon tooth!
