The attached is a screen shot from a genuine incident raised to our internal helped desk, just priceless and if you think I made it up then thank you for the compliment I just don’t think I’m capable of anything this brilliant.

Check Kev’s blog for the screenshot.

This one has gone viral in Systems at Debenhams. Everyone is talking about it.

Here’s the idea. Set up a trust for the movie industry. A bank account that we can deposit money into but only movie-makers can withdraw from. When you download a movie via BitTorrent that you watch all the way to the end, deposit $5 into the account for the movie. When the owners decide to accept BitTorrent as a legitimate distribution system, which someday they are sure to, they can have the money. The amount of money in the account is always public info. So it becomes an important statistic, part of the “box office” for a movie. Then you’d probably find a funny thing happening — independent movie producers who can’t get distribution any other way will start promoting this site as a legitimate way to pay for movies. It wouldn’t take long before the MPAA realized that there are a huge number of people who want the convenience of watching movies at home on their own timetable, instead of having to deal with the inhumane system the movie industry created for them.

Via Scripting News

Makes sense. I think some people just pirate because they want the convenience that the movie industry refuse to give them. Not to mention the hard sale they get at the cinema, or when they’re forced to watch adverts and “don’t steal!” messages and copyright notices at the start of a DVDs. They’ll pirate regardless of what the industry does, whether it’s right or wrong. Just as well give them a way to pay. I think some (obviously not all) will.

A situation where someone so hated (and with fair reason) is exposed to the public on the Internet. He isn’t someone who cheated on his wife, did a crap job of managing England or a much disliked media mogul. He did things that people truly despise.

Frankie Boyle has already got stuck in:

@OfficialGlitter Hi Gary. Would you say it’s you or the captain of the Concordia that’s fucked more people in international waters?

Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been telling untruths about their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do so. As of January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted.

Via http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-thinking/

Google are having a rough time keeping to their Don’t Be Evil motto:

• paying bloggers to post a Chrome advert (resulting in Google punishing Google by reducing Google Chrome’s ranking in search results)
• blatantly favouring Google+ in its new social search results, and causing a shit storm in the process
• and now this.

It’s a long read, but I found it interesting. The sort of sting they performed on Google is the type I’d expect Google to do to others.

…

I’ve been asked a few times what I’d like Stan to be when he’s older. I’ve given various answers. Here’s my current one.

Of course, in an ideal world Stan would be just like his old man: A music loving, left-wing geek. But his old man (Jesus, I’m talking about myself in the 3rd person here..) is proof that this doesn’t always happen.

Unlike my Dad, I don’t:

• support Bristol City (I support Spurs)
• have a passing interest in music (I love the stuff)
• have no clue about technology (again, I love the stuff)

The differences were evident as we were shoe shopping the other day. Not much bores me more. Given that my dad spent his career in the shoe business (in much the same way I hope to spend my career in technology), I mentioned how I hope Stan is far more enthusiastic about technology than I am about shoes.

So given that it’s a tall order to expect Stan to be a music loving, left-wing geek, what would I like Stan to be when he’s older?

Two things. At least for now.

First off, I’d like him to be open-minded. I don’t want him to think any less of people just because they’re black, gay, rich or poor, dress differently or are into different things than him. And with that in mind, if he happens to be gay, I’d support him all the way. For starters I don’t consider it a choice, but even if it were, that’s his choice to make. I wouldn’t want him to dread telling his old man. And along those lines, I wouldn’t want anyone to fear what Stan might think about them.

Secondly, I want him to be passionate about things. I think it’s important to have hobbies and interests. To not go through life simply to work and that’s it. I know people who do that and they tend to judge people who do have hobbies they don’t agree with (I can think of a few people who would think I’m both sad and wasting my time for writing a blog, but fuck it, I enjoy it so what’s the problem? “Get out more?”. Why bother when I’m perfectly content doing this).

