Tangential Ramblings

Why (oh why oh why) is the USB socket (and associated plug) not 180° rotationally symmetrical?  Given that they're generally at the back of your machine, it would save a lot of faffing around and unnecessary jiggery-pokery.  (Here's further evidence of the need for the degree sign to make it on to the standard keyboard, btw.  My current process for getting it into a 'blog entry is Open MS Word | Insert Symbol | Select degree sign | Copy this from MS Word | Open Notepad | Paste into Notepad (to get rid of the font size formatting) | Copy from Notepad | Paste into the 'blog CMS's RTE | Close MS Word | Closed Notepad | Take a well-earned nap.)

Christmas in New York was fun.  I was expecting way more hype and commercialism than actually transpired.  It seems all of the focus and energy goes into Thanksgiving, and Christmas is its lesser cousin.  This is emphasised by having a single holiday for Christmas (or should I say 'the holidays') and two for Thanksgiving.  Indeed, with Christmas falling on a Saturday this year, some companies didn't feel obliged to give a single holiday.  For me, I get both Fridays off, one for Christmas and one for New Year.  (Over here, holidays are vacations and Bank Holidays are holidays.  Clear?)

As expected, the death toll from the tsunami on Boxing Day (there is no such concept over here, btw) has steadily increased, as the extent of the damage and loss is assessed.  On the local news channels like Fox 5, they're now focusing on the story (or should I say 'non-story') of 'Could it happen to us?'.  Even the likes of CNN are turning what is an international disaster into a self-centred feature - making non-local news local.  It's almost as if viewers will lose interest in a news story unless it has any impact closer to home.

Of course it could happen to the east coast of America, given that there are tectonic plates meeting in the Atlantic.  However, the assessment is that it's more likely to happen to the west coast.

The disaster that has hit Southern Asia is possibly the worst natural disaster our generation has ever seen, with the early death toll of 11,500 already quadruple that of 11 September 2001.  Yet Fox 5 had moved on to other stories by 10.03pm tonight, most notably, travel delays in the New York area due to a flurry of snow this afternoon.

The pictures and reports that have been coming through on the BBC and CNN are harrowing, and the sheer scale of the disaster is difficult to comprehend.  Hearing of a single train containing 1,500 people being lost to the sea is a powerful example of this.

Once again, the BBC's online coverage has been superlative, with navigation and content being augmented seamlessly.  Its worldwide correspondent presence helps with this, but the way in which its site has been developed to be sufficiently flexible to cater for such events is impressive.

On a trivial note, I received Joel on Software for Christmas, having read a number of its chapters in the library during the summer.  So much of it rings true of personal experiences, and it's written with a humour that I enjoy hugely.  It was also great to receive Madden 2005, a present that I also sent to Ben, so hopefully some trans-Atlantic games will ensue.

It's 5pm PST, 8pm EST (12/24), 1am GMT and 12pm in Sydney (25/12); that should cover most of my audience.  (For those that care, it's @089 beats.)  Not sure what time it is in the Seychelles or Argentina, from which I still receive a little mysterious traffic, the latter probably due to this similarly-named website.  Happy Christmas to all those in Europe or east thereof.  Happy Christmas for tomorrow to those west of Europe.  And Happy Holidays to those whose beliefs are sufficiently strong to counter the hype that surrounds this time of year.  (My beliefs don't concur with those of Christmas, but I do enjoy the time of year.)

Today saw some last minute shopping and preparations for tomorrow's food-fest.  As with Thanksgiving, we're breaking from tradition by having chicken, albeit a 7.5 pounder (3.4kg-er, Rob).  Macy's was surprisingly quiet, to the extent that I was able to walk straight to the check-out.  I popped up to the Rockefeller Center (sic) to take in the tree (nice, but nothing to write home about) along with the mindless circuitous skating.  Generally, I walked for England, from 32nd street up to 59th and back down to 28th, with a bit of avenue-meandering to boot.  A little wrapping of prezzies tonight in advance of the big day.

I saw a book in Barnes and Noble called Yoga in a Chair, but the positioning of the price label had me thinking it was Yoga in a Choir.  Such different words, despite only being a letter out.  The other such pairing I can think of is encourage and entourage.  I'd quite like to see the book Yoga in a Choir.

