I laughed.
Awesome work, Dan.
Month: January 2009
Sleepless? Priceless!
- Time for this iteration of a software project: 4 months
- Time left after the client changed their mind about the “must have” requirements: 2 months
- Amount of sleep within the last 40+ hours: 4 hours
- Number of JOIN clauses in an eleventh-hour SQL statement that suddenly fixes everything: 12 (LEFTies, RIGHTies, INNERs… and also a UNION)
- Time internal deadline missed by: 55 minutes… which isn’t actually that bad, considering everything that went wrong in the 55 minutes before them
- Money earned: nil
- Feeling after delivery complete: priceless*.
* also: knackered – guess I’d better get some sleep!
A “Never Mind The Buzzcocks” Moment
Remember Let Loose? They reached #2 in the singles chart back in 1994 with Crazy For You? (you’ll remember it when you hear the chorus, I promise) Turns out that since disappearing off the face of the Earth, the guitarist has been running a fabulous little bed-and-breakfast in a tiny village in Essex.
He didn’t look too hurt when my boss and I, sat on his couch, asked about the silver and gold CDs he had framed and mounted in his living room, and, when he revealed his identity and, neither of us could remember who Let Loose were or what they’d ever done. And I think he’d forgive us for not recognizing him: I probably wouldn’t have guessed it was him on the Identity Parade round of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, even having seen the music video.
I quite liked Crazy For You. I had it on some compilation CD at some point. I’d somehow completely forgotten about it’s existance until I looked it up again on YouTube. Thank you, YouTube!
Economnomnomics
Here’s an idea: what if bills came with a sweet treat, like a lollipop or something. Or perhaps if the bill itself was printed on editle paper, like ricepaper, using a food dye-based ink. Aside from the improved biodegradability of the paper, it’d also make you look forward to opening your bills and nibbling at them. Better yet, it’d encourage you to pay them, because then you wouldn’t need the paper copy any more and could eat them.
It’d certainly make large bills easier to swallow, anyway.
Psychologically speaking, it’d play upon the Reciprocity Norm, an observed phenomenon in which people who are given something are more likely to give something in return: when charities give you a free pen in the envelope they send you, or when Hari Krishnas give you a flower at an airport “as a gift” and then ask for a donation, they’re playing upon this principle. Would sucking on candy delivered to you as a “gift” from your electricity company make you feel guilty for putting off paying the bill for a few days longer than you should?
Fight My Battles For Me
Just a quick announcement to plug an awesome album now purchasable on a CD in a shiny case: Fight My Battles For Me by Pagan Wanderer Lu. You can buy it for a tenner at the online store on old-school optical media.
My copy arrived this morning.
It’s full of re-recorded versions of a lot of PWL songs that you’ve probably heard before (and if you haven’t: why not?), but what makes it special is that it’s such an obviously lovingly-prepared and passionate collection of what makes Mr Lu so ace. I’ve falled in love with The Gentlemen’s Game all over again: the one song that’s most likely to get PWL lynched by folks who can’t appreciate that it isn’t actually a piece of racist propoganda. Later on the disc, there’s the re-re-re-release of his iconic (You & Me And) Winston Churchill, and the anthem-ish The Tree Of Knowledge. Not had enough? There’s still The Memorial Hall, ——–, and one of my favourites, England Expects.
Altogether a great album that you should be buying, rather than reading this blatant plug. Get on with it.
What Does This Bug Report Mean?
A bug report just came in from a client I’m responsible for at work. It reads:
…Main menu – home page – The ‘g’ of outstanding debts is permanently underlined.
Correct.
I’m not even sure what this message means. It looks like the client is telling me that the letter ‘g’ at the end of the word “outstanding”, which appears in the main menu of the software I’ve been writing for him, is underlined. I’m pretty clear on this bit of his message (although I’m as-yet unable to get the same effect on my own computer). What I want to know is, what does he want?
Is he saying that the letter ‘g’ is underlined but that it shouldn’t be? Or that it’s correct that it’s underlined (in which case, why is he filing a bug report?). Or is he asking, in a convoluted way, for it to be made to be permanently underlined (in which case: why – it doesn’t seem to make any sense?).
What a great start to the New Year’s work.