Bloody users

Few user interfaces are more intuitive than a touch screen. But even so, there's always someone who'll find the flaw in your otherwise perfect design...



(One of our kiosks being misused at the new J.Lewis store in Trafford Park)

Curious day at work...

We were discussing Janet Jackson's 'accident' at work today, and as part of wondering what all the fuss was about someone happened to remark "If you've seen one tit, you've seen them all".

This produced a lull in the conversation as we all pondered the merits of this viewpoint, I hope with an eye to its refutation, into which someone floated a contemplative "If you've seen one tit, you've probably seen two"...

Later on, somehow we got onto the topic of "dubious" websites. Someone mentioned www.ratemypoo.com so, of course, I pull it up to see what it was all about. It was slow (no broadband hereabouts) so the machine sat there doing nothing for a while and then, at exactly the moment when a very straight-laced VIP visitor from the States walked in to the room, it displayed a graphic image of the most disgusting toilet-bowl and contents you could possibly imagine... Which I might have managed to talk my way out of had not one of the other bastards remarked, quick as a flash, "Oh, Crem, haven't you tired of that screensaver yet ?"

(From cix:zeitgeist/mp3vsassembler 12 Feb 2004)

M4 speed cameras

Apparently there was a go-slow protest organised because speed cameras were installed on the M4.

Am I missing something? - the cameras are (ostensibly) put there to make people drive slower, and the protesters protest by, um, driving slower? Well, that's really going to encourage the authorities to take action... I can see more cameras appearing already ;)

I dunno. I can't help thinking that all 'slow drive' protests are idiotic - by going so slowly they erode public support and by causing more fuel to be burned they both damage the environment and (through fuel tax) put more money in the government's pockets. It'd probably be more effective to drive at ~40MPH. They'd get just as much publicity, do less damage and not fund the very people they're protesting against. Gah...

Democrazy

Apparently there's a general election going on this week - let it not be said I'm unobservant - which means we get the chance to choose which set of lying, conniving, thieving, incompetent bastards gets to ruin the country for the next few years.

Oh, what joy. Let's see, do I want to vote for someone who'll tax me to death with a smile, with a grin or with a will. Gah... Is there a "None of the above" box?

Actually, with politicians it's not the lying, conniving or even thieving that gets to me, it's their incompetence. Useless tossers...

He's dead Jim!

So, they put back the royal wedding because it clashed with the pope's funeral. Why? He's still not going to be able to make it... He's dead, Jim.

Ze Spirit of Ze Ecstasy

Alien had a frightening moment when something nasty burst out of someone's chest. Here's an even more frightening possibility - Herve bursting out of a kiosk...



And no, that's not done with photoshoppe. He really does fit inside the damned thing...

Spotty AVR

Every now and then Atmel (don't ask) get it into their heads to do something silly, and this month's free bonus fiasco from them is their new improved marking on the AtMega128 chips. Have a look at this picture, and then tell me which way round the chip's supposed to go...



Is that bloody great white spot the index marker, or is it the much less visible dark indentation at the top-left?

Yes, you guessed it, it's the one at the top-left.

Ye Olde Days

These people are seriously unwell...

Link

Over designed.

Apropos of nothing, I was reminded recently that upon realising that conventional pens wouldn't work in a microgravity environment NASA spent millions of dollars developing one that would.

The russians gave their cosmonauts pencils...

Patenting the bleedin' obvious

Oh, that's just peachy. In a moment of idle helpfulness I e-mailed those LED alliance people (they're trying to prevent someone from patenting the bleedin' obvious) to point out that several of my olde designs used PWM to control the colour of LED's, and dug out some details of one such product for the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) that dates back to 1989.

So now the buggers want me to fly over, at their expense, to America as a witness in their legal battle. Gah, I hate flying. I hate flying more than I hate greedy American companies, more even than I hate the whole patent system, so I suspect this will not be happening. Grump. Snarl... Anyone want to impersonate me for a few weeks? Free holiday with only a small chance of being immolated by terrorists? Pah...

Urgh, lurgy strikes design skills.

