No blacks at Microsoft Poland

Over on a certain less than savoury message board someone recently posted up this interesting observation. Take a close look at the Microsoft USA/World and then the Microsoft Poland pages for business productivity.

Notice anything?

For those of you reading this in the future, when Microsoft realise they've been rumbled and hastily pull the images, I put together this animation. Enjoy.



Note, you may say this is simply the USA branch of Microsoft over-reacting to some Affirmatve Action law. Whilst it's possible that's true, take a look at the hand of the magically changing man. Looks pretty dark to me.

Xx

Edit: Someone's beaten me to the next step of my idea: http://microlove.ytmnd.com

My XBox 360 is broken :(

Today, my XBox 360 decided to stop reading any DVDs or CDs that I put into it. All that comes up whenever I put anything into it is 'Open Tray' or 'Disc Unreadable'. It's little consolation that I can still play the various arcade games on XBox Live - but I can at least still watch films and the like from external hard drives.

I can send it back in to Microsoft for repairs, but as it's not the specific error they've extended their warranty on (3 Red Rings Of Death), it looks like I'll have to pay £65 to get it fixed.

Rather annoyed :(

I'd like a job, please

Back at the start of June, I applied for jobs at a few of the major international technology firms. I wanted to get my applications in early, in case I got myself a US-based job, so that I could get a work permit and such things sorted in plenty of time.

It's been coming up to three months now, and I've not heard a single thing back from any of them. I'm fairly sure that Microsoft will at least phone me, given the three years I've spent doing various things for them and the lovely reference my manager (apparently) will give...so I'm not sure whether this should worry me or not.

Is it simply that their recruitment processes haven't started yet, and my applications haven't even been looked at? Or perhaps they have been looked at, but there'll be no contact until their processes start? Or they all hate me?

I simply don't know, and it's quite frustrating waiting with no knowledge at all. I appreciate they probably get a few too many applications to have a weekly 10-minute chat with each one, but perhaps a little transparency would go a long way. Would it really kill these people to let applicants know a little about the internals of their recruitment processes?

Better not bitch too much though...I still want those jobs.

Xx

Digsby

I love Digsby.

Where to chat online has always been a problem for me. I loved the beauty, cleanness and simplicity of IRC - but it lacked a few of the features I'd like from a chat client - and had a userbase exclusively made up of geeks.


_IRC

I went to MSN (later Windows Live) Messenger for a while, but the only thing that ever kept me there was the userbase (and lack of decent third party clients for it, only Trillian came close). I mean, sure I could chat to anyone I wanted, but was it really worth it when the chat client was so bloated and poorly customisable?

No.

Google Talk was my next choice, and had some great features - such as Twitter integration, a built in chat window on my inbox and a return to simplicity. The chat window had somewhere to enter text, somewhere to display text, and not a lot else. Great...but only a handful of my friends used it.

Then, along came...


_{Does this remind you of the Ammo from Superfrog?}

Digsby!

Digsby allows you to fully customise how it looks, where it goes on your page, where notifications come up, how notifications come up, what notifications come up - beautiful. Although, a lot of the defaults are sensible and quite pretty too.

Furthermore, it allows you to connect to pretty much any IM network you want (most of them through the Jabber protocol, and then a few that don't follow standards such as MSN Messenger too). This is all slick and seamless, and you never have to even care what network people are on when you talk to them. You can give your contacts nicknames (to hide the crap they generally put as 'display name', and group them together as you wish.

There's also support for Facebook, pretty much any email service and my beloved twitter too! I can find out who's dating who, send a tweet about it, get an email in return and delete that email all from one little auto-hiding window at the right hand side of my screen! Then, I can get a flood of messages from people on Messenger, Google Talk and others telling me I shouldn't gossip. Brilliant!

I highly recommend you go try Digsby now. You can turn on only the features you want, so don't be worried you'll just get spammed by messages all day..

