Tangential Ramblings

Went to see Sideways yesterday, and I thoroughly recommend it.  Two things frustrated me throughout the film, but this should not spoil your enjoyment:

- What has Virginia Madsen (who plays Maya) been in before?  She was lovely, btw
- There was an advert before the film started for In Good Company, starring Topher Grace of That 70s Show fame.  In it, a song played, which included the lines "Random Things" and "Climbing Up On".  I want that song, but can't find any reference to it on the Interweb.  Can anyone help, or at least listen out for it if you see the ad.?

The former irritation is also still bugging me, as I can't see any reference in Madsen's biography that reminds me of her specifically.

The film was a wonderful combination of maleness, romance, comedy and a great story, and fully deserves IMDB's placing of 204th best film of all time.

It was good to hook up with Mr. Hopgood yesterday for a very late brunch at a little place at the top of Hudson.  $9.99 for an omelette, toast, all you can drink caw-fee and juice can't be bad.

Ever since I started working (well, maybe a little after), I've never understood why the PC and the phone have not been integrated.  Why has every desk in the modern world got two pieces of hardware on it?  Well, it's possible that my wonderment has been answered, as VOIP is becoming more and more prevalent.  Whether it will mean the end of the phone remains to be seen.

Mr. Shanahan has highlighted a nifty piece of hardware integration.  This piece of software to connect the phone and the TV means that your TV displays the name of the person calling while you watch - nice.  I think this is the kind of integration that Microsoft is talking about in its reports of Longhorn, but this won't be the holy grail, in the same way that XP wasn't.  Interoperability is hard, as everyone who tries it finds out.  I was reading only today about the battle for a standard in the data storage arena for CDs.

One of the main reasons it is so hard is that everyone is fighting to make their way the standard, often wanting to make it proprietary, thus promoting the development of numerous "standards".  First (at least in my world), there was VHS vs. V2000 vs. Betamax.  Then there was the fight of PCs vs. Macs, Lotus SmartSuite vs. MS Office, mobile phone technologies, music formats, the list goes on.  At a more fundamental level, you've got imperial vs. metric - even though imperial was so obviously inferior, it took a lot of effort to get rid of it - heavens, now I'm surrounded by it!  At the end of the day, as we get more developed, catering for what we've done beforehand becomes more difficult.  That's why the home isn't all controlled from a single remote control, and why we still carry cameras, music players, mobile phones and PDAs predominantly as separate devices (well, I don't, but you know what I mean).

Talking of the Lotus/Microsoft war, I think I'm in my 16th year of working with spreadsheets - now over half of my life.  (That makes me very happy, btw.)  I remember playing around with my Dad's Toshiba laptop when I ventured into his office after school (can't believe he had a laptop in c. 1987/8 - I think it was called a T2000 with 1Mb RAM).  It had an orange-on-black display, and I vividly remember the experience, learning all about what he did, and marvelling at the wonder of this machinery.  Lotus 1-2-3 was all driven through the keyboard, with the slash key bringing up the menu (I remember the first option being Range).  (One of Excel's big wins was its compatibility with 1-2-3 - to this day, clicking the slash key still prompts the main menu.)  On a later version, there was an add-on called WYSIWYG, which did all of the formatting (actually, I think it just did borders).  I remember fondly the fact that the highlighted cell appeared in orange, and moving to another cell resulted in the previously selected cell slowly fading to black, such was the technology behind the screen.

Maybe without this introduction to the world of insurance, and therefore spreadsheets, I would have chosen a different career path, and missed out on the wonderful world of Excel.  Maybe people wouldn't buy me geek t-shirts (which I wear regularly, btw) as parting gifts.  Again, thanks Dad!!

Thanks to Elise for pointing out that SpongeBob Square Pants is called Bob l'éponge in France (full name Bob l'Eponge au Pantalon Carré).  I love the fact that this translates as Bob the Sponge, but the phrase Bob l'éponge is equally amusing.  I also remember fondly the fact that in French, trousers are singular.

There remain to be questions about his sexual orientation (orientation sexuelle).

There are two stories today that make me sad.

First of all, Auschwitz.  The horror that occurred over 60 years ago in Poland can never be fully appreciated, but the stories that are recounted, generally only every five or ten years when a significant anniversary hits, are a constant reminder of the sheer evil of which humans are capable.

