Mon 30th Oct 2006 @ 22:34 2006: VW Polo on YouTube

Saw this in the Manchester Evening News... a disgruntled VW customer (of the current, Girly VW Polo, not the original, Manly Polo, of course!) has apparently got a lot of hits on YouTube with his complaint.

I do like VW's comment: "You can't help wondering whether the site had so many hits because it's about a Volkswagen which hasn't delivered what one would expect from such a car or whether it's because the title might possibly have salacious connotations."

He's not got the most exciting delivery, so I don't know why so many people have watched this ...?

Mon 23rd Oct 2006 @ 08:17 2006: Spring Forward ...

We can put our clocks back a week early, according to Microsoft, who describe the bug as "The month of October [in 2006, 2010, 2011, 2016 ... ] has five Sundays."

I don't claim to have spent a great deal of my time investigating DST issues, but surely it would be obvious during code review that a hard-coded assumption of 4 Sundays per month is going to cause problems?

Sun 22nd Oct 2006 @ 22:38 2006: F1

Congratulations to just about everybody (other than the Williams drivers) who took part in today's final Grand Prix of the season.

To Michael Schumacher, undoutedly the man of the day in his last ever F1 race, finishing 4th after qualifying 10th and suffering a puncture early on in the race. Setting multiple fastest laps during the race, probably the most impressive was the one just after having pitted, with 21 laps worth of fuel in the car. Schumacher has had a controversial career, Austria being possibly the lowest point, and it must be said that many of the drivers he passed today (other than Fisichella and Raikkonen) were effectively moving out of the way out of respect, but he is also a top-class driver, and has also built the Ferrari team around himself incredibly well.

To Fellipe Massa, for being the first Brazilian to win at home since the late great Ayrton Senna won there 13 years ago.

To Fernando Alonso, for winning his second consecutive Drivers' championship, and for winning the Manufacturers' championship again for Renault.

To Jenson Button, for getting yet another podium (this time from 14th on the grid); his first win earlier in the season really driving him now.

To Honda, for getting the engines safely to the end of the race, to be set in stone for the next few years of development. Also to Honda, for being the only big team retaining both their drivers for next season, giving them a great advantage over their competitors in the winter development.

In a sport which often shows its cold, cynical, and unpleasant side, it was a fantastic end to the all-too-short season. I think that all F1 fans can be genuinely happy for all the competitors, which makes a refreshing change.

Drivers Championship 2006:
Alonso: 134
M Schumacher: 121
Massa: 80
Fisichella: 72
Raikkonen: 65
Button: 56
Barrichello: 30
Montoya: 26

Manufacturers Championship 2006:
Renault: 206
Ferrari: 201
McLaren: 110
Honda: 86
BMW: 36
Toyota: 35

BMW Sauber were lucky to get past Toyota as both teams, having performed very well throughout the year, had a very scrappy final race of the season.

It was rather surreal to hear the Spaniard Alonso saying "merci" to his (mainly British) Renault team. In the press conference, Alonso paid tribute to Schumacer: "I was extremely lucky to win the last two championships he raced in".

Sat 21st Oct 2006 @ 22:44 2006: Free Hugs !

Maybe everybody knows about this already, but there's a really rather sweet video on YouTube called Free Hugs Campaign about a guy in Sydney who spends a day a week giving out free hugs... 10 News cover the background story.

Fri 20th Oct 2006 @ 13:10 2006: Geek

#define GEEK http://www.ingredientx.com/watch/tales/mydarling.jpg

Tue 17th Oct 2006 @ 21:40 2006: Push or Pull?

I saw these doors at a motorway service station today. This hadn't been done once, but on a second pair of doors next to these. You can see in the photo that there is an interior pair of doors, also, so there are a total of four pairs of doors incorrectly labelled.

(Okay, so the left door is correctly labelled, so there are four doors incorrectly labelled). The labelling is wrong on both sides of the doors , making a total of 8 misleading "door transactions".

