Stuff and Nonsense

“I’m at the leisure centre. My windscreen is smashed!” says my Wife down the phone.

“Crikey. Ok, I’ll bring my car to you and the boys, I’ll drive yours home”

“Oh, it’s OK. I think it’s alright to drive”

“No, too risky. I’ll drive it.” (imagining no windscreen makes for bad drive home for wife+3 boys)

So I proceed to drive into Cirencester, collect my youngest boys from Grandma & Grampy’s where they’d been spoilt for a couple of hours following their swim lesson.

“What are you doing here Dad?”

“I’m taking you down to Mum and you are all going home in my car because Mummy’s car has a smashed windscreen”

“Like when she parked in Waitrose and the back window was smashed?”

“Yes, exactly like that. Mummy’s very unlucky sometimes. ”

We arrive at the leisure centre and I exchange car keys with the wife.

“I’m sure I could have driven it you know” she repeats.

I go to the front of her car to survey the “Smashed” windscreen.

It’s still there. I mean, the glass. There is glass where I expected a hole. There is no hole.

What there is is a classic stone chip and a substantial crack along two thirds of the width. It’s a chip. A chip and a crack (no jokes about female golfers, please).

“That’s not smashed! That’s cracked. You could have driven it home!”

“I did try to tell you that”

“Yeah, but you said SMASHED. That’s what you said. Not cracked, SMASHED.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But, But, never mind. See you at home”.

I have just watched some of the England vs Mexico “World Cup Warm Up”. Don’t worry though, I haven’t bought a white van stuck a cheesy cross on it and started reading The Sun. No, it’s simply the case that Sky Plus is recording the football and some other garbage for my Wife so for the few minutes of slobbing on the couch that I could bear, I did watch it.

Why am I recording this loathsome dross? Because, my 7 year-old Son is desperate to play football, to understand football, to partake of the playground football chatter etc. I did the same when I was his age. I distinctly remember a substantial collection of dog-eared cards featuring the likes of Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan. No doubt I succumbed to the same peer pressure as my Son feels now. He just wants to belong and though he’s a keen and useful Rugby player, Rugby just doesn’t have the same “Opiate of The Masses” appeal.

Despite the cards though, I went only once to a football match. England vs Switzerland under 21s at Wembley. It cost the princely sum of £5 for the coach trip from Runcorn with Palacefields County Primary. I remember we had a great day. Wembley was the biggest place I’d ever seen but wandering round it (9 years old and we were told “Don’t wander off, straight to the toilet and back”! It fair gives my parental heart palpitations just recalling it). Well, of course we did not do as we were told which is why me and a friend whose name and face have long been supplanted in my memory banks by years of pointless trivia almost missed the coach. Can you imagine that? These days those Teachers would (unfairly) be publicly named and shamed. I presume the Teachers were frantic and very stressed out wondering where we were but I don’t recall any sign of that. Worryingly, I’m not even sure they knew were were missing until we weren’t.

Now, you may notice here that I don’t have much to say about the football which may seem a bit odd given it was at Wembley after all. Well, I did watch some but frankly from where we were sat the players may well have been Subbuteo (I had to look that word up, never had cause to write it before) figures and the ball but the merest speck of white. It was noisy. People were shouting endlessely about nothing. And so many of them. There were more people that I considered might exist on the whole planet at that time. I couldn’t share a joke with your mate because I couldn’t hear anything other than The Noise and I couldn’t join in with The Noise because it did seem to be just Noise; not words.  Being a self concious and nervous 9 year old the prospect of gently lurching in random directions and screaming very loudly “eeerer  aaahh sh olellee eeyyer” was frankly more terrifying than risking someone noticing that I wasn’t joining in.

It’s not as if you could even mime like in assembly when you knew the words but didn’t want to sing. Hellish. Truly hellish. And to think, some people grow up, work hard and spend some of their hard-earned to go and be in that crowd. You have my sympathies. I can’t imagine how awful the rest of your days must be that a saturday at a football stadium can be seen as a good thing.