Secondly, today marks Ivan Noble's final diary.  Ivan has been writing for the BBC about his experiences since being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2002.  His humour and honesty have resulted in possibly one of the most important 'blogs of our time (and therefore ever), and he has developed an unparalleled connection with his audience.  Sadly, this is his last diary entry.

He has helped so many by sharing his journey; he will be sorely missed.  He has demonstrated the power of the internet on a sociological level, and has shown how people who have never met can be brought together through a common thread.  Reading this final entry really brought this home to me.  The internet is great for buying books and flights, getting your Excel macros debugged and chatting with your mates.  Yet perhaps this is an example of the internet at its most powerful.  I wish him peace and love over the coming weeks and months.

I rarely read the Guardian, either online or otherwise (partly because it costs $8 over here).  Apart from the historical download of the Telegraph's crossword, I've never developed a loyalty or become a regular reader of any online newspapers, mainly because of the sheer quality of the BBC's site.  However, I definitely appreciate that this somewhat insular approach has limited my exposure to, and appreciation of political insight.

Here is a wonderful example of such insight, from David Aaronovitch at the Guardian.  The news of Michael Howard's playing of the race/immigration card (delete as applicable) in the lead up to this year's election passed me by on this side of the Atlantic.  This article is a great dissection of the reality behind the policy.  If you've not read it, read it.  Unfortunately, the people who should read this are those very people who will go through life blissfully unaware of the article, with their heads buried in the Express or Mail.

This is what makes America so special:

"...THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON NY HAS EXTENDED THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FROM 1 AM TONIGHT THROUGH 4 PM WEDNESDAY...

"SNOW WILL OVERSPREAD THE REGION FROM WEST TO EAST AFTER MIDNIGHT.  COLD SURFACE TEMPERATURES WILL ALLOW FOR THE SNOW TO ACCUMULATE BETWEEN 1 AND 2 INCHES BY MORNING.  THIS WILL RESULT IN SLIPPERY CONDITIONS FOR THE MORNING COMMUTE.  THE ACCUMULATING SNOW WILL THEN CONTINUE WELL INTO WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON BEFORE TAPERING TO JUST SOME VERY LIGHT SNOW OR FLURRIES AFTER 4 PM.  TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED TO RANGE FROM 2 TO 4 INCHES.  IN ADDITION...SOME LIGHT FREEZING DRIZZLE MAY OCCUR WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON BEFORE THE PRECIPITATION ENDS."

There are two things that make this amusing, possibly three.  First of all, the flowery language is so out of whack with the content.  It seems to have been written by an English major (for that's what they're called over here) who has landed a temp job at the US equivalent of the Met office - I've never heard of snow tapering before, btw.  Secondly, only America would have such formality of warnings for what can only amount to a snow flurry.  Also, I love the fact that its capitalisation seems to indicate a higher level of authority and severity.

Why can't I get a sandwich smaller than my head for lunch? I miss the egg and cress from Boots. However, please refrain from sending one by mail. If it were to get through customs, I don't think I'd appreciate it on arrival.

A few things:

- New York seems to cope much better than does London in times of snow.  The ploughs have been out in full force, as have the mini snow-blowers, which are well cool
- Don't wear cross-country skis in metropolitan areas (especially megalopoles).  They're entirely unnecessary, and you look silly
- This picture was taken outside our apartment.  The ice has steadily been streaming down the east side of the Hudson for the past 36 hours, with no sign of stopping.

No sooner had my wife's hard drive decided to give up its will to live, mine did the same.  I have installed SP2 of Windows XP twice before, only to find that it screws so badly with my wireless connectivity that I had to uninstall.  I tried today for a third time, and the hard drive failure co-incided with the associated reboot.  SP2 was never meant to be.

It's odd.  On the previous hard drive failure, I was able to recover the necessary data , but the disk was sufficiently corrupt to shun being reformatted.  With this one, I couldn't even get a DOS prompt when connecting it remotely, but it seems happy to reformat.  My biggest loss is my 25Gb of tunes, all of which are residing quite happily on our iPods, but the restoration of which on to the laptop would require us to get the CDs out of storage from somewhere in the West Ruislip area of London.

