Kookosity

I hate employment agencies - part two

2009-04-26T11:16:00.003+01:00

Not content with ringing you to talk about the weather and remind you they haven't gone bust (yet), they're now blatantly fishing for new-lead-generating information saving them doing the legwork themselves. Often they'll dispense with the convivial preamble of pretending to be working on your behalf, and cut straight to the chase; "so, which companies have you applied to?", "which agency recommended you, or was it a direct application?". This is purely professional curiosity of course, that and an exercise in keeping their writing wrist supple. "Jane Taylor is in charge of recruitment there isn't she?", they'll say exuding that smug I'm-in-the-loop vibe, then pausing with baited breath for you to interject with a correction. "Oh really? She must have left the company since we last spoke". Yes, that's it I'm sure.

For my own entertainment I've decided I'm going to be as vague as they are when posting their fictitious vacancies. I helpfully informed the last consultant to ask this question that I've "applied for a position with a well established, prestigious, market leading, multinational, blue-chip, progressive, dynamic and fast expanding company in the commercial services industry, who have a venerable history of providing efficient commercial service solutions to clients in many private and public sector organisations", and also that I'd sourced the vacancy with the assistance of "a trailblazing global recruitment specialist dedicated to - who excel at even - placing professional candidates in permanent, temporary and interim positions".

I hope they found the exchange as useful as I did.

Thank you for not garlicing

2009-04-22T20:40:00.007+01:00

It's heartwarming that smokers are now forced to stand outside public places shivering their bits off in the depths of winter if they want to light up, but what about people who insist on engaging in other anti-social behaviour? Eating garlic for instance. Shouldn't they be banished from civilised society too?

It's a stinky, vile, disgusting habit, and subjects innocent passersby to olfactory assault, otherwise known as passive garlicing. Why are no laws in effect to protect the vulnerable public? Why are garlic eaters allowed to walk the streets without the aid of some kind of full-body isolation unit, or at least a high-vis toxic breath warning sticker?

What is it about the stuff that makes people shovel it into every single dish by the bucket load as automomically as blinking, and why don't the same people experience similar compulsions to douse themselves with, let's say, horse manure or arm pit sweat?

Employment agencies

2009-04-22T15:06:00.003+01:00

While I realise the world economy is currently corkscrewing the toilet bowl, recruitment consultants have always been slippery characters. 99.99% of vacancies are filled via agencies, but how many of the adverts they swamp the job search sites with are genuine?

Try applying for one and you'll be lucky to get a response within a week. If they do contact you, you can be sure they'll have no idea which job in particular you were interested in, probably because its generic description is nothing more than a hook to reel in your personal details which are then neatly packaged and delivered into the laps of marketing companies with a glittery bow on top. Why else would they be so keen to register you as a candidate when they have no work available?

If anyone has any inside knowledge I'd be curious to know why it is that agencies ring you to ask questions they already know the answers to. Silly me, I thought the arrangement was that recruitment consultants would call when they have a job to run by you, not just to mull over the dire state of the market, and to ask you how your search is going. Hang on a minute, isn't that your job? If that wasn't the basis of the relationship our paths would probably never have crossed. If I find work elsewhere that's your commission up in smoke so please don't pretend you care. My best guess is that they have so little to do they spend most of the day making fruitless phone calls in a desperate attempt to look busy and cling onto their livelihoods.

Not that I'm bitter. I'd hate for you to get the wrong impression. :|

The Unpodcastables

2009-04-21T10:30:00.008+01:00

Update: Cor blimey gov'ner, would you Adam and Eve it? The iPlayer Downloader now works with listen again audio - in other words, it downloads the MP3 file without the conversion headaches or real time capture delays. When did that happen and where was my telegram? Thanks Lawrence, you're a genius!

If you're a Mac user and enjoy listening to radio shows via the BBC's iPlayer you'll know there's still no application available for OS X which allows you to download rather than record the audio streams, and on a flakey wifi connection this makes capturing them in their entirety problematic.

I've come to the conclusion that there never will be so I've taken to experimenting with the WINE-based CrossOver Windows emulation software instead. This works surprisingly well for simple Windows software and games and requires no knowledge of Terminal commands or the WINE emulation layer which forms its backbone.

When you 'install' it (pretty much by double prodding its icon) and run through the unsupported software installation wizard, a new 'bottle' is created. Bottles are simply fresh Windows setups minus the desktop environment; applications integrate with your OS X dock and run alongside your native software. You can get by with a single bottle, or setup a new one for each individual piece of software if you have reason to believe they may conflict.

I had Flashget up and running within a minute, and soon after was able to begin downloading a Real Audio 'listen again' radio show to my pseudo c:\ drive (located at /Users/Username/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/winxp/). You can find the link to RTSP streams by opening an iPlayer playback window and right-clicking in your browser to view the source code. Search for '.ram' and copy the web address into Flashget. The download manager will automatically interpret the file, decipher the actual address of the Real Audio stream contained within and begin to download it.

Once you've transferred a .ra file you'll need to convert it to the mp3 format using something like Audacity or Switch. These are available for either platform so get whichever version you like, install the Real Audio player and LAME encoder so you have the necessary codecs in place and begin converting.

The dark side of light

2008-09-22T14:01:00.003+01:00

The cavalier attitude the food industry takes with regard to our health never ceases to amaze me.

