Archive for 2006

Christmas break

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

Off to the deepest darkest corners of England for Christmas. Didn’t even get a chance to post about Twitter, partly because I’m still figuring out its importance (or lack thereof).

Have a great one, see you in 2007! Cennydd

Posted in personal | No Comments »

The Knife – We Share Our Mothers Health

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Posted in music | 1 Comment »

"This is a Unix system!"

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Jakob Nielsen’s clearly in the holiday spirit, since his latest Alertbox is an exposé of the 10 biggest User Interface bloopers in films, which we’ll all see countless times over the next few weeks.

I’d forgotten all about Jurassic Park, where a 12-year-old girl saves the day and stops the usual rampaging dinosaur hordes through her knowledge of Unix. Gripping stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. However, there is one Jakob missed: noughts and crosses as an allegory for Mutually Assured Destruction. WarGames, of course.

Admit it, you’ve seen it. But, if your memory isn’t so fresh, WarGames sees teenage hacker David (Matthew Broderick) poking around WOPR, your typical global nuclear defence mainframe. Sadly, sloppy information architecture (seen above) causes poor David to inadvertently trigger global thermonuclear war – although, in WOPR’s defence, it does at least offer a confirmation dialog.

Realising his rather egregious error, David quickly stabs away at Ctrl-Z, but WOPR is having none of it. He can’t even shut it down through Task Manager. In the end, he has to rely on a cunning hack. By forcing the computer to play noughts and crosses against itself repeatedly, David causes WOPR to realise (in a flash of logic that somehow drains electricity from surrounding appliances) that the Nash equilibrium for global thermonuclear war is to not start it. WOPR smugly declares “the only winning move is not to play” and cancels the missile strike.

A close call indeed. And that, kids, is what happens when you don’t do user testing.

Posted in web | No Comments »

Occam’s Razor

Friday, December 15th, 2006

In the 14th century, friar William of Occam thought up a maxim that, in my opinion, should be drummed into the public from an early age.

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Or, to paraphrase:

Of two equivalent theories or explanations, the simpler one is to be preferred.

This is known as Occam’s Razor. And why should it be taught to all school children? To prevent rubbish like www.dianaconspiracy.com. Let’s put it to the test: which is the simpler explanation?

• A speeding drunk driver crashed at a known accident blackspot. Passengers died because they had not worn their seatbelts.
• A covert agent (either MI6 or French, unknown) was incapacitated by an ‘optical weapon’ while driving in Paris. The blood samples of the dead passengers were then switched, causing unusually high levels of carbon monoxide contamination. This was done in order to protect the blood line of the UK monarchy.

All settled? Oh and, by the way, Elvis is dead, Paul McCartney is alive and we did land on the moon. Sheesh.

Categories: diana, conspiracy, occam, philosophy

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Erase errata

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

Regrettheerror.com have posted a list of the year’s best apologies and corrections in mainstream news. Some highlights:

A headline on page 1 on Saturday should have made clear that Oregon Health & Science University will be studying the effects of meth, not cooking it. – The Oregonian

A listing in Sunday Calendar said hot dogs would not be allowed at the Scandinavian Autumn Fest and Marknad on Sep 17 at Vasa Park in Agoura. No canines will be allowed at the event. – LA Times

It has come to the editor’s attention that [we] neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission. – Lexington Herald-Leader

Also, two rather disappointing recipes:

[A] recipe for French coconut pie incorrectly… called for a pint of vodka. – Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia

In Wednesday’s Taste section, a Washington Post recipe on Page F7 included an incorrect cooking time for carbonada (braised beef with onions and red wine). The dish should be cooked for 2.5 hours, not 10 to 20 minutes. – Sacramento Bee

Categories: journalism, corrections, newspapers

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

December bookmarks

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

A few sites that have caught my eye:

• Wingmap – new Flash-based site for finding European flights. They don’t do everything right (date selection is particularly clumsy) but it’s always interesting to see a new approach.
• Semiotics for beginners – Daniel Chandler’s book available in full on Aberystwyth University’s website. Heavy going (certainly not for beginners) but damn informative thus far.
• Kuler – is another of those colour-choosing aids, this time from Adobe. Very flexible and definitely worth playing with for an hour. See also Colors on the Web.
• Stellarium - fascinating open-source planetarium software. Particularly recommended for people who don’t live in a block of flats near a large city centre…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

2006 in review

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

To celebrate the new design, premature meme banality. Feel free to ignore.

- What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before? Explored.
- Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? My only resolution was to have more fun. Not sure whether I kept it.
- Did anyone close to you give birth? No.
- Did anyone close to you die? No.
- What countries did you visit? Spain, United States.
- What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? Complete, final financial stability. I think I’m nearly there. Kinda.
- What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 11 Sep 2006.
- What was your biggest achievement of the year? Deciding / deducing my future direction.
- What was your biggest failure? Not following that direction soon enough.
- What was the best thing you bought? Ys or the multi-tracker.
- Whose behaviour merited celebration? Jo Berkeley’s. Decided what she wanted to do, and did it.
- Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Has to be Bush, as always.
- Where did most of your money go? Loan repayments (student debt, still…), CDs, beer. But mostly the loans.
- What did you get really, really, really excited about? Holiday to New York, my career.
- What song will always remind you of 2006? Guillemots – We’re Here.
- Compared to this time last year, are you
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Maybe a few pounds thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Hard to say. More in control = richer in the long run.
- What do you wish you’d done more of? Learning.
- What do you wish you’d done less of? Complaining.
- How will you be spending Christmas? In Cornwall with family. Looking forward to it.
- Did you fall in love in 2006? No.
- How many one-night stands? None.
- What was your favourite TV program? Police Squad. Does that count?
- Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No.
- What was the best book you read? Crime and Punishment.
- What was your greatest musical discovery? The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower (even though they’re splitting).
- What did you want and get? New experiences.
- What did you want and not get? A flute.
- What was your favourite film of this year? Don’t know. The Departed? Casino Royale was surprisingly good.
- What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? Barbeque. 27.
- What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Love.
- How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? Same as always.
- What kept you sane? Learning.
- What political issue stirred you the most? Iraq, still. Or that video of the cops tasering the UCLA student. (Warning: seriously, it’s pretty unpleasant. Click only if you’re sure.)
- Who did you miss? Anya.
- Who was the best new person you met? Can I say myself?
- Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006. Negativity is the biggest flaw in the human psyche.

It’s been a good year.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Fixes and improvements

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

I’ll be updating the layout of the blog over the next few days, and fixing a few things (such as archives – should now be back to normal, the new Blogger beta broke them). Sorry if things don’t look quite right for a bit. The new “add to del.icio.us” feature doesn’t work right yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

• « Older Entries