You can even get yourself a Digsby Widget (like the one now on the side of my blog - go try it out), which functions like the Google Talk ChatBack I used to have, but works right there on the page, and is a lot slicker from my end.

Yet another reason not to use Hotmail

I use Gmail to put all of my email into one, nice, web-accessible place. It's great - people send email to one of about 12 different addresses I hand out (each for slightly different purposes) and I can reply from the same address, without ever even bothering to look which address the mail was sent to.

I can then read my emails through Digsby (more on that in a mo), and do plenty of cool things with them without ever even opening my inbox. The email search is, as one would expect from Google, perfect - and many other great reasons. If you're still on Hotmail rather than Gmail right now, you're an idiot.

Some people, however, want to keep their Hotmail accounts active for a bit, whilst making the move to Gmail. Others (inexplicably), want to have the access/reply centrally thing I mentioned at the start going on between Hotmail and Gmail. Well, why not? It works with every email provider there is...almost:

Warning You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again.

_{From Hotmail, when trying to set up a Hotmail/Gmail link}
That's bizarre...it seems the forwarding ability is there. They're just locking out domains that 'aren't custom' and 'aren't hotmail' - ie: any of their major competitors. Classy work there, really classy. To me that's just another reason to jump off a sinking ship before they become more and more Draconian in trying to stop you moving on to greener pastures.

Please, ditch Hotmail. Feel free to contact me if you need help doing so.

Imagine Cup 2008

Having paid a short visit to the finals of the Imagine Cup 2008 - as well as working across the office from the folks organising the UK's contribution to the whole shindig for the year, I thought I'd share a few of the more interesting entries I came across in this annual student technology competition, with a 2008 theme of 'Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment'.

Project SOAK

Overall winners, and a group of thoroughly nice chaps, the team behind Project SOAK decided to have a crack at reducing some of the water wastage used in agriculture (70% of water used on the planet goes into agriculture, don'tcha know?).



A range of sensors, displays and automated irrigation/hydration systems ensure that water isn't just needlessly dumped on ground that doesn't have enough - and also ensures that dry areas get enough of the stuff, so that crops don't wither away and die. It even ties in with mapping software, weather reports and SMS (for those emergency reports). Pretty cool stuff.

AcidRain

Ah, the Irish - everyone loves the Irish. These chaps, I believe, showed so much dedication to their project and faith in their work that they could easily have won the overall prize.

Their project, AcidRain, consists of a 'one size fits all' conversion kit which can get any diesel engine running on just vegetable oil - better for the environment and certainly better for the pocket. They're using Windows CE for the whole system - and no, Windows crashing wasn't the reason a tow truck had to come out at one point during their journey.

Their journey, that is - from Ireland all the way down to Paris. In their own car, which they'd fitted with their vegetable oil system. Hardcore.


_{The journey}

Team Austria - Photography

All of the entries for the photography competition came up with some impressive stuff, but my personal favourites were the folks from Austria. I'd recommend you view Team Austria's Photos yourself, complete with obligatory environmentalist sublines. I can't pick a personal fave, but here's just one example of their work:



City Rain

Built by some absolutely crazy Brazilians, City Rain is a SimCity-esque game focused around urbanism and sustainability. There's a quick video below, or you can just download the game and have a quick play yourself.



TreeTalk

Team TreeTalk from Korea literally listen to trees. Seriously. Apparently the electrical impulses produced by a sick tree are different those produced by a healthy tree, and by feeding these impulses into an algorithm they've invented, they can tell the difference, and monitor the health of a forest remotely. Leet or what? I get how all the technology works - but how on earth did they find out that trees produce these impulses in the first place?

--

That's that, you might want to browse the main site for details of some other cool stuff that people have made. I'll possibly be entering next year with a cool little idea I've come up with, assuming I can fit it to the theme and find a team to build it with me (along with the time myself!) - more on that if I do get around to it - would rather not publish the idea right now.

Gatecrashing and other Parisienne Adventures

I hate to disillusion anyone, but my recent trip to Paris wasn't entirely spent sitting in a corner of a room writing, writing and writing about the United Nations Education Leaders' Forum that was going on in front of me.


