The Internet tubes today were mainly full of comments about two things: Gmail going down and Apple releasing a public beta of Safari 4. Had the Gmail outage coincided with Twitter going belly-up at the same time then I think that productivity levels around the planet would have rocketed. As it was, Twitter stayed up as people whined about Gmail and I bathed in some smugness as I rarely use it because of this exact scenario. Then Apple came along with something to distract the Twitterverse from bemoaning their complete lack of emails: a new version of Safari.
From my early impressions, Safari 4 has taken the best bits of other browsers and added a bit of Apple polish to them. The Awesome Bar from Firefox, Opera’s Speed Dial, Chrome’s Tabs-on-Top, Webkit’s blazing fast JavaScript engine (but with a sensible name) and Developer Tools. Notice the glaring omission from that list? Yes, nothing from Internet Explorer made the grade. Funny that.
The more observant among those of you who have visited before may have noticed that a new tab has appeared in the header panel today. My playground is a place for me to mess around with code once I’ve finished coding all day.
An idea can (and does) strike me at random and on the odd occasion that it turns out to be a good one then this is where I will flesh it out. Who knows? Somebody else might find stuff here to be useful too someday!
Recently I’ve noticed something of a resurgance of hoax emails, warning of various scams, old jokes and other detritus. I’m not sure if this is because I’ve been on the Internet for a long time and there is just actually no new content or if it’s simply a consequence of eternal September.
Either way, as far as I am concerned, chain letters are still forbidden on the Internet as per RFC 1855, section 2.1.1, paragraph five.
To try and stem the tide, I’ve outlined a five step plan below that you can send to all of your friends who forward things to you1.
Step one:
Pause. Do not hit forward immediately. Lives do not depend on you sending an email on to your friends as quickly as possible.
Step two:
Think. Does this email make sense? Can Microsoft actually check how many people I forward this email to? Is Baklaliviatatlaglooshen actually a place? Would Neiman Marcus actually sell their cookie recipe for $250? Just how much do you believe in fate, karma and evil spirits?
Step three:
Research. If you’re still unsure if you should pass the email on to all and sundry then try a search on a key sentence of the email. More than likely you’ll end up at a website (like snopes.com for example) which documents urban legends and exposes their fallacy or, very occasionally, truthfulness.
Step four:
Pause again. If you can’t verify the email is actually true then don’t automatically forward it. Would your friends find the email useful or informative? Would they appreciate the sentiment or humour?
Step five:
Delete the email.
1 That was a joke. Please don’t.
I’m having a problem with Bluetooth in the office at the moment. In my pre-iPhone days, one of my favourite things about using Salling Clicker in conjunction with my Sony Ericsson k700i was that I could walk away from my desk and Adium would set my instant messenging status to “Away”. This worked fine in the flat where internal walls would limit the Bluetooth signal. At the time I was still shackled to a PC at work and Salling Clicker was only available for OS X.
Bluetooth support on the iPhone is, frankly, poor. Nevertheless, after finding the Proximity application, I hoped to restore my previous automated IM status messages. We’re very fortunate to have an open-plan office in the middle of Edinburgh and this is causing a problem. Unless I’m in the server room or have left the building completely, then I am still in range of my computer but I’m clearly away from my desk. I have exactly the opposite problem to usual: Bluetooth range is just too good.
I’d like to inhibit Bluetooth performance to a class three equivalent which has a range of about one meter. To this end, I’m looking for some kind of case for the Mac Mini. I think that the top left corner of the Mac Mini is where the Bluetooth gubbins is located so I may start experimenting with some shielding there.
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.
- Franklin P. Jones
I’m a big fan of the concept of Lombardi time. If something starts at 8pm, then be there at least 10 minutes before and don’t arrive at 8pm – this is not the cinema where you have at least 20 minutes of preamble.
I want to start a new trend: where being fashionably late is no longer fashionable. Why this particular ‘fashion’ has persisted for so long is a mystery to me. I think that people should strive to be politely prompt instead. Surely things will run so much more smoothly that way.
My afternoon yesterday was interrupted by a knock at the door by a couple of people wanting to share some “good news from the Bible” with me1. I’m assuming that they were Mormons or something similar and not Jehovah’s Witnesses as they weren’t wearing suits and didn’t have a child in tow – something I find fairly distasteful. To paraphrase Dawkins, there’s no such thing as a religious child, merely a child of religious parents. How are children supposed to make such a weighty life decision when they’ve only just finished eating worms in the back garden?
Also yesterday in the UK, a nurse was suspended for offering to pray for a patient. Community nurse Caroline Petrie claims that her “faith got stronger” and she realised God was doing amazing things in her life – shortly after the death of her mother. Cause and effect in action perhaps?
There seems to be a renewed focus on faith recently – somewhat fittingly considering that this is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. No doubt that the Athiest bus campaign has brought debate to the fore too.
Half of British people surveyed recently rejected the theory of Evolution. I just hope that a lot of them watched Sir David Attenborough narrate a fantastic documentary on Charles Darwin which aired on BBC One last night and did so with an open mind instead of the small-mindedness that generates hate mail.
I don’t begrudge people their beliefs but why can’t they leave me in peace? It’s not like I don’t know where to go if I had questions about religion. Edinburgh is full of places of worship. Holy Corner is a prime example.
How about this: don’t come and try and convert me with readings from the Bible and I won’t come and read at you from Origin of Species. Do we have a deal?
1 Annoyingly, it wasn’t until an hour later when I thought about asking them if said “good news” was some kind of retraction.