New York has been hit hard by the snow today.  It was strange seeing Canal Street utterly deserted earlier this evening, both of traffic and dodgy bag salesmen (adjective applying to both nouns).  The snow ploughs have been out creating drifts as high as SUVs.  Meanwhile, there are blizzard warnings in place for the New York area until midday tomorrow.  I joked that Andy may be diverted to Atlanta, but apparently, the storms have been felt even that far south, with delays at Atlanta's airport.

Well, I don't think it was as cold last night as it was on Tuesday, but it seems that the lack of wind made the Hudson freeze over.  All of the inlets down the east side of the river were filled with blocks of ice this morning, and the ice encroached some way into what you might call "the main shipping lane".  It was quite an impressive sight from the window.  However, braving the cold today, I believe some of my fingers may need amputation for frost-bite, having had to faff around glovelessly with a faulty PATH card.  Later this evening, my lack of a hat has meant that I believe my ears have now fallen off.  Note to self: buy a hat.  The forecast is for a weekend of snow, so I fully expect Mr. Stephenson to be diverted to Atlanta on his return from the UK on Sunday.

Am I the only person to have noticed the fact that quite a lot of Americans mispronounce the word ask.  They pronounce it the same as axe.  And this isn't a one off.  I've spoken to quite a few Americans who seem to struggle.  I've been told that this is a New York thing (maybe thang - who knows?), but I would argue that it is an education thing.  Apparently, it's an example of metathesis, the behaviour of transposing sounds or letters in the speaking or writing of words - another example being George W. Bush's pronunciation of nuclear - noo-kyoo-luhr.  Now this (ask) is one of the shortest words known to man.  (OK, so there are a load of two-letter words that seem to be allowed in Scrabble that no one knows the meaning of, but humour me.)  How can one struggle with the ordering of the consonants?  They seem to struggle equally with the words ask and asks.  R. Kelly certainly struggles big time in his uplifting hyperballad The World's Greatest.

On the subway this morning, there was a guy sat down opposite me who had to be the most tired person I have ever seen.  He seemed to be trying to fight his head lolling around, but it was in vain.  It seemed that he was on his way to class (although had probably missed his stop, as we were ploughing through Brooklyn), as he was carrying a book entitled "Pre-calculus".  I don't hold out much hope for his levels of alertness increasing when he gets there.

Occasionally, by coincidence and nothing more I might add, the music on your iPod perfectly reflects your surroundings.  This morning, just after sitting opposite this guy, Petula Clark chimed in with a lovely rendition of Don't Sleep In The Subway.  This was succeeded by the wonder that is Guns 'n Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine, which took me back to my e-Envoy days and Mr. Poole's highly-irritating ringtone, in full polyphonic glory.  Have you changed it yet, Mark?

SpongeBob (apparently it's one word with a capital B) is causing a stir again stateside due to his promotion of gay antics.  I love stories like this, which merely highlight that people have got nothing better to do than whinge (an English word, I recently found out).  Get a life...

This sort of article, published by SiteMorse, just doesn't help.  It's taking the same stance as the DDA itself has taken with respect to accessibility, going for the bullying approach as opposed to advocating standards and encouraging compliance.  Do you really think that the DDA (or the RNIB and RNID for that matter) is actively trying to break standards and become non-compliant?

Accessibility can either be tackled from the perspective of "look at the benefits you can achieve", or one of "if you don't comply, this is what's gonna happen" - the carrot vs. stick approach.  The former will be better for everyone, and we should only resort to the latter for sites that blatantly flout standards and ignore subsequent advice.

The only worthwhile part of the article is the reference to conflicting standards.  This is true and has caused frustration, not to mention unnecessary spend, in the past.  My view is that the W3C should lead the way, and that bodies such as the RNIB/D should be responsible for helping people to code to these standards.

Finally, the article seems to criticise user testing, suggesting that automated testing is superior.  Pardon my French, but this is horse-shit.  Just as automated testing can't fully replace manual testing for standard functionality testing, nor can it be used as a blanket for accessibility testing.  One of the best things that the RNIB brought to the table was the view that standards provide a framework, but the complexity involved in website implementation means that it's not a case of pass/fail.  Each business problem will present different obstacles, and will be solved in different ways.  Something that passes an automated test may be horrible for the user and vice versa.

