Anyone who has so far had a play with the Reworked BBC iPlayer, which is currently in beta testing, will be only too familiar with that sequence of events, as it’s just a small snippet of what you must go through if you wish to actually use the iPlayer for, oh I don’t know, watching stuff.
I am rather hoping that this technical flaw is a symptom of beta testing, coz if you think normal iPlayer drops its connection to the BBC servers rather too often, you ain’t seen nothing yet! I have sat for nearly 90 minutes attempting to watch all 22 minutes of the latest edition of the BBC’s wonderful Click programme, and I’m still 4 minutes from the end.
This is a terrible shame really, because in most other aspects, the new iPlayer is a huge leap forward from the current one, which itself was pretty good. This beta features a reworked user interface, integrating both TV and Radio into a single player, as well as lots of small improvements, such as a list of recently watched programmes for you to go back to and an enhanced “More Like This” system.
The programme information below the enlarged viewing window is now collapsible and contains both programme and series information that compares in length with that made available on the Radio Times website and, best of all, they’ve finally included a link to the programme’s website!
Unfortunately it doesn’t actually go there yet. Instead it links you to the beta of a new programme guide section of the BBC website, which also fails to provide any links to the actual website for the programme you actually want. I’m assuming they’ll fix this eventually.
Another rather snazzy enhancement, which I suspect is a response to user feedback, is the ability to resume your watching from where you left off last time. Whilst I imagine they’ve put this in with the intention of allowing viewers to pause programmes and come back to them on different days, it has the added benefit of speeding up the recovery every time the player crashes and you have to refresh the page.
Aside from the crashing, the one thing that really does irritate me about the design for the new player is the information displayed when you hover your mouse over a programme link. Whereas before you could find out at a glance how much time you had left to watch the programme, now you have to click on through to the programme itself to get the same info. On the other hand, at least once you get there, you are told not only how much time is left, but also the exact time (to the nearest minute) that the programme will be removed and also (for some programmes) the date on which it was originally broadcast.
Although I’ve not been able to find out anything official about this yet, it would appear that the Beeb have decided to extend the time for which programmes are available on the site from 7 days to 14, which , if nothing else, earns this beta a big thumbs up from me.
To round off this mini review: the iPlayer Beta is pretty good. In fact, I’d go so far as to say very good. The technical problems will sort themselves out before it goes live, because they did with the previous version, and once they do, I’ll be first in line to absorb all my BBC content from this one, superbly well thought out website.
Posted by Ignorminious at 09:28 GMT on Wednesday 25 June 2008
About a year ago, I sat in StarBucks with a cup of coffee and my HTC Vox smartphone and wrote this post to test out my device.
Now, a year on I'm testing another new handheld piece of pricey kit. This time it's my new iPod Touch, and I'm head over heels in love with it! Let's start with the physical: it sits perfectly in my hand, weighing just enough that I know it's there, but not nearly enough that it could ever tire me out. The screen is 3.5" of crystal clear, touch screen goodness that is more than adequate both for web browsing and watching video or viewing pictures. It knows which way up it is and will adjust from portrait to landscape views quickly and without hassle whenever you tilt the device accordingly.
Sadly for the designer of the shell, it is completely eclipsed by the incredibly sleek and intuitive user interface. I'm typing this on the touchscreen keyboard, which despite being so small that I must be hitting 3 or 4 keys at once, it is quite rare for me to mistype and it is actually a pleasure to tap away at this thing. If you do make a mistake, the interface will compensate and correct your typing as you go. Obviously this can be a pain when typing non-standard words, such as web urls.
The features are also pretty impressive. As well as all the wonderful iPod features, it contains a very usable email client and a fully functioning web browser, capable of correctly displaying even my poorly coded sites :-)
I've only had this device for a week and a half but already this has replaced my mobile as my favourite handheld device for email and web access. I would love to stay and chat about this all day, as I really do love it, but sadly work must intrude once again. Rest assured I will be reading your comments on here as they come in :-)
Posted by Ignorminious at 18:35 GMT on Monday 23 June 2008
A bumper selection of videos for you this evening, and by bumper, I mean TWO!
