I would hate to live somewhere iconic. Particularly somewhere iconic involving The Beatles. Like near the famous Abbey Road pedestrian crossing.
You’d have to watch this every day. People trying to relive the glorious moment.
Month: February 2009
Dead bird smelly
There’s a joke I was told once about a Native American named “dead bird smelly”. I can’t find it online and that’s a travesty. It’s very similar to the joke about the kid named refrigerator.
Speaking of dead birds… Twitter is broken. Again. It is apparently the most regularly broken social networking site.
The guru’s guru
I’ve never been one for gurus. Particularly self proclaimed ones who spit out pithy statements at random intervals.
Simone just hailed me as a guru of trivia, which was nice, which got me thinking about the concept of a “guru”.
Gurus tend to annoy me. Today, I’d like to introduce you to the guru of the internet. Seth Godin. I subscribe to Seth’s blog – mostly because he is a marketing guru. And sometimes he says useful things. The rest of it is twaddle. Like this:
“If it acts like a duck (all the time), it’s a duck. Doesn’t matter if the duck thinks it’s a dog, it’s still a duck as far as the rest of us are concerned.”
That’s a quote from a post on “Authenticity“.
Seth is a guru to so many people – but he has gurus too. Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired is one of those gurus. He’s like the grand daddy guru of the internet. He does seem pretty cool.
Kevin Kelly has gurus too. His gurus are people involved in the emerging church movement. He says as much here. Almost. He’s a Christian and he likes relevant stuff.
Being a fan of the emergent church means being a fan of Mark Driscoll. Almost. He was one of the people who started the movement but has since distanced himself from it. In writing. It’s probably not fair to lump him in with them – but it works for the sake of this little soliloquisious (surely the adjectival form of soliloquay) syllogism.
Mark Driscoll is now the guru of a generation of young Christian men who want authentic Christianity.
His guru is Jesus. So following the chain from Seth Godin – everybody’s guru – gets you to Jesus.
I guess my point is: Everybody you may consider a guru will have their own guru – once you get to the top of the pile of gurus that’s the guy worth following. Follow the guy with no gurus.
The mobile generation
From Flickr via CrunchGear
I may or may not be allowed to talk about Robyn’s school and things that she tells me. But I thought this was pretty crazy.
We were talking about this last night – and a timely study has revealed children are now getting their first mobile phone at eight in the UK.
A certain teacher I know had to write a note home to parents asking them not to call their children on their mobiles during class time.
I’m all for children having mobile phones. That’s great. Provided they’re not just using them to send naked pictures to each other like the Herald keeps pointing out. I’m no luddite. My kiddies will have their own mobile phones and Facebook pages at birth. That way I’ll be able to keep tabs on them. That’s probably an exaggeration. But calling them while they’re at school? In class? No way. How embarrassing for the kid who gets a call from his mum during spelling:
Kid: Hi mum
Mum: Hi kid, did you remember to brush your teeth this morning.
Kid: Yes mum, I did remember to brush my teeth this morning.
Mum: Good, just checking.
Kid: I really don’t know why you needed to call me to talk to me about it.
Mum: Just checking up because I care. I love you.
Kid: (mumbling) I love you too.
Mum: What was that? Speak up son.
Kid: I love you mum.
Entire class: laughter, teasing, poking, prodding…bullying.
Why would you inflict that on your child? Seriously.
I’m really not qualified to give parenting advice. But parents. Don’t try this at home.
Plus there’s the disruption to the rest of the class. I think that’s the point of this teacher’s objections.
Sermonising
I’m writing my sermon for Sunday in Google Docs. It’s on 1 John 1:1-4.
Here’s the Google Docs analysis of what I’ve written so far:
| Counts | Selection | Document |
| Words: | – | 3815 |
| Characters (no spaces): | – | 16912 |
| Characters (with spaces): | – | 20720 |
| Paragraphs: | – | 82 |
| Sentences: | – | 524 |
| Pages (approximate): | – | 5 |
| Readability | Selection | Document |
| Average sentences per paragraph: | – | 6.39 |
| Average words per sentence: | – | 7.28 |
| Average characters per word: | – | 4.43 |
| Average words per page: | – | 763.00 |
| Flesch Reading Ease: [?] | – | 84.78 |
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: [?] | – | 3.00 |
| Automated Readability Index: [?] | – | 3.00 |
That’s the formula (from this test) that gives a readability level of 3. I guess that’s good. It’s probably not helped by the number of sentences. I write punchy sentences for sermons. I also speak naturally at about 160 words a minute (that’s the broadcast standard for journalism) – but should slow that down. At that pace this sermon should go for about 23 minutes.