Anyway, I digress. The thing is, despite my opinion on football I recognise that I am quite possibly the weird one and so accept that my Son may well find some joy in”The Beautiful Game” that I cannot. So, for that reason, I shall at least ensure he has the opportunity to witness professional football so he can join in with the rest of the mob. With any luck when we watch it back we can at least turn the sound down.

Strange after all these years that the TV coverage features the identical sound track to every game as the one they were playing at Wembley all those years ago. The Noise. Perhaps this is simply what you get when you put enough people who can’t form sentences in one place and the average IQ becomes the dominant force.

If you think this post is just whining from a miserable old bastard who doesn’t see much point having quite so many people on the planet doing pointless things you are, quite probably, right. A discourse on the recursive nature of musing on pointlessness which is, in itself, pointless is reserved for a later (pointless) post.

So, did you vote in the General Election?

If you were eligible, physically and mentally able to vote and you didn’t then please shut up now. Do not complain that your welfare is too low. Do not complain that your public sector salary is too low or your taxes too high. Don’t phone in to radio shows, appear on tv shows or write that “Dear BBC…” letter. Don’t Don’t Don’t.

When you threw away the opportunity to cast your vote, you threw away the right to moan, groan and complain. Just continue with whatever selfish past-time floats your boat and leave democracy to the rest of us. You just abstained from society.

Let’s hope a future government lowers tax allowances for abstainers. Anyone abstaining will pay the price for the duration of the government they didn’t TRY to choose and I’m sure this will spur them into action for the next election.

So, I took delivery of a Microvision ShowWX today. Yes, it’s every bit as good as Microvision’s site makes out.

I’ve tried it from an iPod and iPhone which both worked a treat though annoyingly of course, without jailbreaking the iPhone only the iPod video functions actually output a picture. Such a silly limitation from Apple this one. It makes photo slideshow/video workarounds for presentations necessary that really shouldn’t be.

Anyway, I’ve come up with the following ideas so far, none of which I’m likely to have time to pursue but part of the fun is thinking these things up. I’ll edit this post as things occur.

• Fasten it under the seat of your bike and project an enormous red triangle or other graphic or message onto the road behind you so approaching motorists get that extra clue… anamorphic translations on the image (read all about anamorphosis) could come in useful as at some point the image would appear to stand upright from the driver’s POV. (for some drivers/road positions anyway).
• Combined with an iPhone 3GS – or indeed any computer/camera combination, though the iPhone+SHOWWX is a particularly elegant duo – it should be possible to display an image and film it on the camera simultaneously. With someone moving an arm/finger around  it should be possible to produce an effective “interactive whiteboard” type result.
• Shadow puppetry light source. Presumably because of the laser light source and scanning motion and lack of focussing lenses, when the image is obscured by a hand the shadow cast is pin sharp. No penumbral shadows at all regardless of distance from projection surface. Combined with some creative images to start with and shadow puppetry skills, shadow puppetry could take a leap appearing to interact with full color environments.
• Head up displays for cars etc. Easy one to try for myself to check it won’t dazzle passers by but you could easily I suspect project messages/footage onto the back windscreen (or on a strip of thin paper beneath it) and have a clearly readable image displayed at night. There are already many HUD apps for the iPhone. Projected via this thing you could have a HUD across your whole windscreen!
• Freaking out kids at Halloween. Movie running on a loop, projects ghostly images onto the wall/door/gate etc. Could be particularly useful combined with an anamorphic image to make the ghost look like it’s coming from a hole in the ground etc.
• In fact, its portability combined with a tripod and an app to apply anamorphic translations to images could be used to project onto the floor enabling the artistically challenged (like me) to cheat by projecting onto the pavement then doing a paint-by-numbers type job on it. Yes, it’s possible I’m becoming slightly obsessed by anamorphosis.
• 3D mapping. The methods are nothing new. Shine  a laser in a line while rotating the subject, capture the line deviations in a camera set at an angle an infer the subject’s profile from the way the line is warped. The SHOWWX essentially puts a laser in everyone’s hand at a fraction of the cost of usual solutions. Just project a picture with only one vertical line on it. Or, project a grid and do the same thing using a camera to record the deformation of the grid and thereby infer the contours of the subject.
• I wonder if it’s possible to get photo sensitive paints/inks that once exposed for a given time keep their arrived-at colour without recourse to developing chemicals? What a great way to do murals. Line up the image, black out the room, coat the wall, turn on the projector and leave for a while, allow it to cure and you have a “painted” mural.
• My kids have each got those glow in the dark wall hangings where you ‘paint’ on them using a light pen and they persists for a while. Great fun. I think I’l try projecting a line image tonight in a blacked out room and see whether the showwx puts enough light onto these things to leave an image.
• I wonder if a reflective dome on the floor and the showwx from above could give a home-made planetarium?
• Christmas message? shine it from inside to a window.

