Elapsed time, allowing for exclusions
I was set a challenge recently, in which the business requirements kept getting more complex. I rose to the challenge, but the final solution was made more complex by the fact that the requirements were iterative as opposed to being defined upfront.
The requirements evolved such:
- Can you find the difference, in hours, between two times in Excel
- Oh, can you exclude weekends
- Oh, and on the weekdays, can you exclude the times that are out of hours (i.e. before 9am, after 5pm doesn’t count)
Here’s the solution. It works, but because of the way it evolved, I no longer know how it works. So if you have any problems with it, don’t come running to me!
Stop emptying my basket!
I’m not a huge online shopper. I dabble here and there: the odd router from dabs.com, flights from Expedia, quite a bit of stuff from Amazon and odds and sods in and amongst from various other companies.
I was surprised recently on finding out that most shopping baskets empty when you either leave the site in question or leave your decision-making process that bit too long.
This strikes me as stupid on the part of the retailer.
I think the principle behind the decision is that if you don’t get around to checking out, then you mustn’t actually want the products. I disagree.
Often, I’ll put something in my shopping basket either fully intending to buy that item or prompting me to buy something similar—an iron, for example, but not necessarily that iron.
The retailer’s decision to remove the iron from my basket may result in my forgetting completely that I need a new iron, causing either irritation on my part when I next need to iron my shirts, or an impulsive buy from an offline retailer (Robert Dyas?) when I next see an iron in the flesh/metal/plastic/Teflon™.
Surely much better for the retailer to have a conveniently placed Empty Basket button to allow those shoppers annoyed by the persistent basket to let its artificial bottom fall out ready for their next shop, which may also never see the light of the check-out. Windows shopping, if you will. ([Dan bows] I thank you.)
That way, I get to save stuff indefinitely in my basket, the online equivalent of leaving my Sainsbury’s trolley on aisle three while popping for a haircut, returning to find it where I left it, contents still intact. Not that I do that, of course. That’d be madness!
Penny arcade
It seems that the title used in digg articles is of paramount importance in attracting hits, and associated diggs. Which is the likely reason this article received so many diggs (653):
How to make a homemade gun that can send a penny ripping through a can
I struggle to imagine a post better geared to attract the geek’s mouse-click.
Overheard in Whitehall: the elusive Thursdays
Yesterday, I heard a guy in Whitehall start a sentence to the guy with him, “On what was a rare Thursday…”. I find them as rare, and indeed plentiful, as any other day, each occupying a little over 14 percent of my time. (If anything, Thursdays have the edge for me, as I was born on a Thursday.)
As an aside, there should be a word to describe an acquaintance of unknown closeness, as was needed above. Possibly there is and I just don’t know it.
Much anticipated lines in Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson
There are three lines in Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson for which my ears can hardly wait. They’re crying out for the lines to arrive, each of which brings unbridled, somewhat inexplicable joy. They are, in playing order:
- Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes
- Koo-koo-ka-choo, Mrs. Robinson
- Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio (the real reason for the eagerness being Joe himself, the preceding four words merely providing a delicious appetiser for what is to come).
I hope the lines are similarly enjoyable for others.
Heads of State: let’s quit with the formalities
This evening, the BBC’s ticker informed its readers that President George was giving a warning to Iran.
I think it’s quite nice that we’re done with the formalities of politics. He almost sounds like a hurricane, which some would argue is accurate: unfathomable power leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.
From now on, we should refer to all our leaders in this way: President George, Prime Minister Gordon, France’s duo of President Nicolas and Prime Minister François), Germany’s Chancellor Angela, Prime Minister Stephen of Canada and China’s General Tso. (This last one was a red herring: China’s leader is actually President Hu.)
BBC News’ history
I wonder if anyone, the BBC included, captures on a regular basis the surfacing trends of the BBC News website. Not the content within the articles, but how they are presented to users over time.
It would be interesting to catpure, say every five minutes, the article that was surfaced in each location on each of the main navigation pages (Main, UK, World, Technology, Entertainment, Sport etc.), complete with link title, link summary and the picture of choice.
It wouldn’t be difficult either (although obviously it’s beyond my limited capabilities), and wouldn’t need much disk space. My calculation gives about 150kB including images per captured page. If 20 navigation pages are captured, then that’s 3MB every five minutes, 864MB per day, or 315GB per year.
And it would provide a great insight into the ever changing priorities of what is perhaps the most authoritative news website out there.
Just a thought.
How can you miss it?
Astronomers have found a void in space measuring one billion light-years across. That’s 9,460,528,000,000,000,000,000 kilometres. Let’s put that into context.
Count the number of square millimetres on the earth’s surface, including the oceans. (Before you start counting, there are 6 billion billion of them, a billion for each person in the world.) Now, tick them off one at a time, taking a flight each time you do. For the first one, fly from London to Naples, Italy. For the second, fly back to London. For the third, fly back to Naples, and so on, flying from London to Naples on the odd numbers and back to London on the evens. By the time you’ve ticked off all of the square millimetres on the earth’s surface, you’ll have covered the same distance as the void is wide.
For completeness, assuming you don’t have to waste any time checking in, waiting for your bags etc., your journeys would take you 125,000 times longer than the universe has existed to date.
It’s quite a big void.
ESPN’s biased list of greatest sporting routs
This was put together following the Texas Rangers’ 30–3 thrashing of the Baltimore Orioles, the highest single team run total in 110 years.
Here it is. Funny how they don’t mention America’s 18½–9½ battering at the hands of Europe in the 2005 Ryder Cup. Although they did include the Boston Tea Party at number 96.
Commentary inspiration
I got a comment from Hannah this evening, who was searching the web in an attempt to answer her homework assignment: what is the difference between latitude and longitude?
I’m happy on two counts: one, that she stumbled upon my post on this very subject; and two, that she felt the urge to comment.
I also enjoyed re-reading my own post. Not sure if that’s wrong. I also have no idea whether any of the content therein was used by Hannah in her response to the question.
Polymath
Polymath: a person of great and varied learning.
Just used in reference to Stephen Fry in celebration of his 50th birthday. Lovely word.
What’s your carbon volume?
A few car adverts are currently boasting a low carbon emission of 120g of CO2 per kilometre of driving. That still sounds like a lot.
At 15°C, CO2 weighs 1.977kg per cubic metre, so 120g equates to 60,700 cubic centimetres, or a 39 centimetre cube, full of carbon dioxide. So a trip to Yorkshire and back for me would equate to 41 cubic metres of CO2 or a 3.43 metre cube. Quite a chunk. If it’s cold, then the carbon footprint is reduced, I guess.
Rare dead star found near Earth
Here’s the article. Maybe James Doohan didn’t come back to earth after all.
define osirra
osirra is Spanish, meaning harmony. It is pronounced uh-SI-ra, pronounciation rules as follows:
- Accent on the middle syllable
- uh as in uh-oh (the uh, not the oh)
- SI as in symbiotic
- ra as in Andorra
[That first sentence is not strictly true but it's a nice thought, and I'll be promoting its introduction into the Spanish dictionary. Please join me in this quest.]
BBC News gets all techie
BBC News’ articles have gone all techie, each now succeeded by a little box inviting readers to bookmark the page through any one of del.icio.us (quaintly written Delicious), Digg, reddit, Facebook or StumbleUpon.
Interesting way to go. Not one I’d associate with the BBC.
Inheritance tax on axes
The Tories have unveiled a new plan to apply inheritance tax on axes handed down from one generation to the next. That’s how I interpreted the headline, on first reading. I love it when the BBC’s attempts to get content to fit in the available space results in odd, often confusing headlines, usually bereft of prepositions and joiny words™.
Newcastle still top
After last night’s games, Newcastle are still top of the table (average points 3, average goals 3, average difference 2), followed by Everton (3, 2.5, 1.5) and Chelsea (3, 2.5, 1), Arsenal (3, 2, 1), Blackburn (3, 2, 1) and Liverpool (3, 2, 1) taking the remaining European spots. I was wrong in suggesting that Spurs (0, 0.5, -1.5) were bottom of the Premiership under this new sorting algorithm—West Ham (0, 0, -2) prop up the division, with Spurs and Middlesbrough (0, 0.5, -1) joining them in the relegation zone.
The biggest beneficiaries from the revised sorting are Newcastle, jumping four places, while Man. City are crying with a five place demotion from second to seventh.
Premier League: re-sort by columns J, K and L
The Premier League, along with every other British footballing league (and indeed all foreign ones, I think), is ordered by points scored, with other measures (goal difference and goals scored) kicking in to rank teams with equal points. Under this method, it’s always struck me as unfair, particularly early in the season, that teams that have played fewer games are penalised.
Surely a more equitable initial measure would be average points per game played, with average goal difference and average points scored kicking in as the secondary and tertiary differentiators.
I’ve thought this since childhood, yet I was only prompted to put it into words on seeing Everton leapfrog Newcastle last night as a result of beating Spurs.
So far, Everton has 2-1 and 3-1 wins under its belt, giving an average points per game of 3, an average goal difference of 1.5 and an average goals scored of 2.5. Newcastle’s sole 3-1 win gives us figures of 3, 2 and 3 respectively, putting us top, no? For completeness, under either scenario, Spurs are bottom.
Take the AQ test
I scored 32. You?
Overheard in Parliament Square
American woman to fellow tourist, while visually comparing Parliament and Westminster Abbey: no, that one looks more like an abbey (pointing at Westminster Abbey, phew).