Running up against a deadline, so I had to work today despite still suffering from this rotten virus. It's interesting how it affected my design skills - after five hours of tracking a simple PCB I wound up with the following mess, thank god it's just a first generation prototype. Urgh :(



Which is the ugliest PCB layout I've produced for a long time, though it may not look it to a casual glance. Components with mixed orientations, connectors in silly positions, non-optimal tracking, non-optimal layout especially from an EMI POV, no room for idents, no test points, no pads for possible mods, general overall ugliness and WHAT is going on round those PSU's?, urgh.

I thought having to pull over and throw up on the way home was the lurgy at work, but maybe not... Still, bound to be changes required. No prototype ever survives contact with the customer...

The Dance Shoe Mystery

I've been fairly ropey of late, plagued with some sort of lurgy that has left me feeling vague and disoriented. Incapable of doing anything constructive I spent most of Saturday stretched out on a couch, feeling sorry for myself.

At some point I realised I hadn't taken some medication, so I got up and wandered unsteadily out into the hall to get the pills from my jacket. I found it lying across a chair with Gurgle's dance shoes on top of it. Since my head was pounding enough already I didn't bend over to pick it up but reached down rather awkwardly with a straight back, not watching what I was doing, and grabbed the first bit I could reach. Of course the pills were not in the first pocket I tried, so I had to fart about lifting the jacket up and rummaging in several pockets to find them before finally throwing the jacket back down grumpily. As I turned away it struck me - where were the shoes? I'd assumed they'd have fallen onto the chair, but no, they weren't visible. They weren't even under the jacket, and after a head-pounding search under the chair they were still nowhere to be seen... Perhaps caught in the jacket? Shake, shake, nope... After a moment or two of muzzy contemplation I realised I must have hallucinated the damned things, they were the same colour as the inside lining of the jacket pockets so it wasn't entirely out of the question.

I returned to the couch, vaguely disquieted - this was the first time I'd had an hallucination, or at least the first time I'd noticed having one. Urgh.

Several hours later I worked up enough energy to go out, and as I tried to put my jacket on guess what I found lodged in one of the sleeves - two dancing shoes...

Bastard universe. Hasn't it got better things to do than pick on the unwell? Sniff.

Shit happens...

First there was the Disco Dance Floor Mystery (http://desdes.com/news.htm) .

Then there was a off-site visit to a potential customer. We were there to look over a bit of electronic design they want us to copy, ah, "improve upon" and while we were looking at this fearsome unit (Big ozone generator, ~5KV ~1KW) this dirty great big dog they had loose running about their factory unit decided to do a dump, and a dump of quite impressive dimensions it was, I might add. The dog was quite noticeably thinner afterwards...

Anyway, being true to canine ethics the beast didn't do this in some quiet secluded corner, no, it did it right in front of the exit doorway, and the first we knew of it was when one of the guys stood in it and tramped it about...

Bloody Herve was running true to form too - "Oh yes, I saw ze shit, but I didn't say anyzing because I thought they must be used to eet"

Gah...

I've just bumped into a ghost.

What an amazing experience!

I just wandered out of the house to see if there were any meteors about (leonids peak tomorrow, IIRC) and while I was walking across the lawn in the dark, looking at the sky, I bumped into something fairly solid at chest height that was completely invisible. . . It felt like I'd walked into someone but there was nothing and no-one there at all. Damned spooky.

I recoiled, rather shaken, and retreated back into the house. A few minutes later - this is the really amazing bit - when I went back out I found a stunned owl sitting on the lawn. Now, what are the odds against that? Not only do I walk into a ghost for the first time in my life, but this owl must have flown into it as well ;)

(from cix:noticeboard Nov 2002)

How soon they grow up. . .

Today I arrived home from the office exhausted, collapsed on the couch and idly watched Gurgle, our three-year old daughter, playing some self-absorbing game. Perhaps foolishly I felt some acknowledgement was called for - the heroic bread-winning father arrived back from the front after several hours facing down the enemy - so as soon as I'd washed some caffeine tablets down with rocket-fuel coffee and otherwise recovered sufficient energy I attempted to communicate:

crem: "Baah"

Gurgle: [no response]

crem: "Hello, gurg"

Gurgle: [no response]

crem: "Who's a gurgly wurgly squergly urgle, then?"

