Coke vs. GTA, and Firefox crop circles
Coke’s impressive GTA ad.
And some huge efforts to create a fabulous Firefox crop circle. Thanks to Rob at Dry the Rain for highlighting both.
Slovakian and Spanish
I went to a Portuguese restaurant with my mate Bal last night. On what I think was a Spanish MTV channel, there was a Spanish rendition of Jason Donovan’s Sealed with a Kiss, which struck me as a bizarre song to cover.
And while rushing through Oxford Circus tube station the other day, an announcement came over the tannoy saying the following:
Ladies and gentlemen, please note that the next announcement may be in Slovakian.
Firstly, it struck me as odd for London Underground to be considering Slovakian translation. Secondly, I was wondering whether the announcer’s uncertainty was because a regular English announcement might squeeze in before it, or because he genuinely wasn’t sure that it was Slovakian.
On a completely unrelated point, I was mistaken for an Architect in a meeting the other day. I’m pretty sure that’s a first, and it’s probably a last.
I ain’t no SEO
It took me a while of reading Matt Cutts’ blog to realise what SEO stood for: Search Engine Optimiser. That’s someone who actively tailors their site to ensure maximum traffic without doing the naughty stuff like generating invisible content and presenting different content to search engines than to users. Essentially, they’re trying to ensure that if someone searches for anything remotely resembling their content, they come high in the listings.
While I understand the benefits of this to the commercial sites, I myself have neither the time nor the energy to bother with this. If people stumble upon the site, then great; if not, then hey.
Dogs don’t do red eye
I’ve been pestered of late by Gavin at work to communicate to the world at large the fact that dogs don’t get red-eye. Quite an interesting fact, but not one that saw me running to the keyboard. Anyway, apparently dogs rarely get red-eye in photographs; instead, they get blue-, yellow- or green-eye. Here’s the science.
Apparently, if the eye was perfect, none of the eye-colouring effects mentioned above would happen. The retina of the eye would perfectly reflect the camera’s flash, it would end up reflecting back into the flash, and none of the associated light would enter the camera’s lens. The reality is somewhat different.
The red is apparently the reflection of the flash from the blood vessels at the back of the eye, and lighter-coloured eyes exhibit the behaviour more than darker eyes.
Most domestic animals have a reflective layer at the back of the eye (the tapetum) which enhances nocturnal vision. The colour of the tapetum is dependent on the colour of the animal’s coat, and it is the colour of the tapetum that determines the colour of the reflection, as opposed to the blood vessels that us humans have. Black labradors’ tapeta are usually green; cocker spaniels’ are yellow; most puppies have a blue tapetum before the eye becomes fully mature.
You heard it here first…
Blogging on the move
I’ve recently upgraded my mobile phone deal to enable unlimited internet and data access. As well as allowing me to keep abreast of news and check my email, it also allows me to post to my blog from wherever I choose.
Expect even more ramblings and mindless drivel from this point onwards…
Comment masturbation
Over the past two years, one month and one week, I’ve made 560 posts, attracting 568 non-spam comments. (This is post 561 if you’re keeping count. The fact that it has ID number 620 in the URL is due to futzing around with test posts, mistakenly hitting the refresh button resulting in the same drivel being posted twice, etc.)
It’s quite comforting that the latter number is higher than the former, even though it’s a close-run thing, the comment/post ratio currently running at 1.016. It’s comforting even when you get what can only be described as death threats from the likes of Mario.
I read a few other people’s blogs, and hate it when I encounter something that I’ve decided to call comment wanking. This is when commenters have nothing to add to the discussion, but so rate the author and so want to be associated with his/her work that they decide to comment nonetheless. Matt Cutts’ recent post about product hierarchies has thus far attracted 53 comments, including wanking from Josh, Matt Whelan, theGypsy, Dave (Original) – many times over – the list goes on.