The stick won't work on this occasion.  We have to use the carrot.  After all, carrots are purportedly good for your sight.  (SORRY!!!)

Whoa, that was cold.

Just played football atop Pier 40 in temperatures of -7°F, or -22°C, including the wind-chill. Without the wind-chill, it's still only 11°F (-12°C). It was a great game, with a pretty decent turn-out (given the weather) allowing an eight-a-side game. The odd part is that during the game last Thursday, the temperature was into the 60s (Fahrenheit) - at least 16°C - meaning around a 40°F swing in five days. The cold spell is set to stay by all accounts. Word is that the Hudson has frozen over in places (bottled water left on the sidelines was frozen by the end of the game), and looking out of the window (albeit in the dark), I think I can see ice patches.

Condoleezza Rice is hitting the headlines for her insensitive response to questioning about the tsunami. Her first words in response to the tsunami relief effort were "The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us [America]". Nice. She's also getting a grilling, and rightly so, for the US's lack of an exit strategy for Iraq.

It was great to see that the European answer to Boeing's dominance in the air is coming to fruition. The scale of the A380 is unreal, and some of the pictures have to be seen to be believed. It's nice to be in the US when such feats are pulled off (as I was last time).

American Idol is back for a new series today, which should be fun. I wonder if that's the reason for the two UK runners-up getting their US visas back in London.

Two interesting facts for you.

- The banana is a herb
- There is a place called Embarrass in Wisconsin.

A quite beautiful article that I have avoided for one reason or another, despite the partial picture of a crossword lying by its side.  The British crossword is, without doubt, lacking an equivalent.  It stands alone, both as a stalwart of British society and an example of British eccentricity.

I developed my passion for crosswords (and perhaps an unhealthy allegiance to The Telegraph) through my Dad.  (And I am ever indebted to him for this pleasure.)  There was a time when you could download a free copy of the Telegraph's cryptic crossword online, but now there's a subscription fee that is too great a barrier to entry.  I love its daily cryptic crossword, and there is nothing better than sharing this experience with my father, although maybe he would prefer to see an empty grid on coming down the stairs in the morning.  Knowing its code, its subtleties, is akin to being a member of a club, although there are certainly levels of membership, as my Dad is better than I at solving, and Margaret (my Aunt) is in a similar league to her brother.  Rarely am I capable of finishing it alone.

The author is correct, if somewhat disparaging, in his assessment of the French in their attempt to emulate the British crossword.  The American crossword seems similarly trivial.  While some may be pretty difficult, their fact-based nature makes their solution much more of an objective challenge, unlike the subjectivity of their British equivalent - you need to get inside the head of the author to solve these.

Thanks, Dad.

Today saw the first two quarter-finals of the NFL.  First of all in the AFC, the Jets were beaten in overtime 20-17 at the hands of the Steelers.  Then this evening in the NFC, the Falcons routed the Rams 47-17.  The latter game was most notable for Michael Vick's out of the ordinary behaviour as Quarterback, and for the significance of the special teams, particularly punt and kick-off returns.

Vick is completely different from any other QB that I have seen.  The only person who I can remotely liken him to is Randall Cunningham from the 90s' Eagles.  He's so agile, and can make plays where there's seemingly nothing going.  However, he's more of a Running Back turned Quarterback rather than vice versa.  Some of his passing was erratic to say the least, and I'm surprised he got out of the game with an 11/15 completion rate.  However, it seems this is more than made up for by his ability to scramble, the third play of the game seeing a 47-yard unplanned Quarterback run.

In the Jets game, Roethlisberger exhibited some uncharacteristic misfires, but the game's outcome was determined by the dodgy foot of Doug Brien.  (Perhaps they should have recruited Steelers' Linebacker Larry Foote instead.)  Brien missed a 47-yarder (hit the bar) and a 43-yarder, both in the last two minutes of the game, the latter of which would certainly have secured victory.