She stood up, put her hands on her hips and declaimed: "I'm not a squergly urgle. My name is SARAH BRATTEL". She then sat down again and, after a considered pause, continued sotto voce: "And daddy is a pumpous old wind-bag"

Well, that's me told ;)

(From cix:noticeboard Nov 2002)

It's that time of year again. . .

The car in front, holding you up, is a toymota. And these days it'll invariably have it's thrice-damned fog-lights on because the buffoon driving it saw some fog once, turned the fog lights on even though they could clearly see the tail-lights of the car hundreds of yards ahead and lacked the wit to turn the damned things off again when the fog's gone. Yes, it is possible! Amazingly, you *can* TURN THEM OFF AFTERWARDS!

Fog lights. The name's a clue. Fog. F-o-g. Not rain. Not vague mist, not drizzle, fog. Not yesterday's fog. Fog now. Fog thick enough to obscure your tail-lights. Fog.

Gah. . .

Various of crem's ramblings, culled from cix

[on the subject of animal husbandry, fnarr fnarr]

> Am I not correct in thinking that having sex with animals
> has always been illegal???

Several of the women I've approached have used this as an excuse, certainly ;)

> who regularly does his bit to widen the gene pool with the sheep.

Don't you mean widen the sheep with his gene pole?

[on the subject of motoring]

> Which hazards would you expect in towns, but not in the country?

Buses.

[pithy phrases]

Because it's reigning kant and dogma?

Publish and be dumbed ;)

[computing]

Windows is a bag o'shite. So is Linux, but at least the bag's transparent...

Transport nostalgia.

One of the A-roads in Cheshire has recently been widened slightly, thus facilitating the flow of traffic. No - really. The amazing thing is that this wasn't accompanied by any new speed restrictions, so the traffic actually moves more freely than it did before. It fair brought a lump to my throat seeing a road-improvement that actually does improve the road; quite how they got such a radical idea past the motorphobic luddites in power is beyond me.

I wonder how long it'll be before the red-tarmac, speed-bump and camera fairies pay it a visit :(

What's worse than a dumb child ? A smart one. . .

A while ago my 18-month old daughter (Gurgle) announced 'farty-poos!' just as I was changing her, and then let rip a burst of explosive diarrhea that wrote-off a couple of items of furniture and gave me a thorough appreciation of the phrase 'I will be dipped in shit'. This event also expanded her vocabulary, though people usually manage to convince themselves the angelic-looking child said "fork!", but I digress:

Tonight, just as I was changing her and breathing the traditional sigh of relief at finding an empty nappy, out she comes with the dread phrase "farty-poos!" - total panic ! I quickly refasten the nappy, grab her off the floor and head rapidly for the bathroom.

She-who-can't-be-ignored senses something's up and bursts into the hall with a cry of "What's wrong?"

"Farty-poos!" I shout. "Farty-poos!" Gurgle echoes. I optimistically hold Gurgle out to mummy, but she is already making good her retreat and closes the door on a sniggered "Your turn!". Fine. To the bathroom. Quickly.

Into the shower cubicle goes Gurgle, off comes my t-shirt and after a short but desperate struggle my pony-tail is subdued and safely hair-clipped out of the way. I approach the beast from behind the shower-curtain. . . she giggles. . . I loosen one side of the nappy. . . she giggles. . . I loosen the other side. . . Nothing. Not a sausage.

"You said farty-poos, you little rat! When poo ? Poo now ? Poo later ? When ? When, dammit ?"

She tenses - I retreat - there is a tiny squeak, the sound of a mouse farting - "Fart gone daddy. All gone" and then she bursts into laughter. The cunning little rat-bag was winding me up. . .

(from cix:noticeboard (Oct 2000))

PCB design

Idly read an article in Electronics Times today that discussed a PCB design package that allows several designers to work on one PCB at the same time. Interesting idea, though their example was a VME interface on a 16-layer(!) PCB with 12,500 vias(!!) being designed by two people... Wouldn't surprise us if one person could have done the same job in a fraction of the time using four layers and a few hundred vias. Ho hum, I suppose it was only a matter of time before software inefficiency clawed its way into hardware design. Ah, progress...