Very True Things

NaBloPoMo FAIL

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:32:20 GMT

The sidebar says that there are 25 posts in November. But 5 of those are the automated weekly posts of Twitter updates. And 2, including this one, were actually written a week into December and backdated.

Not good. Worse than last year in fact. I fail at blogging. :-(

In a daze

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:55:57 GMT

Some bad news about Dazed Miniatures - the range is being withdrawn from sale. The silver lining is a 30% off sale to clear the remaining stock.

All that the story on the RLBPS web site says is:

Dazed Miniatures was a partnership and it has been been ended by one partner (the Sculpter) withdrawing the licence to produce any of the figures we made. RLBPS still owns the molds but can not run them.

I wonder what it is with Richard Deasey's lines? He sculpted the second half of the the HLBS prehistoric line and then took it away to found DZ Miniatures, which vanished soon afterwards. The mammals, but not the dinosaurs, reappearing years later from Strategem/Trent Miniatures whose own tribulations made getting hold of them sometimes frustrating (but they are currently available via North Star). And now this. Is there any chance that some of the best prehistoric miniatures will be available from a stable supplier (one with a working e-commerce facility would be really nice)?

In the mean time I need to work out how much I splurge on miniature mammoths, etc., taking Christmas, moving house and exchange rates into consideration. Couldn't be a worse time for a closing down sale.

Getting web site developers to RTFRFC

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:41:31 GMT

The + sign is valid in the local part of an email address. Please fix the validation on your sign up form.

From now on I'm going to keep track of sites to which I've had to send a variation of the above message. There are only two reasons for disallowing it: technical incompetence and a failure to read the RFCs; or malice in not wanting users to identify spammers or sellers of email addresses to spammers by disallowing tagged email addresses.

Fixed

monitis.com

Pending

demand.five.tv (29/11/2009)

Why is this stuff still in my brain?

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:20:49 GMT

Yesterday I was doing a YoGov survey (referral link in case anyone fancies signing up) and got a question which asked me to list as many web browsers as I could. I think I may have been near the tip of the long tail on that one - I wonder if anyone else included Amaya?

Memory 0.2

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:17:16 GMT

Last night I bumped into someone I was at college with on Borough High Street. I knew his first name straight away, but it took me twelve hours to remember his last name. And then five minutes to find him on facebook...

The online, social, networked, web 2.0 world hasn't completely eliminated the need for human memory

I need you hosting recommendations

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:51:48 GMT

Anyone got some recommendations for hosting? ("Network Failure" was a trending topic on Twitter this morning for a good reason.)
I need to host this blog, another WordPress powered site, a MediaWiki powered site, some basic PHP pages and some static pages across 4 domains.

Mo Update

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:00:46 GMT

Day 19. Coming out a bit multi-coloured, brown, blond and some black. Too much blond really so it doesn't show up all that well. But give some money anyway!

IE9 on the far horizon

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:29 GMT

Microsoft have announced that there will be an Internet Explorer 9 (not a big surprise) and have given an early indication as to what it may include.

Headline features - faster with better standards support (in both cases playing catch up with Gecko, WebKit, Opera, etc.) and hardware accelerated graphics and font rendering which is something new and will improve the speed and quality of rendering across all sites not just ones that add new code.

No word yet on a release schedule, my personal guess would be late 2010 or early 2011 but as it's Microsoft that could be well off.

One thing that concerns me is that the uptake by consumers may be slow. IE7 was the first release in five years and also shipped as part of Vista and IE8 ships as part of Windows 8 so users buying new machines got them automatically. With no new operating system the take up of IE9 may be slower.

When pop-up blockers go bad

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:01:38 GMT

We have an web application at work that's used by thirty or so people, many of whom are non-technical. The application runs in the browser window and is a mixture of standard HTML forms and Java applets.

The most comment "it doesn't work" message I get from users is caused when the application displays this message:

Unspecified error invoking method or accessing property "showWindow"

The pop-up blocker built into Internet Explorer seems not to like Java applets trying to launch new browser windows. It blocks these by default even though they are "requested" by the user via a click and not launched automatically by a sneaky script. I guess IE can't or won't work out what's happened inside the applet before it calls out to create a new window.

