Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Future Phone February 5th, 2010
It’s not often that someone comes up with an idea that will revolutionise the very core of telecommunications.
Strangely I have just done exactly that. Rather than keep my idea a secret I thought it would be useful to write it down here. Many people would think this is an odd thing to do. After all if it is so good won’t I make a fortune?
The problem is that my overwhelming apathy means that the odds of me even remembering this let alone finishing it is slim.
So what is this idea?
It came to me when someone recently called me. New phones obviously tell you who is calling. That’s all very well but sometimes you need just a little bit more information.
My idea is that before you accept a call the caller must provide additional extra information.
For example many people call me at work with questions. I’d like to be able to pick the phone up knowing how many questions I need to answer. That way we avoid conversation drift.
Equally it would be really handy to have a ball park figure for how long they estimate the call will take. How often have you embarked on what you think is a brief chat only to be still talking as much as fifteen minutes later?
In an ideal world a written outline of the all topics to be covered would be handy but that’s essentially just an email. Someone has already invented email.
The only thing I haven’t figured out is which letter needs to go in front of the word phone and what colour it would be.
That’s my plan and it could well change the world.
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Funk December 27th, 2009
I’ve been mucking about with Spotify.
I’m not completely sure if it is that useful and I can’t really see a great deal of difference from Last FM Radio.
The playlists do seem like a good way of sharing stuff you’re listening to and, hopefully develop it a bit. Unfortunately music in Spotify is limited to say the least. In my first attempt at a playlist I’d say about 50% of the stuff I wanted to use is missing.
Anyway I bring you the gift of Funk. It’s a collaborative list so feel free to add stuff that you think might fit. Please don’t dump whole albums in there. I’ve tried to plan this a bit with songs that do fit together.
The list is:-
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Music / Time = List November 17th, 2009
I originally posted this as a thread on The Stirrer but then it occurred to me that this is exactly the reason I own a blog which I rarely update. So I’ve plagiarised my own work.
I like a good list. I particularly a good list of things at the end of a decade.
There is nothing quite like judging things on an entirely subjective criteria and placing that within the confines of an entirely arbitrary time frame.
The NME have come up with their list of the 50 best albums of the last decade.
I think it’s a really good list and shows what a really good period we seem to be in for music at the moment.
I’m a little annoyed that The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots didn’t make it in there at all. I would have had them in the top ten. Though I’m a little bit Flaming Lips crazy today as I’m going to see them tonight. Go me.
I’ve bought 25 of their 50 and will certainly look at getting more.
So for no apparent reason here are my top 10 albums of the last decade, largely using their list to remind me when things came out.
1) Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise
2) Grandaddy – Sopftware Slump
3) Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
4) Acoustic Ladyland – Last Chance Disco
5) Jaga Jazzist – What We Must
6) Muse – Absolution
7) The Bees – Free the Bees
Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
9) Avalanches – Since I Left You
10) Cinematic Orchestra – Man With a Movie Camera
Hmm there is more jazz on there than I expected.
It’s a shame that you can only get away with lists in multiples of 5 or 10 as I would like to include the fantastic The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn by Bright Eyes and Want Two by Rufus Wainwright.
Technically that’s two Bright Eyes albums which would have given me 14 in total. I don’t think you’re allowed to have a list with 14 things on it.
So… it’s been a really good decade for music.
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Type it…..
June 17th, 2009
I forgot I had a blog. Hopefully I will put a bit more effort in from now on.
I’ve decided to give Google an absolutely free marketing strategy which could play a key role getting them finally accepted as the premier supplier of information services. Though rather than telling them directly I thought I’d put it on here and see if they can use one of their fancy technical things to find it.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed a flattering but probably false trend. During the course of a day quite a few people will either ask me directly or even email me questions. Not necessarily questions that relate to my work but obviously based on a misguided belief that I will be able to answer them. All too often these questions are probably based on whether or not I know someone’s phone number or email address but equally there are some obscure general knowledge things thrown in too.
I’d like to claim that I have a vast repository of general knowledge and frightening memory for phone numbers but it wouldn’t be true. I think I’ve built up a bit of a reputation because I can generally give people answers however obscure their question is. I manage to achieve this through the extremely simple process of taking their questions and typing them into Google.
I assume that I am not the only person that has figured out that Google has quite a lot of information contained in it but it obviously could do with some more promotion.
It surprises me the amount of time people take to ask me questions which they could answer for themselves by just following exactly the same process. Particularly when it seems to take much more time to write an email with the question in than just write the same thing in a search engine.
So there it is. I want Google to start a worldwide “Type it into Google” campaign.
There’s a chance that some people might suddenly realise that my entire knowledge base is typing related but I’m happy for that to happen for the greater good.
I’ve decided to give Google an absolutely free marketing strategy which could play a key role getting them finally accepted as the premier supplier of information services. Though rather than telling them directly I thought I’d put it on here and see if they can use one of their fancy technical things to find it.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed a flattering but probably false trend. During the course of a day quite a few people will either ask me directly or even email me questions. Not necessarily questions that relate to my work but obviously based on a misguided belief that I will be able to answer them. All too often these questions are probably based on whether or not I know someone’s phone number or email address but equally there are some obscure general knowledge things thrown in too.
I’d like to claim that I have a vast repository of general knowledge and frightening memory for phone numbers but it wouldn’t be true. I think I’ve built up a bit of a reputation because I can generally give people answers however obscure their question is. I manage to achieve this through the extremely simple process of taking their questions and typing them into Google.
I assume that I am not the only person that has figured out that Google has quite a lot of information contained in it but it obviously could do with some more promotion.
It surprises me the amount of time people take to ask me questions which they could answer for themselves by just following exactly the same process. Particularly when it seems to take much more time to write an email with the question in than just write the same thing in a search engine.
So there it is. I want Google to start a worldwide “Type it into Google” campaign.
There’s a chance that some people might suddenly realise that my entire knowledge base is typing related but I’m happy for that to happen for the greater good.
(If you’re really arsed you could try Wikipedia as well)
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