It seems my switching of loyalties to the Jets was a little premature (or ill-informed).  Although I'm loathe to switch again, I think I'll be rooting for my childhood secondaries the Eagles from here on in, or at least until around 5pm EST tomorrow, depending on the outcome of their game against the Vikings.  :)

Looking back on the last four days' IT support, I have to say that things are a lot easier than I thought.  (Bear with me, Rob.)  Once I'm pointed in the right direction, doing the stuff is relatively straight-forward.  Also, the internet itself is an invaluable resource (as is Rob) for finding information.  HP even has an interactive support site where you can chat to someone (surprisingly responsive) about the problem that you're facing.  I was having a few problems locating the hard disk on the machine, and this proved useful in finding things like this out.  The issue would be much more difficult to solve if you had no internet, which must be true for a lot of people who are facing problems.

One thing that makes things more time consuming and arduous is nervousness.  The potential issues that you could face by undertaking a certain action (or that action going pear-shaped) are significant, meaning that each step takes longer than it perhaps should due to necessary thought and evaluating what-if scenarios.  Rob doesn't seem to suffer the same anxiety, probably partly because it's not his hardware and partly because he's done what I was doing a hundred times before and thus knows the impact.  The number of times he used the word numpty in reference to my good self was astonishing, although I'm sure most of the references were valid.  A word of advice for the boy genius though: never do IT support.  I don't think customers would appreciate lines like "IE is part of windows you numpty" and "Don't tell me you haven't got an install disk for these either?" or my favourite of the saga: "I'm going for a dump, this is networking 101, geeze".  Happy Birthday for Friday btw, Rob.

Football last night was a little disappointing, although the post-game drinking and pool was a lot of fun.  30 people turned up, probably due to the ridiculously warm weather last night (it genuinely was like a summer's eve), meaning we had to divide the pitch and play 7/8-a-side on half a pitch.  Also, it was more competitive than its Tuesday counterpart, which didn't appeal to me - a lot more aggression and a lot more showmanship.  I may revert back to Tuesdays - we'll see.

Well, evenings actually.  I received a text of panic (read anger) from my wife on Monday morning.  She had opened a Word file that I had sent her, and her machine had taken this opportunity to lose the will to live.  Despite being over a mile away, I was naturally the cause of the outage - an RCA would certainly have concurred, although I still have grave doubts.

On Monday evening, I came home to investigate.  It was indeed kaput.  On selecting an OS, it just told me that there was a missing or corrupt dll and told me to replace/repair it in order to get any further.  No DOS prompt, nothing. 

For one reason or another (which I won't go into now), we didn't have the administrative password for the broken laptop, without which you can't repair the OS.  So, the decision was made to try and recover as much data as possible from the dodgy laptop by copying it on to mine, then re-formatting the dodgy laptop's hard drive and re-installing the OS from scratch.  All of that faffing around blew away Tuesday night.

On the way home on Wednesday, I bought a 2.5" disk case that you can put a laptop disk into and connect through the firewire/USB port as an external hard drive.  So I ripped out the old hard drive, popped it in, and hey presto, there it is in full glory as a drive on my laptop.  Copied all of the necessary stuff across (a filing cabinet full of desktop files, My documents (which weren't mine, but hey), favourites etc.).  Popped the hard disk back in the laptop and started the re-format.  I say started, because that's basically as far as it got.  It reached 6% and then stalled on me.  Looks like a corrupt irrecoverable hard drive.

So, a Thursday morning trip out, and my wallet $180 lighter, I have a replacement 40Gb hard drive.  This is now re-formatted, and I'm busy installing the OS.  This is night four of the laptop rebuild project.  It's gone over budget and has exceeded the original time estimates - no wonder IT projects are renowned for being late.  I have four minutes left of the OS install, and it's 6.15pm.  Not sure if I'll make it to football at 8.30pm, but I'm doing my damnedest.

In Joel on Software, there is a paragraph that I felt needs to be referenced, just to highlight the huge challenge that exists in browser and OS testing. The extract is in reference to Microsoft's upgrade from Windows 3.x to Windows '95.

"Microsoft, obsessed about [backwards compatibility], spent a big chunk of change testing every old program they could find with Windows 95. Jon Ross, who wrote the original version of SimCity for Windows 3.x told me that he accidentally left a bug in SimCity where he read memory that he had just freed. Yep. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory never went anywhere. Here's the amazing part: On beta versions of Windows 95, SimCity wasn't working in testing. Microsoft tracked down the bug and added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity. If it finds SimCity running, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that doesn't free memory right away."

Let me highlight that again: Microsoft added specific code to Windows 95 that looks for SimCity.

In the context of the article, he highlights this as a positive outlook on Microsoft's obsession with backwards compatibility. In doing this sort of fixing however, Microsoft is making all application testing hugely costly. There are so many workarounds and application-specific fixes in code - whether it's bespoke applications designed to run on the OSs or applications that use Microsoft applications as their platform (IE, Word etc.) - that when implementing applications that hook into these - web-based applications being a prime example - you can't make any assumptions about stuff working.

If you go with a purist view, you risk having wonderfully clean code that doesn't work in IE6 (because of some workaround that is integrated into IE6 which buggers up your feature). At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have a browser/OS matrix the size of a chess board (you can get to that size without even trying), against which all tests should be run to gain confidence - multiply estimated testing effort by 64 to get the effort required.

On a recent project, a printing bug specific to IE5.5 Service Pack 1 (out of commission at the time) came in at the 11th hour (a little later in fact), one that had to be addressed, as this was the default browser in the client organisation. This was an IE bug (addressed in SP2), but that didn't matter - the client couldn't upgrade, so we had to fix it.

This problem is not going to go away; it's something that we've all got to live with (unless you don't work in software), and one which we need to ensure gets factored into projects in order for them to succeed.

In correction, to my previous post of 3 January entitled Broncos in the playoffs, this is to confirm that the Broncos are no longer in the playoffs.  They took a drubbing at the hands of the Colts' first team.  During the match yesterday, the boy Stephenson suggested that there was glue on the Colts' gloves, such was their ability to catch everything Mr. Manning (Peyton, of course, not his lesser brother Eli) was throwing their way - I suggest an appeal by Shanahan on these grounds.

Ho hum.  Will have to turn to the locals as the target of my enthusiasm from here on in.  The Jets (go Je-ets, go Je-ets) will face the Steelers in what we would call the quarterfinals on Saturday, following their overtime win against the Chargers.

In a similar way to Google with its Zeitgeist page, I thought I'd share with you my usage behaviour.

December was osirra.com's biggest month to date, with over 11,000 hits.  The aforementioned company, which is now delivering dynamic content to the site, was the site's single biggest hitter, with over 2,000 hits.  Thereafter, my employer came second (which could account for both UK and US traffic) followed by my home cable provider (me).  83% of my traffic comes from the US, 3% from the UK, 1% from Switzerland (!) and 0.5% from Australia.  I had one hit from France (reminder to self: update firewall rules; no offence, Caro), six from Cyprus, eight from the Seychelles and eleven from Argentina.

I like the ads to the right.  If nothing else, they're a nice reminder of subject matters that lie further down the page.  In the 46 days since their implementation, they have generated a staggering 19 (nineteen) clicks.  Most of these have been less than lucrative: for instance three clicks on 26 November generated $0.14.  However, five clicks on 20 December for some reason earned me $13.44, a CPM of $790.59, which I'm sure Ben would be fired for if this was an output from one of his clients' ad campaigns - not that he'd ever be seen advertising on the Interweb of course.  (I've never understood why the acronym CPM isn't CPK, btw.)

I have no doubt whatsoever that I am my own 'blog's biggest fan, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest.  In days of yore, diaries were personal reflections on people's everyday lives, and I see this as a modern equivalent, which happens to be accessible to all (and no doubt sundry).  The above information suggests that the majority of the world shows no interest in its content, but that's their loss.

Last night, I got the ferry back from Hoboken, as upon arriving from deepest Jersey, it was just about to depart and took me directly home, unlike the PATH from which I've got an eight minute walk.  It was cold (and choppy), but it was beautiful.  It was dark, so the Empire State Building was lit up in green and red, the Chrysler in white, the Verrazano Straits Bridge could be seen in the distance with green lights adorning its suspending cables.  Meanwhile, the white office and home lights of Hoboken, Jersey City and Manhattan formed the pavements to the river.

I have a cup of tea (PG Tips) in front of me, and I think half of the enjoyment of a cup of tea is the anticipation of drinking it, as opposed to the drinking itself.  I'll often be doing something else - updating my 'blog, reading the news, watching the TV - occasionally thinking about taking a sip, but instead continuing with the main event.  It's the thought that it's there that's comforting, as opposed to the drinking of itself.

So, Tuesday night saw my inaugural game of footie in Manhattan. It was fantastic! Played on the roof of Pier 40, with huge nets to prevent the ball from falling to the Hudson or Westside Highway below, we had a beautiful night-time vista over the river, right round to the Empire State Building, lit up in white and looking majestic. Turned out to be around 10-a-side (co-ed), and the pitch was large enough to accommodate this. Competitive, yes, but not to a silly extent, and there was a healthy balance of skill-sets represented, along with a genuine passion for the game. We were playing an astro-turf pitch on a sandy underlay, which was a great surface - waterproof yet forgiving. This was all followed by a couple of beers at Brothers on Varick.

I will certainly be going back (both to football and Brothers). First timers pay $8; thereafter, it's $5. Not bad for 90 minutes of fun. Great bunch of folks to boot.

I was involved in an interesting discussion today, that reminded me of the doubted argument behind the naming of the World Series. Someone was claiming that American Football is called Football as the ball is a foot long. Now please! (My argument has always surrounded the lack of contact between the foot and the ball in the game.) This article confirms that a regulation football is between 11 and 11.25 inches long, a range which, I hasten to add, does not encompass 12 (there's that number again). Meanwhile, Wikipedia's twopennyworth suggests that the name is a carry-over from its predecessor (rugby, also known as rugby union football).

Buildings in New York emit way more smoke and general (for want of a better word) emissions than do British buildings. Some do it on a seemingly constant basis. Others appear to have systems that emit a big cloud of steam or smoke on an ad-hoc basis. No wonder Bush was never a big fan of the Kyoto agreement.

I'm struggling a little to work out whether the tsunami gives more or less credence to the existence of a god. (I don't think it receives a capital 'G', as I'm talking about it generically.) As a mathematician, I struggle to come up with an argument for belief, and as such, don't. This article (paginated due to its length) shows that the jury is still out, even among scientists. I particularly like Pascal's view: the rewards of belief in God are infinite; his/her chances of existence are greater than zero; as such, the expected reward is infinite.

Spam is causing a lot of issues, and a lot of investment at the moment. When I started in my last job, I had over 100 spam emails on first logging on - they had found my email address before I'd even got it! I liked an approach I saw once a while ago, but have not seen since. It basically uses the same approach as the likes of Ticketmaster use to prevent automated ticket purchasing. I sent an email to someone I'd never mailed before. Instead of getting into his inbox, I received an emailed link to an online form with two elements: one of those words that appears blurred or partially covered by a foreground, along with a text box. The form asks you to type the word you see into the text box. For humans, it's easy; for 'bots, not so. Once you do this, your email address is authorised for sending emails to the recipient, and your original email, along with all subsequent ones, arrives.

I wish I had a similar feature on my 'blog comments, as spam has now got its way in. Some poker site seems to have got hold of my site and is bombarding the comments field with rather poorly structured advertising. (On a separate note, why are such adverts so badly constructed?) I've had a go at getting rid of some of these, but the CMS user interface is not conducive - I got bored. Please have the patience to hunt out comments you may be interested in - generally, a post with more comments than the ones around it has genuine comments, such is the blanketing approach of the spammer.

Glad to see the boy Mather is back on the 'blog after six months or so of largely uninterrupted silence. Quite a bit of synergy with the recent post on accessibility, but there's a lesson further down - don't use Firefox. I installed it on its hard launch day, and uninstalled it within an hour, such was its annoyance. Maybe it is standards compliant, but so many websites have bowed to the vagaries of IE that it will take a while before the benefits of going with a purist offering outweigh the drawbacks. I'm currently using Slimbrowser, on the advice of the Chantster, which seems to offer some of the features that the competitors offer (e.g. tabbed windows) while maintaining the functionality that websites offer in Internet Explorer.

I've now signed up for soccer tomorrow night at Pier 40, and am slightly anxious at what I might find. I'll let you know.

It was a helluva (sp.) last day of the regular NFL season, with the outcomes of quite a few games determining the play-off position.  It was great to see the St. Louis Rams beat the Jets 32-29 in overtime.  The Jets gave it their all, despite the fact that the outcome meant nothing to them (they were already through), but the Rams were impressive under pressure.  Meanwhile, the Broncos gave an above-average performance against the Colts' second team to clinch one of the two AFC play-off places.  They'll meet the Colts again next week as their first play-off game.