_{Real time analysis, research and inventive writing requires concentration...and silly faces}

There was also a 'networking' aspect to the proceedings, which in the first instance required me to visit a lovely restaurant that was located on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, once I'd gotten up this high, and consuming a certain amount of champagne, I was seemingly unable to persuade those I was with that yes - I really didn't like heights, and no - I really didn't want to go on top of the tower.


_{The rave lighting's even better when you're actually on the tower}

Once the conference was over, we decided to stick around and gatecrash a party for the Imagine Cup (a bit more on that in another post methinks) that Microsoft were throwing simultaneously in Paris. We popped into the awards ceremony, which - as you can see, was a bit more chaotic than the ordered UN meeting of ministers and the like:


_{The Brazilians were so much fun during this chaos}

The awards were given out by a range of minor celebrities, each with their own unintentional level of comedy. From the professional snowboarder who was very clearly ill at ease with public speaking (or numeracy, telling the first place team they'd won third...) to the French cabinet minister with the translator from a student party.

This particularly serious politician had to give his speech in French, as government policy dictated. The translator, who'd been with students all week decided to add a level of 'pep' to his talk, by rephrasing half his sentences and adding in her own little bits (even referring to herself in the third person a fair few times) whenever she thought it might be amusing. Given that the minister probably spoke flawless English, I dread to think what happened afterwards...

Later that evening, there was a party for the ~400 students and Microsoft staff that had made up the finals of the Imagine Cup, and worked hard all year (and especially hard all week) for the privilege of an open bar with good music and great food, all in a trendy little club underneath the Seine. Quite noticeably not on the guest list was...me - but little things like that shouldn't spoil the night.

After talking my way past the first two 'layers' of security outside the club, I arrived at the reception desk - which had yet more security folks with lists in front of it. A quick complaint about the poor listing system, and the hold up from the first two sets of security and I had a blue armband, which apparently was some form of party ID meaning 'let this guy in' - gatecrashing with style.

The party was great, all the people I met over the few days were great, the two hours of sleep before my flight was not great and when can I go back to Paris please? :)

Keeping busy

With only two weeks left in Reading, I've decided to make sure that I get around and enjoy all that the city has to offer - and all that the folks I've met here can give me in the way of interesting company.

According to my Outlook calendar, the next meeting I have to attend is 'Drinks O'Clock', as today's the last time that all of my team is likely to be around in one place before I leave this place for good.

Having run into one of our trendy London colleagues in the office today, we're now off to a members-only cocktail club, The Player - over in Soho, which should be pretty cool. Expect drunken tweets if the night goes as planned.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Jolly Anglers, a lovely canalside pub for a jam night. I'm a bit worried about carrying guitars back next to a river with beer-legs, but I haven't been to a jam night that wasn't jazz-themed for a while. I really hope some 18 year old goth kid turns up wanting to play black metal.

Friday is a birthday party for one of the other interns - not much to say about that one, it'll just be fairly generic and studenty. I'm sure Facebook pictures will fill you in on the details.


_{Lol Coxhill - can't wait}

On Saturday I'm off to see avant-garde saxophonist Lol Coxhill over at the Rising Sun Arts Centre. It's an eclectic venue (in the truest sense of the word), and I've seen some very good gigs there, and some very bad ones too. Hopefully this will be of the former variety, as I've heard very good things about Lol (got to love the name) but never seen him live.

Sunday, therefore, is for Rock Band and sleeping. Exciting times eh?

Buzzword Document Generator

Sitting in a meeting a week or so ago, I started noting down some of the more amusing phrases that popped out ('We need to take advantage of Kirsty', 'It's just like pushing drugs' and so on). Once these dried up I instead focused my efforts on a quick and hacky bit of javascript to generate buzzwords. I came up with a little page that generates entire documents/emails that seem to make sense, if only you were slightly better at management.

