on the internetz.
Venn Diagrams – a simple yet powerful set visualization tool – is put to good use over at Indexed, a site that explains how the intersection of ‘Grounded’ with ‘Airplanes’ and ‘Teenagers’ lead both to a bad spring break. Genius.
Addendum: And then shortly after, another interesting piece of maths randomness pops up. How to write the biggest number (other than ‘Google’ of course).
Last night, on the way back from a design awards ceremony, I decided to have my first ever serious Montreal winter fall. Whereas it has been absolutely freezing and icey the last few days, last night it turned into wet slushy now, which was now lying over a layer of solid ice. So, not being quite with it, I stepped off the sidewalk (that’s ‘pavement’ to my British readers) onto the road (that’s ‘pavement’ to my American readers) and into a slide fest of epic proportions. My left leg started to slide forward, so my right leg compensated by going back and then sliding out itself, then my left knee decided to help out – so I ended up in a rock star pose on one knee with both arms up in the air. Classy. Well, it would have been more classy except that the slush/stones decided to take out the knee of my left jeans and I now have a lovely graze to show for it as well as a dead pair of jeans.
All in all I gave myself 9/10 for execution, and 6/10 for self-damage. More scores as winter continues, and possibly even in New York if these snow storms continue…
Ah, it’s always fun to see my sweet homeland through the eyes of a foreigner – especially when that foreigner is looking at sweets. [From metafilter]
Tonight The Arcade Fire start their residency in Montreal for five nights. Like all of their other residencies the gigs are being held in small, intimate venues – with the associated immediate selling out and subsequent touting of tickets on eBay for significant profit. This is a shame, as like many folks, I think they’re really quite lovely and would like to see them live someday.
Then I found out that every day at 10am there are 50 tickets being released for sale at a local ticket shop. So this morning I popped along, just in case people hadn’t worked this out. Arriving at 10.10am the line looked pretty reasonable so I joined the end. Then the TV crews turned up asking people in front of us who was person number 50. A guy in orange about 15 people in front put his hand up. Doh. Of course having gone all the way up there I wasn’t going to go just because of that – so I hung around, with my new line buddies, till the shop owner stuck his head out the door and told us and the news crews that all 50 tickets were now gone and that the first in line had been there since 4.15am that morning and the 50th had arrived at 7.15am! More tickets are available tomorrow and every day after – but with -17c temperatures and lower I’m not convinced the tickets are worth hypothermia… Maybe.
Yesterday flickr changed their policies on ‘old skool’ users, that is to say the folks who signed up for the site prior to the Yahoo! takeover and requirement that you use Yahoo IDs. They also decided to place limits on the number of tags and contacts you can use – ostensibly for performance reasons. Turns out people are mighty pissed at this, and in fact I probably would be were it not that I already have a Yahoo ID from years back.
Of course the guy who is mighty pissed happens to be CEO of Zooomr.. an easily mistyped Flickr rip off that, every time I’ve visited it, is slow, badly designed and generally seems to be nowhere near as good as flickr even with these limitations. So I’m sure he’s happy and will pick up a few of the dissenters, the question is – how many old skool users, many of whom are big influencers in the online photo world, will leave now and how many accounts in general will become dormant. Time will tell.
On a related note though, I’ve been at the Always On conference the last few days – and in an interesting panel on ‘contagious web sites’ this morning discussion was made about how users are always pissed off when changes come out and, yes, you will lose a few – but the question becomes how many leave. I suspect the answer is not so many.
Just finished re-watching Groundhog Day
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it centers around a self-centered, cantankerous weatherman played by the ever amazing Bill Murray who goes to cover the groundhog day festival. All goes well for him, and badly for everyone else, until the next morning when, for some never explained reason, Murray wakes up on Groundhog day again. Everything is the same as the day before, and noone else seems to realise what he’s going through. This happens the next day, and the next, and so on..
The framework is based around an old Greek fable of an eternal idiot who never learns, and can’t die, but Harold Ramis (of Ghostbusters fame) does an amazing job of re-writing the story in a modern way. Murray is of course amazing, and is totally believable as he goes through the roller coaster emotions of happiness, despair and then acceptance. Along the way he learns many important life lessons and, of course, ends the film a better person. In the hands of these two masters, and a great supporting cast, the film never seems trite or preachy as it shares Murray’s learnings with us about how to best live your life. Plus it has a cute groundhog! So go watch it today. It’s perfect winter watching, and Groundhog Day is only a few days off now on February 2nd.
Here are some beautiful high speed shutter images of drops of milk falling into coffee – of which this one is particularly disturbing. I’ll never think about cream the same way again.. Thanks metafilter!
Today was the IdiotARod. A rag tag fugitive fleet of… oh wait. That’s Battlestar Galactica. Sorry. It’s basically just a group of folks who get a shopping cart (that’s trolley to us Brits), dress up funny and then ‘race’ to the finish in a treasure hunt of location finding.
IdiotARod is one of the reasons I love New York: people come together in ‘spontaneous’ gatherings such as this just for the hell of it. They brave possible police action, just to remind us all we’re here, we’re alive and we should cherish the fun and freedoms we have. Especially at a time when so many freedoms are being carefully eroded in the name of ‘safety’.
Next year come along. Or check out Chenguin. Or dress as a zombie. Or santa. Or start your own. I’ll be there.
BTW: In a fit of uncharacteristic timeliness I’ve uploaded all of my IdiotARod photos from today. Go check them out here.
Well since I’m not in Bermuda after all I wandered down to check out the Idiotarod, New York’s crazy trolly race. Turns out the police are big fans – the entire McClaren park starting point was surrounded by cops in cars & horses. Hmm. I seem to recall Mayor Bloomberg promising a less ‘police state’ approach to New York after Guiliani’s particular style of management.
HOWEVER – it transpired that this police presence caused the start to be moved. The police followed, aided by the ever present helicopter. A mass of Idoiotrodders gathered, and eventually the police commissioner spoke up: this was not a legal gathering, and we would be arrested if we didn’t follow traffic laws and keep to the sidewalks. Pretty easy stuff in theory.
Now, I’m exhausted, knackered from following after the ‘race’ (not that anyone’s really trying to win) and just about to go through the 700 odd photos I took. Check my flickr for them. A good day for all, except maybe for those covered in flour and dead fish.
So due to a slight hurricane hitting Bermuda today my trip’s being cancelled. Of course this was after I dragged myself out of bed and all the way to JFK. Doh. So if anyone feels like hanging out in New York this weekend let me know {:)