First we have one that was played by Microsoft Technology Evangelist Steve Clayton at the Nlab Social Networks Conference, which you can read more about here. It is a highly amusing parody of what would happen if Microsoft tried to design the packaging for the iPod:
(This is an embedded YouTube video and must be viewed using a Flash enabled web browser. The video may not appear in your RSS feed, so please click through to the website to see it properly.)
Then my good friend and fellow blogger Custard linked me to a similar video, parodying the upcoming Microsoft iPhone Zune:
(This is an embedded YouTube video and must be viewed using a Flash enabled web browser. The video may not appear in your RSS feed, so please click through to the website to see it properly.)
I hope you find these two videos as amusing as I did :-)
This is the BBC iPlayer version of the programme about Bill Gates, broadcast to commemorate his retirement from Microsoft next week. I thought it was a fascinating biography, not just of the man himself, but also of much of Microsoft’s own history.
If you have a spare hour and are interested, I highly recommend taking a look.
Posted by Ignorminious at 08:40 GMT on Thursday 19 June 2008
Here we are at the start of the Nlab Social Networks Conference at De Montfort University in Leicester. The schedule for the day is a busy one, but nonetheless, I’m hoping to live blog my way through the various talks and workshops, for your reading pleasure.
I’m actually writing this passage in my hotel room, as last year I had to wait until the registration session, which meant I had to combine typing my introduction with meeting all the other delegates. This year, I’m trying to be organised a little better.
I know it is common for many live blogs to be written in reverse chronological order, with the end of the day at the top of the page, but I figure that since most people reading this will be doing so after the event, it makes more sense for them to read down the page rather than up it.
Here we go:
9:34am - The refreshment room is buzzing with delegates. Some, like myself are on laptops, frantically preparing to blog the day. Most though are stood around the room, drinks in hand, discussing the programme for the day. It is certainly going to be a busy one, with no less than 5 keynote speakers. It’ll be very interesting to see what they have to say...
11:00am - Steve Clayton from Microsoft gave a very humorous talk on small business. He discussed issues of trust and the benefits of blogs in business, which can open them up to their customers. It some ways it was similar to last year's MS talk, but the message is still a good one.
11:53am - Roland Harwood from NESTA explored the metaphor of the Social Network as a city. He drew some interesting parallels between the organic growth of a large city and its internet equivalent. Interestingly, Sue Thomas said afterwards that her work looked at social networks compared to nature, rather than urban development. A lack of power sockets and issues with the air-con are, so far, the only dampeners on the conference.
1:03pm - Andrea Saveri from the Institute for the Future, Palo Alto gave a quick fired talk on the Future of Work. Amplified Individuals was the buzz word going round as Andrea discussed the concept of collaborative work by internet uses. It seems this idea extends well beyond the obvious blogs, YouTubes etc, and can include projects and diverse as collective fantasy games with real world tasks to complete and companies appealing to people to help them solve their technical problems. For me, her ideas really summed up everything that is good about the internet.
The next day... - Well, as with last year's conference, my laptop eventually ran out of battery, and, also like last year, there weren't nearly enough sockets to go around. So, blogging sadly had to be put on hold for the day, but now I shall give you a brief run down of the afternoon:
After a lunch spent networking with the other delegates, Ken Thompson from SwarmTeams kicked off the afternoon session by drawing our attention to Swarms. Followingon from Roland Harwood and Andrea Saveri, he looked at teamwork and collaboration in nature and the comparisons with social networks on the internet. He gave a fantastic demonstration in which the delegates used their mobile phones to collectively reply to questions that he texted to us from the internet. The results could then be viewed in real time on the projector screen. Added onto of the blogging, note taking and Twittering, this extra level of communication took those of us with multiple devices running to the very limit of our typing abilities, but it was well worth it.
