I realise that “a team is more than a collection of individuals” – but like all good clichés, it’s also the truth. Besides, with players of this caliber when they were at the peak of their game, I think either of these teams would be a match for pretty much anyone.

Maybe a team of present-day greats with their associated higher professionalism and fitness would give them a good game – that’s a game I’d love to see.

I’d be interested to see your suggestions!

Red Team

Blue Team

“It is found that anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later”
- Alfred Holt, 1877 (Murphy’s Law)

The Deep Water Horizon disaster is undoubtably a catastrophic occurance. At the risk of sounding unpopular, it is also possibly a great opportunity. The first blowout of somewhere around 50,000 American offshore wells should force people – and governments – to have a long hard look at their priorities and energy usage.

For all of the bluster and ill-feeling directed toward BP, the USA has to face up to it’s massive reliance on oil. The upper estimate on the scale of the spill is 100,000 barrels of oil per day. The demand for oil in the USA in 2009 was just under 13,000 barrels of oil. Per minute. All that oil has to come from somewhere and attempting to reduce imports leaves only one option available.

There were a lot of database jobs backing up in the process list and this confused me – our connections are implemented as singleton classes and I was pretty sure that all of the queries had been examined with some EXPLAIN ANALYZE attention.

After some head-scratching I came up with this command line script that will list the five most CPU intensive SQL queries for the current user in the process list:

ps aux --sort=pcpu | grep "postgres: $USER" | tail -5 | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs -I{} psql -c 'select procpid, current_query, query_start, backend_start from pg_stat_activity where procpid = {}'

There is a well-established hierarchy on the road: truck drivers hate cars, car drivers hate cyclists and cyclists hate pedestrians. It works the other way along the chain too. Where does this stem from? Sheer embittered experience.

Within 50 meters of leaving the flat, two pedestrians started to cross the road – against the suggestion from the signal – and walked right in front of me. I gave them a good shout and they thankfully managed to jump back before I ploughed into them. Further along my way on up to the canal a woman behind the wheel of a BMW blithely ignored the protocol of giving way to your right at a roundabout and pulled straight out. Thankfully my brakes were up to the task asked of them.

It has been quite a while since I last rode along the Union canal towpath and in the meantime some helpful soul has erected signs asking cyclists to slow down to a near walking pace. These signs have now been officially replaced by British Waterways. Apparently I’m one of the few cyclists who sound their bell when approaching pedestrians. Of course, this makes absolutely no bloody difference if those walking in front of me are listening to their iPods at full volume¹.

Everyone, for the love of Pete, please, please bloody well pay attention to those around you and obey the rules – no matter what your mode of transportation.

¹ I’m thinking of strapping one of these to my top tube to replace my bell.

I had an feeling before the matches started that FIFA’s obstinate stance on introducing more technology into the game would become untenable. Their argument that the game should be the same at all levels just doesn’t wash. For a start, the game as played at the top level is already very different from the games played in Sunday league matches around the world. No club tennis player – or umpire – expects to have Hawkeye adjudicating during their rallies.

This isn’t just a bitter England fan speaking after Frank Lampard’s non-goal so I’m not about to argue that the outcome would have been different – England’s capitulation was nothing short of embarrassing.

The goal scored by Tevez despite being blatantly offside (actually replayed on the big screen inside the stadium) and De Jong’s appalling challenge / assault in the final are just two further examples of where video replay would have been beneficial but maybe officiating these kinds of infringements can wait for augmentation until goal line technology has bedded in and proved to be a success – which it undoubtedly will be. Extra linesmen referees assistants on the goal line have been tried and been shown to be ineffectual.

The Uruguayan Suarez’s handball in the final seconds of the quarter-final which was ultimately responsible for Ghana’s exit was spotted and punished. I’m not saying that he was right to cheat in this way but I don’t think I’d like anyone who wouldn’t be prepared to do the same on my team. Unfortunately he didn’t show any dignity in his celebrations after Uruguay won on spot kicks and sentiment turned against him even more. FIFA need to introduce the concept of a penalty goal to combat this.

A simple addition to the game in attempt to stop encroachment at free kicks is temporary pitch markings which only necessitate the referee to carry a can of spray paint with him.

Another rule I’d like to see introduced is the banning of defenders shepherding the ball out of play – any player employing this practice anywhere else on the pitch would be pulled up for obstruction. I’d make it illegal to shield the ball unless the player has touched it and is in control.

60 years ago, squad numbers² didn’t exist and substitutes weren’t heard of in the English League. Rule changes – both cosmetic and game-related – sometimes help move the game forward and sometimes the experiments just don’t work (Golden / Silver goal) but doing nothing about the failings in the game is not an option. What do you think needs to be done to make the game better?