You can go try my Buzzword Document Generator for yourselves, or just read this particular random generation here. It's not too intelligent, so you might find the odd grammatical mishap, but it should be fairly sturdy. There's a few comedy ones in there too for fun :)

--

The Corporation's synergistic policy superannuates this new generation of compatible and time-phased development effort.

Furthermore, massively underperformant human resources can't possibly matter to an alarming increase in underpromising marketing reach.

The virtual team's innovatory action pack motivates tactics in the area of monitored and compatible business requirements.

Management has therefore decided unfortunately laughable snacks provide a safeguard against the decline of highly-performant integrated systems.

Our parallelised thought pool lamentably lacks tactics in the area of responsive and monitored learning.

Management has therefore decided inestimably boxed-in contributors significantly develop an alarming increase in parallelised business satisfaction.

My next-gen thought pool superannuates skillsets including optimal and time-phased functionality.

This leads to the conclusion that inestimably non-team playing contributors help shape an overreaching strategem in the area of synergetic consumer demand.

Epic eh?

Google Zurich

From TheCoolHunter (via Dean):

Google Zurich - Anything but neutral
_{Google hire some 'inventive' designers to re-work their Zurich offices. The designers come up with some of the most amazing stuff I've ever seen.}

How unbelievably hot is that? Not a single row of cubicles in sight, nor corporate logos and colours splashed around the place. I'm not entirely sure whether it'd work for everyday jobs - I can't imagine going through the tedium of checking my emails when surrounded by such stuff - I'd probably go and try to invent something instead.



At Microsoft, if I want to be alone with my thoughts, I find the best places either to be a walk around the (lovely) lake, or to jump into a 'syndicate room' - a small box room with an oversized table, no windows, a whiteboard and moderately comfortable chairs. Doesn't quite beat that bathtub does it? ;)

I'm particularly impressed by two facts in this story (as well as the awesome pictures). The first is that the design team were led entirely by the staff who would be using the offices - they were never even given a brief. That's a superb methodology, not just for office design, but for pretty much every problem I can think of, and it says a lot about the Google culture.

Secondly, the whole thing came in at around the same budget as a normal re-fit! Amazing.

I'm off to the ball..

..and I'm ill :(

Tonight is the Microsoft Interns' 2007/2008 leaving ball - and some folks will be gone by this time next week! Scary stuff. For now though I just have to get through a three course meal and a (relatively) open bar, with the joint disabilities of having what Julie calls a cold (but is probably some kind of fatal head cancer) and not having a tuxedo.

I'm also going to be missing Eurovision tonight, but I've asked some people to text me everytime I should drink. For those of you who don't have other commitments, here's a suggested base of drinking rules I knocked up last year. Obviously, you'll need to improvise around, and add to these rules, as well as whatever your own interpretation of sesh rules/International Drinking Rules is.

Enjoy :)

Clifton StrengthsFinder strengths

Here, according to a 117 question survey, are the 5 things that I'm great at. I don't normally share these things when they're the equivalent of chain-mail spam, but as this is a professional one that work paid for...it might be interesting to you. Click any header to expand, and feel free to comment on how true you think it is :)

Activator

“When can we start?” This is a recurring question in your life. You are impatient for action. You may concede that analysis has its uses or that debate and discussion can occasionally yield some valuable insights, but deep down you know that only action is real. Only action can make things happen. Only action leads to performance. Once a decision is made, you cannot not act. Others may worry that “there are still some things we don’t know,” but this doesn’t seem to slow you. If the decision has been made to go across town, you know that the fastest way to get there is to go stoplight to stoplight. You are not going to sit around waiting until all the lights have turned green. Besides, in your view, action and thinking are not opposites. In fact, guided by your Activator theme, you believe that action is the best device for learning. You make a decision, you take action, you look at the result, and you learn. This learning informs your next action and your next. How can you grow if you have nothing to react to? Well, you believe you can’t. You must put yourself out there. You must take the next step. It is the only way to keep your thinking fresh and informed. The bottom line is this: You know you will be judged not by what you say, not by what you think, but by what you get done. This does not frighten you. It pleases you.