Navigation 101
There’s an interesting article called Where am I? on A List Apart this month. It’s intended as a "back to basics" look at navigation.
I agree with the basic tenet on which the author, Derek Powazek, bases his discussion. The past/present/future ethos is simple yet powerful: where have I been, where am I and where can I go next?. It seems like an intuitive model for navigation.
Whether past is actually interpreted as past behaviour or what’s structurally behind you is something that many sites have struggled with. Should your context be based on the route you’ve taken to get to where you are? Or should it be based on the information architecture of the site? I firmly believe in the latter, as it gives all users the same context, and brings with it a sense of stability. You aren’t presented with different signage on the fifth floor of John Lewis depending on whether you took the lift straight from ground, or got the escalator up from four; nor should you be.
However I think the guideline to never, ever link to the page you’re on is wrong. (The site on which the article sits flouts this rule, btw.) Irrespective of where I am within a site, I am comforted by the fact that clicking the logo will take me to the homepage. Even if I’m on the homepage at the time, I want, and expect, this behaviour. The same is true of primary navigation. Although this functionality may appear redundant, it brings to the user a sense of consistency and comfort that shouldn’t be overlooked. The fact that it’s easier for content management systems to do this is by the by.
Vocals and Springsteen
My Grandpa John used to have disdain for the human voice in the musical context, arguing that it wasn’t an instrument and should be banned from music altogether. (I’ll always remember that one of his favourite pieces of music was Johann Strauss’s vocally bereft Blue Danube.)
I have to disagree, although he’s no longer around to defend his stance. I love vocals in music, and they often make an otherwise conformist piece of music come alive.
On a related point, my housemate Glen used to harp on about the qualities of Bruce Springsteen, and this argument fell on my deaf ears for our three in east London. After over seven years with my wife, similarly obsessed by the man from New Jersey, I’m coming around to the argument. He’s done some gems, and his vocal style certainly lends credence to my side of the vocals argument above.
Healthy competition
Monopoly breeds contempt. In my twelve year career to date, I’ve worked in a number of organisations, and this has often rung true.
Once the contract is signed and the sales effort is over, it’s often the case that the A-team goes off to the next sales venture, while you’re left with the B-team to deliver against the contract. And depending on the terms of that contract, there’s often complacency, the supplier safe in the knowledge that the contract allows them latitude and mediocrity, and is not designed with superlatives in mind.
There have been exceptions, but this seems to be the norm. It’s true of advertising and marketing in general, it’s true of the IT industry, and it’s true of both the private and public sectors, although the scale of contracts in the latter may make it more prone to abuse.
One of the primary reasons for the complacency is the lack of competition. The contract binds you to work with a certain supplier, and if you want that thing delivering, it’s often a binary decision you have to make: Yes/No.
It seems much more appealing to have two (or maybe more) suppliers, each working on equal terms. For any piece of work, you ask the suppliers to put forward their proposals, allowing you to choose and run with the most appealing one.
The Petronas Towers were built by two separate companies, each responsible for its own tower. Watching the documentary on their construction, I couldn’t help but feel that this competition was healthy. It inspired innovation, thinking outside of the box and going the extra mile.
Surely the same would be true if an organisation had more than one chosen IT provider. There would be additional effort put into the upfront define/design activities (now that multiple companies do this piece rather than just the one), but this drawback would be outweighed by the fact that prices would be competitive, levels of effort would be commensurate and solutions would be innovative.
Map my run
It’s not often that you think of an idea, and find that exact same idea implemented. Thanks to Rob at work, I’ve found exactly that.
Basically, while out running, I’ve been thinking how useful it would be if you could plot your run on Google Maps and find out the distance. Map my run does exactly that. Here’s the 3.77 mile run (6 kilometres) that I’ve done a few times now to get me back into the training regime. It’s taking me about 28 minutes, which equates to around 46 minutes for the 10km. I need to build my stamina, and quicken the pace a little over the next few weeks.