Next up, Jim Benson of Modus Cooperandi looked at the practical applications of social networking in a business environment, with some surprising results. He admitted that many of the most common social networking tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, might not be as good for businesses as had been assumed up until this point. This provoked a delegate into arguing the case for social networking via SMS. By the end of the session it was still unclear who had come out of that debate on top.
We went immediately into workshops at this point. The choice this year as excellent, and I had much difficulty in eventually choosing Sean Clarke's session. This was not to be regretted however, as his demonstration of how to integrate many of the popular websites into each other with the use of RSS Feeds was extremely well recieved by all who attended. I came away from the workshop with my head literally buzzing with ideas and plans for improving my own websites.
By the time of the panel session, the fatigue of the day was clearly begging to show among delegates. Nonetheless, a very stimulating question and answer session was enjoyed.
When Sue Thomas brought the day to a close, my mind was made up that this was an extremely successful Nlab conference and may have even been better than last year's one.
If you want to read a more detailed blog of the day's events, Jess Laccetti expertly blogged the whole day for the conference website.
Posted by Ignorminious at 08:34 GMT on Thursday 19 June 2008
Written last night in the hotel room which turned out to only have expensive internet access, hence uploading the following morning
Well the journey up to Leicester was rather hellish, with an hour and a half of sitting in stationary traffic whilst emergency resurfacing work was carried out on the M42.
I’m writing to you now from the bedroom of my hotel, which we visited earlier to drop bags off before going to a session by the Creative Writing and New Media MA group at DMU. I must confess to being rather impressed by the presentations given, which were both professional and inspiring. One lady was attempting to use Web 2.0 to raise awareness of the situation in Burma, whilst another had combined a blog, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to write an online novel, in which the characters lives were played out across these various different platforms.
After the presentations had ended, we moved base camp to a fantastic Indian restaurant, where we spent most of the evening. The conversation that flowed was, not surprisingly, all about new media and social networking, and this was enhanced when it was discovered that a party from a Leicester Uni conference were also in the room. They came over to us and we talked about the similarities between the two conferences and how they were looking at the Web 2.0 problem from the point of view of the museum sector, where as we will be looking at the whole thing.
A short walk back to the hotel found 6 or 7 of us sat in the Saloon Lounge for an hour, drinks in hand, discussing dissertations and projects on various postgraduate courses. We have an early start tomorrow, with conference registration at 9, so I’ll sign off here and get some shut eye.
Posted by Ignorminious at 09:42 GMT on Wednesday 18 June 2008
Crikey it’s nice not being in work!
I’m about an hour away from leaving Bristol and heading up to Leicester for the Nlab Social Networks Conference, being held at DMU tomorrow. It’s interesting to me how, in the run up to this technology conference, virtually every new form of communication has been used to keep the information flowing between organisers and delegates. The conference has a website, a mailing list and even a Twitter account!
Unlike last year, where I ended up in no internet hell, this year I’m staying at a hotel that promises to have internet access at all times. For this reason I fully expect to update you all on my adventures later on this evening, although failing that I’ll be Live blogging from the conference itself, as of 10am tomorrow morning.
Oh, and at some point I’m going to rant and rave about how much I adore my new iPod Touch. It really is the best thing in the entire world!
Posted by Ignorminious at 08:24 GMT on Friday 13 June 2008
Agh! So much for posting every single day. Over a week without a peep out of me :-(
Luckily this time I have an excuse, namely the other woman website, which I talked about the other day. When I started the project I envisaged something quick and simple. All I had to do was create a simple site with no special features, on which I could write about myself for people wishing to know more about me. The entire thing was going to take perhaps 6 hours to build, I thought.