I've just sat down to watch You Only Live Twice, so Christmas in New York is pretty similar to that in the UK, although I expect we won't have to endure the Queen's speech.  Also, I'll be back to work on Monday :(

I'd struggle to think of a website that comes close to the quality of that of the BBC.  I appreciated its quality when I was in the UK, but now, I see it as a vital resource for the ex-pat.  (I've not yet thought of myself as an ex-pat, but I suppose I am now.)  It's so important to me to be able to keep up to date with at least some of the goings-on in the UK, and it also provides a healthy outlook at the world beyond the USA, one which simply isn't otherwise available here.

As Andy recently posted, it's been a pretty significant year for deaths, none more notable than that of John Peel.  Emlyn Hughes, Ronald Reagan, Yasser Arafat, Alistair Cooke, Ray Charles to name but a few more.  I was shocked to read, however, about the death of Fred Dibnah on 5 November.  He may not get much of a mention this New Year, but he was a great advert for the wonders of the pre-electronic era, not to mention early Sunday evening TV.

It's Christmas! Given that there are twelve days in Christmas, I thought it timely to write about my desire for the world to go duodecimal. I came up with this idea in my youth, independently of anyone else, after which I discovered there was a whole bunch of likeminded people out there – how scary is that?

As I've previously mentioned, the number twelve comes up quite a lot in my 'blog entries. Most of the time it's coincidental (twelve types of shrimp in Fairway, for example). Others may be less so, although I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. Also, I’m sure it’s no coincidence that it's such a great word – a single syllable, yet with such beautiful combinations of consonants. (On a separate note, if you write the numbers 1 through 100 as words, you never need to use the "A" key!)

(For the remainder of this post, I'm going to break from my style-guide and write all numbers as numbers instead of words.) Currently, you may have noticed that the majority of the world (with the notable exception of computers) is working in base 10. Once we get to 9, we shove a 1 at the beginning and start counting again from 0. The main justification that I can see for using 10 is the number of digits on our hands and feet, probably explaining the double meaning of the word. If we were missing a finger on each hand, perhaps we’d be working in base 8 (which would be better than 10, but may cause issues for typists).

I once read a book about the importance of the number 9, and it seemed that all of the arguments explaining its significance relied on the fact that the world works in base 10. I couldn’t finish the book out of sheer frustration, at either the cheek or the stupidity of the author.

So now that we've moved out of the dark ages of LSD (sorry, Dad) there are 100 pennies in a pound (or cents/pennies in a dollar), 100 degrees between the boiling point and freezing point of water (or 180, depending on where you're from), 10 numbers at the top of your keyboard (although for some reason, twelve function keys) and so on.

If you think about the coinage in your UK purses/pockets (delete as applicable), it's a bit haphazard and not conducive for breaking down. A five pence piece cannot be changed into two pence pieces, nor a fifty into twenties. In the US, dimes cannot be given in exchange for quarters. A parent with a 10 dollar bill will have to resort to coinage to divide it between her four children, and will struggle further if there are only three.

Let's assume that the world shifts to base 12. After all, hens have (producing eggs in batches of 12) as have vintners (a 12-bottle case of wine), although bakers have broken with tradition, opting for the prime that is 13 – that’d be madness, btw.

So we'd need a couple more symbols to represent the numbers that we know as 10 (let’s call it &) and 11 (~). I’d like to think that these numbers would still be called eleven and twelve. Twelve would be written 10, fifty would be 42, seventy would be 5&, seventy one 5~, a hundred would be 84 etc. One hundred and forty-four would be written 100. There would be 144 pennies in the pound/dollar and twelve numbers at the top of your keyboard, nicely lined up with the function keys. In this wonderful new world, the parent with a new 10 pound note (twelve) would be able to divide it easily using the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 pound notes.

Now this only sounds strange because we’ve all grown up using the decimal system. But, nowadays, who uses their fingers for counting? Most kids nowadays can’t do mental arithmetic in base 10, so why would moving to base 12 be any worse? (How old do I sound?)

I’m sure a whole bunch of computer scientists would advocate moving to binary to be in line with all of those machines that we rely on so much, but while it may have its benefits, numbers would get long very quickly (a hundred would become 1100100). If nothing else, PC screens would have to be made much, much wider to cater for all my spreadsheets.