Self-Assurance

Self-Assurance is similar to self-confidence. In the deepest part of you, you have faith in your strengths. You know that you are able—able to take risks, able to meet new challenges, able to stake claims, and, most important, able to deliver. But Self-Assurance is more than just self-confidence. Blessed with the theme of Self-assurance, you have confidence not only in your abilities but in your judgment. When you look at the world, you know that your perspective is unique and distinct. And because no one sees exactly what you see, you know that no one can make your decisions for you. No one can tell you what to think. They can guide. They can suggest. But you alone have the authority to form conclusions, make decisions, and act. This authority, this final accountability for the living of your life, does not intimidate you. On the contrary, it feels natural to you. No matter what the situation, you seem to know what the right decision is. This theme lends you an aura of certainty. Unlike many, you are not easily swayed by someone else’s arguments, no matter how persuasive they may be. This Self-Assurance may be quiet or loud, depending on your other themes, but it is solid. It is strong. Like the keel of a ship, it withstands many different pressures and keeps you on your course.

Maximizer

Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling. Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps—all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding.

Ideation

You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.

Command

Command leads you to take charge. Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary, once your opinion is formed, you need to share it with others. Once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you. You are not frightened by confrontation; rather, you know that confrontation is the first step toward resolution. Whereas others may avoid facing up to life’s unpleasantness, you feel compelled to present the facts or the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. You need things to be clear between people and challenge them to be clear-eyed and honest. You push them to take risks. You may even intimidate them. And while some may resent this, labeling you opinionated, they often willingly hand you the reins. People are drawn toward those who take a stance and ask them to move in a certain direction. Therefore, people will be drawn to you. You have presence. You have Command.

--

The whole thing looks almost like a 'pick your race' screen from a computer game...or maybe I'm just too geeky ;)

Work work and more work

Sometimes I think I work too hard. There's an option in Microsoft's vacation booking tool called 'day off in lieu' - I'm sure I could book off most of my remaining contract if this was actually used seriously. Don't believe me? Here's my week to date:

After a weekend of debauchery (ok, just playing around in the sun - drinking and football mostly) during which I did nearly no work (shock horror!) I ended up spending a late night coding on Sunday to get work done on a project with a swiftly approaching deadline.

This was followed by a bleary eyed 9am start, after which I met my placements tutor and ended up whiling away hours with him plotting my final year project, and also how Aston University can take advantage of some Microsoft technologies. I even appear to have signed myself up for various talks and events to help out with this adoption - and most of these are after my contract ends!

2pm or so and it was time to head off to Glasgow, where I did some more work, whiled away an hour filling up all the space in the Holiday Inn 'Let Us Serve You Better' comments card with complaints about the room & service. It's just a pity all the guides are laminated so I couldn't correct their spelling and grammar direct. EasyJet should be thanking their lucky stars that I didn't have a comments card in the plane too - it wasn't exactly my favourite trip.

A 5.45am start this morning, getting home around 8pm, and I'm still working right now, so I can be ready for a nice 9am start tomorrow. Then it's off to Newcastle on Thursday, so I can be up bright and early at 5.30am to do another Roadshow there :(

Only 6 weeks to go though - scary!

Flashmobs

As previously noted, one of the many memes I'm currently into is that of Flashmobs. I've had the chance to participate in a few by now (including one RickMob - leet as hell), but there's nothing better than the completely impromptu ones that occasionally occur when drunk.

When out with the other interns last Friday, one of the chaps met someone he knew from University. Within 5 seconds and a shout of 'OMG it's Frankie Dettori' this happened to the poor chap:


_Brilliant

Good night - pity about the tequila hangover :(

I'm famous!