As long as it’s legal and doesn’t hurt others, I don’t really mind what Stan get’s passionate about, as long as he enjoys it. Again, it would be great if it were music and tech, but if it were skate boarding, writing rap music or playing the flute I’d be a very happy dad. Right now he’s passionate about Mickey Mouse (and by passionate, I really mean addicted). Yes it’s a little concerning that he’s already so dependent on a TV fix, but I’m still chuffed he loves something.

Hopefully that continues as he get’s older.

I love Vim. Rarely does a week go by that I don’t learn some new trick with Vim. However by far my biggest gripe regarding Vim compared to my previous editor of choice (UltraEdit) is it’s column mode.

Generally speaking – unlike much of Vim (arguably) – column mode isn’t very intuitive to use. It’s a big enough pain that I simply don’t use it (I’ve tried to get in the habit on several occasions now). However, with the help of the alt key (as seen in the Putty post [LINK]), it’s slightly easier (at least as far as I’m concerned).

Unlike with Putty where I’m using it to select and copy text, with GVIM I’m using it to insert text.

How to use Column Mode in GVIM using the Alt Key

Note that this example is for GVIM only. Not the terminal version of Vim.

• Place the cursor:
• On the first line that you wish to insert text to
• In the column that you wish to insert your text
• Now hold down the alt key and place the cursor:
• On the last line that you wish to insert text to
• In the column that you wish to insert your text.
• This should ‘draw’ a line from your top point to the bottom (see below)

• Start typing the text you wish to insert. Initially this will appear only on the first line (I find this to be misleading, and it’s one of the reasons I dislike Vim’s column mode)

• Now press escape. You should now see the remaining columns update:

It wasn’t until I was looking over someone’s shoulder whilst they were working that I realised Putty has a column mode (albeit read only), and it’s elegantly implemented.

Using Column Mode in Putty

It’s really quite simple. Barely worthy of the bullet points in fact:

• When you have Putty open, hold down the alt key and then using the mouse drag the area of the screen you wish to select.
• With its default settings, Putty will then copy what you’ve selected to the clipboard.

When could this be useful?

I’ve only recently discovered it, so excuse my list of 1, but I find it useful when selecting a list of file names from an ‘ls –l’ command:

Note: I tried to get a screenshot of it in action. Unfortunately it doesn’t capture the fact you’ve highlighted certain text. So please use your imagination and pretend the items in the blue box above have been highlighted/selected.

Helpfully, it trims the trailing spaces when you then go to insert the clipboard contents into another application.

Of course, there are other ways to achieve this (eg. ls –1 will return just the filenames).

Still, it’s a handy trick to know.

There are all kinds of problems with commissions, for example, high turnover as salespeople shop jobs to get a slightly more lucrative commission system. Always attempting to maximize personal benefit which results in system gaming like making fake phone calls to hit call numbers, sandbagging deals into the next quarter, sniping new leads, and so on (the list here is actually endless).

The problems include infighting over who gets credit for accounts and sales. They include constantly comparing territories and account value to determine fairness between salespeople. They include an enormous amount of overhead as each salesperson sedulously tracks every transaction no matter how minute to make sure they get paid on it (by the way, they hate having to do this, and it’s a staggering waste of time. It’s also a place where weak salespeople like to hide out).

Via http://blog.fogcreek.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Fog+Creek+Blog&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.fogcreek.com%2Fwhy-do-we-pay-sales-commissions%2F&seed_title=Why+do+we+pay+sales+commissions%3F

I hate walking into shops that are driven by commission. I don’t like being pounced on when I enter the door, and I don’t like being treated as the best mate of some cocky shit in a mobile phone shop who has the gift of the gab.

The above article as other good reasons on why commission doesn’t work. The company the writer is writing on behalf of got rid of commission, and it seems like it worked out well for them.

Introducing Izzy….

She was born on Oct 17^th and she’s been a brilliant little girl ever since (a bit of a pain before hand though, refusing to engage!). At the time of writing she is already sleeping through and feeding well, which is all we can ask of her.