I went shopping for sugar for the first time ever today - I know, rock 'n' roll baby! Until now my aim has been to eliminate as much of it as possible from my diet, but as I've been getting head-rushes recently I thought I'd try boosting my blood sugar level to see if that might settle the dizzy spells.

I spotted something called 'Silver Spoon Light' on the shelf of my local supermarket and wondered how sugar can be any lighter, unless of course you use less of it; the only ingredient in a bag of sugar after all is sugar.

Well not in this bag of special sugar. 'Light' is cut with the artificial sweeteners Aspartame and Acesulfame-K, E numbers customarily linked to a laundry list of minor to extremely severe health complaints. These and Maltodextrin, probably thrown in as a cheap bulking agent.

I just don't get it; surely if people want to cut the calories and don't care about the health repercussions (or aren't aware of them) they'll buy an artificial sweetener, and if they like sugar, but would rather not sprinkle poison on their Shreddies, they'll buy pure, uncontaminated sugar. Who is going to buy a hybrid of the two on the basis that it's likely to be only half or a third as toxic as the fake gunk?

Interesting that the packet of Silver Spoon's ordinary granulated sugar proudly exclaims that it is "pure and natural", "containing no additives or preservatives", while their 'Light' spin-off more meekly explains that it is "granulated sugar with sweetener", the "with sweetener" part printed in smaller, less prominent text, almost as an afterthought I should add.

The web site helpfully suggests that because "Silver Spoon Light looks and tastes just like regular sugar but has 30% fewer calories per spoonful" you should "put it in your sugar bowl, your family won’t notice the difference".

What, without pausing to mention that you've switched the contents with something that could potentially make them seriously ill? Maybe while you're at it - if you're that way inclined - you could rig the doors in your house with a precariously balanced bucket of boiling hot tar or lay a bear trap in the garden.

The thought is almost as unsavoury as the product.

VATman Begins

2008-08-05T22:40:00.003+01:00

Doing the tax return at work for the first time led me to begin researching which foodstuffs you can and can't reclaim the VAT on, which in turn led me to this riveting official HM Revenue and Customs document.

Until now I'd assumed the distinction was pretty much luxury items verses staple subsistence, but apparently that would be too straightforward for Her Majesty's esteemed pedants - this tome runs to 24 pages of exceptions, addendums and miscellaneous illogical quibbling!

For instance, biscuits which contain chocolate chips are zero-rated, but if the chocolate forms a partial or complete coating, tax is applicable. Ah, I see. Lots of chocolate = VATable. But wait, cornflake cakes which are drenched in chocolate, chocolate sauce, chocolate spread and even chocolate body paint are VAT free. Chocolate visibility is key too it seems - if the chocolate is wedged between the biscuit layers and hence out of sight as you'd find in a Bourbon, VAT shouldn't be levied. We should also note that you don't need to pay VAT if the chocolate is on the surface, but the manufacturers stick 'cake' on the packaging as in the case of Jaffa Cakes. These definitely aren't biscuits and anyone who dares to make such an absurd claim will be sued out of existence.

Likewise, if you sell sweetened dried fruit and claim it's for snacking and home baking you don't need to charge VAT on it. However, if you sell an identical product and neglect to mention to your befuddled customers - who would never have made the mental leap otherwise - that you could shove the stuff in a cake, you're obliged to charge VAT.

Speaking of cakes, they're tax-free while biscuits and crisps aren't, which explains why Pringles are no longer crisps... up is now down and black is white.

My favourite though is the case of marshmallow teacakes verses Snowballs. Marshmallow teacakes if they have "a crumb, biscuit or cake base topped with a dome of marshmallow coated in either chocolate, sugar strands or coconut" are zero-rated whereas "Snowballs without such a base are classed as confectionary" and so are sold plus VAT. Next time we order anything resembling the above as part of a client entertaining exercise I must remember to interrupt the meeting, clipboard at the ready donned in a lab coat poised to analyse the constituency of the foundations.

The Unsackables

2008-05-04T18:35:00.003+01:00

There's a common belief here in the UK that if you find yourself working for the council, you've got a cushy job for life. Apparently this is also the case in Japan where a 57 year old employee of the council of Kinokawa was rumbled for whiling away his days surfing pornographic web sites, and survived the expose with a mere slap on the wrists.

Claiming that he accidentally stumbled across the odd adult web site while researching urban floral decoration policy wouldn't really have flown considering he managed to clock up 780,000 visits in 9 months! His 'punishment'? Demotion and an £80 per month dock in his wages.

His "desk was set apart from the others" might explain why no-one spotted him enjoying his work far more than any right-minded office worker should, but shouldn't someone have asked why his to-do list never got any shorter? Did he not have to submit the fruits of his labour (no smutty jokes please) to his superiors, or were they too busy ogling internet porn as well to realise that one of their employees was turning up for work each day but not actually doing anything remotely useful?

The cynics amongst you might conclude that this is nothing new; just another example of our hard-earned taxes being frittered away on the inflated wage packets of council employees who talk the talk, but don't get as far as tying their shoe laces. Some might say that, though I'd never make such a scathing remark.

Behold, I've found Jesus!

