Archive for December, 2015

Earlier this month I took the unusual step of going to buy a video game. I don’t play games most of the time, but given the old versions of Madden can usually be picked up for a couple of pounds, I decided it was worth it. I haven’t actually played it yet, but I will…

It was part of a 3 for £12 offer so I had a look at what else they had. I found this:

A video game based on the best film ever? I’m sold! This resulted in me being able to get one more game for the same price. This was really tricky because I did not really want another game and therefore spent ages trying to decide between all the games I didn’t really want. In the end I picked Tomb Raider.

Happily I took my Ratatouille game home and the next day had a bit of time to give it a go. It turns out the controls are impossible! It’s hard enough to stop Remy falling off stuff most of the time and sometimes he falls down inside a solid object and the only way to get out is to restart the game.

Then you have to learn how to balance on a wire. But how? The game does not explain it. Do you tilt the controller? Use the joystick? Use the arrows? Use the top buttons? None of them seem to have any effect. What am I supposed to be doing here?

I chatted about it at work and I am not the only person who has had such problems. In general, I realise what the controls reminded me of though. Tomb Raider! The way it was impossible to stop Lara falling down holes, usually by accidentally jumping backwards to her doom.

The frustration was brilliantly captured in this 2006 video:

So maybe me and Ratatouille the game are just not destined to get on. Luckily, I can just play one of the other games I bought and get away from those horrible Tomb Raider style controls that I had forgotten how much I hated.

Oh, wait…

For this year’s Humanist winter social, we had a meal at the Lawnswood Arms.

The OED is considered the closest thing to the definitive record of the English language that there is. They claim to be the definitive record. However, without a British equivalent of the Académie française (whose judgements are not even binding), it is difficult to argue a definitive document.

Nevertheless, it is the best thing we have. I had never taken a look at it before, but the depth of information is astonishing. For each word, sometimes over multiple entries, it contains the spellings, forms, frequency in current usage, etymology and a long list of definitions with extensive citations for each. The definitions are followed by a list of phrases, compounds, and derivatives. There is a thesaurus entry for each definition.

In short, it is difficult to image a more complete reference on the English language.

Why do I mention this? Because it turns out that it is totally free!

I have used Dictionary.com for many years because it is easy and for a free product, it is very good. It too contains pronunciation, synonyms, and a limited amount of auxiliary information. It was perfectly adequate for what I wanted. The idea of paying the £215.00 a year subscription to get access to the OED was clearly laughable.

However, it turns out that we all have the ability to access it for free. The OED website allows you to log in using your public library membership number. They say almost every library subscribes, but given my Leeds Library card worked, it is hard to imagine any council cheaper than Leeds.

I registered my library card about eight years ago and it was still valid. It is well worth digging out of the wardrobe. Or, if you do not have one, pop down to your local library and register for one. Once you do, you can access the service online at home, or from anywhere else.

Christian Rudder is a founder and head of data trends at the dating site OkCupid. For years he ran the blog OkTrends which looked at what data you could mine from their site. This book is a continuation of this work as well as bringing in other data sets, mostly to talk about human sexuality.

The full title is Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking).

The anonymised data of OkCupid in aggregate provide some surprising facts, and some expected ones. Take gender differences, for example. Women rate men of a similar age to themselves as the most attract. Up until 30 women will rate men a year or two older than them as the most attractive; after 30 they find men a year or two younger than them most attractive. A drop off starts at 40. That is a good innings though. Compare this to the way men rate women. They rate 21 year olds the most attractive and it goes down hill from there.

He looks at the use of English on Twitter. Many people suppose the internet is degrading the quality of language used. Not so. The average length of a word used on Twitter is actually longer than that in professional publications, and historically. It turns out that when you limit people to 140 characters, they write concisely using a wide lexicon.

He quotes Steve Jobs: “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”. This always reminds me of the Henry Ford quote “if I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”. Whether Ford actually said that is unknown, but it makes a good point. When asking for feedback you really need to find out what they think the problem is that you want to solve, rather than asking them what they think the solution is. In Ford’s case a faster way to get from A to B and in Job’s case an easier way to play and listen to music.

Back on OkCupid, it turns out that everyone is a racist. Rudder breaks the data down into how four groups: white, asian, latino, black, rate each other’s photos. It turns out that people generally rate their own race as the most attractive, but the real drop off is for black women by any other group, who consistently rate them lower. This has geographic differences however. There is a big gap in the US for example, while almost no gap in the UK.

