Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

As usual we headed down to Cuthbert Brodrick on Sunday for lunch. It saw a much overdue return of Sarann and Moz and a lengthly session of gossiping about a number of individuals. It also somewhat disturbed myself and George that we only left the pub a meer 36 hours before returning – does anyone know what the frequency of visiting a Wetherspoon’s is before you’re officially an alcoholic? Not that I was even drinking today but I’m not sure that cancels it out.

As I found out while recently clearing out my old bedroom I wrote quite a bit back in the day.

Some of my writings included outlines for loads of different TV shows. What I found interesting though is how many of them have manifested themselves as actual TV shows in the ten years since I wrote them. For example Just One Way was an outline which followed the fast-paced action of one man’s life over a 24 hour period, a plot similar to what we would now recognise as 24.

Other shows included The President’s Office which has striking similarities to The West Wing and 100 Deeds Before I Die which could easily be compared to My Name is Earl.

What this shows us it that the makers of today’s television programs have the same imagination, ideas and thought processes as a child. Where this is a good thing or a bad thing I will leave up to you.

I’ve just watched through Derren Brown’s “how to win the lottery” in which Derren (supposedly) correctly predicted the lottery numbers for last Wednesday’s national lottery draw. Last night he offered to explain how he did it. Of course in reality, he still leaves you wondering.

His explanation was that it used the “wisdom of crowds” which suggests that subconsciously a group of people can make more accurate predictions than one person alone, and in his example he took 24 people, had them study the lottery numbers for the past year and try and work out which ones came next. He then averaged them out and claimed to have successfully predicted the numbers.

That or, as a final end to the show briefly discusses how we could have fixed the lottery to make sure that the right numbers came up. Of course he claimed this theory was both illegal and ridiculous and this is for the most part true – I think we can rule out that Derren and his team actually managed to get through security and fix the draw.

So how did he manage it? Derren begins his show on Friday by listing the three possibilities by which he could have done it. Faked a lottery ticket, genuinely predicted the numbers or fixed the draw.

However this is where it begins to break down. Where have we seen such an example before? The answer of course is “bad, mad or god.” The classic Christian proposition that Jesus was either evil, crazy or he actually was the son of god. Immediately ruling out the idea that he could have been mistaken, never claimed to be god or never existed at all, to name just a few of other possibilites.

Derren begins by ruling out his first suggestion and leaving us with just two possibilities – either he correctly predicted the numbers or he fixed the draw. He then dismisses the second idea and offers us a very dubiously scientific but almost believable senario and invites us to “believe, or not.”

In reality of course, the first lines Derren spoke on the show were the most accurate. “This show uses magic, trickery and misdirection” he proclaims boldly and yet we still do not appreciate on what scale it is – that the entire one hour show is a misdirection leading us down the garden path to draw attention away from the fact that there is was something a little dodgy about the stand the predictions were held on – which couldn’t be revealed in advance for legal reasons.

We rack our brains trying to work out whether his theory of crowds could actually work and so much thought do we put into this that it never occurs to us that the 24 people predicting the numbers are probably in on the trick – or that Derren ignored the numbers they predicted and only “revealed” to them the numbers they had predicted when the lottery draw had been made.

Not that this takes away the magic of it. Derren put on a superb performance and one which I would highly recommend watching. Just remember that you’re still watching a magic show.

Or at least, that is my take on it. You can believe, or not.

Went to the Deer Park with Si and Sarann on Monday for old times sake. All the bar staff seem to know us now which is weird as they never seemed to when we lived round the corner but now I only go in there occasionally they seem to love us – maybe that’s hint 😀 .

Things have changed though. I didn’t get a mixed grill, Si didn’t get a burger – what has become of us? Actually I did get a mixed grill, but it was a fish rather than a meat one. I also had to stop Si in his tracks ordering me a WKD as I went for a white wine instead. Crazy times.

I’m also considering doing a survey on how many of my blog posts end in either crazy or fun times.

Got myself an iPhone this week as, as much as I love my Sony Ericsson k800i which has served my exceptionally well for these part three years (it is honestly a fantastic phone) it is started to look a bit dated and as what most people would consider to be a geek, I decided I needed to move with the times a bit more.

So far I have thought it a very nice device to use, it’s not the greatest invention to ever benefit man kind but as a smart phone it does what it needs to do exceptionally well. I don’t use a great deal of applications but I am loving having Tweetie and Facebook at my finger tips and easy access to Wikipedia and the web has proved very useful as well – not that these are something specific to the iPhone of course.

