…not just physically tired, (I blame risk for that) but tired of other things.
Tired of holding back my ideas, tired of living miles from my friends, tired of money, tired of youtube, tired of being too busy to look up, tired of thinking too much, tired of the internet, and mostly tired of not getting the opportunity to serve God as much as I want.
This is why I haven’t blogged in a while, its difficult when you’ve no time to think about stuff, hence why I’m typing this at 11.00pm on the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend. I just want to have a job that truely matters, live near my friends and not have to worry about anything.
Meh.
Anyway. That was different.
You should watch these videos! They’re educational! In a fun way! I now know a lot about the Mongols. But watch it!
http://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse
I’m also looking for music videos for music that is any good. Please let me know some.
Where was I… oh yeah, tired. Physically tired! Board games. Risk at 9.00pm is a bad idea. It was a worse idea when it came to 2.00am.
Board games are awesome.
Gah. Time to sleep. Or continue watching Dr. Who. I haven’t decided yet.
Yeah, this happens on Radio 4. Its… certainly not a great thing in work.
Anyway. My last post was before Christmas, so as this is after Christmas, I should probably talk about that.
It’s January! I bought a telescope! FOR SPACE. And its been cloudy since I did that, so, after I worked out I can see Holywood, now its just… sitting there. Boo. I got it from Jessops 2 days before they closed for good. So I’m kinda glad it works.
Now I’ll actually talk about Christmas. Probably. That number I was talking about? IT’S GONE DOWN. And now its at 19. Ish.
Moving on, last night I defied the protests, and decided to come into town anyway to hang outwith my friends. It worked surprisingly well, after discovering 2 of the 3 routes into town I have were blocked, one of which by the heartless jackasses who did this:
Gagh.
And as I type this I see another story coming out of a delayed GP for a dying man.
…
Yeah.
Anyway, there were also a major number of hopefully unrelated road accidents, and I discovered several back roads I didn’t know about. And then played Settlers of Catan. It only took Steven 20 minutes to start giggling. I would’ve been proud if I hadn’t been trying to make it happen. If you don’t understand why he would giggle… here:
So, Christmas.
It was the usual great Christmas, with friends, family, and more friends. I took many annoying photos, blinded some friends, and took more annoying photos, attended a few awesome friends parties, danced a little at New Years (thats right. That happened.), introduced a friend to the original star wars trilogy, and dodged 2 burnt out cars on the Newtownards road one night.
So, all but the last made my Christmas awesome. Mainly the awesome people involved, except for the ‘protestor’s.
Now comes the geeky stuff.
Its CES! Things were announced there! And other things have been announced too.
3 important things (they were mostly announced last year… but more detail!):
Ubuntu Phone! This is a new OS that likely only geeks will use. But it will allow your phone to become your main computer MUCH easier.
4K… things!
4K is the next big resolution after Full HD, and many 4K devices have been announced, from TVs to tablets designed for pro photographers. You won’t notice/want to pay for the difference for a good few years probably, but, hey, MORE PIXELS. ’bout time.
Lastly…
The Oculous Rift, a totally immersive gaming or movie experience.
There were other things, like a totally waterproof smartphone that actually looks kinda good, a gaming handheld that can play PC Games, and a car that can pick you up. By itself. But those are the things I liked.
I’ve had 2 christmas cards so far. Neither got my name right. The first was from our painter and decorator, who managed to get my name confused with my dads, and made me a Rev. They also stuck an extra ‘r’ in my name. The other, strangely, came from Asthma UKNI, who called me Stephen. Its my middle name, but surely they must have my actual name?!?
Anyway, this gives me an idea. Person who gives/sends me a card with the most ridiculous derivation of my name wins a super awesome mega prize*
Moving on.
I have had a busy week. And yet I’m getting up early tomorrow to go pray with a whole bunch of other folk at city hall. And then I don’t know what, but at some point I’m finishing off getting tech ready for our churches ridiculously complicated but kind of awesome christmas kids service, followed by Mumford. I have no doubt I will pass out at some point. Preferably not while driving…
The mysterious number none of you care about is 355. Its a big number. Oh yes.
Now we come to the spoilers part of the blog.
This is a warning, there are spoilers.
SPOILERS.
I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH.
THERE ARE SPOILERS.
Got it?
Good.
The Hobbit. It was better than fellowship… though not by much. It suffered the mysterious plot point that the original 3 combined suffered.
Those are some lazy eagles.
They could’ve taken them the whole way, but nope. Lets just drop them on this random rock. Goodness knows how many orks and nasty spidery things lie in their way, but screw it WE’RE EAGLES. WE’LL HELP AS MUCH AS WE WANT. And apparently, its not very much.
Skraw.
Apart from that the whole thing had one properly exciting sequence, though it was longer than I expected, and otherwise consisted of walking. Lots of walking.