Migration from decimal to duodecimal would be a challenge, but we seemed to manage OK in February 1971 on transition from LSD. (BTW, the very word duodecimal (2+10) is based on the fact that we work in base 10, so this would have to change to twelvimal.)

I’m sure everyone thinks I’m bananas, but no change there...

Here is a wonderful example of something that has been developed because it's challenging and fun for the developers as opposed to adding value to the end user.  The BBC alludes to this in its coverage, but this offering makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Speegle is very similar to its soundalike, apart from two key factors:

- Its search capability is not as good
- It reads the results out to you using some form of synthesised voice.

I think it's trying to appeal to the blind and visually impaired, but these people will already have assistive technologies to help them overcome such obstacles.  Also, the whole point of search engines is to get you to a place that you want to go to.  Imagine a user that loves the fact that the search results are read out to them, only to find that clicking on one (I assume you have to be sufficiently well sighted to be able to click) takes them to a site that doesn't share this offering.

As the accessibility community realised some time ago, it makes sense to solve this problem once for the web, and ensure that websites comply with technologies aimed at solving this (e.g. JAWS). Offering something on a site by site basis is ludicrous.  I think Julie Howell is quite polite in her assessment of the site in the BBC article.

PhoneAnything, however, is an offering that makes more sense, one that I came across some time ago.  Basically, it's a service that reads websites out to you over the phone, allowing users to "click" your way through the site.  "Dialling" web addresses using the phone's keypad is a bit of a challenge, but the ability to bookmark certain sites in an IE-esque way can get round this.  I last used it around nine months ago, and it had a few teething problems, but these may have been resolved by now.  It makes sense from the perspectives of both accessibility and, probably in the very short term, mobility (i.e. can't get to the internet for the moment, but I have a phone).

Nice segue on to a little device that hunts out wireless networks without the need for getting your laptop out.  I'm sure it's not clever enough to work out whether or not they're protected, but could be quite useful, although the article does highlight its legal and less legal uses.

Two words for you: Brass and Monkeys.  (Click here for more information.)  It's currently 11°F, which equates to a whopping -12°C, and there was a light covering of snow in Manhattan last night.  It will peak today at 23°F (-5°C).  Yes, it looks picturesque, but at the same time, it leaves your face numb and your ears close to bleeding, particularly with that Nor-Easter wind.  This lunchtime will see a shopping expedition for woollens.

Now that temperatures have got sufficiently low, I really can't believe how (or more to the point, why) we in the UK ever coped with Fahrenheit.  It's such a ludicrous system.  Also, I think the degree sign should have made it to the standard keyboard.  Surely it's more important than that funny ` character that no one uses above the tab button, and could even hold its own against the carat (^) on the six key.

(A lovely little tip here: when you've got formulae going on in Excel, and want to see the formulae instead of their results, just press CTRL+` (that aforementioned key that no one otherwise uses).  This will toggle between the values view and the formulae view, and can be really handy for writing and debugging complex formulae.  You heard it here first.  BTW, that functionality would not be compromised by substituting the ` for the °.  The only use I can think of for the ^ is raising powers in Excel - again, this could be accomplished with a °.)

Today, I discovered the wonder that is Myers of Keswick.  Located near the top of Hudson Street, it's a shop established back in 1978 full of British foodwares, from Ribena to PG Tips, from McVites Digestives to Heinz Baked Beans.

Now it's a wonderful shopping experience, even if it's a little cramped (it's about the size of a small corner shop), but the prices are astronomical.  I paid $10.95 for a large bottle of Ribena, $2.50 for a can of baked beans.  The biggest travesty was a pack of 160 PG Tips pyramid bags, with a pre-printed price of £1.99, selling for $10.95.  (Thinking about it, that's not far off, given the current exchange rate.)

I've been warned about the New York winters, and I think I'm about to experience one firsthand.  Monday, it will max out at 22°F (that's -6°C), with a great weather summary of "frigid".