2007-12-20T20:33:00.000Z

...and appropriately enough he's a sandman; well his preaching always used to put me to sleep. See how I casually threw that folkloric reference in there to demonstrate how culturally aware and quick-witted I am? Golly-gosh-darn-it, I even astound myself sometimes. All the while you've been looking for signs of the surfalicious one in toasted teacakes he's been chillin' with his homies on Maspalomas beach, Gran Canaria, just outside the Varadero Centre.

Also basking in the afternoon rays a few feet away are The Simpsons reenacting their infamous couch scene pose. Does anyone know if it's the same one which appeared on Digg about a month ago, or at least another creation by the same artist? If you look closely at the full size image you can see this one is looking a bit worse for wear, though I'm surprised it's still recognisable at all after the pelting it received from the previous night's downpour. Whatever he glazes them with must be pretty potent stuff.

The artist put the finishing touches to this one shortly before I snapped it so it's still in pristine condition. Absolutely stunning work; such a breath of fresh air after mooching through the tacky tourist tat paraded alongside Playa Del Ingles. Not an ornamental, peelable, banana-male-member hybrid in sight thankfully!

Hmmm-vee

2007-12-19T18:12:00.001Z

A particularly captivating episode of Brian Dunnings' Skeptoid podcast entitled 'SUV Phobia' (transcript available on the linked page) kick-started my rusty neural cogs. The crux of his argument is that it's fallacious and naive to scapegoat SUVs for their supposed poor fuel efficiency and excessive output of carbon emissions because many of them "are mechanically identical to conventional cars"; they are manufactured by slapping an overbearing, gangster-bling style shell over the top of the chassis of a typical family car. This really surprised me because until now I'd allowed myself to be hoodwinked by the shallow aesthetics of these performance hulks.

Brian goes on to apply the same logic to GM's H2 Hummer as it's essentially a cosmetically tarted up Yukon, but in defending SUVs in general, I think he skirts over the critical fact that the Yukon is far from an eco-friendly springboard on which to build a mechanical sheep in wolf's fur. I won't pretend I know the first thing about cars - I Googled the Yukon because my stubborn preconceptions wouldn't let me acquiesce to the possibility that Humvees may not be the vehicular incarnation of pure, unadulterated depravity.

A comparison chart of 1042 vehicles ranked in order of fuel efficiency compiled by Corporate Knights Inc., a Canadian corporate responsibility watchdog, seems to confirm this. Re-sort the Excel data in order of annual fuel consumption and the various Yukon models emerge as some of the worst offenders, occupying positions 788, 821, 875, 881, 897, 934, 949 – 951, 979-983, 1004, 1005, 1022 and 1034-1038.

So while Brian's other unduly slammed candidates mostly fair exceptionally well in the low emissions/fuel consumption stakes I uphold my recommendation that all Hummers, military spec or otherwise, be banished from civilian roads, crushed and dispatched to Room 101 in gleaming, miniature, cubic parcels festooned with pretty, little bows. Environmental considerations aside, we all know the caliber of low-lifes who drive these road-hogs, and this alone should be just cause to obliterate them (the vehicles, the owners, or both - I'm not going to quibble over the minutia).

Cushty Canaries?

2007-12-18T16:11:00.000Z

Despite all Gran Canaria has to offer, the impression I've returned to Britain with is predominantly one of aesthetically pleasing - though crumbling - shopping plazas full of dodgy Arabs hawking fake electronics at too-good-to-be-true prices. For reasons which escape me, electronics boutiques make up a third of all the businesses on the island - the other two thirds comprising 'international' restaurants (aimed at mindless Brits who don't find it at all odd that they've spent over 4 hours on a plane and flown thousands of miles to eat pie, chips and mushy peas and drink pints of Boddingtons) and purveyors of tacky tourist knick-knacks.

Drop your guard for a split nanosecond by revealing the most fleeting gesture of curiosity in something in the window of one of these out-of-their-time bazars and you're doomed. You'll be pounced on by a greasy wideboy replete with perma-grin and Euro symbols in his eyes. Then begins the patter; "Ah, I see you have a camera. Would you like to buy a camera, sir?" Letting them in on the secret that you already have a camera won't deter them. Next they'll want to sell you some useless gimmicky peripheral for it. If you don't bite their hand off at the first offer, the price will be slashed in half, and half again following the next rejection until it reaches a figure you could expect to pay in Jessops who aren't exactly known for their giveaway prices.

To them, if you've stopped to look at their merchandise they've already done you a favour and it's your duty to return it by letting them talk you into buying something you don't want. Tell them you're not interested, or you're just browsing, and you'll be interrogated within an inch of your life. They actually take it as an insult, or at least feign deep offense to make you feel guilty enough to change your mind.

One shop owner went so far as thrusting a video camera into my hand (which he claimed I could snap up for a meagre 20 Euros) and commenced dragging me into his den by the elbow to seal the deal. A dozen textbook scams played through my mind as I struggled to shake him off. I wondered if he was going to stage a clumsy fumble and blame me for dropping the camera on the concrete paving slabs and then demand compensation for the damage, sell me an empty shell or go for the fail-safe maneuver of stringing me upside and shaking my pockets empty. As it happened I somehow managed to walk away unscathed and unpickpocketed. "Can I interest you in a top quality Sony radio?", he pleaded desperately as I shuffled away into the distance. Ironically I was in the market for a radio, which was precisely why I stopped to gaze through his window in the first place.