Which wouldn’t be neccessary, if it wasn’t for those lazy eagles, just like the first trilogy.
I’m sure I’ve annoyed enough LOTR fans now, so I’ll just leave it at that.
THUS ENDS THE SPOILERS.
And that’s just another segment of my mind.
*Super awesome mega prize might not be super, awesome or mega. In fact it might just be a figment of my own imagination.
Anyway, while I contemplate many an amazon wishlist, and the possibility of pretending to be in a coma so I don’t have to buy any of these things, I’ve decided I should write a blog.
Tonight I saw 7 psychopaths. No, I wasn’t in shaftesbury square, that collective of people would be called ‘Many Morons.’ 7 Psychopaths is a movie about psychopaths, and a writer trying to make up psychopaths while… well theres a few psychopaths. And some lovely murders. So, its a good film, typical of Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken and Colin Farrell, so, y’know. Insane. It is about psychopaths afterall…
Its coming up to Christmas! 18 days away in fact. Which means I have free time. Weird that. Thus, if there is an occasion I may be available for, then I probably will be.
The number today is 348. If my maths is right. Its not really that complicated…
I figure my time at work may as well be spent actually giving you videos to watch, so its time for:
Random Videos of the Time Since I Last Blogged.
Space Janitors!
Equal parts silly, weird, and… Canadian.
Blood And Chrome! Again.
Because its awesome.
This is just odd looking.
And finally, Star trek into darkness…
Epic.
That’s all from me, remember, Rioting is bad. Christmas is good. Be happy, not angry.
Its not about Christmas, because its still November.
Anyway, my head is bleeding. See?
The consequences of forgetting a hat.
This is what happens when you don’t wear standard full face masks on an airsoft shoot. Remarkably, it doesn’t hurt. Though I have no idea how I did that with my eyes. There may be some damage there.
Remember, this blog is not about Christmas.
So, other than airsoft, this evening I was at the Town Hall for the Hackerspace I am a member of, called Farset Labs. Farset labs is a fun place where many random things happen, all of which are perfectly legal, and only marginally unsafe, and they just bought a 3D printer. This means we get to make random things out of plastic really easily, like spare parts, joints, scale models of our own heads…. We also got a parrot AR drone, which should be fun, and we have a Massive R/C helicopter but none of us can fly it… and star trek pinball! And numerous random things like Megadrives, bbc micros, NExTs, and a strange talking rabbit that reads out the weather and utters random things. What I’m doing there currently is building a remote web controlled rover that I have all the parts for… I just need to program it and work out how to stop it burning itself out. And burning things down. Theres another project in my mind too but I need the printer first. And to design the thing. Its pretty cool.
Ow… one of my fingers hurts too. But not from airsoft, I slammed it in the gate at work’s car park.
Tomorrow I finally get to play one of my more recent purchase board games, Halo Risk, which promises to be an… experience.
Click for boardgamegeek reviews.
Having never played Risk before I figure this will be an interesting evening, filled with much bloodshed (my head will have stopped bleeding by then, hopefully, I mean imaginary blood) and the usually kind of anger and betrayal that comes from friends playing board games.
Speaking of which, never play a board game with Timie Wilson. I’m convinced he is either a very good cheater or INCREDIBLY lucky. I had to sacrifice my entire army to stop him from winning Civilization the other night. And I didn’t even win. Grr.
Remember folks, this blog has nothing to do with Christmas.Well… maybe I should talk about Christmas… or not. NUMBERS. Today’s number is 328…for now. These numbers have yet to go down. And they’ve yet to be guessed correctly. I’m fairly certain none of you are trying. Seriously. Its really freakin’ obvious.
I can’t stop watching this. I don’t know why.
I’m not sure what this says about me.
Could be worse though.
I could’ve linked this.
That’s right. Now watch that 40 times in 3 days and you’ll get the kind of psyche I have where I want to jump up at a particular point everytime I hear that frakin’ song.
That’s one of the more meaningless blogs over.
I think I should go lie down.
Remember. Its November. Maybe the next blog might be about Christmas. But this one wasn’t.
About an hour ago I got out of the cinema after watching Skyfall. But enough about that good movie, after coming out I heard the news.
Disney bought Lucasfilm, and are making a 7th (or rather 8th, but we ignore the animated one for more reasons we ignore the other 3) Star Wars movie.
Naturally I assumed I was being pranked. I was like, “That’s ridiculous! Why would they make another… Star… Wars… um…”
I was waiting in line for my cod bite supper when it sunk in. I was all:
But then… it sunk in. I felt kind of like this:
” I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened”
And then… then I don’t know what happened.
I guess Hallow’een is when nightmares come true.
I guess its when terrifying things get born, and the great stories of our youth are torn asunder.
I guess its when we should just throw away our lightsabers and x-wings and just grow up.
Nah.