The Council on Tall Buildings is located in Lehigh, Pennsylvania.  I like that.  The world's tallest building, the TFC 101 in Taipei will open on 31 December, over 50 metres taller than the Petronas Towers, with the fastest elevators in the world - ground to level 101 in 30 seconds, at a speed of 60km/h.  Meanwhile, that of 45 Fifth Avenue takes the title of world's slowest elevator, travelling 17 floors in 42 seconds.

Ben has oft talked about the physical inability of a single linesman to accurately police the offside rule in football (to the Americans out there, I mean football).  This is due to his (or indeed her) inability to look simultaneously back down the field at the moment the ball is passed and directly across the field to see whether the player is off side.  Now doctors have caught up with the prodigy that is my brother.

Meanwhile, the B52s' (the BBC put an apostrophe in this, but I'm not keen on the gratuitous apostrophisation of nouns ending in a number) love shack has burnt down, prompting what is undoubtedly the BBC's best use of its CMS's callout functionality.

If you write about it (11 December), they will build (14 December), I think the saying goes.

Since starting work, my 'blogging has moved away from the observational and towards the "interesting news".  I suppose having less time on my hands means that the internet provides a more convenient insight into life.  Who knows?

Rosanna Scotto, along with her supporting website, frustrates the hell out of me.  The former is the anchor on Fox 5 News (I wish I could have used former twice in that clause), and her ability and willingness to offer up her personal views on news stories in my opinion goes against the role of a news reporter - although she does work for Murdoch, I suppose.  Whether it's a snide side-comment or just a mis-placed emphasis she puts on certain words (like an old woman in the post office might do), it grates hugely with me.  News in the US is bad at best, and Fox 5 - along with our dear Rosanna - is the embodiment of all of its worst qualities.  Meanwhile, her frame-based supporting website sucks.  First of all, frames are horrible.  Secondly, every page having the same URL is really helpful for deep linking.  Thanks, Fox!  (You'll notice that the link to Rosanna herself necessarily lacks the left-hand navigation.)

The French seem to have kept the Millau Bridge pretty secret over its last three years in the making, but take a look.  It's awesome (in the British sense of the word), and certainly worth a one-off $5.60 for the pleasure.  I see they needed the Brits' help to build it :)

Not sure how widely this Google feature has been publicised, but some might like it.  Basically, while you're typing, it comes up with auto-completions, along with the number of results that would be returned from such a search.  (Apparently, it uses some quite cool technology.)  On a Google scale, I think it's pretty pointless, as whatever you search for (unless it's a Googlewhack), it will come back with a plethora of results.  Its only potential use might be to guide you into searching for something slightly different from the thing you were actually looking for - "I was going to look for long john silver (103,000 results), but half-way through typing, I noticed that long johns (2.48m results) gave me a wider choice - 103,000 just wasn't enough!")  It would be more usefully employed on sub-site search implementations, like Directgov or DH, for example.

(BTW, in order to find out whether or not Googlewhack was hyphenated, I looked it up on, er, Google, only to find a bunch of sites listing Googlewhacks - thus making them non-Googlewhacks once these sites themselves had been indexed.  I quite like that.)

Many will be aware of my knack for remembering telephone numbers.  (If anyone wanted to contact my brother back in 1993, they'd have to dial 010 49 221 2093 531, 010 being the old international dialling code from the UK.)  For some odd reason, a phone number (555-1934) was quoted in the 1989 film Major League - it was given to Tom Berenger by a woman in a restaurant.  I saw the film back in 1989 with my then next door neighbour, and for some reason I remembered the phone number.  Some years later, I remembered the fact that I remembered the number, which caused me to consciously remember it.  Since then, I have wondered if it was correct, or whether I was remembering something that my mind had since manipulated.  I saw a bit of the movie tonight on TV (for the first time since), and can confirm that this useless fact has clogged up my brain unnecessarily for the last 15 years.

BTW, if anyone's counting, this marks my 100th post.  Everyone raise a glass, please.

A great article about some parents in Florida who have gone on strike due to their children's lack of participation in household chores.  Their action is to camp out in their front garden until they receive support.  First point worthy of note relates back to my earlier post about ridiculous American names: two members of the family are called Kit and Cat.  Second, the 17 year-old son has reacted beautifully to the protest, indicating that it is "extremely inconvenient".