I played safe, and used the left door :-)

(Click the image for a larger version)

Mon 16th Oct 2006 @ 13:16 2006: IT Training

Cerco are advertising on TV again - apparently there's a lot of money to be made in IT. You can take their online test by providing dummy information here. I got 96%, so (being a 30-question test) I got slightly more than one question wrong.

The thing is, the test works in FireFox/Win, but looks compeltely different from how it looks under IE/Win - it's framed or unframed, depending on the browser. Using FireFox/Linux, you need to disable JavaScript just so you can scroll down through the questions (a question a frame, in IE/Win, doesn't need much, if any (depending on
screen resolution) scrolling).

The irony is, that the quiz is much more awkward in IE/Win, because you have to answer the question, then click "Next Question" to see the next question. At least in FireFox, you get all questions on the one page.

It has a timeout, too, which apparently pops up a window telling you that your time is up. Unfortunately, IE has eventually added a popup-blocker, so that doesn't work; if you enable popups for the site, it has to reload the page, which restarts the test.

So, these experts who can apparently help you to get on in IT, clearly know noting about the basics, like how to write a JavaScript-based page in JavaScript.

On the plus side, the HTML isn't far from HTML 4.01 compliance. So that's something, I'm sure. :)

There's nothing like quality. And this is nothing like quality.

I wouldn't generally knock a random site for lack of compliance (especially as people who live in glass houses should not throw stones), but this is a special case. They're trying to profit from the gullible by claiming to be a doorway to good-sized incomes, whilst all they are actually offering is a £3,995 four-week course.

Who are the target audience? Presumably, if you can take 4 weeks off to do the course, you are either unemployed or are taking a big personal commitment. YOu are committing £4k of your own money, as well. It seems likely that anyone considering this training is probably pretty vulnerable in the first place, and unlikely to have 4 grand to spare. I don't know whether the long-term unemployed could get Government funding for a course like this - it's a possibility, though the employer testimonial that "anyone who is prepared to invest their own money in a course is going to have dedication" suggests that the idea is that people spend their own money on this.

Professional training courses do cost a lot of money, though; many one-week courses cost over four thousand pounds. Let's see what you get: the course plan.

Week 1 introduces PC hardware and Windows; Week 2 is networking; Week 3 is great; two days of "Advanced Operating System Configuration and Troubleshooting"... followed by 1.5 days of "Printing with Windows" - so I guess that Monday and Tuesday weren't really all that advanced after all! Week four, then, is basically about printing. Not a lot for four grand.

Once you've done the training and increased your salary expectations, they are also a recruitment agency, so they'll now happily take a cut of your new, improved income.

Thu 12th Oct 2006 @ 23:08 2006: Prank-Calling the RIAA (plus a digression)

zug.com have some fun prank calls to the RIAA, Apple, etc, about trying to pay for an "accidentally downloaded" MP3.

They also have a song for download, if you happen to like bad rap. (note: that's bad as in "not very good", not bad as in "really rather good indeed". Oh my, I'm getting old!)

The same guy also did some interesting experiments on checking credit card signatures. He ended up signing it as "Please Check ID", and "I stole this card", but still nobody queried it. Apparently Disneyworld didn't ever process the transaction he signed as "Mickey Mouse", though. Maybe it is this guy's fault that we now have Chip and Pin?

That's a great system, which has allowed me to buy groceries as my wife, with nobody batting an eyelid. Some systems I've seen recently don't even require the assistant to even see the card; the customer simply inserts a card, enters a PIN, and removes the card. This is more secure how, exactly?

He then goes on to the Credit Card Prank Part II. He did get called on it, eventually.

