Category: Life

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.
An interesting exercise; discussed at good old Snopes

I’ve had a few people ask what happened between July and September; that I didn’t deign to update the site with the outcome of the Las Vegas trip.
Well, it went well. I ran out of cute observations quite quickly, and started treating it as a proper business trip, with things to do other than mentally note the tiniest cross-cultural differences.
There were three songs playing incessantly during the trip which will probably always remind me of Vegas:
* Simply Red – Sunrise
* Coldplay – Clocks
* Daniel Bedingfield – If You’re Not The One.
Over and over and over. Everywhere I went. Must be some research that suggests that poorly groomed soul/pop artists encourage you to gamble more money. Maybe out of pity.
Travelled home via Santa Barbara, which is probably one of the lovelier parts of the USA I’ve seen so far, behind Boston. It’s another seaside town which prides itself on its ability to eat marine life. It’s also very expensive to live there.
Overall, a successful trip, thank you for asking.

No, I’m sorry; I’ve given Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX a trial as the website management system for BONWAG – again – and ditched it – again. Too many bugs, too slow and in some cases, just wrong – the reason the site was out of action for a few days is because Dreamweaver overwrote the main page with a blank page; just for fun. I’m prepared to admit that I might have caused it in some way because I didn’t understand the way the software worked, but I’d be advising anyone against using software which made changes of that magnitude without confirming what it was doing. To anyone who cares – Dreamweaver is bad. Don’t use it on a website you love.

Some things I’ve seen in Vegas that I’ve not seen anywhere else
* white butter, and orange cheese
* a stretch Humvee. A Humvee (or hummer) is sort of an american domesticated Jeep.
* an almost universal unawareness of the concept of ‘slip, slop, slap’ anti sun-cancer message, despite 40+ temperatures
* a complete absence of clocks
* the advertisement proclaiming “Las Vegas – what goes on here, stays here”
* slot machines in an airport terminal
* Krispy Kreme donuts (finally! yum!)
I haven’t ventured outside much, because of the work I need to do at the conference. More silliness as it comes to hand.

There are a great many people in Las Vegas, and just as many places to put them; in front of poker machines or gambling tables, in restaurants, in shows. But although there’s a wide horizon and a nice flat desert outside, you never see people walking on the street. Today it’s apparently a record heat at 114 degrees, which is 45 Australian degrees. Thankfully, you don’t have to venture into it, and you can happily live your holiday inside with the air conditioning, so I’m actually feeling a little cool as I write this.
All around, people are working to set up the giant CA World conference, this year in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. A huge room is being set up with computers and assorted signs and stands, so that computer people like me can show off to other computer people like me.
I’m staying in a giant pyramid a short walk away; the Luxor. While the Mandalay has a sort of Pacific Island feel – with palms and beaches and marine animals everywhere – they’ve thrown piles of Sphinxes and Mummies on the Luxor to make it feel like ancient Egypt. I’m quite impressed with some of the technical feats they would have had to perform in building the hotel: you have to travel by ‘inclinators’ which are elevators which need to travel up at 30-something degrees instead of straight up. The window wall in my hotel room is also slanted so you’re looking directly into the Nevada sun.
In keeping with the spirit of excess, the hotel boasts the ‘brightest beam of light in the world’ – which is pointing directly up out the top of the pyramid. You can see it from space, they say.
So, for the next few days I’ll be learning and teaching about computer software and avoiding the constant distractions of rampant tourist marketing. It’s so tough to work in a place like this.
Random thoughts from the last few days:
* The first thing you see when alighting from the plane in Las Vegas airport is a slot machine. They have gaming machines *in the airport terminal*, for crying out loud.
* What is it about me that I can’t walk through a casino or major shop without someone asking me for information? Do I really look like I know what I’m doing?
* Every now and again, you see a slot machine with the figure ‘98.2% paid back’. That’s clever marketing. Note that it doesn’t mean you have a 98.2 percent chance of winning, but that you’ll only win back 98.2 percent of what you put in. Do you need any more proof that this is a mug’s game?
* There’s a kid’s shop here my the name of ‘Tiny Tut’s’ – cute.
* There are next to no external windows *anywhere*, especially in areas which have slot machines.
* There is a major billboard near the casinos touting a vasectomy reversal service. I can’t imagine why that would be a big industry here.
I’m carrying the new Palm camera with me, and I’ll put photos here as they happen.