Denver (now 8-5) eked out a 20-17 win over the 2-11 Dolphins in a game that should have been easier, looking at their respective records.  It puts the Broncos on par with Baltimore for the second AFC play-off spot, although the Jets' loss to Pittsburgh means that they are only one game ahead (9-4) in the first play-off spot.

OK, so it's a lame title for the 'blog entry, but here's a great example of the Americans' penchant for legal action. However, these examples are ten-a-penny. My main reason for 'blogging it is that the suer in question is called Trevin Skeens. Now Americans are generally more inventive with their names than we Brits, but I swear - this is just made-up. The article details that the law-suit is claiming damages of $74,500 for each customer that bought an Evanescence CD from Wal-Mart that did not warn against its explicit lyrics. Not sure how they can justify such a significant sum for the 13-year-old Miss Skeen's trauma at hearing the F word in the car before Trevin reached for the off button. I couldn't begin to guess what his daughter is called.

The Search war continues, with Yahoo! launching its own desktop search app. The main benefit over its Google competitor seems to be the fact that it's desktop-based rather than browser-based, providing a more rounded user experience. There is an argument for other applications moving out of the browser too. In my opinion, Citysearch would provide a much richer experience if it became a desktop application receiving data feeds from the internet. The mapping functionality could be a lot smoother and more detailed. However, there is always that psychological barrier to downloading an application that may prove too great for companies to risk. We'll see who wins the search war, and whether Microsoft comes up with a similar rival app.

After three months in the Upper West Side, we've decided to move downtown to Battery Park City, an area on the South West side of Manhattan reclaimed using the land excavated during the original construction of the WTC. We're moving on Wednesday next week to an apartment with a great view of the Hudson which swings right round past the George Washington Bridge to the Empire State Building. Over time, we aim to cover every zip code in Manhattan.

The BBC had a range of interesting coverage today.  Here are some snippets, in the order in which they pop back into my head.

First of all, the celebrity nativity is a stroke of genius by Madame Tussauds: no part being more genius than the casting of the lead characters of Joesph (David Beckham) and Mary (Victoria "Posh" Beckham née Adams).  The wise men were questionable to say the least - Blair, Bush (I wish you could spell words out in the same way as inordinately high football/soccer scores to indicate your disbelieving correctness in including them) and Windsor (Phil).  Kylie as the angel is a poetic piece of casting (or should I say moulding).

Next, the BBC has written an article, albeit a sparse one, on the evolution of website design.  Sometimes they get right to the nitty-gritty of issues; others, they seem to skirt around the peripheries - here is an example of the latter.  I think their limitation to a single article (albeit one that they could make as long as they like) is one of the reasons for this being somewhat thin.  Having said this, here is a link to the first (and only) example of a multi-page content-type that I've seen the BBC use.  Nielsen's citing of Google as a pioneer in usability is somewhat overstated.  Yes, it's highly usable, but more down to its business model (keeping things simple) rather than its clever design.  I also think that they have fallen into the mould of "If it ain't broke...".  In terms of accessibility, there are some easy things it could do that it doesn't, and the snippet of code they game me to put in my site doesn't scale at all.  Amazon, I agree, is on the leading edge here.  The BBC has great design, but makes some decisions that I believe are wrong around accessibility, seeming to take the attitude that if it's too hard (e.g. the Premiership table, all significant navigation pages, links, call-outs), let's not bother.

I have no plans to venture down to Washington DC in the near future, but this exhibition certainly looks worthy of a visit.  On a separate point, I'd like to know what DC is all about.  It's not a state in itself, yet it's not part of any of the other 50 states.  Is it a bit like the Vatican, thus making Bush pontiff-esque?  Is there any synergy with the ACT in Australia?

There was a big match for Denver today, but they unfortunately lost to the Chargers 20-17, their second close loss in as many weeks.  It puts a severe downer on their play-off hopes, partly because this springboards San Diego to 9-3 (two games ahead of Denver's 7-5) and partly because so many other teams in the AFC have such enviable records.

I'm happy to see that my ads (see right) are evolving with my content, with some great ads for Excel macro sites and iPod peripherals following my recent posts.  I must remember to stop writing about this sort of stuff, as regurgitating the ads' content only serves to re-inforce them.