8 hours later and I’ve just about got the title bar the way I want it. Now, I’m not a web design virgin. Not at all. I’ve been dabbling on and off for nearly a decade now and as regular readers will know, I built this very site that you are reading right now. But this time I felt that, because of the continuing browser war, which now sees Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari all holding large shares of the market, I’d make my site look good in all of them.
Oh dear.
The problem is as follows: an organisation called the W3C has responsibility for setting the standards that web site coders must follow. They are fairly simple to implement, easy to learn about and, for the most part, very effective. Alas browser coders are a pompous lot, generally speaking, and they all think that they know better. As a result, not one of the Big 3 browsers actually meets the standards entirely, and because of this, they all display web pages in a different way.
Here is my title bar as it appears in Internet Explorer:
...and in Firefox:
...and again in Safari:
You see the differences? That is after 8 hours of making tiny changes to my style sheet, saving it, uploading it and then checking what it looks like in all three browsers.
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft, Mozilla and Apple need a clip round the ear hole and told to fix it?
Posted by Ignorminious at 09:30 GMT on Wednesday 4 June 2008
Just a quick post today, as time is of the essence.
I’ve just been looking at hotels in Leicester that I might like to stay in for the Nlabs Social Networks Conference later this month and I’m quite surprised to see that here, in 2008, in Britain, internet access in hotels is still listed on most hotel websites as a “luxury” amenity.
Luxury?! Most of these hotels aren’t even talking about Wi-Fi in the rooms! They are talking about a cable in the lounge that has to be shared between all the guests. How is that luxury? I honestly cannot understand this school of thought at all.
Internet access is not a luxury. You can get internet access for less a month than most people spend on their water bill. If internet access is a luxury then so is a shower in the room. Or a bed. It costs far more to put a bed in each room than it does to provide broadband, but you don’t see hotels charging extra for those do you?
I really wish I knew how long we’ll have to wait before public places, such as shops, restaurants and hotels get with the programme and start to realise that they are losing business by not joining the 21st Century and providing free internet for all.
Hell, I’ve even started visiting McDonald’s more often when I’m in town, because they have free Wi-Fi, where as Starbucks charge.
Posted by Ignorminious at 09:26 GMT on Tuesday 3 June 2008
I’ve just bought myself a second domain name. How very random is that?
About an hour ago I decided, on a whim to Google myself, just to see what would come up and if any of it would relate to me. The results appeared and as I looked through them I realised that there are a lot of Mark Glovers in the world. It seems my name sakes are enjoying professional careers in fields as diverse as campaigns for animal rights, performance engineering for a rail company, authoring academic textbooks and professional photography.
Then, about half way down the page I spotted my nemesis; the Mark Glover who owns markglover.com. I’ve never actually met this person and I don’t actually have a grudge against them, obv, but one of the first things I did when I got my very first internet connection, even before I’d set up an email account or Googled “porn”, was to check and see if I could secure markglover.com as my own website domain name. Much to my annoyance, the domain was taken then and remains taken to this day.
What I didn’t see when I looked through those Google results was a listing for markglover.co.uk. On another whim, I checked to see if it was available to buy, and it was. So I did. Ha!
Not entirely sure what I’ll do with it yet. Obviously Ignorminious’ Misty Mind is staying right where it is. I’m thinking perhaps a site advertising me as a professional person would be a good idea. I don’t actually have a career mapped out yet, but I figure that a well developed site with contact details, information on me etc etc would be a useful place to send people when I start networking and applying for jobs in a year or so.
I admit the ideas aren’t exactly a well thought out plan at this stage, but domains are so cheap these days that it made sense to secure this one now, rather than letting one of the other, evil Mark Glovers steal it from me. I would not be impressed to find myself stuck with markglover.org.
Posted by Ignorminious at 16:14 GMT on Monday 2 June 2008
And so, a new week, a new month and a new blog post (admittedly on the second day of the month, as I didn’t think about writing one yesterday) and nothing much to talk about, as usual.
