Comment spam
I’m being inundated with comment spam, despite having an albeit weak captcha aimed at filtering the automated stuff out.
I received 437 such comments in the last 19 hours, an average of one every 2 minutes 37 seconds.
Need to speak to Rob to see whether there’s a better way of getting shot of it. There are certain characteristics of the comments that make them easy to identify.
I wouldn’t care, but none of them ever see the light of day, given that I’m in pre-moderation mode.
Google Gears: missing the point?
I installed Google Gears shortly after its beta launch a few weeks ago. The only thing I currently use it for is my Google Reader, but I can’t help but think that it’s missed the point.
The overarching concept is that web applications can be made available even while you’re offline. But unless I’m missing something, it requires an active decision from the user in advance of going offline. You click a little green arrow at the top of the site, and hey presto, it goes off and stores a whole bunch of stuff that is needed to present that site to you when you’re offline.
But I don’t always know when I’m going to be cut off from the internet. Often, I disconnect quickly and unexpectedly (either by choice or technical fault) yet still want to be able to access those applications.
Wouldn’t it be better if the activity that ensued when you clicked the green arrow was happening as a matter of course in the background while you’re online? Then, when my network connection disappears, I don’t miss a beat. I’m simply warned that my information may be a little stale.
Just a thought.
Media scrum
I just caught the 87 bus past Downing Street and the media lawn outside Westminster. Both are teeming with media – camera crews, reporters, bright spotlights and umbrellas to keep them all dry.
I swear: something’s going on today, and I won’t sleep until I find out what. You’ll be the first to know, so stay tuned…
Bathtime
Apparently, bathtime isn’t a word. It’s either hyphenated or treated as two separate words. Anyway, I’m making it a word. Similar to my use of eleven and twelve mid-sentence. (Incidentally, I’ve used the word eleven in 22 posts to date (make that 23) and twelve in 25 (26). They come up quite regularly.)
Anyway, just a short post to say that I love bathtime, as does my daughter. She’s not reached the try to get as much water out of the bath as possible phase yet, but nonetheless, she seems to personify happiness and contentedness. Which in turn makes me very happy.
That was close
My previous post (see below) was quite long. Just after hitting the Blog this! button (that’s what the button says), I decided in an instant to click back into the content entry text box, hit CTRL+A (highlight everything) swiftly followed by CTRL+C (copy to clipboard). All this while the next page was loading, over broadband.
That next page was the you’ve been timed out page. The annoying thing about my blogging software is that it doesn’t auto-save partial posts.
Imagine my delight when I could copy my clipboard into a second attempt. I think you can only imagine.
Ocado: the cheek!
Originally, this post’s title had the present participle of the F word neatly nestled in between the and cheek. I removed it for Francis’ benefit (NSFW), but I’m often torn in suchsituations. Now, having raised the very subject of sweary things, astrange urge has come over me to type the C word. Scunthorpe. That’lldo.
Back to the point. A few days ago, I was sent a lovelylittle email from our friends at Ocado, our online supermarket ofchoice, part of the John Lewis Partnership, don’t you know. (My wife practices the John Lewis religion, their Oxford Street store being termed The Mother Ship.)
Theyinformed me that they were introducing a "small delivery charge to someof [their] slots. Charges will affect busy periods but quieterdelivery slots will remain free.
"All customers spending over £75will have the opportunity to choose a free delivery slot at a quietertime of the week, otherwise the charge will be up to £4. If you spendless than £75 the charge will be no more than £6."
(I’d havepreferred a semicolon after week, but that’s beside the point.) I wasgrateful, almost eternally so, for the opportunity to choose a freedelivery slot at a quieter time of the week, although recall havingenjoyed that very opportunity before receiving the email. IndeedI’d had the opportunity to choose freedelivery slots at any time of the week, which was moreenjoyable still. Overall, I feel the Ocado’s elevated prices, theirlack of the need for a physical shop (for me at least), and the overallvalue of our shops (c. £135 spent on each delivery) should togethercontribute towards a strong argument to allow us free deliveryregardless.
Anyway, we chose 9–10pm this evening, the slotsbetween 7pm and 9pm being deemed to fall in a busy period. When theguy arrived at 8.50pm, I wondered whether a surcharge would be levied. (I think I’m safe in assuming it won’t. Though stranger things havehappened.)
Thinking again, given my annoyance at the very conceptof a delivery charge, I was sorely tempted to levy one to the deliverychap in return for hitting our busy period. (In reality, itwasn’t that busy, as bathtime was over and the little lady was tuckedup asleep. But that’s not the point.) Maybe I’ll write a letter toOcado detailing my proposed inconvenience charge.
Me or you?
YouGov’s branding seems odd to me. It strikes me that some branding people decided that they wanted to embrace the second person plural, so branded it such. But the people who use the site are, by definition, living life in the first person singular. And as a user, you has a different meaning than was intended by the branding folk. If anything, you for the user could be construed to mean government.
The same could be said of YouTube. And the BBC’s email address for sending pictures: yourpics@bbc.co.uk. But not of myspace or my.yahoo.
