This is a really interesting new concept from the BBC - Phone Tags. The idea is that if you hear a track on the radio you like, you can bookmark it with your mobile, and then retrieve the details online at some point in the future. It also supports tagging of tracks too. 6Music frequently play really good obscure or unknown tracks in the morning, but by the time I get to work, I've forgotten who they are, or I forget to look it up on their online playlist.
It's currently only available to BBC employees. Nick, care to check it out and post your thoughts?
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 1:55 PM
At work we share a building with the Home Office, who have just downgraded the TERRORZ status to
Black Special. We were LIVING ON THE EDGE there for a moment at AMBER, but Black Special basically means "Yeah, Whatever", so I guess we're now safe. Anyway, I happened to use one of the home office loos last night and was amazed by the dizzying array of posters by the urinals.
"Please do not urinate on the floor.""Please do not block the toilets.""The contents of your nose are for your handkerchiefs, not the walls."Now, I've always thought that concerns about the UK immigration policy were just fear mongering from your right wing hate press like the Daily Wail, but now that I realise that the immigration policy is being implemented by people that require large signs giving them clear unambiguous instructions on how to go to the loo, I'm not so sure.
Sunday, August 28, 2005 11:18 AM
Dear God,
I'm sorry, but I just fail to see the point of spiders this big, and I'm especially not fond of them hurtling towards me across the floor when I'm eating my lunch. I have a new rule for you, if the spider is big enough to make the baby Jesus cry, then you may want to rethink your design.
I know what you're thinking, you're thinking to yourself, "It's not that big". Well listen buster, notice in the picture that he is kneeling down, when stood up he looks *much* bigger. That's just wrong man, this isn't bloody Australia, it's Sheffield. Sort it out.
Chris
P.S.
I didn't mean to kill it, I just captured it in a glass so I could finish my pizza in peace, but forgot about it, and it died. Of natural causes. Please don't smite me.
Saturday, August 27, 2005 7:26 PM
The good folks at Flickr inadvertantly fixed my Google Maps speed issue in Firefox. The other day I mentioned that it is quicker in IE than in Firefox, which didn't make much sense to me.
I mentioned on the Flickr forum that no photos where displaying in my browser when viewing their site. Their suggested fix was to set the network.http.max-connections setting in Firefox's about:config page to 8, thus preventing Firefox making too many connections to the server and overloading my crappy router.
Bingo, two birds with one stone.
7:01 PM
As noted below, I've another new feature, an
interactive itinerary. Clicking on a location in the itinerary loads a satellite photo of that location, at varying zoom levels depending on the detail of the satellite photos available.
Some things I've found with the Google Maps API - it is not a fan of Internet Explorer (who is?), in that it only supports IE6+, and even then the code is a bit temperamental. It was a real headache getting the route map to work at all due to all the VML stuff going on. On the other hand, for some bizarre reason the images seem to download
a lot quicker in IE than they do in Firefox. I don't quite understand how the choice of browser can affect download speed (it does seem to be download speed as opposed to rendering speed that is the issue), but this does seem to consistently be the case. Hopefully the issue is discussed in the newsgroups somewhere.
There are also a couple of minor layout issues in IE, due to bloody cocking CSS pissing me about as usual. That shit is a mystery to me, it is the most un-intuitive stuff I've ever come across in the "web-technology" world. I hate it and it hates me. So despite Tony's pineapple winning efforts, this site remains resolutely tabley instead of CSSy.
Sunday, August 21, 2005 6:36 PM
I've created a new interactive
route map using the Google Maps API. You can zoom in and out to view satellite photos of any point between Sheffield and Shanghai. The resolution varies depending on the location; London, Moscow and Beijing have really very impressive detail, you could if you wanted to count the number of people in Tianenmen Square on whatever date it was the pictures were taken. If you zoom into St.Pancras Station (which will be easy to do on the interactive itinerary - Coming Soon!), you can see that the photos are a few years old, as there is no sign of work on the station extension for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link that is nearing completion.
If you click on the markers, you will see a description of that point below the map. I'll probably add more markers over the coming days.
Note - the Google Maps site can be
very slow.