Come, now, people. You’re professional copy writers for major news publications, presumably with some sort of education in the use of the language, and you still can’t get it through your Red Bull-addled skulls that to deliberately perform naughtiness is to flout the law. Flout. F-l-o-u-t.
If I hear or read another publication (like this steady stream here) trumpeting about people flaunting this that or some other law, I’ll be forced to write another stern weblog entry. So help me.
They’re NOT flaunting anything, unless it’s something to do with waving things around which shouldn’t be waved around in polite society.
You’re journalists, people. You use the language as your tool. Please respect it.

Smenk (v.) the act of discovering that one of your cool ideas has been thought of by someone else in some other part of the world.
(Not that I’m claiming responsibility for inventing the glorious, gentlemanly sport of Scrobble, mind you. That’s the responsibility of Daryl and Gary – I’m just in marketing.)
I heard from Jan and Han this week, two more people with a skill for mangling their language. Without knowing of our version here, they also sat down, looked at a Scrabble board… and decided to make up dumb words.
Incidentally, their Lingua Franca is Dutch.
It seems that Jan’s wife came up with the name of ‘Scrobble’, despite being completely uninterested in joining the folly.
So, ‘Scrobble’ has gone international. Jan and Han’s version looks similarly silly to our own game, but we can’t translate it, and it’d probably be unfunny if it was, really. Although the definitions are in dutch, the dutch-scrobble words bear a striking resemblance to english-scrobble words. Coincidence?
If anyone’s interested, you can find a few friends and start your own Scrobble game through the Scrobble page. And spread the word… let’s see how many more languages can be mangled through the international brotherhood of Scrobble… and the power of smenk!

It continues to amaze me the amount of ridiculous tasks people can put computer programming time into. Take this one.
Waterlog v1.0 – a program for your handheld computer which tracks how many glasses of water you’ve drunk today.
Leaving aside the problems of not only remembering to drink the water, but remembering to tell the Palm you’d drunk it… but I’d always considered Palms and bodies of water to be mortal enemies. (I can attest to a number of battles where the baby bath has had the upper hand.)
By the way, I located a number of articles debunking the urban legend that you need 8 glasses of water a day just to stay upright.
Actually, more importantly, it seems I can safely stick with the usual 8 glasses of Mountain Dew.

It seems that every time you walk into a petrol station these days, you’re forced to toss your hard-earned over an increasing mound of chocolates, trinkets, CDs, mints, special offers and giveaways. (I don’t think that’s anything new… remember when you had to wage war with armies of Smurfs?)
One of these trinkets caught my eye today. It’s a cheap-o radio headset thing which costs about $6 and looks like it could fall apart if you listened to it too hard. Among the many features proclaimed from the advertising (‘lightweight’, ‘ideal for sports’) is ‘no skipping‘.
I don’t think they’re trying to tell you how you should walk while wearing it, but that your CDs won’t skip while you’re wearing it.
But – hang on – this is a radio tuner.
Huh? How many times have you stumbled so severely while jogging to have the radio station miss a beat? Sounds like you definitely need the exercise you’re getting, because if you’re able to jar the CD players in the studio by going out of doors, you need to lose some weight.

OK, I’ll admit I’ve picked up on this article because I’ve thought of a cool headline, but it’s still an interesting read. Apparently, you can tell whether someone is a male or a female by the way they write. (I can probably give them a quicker and easier way to figure it out, though).
I think it’s cute that the researchers have figured out that men like to deal with direct, factual language more than women, who use language which describes relationships. They say they’re not sure what the ‘psychological or sociological differences’ are between men and women, but that it’s a subject for further (taxpayer funded) research.
Here’s a tip; hey, call me crazy – but maybe men and women act like men and women sometimes.