For me the initial interest was always going to be how Stan (our 2 year old son) would react to the new arrival. My money was on jealousy, but apart from the odd occasion, that couldn’t be further from the truth. He completely adores her, cuddling and tickling her at any opportunity. When asked who his favourite person is, he usually responds with “baby” (he can say her name, but mostly refers to her as baby).

I’m sure we’ve got all the jealousy to come, but so far so good in terms of them getting along.

I can’t wait to see them grow up together!

That’s all I have to say on the matter…

[Note: this one has been sitting in my drafts for a while. I'm not entirely sure why I wrote it, but I'd bet good money it involved a bad day at work where a check-list was proposed following a root cause analysis of a failure]

Its nice to have the blog back though. I’ve missed writing for it more than I thought I would.

Mine aren’t in any way interesting but I figured I write it anyway.

I was working at Wickes at the time. That morning a colleague I was working with had that day found out she was pregnant, and someone from IT (a department I badly wanted to work for) was in to fix a till.

I was serving a chipper old man – the kind that can make serving customers enjoyable – when he said to me in a jokey way “Did you hear about the plane that’s hit the World Trade Center?”.

“No”, I said, anticipating a punchline. “Yeah” he replied.

It was no joke.

Although I wasn’t a breaking news junkie back then like I am today (something 9/11 turned me into), I asked most customers had they heard and did they have any information.

Every now and then a customer would have some fresh information. I was never able to truly grasp the scale of what was happening, but I got a fair idea.

My colleague obviously had her own things to worry about (being up the duff n all), and the chap from IT seemed strangely nonplussed by it all.

During any breaks I had, I’d run across to Curry’s to watch the events on TV.

I remember going into the ‘cash office’ and mentioned the events to my then manager. On a couple of occasions since then he’d pointed out he’d never forget the moment I told him. Like I say, everyone remembers certain details about that day.

I headed home still not totally grasping the scale of it. I expected to get home and say to whoever was home (either my Mum, Dad or one of my brothers) “Did you hear about what happened in America?!” expecting that they hadn’t heard yet – or at perhaps only heard in passing. But when I walked in not only was it on the TV (I didn’t realise it had become compulsive viewing for those that could) but I was shocked to see my mum crying. She really isn’t the crying type. It turns out a daughter of an old friend of hers was presumed dead as a result the attacks on the WTC.

My final memory of that day was being up late watching CNN as fighting had broke out in Afghanistan. With all the chaos of the day I thought perhaps America was already fighting back which struck me as madness to retaliate so soon. Turns out it was simply in-fighting not involving America. America would fight back later.

Andy Carvin insists that the introduction on his Google Plus profile – “I tweet revolutions” – is a joke, but nevertheless that’s what he’s famous for. Armed with TweetDeck – the power Twitter user’s app of choice – and a thoroughly curated group of reliable, enthusiastic and well-informed Twitter users, the social media strategist for US public service radio broadcaster NPR has become known for his mastery of aggregated and verified real-time news through Twitter. And that’s no mean feat on a platform still dismissed by many as a gimmick that trivialises information into uselessly short sound bites.

via Andy Carvin: the man who tweets revolutions | Media | The Guardian.

Whenever I mention to someone that I’ve started to follow breaking news on Twitter as well as the rolling news channels, I recommend they at least follow this chap if they want to do the same.

The article above focusses on the Arab Spring, but I’ve followed him for the London Riots and the Japan Earthquake also.

That night I would see a rapid series of incidents that was almost impossible to compute. On Kingsland Road, groups of shopkeepers, many of them Turkish Kurds, sprinted past our car as they chased looters away.

An hour later, and further west, I was in Chalk Farm to see men armed with scaffold poles attack passing motorists and smash their way into shops.

When the windows were broken, people of all backgrounds surged in to help themselves to the free goods.

Khalili and I were pretending to be part of the crowd, with hoodies pulled tight over our heads.

via UK riots: Paul Lewis’s five-day journey | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

A good first-hand report of the riots by Guardian reporter Paul Lewis.

