OK, I’ll start this with a bit of honesty, I don’t live in London. That’s not to say that I never will, I love the idea, even if there’s not that much call for over ambitious Systems Engineer in the heartland of this Nation, but to this day I have never lived in London. That having been said, I’ve still been battered, knocked, enthralled, enticed and ejected from a good proportion of the city’s attractions (and indeed atrocities).
I started this blog post sitting in Euston, writing it on my phone. The makes me two things.
A) A new age, trendy blogger and hip with the times and
B) A dickhead.
All the technology aside, I have found that since moving up north, my perspective on all these cool things has changed a little. It might well be unrelated to the distance, it might be just the fact that I’m getting old, but the things that once impressed and fascinated me have lost their shine. Take swanky London clubs for example.
On a recent visit to London, I was lucky enough to meet up with some people in the Mayfair bar. A nice enough place but you quickly get a feel for the place when you realise they don’t serve beer. A bar that doesn’t serve beer hey? That’s a bit like a prostitute that doesn’t have sex. All the things are still in the right places, but there’s kind of just no point to it. Anyhow, by the time I’d enjoyed a £10 “cocktail” or two, we moved on to (what is now known as) the worst club in London. Although we had called ahead and been told that they “didn’t have a guest list” (it was a Thursday night), we were stopped on the door to see if we had a reservation. (Kindly!) the door snob said she would “go and see if they could fit us in”. Three minutes later she returned and was generous enough to let our small (but perfectly formed) party in, to pay £15/person (which they were rather unhappy about giving any change from a £20) and we ventured into the almost completely empty room. I was then lucky enough to be able to pay £8.50 for a bottle of Tiger beer (yes, that’s not a typo) before being asked to move over because someone more important than us would like to use the table our drinks were on. The night had a wonderful conclusion when the birthday girl was invited to “get some air” (please be assured she was by no means “too drunk”, more than could be said for any of the other visitors!) with the promise that because she had her hand adorned with their stamp that coming back in wouldn’t be a problem. Of course they didn’t let her back in and we all made our way home, many hundreds of pounds worse off. The parting comment from the door snob? “So what exactly do you do for a job?” to the birthday girl. Well my dear, something a fair bit more worthwhile than robbing my customers. Besides, is it relevant? It would appear in London that yes, it is.
The whole episode was rather sad really and it reminded me of just how far into the pit some areas of our humanity have gone. The antidote? The next day we got up and spent a lovely day in the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. Attractions you don’t have to pay for and spend your hard earned cash funding some Londonite’s car fund. My big lesson here? Paying more certainly doesn’t buy you better service.
This was sent to me by a geek / tech-friend of mine at work. It’s one of those things that takes a few moments to work out quite how it works but once you do, the genius cannot be denied. Such a simple way of both portraying a lot of information (all the permutations) as well as the demonstrating the solution set for the classic game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
This is taken from of the the many self indulgent sites I keep an eye on. If you know someone who is heavily into tech, they probably know about http://xkcd.com/832/
Having worked in a very interesting industry for a while now, I find it fascinating when I see very advanced technology that has been developed through collaboration. The story of Stuxnet is truly mesmerizing for a number of reasons, not least of all for the fact that it was developed by more than once person (or organisation) and THAT is amazing. It’s VERY difficult to successfully develop systems or software across company (or department) boundaries because very quickly the management overhead suffocates the ability of the individuals to perform at their best. I love the idea of a team being the “greater than the sum of the parts” but most often, when management “does its stuff”, more time is spent in overhead (reporting, restructuring, specifying etc) than on actually developing a good product.
Anyhow, </rant> and enjoy the link. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you you….. Stuxnet.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/
I think this is a lovely bit of footage and a fantastic soundtrack to boot. I don’t really know much about its origin I’m afraid, it’s just one of those things I came across and felt it was worth documenting with the world. Enjoy.
It’s a well known fact that I love being a man as much (or more than) the next….errrr man, but far be it from me to over extol the virtues of being macho. There are however some times when you just feel proud….
After watching this (and a string of similar videos) myself and Jim actually went out to go buy some. I am sad to report that ASDA do not stock it.