It really came into it’s own at the pub today though when Norm informed me that my podcast feed was down. This was a most amateur mistake on my part of having the permissions set wrong on the config file and so when I did an upload the local copy which specifies the full domain name as the database host overwrote the live permission and MySQL kicked the remote connection from my server’s ISP into touch.

I needed to fix this fast so I headed over to the Apps Store and found myself a (free) SSH client which installed in a few seconds and allowed my to connect in to my server via SSH from my iPhone, go into the file I needed to update using vim and edit to the host to the correct setting. Problem solved!

The real test of course is when my number ports over on Tuesday and I start actually using it as a phone.

I also have yet to work out how I am going to set everything up – at the moment I have it syncing with iTunes at work because I don’t want to spoil my home machines with such software. However I need to sync it with my music so I can make use of the music functionality. And work out if I can connect it to the hands free kit in my stereo – otherwise I may end up making in car calls on my k800i still!

As I’ve long maintained, Kate and Rich would make a great couple, they would be just like Will & Grace out of the self-title show. If any further proof were needed just like at what a cute couple they look like when taking faux-wedding photos.

It’s an expensive business this young professional lifestyle.

Picked up a few bottles of wine at Tesco which was an interesting experience, trying to pretend I wasn’t just guesing. As I said on Twitter though I think a sensible policy is to avoid any wine which insists it must be enjoyed with a meal rather than on it’s own.

That is all fair enough but now I just have them sitting around on my side so now I need to buy a wine rack which is even more expense. Might try and hold out until my birthday.

I wanted to share this billboard ad as I really think it’s a great piece of advertising. Almost enough to make me upgrade to high definition!

I bought a laundry basket tonight.

It’s a wicker basket style one, with a dark brown wood effect which is contrasted by some light linen trim which goes around the top and inside, hence the name “dark lights.” It was kind of a treat for myself, to ease the current stress I’m under with moving and other things though I’m sure there was a day when I would treat myself with someone far more exciting.

In any case, it really got me thinking.

On Monday, as I previously mentioned I went to Ikea with Si as he was buying a screen print. Dropping him off back at his flat he briefly talked me through where on the wall it was going and how he was aiming to achieve a visual separation between kitchen, dining and lounge areas of his living space.

On Tuesday Tom arrived back in Leeds and on showing him around the apartment I explained where I thought the furniture would work best at, how we could have a dining area over the far side, a work area so he could fit a desk in and plans for the entertainment section of the room.

This follows on from last Friday’s visit to Ikea with Rich in which we discussed which sets we thought would work well in his new flat and which of the various items would complement each other well while at the same allow the furniture collection to be built up in stages.

But my question is this. When I did I become the kind of person that discusses interior design with all his other trendy city living friends? Is this what my life is from now on? Have I completed the current level of the game and moved on to the next?

Perhaps I really have become the man in Jack Allsopp’s lyrics as I spent my weekend nights watching what I call Saturday Night Circus, feeling so safe up here in my shrine to Ikea, away from the shouts and the louts and the girls with the over-painted pouts.

Of course, the plan is nothing so mellow. I moved back to the city centre so I could rejoin the action once again – I’m not ready to move to the suburbs so my soon to be arriving family can ride their bikes up and down the street without fear of being taken out by taxi drivers. But time will tell I guess.

I ended up back at Ikea on Monday to pick up some more stuff.

I have to say I really don’t like the place though. Aside from the main reason which I will come on to, they charge £30 for home delivery which seems crazy, Tesco are delivering my bed – on a Saturday – for like £6 and a lot of the stuff they currently have in the show room isn’t even available to buy anymore.

The main reason I don’t like Ikea however is how smug they are about how awful their customer service is. As if it is something to be proud of. They have big boards up saying “we aim to serve you within 8 minutes.”

8 minutes? Are you having a laugh? Even if you hit those targets, that wouldn’t be something to be proud of. It’s not like they even really have a Total Experience Time, that 8 minutes is just the time you spend in the queue just to get your stuff scanned through a till.

I know McDonald’s is a world leader in such areas but do you know what the target time for a customer queuing before they get to the till is? 0 seconds. A lot of the time they hit it as well, and most of the time a customer will be served within the target Total Experience Time target of 3 minutes – and that is to provide a full meal, not just to take payment for a few boxes.

It’s not like they can’t cope with the demand either, they have had 3-4 tills open despite having over 20 tills they could potentially open, both of the times I have been there recently.

Not impressed.