He also looks at the differences between the heterosexual and LGBT communities. Is sexuality a spectrum, for example. Only 19% self-identifying bisexuals regularly message both males and females. This could imply a number of things. It could be that there is a spectrum and many bisexuals fall at either end of it. It could also be that some gay people identify as bisexual for cultural or social reasons. Especially given it correlates with their state’s tolerance of homosexuality. The answer is probably a number of different factors.

Rudder also mentions that Justine Sacco, the woman who made the “hope I don’t get aids” tweet, worked for OkCupid’s parent company. Sacco was discussed in Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve been Publicly Shamed. The hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet is a classic example of how quickly things can travel world the world these days.

In summary, it’s not too clear what Dataclysm was actually about. It seemed to be mostly “here is some interesting data about people”. From that respect, it was genuinely interesting. It also had a lot of crossover with A Billion Wicked Thoughts in using anonymous internet data, a source that has only come around in the last few decades, to reveal fascinating insights into human thoughts and behaviour.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped out with this year’s Humanist Action Group 2015 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters in Leeds. In particular well done to Sarann who took the lead this year in organising everything, and did an amazing job!

We did not inventorise everything this year, so we do not have a grand total for how much we raised. However we did make deliveries to three different shelters in Leeds, a food bank charity named Fair Share and contributed to the Vegan Feast, a monthly hot meal for homeless people in Leeds. This totals to five separate organisations who received a delivery from us.

Thank you to Mill Hill Chapel who kindly provided free use of their building to us. Here are some of my favourite photos from the event.

For the December lecture at West Yorkshire Humanists two local Greenpeace volunteers came down to tell us about their organisation. This took the form of an interactive workshop: we were answering true or false questions, putting photos into a timeline and discussing the ethical issues surrounding the environment and protesting.

They started with a video. I think if anything that did dispel a myth as I assumed they were quite a well rounded organisation that did thinks like education and lobbying. The video just seemed to suggest they spent all their time making trouble. I’m not saying that annoying Shell is a bad thing. I suspect it is a probably a good thing. However, I did not seem as multi-faceted as I had expected. The rest of the session was more engaging though.

Alan and Joe were lovely people and delivered a very honest and open presentation. It was a pleasure to have them at the group.

I am working with Sky Sports at the moment, who recently relocated their office to Leeds Dock. They are encouraging everyone to talk about how good it is, so here is my contribution.

It was a smooth transition and everything is up and running. It was only a few months between signing the lease and moving in, so there is still plenty to do. It will be great when we get the other buildings up-and-running to give us additional meeting space.

It is a nice location and you get a good view of the dock.

That floor is as slippy as it looks. You can pick up a huge amount of speed on the new chairs: great for chair racing. You can also see that there is no roof. This is the same across the entire building. Everything has been left exposed, which is a design feature. There are screens everywhere, so you feel like you are in the future.

Noise levels were quite high initially but it seems to be calming down now. There is also a cafe that Sky subsidise. So for example, I can of pop that would be £2.50 on the high street is £1.00 in the cafe.

Whether it quite puts us up there with Google and Facebook as one of the best campuses in the world, I suspect probably not. But it is a cool place to work. And ultimately it is the people that make Sky a great place to be.

One of the few benefits of my recently drastically extended commute to work is getting to enjoy the morning sky.

Still looking for that perfect gift for someone? I’ve come to your rescue, as yesterday saw the launch of the 5th edition of the Leeds Restaurant Guide! It should now be available on Kindle Store. This edition has 20 new restaurants and 4 updated reviews.

Added

• 2 Oxford Place
• Archie’s
• Bilbao
• Bill’s
• Brotherhood of Pursuits & Pastimes
• Five Guys
• Gusto
• La Rambla
• Manahatta
• My Thai
• Pie Minister
• Pintura
• Revolucion de Cuba
• Smoke Barbecue
• Soba
• Stockdales
• The Headrow
• The Liquorist
• The Phoenix
• Zaap Thai

Updated

• Akbar’s
• Elysium
• Stonegate Pubs
• Thai A Roy Dee

A few weeks ago Elina was ill, so to make her feel better I made her a mixed grill. It turned out very well, but it was the bill that surprised me. I spent £20 at Tesco getting everything for it. There were a few other small items, but most of it was grill money. That works out at nearly £10 each.

It has given me a renewed appreciation. How the hell do Wetherspoon’s do it for £7 each, including a drink?