Category: learning curve

Temporary condition

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This rather bold statement:

atheism-1from here.

There are other interesting images on that post as well. Namely the two shots of the placard on (I think) Fargate in Sheffield, featuring words from the Bible.
It reminded me of going to the football as a kid and seeing the old man in the fluorescent orange waistcoat* on John Street with a placard. Every game, without fail, he’d be there, standing in the middle of the (closed) road outside turnstile 33. On one side of his sign was: “CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS” and on the other, more ominously ahead of any important match: “THE END IS NIGH”.

I suppose that “Nigh” (like “Temporary”) is a subjective measure of time: we’re 30+ years on and “The End” has yet to come.
Still, I guess that when it does, he’ll be able to claim that he was right all along.

* I didn’t think this memory could be right, but having looked it up, TIL that amazingly, hi-vis jackets have been around since the 1960’s.

 

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Isle Of Man

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via DavidColby on Buzzfeed. And it’s all* true.

(or “Buzzfeed comes up trumps because I have no time to write a blog post today”)

While I was born in Sheffield and I live in Cape Town, I have strong family connections to the Isle of Man and I guess that I consider it my spiritual home. You may recognise the favicon on your current browser tab as being a triskelion – the Three Legs of Man.

Of all the facts presented, only one was new to me:

The Island was named the fifth most likely nation to reach the moon next.
Strange, but true. A number of the competitors in the Google Lunar X Prize (a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon) are based on the Island.

I’ve known forever that it is a great place – the best kept secret of the British Isles. Now David has spilled the beans, maybe more people will discover it. But please don’t ruin it. I like it just the way it is.

So go – click through – I’ll test you on what you’ve learnt tomorrow.

* actually, I dispute the bit about Snaefell being the only place you can see England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales from – there are plenty of other mountains on the island with the same view. </pendant>

jif

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Ever since I found out that Nutella, the delicious chocolate hazelNUT spread is actually pronounced NEWtella, I’ve been waiting for the pronunciation rug to be pulled from under me again. And it seems that me patience has paid off, because now it has happened.

It came in a short interview with a man called Steve Wilhite in the New York Times. Steve’s claim to fame is that he devised a compressed image format back in 1987 that is still widely used today.

After a bit of history:

Mr. Wilhite, then working at CompuServe (the nation’s first major online service) knew the company wanted to display things like color weather maps. Because he had an interest in compression technologies, Mr. Wilhite thought he could help.

And some present day stuff:

Since retiring in 2001, Mr. Wilhite has led a quieter existence than his creation. He goes on RV trips. He built a house in the country with a lot of lawn to mow. He dabbles in color photography and Java programming. He uses e-mail and Facebook to keep up with family.

They casually drop this bombshell:

He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

I’m sorry? You what what?

26 years on from devising an image format, you decide to let that little gem slip? I’ve been using gifs… jifs… bah, whatever… since 1992 and now you want me to suddenly change the way I say it. How on earth am I supposed to do that?

And why “jif”?
I’m well aware that Giraffes have set a precedent for the use of a soft ‘G’, but the term ‘gif’ is – as any fule kno – an acronym for ‘Graphics Interchange Format’. That’s “Graphics”, not “Jraffics”. So while you’re confusing the geanpant off us (not literally, I hasten to add), why not change the way we say the other two-thirds as well?

May I respectfully suggest: “j-ee-ef”?
Actually, may I respectfully suggest that shove your idea where the sun don’t shine and stop trying to alter history just because you came up with a novel, much loved and much used way of sharing pictures?

To borrow your explanation from above:

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is “gif”, pronounced ‘gif’.”

End of story.

Pop science via Popular Science

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Ah, mad scientists! Dontcha just love them?

Some say that one local blogging microbiologist used to perform basic scientific experiments in his bedroom cupboards aged 11. All I know is that I never pulled a Blu-ray burning laser from its rightful home and mounted it inside a hollowed out flashlight, before shooting it at 100 sacrificial balloons.

Fortunately, this guy has pulled a Blu-ray burning laser from its rightful home and mounted it inside a hollowed out flashlight, before shooting it at 100 sacrificial balloons. And he caught their demise with a video camera, thus:

He even makes them come back to life again (but not really, it’s just the film played backwards).

At this point, the audience is split two ways. There’s the half which is going: “That’s SOOOOO cool! I wonder what else he can do with his laser?!?!” and there’s the other half who are going: “That’s SOOOOO scary! I wonder what else he’s going to do with his laser?!?!”.

Either way, let’s hope it involves puppies.

Link via Popular Science.

Little tablets. Why?

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I had my first hands on experience with an Apple iPad mini yesterday. Cute little thing, neat and tidy too (as you might expect), but I’m still struggling to get my head around why anyone would want to have a mini tablet. Each to their own of course, and my own isn’t Apple, wherever it can be avoided. But Android has its fair share of these mini tablets too and they leave me equally mystified.

Why would you want a device which looks like your phone, is ever so slightly bigger than your phone, but doesn’t make phone calls?

My phone is great, I love it, but the only place it falls down is that the screen isn’t big enough to do “some stuff” on – well, do some stuff easily anyway. Stuff like spreadsheets, documents and the like. Looking at pictures in detail as well. You’d just rather see more bits at the same time.

Of course, these mini-tablets are bigger than my phone. But they’re not very much bigger and it’s still awkward to do these things.
It’s at this point that I don’t get it. Why not just go for a 10 inch screen instead of a 7 or 8 inch one? Yes, it’s bigger and heavier – “more cumbersome” if you want to use negative flowery language – but it’s not like your iPad mini fits in your pocket anyway, is it? Unless you have really big pockets, in which case normal rules obviously don’t apply to you anyway.

The benefits of the larger screen far outweigh its cumbersomeitude. It’s more practical, it’s more versatile, it’s just… better.

I am sure that my “not getting it” will prompt a flurry of indignant cries of “you don’t get it”, and they’d be right. Because I don’t get it. So won’t somebody please explain the vast array of benefits of the mini tablet?
It probably won’t sway me, but it might help me understand why this is such a fast growing market at the moment.

I do hope it’s not just that usual Apple thing of being cool over being functional. That would be terrible.