¹ Football being a game played with a ball, controlled by the feet. I’m not talking about Handegg here.
² Interesting sidenote: since squad number were introduced in 1954, the Netherlands are the first team to line up 1-11 in a World Cup final.

Man: Doctor, it hurt’s when I do this!
Doctor: Well don’t do that then!

Seriously, if holding the phone a certain way does affect performance then I don’t see it being a huge problem to be asked to hold the phone in a slightly different way – and a solution that, frankly, I’d hope most intelligent people could work out for themselves. Others disagree that this is a satisfactory suggestion.

Apple are not the kind of company that releases a product without a lot of thought being put into it (cf. Microsoft Kin). If there was a serious issue then the product would be held back while the situation was fully resolved, as has happened before.

The issue apparently stems from an FCC regulation about the amount of radiation that should be directed at your head.

I’m not sure about elsewhere in the world but video calling was the big thing that carriers hoped would justify the massive investments they paid in license fees for the nascent 3G technology a decade ago¹. There was just one problem: hardly anybody wanted to make those video calls.

If there is one company that can (and does) change attitudes by implementing things differently – and usually a whole lot better – than everybody else it’s Apple. Maybe the bigger screen will help, maybe the famous Steve Jobs reality distortion field will come into play or maybe iChat integration will be the game changer.

¹ As an aside, don’t old BBC News website items look really strange? Every iteration seems to upset users but they’ve all been invariably for the better.

Nobody yet has been able to explain to me why this happens instead of just using what we would normally export and importing £2.1bn.

The main example of this mantra at the moment is the flawed argument that HTML5 will kill flash. Nonsense. There is a situation for either one.

Replacing the single-use (albeit massively entrenched) scenario of video does not sound the death knell for Flash.

That said, I have entered the “summer Nev” phase and shaved off my beard.

I think that the beard had served its purpose over the winter months and I was in distinct danger of becoming almost fashionable.

Besides, most of my time-pieces change themselves now which leads me to wander around looking confused for a few hours until I see independent verification of the actual time.

“He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead.”
- Riposte to the No Fear T-shirts of the mid-90s

After four years of student life and nigh on a decade living as a bachelor, I’ve just taken a huge step and moved into a new flat with my girlfriend. To say that I’m excited would be an understatement!

Neither of us have moved in with the other. Reasons of space aside, neutral territory just makes better sense in terms of nullifying any perceived views of encroachment.

I’m finding it sort of depressing having seen my worldly possessions reduced to a stack of cardboard boxes. That said, you can’t pack the ethereal. There is a smidgen of guilt that I didn’t save more money during the time I was living for a lot less. I keep having to remind myself that in that time I not only paid off my overdraft and student loans but I was also fortunate enough to manage an awesome three months on a worldwide trip of a lifetime.

From time-to-time I (and I guess everybody else) does ponder the “what ifs” of life. What if I hadn’t gone to university? What if I hadn’t gone on that trip? What if I hadn’t talked to that person in that bar? Obviously none of us will ever know but this I do know: I am fantastically happy having taken the path I have through life so far – be it through active choice, fate or happy coincidence.

To paraphrase Calvin, following the traditional British route of saving hard for a deposit, taking out a hefty mortgage and obsessing about being a homeowner may be “the done thing” by this stage in my life but I certainly wouldn’t be the person I am with the experiences that I now have had I gone down that path.

Being the first mover in a field can obviously provide you with a tremendous advantage – but only if you get it right. Judging by the response from the rest of the industry, Apple certainly got it right with the iPhone. Decrying the product before it was even released masked a degree of nervousness from the existing handset makers who had seemingly taken their eye off the ball and stopped innovating. Nowadays most smartphones follow the form factor of the iPhone and the result has become patent minefield with companies resorting to sue and countersue.

Palm have suffered badly in recent times, their “iPhone killer” simply hasn’t lived up to scratch. “Killing the iPhone” is a flawed approach and I think Microsoft have been smart enough to realise this with their Windows Phone 7 Series.

Sidney Perkowitz suggests that every film should be allowed to ask us to suspend our disbelief on one occasion only. Currently, movies fly seemingly permanently in the face of what would actually happen in reality. Misguided attempts to recreate or re-enact what we’ve seen on screen notwithstanding, what’s the harm in letting the special effects department use it’s collective imagination to entertain us for 90 minutes? Have we become so entranced and convinced by Hollywood cataclysmic disaster movies that NASA is forced to assure us that the world won’t end in 2012?

