Humour
Search Engines Modelled On Politicians
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Fri, 04/30/2010 - 01:01It's occurred to me just how close MP's resemble search engines. It's all about keywords and advertisers. When you type something into a search engine it sorts out the most relevant answers (links) to those keywords, and give extra relevance to those who pay to be higher in the results. Politicians work in the same way when asked a question, they don't hear the full question, they hear a handful of keywords to then trigger a pre prepared response, with relevance to who donates to their campaign funds.
The Orcs Are Coming
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Fri, 04/16/2010 - 17:56The recent volcanic ash cloud which brought air travel in the UK to a halt came a couple of weeks too late for the mother of all headlines on April 1st. In Lord Of The Rings, Sauron sends a huge black cloud ahead of his armies of orcs in part to hide them and in part because orcs can't travel in daylight. They could have had some fun in getting quotes from Gandalf, Bilbo, and of course Sam for how it affects the plants.
Mr & Mr's
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Sat, 01/16/2010 - 13:28No this is not some post announcing a wedding anniversary, nor is it a piece about gay marriage, it's an observation about grammar, coincidence and how life could have been very different, especially for women. It occurred to me the other day how the meaning of a word changes with a simple apostrophe, and in one example gives an insight into traditional beliefs that some people hold.
In English, the apostrophe is used in two ways, either as a gap between two words:
Fun Android Predictions
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Wed, 01/06/2010 - 04:17Android is a smartphone OS developed by Google. It's Linux based with all of the flexibility and security that entails. Some manufacturers have already jumped on the Android game, one of which is the Motorola Droid. As the year unfolds, many more will follow.
When The Brain Is A Little Behind The Times
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Tue, 01/05/2010 - 14:52I just got back from doing some grocery shopping in Tesco and thought I'd share a funny moment. I bought some eggs and as always, checked the sell by and use by dates before selecting a box. The use by date was Jan 31st but for some reason my brain could only think 31st = December, so I mentioned to the assistant who happened to be filling the shelves right next to me "did you know these eggs are out of date" only for her to point out that it was January.
Next Witness M'Lud
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 15:00I've come to the conclusion that Linux from the command line is like a lawyer questioning a witness in court. It's a matter of finding the correct question to get the answer you want without all the extra rambling. In court a lawyer can't ask a leading question, nor can they harass the witness. Some questions will be over-ruled or stricken from the record. I am not a lawyer but I see the general idea in movies, TV shows and novels with court scenes. In the terminal one command may give you part of what you need but not all, while another command may give you other parts but not all. Some commands may need to be grep'd to only show the relevant parts, or need a flag added to provide some non-standard output. Some may need to be piped into another command to get the desired effect. This is just the same as a lawyer trying to find the correct question.
The Secret Lives Of Cables
Submitted by ThistleWeb on Wed, 09/09/2009 - 20:38After lengthy consideration I've came to the conclusion that the real purpose of cables is not what we've always thought it was. We have cables carrying power, phone signals, computer communications and assume this is their purpose. It is not; their real purpose if to get tangled up with each other. No matter how tidy you try to be in looping cables round objects to keep them together, or using cable-tidies, they seem hell bent on getting tangled with their colleagues.