I was following Paul Lewis on Twitter on the Monday night. Thanks to him and others I thought Twitter really came into its own that night. Combined with the rolling news channels it gave you a sense of the scale of what was taking place along with the general disbelief of it all felt by the public.

When the fire engines had finished the crowds started to cheer and some raised their brooms. All of a sudden everyone was raising their brooms and I managed to get the photo on my iPhone.

via BBC News – How the broom army photo swept the web.

What I didn’t realise about the photo (see below) was that it was spontanious. I figured someone shouted out “Everyone raise their brooms for the camera!”.

It makes it an all the more impressive photo knowing it’s spontanious.

They weren’t asking for excuses. They were after reasons. I think there is a difference.

Even if the reason is “because they did it for the crack”. That’s a reason. At least then you can start to get to the bottom of why it happened and how to prevent it from happening in the future without simply resorting to punishment as a deterrent (which to be fair in the short term is realistically the only option).

Why have members of this generation of the youth done this and not previous generations? We’re all born into this world as babies. Kinda obviously really. But there is no reason to suggest that this generation of babies were more evil than the generations before that. So there is a cause for what’s happening. There is a cause for this generation to consider crime to be a good crack, and not the previous.

It will be interesting to see a graph of crime rates in London before and after this event.

It’s been a fairly big year for news, with the Arab Spring, NotW scandal, the Japan earthquake (etc) – I’ve watched a lot of it. The media can whip up a shit-storm. They escalate things. They project great importance on ‘sub-events’ that if taken out of the context of the larger event really aren’t important events at all.

I think that’s probably happening here too.

My son turned 13 today and I didn’t write a post called “13” because I was blocked. I still am. But here’s the thing. Writer’s block always contains the seeds of its own demise. It can block you from what you want to write about but it can’t block you from writing about writer’s block itself. When writer’s block blocks your subject, it becomes the subject. So fuck you, writer’s block. I win.

via - B. HOCKEY J. – 13.

A well written “my son has turned x years old” post. You could say it’s kinda meta in that it discusses more the writing of the “my son has turned x years old” post.

I’m part way through writing the ‘Stan Turning 2′ post. I’m not sure whether I’ll finish it or not. I’m already a few weeks late, and not as happy with it as I was the http://greg.gannicott.co.uk/?p=767 Continue reading →]]>

People believe that being a business owner is risky, but I believe that having only ONE source of income – ONE source that can be terminated at any time (typically by ONE person) – is the real risk.

via Why Entrepreneurs Rule the World – Professional development.

Nicely turned on it’s head.

However, my bigger fear (I realised this after someone else pointed this out to me) would be the livelyhood of my employees. I think I’d struggle to sleep at night if their families were depending on how I’d run a business.

This is very common request recently – How to import CSV file into SQL Server? How to load CSV file into SQL Server Database Table? How to load comma delimited file into SQL Server? Let us see the solution in quick steps.

via SQL SERVER – Import CSV File Into SQL Server Using Bulk Insert – Load Comma Delimited File Into SQL Server « Journey to SQLAuthority.

The paragraph above has clearly been search engine optimised. They don’t even try to hide it. They’re one step short of repeating those lines as white on white text at the bottom of the page.

It seemed to be a fantastic set though. A career high no doubt.

The most enjoyable thing about it though was the fact it looked like they pulled a ‘Magic Number’.

That won’t mean anything to anyone but me and a friend of mine.

Several years back (I can’t remember which year) me and that friend watched The Magic Numbers headline the John Peel stage. Although they’re not one of my favourite bands, it was one of my favourite ever sets at Glastonbury.

It was great because as they were playing, the crowd started to get an idea of what it meant to the band. You could see on the band’s faces that they were having a fantastic time playing. And the more the crowd saw this, the better reception they gave each song. And the better reception they got, the more the band seemed to enjoy it. And that loop continued until everyone present seemed to be having an amazing time – and in the band’s case, the time of their lives.

