Took a mock driving theory test provided by Statto today. Think I did quite well.

Sorry, Statto – had to make a few tweaks to the code to make it “work” on my blog – negative margins are bad, okay? Floats are the way forwards.

Right; I’m off to Gregynog and then on to Wolverhampton for Gareth and Liz‘s housewarming/Liz’s birthday party. I’ve uploaded a few episodes of Dan & Alex to keep you all amused for the weekend (but I apologise in advance for them being a little self-referencial).

And while, of course, I can’t say much on here, those who know will understand when I say that my meeting at the University on Wednesday afternoon didn’t turn out well after all. Which is a pity, but hey.

You’ve probably seen eBay‘s context-sensitive advertising on Google: you search for, say, “children’s toys”, and one of the Google ads on the right-hand side of the page tells you how you can buy and sell children’s toys on eBay. I’ve always thought that this system was probably just waiting to be abused, so I had a go at Googling for some animals (real and fictional), and picking up the eBay ads:

Yes, this is a collage of genuine advertisements. Didn’t know you could buy kittens on eBay, or “bargain monkeys”, let alone Griffons, which are mythological.

Let’s see what else I can get. What happens if you search for “eBay”:

Interesting that one of the ads that comes up if you search for ‘eBay’ is one for Lycos… what?

I wonder what I can get hold of from eBay in order to commit fraud and cause destruction, in order to further my plans for world domination…

Wow! eBay’s a proper little terrorist toolkit, and I never knew it. I know where I’ll be getting my “new & used ID cards” from, not to mention taking advantage of “great deals on armaments!”

Perhaps eBay needs to make these ads a little smarter.

Thanks to everybody who played Dan’s Dingbats Challenge III; it was great to see some of your answers. Almost everybody did really well on points this time around, but many were let down by their times.

Here’s the final scoreboard and answers:

Position	Player	Time Taken	Right Answers	Total Time
1	Faye (Aber) Very quick; every one right…	3mins, 44secs	14	3mins, 44secs
2	Count Gonzo van der Winklestein Jones	2mins, 45secs	12	4mins, 25secs
3	Binky The fastest time to answer all the questions, but lost marks for wrong answers.	2mins, 28secs	10.5	5mins, 23secs
4	Claire	4mins, 5secs	12	5mins, 45secs
5	A Bowl Of Candy	3mins, 23secs	11	5mins, 53secs
6	Mister JTA	4mins, 14secs	12	5mins, 54secs
7	RockMonkey	5mins, 13secs	13	6mins, 3secs
8	Statto	4mins, 10secs	11.5	6mins, 15secs
9	Ruth	4mins, 43secs	12	6mins, 23secs
10	Pacifist	4mins, 11secs	11	6mins, 41secs
11	Matt In The Hat	5mins, 19secs	10	8mins, 39secs
12	Leu	5mins, 58secs	10.5	8mins, 53secs
13	Raz	6mins, 15secs	10.5	9mins, 10secs
14	Itsme (Gaz @ SmartData)	8mins, 23secs	12	10mins, 3secs
15	Chloe	7mins, 31secs	9	11mins, 41 secs
16	Sarah Only answered one question; as a result, came last!	1mins, 18secs	1	12mins, 8secs

Apologies to “bleh” from 82.144.227.98; your answers arrived just too late to participate, but for your reference, you took 5mins, 14secs and got 13 right (give or take some interesting phrasing), for a total score of 6mins, 4secs.

Here are the answers. Click on a dingbat for a full-size version:

Charity begins at home
A nice simple one to begine with – the word “charity”, beginning inside a symbolic “home”. I also accepted “in the home”, “starts”, and any other derivitive of this basic phrase.

Fractional distillation
Yes, I know that this was ludicrously difficult, but a good number of people managed to get it. Incorrect answers included “distillation quarter”, “a quart of alcohol”, “Hooray! Distillation = Whisky!” (thanks, JTA), and “I have no idea”.