In case it's escaped anyone's attention, I have a fairly distinctive look. It's also been remarked upon that I'm not entirely shy of a crowd and have been known to exhibit certain exuberant eccentricities - especially when I've been drinking. Another side effect of drinking is memory blur and loss, which can then lead to certain awkward social moments when folks remember me, but I have no idea who they are.

Most of these occurrences are fairly average, such as people saying hi to me in shops or people I meet through work saying "You gave me a presentation a couple of months back...", but there have been a few of interest recently - I'll share some:

1. T.V.
Quite some time ago, I appeared on a daytime T.V. quiz show by the name of Brainteaser (now closed down due to legal scandal).

Plenty of people at home and University recognised me and came up to me afterwards (proof, if ever it was needed, that students just sit around watching rubbish on TV all day) - but a particularly disturbing moment was experienced a fair few weeks after the programme aired, in a pitch-black nightclub in Manchester, at 3am, when two chaps came up to say they recognised me.

If that's not strange enough, I should point out that I dressed casually and fairly 'normally' for the show. In Manchester, I was wearing a dress and make-up (don't ask):


_{Ducky says hi}

2. U.S.A.
Under the guise of work, I slipped off to Seattle earlier this year for a Microsoft internal conference. There was lots of drinking along the way, but one particularly memorable night was the main party. I was on stage twice at this party - once jamming with the house band (fairly sober) and once dancing with a tambourine (less sober).

Videos of this (fairly extended) moment exist, and I'm sure the image has stuck in many a Microsoftie's mind and will be firmly rooted there, as the one lasting memory they have of the conference. It was still quite a shock last night though when someone with lots of neon on grabbed me just as I was finishing some tequila and shouted "You were awesome in Seattle".

It took me quite a while to discern what on earth he was on about, and how he knew (of) me.

3. W.O.G.s (Weird Oracle Girls)
I get a free bus from the office back to my house on the rare days I'm actually working in Reading, and this gets quite crowded around 5.30. Twice though, earlier on, when the bus was empty, a girl has gotten on from our neighbours Oracle, and sat right next to me.

Sure, you think, it's just my sexual magnetism - not so. Possibly. The first chatted away to me for quite a while, which was lovely, and seemed to know quite a bit about me. I couldn't place her though until she walked halfway to my house, and then turned off a side-street saying "See you Tuesday". At this point I still thought she was some crazy stalker, until Julie suggested she might be a girl I dance Salsa with on Tuesdays.

However, the second W.O.G. still remains a mystery to me. Likewise, she sits and talks to me, and it's gotten to the point now where I can simply reference other bus conversations and look like I know who she is. I just wish she'd wear a name badge on the bus one of these times - I really would like to know how she knows me.

Technical Difficulties

As they'd decided not to implement the little known interface standard known as 'USB', I ended up trying to read the instruction manual for Canon's MV890 camcorder today.

Not only did the camera not come with the cables needed - they'd also decided to ship a manual written in French, German and Italian. My French is ok, so I started reading through that manual, and shortly enough discovered that the information I wanted was to be found on pages 69 and 70.

Sure enough, I turn to page 69 and I see a picture relating to what I want to do. I also notice that all the writing's in German. You see, for reasons I never did discover, the manual isn't triplicated into French, German and Italian - it's simply switching between the three.

The first 35 pages or so, dealing with setting up the camera, are in French. The next 35 or so, dealing with how to record, are in Italian. The final 35 pages or so, dealing with how to get your media off the camera, are in German.

I'm still bewildered, both by the above, and by the fact that there's not a single Firewire mini-mini cable available anywhere within Microsoft UK, or computer shops in Reading.

Drinks o'clock

Someone once said to me "I'm dreading going back to Uni - at work you can just turn up 9-5 and then forget about it. At Uni you've always got something to do".

I always found the opposite to be true - there's no 5am starts at Uni, and any coding at midnight or emails on a Sunday afternoon are strictly for fun.

There's also another key difference between work and University - one which will take a lot of adaptation as I go back for my final year. I'm only just used to the professional way of doing things, and soon I'll be back to the academic method. This difference relates to the ancient tradition of drinking.