I’ll just blot this from my memory and make sure my children never hear of such nonsense as a 7th star wars film. Then toss them their sabres and go out to garden and pretend to be force choked by a tiny little Vader.
Now that I finally got the 300 joke out of the way, I’m now awake enough to type another awesome* blog.
So, the last few days have been… an experience. A good one, though I appear to be missing several decibels. Have you seen them? They’re small and fit in your ear. They were last seen running away from the ridiculous amount of bass I could hear from the massive speakers I spent a good amount of time standing beside, and been replaced by a slight ringing. My ears are probably the main concern after the last few days, other than the damage to my psyche from something I still struggle to talk about without laughing so hard I cry.
MAD weekend is what brought about this ridiculous scenario where I lack hearing and or the ability to talk about an un-named amateur hip-hop dancer, where I spent time either:
With a camera, beside the stage, in front of a speaker
In a hall, waiting for people to turn up so I could sleep on an uncomfortable sofa
Giving a table quiz, 3 times and losing my voice
Otherwise teching. I’ve made it a verb now.
Avoiding my fan club. That’s right, I have a fan club. They’re all taller than me, and may be slightly crazy. The moment they discover this blog will be a problem.
Watching one of the MAD crew shamelessly flirt with half the girls on crew. It was weird.
Thus, I am now going back to work tomorrow, and TESTING. Sometimes I wonder if I am being tested, if I’m a psychological experiment to see how maddening YouTube is. However, then the mushroom at the other end of the phone tells me that if I can watch more videos, I get to eat him, so I KEEP TESTING. If you want to know what I do, and haven’t read the blog where I explained it, it is here.
Speaking of YouTube, I’m now gonna do a semi-regular slot on good videos available,
This is the first episode in a pretty good web series:
Its a baby with a gun!
And now its a baby panda. Without a gun. Don’t give baby pandas guns. That’s just asking for trouble.
Lastly, the magic number today is now 310. Still getting bigger. A similarly related number (to some people, to me, its irrelevant) is 363. So, that’s that.
Dave out.
*awesome according to several readers. Really. They told me. In person.
So, the other day I was in the Mace close to my work at lunch when someone beside me asks “hi, do you go to Bloomfield Presbyterian?”
To which I appropriately respond “yeah…?”
“wanna do a bible reading some Sunday?”
“Um… OK?”
“Great!”
I turn to pick up a wispa, and hes gone, just as mysteriously as he appeared.
Right.
Another weird thing that happened is, for some strange reason, work decided to go out for lunch on Wednesday to a restaurant, in UU called The Academy. It was… different. We weren’t expecting this. Things were strange from the moment we walked in. Go there, and you’ll see. Food’s good though.
I’ll be partaking in MAD this coming weekend, I should be on cameras on main stage, and I’ll hopefully get the opportunity to annoy some people with said camera 😛 I’ll also be Comparé at the table quiz on Saturday afternoon. Some of you may already know some of the answers, however, I trust the ridiculous riddles I can come up with help.
Magical number is 301 today. Its a good number. Please, someone, work out why. It has significance. You just need to work it out.
In a more geeky aspect to the world, the end of this month has the 3 biggest tech companies announcing new products (again) with google phones and probably another tablet, a smaller, but still probably pointlessly too big ipad from apple (there’s no point shrinking down your tablet if it still won’t fit in a reasonably large pocket), and quite possibly the most useful 10″ tablets from Microsoft. The most interesting thing though is the ludicrous resolutions HTC and Sharp have developed, full HD 5 inch screens… yet why can’t we find QuadHD 20″ screens? Gah.
There’s also Windows 8, which should be a relatively cheap upgrade, though I would say its a try before you buy thing.
And finally, a really important subject for you to discuss: How does that guys guitar rotate like that in Back To the Future 3? Seriously, why would you mount a guitar on a rotating thing like that? And Marty never looks Seamus in the eye correctly.
Dave Out.
Well, I’m still at home, but I’m gonna stop typing now.
That’s right, I listen to Radio 4 now. I’m old. 26 years old in fact.
And I’m OK with that.
So what does this mean now?
Jack all. Except I won’t understand when people talk about the top 40, and understand politics better.
Anyway, this week in work is going to be a living nightmare, so lets talk about other things! The last time I watched someone play FIFA was 2007. I watched someone play it again yesterday. It hasn’t changed. Normal games would get DLC for this kind of incremental change, not 5 £45 new games.