1:42 PM
For some, the allure of a tasty pineapple is irresistable,
Tony Ruscoe is of those people and so he has only gone and solved my CSS challenge (see below). I will be implimenting his CSS stuff this weekend weekend, along with an interactive route map and itinerary that I've been building using the Google Maps API. Plus, I will be going to the shops to buy a pineapple (a real pineapple, not tinned chunks or something) for Tony. Well done Ruscoe!
Friday, August 19, 2005 2:02 PM
Jimmy: Don't leave me, I'm ill.
Me: You're not ill, Jimmy.
Jimmy: I've just been to the vet, of course I'm ill.
Me: You were just being vaccinated.
Jimmy: Am I going to die?
Me: No, because you're not ill.
Jimmy: Have I got cat AIDS?
Me: No, you haven't got "cat AIDS".
Jimmy: Well, if it's all the same to you, I'm just going to stagger around looking sorry for myself, just to be on the safe side.
Me: Fine. I'm going to work.
Thursday, August 18, 2005 3:22 PM
I got a phone call from Beijing today confirming my train ticket from Beijing to Shanghai, meaning that my holiday travel plans are finally complete and booked. After all the hassles I've had, that's good to know. If you want to do part or all of this trip yourself, I used the following companies...
Train Tickets...
TheTrainline.com - for the Sheffield to London ticket. They are pretty reliable, tickets can be picked up from the station, and if you book in advance and dig around, you can usually find some pretty good deals.
Eurostar - for London to Brussels. I was suprised to find that tickets booked directly with Eurostar were cheaper than anywhere else for the date I was travelling. Again, it pays to book in advance, and is cheaper to buy a return than a single, even if only travelling one way.
Deutsche Bahn - for Brussels to Moscow. Quick reliable service, very good English language web site, and the person that rang me to confirm my delivery address spoke good English. I minor quibble is that I think they should have warned me that I'd need a transit visa for Belarus. I know that information anyway, but if I didn't and arrived at Belarus to be turned back, I might be a little bit miffed!
Monkey Shrine - for Moscow to Beijing. Oooh, that's a bad website, I can't really comment on the quality of the rest of their service though until I get to Beijing!
ChinaTrainTicket.com - Beijing to Shanghai. So far so good, they rang me (in perfect English) to explain some required changes to my booking. The tickets are delivered to your hotel in China.
Hotels...
The Moscow hotel was included in the Trans Siberian ticket I booked with Monkey Shrine, the Shanghai hotel was booked directly with
the hotel company as doing so gets a huge discount on the price (although the booking is non-refundable). The Beijing hotel was booked with
Sinohotel, who have so far been very quick and helpful.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 6:02 PM
Even if you didn't watch Big Brother, you should check out "What The Housemates Did Next" each night on E4 this week. It is one of the most tragically hilarious things on telly right now. It's like a new Ricky Gervais comedy, not so much a bunch of has-beens, more a bunch of never-really-weres, scraping around for a modelling deal or an acting gig or a recording contract. Check it out.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 9:20 PM
I've booked the cat his own holiday, at a hotel situated in a farm in the Rivelin Valley. They offer penthouse accommodation, private exercise areas, and a spacious lounge into which
"Soft music is played throughout the day to comfort and sooth.". I hope it's not jazz. He hates jazz, especially the bebop movement of the late forties, the fast paced complex harmonic structure of which he finds bewildering and confusing. He's prefers
Mike and the Mechanics.
3:54 PM
I've created
a new site for my trip to Shanghai, which will hopefully feature blogging when I'm away, and photos when I'm back.
Whenever I create a new web site, I always get annoyed with boody cocking CSS, pissing me about. If anyone knows how to make a cross browser compatiable version of
the new site using CSS layout instead of tables, let me know. I can't believe it's not possible. I will buy the first person that comes up with the solution a pineapple. A real pineapple, not tinned chunks or something, a real pineapple. Imagine that!
Sunday, August 14, 2005 3:28 PM
These days, I like to stand up and be counted, a fact that you may have picked up on from my letters of complaint to Prince Charles, English National Opera, Talk Talk, and the St. John's Ambulance service, some of which I believe I've discussed on this site before. Today it was the BBC's turn to be on the receiving end of my ire. It is much easier to just copy and paste my complaint verbatim than summarise it. So here it is.
UPDATE - The page in question has now been removed from the BBC's website, so this post makes slightly less sense, but you probably get the gist of it from my rant.
Is your method of dealing with criticism to mock those that don't agree with you? I am referring to the following "news" article on your web site.