Morning drinks

At University, it's perfectly acceptable to drink in the morning for a variety of reasons. Here's a range of potentials:

• Hangover cure


• You've found some interesting liquid in a glass from the night before


• Sink's full of washing and you want to throw away half empty cans


• Exams are over


• Exams are coming up

..and on, you get the idea.

In the professional sphere however, you can only drink in the morning if you're in the upper echelons of management and still have a drinks cabinet. The move towards open plan offices makes this perk even more special nowadays, and I feel this is having a significant impact on morale. Terrible.

Cocktails at lunch

Lunch (known as 'dinner' to the uneducated plebians of the north) should always be accompanied by a variety of intoxicating beverages in the working world. This is especially true when the corporate expense account is paying - yet another reason to schedule customer meetings around the 12pm mark.

Students on the other hand, are much less likely to drink at lunchtime. With the journey from University back to home too strenuous, and the foresight to bring a packed lunch still lacking, lunch must be a bought meal. This expenditure places a strain on the fragile student budget and must be compensated for by a cheap drink - generally a can of something as part of a 'Meal Deal'.

A late afternoon tipple

As the hour approaches that magical 6pm mark, when it's socially acceptable to be drinking in public places other than students unions and restaurants, both of our sets of subjects are likely to be found with a glass in hand - but for differing reasons.

6pm is time for students to begin the night's drinking (at home, naturally), generally with some card or shouting based drinking games. It's also the hour when professional types can nip out for a couple of beers before coming home late to their wife, lamenting how late they had to stay in the office, working away.

Nightcap

As we're all aware, both groups will stop drinking at this point and head off to bed, to be up bright and early for a good day's work/learning.

Surface is in the real world

From Gizmodo:

Multi-grope: Interacting with Microsoft Surface at the AT&T Store

We've not got any in the UK yet, but the Microsoft Surface (<-- click this, leet site) has suddenly appeared in 5 mobile phone shops in the US yet. I'm almost tempted to go out there just so I can play with one.

Travelling around

Well I'm on the road with work a lot more over the next few weeks, so if any of my scattered friends want to meet up at any of the below dates/places - send me a mail or something. Or you could even use the comments button here, it won't bite folks ;)

April
Friday 18^th
London

Sunday 20^th - Monday 21^st
Cardiff

Tuesday 22^nd
Woking

Friday 25^th
London

Tuesday 29^th - Wednesday 30^th
Old Windsor

Wednesday 30^th (that's not a typo...eep)
Manchester

May
Thursday 1^st
Manchester

Friday 2^nd - Monday 5^th
Bath

Wednesday 7^th - Thursday 8^th
London

Tuesday 13^th
Glasgow

Friday 16^th
Newcastle

Tuesday 20^th - Friday 23rd
Birmingham

Saturday 24^th
London

Friday 30^th - Saturday 31^st
Lake District

June
Sunday 1^st
Lake District, Birmingham

Monday 9^th - Friday 13^th
Newquay

--

Assume I'm in Birmingham for any dates not listed :)

I'm on Graphjam, woo!

As those close to me may have noticed, I've recently become increasingly addicted to all this graphical. I always like geekery and science, naturally, but the rise of the internet's graphing meme has grown on me to the point where I can't go a single day without drawing a few graphs. I actually abandon verbal conversations halfway through to go and draw my sentences on a whiteboard instead.

Unfortunately my first contribution was made some time ago, when I was still young and naive, and so fits quite firmly into the grey area of the following:



Still though, it's not too bad, and does promote good usage of the English language - so go vote for it (just click how many pies you think it deserves over at Graphjam...and then spend the next hour browsing the rest of the site:



You may have noticed, by the way, that I used Google Docs to create that graph by the way. An online, web-based office suite that saves all your data to an online space, meaning that you never have to install any software or manually transfer any data?

Sounds good, but it's not quite as powerful or simple to use as Microsoft Office yet. Still though, it's the future...