Where they're going wrong is that they've spectacularly failed to associate their heavy-handed haranguing of potential customers with these walking-wallets scarpering for the Guanche caves. British people (who make up a large bulk of the tourists in the Canaries, I can't speak for the Germans) don't like to be told what to buy and when. If we want advice we'll ask for it. Likewise, if we've decided to buy something we'll attract your attention, cross your palm with silver and be on our way.

Clearly your current sales technique needs a drastic overhaul. You're not going to arrive at such a dramatic epiphany by yourselves so let me make some suggestions...

Mark your goods at the fixed price you'd be willing to sell them for, not ones which allow you to slice and dice them to the power of ten to make it look like you've been brow-beaten by a wily haggler.

Don't slap extortionate price tags on three-generation-old technology like cassette walkmans. What on earth is your angle here anyway? Nobody wants to buy this stuff so they're never going to engage in a bartering situation allowing you to play the amenable, fair shop keeper. If people see that one item is overpriced they'll assume all your stock is a rip-off and they'll spin on their heels in a heartbeat. Maybe we're supposed to see retro gear and high prices and think 'collector's item'?

Displaying fake iPods alongside the real thing doesn't present consumers with freedom of choice; it only serves to make us think that you've found a more talented counterfeiter, yet still have duff stock to shift.

Always put price tags on your goods. By not doing so you may as well display a flashing neon sign which reads, 'I've got something to hide'. Sensible people will not approach you to ask the price of an item because they know that once they do they'll be trapped like a fly in your sticky web.

One day even stupid people will have heard of eBay and you'll be up the creek without a rich mug to swindle. This one isn't so much a tip as a dawning reality I take great pleasure in bringing to your attention.

Quit it with the faux camaraderie and congeniality. Friendly strangers fall into one of six categories, none of which you should aspire to; cold-callers, paedophiles, muggers, rapists, politicians and bible bashers.

Poles apart

2007-10-16T21:22:00.000+01:00

Since the expansion of the EU in 2004 Britain has witnessed an influx of an estimated one million Polish immigrants. If you dare to point out the repercussions of this open-gate policy you're branded a Daily Mail reader and reminded of the enormous positive contribution these forward-thinking economic migrants make to the country.

Well I've been unfortunate enough to find myself living with a Polish couple, who, granted are determined to improve their economic and social standing through sheer hard work and dedication, though only at the expense of everyone else around them. Yes, it's true, they are dedicated to spending as much time in bed or feeding their faces with other people's food while pretending to seek employment.

They spend what little money they have on booze and cigarettes and then have the gall to complain with utmost sincerity that life here is so harrrd when they can't afford to pay the rent and the meanie of a bus driver won't let them travel for gratis. One of them did have a jarrrb for a short while, but getting all the way to Cheadle proved to be so harrrd that she decided she needed a holiday in Poland to recuperate. We live in Cheadle for christ's sake; her work place was practically on the door step!

And somehow it's the Brits who have a reputation for being 'whinging POHMs'.

I realise that right now I'm not exactly helping to shake off this stigma, but who wouldn't want to vent when you find yourself living with two slobs who do nothing but boil tomatoes and a variety of other pureed sludge and fornicate at 100+ decibels in rotation morning, noon and night and then leave you to clear up the mess?

One of them asked me if I thought the landlady might be kind enough to return their deposit when the inevitable happens and they are asked to leave, you know, if they "explained the situation". What, that you're selfish cretins and expect other people to pay for you to wash and tumble-dry one t-shirt at a time and share the bill for your long distance phone calls to Poland whilst you refuse to so much as empty the bin or wash a solitary cup? Yes, I'm sure she'll be nice as pie, the epitome of empathy. I know where I won't be when she returns to collect their rent at the weekend and the proverbial hits the fan.

If only us lazy Brits (hang your heads in shame, you know who you are!) could adopt their slavish work ethic this country might not be in such a mess.

...and you thought I was going rake up that xenophobic Daily Mail article about Polish people claiming child benefit for kids who aren't even British residents didn't you. Wouldn't dream of it.

Sunglasses; the cause of and solution to all of life's problems

2007-06-03T22:05:00.000+01:00

When it comes to protecting your health what you need is clear, practical advice from medical professionals. With this in mind isn't it wonderful that scientists have taken all the guess work out of avoiding skin cancer?

Ophthalmologists recommend wearing sunglasses when outdoors because they help to cut the level of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the eyes. This makes perfect sense because excessive exposure to UV light can cause an assortment of nasty ocular ailments such as cataracts, pterygium, photokeratitis, snow blindness, macular degeneration, and a whole host of eye cancers.

Right, so why wouldn't you choose to cover up your peepers? Well perhaps because wearing sunglasses - as well as warding off cancer - may cause cancer. This is supposedly because the artificial darkness tricks your brain into thinking you're not in danger of being fried by the sun's UV rays and so doesn't instigate the production of the melanocyte-stimulating hormone which thickens and tans your skin as a shield against the sun.

That sounds plausible enough... but fails by a country mile to beat the previously accepted notion that allowing intense sun rays capable of turning your skin a blistered shade of bright crimson before emulating reptilian ecdysis isn't such a good idea. Health advisers are always banging on about daubing your skin in sun cream, but you don't put any in your eyes do you.

I don't know about you, but I'll take a pair of healthy eyes, normal vision and a big dollop of skin cancer with sprinkles and a cherry on top.

While sunlight can cause cancer it is recommended that we absorb enough of it to upregulate the manufacture of vitamin D which facilitates a range of vital bodily processes - those that maintain healthy bone structure and sustain our immune system for instance.

So while we're catching some rays to top up our vitamin D supplies we should cover up to prevent accelerated skin aging (aka skin photodamage) and skin cancer. Hiding away inside from the sun like a hermit would be the ideal solution except that it contributes to seasonal affective disorder and leads to vitamin D deficiency which has been implicated in the aetiology of many forms of cancer.

Sunbeds can be used to combat SAD and increase vitamin D synthesis. Tanning salons will even throw in your choice of malignant melanoma or non-melanoma skin cancer such as squamous or basal cell carcinomas for no extra charge, while we destroy the planet with our clown-sized carbon footprints.

EyeTV MP3 playback

2007-06-03T17:45:00.000+01:00

I may be stating the obvious here, but as it's not mentioned anywhere in Elgato's FAQs I thought this might be worthy of a tech tip entry.

EyeTV (at least version 2 anyway), as well as playing back externally created video files is capable of opening MP3s. So what? you may be wondering. Well this means that if music and podcasts can be opened with EyeTV, they can be paused, fast-forwarded, rewound and generally monkeyed around with using the remote control which comes with your TV box/stick, and this will be helpful to anyone who doesn't sit right next to their computers while they listen to audio.

The way you do this is identical to the procedure for opening third-party movies; by clicking on the 'Open Quicktime Movie' option under the 'File' menu. You see this is obviously the killer clandestine feature Elgato don't want you to know about because, erm... oh you know, for all sorts of nefarious reasons, probably.

Another inconspicuous feature you may be unaware of is that if you keep pressing the increase volume button on your remote control after EyeTV's volume indicator hits its maximum notch, you can continue to boost the volume by ratcheting up your OS's volume control. Most sensible people would normally stop at this point, but apparently not me.

Geek criminals should be made to work harder to earn their jail cells say Finnish courts

2007-05-28T17:51:00.000+01:00

Mikko Rauhala, the owner of a web site where instructions for circumventing CSS DVD copyright protection were posted will not be prosecuted. The decision made by the Helsinki District Court resulted from the adherence to a 2001 amendment to European copyright laws that state it is only illegal to defeat "effective technological measures".

Knowledge pertaining to outwitting DVD copyright protection has been widely available on the internet since 1999, and a plethora of idiot-proof applications designed to automate the process are merely a mouse click or two away, rendering CSS barriers defective.

You've got to marvel at the Catch-22 of this judicial loophole. Cracking copyright protection is only illegal while it's too tricky to accomplish. As soon as someone susses out how to do it, the protection can be deemed ineffective and the perpetrator of this heinous crime against society walks free.

I'm hoping the same laws apply to bank robbery because my local branch of Barclays has this really flimsy safe and the only security guard patrolling the area always leaves his post at 9.00am to buy a bacon sarnie from the greasy spoon next door.

Hey, if everyone does it, it must be OK. ;)

Uninventing the search engine

2007-05-14T21:19:00.000+01:00

Don't you hate it when stuff just works? It's predictable and boring, and if you ask me, anything falling into this category should be sabotaged immediately to spice things up a little.

Many web coders clearly share my view because this is precisely what they've been doing with their previously accurate, efficient and dependable search engines.

Take Googles' Image Search for example. Imagine your typical day; you're surfing the web when a sudden impulse to track down a picture of Spiderman wrestling a T-Rex grips you with full force. You visit Google Image Search and type in the keywords 'spiderman', 'wrestles' and 'trex'.

Now you wouldn't imagine there would be all that many depictions of such a scene so it would be reasonable to expect a return of say less than half a dozen hits at the most. Well you'd be wrong; supposedly Google currently indexes 1030 images of the web-shooting wonder getting down and dirty with the "last and largest known carnosaur".

It's curious that amongst these 'hits' are images of King Kong, random politicians, The Simpsons, Bambi, fish corpses and Wacko Jacko's face embedded in a slice of toast, but none of them remotely resemble what I actually searched for.

The fact that there are lots of pictures containing isolated wrestlers, spidermen and dinosaurs might indicate that Google has applied the OR Boolean search operator to my query rather than the more useful AND one. This isn't the case, however; if you click on the 'Advanced Image Search' link you'll see that the keywords are automatically entered into the "find results related to all of the words" box to demonstrate which kind of search I performed prior to reaching this page. Just to confirm, clicking the search button again at this point returns exactly the same set of irrelevant flotsam.

It could be that I'll never ascertain for certain if Spider-Man (yes, I know that's the correct way to write it) ever unleashed the Pumphandle Michinoku driver II on a 43 foot long, 7.5 tonne 'tyrant lizard king'. It's no laughing matter.

That's just a drop in the ocean. All kinds of search engines across the board are falling prey to Boolean vandalism; software repositories, forums, recipe databases - the list is endless. The digg coders are prime suspects. Try probing it for stories involving two of the widest prevailing bedfellows, the 'llama' and 'blamange'. Go on, guess how many hits there are for this keyword combo. 89! That's eighty-nine, EIGHTY-NINE!

It appears that contrary to the norm, you can crowbar the AND operator in between them to narrow down the field, but why wouldn't this be the default setting to begin with as it is with Google? (well, the text search element of Google anyway). You wouldn't dial 999 to report a crime and when asked, "which service do you require" reply police... OR a florist please, either will do. So why would it make sense in any other context?

"Where Have All The Vampires Gone?"

2007-05-10T22:21:00.000+01:00

University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou has employed elementary mathematics to lampoon cliche vampire folklore as portrayed in popular literature and Hollywood. According to the prof, if - starting in the year 1600 - the first vampire sunk its fangs into one human per month, and that human subsequently metamorphosed into a vampire and went on to feast on another human, the entire human population would be eradicated in under two and a half years.

Well I have a different theory which demonstrates how unbeknownst to the majority of the populace, humans and vampires currently co-exist in perfect har... well a close approximation of a harmony of sorts.

According to European, Chinese and Indian legend, vampires suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder which manifests in the insuppressible impulse to count particles of grain, sand, sawdust, rice, poppy seeds and a variety of other multitudinous identical items. To keep the bloodsuckers occupied and out of mischief should they rise from their coffins to feed, people would scatter such pacifiers throughout graveyards. They'd be so engrossed in the task of gathering them all up that before they could shriek "bright light, bright light!" the sun would begin to ascend in the sky forcing them to seek shelter until the following night where the process would be repeated Groundhog Day stylee.

This technique is effective in warding off achluophobic vampires, but not so much against the newer breed of vampire that have evolved to withstand sunlight and walk shoulder to shoulder with their unwitting victims.

Keeping these blighters in check is one of the few things we have the reptilian humanoid Illuminati (or Global Elite) to thank for. You see, these extraterrestrial prison warders - otherwise known as the Babylonian Brotherhood - from the constellation Draco compete with the daylight vampires for human blood (the hybrids sired through cross-breeding with humans consume it to transform themselves from reptiles to hominids, duh!) and so it is in their interests to assure the survival of the species.

To achieve this end the Illuminati have been remotely controlling vampires through the use of advanced brainwashing neurotechnology. With their penchant for frenzied bean-counting and parasitic jugular-mauling in mind they have been coercing the pliable vampires to sublimate their urges with (arguably) less destructive occupations. Hence we have swathes of apparently human creatures hell-bent on becoming traffic wardens, chancellors (of the exchequer), tax inspectors and inland revenue administrators.

To wrap up, we are artificially being kept alive today by the very existence of penny-pinching, Neo-Nazi, public servant vultures (aka sedated vampires). It's obvious really if you think about it. I dare anyone to propose a flaw in the theory.

Coloureds still getting a raw deal

2007-04-15T15:24:00.000+01:00

Is this happening where you live? Have Mr Green, and his inseparable buddy, Mr Red, been unceremoniously punted from their pedestal? There were riots in the 50s when the blacks were treated as second class citizens, but today, apparently it's OK to discriminate against reds and greens.

The ones in my locale used to perch proudly atop a tall post at either side of the road separated by a zebra crossing. Waiting to cross, pedestrians and LED shepherds faced one another directly. They made eye contact and had mutual respect. From their lofty position they could be seen by everyone from a hundred yards away. They were so well placed you could drop your gaze to check your flies are fastened and still a deft flicker of their bulbs would register in the corner of an eye alerting you that it's safe to cross.

The system worked so logic decrees that it must be scrapped. The pedestrian (or pelicon) crossing lights in my home town have all been replaced with kerb-facing, waist-high LED boxes. Consequently if there are a few people waiting to cross, the lights are entirely obscured forcing you to guess if you're likely to be squished into the tarmac should you decide to make a move. Call me crazy but isn't this counterproductive given that we now live in a compensation culture, nanny state climate where aspiring to be good little, rule-abiding, safety-conscious citizens is the order of the day?

Let's make a leap of faith and assume you can actually see one of these new white elephants. You're going to look a complete prat gawking at it like a snake charmers' transfixed pet, rather than casually watching the traffic flow whilst keeping your eyes peeled for a colour change.

It must have cost a fortune to ditch all the old - yet perfectly adequate - lights in favour of these new contraptions, so common sense would suggest that they must bring with them certain benefits. There has to be a rational explanation for implementing such an expensive scheme on a town-wide scale. The trouble is, I don't have the slightest inkling as to what it might be.

Edit: Seeing as this enthralling post has sparked such impassioned debate, I thought you'd be chomping at the bit for an update...

The local council - in recognition that these waist-high LED boxes are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to all but the person standing immediately next to them I presume - have installed an extra 'cross/don't cross' box a couple of feet above the existing ones on either side of the road. All it will take now is for a team of basketball players to move into town and they'll be shunted right back to their original locus. Stay tuned for more sensational pelicon crossing news!

Something I hadn't noticed about the new system until now is that the audible 'it's safe to cross' bleeper signal has been canned, so blind people have even less of a clue when to cross. Are they expected to wave their white sticks into the unknown and only make a move when the twang made by passing cars hitting it ceases?

Oooh those naughty banks are right rotters!

2007-04-11T10:55:00.000+01:00

Money Saving Expert of TV and radio fame, Martin Lewis, has been harping on about reclaiming exploitative bank charges recently. Barclays, for example, charge you £35 each time you fail to pay back your credit card balance on time. Financial analysts with letters after their names have established that it only costs the banks £4-ish in administration charges to process these deficits so the rest is just beer money.

Despite the hefty charges, the same people are continually going into the red and so have been racking up fees totaling many thousands of pounds. Martin has put together a template letter for you to fill in and submit to your bank to reclaim the unjustly pilfered funds and people have been doing this in their millions throughout the country.

This is all well and good, but it's a lot of hassle so I'm here to offer my guide to good money management. Can I have a drum roll please?

...

OK, here goes. If you spend more money than you've got in your bank account, the figure on the bottom line of your statement becomes negative and that's bad because the bank tells you off and takes more money you don't have. The secret is - wait for it - to only buy stuff when you can afford it. That way the numbers on your statement stay black and you don't end up living on the streets.

Now of course there are worthy exceptions to every rule. Say you've got an arrangement for money to be automatically deducted from your account to cover essentials like rent or mortgage repayments or bills and then unexpectedly you lose your job. It's the ones who spend £100 on a handbag and then are shocked to discover that they're broke. No, more than broke, they're severely bankrupt.

Which is another rant in itself. In Britain, if you become very, very bankrupt and have no way of getting back on an even keel (besides getting one of those job thingies, being frugal and paying back the money over a long period of time) you can opt to just right off your debts and start afresh. You're barred from owning a credit card for a while, but other than that you're free to go on another shoe shopping spree at Harrods the next day. Handbags and shoes? This is all starting to sound very sexist isn't it. I didn't mean it to. Just as many men are useless with money, and the ones with handbag and shoe fetishes are the absolute worst offenders.

To sum up (Congratulations if you're still awake. If not, you smell and your nose looks a bit funny and you can't hit me for saying so because you'll never read this): that £35 fine is supposed to be excessive because it's intended to act as a deterrent. You agree to it when you sign the credit card contract with your bank so it's a bit rich to moan about it now. Banks exist to make money. If you don't have any invested with them they can't reinvest it elsewhere. They aren't going to give you money for nothing over and above the 0% interest 28 day repayment policy (which they also profit from) out of the goodness of their hearts, so don't give them the satisfaction of reeling in your debts.

Anyway, look on the bright side. It's only money - it's not as if Barclays are going to come round to your house and repossess your legs is it?

Mmmphumpph

2007-04-10T20:04:00.000+01:00

Have you ever watched a film and found it almost impossible to fathom what the heck is going on because the cast all sound like they're trying to annunciate their lines around a giant gob-stopper? Could it be that they've all been held captive in the Marlon Brando school of method acting for the past decade?

A bizarre trend for delivering rapid-fire, hushed dialogue through clenched teeth seems to be gripping Hollywood at the moment. It's so prevalent I wouldn't be at all surprised if we soon decided to adopt lip reading as the official international language of celluloid. I catch these antiquated black and white classics on obscure Sky channels where the entire cast meticulously project the script like microphoneless thespians performing in a Roman ampitheatre, and have to wonder where it all went wrong. The days when TV and movie producers were cognisant of the relationship between clarity of dialogue and audiences actually being able to comprehend the plot are long gone.

Rafts of modern TV shows may as well be scripted in Swahili as so much of their dialogue is also getting lost in translation. If subtitles aren't available, often I'll just throw in the towel, and according to 'The joy of subtitles', an article by the Beeb, I'm not alone. I wonder how many of those six million people using subtitles in the absence of any hearing impairment also keep their trigger finger poised over their remote control's rewind button.

The theory the author postulates to explain the phenomenon indicates why we're just as likely to encounter duff dialogue clarity sitting in a cinema as we are watching a DVD or TV show at home through a traditional TV with tinny stereo speakers.

Even with the best audio system money can buy, on a few occasions sitting in cinemas I've had to restrain myself from grasping for the rewind button in a futile attempt to unravel an indecipherable line. Duh! Mummy always said I was special. ;)

If Johnny told you to jump over a cliff...

2007-04-05T19:15:00.000+01:00

GPS systems often direct motorists down blind alleys or across otherwise unsuitable terrain because, after all, they are only mindless machines. They lack the intricacies of local knowledge and that all important human trait, common sense.

Not the end of the world you might think since no car is going to force you to go where you don't want to. You see they all come fully equipped with a clever fail-safe device called a driver who interprets the computer's suggestions and then decides the best course of action to take. For instance, if your TomTom urged you to plunge your £96,000 Mercedes into a river...

Me 2.0

2007-02-26T20:41:00.000Z

What is it with all these new 'bleeding edge' web technology upstarts churning out useless online services people neither want nor need just to get in on the Web 2.0 'revolution'? Take Tumblr for instance (I wish that was a typo, yawn).

It's pitched expressly towards Webizen X who allegedly has a burning desire to post unblogworthy information, in a blog format. Stuff like disorderly scraps of half-baked ideas and other miscellaneous, incoherent flotsam and jetsam. The urge to verbalise neural hairballs when exhibited by infants or psychiatric patients is known as echolalia. Apparently in the Web 2.0 sphere it's called a 'tumblelog'.

Something else I can't quite wrap my head around is why this theoretically untapped cluster of niche publishers require a separate software solution in order to find their voice. Start a blog, turn off any snazzy features, disable comments, fill it with copious fragments of nothingness, and hey presto, you're Tumbling!

So how do they work in practice? Well the Tumblr FAQ proudly points us in the direction of Project.ioni.st by way of example. See what they've done there? (again!)

I swear if the likes of Davidville (the inventive chaps responsible for Tumblr) keep this up I'm going to dislodge a spoke or two and re-patent the whl (or should that be whe.el?) just to make them look silly.

...and if you think you've tasted the bottom of the barrel, think again.

Subscribe to podcasts without iTunes

2007-02-24T14:32:00.000Z

Lots of people don't like iTunes and would rather not use it to keep up to date with their favourite podcasts. I'm one of them.

One alternative is to subscribe to RSS podcast feeds using an RSS to email service such as Rmail. You can do this by submitting the feed as you would with any ordinary blog feed. The MP3 files themselves aren't attached to the emails; what you get instead is a description of the episode as it would appear in iTunes, along with a direct link to the MP3 file so you can decide whether or not you wish to download it.

Create a podcasts folder to save your audio in and you have the most lightweight, portable, platform-independent podcatching client available.

Energy saving ace in the hole unveiled

2007-02-13T14:10:00.000Z

The business manager of Hazel Grove High in Stockport, England has shaved £16,000 off his schools' £100,000 per year energy and water bill and slashed its 530 tonne carbon payload in the process.

How was this possible? You'd expect some fairly imaginative and dramatic compromises to be implicated wouldn't you. If you guessed that they've revised the dinnertime menu so as to feature nothing but salad and sandwiches, or ditched the traditional boiler-powered heating system in favour of an exercise-while-you-learn personal heat-generating programme you'd be way off the mark.

The solution - as proposed by an eco-friendly 'hit squad' - was to switch off their 500 computers when they weren't in use i.e. after the kids' home time, at the weekends and during school holidays when not a soul would be on the premises to even consider making a single key press.

Pure genius! If you're in the market for a cushy career change you could do much worse than becoming an energy consultant.

Ultimate Mac hack: turn your iPod into an MP3 player!

2007-02-12T10:48:00.000Z

Pin back your ears, this is a Kookclusive! Thanks to Isaac Huang and his new application, iPodDisk, you can now access songs stored on your iPod via OS X's Finder. When plugged in, your iPod appears alongside your other drives and folders through the magic of iDisk drive emulation. The mounted drive can be explored with non-iTunes applications, copied from and used as a launchpad for the playback of MP3 files... just like a real digital music player device.

Readers should note that iPodDisk doesn't enable you to also copy music to your iPod - the emulated drive is essentially read-only. If in future revisions Isaac can somehow manage to wangle his way around this impasse, I can really see this iPod thingy taking off. Call me crazy if you like, but I envision the iPod enjoying a worldwide mainstream adoption and going on to become the world's best-selling range of digital audio players. You read it here first!

'Friendly fire' muppet is a hero!

2007-02-11T15:03:00.000Z

Nearly four years after Lance Corporal Matty Hull was gunned down in a gung-ho fly-by shooting in Iraq, 'POPOV36', the trigger-happy pilot responsible, has been identified as Colonel Gus 'Skeeter' Kohntopp.

Despite evidence of numerous grave errors and the conclusion of a British Army inquiry - "that procedures were not followed" - neither Kohntopp or his still unnamed wingman, 'POPOV35', have been disciplined. On the contrary, Kohntopp has since become a full colonel (at the time of the incident he was a lieutenant colonel), been "awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service as the chief of A-10 mission planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom" and promoted to the esteemed role of 'top gun', the man in charge of training hundreds of fresh-faced US pilots in the fine art of ground attacks.

Here Kohntopp can be seen proudly posing for the cover of the autumn 2005 edition of Pearls and Rubies, a local Boise magazine. Inside, ironically, he claims that "My best piloting experience has been flying the A10 in Iraqi Freedom. After all the years of training, to go to war and use my experiences to help dispose Saddam from power was the epitome of my career". Clearly putting this minor blip behind him hasn't posed too much of a challenge. The hypocrite goes on to preach: "Honour your values and be true to yourself. You have to live with your actions so make them worthwhile to your loved ones and this great nation".

His best pal and neighbour, Eldon Anderson, goes so far as to call him a hero and accuses the British media of making a fuss about nothing and failing in their duty to show sufficient support for the US-led war on terror.

Meanwhile, in a pitiful damage limitation exercise, PM Tony Blair has said he "deeply regretted" the distress caused to Matty Hull's family by the inquest delay. Apparently the MoD "acted in good faith". That is aside from colluding with the Pentagon in lying about the very existence of the video in the first instance, and then pretending that it couldn't be released to the coroner because it contained highly sensitive classified material, which, if leaked, could pose a serious threat to national security.

All things considered it's a farce worthy of a Blackadder script! No doubt backwater redneck, Eldon Anderson, and his ilk will still need this wholly absurd anti-Americanism thing explained to them.