Ministry of teh Food [Slim]

Caught the first episode of Jamies Ministry of Food last night. It's a revival of the government drive to get people cooking at home at the start of the century. Jamies mission is to target chavs who can't cook and eat takeaways and ready meals and teach them some meals, and then get them to teach their mates, and make a happier healthier country.

It's a noble cause, but why is it even required? How did we get into the situation where people can't fry an egg? How can anyone on benefits afford to eat a takeaway every night? The producers probably did this intentionally, but there's one scene with a young mother in tears because she can't afford to bus it to the supermarket to buy food so has to go to the chippy, a moving scene that's punctuated by her dragging on a fag to the background noise of her massive flat screen TV. How have people reprioritised food out of their lives in this way?

One thing I'd add to his campaign is that that people also could do with learning to use leftovers more. We do at least one soup a week with leftovers that would normally go in the bin. For a family of five, that's a fair ole bit of dosh saved.

What I don't get also is the skills issue central to the show. I can understand this from a convenience standpoint, you can't be arsed to chop veg, you'd rather just heat it up. But if you can heat up an Tesco ready meal, you can heat up a raw spud and make it into a baked spud. Cover it with cheese and salad and you've got a meal. How is this in any way challenging?

Interior Decoration For The Leet [DrDave]

Hello Lairlords. A short blog, seeking the wisdom of my peers.

I'm redecorating my home office, where I "work". And I want a decent desk. I don't want one of those mentalist computer desks with fold out flaps and keyboard shelves that jitter and jive when your typing approaches a reasonable pace. I want something long and flat, maybe with some drawers or storage off to one side, but enough workspace to do a couple of monitors, a printer and maybe a novelty dancing plastic flower. Wood, quite light but I'm flexible. About £100 if that's realistic.

So far, my front runner is an Ikea job, but I find myself a little uninspired by that. Please to make recommend.

[Also, an office chair - nothing to expensive, but must have a galant name like "the Matadore", or "the Faustian Lament"]

Bike To Work [Spiny]

I got a bike through the government cycle to work scheme* last November, but was too much of a pussy to start till the clocks changed. Having done the commute a few times a week since May, I thought I'd share some of my hot tips & gear.

• The Bike The bike I chose was a Specialized Allez Elite, mainly because a while ago I'd ridden a friends M4 Stumpjumper & been well impressed. That & the fact that they're red & thus fast :) Carbon seat post, forks & stays help reduce some of the road buzz & the geometry is very comfy. Specialized BG fit saddles are also very good, with a cut out to reduce pressure on your perenium so your old man doesn't go permanently to sleep. You may be tempted to remove the (by the law) fitted bell, but I moved mine under the stem & have found it very useful to warn walkers to clear the way. It usually takes a few dings to rouse people from their catatonic state but the courtesy is appreciated. As the bike is a bit of a racer I fitted some clip on mudguards which have been handy for the sub tropical conditions of this summer. They come off nice & easy too for when you take your bike somewhere that has Sun. This time of year you also need lights. LED Rears are much of a muchness, but I've been really pleased with the Cateye EL530 front I bought. I needed to replace the front tyre, as the originally fitted Bontrager got pretty cut up from road crap. Like a fool, I bought the same again, which lasted about a week, and strangely was very noisy. After a few enquiries, I settled on another replacement Continental GP 4000. This was a bitch to get over the rim (I guess Germans have strong thumbs), but it's a great tyre. Robust, grips well & intact after a few weeks abuse so far.
• Clothing I'm a big fan of Endura stuff from my MTB days and have just bought a second MT500 long sleeve jersey. It's fab, really well made, decent pockets & zips. Wiggle have these as discontinued so I'd pick one up quick if you fancy one. Jut make sure to wash on cool < 40C as some of the Scotchlite bits on mine have peeled. I have a Goretex for the rain, but it's not high-vis (read "eye-burning yellow") so I'd like to grab an Altura Night Vision o Endura Luminite when funds allow. Socks are pretty important & De Feet Wooly Boolies are fab. They're pretty good at keeping your feet nice & comfy in heat or cold. I've been pleased with the Specialized Shoes I got for Xmas too, though I reckon the comps may be worth the extra for the snugger ratchet fit. Again, dead comfy.
• Gadgets My Nokia 6220 Classic has been a surprisingly great bike accessory with the addition of Nokia Sports Tracker. As well as tracking your ride with the built in GPS it will geo tag your photos, place them on your routes, even place the mp3s you were listening to too. There's also a gadget for iGoogle. For phone protection, I picked up an Aquapac Micro The phone remains fully useable, but nice & dry, which is handy when it's in your back pocket recording your your route home in the pissing rain. This one's even a UK product \0/. Back to the Jerries for a rucksack though & the Ortlieb Velocity has been uber. Holds a stack of shit (tm) and is completely and utterly waterproof, and almost as importantly big and yellow with reflective logos. There's a handy detachable pouch inside for a few shower things & keys etc. The waist and chest straps keep it very stable on the bike, as do the shaped shoulder straps. Cyclecraft is a great book if you're at all unsure about riding in traffic or need to help your kids with the same. I bought it more for reassurance really, but still picked up some useful tips to avoid being knocked off by stupid car drivers. I'd also recommend The Haynes Bike Book. I've had my copy years & could do with another with updated stuff like v-brakes.
• 'Tinternet Resources
  • Sportstracker, see above. Also has a Widget to put on iGoogle, Facebook or wherever. The dev blog is here.
  • Wiggle Good web shop, often has offer codes.
  • SJS Cycles another good shop, very nice helpful lady on the phone when I rang up for an order inquiry.
  • On line GPS File format converter.
  • Bikeradar new & reviews.
  • The Bicycle Tutor videos
  • MapMyRide for an alternative to Sportstracker. This has a nice feature that it puts markers every mile of your route.
  • Giro. The best helmets. You may think they look stupid, but you'll look more stupid being fed your liquidised Sunday lunch with a spoon for the rest of your life. You may as well get a cool one.
  • Immac for the legs... just kidding ;)

All in all I'm really glad I've started the commute with cycling, I feel loads better for it, dropped two belt notches & filling the car up half as often. Win!







* They don't help the image of cycling by having crap pictures like this twat but you can't have everything I suppose.
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Microsoft Labs Photosynth - got any tips? [Beej]

Photosynth from Microsoft Labs has been viewable for about a year, but this week it went live and users can now upload their own 3D synths.

You'll know Photosynth from that 2007 demo when the smart chap from MS wowed us with Venice.

After excitedly browsing Photosynth, I found that it's all pretty lame. Like a guy who did St Pauls Cathedral from the same spot on the street and took 9 photos. So it being a bank holiday weekend, I've given it a swizz myself!

• I chose MINI as the subject... couldn't think of a small enough local landmark
• I took nearly 400 lores (1024x768) photos walking around the car and inside the car, and of the tree and low moss-covered wall beside the road
• Processing took nearly an hour on an E6600, and the app said that more than 300 photos is not necessarily good.
• It has not gone well, though... the synth was 47% "successful" ;-(

My first test synth can be viewed here: Beej's MINI Cooper S (2003)

One of my problems with Photosynth is the interface, so some tips:

• press P to cycle viewmodes of points/images/both
• mousewheel to zoom in/out
• the leaf icon with three dots (in the corner) is very useful - it jumps to areas where it made good matches - press it once to jump to the stick that was near the wall
• the grid view icon is the only way I can find to get to the tree on the right side of the car. It has done an incredible job at mapping the tree in 3D! Make sure you view it in points mode :)

So, it's not really gone as well as I had hoped. Admittedly, a metallic reflective two-colour car... a building might well be the ideal subject.

IMO the UI is not helping Photosynth though, nor is the basic navigation in the virtual environment. How is it not possible to get from the front to the back of the car?

Zoom out in points view. All the way. It's quite interesting. it has done the side of the road better than the car!

The RTFM, which I'd read beforehand, recommends at least 9 photos for the corner of a building. It also recommends stepped close/far linear shooting for going along a flat object like a wall. In both cases, a lot of overlap.

It was hard to break the habit of shooting for a digicam panorama - not enough overlap - and also shooting for texture maps. Both are bad practices AFAIK.

Photosynth seems to be better suited to a public space with public harvested photos - like the Venice demo - where the photos were taken from flickr. Next test - a building - but look forward to one of you trying an inside room!

eBuyer? eShit more like! [Brit]

I've really cut down on the amount of computer related stuff I buy these days, pretty much because I've got everything I need and frankly don't have much time to spend building mexes, sniping or generally using a mini-gun and a hearty laugh to mow down unsuspecting peons. Such is life.That said, I do occasionally purchase little things - an upgrade to my powerline homeplug things for example. Indeed, I've literally just tried to use eBuyer.com to purchase a new gigabit switch as my current 10/100 router (albeit the excellent Draytek) is struggling under the demands of file shifting across the network.

Simple enough - 8 port gigabit switch please with a few newly minted CAT6 cables. Everything in stock, select 'deliver next week in 5 working days' option (so no delivery charged as this stuff isn't urgent) and use Google Checkout - a service that makes Paypal look complicated. All done. 10 minutes total elapsed time. Happy Brit.

Email number 1 arrives: receipt from eBuyer.

Email number 2 arrives: confirmation from Google Checkout.

Email number 3 arrives: confirmation of order received (but not payment taken) from eBuyer.

Email number 4 arrives: 8 port gigabit switch is OUT OF STOCK.

Email number 5 arrives: confirmation that my order is now suspended unless eBuyer have already taken cash..

So two things annoyed me here:

Firstly, eBuyer.com clearly shows that the product in question has 833 in stock. 833! I only want one of them please, and I very much doubt that there has suddenly been a run on these things in the last 5 minutes.

Secondly, what is with email number 5? Surely eBuyer.com know if they've taken payment or not?

Anyhow, I cancelled the order. Google Checkout rules for this. Fuck eBuyer. They've spent so long arsing around with their new website, but its clearly just papering over some fairly fundamental issues around inventory reporting and transaction status management.Chances are they'd eventually ship via ShittyLink as well, meaning it'd never turn up anyhow.Just how on earth can they get this stuff so fucking wrong eh?

All praise saynoto0870.com! [Beej]

To cut a long story short...

...God I hate missing deliveries!

UPS this time, and the UPS phone system is pure evil. It asks you to READ OUT your tracking numbers. It's quite a long number. It basically doesn't work and that's no surprise because it's a fucking retarded idea to read the number out. Of course you can't type it in using DTMF, that would be too easy. Then today I have a flash of inspiration - use saynoto0870 to get their real phone number and bypass the shit computer!

Works first time. Phone rang once then got picked up by a UPS human, no waiting in queue and no reading out of 12 digit numbers!

That site rules. While UPS clearly suck.

What's in a number? [DrDave]

When I was a wee bairn we used to go on our annual holiday to the Lake District. It was pretty cool when I was younger, but when I grew up and got too-cool-for-school (relatively speaking) I found spending time with the family playing Frisbee to be several storeys beneath me. As a youth, I was never part of any particular "scene" (unless "smart casual" is a scene, and I'm pretty sure it isn't) but I did like videogames. So when the Frisbee came out, I'd wander off to the camp site arcade and stick my football sticker money into whatever game was around at the time.

One particular summer, I remember a battle of wits with an old Slapfight machine. Or, more specifically, the holder of the high score on the Whitecross Caravan park Slapfight machine - "SPU". I don't know who SPU was, I never met him (or indeed her), but I fancy that SPU was tall, broad shouldered, popular with the opposite sex, as adept with a football or cricket bat as he was with a joystick.

I took it upon myself to best SPU, to score a pyrrhic victory that would disrupt the fragile social strata of 80s emo-teens for years to come. I had a Roland Rat wallet full of old ten pence pieces, the luxury of time that only family holidays can provide and the furious purpose of a nerd gone wild! I was ready.

In my mind, I remember that time as a tightly edited sequence of training montages: scenes of despair, desperation, fightback, set to the building crescendo of a soft metal, cock-rock classic. In reality, it was a week of heartache - low scores, endless deaths to unseen bullets - SPU's imagined athletic visage grinning at me from the faint CRT glow of the Slapfight cab: "back to chess club Poindexter, nothing for you here... AHAHAHA".

Then finally, on our final day in the Lakes, something happened. Something inside me clicked, a moment of pure clarity as man and machine melded into one perfect entity. I actually felt something that morning, something bigger than me, some unique resonance with the universe. My score ticked up, 100,000; 500,000; 1,000,000. I was vaguely aware that if I considered my actions, if I attempted to harness this power or invoke some strategy other than blind instinct, I would fail and all would be lost. I held my nerve... SPU was in my sights, my score reaching parity with the on-screen "High Score" that had mocked me so. Then BOOM!, I passed SPU and the High Score began ticking up with each extra kill that I achieved. At that point I lost it, concentration crumbling away with the collapse of neurons and synapses firing in perfect harmony. But it didn't matter, SPU was beaten and I had the top score.

I don't know how long the score lasted. I fancy that maybe, somewhere in the Lake District, that machine still remains plugged in. The high score preserved as a testament to the grim determination of a bored teenager. Maybe even a plaque commemorates the achievement.

Okay, it's a long telling of a short story. One that serves to hint at the unique power in the simple mechanic of high scores. Anyone who has played WoW and visited Molten Core every week for 6 months, purely on the off chance that a random number generator will come good and a particular set of magic pants will fall can testify to this power. But WoW is an evolution of this mechanic, an abstraction that adds a visual component to your achievement. What I'm talking about is the simplistic, repetitive accumulation of arbitrary numbers - the pure "High Score".

Geometry Wars 2 on Xbox Live is a game that captures this power in a way that touches on every base instinct present in every nerd. It is a simple game of hidden complexity, an apparently mindless shoot 'em up, heavy on psychedelia and pulsing beats. But the devil is in the details. See, the scoring mechanic is such that to achieve really high scores, you need to collect "geoms". A geom is a multiplier, each one collected adds one multiplier to your total, so shot enemies provide more points. The strategy comes in deciding whether to kill or collect, to risk your ship to pick up two or three geoms or stay safe and preserve a screen full of enemies ripe for the blasting.

The truely evil part of GW2 though is not the game itself though, it is the Leaderboard. Or more specifically, the presentation of the Leaderboard. Other games chose to hide the Leaderboard away where you can safely ignore the progress of your peers. GW2 slaps it right there on the game selection screen. Every time you select a game mode, you are presented with your position in the pecking order, a constant reminder of your skills or lack thereof. Possessing this information, knowing that Slim or Beej is a mere 20,000 points away, it is simply not possible to turn away from the quick-repeat gameplay. You simply must climb the ladder.

Compulsion is a powerful narcotic to give to a nerd, a dangerous substance that can lead to failed marriage, obesity or ill-advised mailing list posts. GW2 ignores this danger like a heroin pusher in an infant school. It grabs you, it hooks you, it won't let you go.

At the moment, I stand higher than Dunford, but beneath Beej. Unless Dunford logged in after I beat him last night. I bet he did, it's just his style. The scumbag. Maybe I can squeeze in a couple of games over lunchtime? Maybe I could take the afternoon off...?

I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that somewhere out there, SPU is laughing at me.