This week my hours at work have been cut back, which means that instead of starting at 9, as I have been doing since last September, I now don’t start each day until 11. Eventually a combination of tiredness, laziness and a depressive mood will lead me to start sleeping in until half 10ish, but until it does, I thought I’d use the extra two hours in the morning to get back into writing my dear little blog.
As it happens I failed slightly this morning, in that it’s now afternoon and I am only just starting this, but that’s ok, coz I used my morning to get done lots of really useful, but mostly dull things, so that I now have the afternoon free for writing instead. I love it when a plan comes together.
Recently I’ve become increasingly envious of those who, despite the ups and downs in their lives, are able to keep blogging at a consistent rate, seemingly forever. Some of the blogs I read even update on specific days of the week and never, it seems, fail to meet their self imposed deadlines.
I’m not like this anymore. Once upon a time I was updating at least once a day every day, but eventually I either lost enthusiasm or was too exhausted to write or simply didn’t have anything to say. More than once I’ve considered sticking up a big sign saying “That’s it folks, I’m all out of stuff to say here. Please enjoy my back catalogue of fantastic musings and ignore any whiney, apologetic posts about not posting from this point onwards!”
In three weeks or so, I’ll be attending the NLab Social Networks Conference at De Montfort University in Leicester. It is being organised by the same people who did the Women, Business and Blogging conference that I attended last year. Back then I was slightly ashamed of the infrequency of my blogging, what with it being a technology conference. Wind the clock 12 months on and the situation is decidedly worse. Hopefully, if I can get into the habit again now, I will look like a proper blogger by the time the conference arrives and I show up with my laptop, ready to eagerly take notes/subtly check my emails and chat on Facebook.
They say that the weather is going to be pretty shit this summer, and that, combined with the lack of a garden anywhere near my apartment, should ensure that I find time to do this on a regular basis. If I don’t keep updating, can someone please give me a good telling off, so that I start again?
Posted by Ignorminious at 19:31 GMT on Thursday 10 April 2008
Just a quick one to let you all know that I’ve added a Twitter feed to the side bar on the blog. You’ll find it beneath the “Recent Entries” box and above the “Recent Comments” one, over on the right hand side ->
For those who don’t know, Twitter is a mini-blog social networking site where users must answer the question “What are you doing?” in no more than 140 characters. It can be updated by SMS text message as well as at the Twitter website, which can lead to some fantastic “Tweets” by people who venture out into the real world.
Whilst I’d be the first to admit that Twitter is the cyber equivalent of Marmite (you either love it or you hate it), (I hate it) (Marmite that is, not Twitter, obv) even if you don’t want to sign up yourself, you will now be able to keep an eye on what I’m doing from the comfort of your very own computer.
If you want to read the rest of my Tweets or add me to your Twitter contact list, my Twitter profile can be found here.
P.S Manyfarmoreinterestingbloggers also use Twitter, so if you get bored of me, have a wander over to their feeds and see what’s happening.
Posted by Ignorminious at 01:54 GMT on Saturday 5 April 2008
.....And at last the silence is broken once again! Oddly enough, the lack of posting over the previous 3 weeks or so wasn’t actually my fault this time. Some Twunt decided to hack the site’s database and managed to delete the entire site, much to my incredible annoyance and dismay.
I would have written a long, rather rude post then and there about the sort of people who mess with other people’s websites in this manner, but sadly the site was in such a state that I couldn’t post a damn thing. I had backups of everything I needed, luckily, but using them to repair the site took the best part of a week, and ever since then, every spare moment has been spent improving the backend operations, in the hope of making it easier to fix the problem next time it happens (which I have no doubt it will).
Anyway, we are fully operational again now, and most of the improvements I wish to carry out are either completed or nearly completed, so I thought it was time to post again.
I thought I’d share with you the first in a long line of fantastic animations by the wonderful guys over at Weakend Productions. This one has been around for a few years now, but in case you’ve not come across it before, it is definitely worth a look at. If you have seen it before and you are anything like me, I’m sure you won’t mind watching it again anyway :-)
(This is an embedded YouTube video and must be viewed using a Flash enabled web browser. The video may not appear in your RSS feed, so please click through to the website to see it properly.)