Here are the stats on the passage itself:
| Counts | Selection | Document |
| Words: | – | 103 |
| Characters (no spaces): | – | 433 |
| Characters (with spaces): | – | 535 |
| Paragraphs: | – | 1 |
| Sentences: | – | 5 |
| Pages (approximate): | – | 2 |
| Readability | Selection | Document |
| Average sentences per paragraph: | – | 5.00 |
| Average words per sentence: | – | 20.60 |
| Average characters per word: | – | 4.20 |
| Average words per page: | – | 51.50 |
| Flesch Reading Ease: [?] | – | 78.33 |
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: [?] | – | 7.00 |
| Automated Readability Index: [?] | – | 9.00 |
I think it’s a good thing that my sermon is more simple than the passage right? Shouldn’t an explanation be easier to understand than the thing you’re explaining? Otherwise it would be pointless.
Out of interest I pulled one of dad’s sermons off the MPC website and ran a comparison.
| Counts | Selection | Document |
| Words: | – | 3032 |
| Characters (no spaces): | – | 12835 |
| Characters (with spaces): | – | 15893 |
| Paragraphs: | – | 58 |
| Sentences: | – | 276 |
| Pages (approximate): | – | 4 |
| Readability | Selection | Document |
| Average sentences per paragraph: | – | 4.76 |
| Average words per sentence: | – | 10.99 |
| Average characters per word: | – | 4.23 |
| Average words per page: | – | 758.00 |
| Flesch Reading Ease: [?] | – | 82.04 |
| Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: [?] | – | 5.00 |
| Automated Readability Index: [?] | – | 4.00 |
The best bits – February 19, 2009
Here's what has excited me from the blogosphere today.
- ★ Getting Started with GTD #5 – Action
- Another Lesson from Starbucks
- Neatolicious Fun Facts: Beer
- How Obama’s sentence-structure works
- Facebook Reverts Back To Old Terms Of Service [Breaking]
- Doorknocking Tips
- Queensland – retirements and web launches one day, election the next?
- The cost of a wedding…
- Mobile Phones To Get Universal Charger
- Managers as servants
- Obama: grammatically sound
- Best Resume Ever
- 10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills
Facts about Beer. Including a 4000 year old recipe.
Leah on a story doing the rounds that Australian weddings cost more than $50,000. I think, after doing a rough countback, that we did ours for just under $15,000 including our honeymoon. And that “we” includes our very generous parents.
“Instead of the standard “org chart” with a CEO at the top and employees growing down like roots, turn the whole thing upside down. Employees are at the top — they’re the ones who actually get stuff done — and managers are underneath them, helping them to be more effective. (The CEO, who really does nothing, is of course at the bottom.)”
Band names
I read something somewhere about band names today. It reminded me that I need to record the following for posterity’s sake.
If I were in a band – and that’s a big if because it would require musical talent – I would call my band Panache Attack. I am putting that here, now, to claim it.
If I were in a punk band – not such a big if because it doesn’t require musical talent – I would call it Disorderly Fashion, and we’d all wear the same suits on stage.
If you had a band what would you call it?
Benaud steps down
Sad. But now I guess we’ll see how accurate the 12th Man’s portrayal of the handover process was.
I’ll never be able to think of Benaud as anything but a constipated turtle thanks to someone who made that comment in my youth, but cricket won’t be the same without him.
Oh well, as long as Bill Lawry doesn’t get more air time out of this I’ll be ok.
Dog was I, ere I saw God
That title is pretty much the best palindrome I could come up with after racking my brain for about 5 minutes.
I didn’t think I’d be able to post something cleverer than the ambigram shirt for some time. I was wrong. How about a 224 word palindrome? Still not impressed? How bout a 224 word palindromic poem?
Don’t believe me? Here it is:
“Dammit I’m mad.
By Demetri Martin
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash,
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.”
EDIT: Thanks Joel for picking up my palindromic error in the title, all is now fixed.