Keeping with the gaming talk, except onto a decent franchise that doesn’t rip off its customers, play The Walking Dead. Its not a normal game, more like a make-your-own-adventure book, and its great. I’ve had games make me jump, but this got me pretty close to tears at one point. The story follows the zombie apocalypse, like the TV show, but a guy running with a little girl he found in a treehouse, and trying to look after her. They come across a family, parents and a 10 year old son, and you spend several game hours with them, building a friendship with the father, and leaning on the mother as she was one of the most reasonable, sane people in the group. Then, the son gets bit while running from one of their ‘safe’ houses. The boy is dying, but everyone knows he will turn into a zombie when he dies. The mother and father make the hard decision that they have to shoot him, as they don’t want him coming back as a zombie. When its clear the boy is about to die, you watch as they argue about which of them should shoot him. You convince them that either the mother or father should do it, then watch as they take the boy into the wood so the little girl with you doesn’t see. You hear a shot, but something isn’t right. The father is screaming to his wife. Your character runs to see what was happening. The mother is lying on the ground, with a pistol in her hand and her brains blown out. She’d shot herself, unable to bear the sight of her son dying. Your job is then to console the grieving husband and make sure the son doesn’t come back. You have the choice to take the gun, or let the distraught father do it. It’s hard to pull that trigger. And then you have to console a grieving father for the rest of the game. Its more fun than it sounds.
On to a lighter note! Looper is a good movie! Though Joseph Gordon Levitts eyebrows confused me. It was like they digitally skewed his face to make him look like Bruce Willis, though I’m pretty certain they didn’t.
Taken 2 is not that great. It needed to be a 15, not a movie where people died when Liam Neesan touched them. He’s not Chuck Norris. Also, the pistol I have for Airsoft is the same as his in the first half of the movie. And my spell checker doesn’t recognize Movie… aaand now it does. Though it doesn’t look right now…
Speaking of airsoft, Its fun. Do it. But bring gloves. And hopefully the 3 massive welts from yesterday on my forehead will have faded by now (I don’t wear forehead protection. It’s not smart). In a nutshell its realistic looking firearms powered by gas or motors, firing pellets at about 300 feet per second. Its just enough to hurt, maybe bruise, maybe break skin, definitely break your eyeball, but if you’re wearing loose layers and the face protection, you’re fine. It’s like Call of Duty where you can actually inflict real pain on annoying people.
What else am I doing now I’m 26? Looking suspicious. Its a life plan.
No one knows what the numbers meant (which I forgot to put in the last 2 posts…) so, here it is again, 295! 295. Thats right. 295. Yup.
Dave – One day older than 25.
P.S. Thanks to all you lovely people for the birthday messages.
P.P.S. I wrote this yesterday. If I broke present/past/future/grammatical tense then I apologize.
Its come to my attention that few of you, if any, know what my job actually is. Well, this might be the most boring blog of all time, as I explain what I do in my job and how I can describe it as “watching YouTube all day” or “playing with phones all day”.
Firstly, a little background. The internet you get on your phone over 3G isn’t the same internet you get over WiFi. Its a bit… smaller. For example, using the YouTube app on a smartphone over Wifi will serve you good quality video where you can make out faces and decent text, but uses more data. Over 3G it will (by default) serve lower quality video, that in some cases, looks horrible, but can be streamed over much weaker quality a connection. This is just how YouTube works. Now all these videos can be inefficient in how well they are compressed, are not well optimized for most devices, and could in fact, be reduced in bandwidth use further, without reducing quality significantly, using a process called Mediation just before it gets send over the airwaves to your phone.
So, Carriers buy our product to reduce the bandwidth use of videos, before it gets sent to your phone, therefore decreasing the load on their systems, and lowering your data planbill.
Now every video on the internet has different factors that may impact our optimisation system, and every device will handle them differently, and that’s where I come in. My job is to confirm that our software can optimise videos from different sites, (though primarily YouTube), on different devices, and the user experience is not impacted. I usually watch popular videos, previously problematic videos, and then random videos if I have time. For example, in the last version of our software, I watched Taylor Swift (popular), Yogscast (troublesome) and Robot Wars (random), along with MANY others, across multiple 3G connected devices. I may have to watch some videos dozens of times if there’s a problem, which is a problem for my sanity, but it wasn’t really there in the first place, and now everytime I hear that taylor swift song I want to stand up during one point of the chorus. Grrr….
Some of this is automated, fortunately, and saved me from watching Bieber earlier, but user experience is key, so nothing beats an actual user. Except 2 or more users. Or an angry man with a big stick.
I do do other things in my job, like the automation, and digging deep into our product to work out issues, but this is the bit I can explain…
Now for some fun things I’ve learnt thanks to my job.
30% of streamed content, over 3g networks, so most likely NOT in a persons own home, or place of work, is adult content. Lovely thought.
iOS and android are equally problematic when it comes to streaming video.
Working with all phone OS’s has converted many apple fan boy’s to android. And we all agree Nokia’s Windows Phone’s are pretty, but lack of Apps and updates make it difficult to justify.
Japan has only one model of phone identical to western phones.
Students are weird. (Particularly fashion students. We work beside the Art college…)
Anyway, I went to the cinema! We watched Resident Evil!
<SPOILER>