This isn’t a very good copy of the video I have to say. I think someone did a dodgy recording job to get it onto YouTube. The original, high quality version can be found here.
Posted by Ignorminious at 02:09 GMT on Monday 10 March 2008
One of the best parts of blogging, compared to other forms of publishing, is the two way nature of communication. It means that once in a while I can take a break from the essay style posts I normally write and open the floor to others who may wish to speak.
Over the next few days I’m going to be spending every waking moment I’m not in work, frantically writing coursework, of which I have 5,000 words worth due in on Thursday. As I’ve mentioneda fewtimesbefore, I have issues with procrastination and motivation and am probably going to end up wasting a lot of time these next few evenings trying to make myself work and hating the fact that I just can’t seem to get a grip on it.
This is where you come in: you are (for the most part) good, hard working, motivated individuals who are always getting stuff done. I want to hear your tips for motivating yourself to do things you really hate. If possible I’d like something a little more concrete than “positive thinking” or “just think about the consequences”. I’ve tried pretty much every trick in the book on this one, so I’m after a few tricks that aren’t in the book please.
Posted by Ignorminious at 00:49 GMT on Saturday 8 March 2008
I found the following video on YouTube the other day and am still chuckling over it now. Apparently it’s a Swedish advert, and a friend of mine reckons it was featured on Tarrant on TV. Since I hadn’t seen it before, it stands to reason that some of you won’t have done either, so I thought I’d share it with you:
(This is an embedded YouTube video and must be viewed using a Flash enabled web browser. The video may not appear in your RSS feed, so please click through to the website to see it properly.)
Posted by Ignorminious at 00:59 GMT on Friday 7 March 2008
Am I the only one who, having bought something from the supermarket that turns out to be a disappointment, feels compelled to use the offending item, rather than throw it away, in order to avoid being wasteful?
As I type this, there sits on the desk in front of me a steaming mug of what ought to be drinking chocolate, but sadly is not. It is instead a curious drink, made by Cadbury and called Bournvita. Now, I don’t wish to imply that there is something wrong with this product; there isn’t. The problem lies with the lack of knowledge I had about malt chocolate drinks when I bought it. The colours on the container are similar to those on the bars of caramel dairy milk and in the same way that caramel chocolate bars are like regular chocolate bars, only better, I assumed that Bournvita would prove to be like drinking chocolate, only better.
When I got the stuff home and eagerly tried it, I was bitterly disappointed. It isn’t a bad drink I must stress, but it isn’t nearly as chocolaty as drinking chocolate nor anything like as satisfying. Unfortunately I bought quite a large tin of the stuff, and now that I have it I’m determined to use it all up before opening up the real stuff. So far I’ve been at it for 3 months and have managed to work my way through about 1/3 of the tin.
In a similar incident, I recently bought a lemon scented air freshener for my bathroom. It is one of those little gel based jobbies in a plastic shell that sits in the room and gradually fills the air with its lovely scent.
Unfortunately, unlike the previous ones I’d purchased, this one did not smell at all lovely. Quite the reverse in fact. The pong was so intense and so utterly offending to the nostrils that at one point I seriously considered forcing a bowel movement in order to try and improve the smell in the room.
Nonetheless, I had paid for this thing and I was not going to chuck it in the bin so soon after purchase. Fortunately for my nose, the air freshener has worn itself out now and the room has been cleared of its infuriating pong.
I look forward with some trepidation to my next visit to Tesco.
Have you ever bought something you wish you hadn’t? If so, why not tell us about it in the comments section below?
Posted by Ignorminious at 01:37 GMT on Thursday 6 March 2008
If you ever require clarification that large organisations tend to balls-up when it comes to organising themselves, please consider the following example.
