Just when I thought I’d already seen the best imaginable television series to star Ali Wong and Steven Yeun in the form of Tuca & Bertie… suddenly BEEF comes out of nowhere and it’s flipping amazing.
Kind: Notes
Brainfart
Brainfart moment this morning when my password safe prompted me to unlock it with a password, and for a moment I thought to myself “Why am I having to manually type in a password? Don’t I have a password safe to do this for me?” 🤦
It Is Only Q
The programmers at British Gas are among the many who don’t believe that a surname can be only a single character, and their customer service agents have clearly worked around their validations (or just left a note for themselves in the problematic field!)… leading to hilarious postal mail1:
Update
This is getting a lot of attention, so I just wanted to add:
- Yes, my surname really is just the letter Q, and it has been for most of my adult life. The story about it is less-interesting than the fact of it.
- Yes, it causes me problems with online forms and the Passport Office hate it but just sometimes it pays for itself. It’s quick to write out, too (if you don’t count the time I lose having to tell people “no, really…”), and saves me wear-and-tear on my keyboard.
-
I can help you change your name to something
stupidawesome, too. If you’re a British citizen normally-resident in the UK, at least. - I’ve already seen Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, thanks. I linked it above, but you probably didn’t see the link if you found me via all the Mastodon boosts this post is getting.
- Be gay, do crime.
Footnotes
1 I’m ignoring for the moment that they’re using the wrong title for me.
Magician Roles
Because I work somewhere hip enough to let people tweak their job titles, mine is “Code Magician”.
LinkedIn isn’t as hip as Automattic, though. That’s why they keep emailing me sector updates… for the “Magician” sector… 😅
Mental Elf Day
Christmas Jumper Day at the kids’ school. Because I’m the “embarrassing parent”, I joined in for the school run too.
(Also for my meetings today, obviously.)
Freezing Fog
Gorgeous freezing fog over the fields on the school run this morning.
Tension in the Wires
Received my physical copy of Planets In The Wires today, and I must say it was really cool of Pagan Wanderer Lu to include one of Fred “Thickie” Holden’s famous Tension Sheets as a freebie.
Emoji Reactions
I added a stupid feature to my blog.
On some posts, including this one, you can now send an “emoji reaction”. Y’know, for if you’re too lazy to write a comment.
The available reactions vary by post.
That is all.
The Frosted Pane
Pagan Wanderer Lu‘s new album Planets In The Wires dropped today, and I just cried my eyes out at track 5 (The Frosted Pane).
It opens almost apologetically, like an explanation for the gap in new releases for most of the twenty-teens. But it quickly becomes a poetic exploration of a detached depression of a man trapped under the weight of the world. It’s sad, and beautiful, and relatable.
ET App
Travelling around Edinburgh by tram this weekend, I kept being advertised the “ET app”.
I didn’t install the app, in case it was bundled with spyware.
After all, everybody my age knows: ET phones home.
Bramble
Fresh D&D campaign with some Abnib folks! I’m playing a Harengon Barbarian.
I’m a fierce bunny rabbit!
Gemini Squared
How did I never think of accessing Gemini (the protocol) on my Gemini (portable computer) before today?
Of course, I recently rehomed my Gemini so instead I had to access Gemini on my Cosmo (Gemini’s successor), which isn’t nearly as cool.1
Footnotes
1 Still pretty cool though. Reminds me of using Lynx on my Psion 5mx last millenium…
Monster Munch Sandwich
Experimenting with some unusual combinations in anticipation of International Crisp Sandwich Day.
This one’s Roast Beef Monster Munch on Farmhouse White.
(I hereby release the crisp sandwich photo into the public domain / CC0 license; your choice.)
Watch with Pride
With thanks to Shawn Rast of Pride Bands, my watch/fitness tracker now sports some bi pride.
Crowdsourced Burger Photography
A fast food giant faces a lawsuit because their burgers don’t look like they do in the marketing. It’s not the first time.
If I ran a fast food franchise affected by this kind of legal action, do you know what I would do? I’d try to turn it back around into marketing exercise with a bit of crowdsourcing!
Think about it: get your customers to take photos and send them to you. For every franchisee that uses a photo you take, you get a voucher for a free meal (redeemable at any outlet, of course). And where it appears on the digital signage menus they all seem to have nowadays, your photo will have your name on it too.
Most submissions will be… unsuitable, of course. You’ll need a team of people vetting submissions. But for every 50 people who send a blurry picture of an unappetising bit of sludge-meat in a bun; for every 10 people who actually try hard but get too much background in or you can see the logo on their clothing or whatever; for every 5 people that deliberately send something offensive… you might get one genuinely good candid burger picture. Those pics get pushed out to franchisees to use. Sorted.
Now if anybody complains that you fake your photos you can explain that every one of your food pictures was taken by a real-life customer, and their name or handle is on the bottom of each one. Sure, you get to vet them, but they’re still all verifiably genuine pictures of your food.
And you probably only have to do this gimmick for a year and then everybody will forget. Crowdsourcing as a marketing opportunity: that’s what I’d be doing if I were crowned Burger King.