Back to basics
Another simple one: at least I thought so – the word “basic”, twice (“two basics”), written backwards (hence “back two/to basics”). Nonetheless, wrong answers included “basic backeards [sic] twice” and “two basic backwards”.

Actions speak louder than words
Several “actions” saying “blah” louder than their wordy friends. One wrong guess was “all talk and no action”: not sure where that one came from…

Every dog has it’s day
Several “dogs”, each with a “day”. What more do you want? I accepted “a dog will have it’s day” (basically the same thing), and gave half-marks for “give a dog it’s day” (there’s no “giving” involved, I’m afraid). I also accepted Paul’s “I was going to say “Dog Day Afternoon” but I don’t think so. Every Dog Has His Day?” because he concluded the right answer in the end and he was very sweet to lose several seconds of his time writing me an essay about how he reached that decision.

Definately wrong answers included “dog days”, “dog day afternoon” (what?), “until dog days end” (huh?), “ground-dog day” (umm?), and JTA’s deluded “Hm. Something about the ‘Dog days’ at the arse end of August, I suspect. Er. Which means Sirius, but I can’t get it…”

Like father, like son
The word “like” appears in the place of “father” and his son in this stylised family tree, and most players understood the connection. Wrong answers included the wonderful “your mum” and the great guess “I don’t like my mother (well? It’s true!)”

Look on the bright side
The word “look” appears on the bright (or light) side of this gradient. Most folks seemed to understand, but some guessed “look lighter on the other side” or even “the right look” (what???).

Love is blind
The word “love” is depicted here with a guide dog and cane. “Blind love” was also an acceptable answer. Half-marks were earned for “Love is like the blind leading the blind”, but I’m afraid I can’t give any points for “guide dog of love” (wasn’t that a song by Dire Straits)?

All that glitters is not gold
Decpicted are a bunch of metals, all of which are glittering, except for gold, which is not: hence, “all that glitters is not gold”. It’s not quite what I was looking for, but full marks go for “not everything that glitters is gold”, which still embodies the meaning of the phrase. However, no points for “black gold” or for “Something about gold being stronger or bolder or something than something. (thanks Chloe)”

Divide and rule
It’s a divide symbol, a plus (“and”) symbol, and a rule(r). “Rule and divide”, despite turing the phrase on it’s head, was also acceptable. “Divide and measure” got half a mark, because it was clear that the player who wrote it knew where they were coming from but just hadn’t heard of the phrase before. However, Paul’s “Divide Plus Ruler? What?” doesn’t score on this question.

A picture is worth a thousand words
Well, a lot of words, anyway. No prizes for “weight of words”, though.

(It) takes two to tango
Probably ought to explain this one: the word “take” is repeated multiple times (“takes”); followed by the number 2 (“two”), followed by the word “tango” twice (“two/to tango”). Anything close got the mark, but “three takes to tango” is wrong and “right to tango oh fuck it” is way out.

All is fair in love and war
Easy enough – the word “fair” is repeated throughout the words “love” and “war”. The only person to get this wrong wrote “nothing is fain in love and war”, which I don’t think is even close to accurate.

Blood is thicker than water
Easy: the word “blood” is written in a thicker typeface. Everybody got this one.

Well there you have it. Keep an eye out for Dan’s Dingbats Challenge IV!

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It’s back! Dan’s Dingbat Challenge III!

If you’ve not played Dan’s Dingbat Challenge before, you’d better go back and look at the first and second ones, and Andy’s one. Or just go look at the answers to my first and second ones. Or just give it a go.

I’ve made a few changes since last time:

• There’s a nifty little JavaScript to automatically put your cursor into the box you have to type into, to save you having to click in it. You should now be able to play the whole game without touching the mouse.
• I’m using incremental graphics, so even if you’re on a slow connection you should be able to make out (mostly) what the picture is, even before it’s loaded.
• The penalty for wrong answers and skipped questions has been increased to 50 seconds, so it’s really worth your while to look at every one for a few seconds before giving up. As usual, there’ll be “half-marks” available for very close-but-not-quite-right answers.