I finish work this afternoon and walk the short distance from the bar to the university library, where I immediately head to the library catalogue computer terminal to search for a book I need to take out. The book in question is the core text for one of my modules, so I’m expecting the library to be well stocked, especially since the module is well attended.
Much to my dismay, the computer informs me that just one copy exists on the catalogue, and that it isn’t due to be returned for another 10 days. Just to make sure, I go and find the relevant section to see what is actually there.
There are no copies of the book to be found on the shelf. However, there are at least a dozen copies of a completely different book that just so happens to have the exact same title as the one I’m after.
Posted by Ignorminious at 00:10 GMT on Wednesday 5 March 2008
On my way home from work I notice that the petrol light on my car’s dashboard is lit, and so take a detour to the garage. The filling station of choice is the one attached to the big Tesco at Eastville, not least because it’s usually cheaper than any other in the city.
As I approach the petrol station I find myself at the back of a queue of cars waiting to fill up, as is normal for this time in the afternoon. Between my stationary car and the forecourt is a partial wooden fence which I instinctively glance towards to see how busy the garage actually is.
To my surprise the forecourt is completely empty. Not a car or person to be seen on it anywhere, despite the queue that I’m still sat in. Eventually some of the people ahead of me abandon the line and I am able to pull forward until I’m just two or three cars away from the front of the wait, from where I have a good view of the situation in front of me.
This particular garage has two entrances and both of them have been blocked off by rows of orange traffic cones. Manning each set of cones is a member of the forecourt staff, patiently explaining to the cars in front what is happening.
I cannot hear what they are saying from where I sit, so imagine my continued confusion when, on some unknown signal, the employees suddenly remove the cones and begin letting cars in again.
As I stand next to my car a few minutes later, patiently watching the cost of oil killing my bank balance via the dial on the pump, I see one of the ladies who had been playing with the cones and consider asking her what was going on. Alas, I can’t think of a way of asking without appearing vexed, and since the poor lass is already looking harassed, I leave it.
I still don’t know what was going on, even now, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen the like before. If you’ve encountered similar behaviour at your local petrol station or have a theory as to what was going on, why not comment below?
Posted by Ignorminious at 00:55 GMT on Tuesday 29 January 2008
Whilst swimming lengths in a crowded pool earlier today I had a revelation about why so many people give up an hour at a time to swim up and down the same stretch of water, unable to go anywhere because of the number of people all around them:
It has nothing to do with wanting to get fit, it’s actually a subtle form of speed dating!
I was in an adult only lane swim at my local pool for about an hour and was unable to get up any sort of speed because of the huge number of people there, blocking up the lanes. I was so bored that, with a little bit of observation I was able to work out the whole process of initiating these watery romances.
1. Person A will scan up and down the lane adjacent to their own until they find someone they like the look of, who we shall call Person B.
2. Person A will briefly swim alongside Person B and will “accidentally” make physical contact with them. This is best done at the end of the lane, whilst both Person A and Person B are turning round. The contact should be harder than a brush, but softer than a kick: a brush is insignificant enough to be ignored and a kick might hurt Person B and ruin any chances of future friendliness.
3. Person A stops to apologise to Person B. This is the point at which compatibility is assessed. If Person B isn’t interested, they will brush off the apology and swim away without a second glance. If on the other hand, they like Person A, a smile and a few words may be exchanged.
4. Person A swims off but controls their speed so as to ensure time for a smile and a nod to Person B when they next pass each other.
5. Person A swims alongside Person B and begins a more in depth conversation. If sufficient charm is used then it can generally be assumed that Person A and Person B will be practicing at making babies before the evening is out.
Needless to say your humble narrator barely managed an inarticulate “sorry” with a mouth full of chlorine before being left behind clinging to the side of the pool.