Great to see a couple of good friends in the city tonight, for a few beers in the revolving lounge atop the Marriott Marquis on 45th.  Great views and company.  'nuff said.

Finally to TV.  BBC America has started showing back catalogues of Cold Feet and This Life.  While these are arguably two of the best shows to come out of the BBC in the last ten years, it struck me that America has no parallel to this.  Their spectrum of TV jumps straight from the sitcom (Friends, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond etc.) to the hard-core drama (CSI - along with its various spin-offs, Law and Order - likewise on the spin-offs etc.).  Apart from the reality stuff, there are no programmes (for that is how it's spelt) that dramatise the living of life.  I miss that, although it's great to see the British stuff over here.

I read this post the other day, a self-directed question as to why the author 'blogs. I know what he means. My web-traffic suggests that I'm probably my biggest fan (I usually click around to see whether anyone's commented, thus artificially inflating the number of clicks I generate). I hope that other people read it (and some people do), but if they didn't, would I continue? Absolutely.

I'm not writing necessarily to please my audience - although if this is a by-product then that's great. I'm doing it in case anyone wants to read it. If they do, they know where to go. Also, they may stumble on it via Google, and enjoy what they see. Stranger things have happened.

Dave Winer's point about 'blogging being addictive is spot on. I don't actively try to find things that can go in my 'blog. However, I do have a different outlook on what I consider to be interesting stuff, often wondering whether it is worthy of my 'blog. And I would certainly feel the effects if I was no longer able to do it ('blog, that is).

The dollar continues to slide, much to the chagrin of the newly dollar-earning me. $1.93 to the pound the last time I looked. (My American keyboard has no key for sterling. In response to this travesty, I thing we should replace the dollar on the "4" key of the UK keyboard, maybe with the Yen sign. And while we're at it, we should come up with an Excel hack that means that the Yen sign can be used to lock cells' references in formulae.) Despite my mathematical bent, if the exchange rate is X dollars to the pound, I'm always surprised at the closeness of the inverse (1/X) to 0.5. 1.90 (quite close to 2.00, but not massively close) equates to 0.526 (very close to 0.5). Maybe it's just me...

The medals table currently reads as follows:

- Gold: Tokyo
- Silver: London
- Bronze: New York

Of course, I'm referring to the event "Ability (and willingness) to cram an inordinate number of people into a limited space on a subway train".  I think I caused slight offence this morning when I encouraged a woman to move slightly further into the carriage without using the power of the voice.  She seemed happy positioning herself so as to prevent others getting to the free space.  I wouldn't care, but the carriage wasn't particularly busy.  In London, this behaviour is the norm; in Tokyo, it's the law.  As such, I believe Tokyo and London's medals are in the bag, but New York's is still up for grabs.

Yesterday, I came in to the office a little later than usual, having attended a conference call from home (not sure what the verb is for conference calls).  On the southbound 2 train (it really doesn't have the same ring as Bakerloo Line), a woman was happily reciting the Bible at the top of her voice, handing out leaflets which presumably extolled its virtues.  Some of her fellow passengers took this with the same humour as I did; others seemed frustrated that their iPod experience was being interrupted.  Seemed like an ideal opportunity for the noise-cancelling headphones that Chris was raving about in October, although I think even these would have struggled to drown out this particular lady.  I believe that she focused her efforts on the later train (I have never encountered her on my earlier journeys to work) as these were the people requiring redemption due to their work-shy approach to life.

sic is my favourite latin English-intervention.  It's so beautifully condescending.

I do love my iPod, but there are three things that frustrate me about it, in descending order of annoyance:

• Its battery life
• Its user interface (UI)
• Its non-random randomisation

My battery has taken a turn for the worst over the last few days. This means that I have to either listen to songs in my playlist that I wouldn't otherwise listen to (thus avoiding the seemingly expensive process of accessing a track earlier than expected) or suffer the end of my journey sin music. Seriously, I can charge overnight and after about an hour's interactive listening (moving around and changing playlists etc.), it conks out. There are some adverts out there for replacement batteries, either that you install yourself (by prising open your iPod with a screwdriver - yikes) or that you can get installed for you - for a fee. If anyone out there has done the former, I'd be interested in your experiences.