So many ideas, so little time… ah well. Am quite looking forward to the dead of night so I can try this thing in the garden and see just how big an image is actually visible on the side of the house. Also aiming to try it in the lounge tonight where I have an empty wall and see just how well it stacks up when the movie is 8 feet wide!

I’m watching the leaders’ debate that I recorded last week. Awesome. Can quite see why  Nick Clegg came out on top. He’s the only one who sounds like he knows what he wants and believes what he’s saying. I was going to vote lib dem anyway purely on the basis that it’s time for real change, not just another see-saw between lab and con but I’m even more committed to that after seeing this guy in action.

Let’s give him a go.

Oh, and I don’t like the tax stuff in their manifesto. But I’m going to vote for them anyway. There is going to be some pain to get the country back on track and at least the lib-dems are making a convincing stab at costing it out.

I won’t be voting Labour. I never have. However, I do have some advice for Gordon that I believe if heeded would do the Government nothing but good. Of course, if Gordon isn’t listening (very likely since I doubt he’s one of my five readers) then perhaps Nick or Dave should strenuously suggest it. After all, if Gordy listens, it was your idea (I require no accreditation) and if not, he’s just improved your election chances still further. It’s a win win.

The plan? Authorise every British consulate the world over to block book hotel rooms in the vicinity. Instruct them to block book coaches and despatch them to major cities the world over. Instruct stranded Britons to go to those cities and get on those coaches. Don’t send the coaches to Calais, send them to Holland and Germany to utilise ferries from there. Buy bulk places on ferries and pay whatever is necessary to get ferry companies to squeeze in more capacity. Use those hotel rooms to put up Britons while the coaches start to flow and the backlog starts to clear.

Tell the people not to worry. Tell them the government will recover hotel and food costs from the airlines when it’s all over. Let’s face it, the sooner this is done, the less liabilities for food and hotels the airlines will see. The airlines should cooperate with this.

Total cost? I’d bet less than 10 million. A lot of money for sure, but you will buy the vote of everyone you repatriate and everyone who is waiting for them. Buying votes is not exactly democratic but you can defend this position.

The opposition say “it’s wasteful, knee kerk”… you say “Tell that to the stranded people, may of whom on their one holiday of the year on a budget airline in jobs that won’t pay them when absent, with children missing school and running up debts that will take them years to pay off as they dwarf the cost of their hard saved for holiday”

What else can the opposition say? The worst they can say is that you delayed a rescue. That will be true so you can stand up and say “Yes, we delayed, we had to wait and see but enough’s enough now, we’re acting and we’re getting people home”.

The opposition will accuse you of buying votes, of course they will. They will accuse you of making political capital out of a less-than-end-of-the-world scenario. But you will be able to stand up in the next debate and say, “whatever you think of this government, whatever happens in the election I will sleep well knowing that I mobilised the power of our democracy for the benefit of people in need when the people needed it”.