Posted by Ignorminious at 20:36 GMT on Sunday 27 January 2008
Recently I’ve been finding (perhaps because of my work schedule) that I’m far more interested in the items on my feed list that are, shall we say, bite size. Either laziness or a lack of time during the day has driven me away from long winded posters (though I do still read every post they write) into the arms of those who rarely put more than a couple of paragraphs out into the world at any one time.
Among these are my favourites of all: comic strips. I refrain from saying web comics because some, such as Dilbert and Peanuts, originated in the ancient world of newspapers, whatever they were. The following is a list of RSS Feeds that each make just one minute of my day that bit more enjoyable for their tiny existence:
Each of these is well recommended for anyone wanting to combine regular updates with still having time to do other things. For those of you with more time, why not check out some of the links on the right hand side?
I’m musing on the idea of finding something short that I can do here on a regular basis, to fill in the gaps when I don’t have time to write longer updates. I can’t do a web comic unfortunately, because I can’t actually draw (the owl on the right of the screen took several hours and nearly killed me), but I’d like to try and find something that I can do quickly, with very little fuss and which will keep my readers entertained.
If anyone has any ideas about a short, regular feed they’d like to see, then why not tell me about it in the comments box below?
25.06.07 I'm thinking of making some modifications to be blog if I get a chance. I think perhaps the About Me page requires a rewrite, as well as the FAQs, Disclaimer and a few of the other static pages. Will have to see what I can come up with when I have the time to look into it....
25.06.07 Exam Results are a bad idea. Whoever thought them up clearly has issues.
26.05.07 I hate not knowing what to write! It is the first day of a bank holiday weekend, the rain is coming down gently and I've sat here all day thinking of loads of things except what I can blog about. Even the inspirational words of Axl Rose are apparently unable to produce anything from be of any real merit in the blogosphere. Clearly not enough has been happening in my life recently. Perhaps if I go and eat something I'll be inspired...
19.05.07 Partying all night whilst sober is an interesting experience it has to be said. I'm exhausted but not hung over, and this isn't exactly a feeling I'm used to. Ok, so I often stay up late doing uni work and the like, but that is a very different feeling to the one that comes after a long night of shouting and dancing and choking to death on other people's fag smoke. It'll be nice when the smoking ban comes in, but God knows what all those people will do with their time.
12.05.07 An interesting cocktail of working hours today has left me with a three hour gap between shifts. I could go home, but I don't really see the point. There is nothing on at the cinema so I've decided to stay on campus for the time being. Unfortunately I don't have my laptop working yet so I'm forced to use the computers in the library for my internet fix. Once I'm done here I'll retreat downstairs and hide in a bar til this evening.
F5. *Click* ....F5...*Click*......F5.......... *Click*......F5....F5............CTRL+F5........*Thump*
About a year ago, I sat in StarBucks with a cup of coffee and my HTC Vox smartphone and wrote 
Here we are at the start of the 
Written last night in the hotel room which turned out to only have expensive internet access, hence uploading the following morning
Crikey it’s nice not being in work!
Agh! So much for posting every single day. Over a week without a peep out of me :-(
Just a quick post today, as time is of the essence.
I’ve just bought myself a second domain name. How very random is that?
And so, a new week, a new month and a new blog post (admittedly on the second day of the month, as I didn’t think about writing one yesterday) and nothing much to talk about, as usual.
Just a quick one to let you all know that I’ve added a 
Am I the only one who, having bought something from the supermarket that turns out to be a disappointment, feels compelled to use the offending item, rather than throw it away, in order to avoid being wasteful?
If you ever require clarification that large organisations tend to balls-up when it comes to organising themselves, please consider the following example.
On my way home from work I notice that the petrol light on my car’s dashboard is lit, and so take a detour to the garage. The filling station of choice is the one attached to the big Tesco at Eastville, not least because it’s usually cheaper than any other in the city.
Whilst swimming lengths in a crowded pool earlier today I had a revelation about why so many people give up an hour at a time to swim up and down the same stretch of water, unable to go anywhere because of the number of people all around them:
