Toothpaste Chicken

In my bathroom at the moment, we have four empty toothpaste tubes. No, sorry, let me rephrase:

In my bathroom at the moment, we have four very very nearly empty toothpaste tubes.

They have been this way for weeks now, proving that Bill Bryson's insight...

"there's always a little more toothpaste left in the tube...think about it"

...actually had nothing at all to do with optimism or strength of character, but was indeed in fact the musings of a man who really likes to investigate such things. If you haven't yet read any of his books, shame on you - and I highly recommend them.



I could, I realise, simply pop along to one of the many retail establishments I pass daily and simply pick up another, full, tube. It's not like we're always arguing over whose turn it is to buy the toilet paper, or who took the rubbish out last. I could also save myself five minutes of intense squeezing and bruised fingertips and simply cut one of the tubes in half, helping myself to the goo within (but - and this is critical - dispelling the hidden delights of what lies inside).

However, I don't want to lose. If no-one else has had to resort to that yet, then I shouldn't have to either. After all, I live with a girl and a guy with pink hair - think of the shame if I gave in.

In other toothpaste related news (albeit from 1937):


_{Why the frown?}

You might also be interested in this method of creating a fibre-optic flashgun for a professional camera using an empty toothpaste tube - the Fring.

Trolling

Has someone you loved died? says CBBC (nice past tense there, nice). I tried not to fill out the form at the bottom. I really did.

Oh well.

"Two weeks ago my favourite parrot died. I think the French boy from across the street killed him. He was playing football and then the football hit my parrot. I was very sad and now I don't talk to French people any more."

I really hope that gets published.

In other trolling news, I was really tempted to delete the page for Wikipedia - Military Of Georgia a short while ago. Or maybe just change everything to the past tense, like I did (where appropriate) on the Economy Of Iceland page.

If that's not enough of fun and slightly dated stories for you, here's a comparison of the militaries of Georgia and Russia. Before they had a big party with one another:

Georgia
Total personnel: 26,900
Main battle tanks (T-72): 82
Armoured personnel carriers: 139
Combat aircraft (Su-25): Seven
Heavy artillery pieces (including Grad rocket launchers): 95

Russia
Total personnel: 641,000
Main battle tanks (various): 6,717
Armoured personnel carriers: 6,388
Combat aircraft (various): 1,206
Heavy artillery pieces (various): 7,550

I love so much how they've written the word 'seven'. Note how the Georgian armed forces would have fitted quite happily into the Russian personnel carriers.

The Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog

I don't really think this one needs much explanation:

The Brokers With Hands On Their Faces Blog

Here's my fave:



I love the Internet so much.

Dead Set

Dead Set is the best thing ever.

Ever.

Big Brother, but with zombies. Davina McCall as a zombie. ZOMBIES.

Best ever.



Go watch the first episode on demand.

Little moments

A large percentage of F1 viewers, so unscientific surveys carried out without a proper representational sample size, proper interviewing technique, prop...

A large percentage of F1 viewers only watch F1 for the crashes, that was meant to read.

But, I hate people who don't carry out surveys properly. I just saw an ad saying "80% of women (sample size: 22) would recommend this to their friends". Hint: 22x0.8 = 17.6 - at least pick sample sizes that give your percentage an integer result. I was reading an academic textbook yesterday which claimed:

"In a University in Australia [another reason not to have Universities in Australia] 336 Computer Science students were sent an email ... asking for their password. 138 replied with a valid password ... 200 changed their passwords without prompting."

Now, hard enough though it is to believe that every student in a department actually read an email and took this kind action based on it, does anyone else see a problem with that statistic?

Anyway, I had a point when I started this post...people watching events just in case something bad happens. Here's a little something to keep the faith going:

South African MP's chair breaks on a BBC Interview

and..


_{George Bush tries to leave a press conference}

Not enough time

Since coming back to University I've been busy pretty much constantly, with no spare time to just sit back and relax, or even to complete the occasional ancillary tasks that crop up from time to time.

I'm in University early every morning, even when I don't have lectures, so that I can get some research into Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems done for my Final Year Project. When I'm not working on that, it's preparation for assessed lab classes (each of which is worth 0.6% of my total degree!) or finding obscure references to satisfy the lecturer who's set the other coursework I'm currently working on.

When I get a break, I grab an orange juice and a banana or head down to the pool for my daily swim - I normally manage about 1Km a day before it's time to head back to lectures. Once I'm back home it's practicing and learning music for Tie-Dye Quartet gigs, more work on my Final Year Project and co-ordinating all my various extra curricular activities - societies, job applications, MS student partner stuff, all that jazz.

Mondays and Wednesdays are for Squash, Saturdays are for Ultimate and weekends in general are spent helping the homeless, raising money for charity and volunt...

---

Ok, enough lying. Let's try all that again:

---

Since coming back to University and getting addicted to Team Fortress 2 I've been busy pretty much constantly, with no spare time to just sit back and relax, or even to complete the occasional ancillary tasks that crop up from time to time boring paperwork I should really, really do sometime soon.


I'm in University early every morning, even when I don't have lectures [seriously], so that I can get some research into Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems done for my Final Year Project. When I'm not working on that, it's preparation for assessed lab classes (each of which is worth 0.6% of my total degree!) or finding obscure references to satisfy the lecturer who's set the other coursework I'm currently working on finding amusing stories on BBC News, following link after link on Wikipedia and continually F5'ing in my inbox.

When I get a break, I grab an orange juice and a bananaa sausage roll and a bottle of Lucozade or head down to the pool for my daily swim - I normally manage about 1Km 500m a day before it's time to head back to lectures collapsing in a heap and needing resuscitation from the lifeguard. Once I'm back home it's practicing and learning music for Tie-Dye Quartet gigs, more work on my Final Year Project and co-ordinating all my various extra curricular activities - societies, job applications, MS student partner stuff, all that jazzPLAYING TF2 FOR HOURS AND HOURS UNTIL MY EYES BLEED AND I GO TO BED WITH DREAMS OF HEADSHOTS AND SENTRY GUNS PLAYING THROUGH MY BRAIN.

Dear Coca-Cola

Stumbling around the Internet on a lazy Sunday afternoon I came across this seemingly bizarre directory listing of various correspondance to and from various food companies.

http://www.razza.fsnet.co.uk/dearcocacola/

I realise I could probably put the whole thing in some kind of context if I were to put in a couple of minutes' work, but it's much nicer just to randomly browse the directory, which is mostly out of order despite the dates on the files, and wonder what strange mind came up with it.

Enjoy, I recommend the ones starting with 'coca'.

New TDQ website is up

Go take a look at

http://www.tiedyequartet.com

and let me know what you think of the new design. If you see anything particularly wrong, I'd appreciate an email with a screenshot, and some details on what operating system/browser/resolution you're running. If you don't know how to do any of that, just write me a letter.

Thanks for the lovely design from Pete, the lovely photos from Clush and the lovely er...poses...from Ju. Oh, I did some writing and web dev and image hacking too.

Enjoy.

Xx

Tie-Dye Quartet Pictures

The wonderful Chris Lush not only took photos of Tie-Dye Quartet for our album artwork, but also comes along to the occasional gig and photographs us. Here's a few shots from our show on Thursday - be sure to click on each image to get sent through to the full quality pictures, the previews really don't do them justice.


<sub>Our good looking drummer, Pete Ford


Presumably this was a tricky passage...


Guitar solo!


Can't forget the trumpet


There was a very good crowd on the night


Seriously, people were queueing up outside the door, one in - one out</sub>

I'll also see if I can dig up some audio from one of the people who was either filming our set, or just watching the entire thing through a digital camera lens. Presumably the former.

Xx

Here comes another bubble

A little old, but I've only just stumbled across this video:



Love it :)

Thanks to sooz_g for the find.

The Apprentice

Last night we played a fun, cozy little gig at the White Swan in Birmingham - a trendy little pub just off Broad Street. We played whatever we wanted, we were surrounded by friends and it was all quite wonderful.

And unpaid.

So, naturally, the next thing to do was to sell-out. I spent a couple of hours with Ju traipsing around restaurants in Birmingham city centre (and we've spent many more hours on the phone) convincing them of the business value of having some live music. She wore a skirt and I did the pitching...lovely combination.

Some positive responses, some maybes and some people to get back to. I love presenting :)

Omega Sektor Closes

CompSoc's first gaming trip of the year was a tour of Omega Sektor, followed by 10 hours of gaming. About 30 members showed up and everyone had a great time - clearly the long hours I put into getting sponsorship for CompSoc were definitely a good investment of my time.

...the next day, Omega Sektor closed their doors and declared that they were in administration (leaving behind a large pile of Kit-Kats in the internet cafe area).

Apparently giving free LAN parties to large groups of students isn't a good business model eh? One to remember kids.

Now, what do I do with a hundred CompSoc t-shirts with the Omega Sektor logo nicely plastered onto them? Ideas?

First gig for a while

Last night was the first gig I've played with the Tie-Dye Quartet since recording and...whew. I think the best description for the night would be 'a bit Spinal Tap'.

Our guitarist got held up (after giving a guitar lesson, what are the odds?) and we were almost about to start playing without him when he came through the door. The stage set-up was, to be generous, not the best I've ever seen. Suffice to say that I could only hear the drums, as could the drummer. Lots of head gestures were in order. Oh, also my bass string snapped during the third song and we had to have a quick improv guitar & drums jam whilst I changed it in record time.

Still though, no matter how badly we thought we performed, everyone genuinely seemed to think it sounded great - even the other musicians in the audience. We even got offered a gig at someone's Ball in a fancy hotel, and sold a few albums once we were done playing. Clearly the acoustics were fantastic eh?

We're going to be practising hard now for some of the more important (and/or paid) gigs we've got coming up - this was just a free show at the University bar. If people thought last night was good, then I don't see how we can fail :)

I'll get some pics up once our official photographer has finished Photoshopping them to make us look good. I might even put a short video or audio file up too if I can find one which doesn't make me wince too badly.

In brief

New Tie-Dye Quartet website is looking beautiful and almost ready to go online.

The time difference between Britain and America is rubbish. Americans should stop being so damn lazy and get up at 8am GMT like the rest of us.

Have started swimming every day, either before, after or between lectures. All my muscles ache constantly.

On a diet, please don't bother leaving your opinions on the matter. Apparently I'm spectacularly good at losing weight though, might not need to be doing this for long.

I hate 9am lectures.

Am now playing squash once a week. Felt slightly guilty at playing 'how nastily can you return the tentative serves from the girls who've never played before' with the other guys at the training session.

First CompSoc trip to Omega Sektor was a success, had about 30 people show up to beat me at Warcraft III DOTA, COD4 and other such games.

I hate 9am lectures.

Gig 8.30pm tomorrow. Guitarist is meeting drummer 3pm tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be fine.

I'm excessively busy. Seriously. I bought TF2 a week ago and I haven't even had a chance to play it yet.

Freshers' Fair '08

Today was the chaos that is Freshers' Fair, where hundreds of impressionable new students see the Guild Hall in daylight (and free of vomit and alcohol) for the first time, and cyncical final year students try every tactic they learned in their Business Studies lectures (which, let's face it, had to come in useful somewhere) to con the freshers out of their student loans.

I was on joint duty for CompSoc and LMS (Live Music Society), so it seemed logical to have the two stalls placed next to one another with Guitar Hero inbetween them. Unfortunately this rather impacted on my work ethic at times, but at least I looked rock 'n' roll:



Actually, it turned out to be a great idea, though it drew a lot more geeks over than it did musicians.

We got about 50 members for each society, which wasn't quite as good as I hoped, but we should get a bunch more over the next couple of weeks for each society. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to practise Guitar Hero III religiously for the next 50 hours straight. There was a chap there who could beat me at Dragonforce, and that just won't do.

We also sold a few more Tie-Dye Quartet albums, which was nice. Might need to print more if this keeps up ;)

Proposal

Browsing the pop-humour over at GraphJam, I came across this:

Carrie, Will You Marry Me?


Yep, someone's proposed to a girl on GraphJam.

I don't bring this to your attention to show the supreme idiocy of men, or the extremes to which people are addicted to bad Venn diagrams, but to recommend you read the comments section of this graph. It's packed full of little gems, and is almost as funny as reading a thread on Mumsnet.

Oh, by the way, she said no.

Ouch.

Sell-outs

I was more than a little perturbed to receive an email today inviting me to a Credit Suisse recruitment event for IT students. The email was sent by a member of staff at Aston, and the recruitment event was scheduled for a Thursday in term time - when IT students will all have lectures. It seemed I was being actively encouraged to ditch lectures in order to visit Credit Suisse.

Bizarre no? I was sure Aston was meant to care more about our education than Credit Suisse's graduate scheme.

I did a bit more digging around and discovered this document. It's basically an offer from Aston Careers' Service to prostitute themselves for any company willing to pay for the pleasure. Now you see why I do all my job hunting away from the University - at least I can assure I'm getting impartial advice.

What I find even stranger though, is that it cost a mere £50 for Credit Suisse to have that invite sent to every technology student. These students though, numbering in their hundreds, all paid thousands of pounds for the education they're receiving this year. You'd think the Uni would ask for more than £50 before they suggested throwing that out of the window...

Microsoft Student Technology Day

I've resumed my duties as a Microsoft Student Partner for this year, and the second treat* was an expenses-paid trip down to London for me and some friends for a series of technology talks from a few folks from Microsoft, including the CEO himself, Steve Ballmer.

The whole shindig was in Festival Hall, and started off with the CEO of Huddle.net giving some advice on how to start and run your own little start-up company, drawing on his experiences from starting Huddle. There were some really useful tips about how to deal with venture capitalists, how to get funding in general and how to get help and support from various groups, one of which I can personally vouch for - Minibar London.

Next up was 'The Science Behind Live Search'. Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to see much science, but saw lots of cool usage trend graphs - bit scary to see how much you're monitored as you search away. Also interesting to note that 40% of searches end in failure, 50% of searches are just repeats of something that person has looked for before and that enough people actually use Live Search to be able to gather reliable statistics like these ;)



The third talk was the reason I turned up - Artificial Intelligence by Microsoft Research. Given that my final year project's going to have a bunch of that stuff in it, it was great to see it explained, and the various formulae put into context. Cool presentation too - mostly based around computer games.



Next was Steve Ballmer...and if you've never seen him present then:

a) Find a YouTube video
b) Find a YouTube video

Seriously, the guy is hilarious. 'Exuberant' doesn't come close to describing his style. He also had some very interesting stuff to say about the future of technology, and really knew his stuff well.

We rounded off the day with a presentation from my old colleague Paolo, who got to show off the trendy Surface, which even has a programmable API and emulator that'll be released to the public soon. Sweet.

Edit: Found a video of a bit of Paolo's talk:



Get in touch if you want any more detail on the above, or some contacts to talk about this stuff with :)

--

*_{The first treat was a nice shoulder bag filled with goodies and software...and four RJ11-RJ11 adapters. Note that that reads 'adapter' not 'extension'. If anyone can think of a use for a RJ11-RJ11 adapter, let me know.}