Only good can come of this for the Government, if you act now, and act big. No more lame warship gestures with space for a few hundred people. Go in heavy and sort it out. This exercise will cost you less than one day’s War.

I commend it to the house!

I received the following email from undoubtedly well-intentioned email contacts.

4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO
There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival.
Check out the things that you can do with it:
FIRST Emergency
The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112.
If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the key pad is locked. Try it out.
SECOND Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your car have remote keyless entry?
This may come in handy someday.
Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spa re keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other ‘remote’ for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor’s Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!’
THIRD Hidden Battery Power
Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370 #
Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50 % increase in battery.
This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.
FOURTH How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?
To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 #
A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset.
Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code.
They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.
You probably won’t get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can’t use/sell it either.
If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
ATM – PIN Number Reversal – Good to Know
If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse.
For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321.
The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.
The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.
This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don’t know about it.

The first three should be obviously bollocks to most people with enough IQ to actually use a mobile phone number but in case not, here is a link to some folks who did bother to research rather than mislead others into potentially dangerous beliefs.

On the crimestoppers mention, which has been subtly changed to be UK centric from a well known US hoax mail, the crime stoppers website contains a response about it.

The only one that is correct and useful is item 4. Everyone should record their IMEI number in case of phone theft. Calling your network to block your SIM will stop you getting call charges but blocking the handset itself makes it worthless to the thief. However, for an IMEI blocked by your network to become known to the police and all other networks takes up to 48 hours. If you simply goto Immobilise and register your details and your phones (you can do all the family’s phones and other property too and it’s FREE.) Then in the event of theft you can obtain the IMEI easily to report to your network. But you can also mark it as stolen on your account (in addition to calling the police of course) and this will mean that your details as the apparent owner and the fact that it is stolen will show up on the Police National Mobile Property Register INSTANTLY. Additionally, the phone will not be able to be traded in at most second hand stores because they use CheckMEND which is also notified instantly.

Please, do us all a favour folks and do not forward on warnings that you have not verified.

• Do you want a traveller to a foreign country to feel threatened and dialing some stupid number that they found out from you instead of finding out the REAL local emergency number before travel?
• Do you want a sick infant on holiday to die because the stupid ignorant unprepared parents assumed that what you forwarded was real instead of checking?
• Do you want to be responsible for the ATM holdup victim who gets stabbed because they entered their pin backwards 3 times and the assailant couldn’t get any money? They then bleed to death in the mistaken beliefe that the police or an ambulance is going to show up before they check out?

These are real situations with real dangers.

I’ve had email for 20 years just about and can honestly say that I have NEVER received an email like this one that was substantially real. These days, you can debunk these with 30 seconds effort on Google. If you can’t be arsed to do that, just keep them to yourselves.

Total time to do a little research and type the above? 15 minutes. Google found the crimestoppers and hoax debunk pages in a little under 1.3 seconds. You see? you could check before forwarding.

Declaration of Interest: I’m a director of Recipero Ltd that owns and runs Immobilise and CheckMEND and provides the National Mobile Property Register to the Police and other government agencies. This doesn’t colour my advice though, merely explains why I make it my job to know this stuff. Of course this blog and all the comments on it are my personal comments and views and not those of Recipero Ltd, as if you needed telling.

My father-in-law called the theatre ticket line. What follows is an incredible failure of common sense on the part of the theatre, the ticket office or both.

“I’d like to book tickets for next month’s show, no expense spared, it’s an anniversary present. What are the best seats in the house?”

“We have front row seats available Sir, would that be ok?”

“Yes, perfect, thank you.”

The booking is concluded and the tickets duly arrive just one week before the show. My father-in-law examines the tickest. They are marked with a warning “restricted viewing”. This seems very odd. He paid a lot of money for the “best seats in the house”. How can the front row have restricted viewing?

He calls the ticket line.

“Hi, I’ve received my tickets but they state ‘restricted view’. Can you tell me what the restriction is? They’re front row tickets after all”

“Well, my notes here Sir say that due to the proximity of the front row to the stage, you won’t be able to see the actors’ feet.”