It would appear so.

The reason that we have science-fiction and not science-fact is simply one of entertainment: one is and the other one usually isn’t. Watching a hacker craft a buffer overflow exploit – while more realistic and non-offending to computer professionals – isn’t exactly going to make for edge-of-the-seat thrills.

One of my old flatmates used to scoff at virtually every movie at least once, using phrases like “Pfft! As if!” or “Well that’d never happen” to the point where I stopped going to the cinema with him.

‘Realistic’ exists already: it’s called a documentary.

However, two very simple things that are on my wishlist are:

1. An icon in the status bar that indicates if the ringer is turned off.
2. A feature that I’m sure I had enabled on my Palm Pilot in the 90s: assigning the home button double click action to toggle between the last two used applications.

“He is educated who knows how to find out what he doesn’t know.”
- George Simmel

As I alluded to in my previous post, finding out what you don’t know has never been easier. While the mobile Internet has all but curtailed the fevered pub discussions about pointless trivia, Google is far from having made us dumb.

Source: Chuck & Beans

The odds are that we’ll have a hung parliament in a few months. Despite the tempting mental image that this conjures in light of the expenses and other MP scandals of late, this is not a good thing.

There’s a good chance that the UK would lose its triple-A credit rating because investors would more than likely view a fragmented government as being unable to form a concerted and focused effort to get the country’s finances back on track and thus making it more expensive for the country to borrow money. As has happened in recessions of the past the feared double dip looms large. Whatever happens in the election, I think that a rise to 20% VAT is inevitable this year and despite being kept at a historical low of 0.5% once more, interest rates will obviously rise again.

While greater than expected, a 0.3% rise in the economy is still little more a statistical anomaly when taken in the bigger context rather than any concrete indication that the worst is behind us. The spin that we’re out of the woods is just that.

I don’t want to spread fear but it certainly does look like the UK is in a heap of trouble and many people far more versed in this kind of thing think that we’re in for a long Kondratiev winter and choosing when to start the serious and inescapable cut backs will make a massive difference to the outcome.

If this terrible accident was the low point, then the highlight had to be the debut of skier cross. A lot of people here in the UK dismiss the Winter Olympics, regarding the events as the mountain passtimes of the rich and spoiled, failing to recognise the years of training and sacrifice each and every athlete dedicate to their sport.

Throughout the Games, these athletes displayed tremendous feats of not only physical but also mental and emotional strength. None more so than ice skater Joannie Rochette who competed only days after the death of her mother and Petra Majdic who won bronze with five broken ribs and a punctured lung.

After Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang’s injury forced him to withdraw from the Beijing final in 2008, his sponsors offered their immedite support – Nike quickly releasing a special advert (from Wieden + Kennedy) with this message:

“Love competition.
Love risking your pride.
Love winning it back.
Love giving it everything you’ve got.
Love the glory. Love the pain.
Love sport even when it breaks your heart.”

You may think this was merely cynical corporate marketing but personally it beautifully encapsulates the spirit of the Games. Our day-to-day view of sport at the moment tends to be all about match fixing allegations, drug taking, personal scandal or cold-hearted business deals.

For some, the best Olympic moments feature the brave have-a-go underdog like Michael Edwards (you’ll probably know him better as Eddie the Eagle) or Eric “The Eel” Moussambani. However, in my eyes, nothing will ever eclipse the memory of Derek Redmond and his father on the track in 1992 and I don’t mind admitting that I well-up every single time I watch it.

If you’re not drinking from the firehose then perhaps it isn’t unsurprising that some things will pass you by. I am by no means attempting to claim that I see everything worth seeing on the Internet every single day. To do so would be impossible – even the professionals miss a lot of things first time around.

However, that’s not to say that my friends who largely live offline aren’t interested in some of the wonderful stuff that’s out there. Most won’t “get” XKCD but when I received an email last week pointing me toward the epic Two Gentlemen of Lebowski that I first saw at the start of the year, I realised that it’s my responsibility to bring these things to the fore in my role as “the geeky one” of the group.

To this end, I plan on using my Tumblr account to share interesting clips and articles that I encounter and keep this here blog for longer pieces and the occasional rant.

I’m aware that this time last year the UK was still recovering from crippling snowstorms that paralysed the country. Indeed, the weather achieved what even the Blitz didn’t and stopped the bus services in London.

Nevertheless, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Spring is just around the corner. It’s almost light when I get up on the morning and almost still light when I leave the office. On average, Spring is arriving 11 days earlier than it did 35 years ago.