With regard to the UI, I love the simplicity of it, and often cramming features into devices and clogging up the associated UI has led to their subsequent downfall. However, the iPod's buttons and their associated actions don't seem particularly intuitive. My view is that you operate in one of two modes. Either you're navigating through the menu systems looking for a song, playlist, artist etc. or you're listening to a song and you're navigating within that track (rating it, skipping a bit etc.) I'm happy for the same buttons to be used for both (as they are), but would welcome a more intuitive way of using the buttons and maybe a double-labelling system to cater for the two different modes.

The point about randomisation is one that had to be pointed out to me (thanks Andy), but which since then has frustrated me hugely (thanks Andy). If you go random across the whole iPod (I'm currently running at 5,272 tracks), then there are certain artists that seem never to come up, even though I have two or three albums dedicated to them. (Many would say that this was a good thing, given my taste in music, but I'll let that slide.) Now this would be fine on an occasional basis, but this is consistent. Similarly, there are certain tracks that seem to come up way too often (Blur's Girls and Boys being a good example). Now I'm aware that some of these tracks have been stored a number of times due to their penchant for appearing on compilation albums, but even this doesn't fully explain their play-weighting. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the randomisation algorithm isn't sufficiently sophisticated.

The above point leads me to a feature that should be included in future iTunes/iPod interfaces - it may already exist: if so, let me know. Even though you get oodles of space (the oodle is the SI unit for disk-space, btw), I get frustrated by the fact that I have the same version of the same track on my iPod a number of times. So you might get a Radio Edit of a track three or four times: one on the album, one on the single and a couple on compilation albums, let's say. You should be able to have these de-duplicate themselves, without affecting the make-up of the various albums that include this track. De-duplication would just mean that instead of playing that track, it would short-cut to the track's existence elsewhere on the iPod. Also, if you created a playlist that contained multiple instances of the same track (e.g. the whole iPod or All songs by Del Amitri, it would automatically ignore the short-cuts, thus only playing the duplicated track once. It sounds common sense (to me), but no one else has mentioned it to me. Would anyone else appreciate such a feature?

The dismal weather this morning perversely reminded me of 17 November (or should I say 11/17). Two weeks ago today, as I looked down 92nd street on the way to the subway, the sun was rising right in the middle of the street. (OK, so it was a few million miles away, but it looked like it was at the end of the street.) I wonder if the Manhattan streets are sufficiently parallel (or, to be pedantic, the slightest bit convergent to the correct degree) for this to happen at the end of every street on the same day. Also, I wonder what angle the streets make to make this day significant. The same phenomenon will never occur for the sunset, as the streets run north-west to south-east and New York is north of the Tropic of Cancer.

In Penn Station, there are a number of American flags hung vertically from the stars end of their short side, probably due to the lack of wind and lack of space. First of all, I wonder whether there are any laws on flag-hanging. I remember reading as a kid some guidelines covering the ratio between the flag size and its supporting flag-pole - the specifics I don't remember. Secondly, hanging it this way makes the 50 stars slant slightly (all to the same degree, funnily enough).

Instead of one of the five points facing skywards (like the star on the left), they face left-wards (or rightwards, depending on which side of the flag you're looking at), meaning that the upper-most point is 18 degrees off (like the star on the right). This seems very out of sorts for America.

On a separate, but flag-based point, each of the 50 stars represents a state (Canada doesn't get a mention), but I was wondering whether there was any significance of the five points on the star or the 13 stripes. Anyone?

The first 17 bars of The Las' There She Goes are great, but then, it's time to hit the >> button on the iPod.  Just thought I'd share...

By all accounts, Sponge Bob Square Pants (not sure whether there should be any hyphenation here)  effigies are being stolen from across the USA.  This link is to one such incident, but apparently this is one of 64 across about a dozen states.  Another stroke of genius.  His take-over of the US over what seems to be the last few days has been quite phenomenal in advance of the release of his new movie, his highlight being featuring in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Meanwhile, I was shocked to learn that today marked Bush's first presidential visit to his 51st state of Canada.  On relating this shock to colleagues, they believed my surprise to be at him visiting at all as opposed to this being his first such visit.  I'm glad to see that the Canadians gave him a suitably warm welcome.