i am sure that I sometimes fail in guessing the words of captchas, but the computer still says yes. sometimes i think they know that robots don't even try, so it's a case of 'the taking part that counts'. I will endeavour to test this more rigorously in future and post pics with evidence.

something else i was musing about whilst eating a chocolate brownie for breakfast was that it seems only in sports that people know how to count. allow me to explain:

when someone scores a goal in the first minute of a game, the time given is 1'.* Correct! The time on the clock will read between 1 second, and 60 seconds. so if someone scores when the clock reads 21"41, the goal time is 22.

when you are 39 and a half, you think to yourself that you are 39 years old. except you are in your 40th year of existence, not 39th. ironically, you celebrate your 40th birthday, not on the first day of your 40th year, but on the very last!

in the uk, you get a free travel pass when you reach 65. i wonder if anyone has tried saying they legally should get one when reaching 64years and 1 day old?

another famous example is the people celebrating the 'new millennium' in the year 2000 were ironically celebrating the last year of the existing millennium.

speaking of pics as i was earlier, and in my last but one post**, here's what was my favourite entry into the google prize i failed in winning.

*i literally have no idea what the correct symbols to use are for second and minute so i just made it up.

**also, i think there should be single a word for 'last but one'. So i could talk about my previous post, and my penprevious post.

***i use stars to not distract from the flow of the post, but realise that you're probably reading them as and when they appear, which just means a work out for your mouse instead of making things easier.

a blog round up?

i'm so old I remember when these were fashionable. when the once great gatsby used to do a monthly awards. i even remember owning a green monitor for a computer. i don't pine for those days, but i do enjoy a blog round up by someone with good taste. and who has better taste than me? (well, lots of people, but not being the best hasn't stopped anyone before)

first and foremost, if you haven't checked out the latest addition to my bog roll, go do it now. seriously, it'll be better than this here post.

other than that, i don't think i have found any new blogs. i think this is maybe why blog round ups stopped?

i could mention the betfair articles, written from a mix of people in which i usually enjoy the words or learn something (sometimes both).

instead, what I'd like to do is try to bring blogs back from the dead. So if you reading this, and obviously you are, could the great highstacks and jethro horowitz please return to the land of writing your thoughts out, so that we may bask in your musings.

halftime hallo

Google had a photography competition which finished recently, one which I entered. I didn't expect to win, but submitted some cool pictures. Then i saw some of the judges shortlist photos (of 10 i think) and about half were terrible. Now I was disappointed I hadn't won!

They can be found here. Honestly, a wire on a carpet? In the category sound/silence?

Almost as ridiculous, is the bbc headline of Student wins Google Photography Prize. As though out of all the entrants it was a pleasant surprise a student won.

However, the rules clearly state it's only open to students!

I'd rather be a failed photographer than a reporter knowing you have to make up bullshit headlines to sell copies/get hits. Popular science journalism really reaches the bottom of the barrel with examples eloquently provided by Ben Goldacre.

google has done a britta

i know my last post said i made things that i thought turned out pretty shit, and well, you could be forgiven for thinking i worked at google (even i thought that for a moment when i started writing this post)

since making gmail a bit shit they've done the same to blogspot. what is it with removing words for labels and replacing them with abstract diagrams?

nobody likes change (even if everyone gets used to it pretty quick, eg facebook) but it's not the new look that's the worst part, but the stupid buttons. any person above 50 who has gmail is now perpetually confused!

anyway, i just took a shower - my place of greatest thinking. and i was thinking of the song call me ishmael by get cape wear cape fly. it has these lyrics:

You are not your job, and you are not the clothes you wear,
you are the words that leave your mouth

the last part always annoyed me. i don't think you are the words that leave your mouth. i think you are the actions you take. i need to start doing more each and every day. time to stop waiting for things to happen to/for me and take control!

heck, i might even start playing a bit of poker again...

this is my favourite get cape song. starts off chilled and then picks up a wee bit 1/3 of the way in...



ps line spaces i put in the post don't appear when i publish it so sorry for the wall of text and if anyone knows how to fix it please let me know! (edit: fixed it. why they make you use < br> instead of just using 'enter' as the default is anyone's guess.)