Nice word: panoply
panoply: a complete and impressive array.
<|> or >|
Apologies to Simon for not holding the lift for him on leaving work this evening.
I get very confused between the <|> and >|< buttons. When you analyse the buttons, they make complete sense; but when confronted with the option accompanied by a very aggressive deadline (the lift doors closing), I never fail to fumble for the right one. Tonight, Simon was delayed by this fumbling. I, however, suffered no such delay.
Quote of the day
“Dan’s nipples are like a money-off voucher for a tin of dog shit.”
No context necessary, nor would it be forthcoming.
Angry Rob
Below are the most recent comments from Angry Rob, my hosting provider:
- On the list of things that make being a bloke great, this has to come pretty low. Perhaps you’re not quiet as much of a bloke as you think you are?
- I suspect they will laugh at you 1.3MP rez-low-tion.
- Hmmmm… depends if you like to eat something akin to dehydrated wallpaper paste (goes right back to paste the moment it hits your mouth) or an alternative that’s more natural, tastes better and has some substance. Imbecile for even asking!
- Dude (I use that term lightly – as you are clearly getting even less ‘dude’ like each day), if you must carry your offspring in a pouch, put it on your back, like nature intended. They can still look forward and see where you’re going, but you don’t look quiet such a dick and it’s better for your back.
- Dan, you’ve really got to kill all this soppy BS or I’m going to have to stop reading your blog. Come on mate, remember Iraq, climate change, world poverty, the impending bird flue epidemic and the rest. There, don’t you feel better already?
He seems very angry at the moment. And somewhat defensive of his manhood, or at least questioning of mine. I’m confident in myself. Are you, Rob? 
Hansel and Gretel part 2
The only way to do a search from pages within the BBC News site (including the homepage) is to use the search box at the top right. This takes me to a set of results from across the entire BBC web presence. I didn’t want this did I? I searched from BBC News, so I wanted search results from BBC News. (It reminds me of the dilemma on Directgov and its predecessor, ukonline.gov.uk, of whether to serve results from the site itself or from the whole of government. Technology limitations meant that my preference of serving site-specific results won.)
OK, so now I’m frustrated, but at least I can use the tabs at the top to refine my results. I click on the BBC News & Sport tab and get the results I’m after. Unfortunately, I can’t find what I was looking for, so I decide I want to go back to the homepage and navigate for the page myself. Unfortunately, the BBC hasn’t left a trail of crumbs for me to do so. Indeed I am at least two steps from the homepage. I can either click the Back button twice (inelegant to say the least), or I can click on a random result and then use the left-hand navigation to take me back to the homepage.
Getting back home from the search results page is a fundamental requirement, and leaving it out is a major faux pas for the BBC.
(As an aside, here is Hansel and Gretel part 1. Again, about perceived difficulties in getting home.)
Beefy and Lamby live on
Five months and eight days after the Cabinet Office announced plans to cull 551 websites, www.beefyandlamby.co.uk lives on, and is still being advertised on the telly.
In fact, of the first 20 on the BBC’s cull list, only three have been closed:
- Bus Priority Resource Pack: now links off to a regional and local transport page on the DfT site
- CycleSmart: links off to the domain site 123-reg.com, although apparently the domain’s still taken
- DrugDrive: is now a campaign site within the DfT site
It seems that at least the DfT took the edict seriously.
Anyone fancy trying out the other 531?
Planal warming
Does the flat earth society believe in planal warming? I wonder.
I’ll be with you momentarily
A recent trend, one that was particularly prominent in New York, is to use the word momentarily to mean "in a moment". I’ve always frowned upon this use, believing it to instead mean "for a moment".
So my view is that the former of the uses is correct, while the latter is wrong:
- She muted the call momentarily to cough up a lung
- I’m just going to mute the call to cough up a lung, but will be with you momentarily
Answers.com seems to ratify my view.
Standard haircut
Number 2.5 round the sides, blended into the top, take a bit of length off the top, leave it messy and chop into it. Natural at the back, not square.
It’s great being a bloke.
Top of Google’s rankings
Ever since I can remember trying, this site has come second when searching for my name on google.com. I don’t mean when you search for my name itself; I mean when you substitute the words my and name with the names that make up my name, first name and last name. I’ve always been pipped by www.myname.com.
Well those days are over. I’m now number one in Google’s rankings. Huzzah!
Fixed width
I laughed. I laughed a lot.
Transformers: people in disguise
A genius video. The concrete mixer and the truck at the end are particularly impressive.
Wipes
My wife is obsessed with wipes (yeah, predictable joke about me being an ass wipe). Yet tonight’s Ocado order baffled me, with three packets of wipes arriving, all different. Here’s what we got.
- Dettol 4 in 1 Multi-Action Wipes (48)
- Flash Multi-Purpose Wipes (48)
- Flash Multi-Surface Wipes, now with Flashguard Barrier (60)
All of them double up in quantity if you choose to rip off half a wipe at a time.
Apparently, each different wipe-type serves a specific purpose and house area, mainly according to its accompanying smell.