The ESPN site frustrates me somewhat.  It has to have the slowest-loading homepage known to man, and the way in which it loads is just annoying.  However, some of its features are astounding, particularly if you think about the content management challenges that must be going on in the background.  You can track a game, seeing the make-up of each drive visually as it happens, which must use a pretty impressive bit of software.  Unfortunately, the database that drives it is pretty slow, so the page load times aren't too great.

Craig's List is a useful resource, although it's somewhat primitive in its functionality.  Its hype is phenomenal: so many people have responded to various requests for information with "Have you tried Craig's List?"  In many ways, I think it's a good example of being in the right place at the right time, as it has entered the enviable cycle of 1. Lots of content => 2. Attracts visitors => 3. Attracts content providers => 4. Attracts visitors => 5. Go to 3.

The other day, I decided to hunt out places where I might be able to play a 5-a-side football, joining an already existing regular event, à la Camden.  Craig's List was the only logical place to look.  My response to a post resulted in a prompt response (within a couple of hours), and it turns out that I can play at Pier 40: Tuesdays 7.00-8.30pm for all-comers; Thursdays 8.30-10.00pm for "Intermediate/Advanced".  I think I'll see how things go this Tuesday before going for the Intermediate/Advanced.

So, having signed up, I decided to look for Pier 40.

Now isn't that handy?  Pier 40 is labelled at the top of the map; our new apartment is in the most southerly and most westerly block of beige in the above map, facing west.  I ran to Pier 40 this morning in seven minutes.  I have training in Jersey City Tuesday, so should be able to pop home and get out to Pier 40 ready for a 7pm kick-off.  Should be fun.  Andy?

BTW, at the end of Pier 34 (also on the map), and directly opposite on the Jersey side of the river, there are matching buildings which look like observation posts.  Does anyone know what they are?  Are they anything to do with the underlying Holland Tunnel?

A beautifully written article covering the seemingly inordinate number of significant figures to have died in 2004, the quote of note being: "I admit to professional excitement when the death is announced of someone whose obituary one has devoted much time to completing".  Somewhat ironically, I've decided to post this in the Life category.

CNN is in the hall of shame today, as are the Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Mirror.  The only one that should really come as a shock is CNN, given the track record of the rest.  In many ways, the Star has risen above its counterparts by avoiding the subject of the tsunami altogether, although even this approach is questionable.

News will always have an element of sensationalism in it, such is the demand of the general public.  Yet journalists (and newscasters, who are by no means the same) must strike a balance between reporting fact and selling newspapers/bringing in viewers.  I was saddened and somewhat shocked at the reporting last night, while watching CNN.  The reporters in the field (primarily southern Asia) were doing a sterling job at reporting the facts emanating from the after-effects of the tsunami.  However, back in the studio, the newscaster, whom I believe was Kate O'Beirne, crossed the line (and kept running thereafter) between reporting and emotional blackmail.  Each time the telephone number was due to come up enabling viewers to pledge money, her emotions "got the better of her", and her wiping away of tears was no doubt aimed at pulling at the heart-strings of these viewers.

She was similarly unprofessional in her disparaging of the area at large for its failure to have adequate warning systems in place for dealing with such events.  The fact that warnings were given by the US meant that they should have been heeded by the rest of the world (according to the newscaster/interviewer), but it seems systems were not in place to facilitate this.  The blame tone of the reporting was so out of whack with the events that were unfolding.

Eamonn Holmes and Chris Tarrant are right to pull on the heart-strings of the general public during telethons or Children in Need.  As was Bob Geldoff during Live Aid.  These people are celebrities, using their celebrity status to influence the general public in their choice of charity.  Journalism is responsible for reporting facts and as such, it should never be compromised to the extent that I speak of above.  I have sufficient faith in human nature (call me naïve) to think that fact will draw readers and viewers in the long-term, while sensationalism will only attract a short-term audience.  Look no further than the BBC for evidence of this.

It's 23.45 on 31 December here in New York, although nothing is further from my mind than the New Year, such are the events of the world.