Posts from 2015

18 Dec 2015

Bendicks Bittermints

If you have never tried a Bendicks Bittermint, you’re missing out. One of my favourite bits of Christmas. I undertake thorough research before I post anything online (doesn’t everyone?) and was curious about whether there ought to be an apostrophe in the word “Bendicks”. Out of curiosity, I googled a related phrase. By way of explanation, first: I take pride in my spelling and grammar… but when hammering terms into Google, I don’t bother to correct them.

26 Nov 2015

Free on the front of a magazine

I used to look forward to “ST Format” magazine, ripping the floppy disc off the front and obsessively playing all the Atari game demos. The freebie on the front of the latest “Magpi” is an entire computer.

19 Nov 2015

Cam coffee cams

I’m lucky to work with a great friend who is one of the inventors of the webcam. I spend quite a bit of time on video calls with him - obviously, though a webcam. The original application of the webcam was, as is well known, looking at a coffee pot. Today I was pleased to have an opportunity to use this coffee-related invention to capture a mugshot of its inventor drinking coffee from a mug which commemorates the invention.

05 Nov 2015

One unexpected pleasure of fatherhood...

…is that this morning I got to test physics by driving about with a helium balloon in the car. I think I am happy explaining the phenomenon without reference to general relativity but it’s an interesting perspective Why does a helium filled balloon move forward when a car accelerates Happy Birthday Iris!

19 Oct 2015

A photo of a photo of a model of a model

Following our recent trip to an infinite village, I am now the owner of a planned photo of a photo of a model of a model. Thanks to Sarah the patient wife and photographer.

17 Oct 2015

On infinite villages

Just behind the New Old Inn (a name I particularly like) in Bourton-on-the-Water is a model village, modelled on the village of Bourton-on-the-Water. The model makers must’ve been my kind of people, and shared my love of “meta” because they made it a member of the set of things that describe themselves, a bit like this sentence would be, if it talked about itself. Which it does. Anyway, what I mean is: they included a model of the model inside the model, and a model model model inside it.

08 Oct 2015

Remember, remember the xth of November

I have an old-fashioned, non-smart, not-even-digital watch. I have to fiddle with the little rotary adjuster thingamabob to set the date to “1” at the end of every month with fewer than 31 days. How do I remember the length of all the months? That rhyme, right? The one that everybody knows: “30 days hath September…” Mnemonics are great, but if this is supposed to be one (wikipedia says it is), it’s a terrible example.

23 Sep 2015

Productionizability

I recently had cause to peruse this article and it introduced me to the word “productionizability”. A noun derived from a verb derived from a noun. It made me cringe. Related to this, when I was at school the longest word in English was claimed to be “antidisestablishmentarianism”. It disappointed me, because it’s such a construction. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I always wanted to ask, “why stop there?

23 Sep 2015

Aliens and Knots

I love knots. Using just a piece of cord/string/rope/stuff, combined with knowledge and skill, you can solve a multitude of problems, in all sorts of ways. Often the most elegant solution is the best, but not always. Knots have apparently mysterious properties, history, nomenclature, everything a geek like me could want. On a recent boating trip (I don’t go on many), while we were tying a clove hitch, my friend Michael got me thinking with this question:

21 Aug 2015

A level 4 meta-story

Iris is really into Frog & Toad at the moment. Last night we read “The Story”, in which Toad remarks to Frog that he’s looking a bit too green. Frog takes to bed and asks Toad for a story, but his dry-skinned buddy can’t think of one. Toad pours water on his head, stands on his head and does various other things to his head to no avail. He just can’t think of a story.

07 Aug 2015

Physical Web for Presenters

I was at a very interesting meetup (Cambridge Internet of Things) yesterday. Alongside a thought-provoking presentation about online privacy and cloud computing, I learnt about the Physical Web project. Scott Jenson explained the aims and the activities that are well underway. I’m a geek, I get excited by such things and my mind runs ahead. As I watched people holding up smartphones to capture the projected slides, presumably to grab details, it occurred to me that giving a presentation might be a great physical web use case.

26 Jul 2015

Being a big kid

A video of me trying something I first saw on Strictly Come Dancing, and showing off, and nearly crashing into someone. The shouts are, I promise, shouts of encouragement and congratulations from the instructor. Flowboarding is fun - thanks for my Christmas present Sarah!

12 Jul 2015

g10k2

Twelve intrepid runners completed this year’s g10k race, completing two hot laps of the “lollipop course”. Proceedings were expertly marshalled by the two race officials and race mascot (thanks Sarah, Lauren and Otis). Meanwhile, nobody was taking it easy. Meerkat-style crèche watching kept a handful of heroic grown-up helpers fully occupied while we runners were making our way round the race. Having more runners than last time made it even more fun.

07 Jul 2015

Downloadable OS maps

It’s always slightly irked me that buying an Ordnance Survey map doesn’t entitle me to access the information upon it in any way other than looking at it. That might sound strange, but I’m talking about a piece of paper that costs £8.99 (if bought direct). I’m assuming that the paper, although nice, is not making up the bulk of the cost. I’ve tried their subscription service, but gave up because it used Silverlight.

07 Jul 2015

Digital counting

Heard in a meeting recently. “Well, I think we could count them on the thumbs of one hand.”