[link]
The article concerns the proliferation of onscreen logos, known as DOGs. Though I've never gone to the trouble of complaining about them before, I am one of those people that hates them, for the reason that they treat your viewers like idiots. Do you *honestly* believe, as you state in that article, that people are sat at home watching TV saying to themselves "Oh no, I'm bewildered and confused because there are so many TV channels to choose from. I think I am watching BBC3 right now [sorry, BBCTHREE] but I can't remember, this is a distaster." Of course you don't believe that, that would be idiotic. So stop with the bullshit and just admit that the DOG is simply there because it is an opportunity to permanently stamp your brand identity on the television screen.
What really pisses me off though is that it seems from that article that you are not only content to treat your viewers like they are literally retarded, but you also consider that anyone that complains about an aspect of your service that they are not happy about to be a "geek who should get a life", for the reason that the issue isn't as important as international terrorism.
Is that how you conduct business in the BBC. When you have a meeting, do you go through the items in the agenda and say "Is this item as important as international terrorism?" and if it isn't say "well, we probably shouldn't waste our time talking about it then." Of course you don't, that would be idiotic. The existence of more important issues does not negate the relevance of lesser issues, and it is childish to pretend it does.
I know we (regrettably) live in the age where the brand is all, but it is so sad to see that the BBC feels so insecure in its standing that it feels that need to splash its logo over its television output, and mock those that don't subscribe to their opinion.
Seriously, what an embarrassing article to have published on your website. There's not many things in life that move me to write letters of complaint, but being mocked in article written by some prick whose wages I pay is one of them, especially when the issue at hand is one which degrades the (otherwise excellent) service that you offer.UPDATE 2 - the article is back again, but has been edited so that it no longer contains the arrogant and flippant tone that so irked me. [
link]
Tuesday, August 09, 2005 12:52 PM
There's been a lot of terror porn around lately; endless programmes on the tv about how we're all going to die the next time we go anywhere near London, newspaper articles about how we are turning into an Islamic state which use the term
Londinistan un-ironically, and radio talk shows where people are allowed to phone in and explain just how fucking scared they are of people with rucksacks.
Given the idiotic views splashed carte blanche all over the newspapers right now, there's one story that I'm surprised has not triggered faux outrage in the likes of the Daily Mail, and that's how Scottish Opera is not only showing a production of an opera about Palestinian terrorism (gasp) at this "sensitive time"(tm) but that the chorus will be hidden amongst the audience and at one point will burst forth brandishing machine guns and rush the stage. A dramatic act that, while being undeniably tacky, will hopefully shit-up some unsuspecting audience members. I'm all for shitting-up audiences. It amuses me. Not enough shitting-up of audiences happening right now in my opinion.
Monday, August 08, 2005 9:16 PM
Ignore the post below. I emailed
Monkey Shrine, the world's leading monkey based Trans Siberian tour company, thinking perhaps that the reason the train sold out so quick was that they booked up the tickets. Turns out, yes, they have got tickets available, so plan A is back on. Hurray. It is a bit annoying that I am going to have to pay a premium because they prospectively snapped up the tickets, but then they are monkeys, it's what they do. Damn dirty apes.
Thursday, August 04, 2005 6:12 PM
An email from Dmitri at trainline.ru this morning left my holiday plans in disarray...
There are no tickets, all trains is full.Bugger.
I was originally told that I can't book until 1st August, and yet when that date arrives, the whole train is full. I am guessing that a tour operator went in first thing and block booked out all the tickets for their own customers.
So, what to do. Given that I have non-transferable tickets to Moscow on a certain date, and a non-transferable hotel room in and flight back from Shanghai, options are limited. A few have presented themselves one of which is to spend a few extra days in Moscow, and get the next available train to Beijing, which will arrive in Beijing just 3 days before I have to fly home from Shanghai. That would be an idiotic thing to do, spend all that time travelling somewhere only to return almost immediately.
Then I remembered, getting the train from Sheffield to Shanghai
is an idiotic thing to do, that's kind of the point. I'm not
going to Beijing, I'm
travelling to Beijing. Besides, although I was really looking forward to spending some time in Beijing, I am planning to visit North Korea next year, which will also involve a trip to Beijing, so I can do the sights then.
It's time to email Dmitri back before the next train sells out.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005 1:03 PM