Tue 10th Oct 2006 @ 20:19 2006: US Torture Bill

The US Torture Bill expressed in C - with the obligatory bug which makes the intended point.


if (person = terrorist) {
punish_severely();
} else {
exit(-1);
}


Mon 9th Oct 2006 @ 00:41 2006: obF1Post

Japan was a genuinely newsworthy event; the Bridgestone tyres were clearly dominant in qualifying on Saturday, but on Sunday, the Michelins were just as good as the Bridgestones. Also, M Schumacher's Ferrari engine blew up for the first time since 2001.

The Big Question: What was the difference between Saturday Quali and the Sunday Race for Michelin?

We are going to miss Michelin next year.

The championship is not yet sewn up, but it's very likely now that Fernando Alonso will win the Drivers' championship, and that Renault will win the Constructors.

Still, nothing is guaranteed.

Why is the F1 season so short? I love this!

Sun 8th Oct 2006 @ 00:21 2006: Whisky of Mass Destruction

I don't really know what to make of this ...

http://www.bruichladdich.com/wmd_story.htm


We have had whales, ships, even mines washed up on our shores - and now this: Baker, fishing 3 miles off the Mull of Oa (5 miles from Bruichladdich) discovered a bright yellow object floating beneath the surface. At first thinking it was a drum, he was shocked to discover it was a Ministry of Defence mini submarine - bristling with hi-tech surveillance equipment.

Having towed the ROV to port, the submarine was hoisted out of the water for safe keeping, and dutifully the authorities were alerted.

Then things became more strange. A bizarre series of conflicting messages were exchanged with the MOD via a third party: Firstly, the MOD denied it was theirs – even though it had MOD identification on it. Secondly they denied that the vessel was missing – even though it was physically ashore on Islay. Then the MOD stated it was impossible to have found it were the fisherman claimed they had – implying they had stolen it. And finally the MOD claimed to have reported the loss to the Coastguard ten days earlier – but no local coastguard members could confirm this.

Fri 6th Oct 2006 @ 12:42 2006: Fingerprinting Children

Schools to be challenged over biometrics - a test case against fingerprinting schoolchildren.

What's it all about? Privacy. If you hold information relevant to a criminal investigation (not necessarily an offence, just an investigation) then you are legally obliged to provide it. So the police will in future have access to anybody's prints on demand. These prints will be kept on record for 75 years after the person leaves school at 16 (so, until they are 91 years of age. That's a lifelong record, possibly from the age of 3 or 4 years).

There's a good quote on the Register article: "People say, 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear', I always say, well how much do you earn then?"

Thu 5th Oct 2006 @ 01:07 2006: Think

Better than most "Think!" campaigns. Certainly makes more sense than maintaining 70mph limits from the 1950s when very few cars could even achieve 70mph, legally obliging drivers to choose between self-incrimination or shopping members of their friends and family who may have borrowed the vehicle.

Not that I've got any particular issues with the current regime, of course! The fact that I own, and regularly drive, a 1993 VW Polo and a 2003 Ford Mondeo, and can quite easily tell the difference between their acceleration, deceleration and handling capabilities, suggests to me that a decade has made a big difference to how a "simple, cheap, family car" performs. I haven't experienced a 1950s car, but I can step back and forwards a decade within moments; going back to the 1950s with very few cars (fewer still capable of 70mph) does not exactly stretch the imagination.

When those laws were passed, drivers could push their cars to the limits without any comeback. Now, if you take off from the lights too fast you can get points on your license.

That, to me, is just silly.

As Autumn comes in, some reminders for cyclists to use lights on their bikes would be a useful campaign; I don't really want to start chalking up a tally on the side of my car!

Tue 3rd Oct 2006 @ 13:28 2006: Word of the Day: Geocide

This is not the ending of life on earth, or any such trivial exercise; the goal here is by any means necessary, to change the Earth into something other than a planet or a dwarf planet. So - how can it be done? Sam Hughes has the answers.

From the website:

The International Astronomical Union defines a planet as:
a celestial body that

1. is in orbit around the Sun
2. has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and
3. has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit

1. is in orbit around the Sun
2. has sufficient ass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
3. has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and
4. is not a satellite.