I remember reading a comment on a forum a few weeks later by the chap who curates the stage saying that he’d never seen anything like it in all the years he’d been running the stage.

And to me, that’s exactly what happened to Elbow this year at Glastonbury.

Glastonbury seems the perfect venue for Elbow. You can imagine they write some of their songs with the Pyramid Stage in mind. So just knowing that they’re going to perform those during the ‘golden hour’ (when the sun sets) meant they likely went into it with high expectations.

I get the feeling those expectations were blown. Guy Garvey seemed to have complete control over the crowd. More control (and respect) than most lead singers have when up on that stage. And the more he used it the better the time he had. He could barely contain his joy. And the better the time he had, the more the crowd seemed to enjoy it. And so the loop begins.

It was fantastic to watch – even if it was just on TV. Elbow seem like a hard-working and well liked band among their peers. I’d go so far to say that the only lead singer that comes across nicer than Guy Garvey is Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips.

So to see them have their ‘moment’ – possibly their greatest moment – made for a great hour of tv viewing.

Like I said, I wasn’t there so maybe something else happened, but that’s how it came across to me.

I wonder if Apple’s products would be as successful if it had this chap doing the WWDC keynote rather than Steve Jobs? Well worth a minute and a half of your time.

That’s right, James Verone says he has no medical insurance. He has a growth of some sort on his chest, two ruptured disks and a problem with his left foot. He is 59 years old and with no job and a depleted bank account. He thought jail was the best place he could go for medical care and a roof over his head. Verone is hoping for a three-year sentence.

Via NBC, via the Daring Fireball

For all it’s reported faults, I don’t think the NHS would drive us to this.

Does the courage to do this in public come with age? Perhaps it’s something a young man like me can’t understand. But you, you are on in years; gray and spotted like a ham in a paintball fight. Your scrotum reminds me of boardwalk taffy. Maybe you’ve been building up to this day your whole life and I’m witnessing the birth of a phoenix. You are no longer a man that blow-dries his balls in secret. You have transcended that station and now fall into an elite group of Spartans that blow-dry their balls wherever they God damn please. If caterpillars emerged from their cocoons as butterflies with heavy, sagging testicles I’d imagine they’d feel the same as you might right now.

Via An open letter to the gentleman blow-drying his balls in the gym locker room

It’s a really well written letter. Well worth a read.

Tip of hat to kottke.org, who himself is worth subscribing to. I’m finding some of my favourite links on his link blog.

The shouts for “Daddy? Daddy?” followed by a fear laden “Oh no..” is the cutest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

When a certain action takes place (eg. you star a Google Reader item, you send an email to ifttt.com, you save a link to Delicious), it triggers a subsequent action (posts a new tweet, adds a link to Facebook, subscribes to a feed in Google Reader). If this then that. The ifttt.com blog has a good introduction to the concept and their nicely named WTF page explains how it works.

Even in it’s early days (it’s still private beta) ifttt.com has a surprising number of services you can use as the ‘this’ and ‘that’. However, something I’d find really useful – and keeping in the spirit of the APIs it’s built on – is the ability to specify a custom web hook as a ‘that’.

The interface would enable you to choose from the list of data/variables that can be extracted from the ‘this’, and have it call a remote script passing those details using an HTTP Post. What the remote script chooses to do with that call is completely up to its creator – just as long as it replies with a valid HTTP response.

To me this seems like a relatively simple way to offer a great deal of control to those who can program the remote script, and creates many more possible use cases.

Good on Google for taking the time and money to do this. I realise it’s not as if they’re not flogging their wares in doing this ad, but they didn’t have to do it this way.

I know a similar ad aired during Glee in the States, it would be good for it to get some mainstream exposure over here too.

Source: Pink News

As a bonus, here’s another Google ad they’ve released lately. As a Dad who’s tried to blog about his Son, I really appreciated it: