Misheard lyrics 3

Sometimes it is very difficult to hear song lyrics, although the internet pretty much means you can now look up the correct version. Here is another that I have misheard.

I'ts beginning to get to me - Snow Patrol.

Actual Lyric:

"And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching in our cold bed"

My version:

"And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching on Uncle Ben's"

Why they should be singing about an argument on Uncle Ben's microwave rice I'm not entirely sure but that is what it sounds like.

Then again it is amazing what little things can set arguments off. Maybe somebody burnt the microwave rice, which started this massive argument and now they are barely talking about microwave rice.

I think I better get my coat now.

The Future of the Car - Part 2

Source: New Scientist, Vol 196 No 2630, 17 November 2007. pp 28-30.

I wrote an article about the future of the car, in July 2007 where I mused about the future of computer controlled cars.

According to the New Scientist article the computer controlled car has come one step closer.

DARPA, the US defence research agency has been running an Urban challenge which builds on their previous challenges for computer controlled cars.

The Urban Challenge was a 6 hour, 100 km race along the roads of a simulated city. All participants must navigate roads, obey the laws of traffic and avoid each other. Not only are there the normal route finding tasks but also individual tasks like parking. Six teams managed to cross the finish line.

There are some features that were not tested that will be needed before we get civilian production models. The cars were not tested against moving objects like people or pets, plus none of the cars reached speeds that would be acceptable out in the normal world.

Having said all that, those tests could come next, so the future is a step closer.

The author of the article had this to say about the driver less future:

"It will also be a long, and maybe un-winnable, battle to persuade people to give up their love affair with driving."

Driving, yes but what about commuting. Who wouldn't want to flip a switch and then fall asleep on the way to and from work. What about nights on the town, cant drink because you have to drive, not any more, let the computer drive you home.

Can't pass your driving test or simply cant be bothered, buy a computer controlled car.

Lost your licence buy a computer controlled car.

I think the author clearly, a keen driver underestimated all the times people cant drive or just hate to drive. It is a much stated fact that people drive because they have to, now there would be an alternative, let the computer drive.

Lets face it who wouldn't want their own chauffeur?

Plus what about costs, lets assume that the computer controlled car is the ultimate in safe driving. Insurance costs would drop, fuel costs would drop as computers are more efficient at fuel efficient driving and the government might even introduce a tax reduction for computer controlled cars.

It may be a slow start but people will give up driving, or at least driving will become a hobby something to enjoy on the weekends or on holidays, not on the boring traffic jam on the way to work.

Friday's Work day prayer

While trudging to work at the end of a long week I was thinking of a prayer to get me through the day. Don't worry I am not about to get all religious on you I was remembering some joke prayer about asking for the strength to get through the day despite all the idiots or something like that.

A bit of google work later... there are a few versions of a joke email that gets forwarded everywhere which is in turn a corrupted version of a famous prayer called 'The Serenity Prayer'.

The Joke Version:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people
I had to kill today because they pissed me off.

You can see how apt this is when you are facing another day at the organisation where the phrase 'bureaucracy gone mad' was invented.

The Original Version:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

The second version is a nice little prayer even if you don't believe in God.

This all got me to thinking that really in the poem the word god could be replaced by something like " God, any other religious deity, any being or anything that has the power to help me".

In my simple thoughts of religious matters I ponder whether belief in a god is necessary for a prayer to take place. After all a prayer could be described as asking for something where the outcome is not certain. After all if a close relative is dying we still will them to survive even if we do not start our thoughts with "Dear God".

Which made me think of a thought experiment about whether atheists pray. If a person had for whatever reason jumped out of a plane without a parachute and was plummeting to the ground with about four minutes to live what would they be thinking. Well you would be thinking I hope something happens to save me which in a sense is a prayer. Proof positive.

Of course testing this would require speaking to people who are falling to their impending death. Given that most people don't willingly jump out of a plane without a parachute this could be a bit difficult.

All those thoughts because of another tedious Friday.

Note: If this article has caused any offence to anyone, this was not my intention. It was merely a random thought from my brain.

Some quotes about genius

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

-Albert Einstein

A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

-James Joyce

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

-Ezra Pound

Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.

- C. W. Ceran

It makes you think doesn't it.

Snow Watch 2007/08 season

It would appear we kick off to an extremely unheard of early start.

Reporting live from North Oxfordshire is Dermot Dermot-son.

"Yes, here in a rather quiet part of Oxfordshire, locals are witnessing what can only be described as sleety-snow.

The locals are in shock, even the octogenarian local weather man has checked his records and cannot find another occurrence in all his 70 years of records of sleet/snow in November.

This is Dermot Dermotson reporting live from a sleety Northern Oxfordshire."

Is this an early start to a very harsh snowy winter. Or it could just be slightly freakish occurence, maybe we will have a rain of toads later.

Ok so not the best of pictures, you will have to take my word for it. That the white lines going across that light is the first snow / sleet type stuff of the year.

When you are bored of the internet.

When you have surfed your way all over the internet.

When you still feel there is still one more page to look at.

When you feel there has to be one page, just one final page to make sense of it all.

When the google 'I'm feeling lucky' is just not enough any more.

When you don't know where to go, but you want to throw the dice one last time.

When the dice is spinning on a point and it comes up seven... Just.... Click here.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

II Waging War

11. On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people's substance to be drained away.

12. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.

Notes by Zephyrist:

The first one is quite simple, armies eat resources causing prices to rise generally ruining the country and impoverishing the people. In extreme this leads to starvation and desolation of the land.

Apparently, I had to look this up, exaction means a heavy an unjust demand. Basically the local populace aren't really obliged to support the army but end up doing so. As an extension to this the local populace will probably resent the army which as Sun Tzu has mentioned previously will lessen the chances of success.

To summarise Sun Tzu believes that large armies are to be used, not just hang around waiting for a battle.

Recursive dreaming

I read in New Scientist magazine about the linked blogger who wondered how many levels in a recursive dream you could have.

Basically a recursive dream is a dream within a dream.

My dreams are fairly good and I can exercise some limited control over them or at least I have had some dreams so many times that I can rewrite them.

My recursive dream tends to be about getting up and doing all your morning preparations and then leaving the house. In some ways its quite a natural dream in the sense that your brain is waking up and preparing itself to get ready, so it is creating a mental to-do list and running through it which is expressed as a dream. The other thing is that morning routines are fairly regular and repetitive so most of it could be done subconsciously in your sleep not really having to wake up until you eventually arrive at work.

Anyway the dream is quite simple, I get up, get shower, shave, clean teeth, get dressed, go downstairs, get breakfast, collect final bits and leave house for work.

So I am busy dreaming this very real dream which feels just like a normal day, I leave the house and then I wake up. This is where the recursive bit comes in, because although I wake up I start the dream over again, so I wake up, get up etc until the point I leave the house again except then I wake up.

Its difficult to say how many times I have managed to repeat this dream but I think at least three times in one morning. Of course by the time you are actually awake all you can think is that you have done all this three times already.

Another repeating but not recursive dream I keep having is an old favourite about failing an exam. It varies from turning up late or not preparing, I know it means that I am just worrying about some detail that I haven't finalised yet.

It has become such a common dream that now I often start telling myself not to worry as I passed these exams years ago. As these dreams are in the past it is a past me with future knowledge. I have to say that the past me never recognises this time paradox.

Dreams are such strange things and I always find mine fascinating.

Salary Converter V2.0 - Convert annual to hourly, weekly, anything

I finished the major upgrades today.

You can now convert from hourly, daily, weekly, 4-weekly, monthly or annual to hourly, daily, weekly, 4-weekly, monthly and annual pay figures.

In addition I have incorporated amendments for part time and non standard working weeks. The original version had an assumption that everybody worked 37 hours a week and five days a week. Clearly for people that did not their daily rates and hourly rates would be wrong.

A nice little project which will be extremely useful when job hunting. Now I can compare rates between jobs however they put the pay on the advert.

Unless anybody else has any suggestion I really cant see any further improvements to be made. Jobs a good 'un as I always say.

This Week 50 years ago (New Scientist)

In this weeks New Scientist the accidental discovery of super glue is told.

Apparently a polymer was discovered and thus standard tests were undertaken to establish the physical properties. The refractive index was being measured by squeezing a sample between two prisms.

The extraordinary adhesive property was only found when they tried to separate the prisms after the test. It could not be done.

Just think how easy it might have been for someone just to throw the prisms away without realising the significance of them being stuck together.

Humanistic design touches

I have been thinking some more about noises that things make which perhaps could have been designed in or out but somehow survived into the final product.

My MP3 player says"bye" but not"hello", it could have said "powering down" or just switched itself off. I wonder if bye is translated in foreign versions.

I used to own a motherboard which spoke on start up, until it entered into a suicide pack with my graphics card.

On start up it used to say,

"Power on self test complete, Computer now booting from operating system."

I miss that re-assuring voice. Of course you could have chosen different words how about:

"I have spun my drives, as far as I can tell you have a graphics card processor and some memory now lets see if the operating system wants to start today."

"Hardware OK, now cross your fingers, operating roller coaster system about to start"

"Hardware confirmed, now launching missiles"

"Hardware confirmed, Operating system starting. Do you feel lucky?"

"Hardware confirmed, please insert coffee."

"This is your computer talking. Pre flight systems have been checked, If you care to check out the Windows on your left, we will be serving Java shortly."

Sorry went off on a tangent there.

Salary Converter

I run meltdownclock.co.uk with a friend of mine, it is based on an idea I had which has never really taken off. Although to be fair we never really pushed the advertising all the limits.

I sometimes programme things just because I want to challenge myself. One project I got an idea is for a salary converter, so you can convert annual salary to monthly pay, or hourly rate to monthly pay. This would have been particularly useful to know when I was temping. I knew how much I needed to take home each month to live on but didn't know what that would equate to as an hourly rate.

So I thought why not write a perl script to work it all out.

So here it is

Salary converter.

It will convert from hourly, weekly, monthly and annual to hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual pay. if you see what I mean.

I have some ideas for the next version two, I want to accommodate part time and non standard working weeks. Plus I might add 4 weekly to the list as some people are still paid that way.

Watch this space as they say.