everything i make looks terrible

is it just me?
when i see what other people have done, I am often amazed.

when i make something myself, maybe because i've seen all the steps along the way it looks shit. or maybe it looks that way because it is shit. i honestly can't tell.

i don't think there's anything i've made which i am truly proud of.

in a not unrelated thought, when i've written something, rereading it is mind-numbingly painful. of course, made worse because i always think it's shit.

we've had it banged into our heads to not let other people judge us. but i can no longer see how that's true. i think you need help from others to see what you're doing is right or wrong. i think what must be meant is that you should not let it affect you negatively, but instead choose how you respond. (and to know the separation between criticism of your work, and of you.)

maybe this is normal. maybe this is why critics send artists mental, because they need all others to admire them and their work. or maybe it's just me, and i'm not very good at anything i've done yet. i need to find something that i can do and be the best at.

smartphones

never again do i need to read the labels on toothpastes whilst sitting on the throne (over and over). During lunch, I can always find something to read. Sitting on a train, there's always something to listen to, or to play.

but all this comes at a price. when i wake up in the morning, the alarm is on my phone. and when i turn it off, i think, i'll just do a quick check of the internet. 45 minutes later, i'm still in bed.
so my only hope of no snoozing, means i need to combine it with no phone play till i'm out of bed.
will have to restart my challenge. i think i'll aim to get to the end of the month getting up at alarm time. one day/step/cliché at a time.

minicab cuntrags

i have spoken before about the mentally incapacitated minicab drivers who use the 'transport for london' sticker to alert you to their mental incapacities.

the submental in charge has today announced that they are taking their driving reign of terror one step further by allowing themselves to drive in bus lanes!

for those of you unfamiliar with this concept, bus lanes are for buses, coaches, black cabs, bicycles, and motorbikes. as a minicab firm, whose drivers i don't believe even own driving licences, they have taken it upon themselves to say it's unfair and they're gonna start using them.

As you may have noticed, I despise the driving disabilities of these people and hope they all get kicked off the road permanently.

blogs i miss

yakshi in all his forms, including of course quincy capers. with a shared massive attraction to natalie portman i am worried about her while he is missing from the internet.

highstacks. a truly hilarious man. i once went to coventry but alas never got to meet him as a hot bird wanted a drink with me. i then went to the casino and won lots of money so that made up for it. (for me anyway.)

there's a few others but those two were probabally my favourites of the missing. while i don't have a job maybe i should go find them and instruct them to start writing again.

anyway, enough procrastinating, i need to find the thermal conductivity of some metal combinations and google doesn't seem to have the answer so i may have to measure them.

4 weeks is up

it was 4 weeks ago that i decided to start doing things for 30 days at a time.

4 weeks means that it's only 29 days so far, and tomorrow will be 30.
as i intended, i've taken one day off each week and spent 30 minutes all other days doing some weights. i'm not sure it's made me much fatter but it's been a pretty easy habit to get in to. i've had to increase the weights and concentrate on doing less different exercises each (down from 6 to 4) to spend more time on each to reach the point of failure.

my next challenge will be much harder, as i attempt to wake up every morning as and when my alarm goes off. i guess it will be between 8am and 9am every day (hopefully closer to 9) but no snoozing is going to be a tricky one. i'll be impressed if i can keep it going for a week. we shall see.

in other news, i think i might get back to playing some low level poker games. i'd like to see if i could stop losing perhaps, and should probably set modest targets of 10 hours a week and maybe £200 in the first month except i might get a job instead. i only want to do something temporarily so i have free money to invest in better ideas but no one wants that truth in an interview even though i'd be brilliant for most jobs. been offered jobs in 2 different countries in universities except if i take those jobs it will make it very hard to find real jobs not in universities at any point in the future (other than consulting perhaps, which would obviously be quite cool).

lots to mull over. the freedom of making money via poker is quite magnificent and something i think i'm looking for in any other job.
maybe i'll just go straight to consultancy.

a view from the skies

i need a better way to record the ideas and funny memories i think of during the day.

one that i wrote down was:
should rhetorical questions have question marks. clearly, i think not.