“You’ve got to be joking. When I asked for the best seats in the house they sold me front row. They’re not the best if you can’t see the feet can they?”

“They are very good seats sir, the best. You just may not always be able to see the actors’ feet”

“But we need to see their feet, that’s kind of the point!”

“I don’t understand Sir.”

“It’s Riverdance! The show is Riverdance. The feet are the show!”

“Sorry Sir, why is that?”

“Well, it’s Irish bloody dancing! They don’t move above the hips. That’s what its all about. The show is about dancing. With feet.”

“I see Sir, would you like me to change your seats?”

“Yes! Yes I would!”

“Let me see…”

“Sorry Sir, there are no other seats available. It’s very close to the show day you know.”

Only one thing to do in situations like this. Hang up. Find wall, proceed to bang head against wall.

“What’s all this about motorbikes then?” says my Mum. Ah… so, her neighbour (hello Lorraine) has been on facebook again and has noticed my latest post. So, to make sure that they’re both on the ball I thought I’d post some information that Mum should be very interested in…

Dear Mum,

Eating cheese before bed does not give you nightmares. Sometimes I eat cheese sandwiches before bed just to test that I’m still right on this and you are still wrong.

Apple skin does not “rest on your chest”. Unless you actually drop it before eating it.

My face will not “get stuck like that”. As I write this I’m pulling a very odd face indeed. I’ve also left a window open to ensure the wind is blowing past. I’ve been doing this for several minutes now and my face has not yet stuck in its contorted state. I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to.

Fear of an accident is no reason to wear clean underwear. It’s just good hygiene. In any event, during the worst accident I’ve had I thought I’d probably crapped myself but it turns out the only skid marks were from the tarmac. In either case, the cleanliness of my underwear prior to the accident was of no concern to me and of less concern to the hospital staff.

Watching TV does not make your eyes square. Anyway, TVs are wide-screen these days so if there are any ill effects it’s more likely to involve rectangles (16:9 ratio) than squares. We also have high definition these days so I think watching TV is actually likely to improve my eyesight.

I didn’t wear my glasses and I have 20:20 vision today. I told you I didn’t need them. My son though DOES need his. So Ollie, if you’re reading this just read the bits above and realise that your Dad was right about a lot and I’m right about you really needing to wear your glasses.

It doesn’t matter whether you slice the cheese on the long side or the short, it goes just as far. The volume does not vary depending on the cut.

Sitting on the radiator does not give you chilblains. It does however give you plumbing bills and the occasional need to re-plaster.

Eating the seeds of apples/oranges/grapes etc. will not result in a tree or vine sprouting from my bottom. Yes, I’ve checked.

Playing with it will not cause it to fall off. Though speaking as the father of three boys I understand why you were keen to make a point on this one.

It has to be fate! A chap turns up to collect some kid’s toy that we Freecycled (essentially, you give stuff away instead of it going to the tip. Check it out on yahoo groups). He is on a motorbike and while my wife collects the toy I ask about his bike and we get talking. It turns out he is an owner of what may be the county’s largest bike shop!

He tells me they hire bikes (their website doesn’t give a clue to this) so I’m starting to get excited. We establish that they will hire any bike from their used or demonstrator stock, £150 for a weekend. So, now I’m hooked, I’m figuring when is the next free weekend. We talk some more and my wife muses why I’m talking about hiring and not buying. Well, I explain that’s because I’m really holding out for a Triumph Rocket III – the world’s largest production motorcycle. All 2.3 litres with enough torque to tow icebergs.

Now, for “The Sign!”. It turns out he JUST TODAY took in a 2009 Rocket III with less than 4000 miles on the clock AND I can hire it. It has to be a sign. The stars were aligned just right today. I was meant to ride this bike and ride it I shall. Maybe I’ll buy it. Let’s see if I’m still lusting after it when I’ve spent the weekend in its company!