02 Jun 2015

Up with this we will not put

Iris and I recently read “Little Miss Sunshine”, in which the heroine visits Miseryland and changes it for the better. If you haven’t read it, I won’t give away any more of the plot. Miseryland’s signage is sombre… YOU ARE NOW ENTERING MISERYLAND SMILING LAUGHING CHUCKLING GIGGLING FORBIDDEN By Order Of The King …but it’s better than this example from Histon. I reckon the location of the STRICTLY NO FLY TIPPING sign probably is a spot that might otherwise be frequently fly-tipped.

02 Jun 2015

A metric milestone for Finn

Like big sister, Finn slept through his megasecond. It happened at 2:03am though, so I wasn’t going to stay up for it. An artist’s impression of the event is available below.

23 May 2015

Morrisons += 10lbs

I am so proud of my wife. We have another baby and his name is Finn Owen Morrison. He seems a placid sort of fellow and likes sleeping during the day and whimpering during the night. I think he looks a bit like big sister did at the same age. Born precisely 1,432,210,581 seconds after midnight on the 1st of January 1970 a.k.a. early on Thursday afternoon. (He has a terrible almost-repetetive birthdate of 21-05-2015.

11 May 2015

Reinstalling the dolls' computer

I couldn’t live with Windows XP on the computer in the dolls' house. System reinstallation now complete!

01 May 2015

It's not OK to not understand the internet

A story and an article which resonated with me today. They both have important, complementary messages, I think. Major London rail station reveals signal system passwords during TV documentary and Encryption won’t work if it has a back door only the ‘good guys’ have keys to

25 Apr 2015

Trapeziuming

I suspect every parent feels the feeling I have at the moment. Right now, Iris is fast asleep next door dreaming, probably, of the bears that she says often visit her at night and take her to the park. She’s totally fine, except for a bump on the face - exacerbated by her new sunglasses whacking into her right next to the eye. She had a bit of a trapeziuming incident today, after I let her go on “the big girls' swings”.

16 Apr 2015

A model of a model of a model - and a plan

I’m not the first to notice this, but it’s so close to something I independently thought of I had to reblog it. Village has a model village which contains a model model village which contains a model model model village… It’s a story from boingboing about Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, which contains a model village - modelled on Bourton-on-the-Water. True to the spirit of infinite recursion, the model village has a model model village, and so on.

13 Apr 2015

Quirk of the calendar?

Today I saw my first swallows of the year, over our house - and earlier I heard my first willow warblers in the woods near Cambridge’s guided busway. Sort of remarkable that these two springtime events happened on the same day, two years in a row. They arrived one day earlier this year: clear evidence of global warming, for sure. Or perhaps it’s just a quirk of the calendar: I usually cycle past the woods on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

01 Apr 2015

Goodbye to an old friend

Dear Sony MHC-2900 Thank you for 20+ years of faithful service. Looking at you languishing in my neighbour’s skip - into which I deposited you with their permission, I hasten to add - brings back fond teenage memories of listening to John Peel, Mark & Lard and The Evening Session late at night. I always wondered why your entire volume range was within the first ten degrees of rotation, even though I could keep turning for at least 270.

04 Mar 2015

Social media is broken

How is it that something like this can happen and I don’t find out about it until the day after? Come on Facebook, Twitter - you let me down there. 24+ hours?! Weasel photographed riding on a woodpecker’s back - the headline says it all.

03 Mar 2015

1.21 gigawatts

Thought for the day: if you invented a time machine, you wouldn’t need to patent it. Or would you? Or could you?

22 Feb 2015

Time is postage

<rant>To use the Royal Mail website to print postage, you might naïvely think that starting at their home page would be a good idea. If you do try this, here is how to print postage. Click “Print your postage”, then Under “Online Postage (OLP)” click “Buy now”, then (you’re at a page called “Online Postage”), then click “Buy postage online”. You’re now at “Easy start” (navigation says “Home > Discounts & Payment > Home | Online Postage”), and finally Click “Get started”.

06 Feb 2015

Bashi-bazouks!

What is your favourite list/category on Wikipedia? Mine’s been deleted - or rather, merged into a parent article, which is kinda disappointing. List of exclamations used by Captain Haddock It still exists on the marvel that is the world wide web, though - and in reading about it, I have learned a little bit about what a Bashi Bazouk actually is. Here are a couple of other good lists/categories: Counterintuitive pronunciations - whose research led me to pen this tiny post Fictional donkeys - with thanks to my friend Alasdair Lists of lists - Mmmm, all metay and self-referential, too.

28 Jan 2015

To the Linacre Institute and its students - chapeau!

A good friend of mine set up a charity a little while ago, and I was honoured and pleased to be able to help out when he asked me to help build them a website. The Linacre Institute aims to help talented and disadvantaged students at northern UK comprehensive schools fulfil their potential and make successful applications to the country’s top universities. Students like this are currently very under-represented at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London and elsewhere.

10 Jan 2015

Geeky review of 2014

From a purely personal point of view, I’d give 2014 about an 8 out of 10. 7.62, to be precise. At the beginning of the year, I began to “Beemind” myself into writing a few sentences about each day and, following the example of my great and wise friend Billy, I rated each day out of ten. Not out of some desire for constant improvement or obsessive measurement (I’m into both of those) but because I was envious of his ability to jump into Evernote and call up any of his “ten out of ten” days in an instant.

02 Jan 2015

Et tu, eBay?

Basic arithmetic fail from eBay/PayPal. I’ve written about this sort of thing before. It doesn’t add to my confidence in the system when they conclude that 0 = 2.61.