A House I'd like.... but can't afford
- Understand that you can tailor your monthly repayments to exactly what you want by splitting your mortgage into “interest only” AND “capital repayment” in the proportions that fit you.
- Come to peace with the fact that you will hate estate agents. When they ask what your MAXIMUM budget is and you tell the 150K, the first thing they’ll do is show you an AMAZING house for 160K. They will only return calls when it suites them and they are NEVER on your side (their commission is a percentage, thus the more you spend, the more they make. Of course they have to make a sale to cash in so they’ll push you to buy). Come to peace with their overpaid, immoral, egocentric ways and work out how much of it you’re willing to put up with.
- Be aware that all your relatives and friends will use the opportunity to offload all the the crap that they can’t bring themselves to throw out and expect you to be thankful that they’re giving you their 1980s paisley curtains that have sat in the garage for 15 years. Politely decline and buy some crap from Ikea.
- Ikea can be OK but mostly they wont have what you want when you want it. The staff will be clueless and less available than the yeti. You’ll come out late at night at the end of your tether and broke. You will have a cheap hotdog. 3 months later you will remember the hot dog and go back. You still wont fit the things you buy in your car.
- Fixed fee solicitors are never fixed fee. They will always have “additional” fees that will take them (sometimes over double) their estimates. Often these are fees that they must pay directly on your behalf.
- When someone says “don’t worry, you will probably remortgage after 2 years” calculate how much that extra “arrangement fee” will cost. It wont be worth it.
- You will plan to “overpay” on your mortgage and will spend a long time asking difficult questions to the advisor about what the penalty will be and how much you can overpay per month. You will not overpay.
- See if you can pay bi-weekly rather than monthly. Most companies wont let you do this now, but if you can, you’ll shave about 7 years off a 25 year mortgage whilst paying the same monthly amount.
- Don’t be tempted to redecorate all rooms at once or your spend 6 years with a half finished flat/house. Do one room… move on… next room… move on etc. Otherwise you’ll get overwhelmed.
- Don’t go for the cheapest workmen you can kind, if it’s too cheap to be true, it is. Go on personal recommendation and inspect work they have done for other people. This will save you money in the long run.
- Simple things can change the appearance of an old flat more than furniture. New doors/handles, carpet, recessed lighting etc all look good. If not, get a pet and your house will look shit anyway.
- Decide if it’s a house or a home. If it’s a house, do stuff that will help resale (make sure you have a bath, neutral colours etc). If it’s your home, don’t give a stuff about what anyone else says, go with what you like and deal with it when/if you ever sell.
- Location is important but so is the feel you get when your inside your house.
- Babies don’t like stairs. If you’re planning on having one, think about that before you by a 10th floor flat.
- Use the opportunity of moving to throw out crap. Go in as empty as possible and build something you love.
- Housewarming party BEFORE you decorate, housewarming dinner AFTER.
- Minimalist is not the same as being tidy.
- Dark colours make places smaller, mirrors make things appear bigger.
- Chase cables into walls. It’s worth the effort.
- Write a will.
It can’t have been very long ago that I started predicting the backlash against Apple but it appears to be gathering pace at an alarming rate. It seems that any company that gets big… gets hated. M$, Google, BP, McDonalds… you name it, they ended up being hated. Why? Well I’m not sure whether you could quantify whether it’s BECAUSE they are big, or because once they get big, strange things start to happen. Either way, Apple, who have become considerably more restrcitive that Microsoft, have started to enrage the people who have given them the power. The iPhone was a hit not so much because of the great stuff it offered out of the box… but because of the great stuff that developers made for it. Now Apple have been handcuffing the iPhone developers, expect to see many more of them flocking over to Android.
All that aside, this post (from an Adobeite) points out exactly why. (hint… it’s in the iPhone ADG and looks like this:)
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Whatever you give a woman, she’s going to multiply. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So – if you give her any crap, you will receive a ton of shit.
anon
This is one of those “geek only” jokes because if you get it will simultaneously snigger out loud and and be very ashamed of yourself….
… or at least you should be.
This is a special post for Peeg, in homage to his ingenuity last night with the glow sticks.
…plus of course I wet myself a little when I saw it. I want one!