Shirt of the Day: A prince of a shirt
Ok, so I already posted a shirt today. But this one’s cool. It’s got a segway. Being driven by Prince. And it’s $23. I guess for Prince – who according to John Safran’s Music Jamboree is a Jehovah’s Witness – this would make witnessing easy, you could slip your tracts into a nice custom built front pocket or something.
For the guy who has everything
I really have nothing more to say. Except that it’s from here. And I saw it first here. And they’re 9.95 Euros. I think for one. But I’m not sure. The sale page is in German and I haven’t translated it.
Instant gratification
Those of you who don’t read the links in my daily links post may have missed my sneering references to Starbucks and its decision to start selling instant coffee. $1 a pop. In store. Coming soon.
This is a terrible mistake. Instant coffee – no matter how good the science behind it – is still dehydrated coffee being rehydrated. It’s got none of the elements of a good cup. Wikipedia has a breakdown of the process.
People in America can now get free samples via the Starbucks website. Yay for them.
I can’t understand why people drink instant coffee – other than that it’s instant if you’ve already got boiling water.
Here’s some startling US facts about instant from the Consumerist:
“The instant coffee market is bigger than you might think — accounting for 40% of the global coffee market. It’s less popular in the US than overseas, taking up only 9% of the US coffee market as opposed to 60% in Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom.”
Starbucks is cutting stores and staff all over the world. And this is their solution. Budget, low quality coffee for those feeling the economic pinch. The launch has received coverage from the Times Online.
“Starbucks said last month that it would cut 6,700 of its 167,000 staff and shut about 1,000 under-performing outlets, as its after-tax profits for the three months to the end of December fell 69 per cent.”
Here are some more instant instant coffee facts… and a nice little quote about why this has “bad idea” written all over it.
“In the US, instant coffee is synonymous with cheap and tasteless. The global instant coffee market is worth $17.7 billion, just $700 million of which is sold in America. Instead, Americas drink brewed, or filter, coffee – 65 billion cups of it a year.”
“Starbucks, best known as the home of the $4 latte, is gambling its luxury brand by entering the instant coffee market. As John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor, said: “Instant, soluble coffee has long been an unspeakable wasteland. Conventional wisdom would be that no premium brand should go near it.”
Update: From a second Times Online story.
“Starbucks reckons that 80 per cent of UK households have instant coffee, an £800 million market. Darcy Willson-Rymer, its UK manager, said that its new coffee would sit at the “premium, even super-premium” end … “We’re competing with instant coffee, but we’re comparing it to ground coffee.”
Shirt of the Day: Clever? Stupid
Ambigrams are cool. Palingrams (which is I think the correct description of a palindromic ambigram) are cooler. The company we use for our internet hosting and Content Management at work has a palingram for a logo. I saw it at a conference I went to but haven’t found it online or I’d include it here.
Anyway, Ambigrams are cool. Shirts derived from popular novelty shirt concepts with mirror image antonymic ambigrams are cooler. Like this one. From neatorama. It’s clever. Or stupid. Depending on your perspective. It’s also cheap at $US10.
Work Experience
There’s a guy looking for work in Canada. Here’s a summary of his listed qualifications
* Owned and operated successful multi-vessel fishing business, with one airplane
* Owned an island and processing facility
* Simultaneously owned a fleet of tractor trailer trucks conducting business in the west
* Executive level management of 120 employees worldwide
* Ran a business with an annual turnover of $100 million
* Expert in all levels of security
Would you hire him? need more details? His business was a global pot smuggling network – he’s just out of a 10 year stint in prison.
A work wanted ad printed in Canada. This guy just came out of a ten year stint in prison for smuggling 75 tonnes of dope. That’s more than Schapelle Corby. Found here.
Forced sale
Judging by the title you thought I was going to plug my Luke Skywalker auction. Didn’t you. Admit it. Well I’m not. Except that I just did. At the very least there are some new Q&As to check out…
No, what I’m here to tell you today, is much more exciting. Michael Jackson is auctioning off all his stuff from Neverland. The Guardian website has photos of the good stuff. Including this custom built Gaggia coffee machine.
If that doesn’t grab your attention how bout these rhinestone encrusted socks?
No? Picky. How about this nice little train engine teapot. The going rate is expected to be somewhere in the $100 – $200 range. This is like an online garage sale.