Not once have the users noticed the yellow bar at the top of their browser window informing them that a pop-up has been blocked.

I can see the problem for browser producers - if you make the notification too prominent it becomes as annoying as the pop-up would have been; if you make it too subtle it goes unnoticed when the pop-up needs to be noticed.

Compounding the issue is that Internet Explorer seems to maintain three separate lists of trusted/permitted sites for privacy (i.e. cookies), security, and pop-ups. Would a master list of trusted sites with the ability to fine tune options on a site-by-site basis as an advanced option be easier to use? Or is the interface just leading me to the wrong conclusion? Oh well, maybe IE9 will streamline things.

Oh, and don't get me started on the Google Toolbar's pop-up blocker...

Battlestar Galactica, the end

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:01:49 GMT

I've just finished watching the finale of Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I'm behind the times (oh I am talking about the new series, not the original one, that would be really behind the times). It's been hard to avoid spoilers for the ending because of the very strong opinions it's generated, hence I was watching it with one eye on the telly and one eye on my reaction: would I hate the ending as much as some people did?

Um, no. I have no problem with the ending per se. I thought it was rushed, but only to the degree that the last four episodes needed to be six or seven episodes (it struck me that characters like Tyrol and Helo jumped in and out of the storyline over the last few episodes).

The "Golgafrinchan B-Ark" part of the ending is fine by me. It fits in with the overall themes of both the new series and the original. A little more time might have helped to show how the fleet agreed to this solution so readily. One line about "blank slates" doesn't really cut it but that doesn't detract from the basic concept.

The Mitochondrial Eve part of the ending is worrying but in line with general "Hollywood Dumb". The very concept of Mitochondrial Eve is merely the application of statistics in hindsight. Given a long enough period of time, such a person is likely to exist, but they were, in all probability, not at all special at the time. (And there's no way that anything resembling modern science could tell whether a given fossil belonged to Mitochondrial Eve.)

The Head Ghosts/Angels part of the ending is obvious tosh. The coyness about God ("You know he doesn't like that name") means that we're left with half an answer and personally I prefer the less than half an answer we got for the Starbuck story.

I don't mind stories with mystical or supernatural elements, such stories are an important part of our culture, even if some people take them literally and apply mystical or supernatural explanations to the real world. BSG managed the tightrope between both the rational and the mystical over is run. It decided that both were part of its world. I don't think it could have ended with a rational explanation for the visions, and prophecies that had filled the past four years.

It was one of the best pieces of television that we've had. Possibly the best ever in the SF genre. For all its faults, in the ending or in any part, I can't think any less of it. If you haven't watched it, do so; if you have, I hoped you enjoyed it as much as I did.

HTML5 and me

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:50:43 GMT

Part 1 of a few.

It seems that everyone has started talking about HTML5. I've recently converted sfsfw.org (still a work in progress) to HTML5 (ditto) and built a microsite at work in the language.

So, what parts of the brave new world am I embracing?

The new doctype

<!DOCTYPE html>, well that will save a few bytes per page. I've never tried to type a doctype from memory before, I've always cut and pasted from another project or from an authoritative source, but now I might just type it, saving a few seconds. I can't help feeling that the lack of versioning information is a making a problem for the future (and let's not get into the related area of all the things that HTML doctypes do/mean in comparison with what SGML or XML doctypes are meant to mean...).

The new character encoding

<meta charset="utf-8" />, again that will save a few bytes on those pages where I bother to include a meta tag rather than just trusting to the HTTP header (and I know why the belt and braces approach is useful, so long as they both tell the same story).

The new block level elements

<section>, <article>, <header>, <footer>, <aside> and <nav>. These are rather cool. Not immediataly earth shaking but they make code cleaner and debugging easier - less often will I be staring at </div></div></div></div> and wondering whether my current problem is caused by having too few or too many closing div tags.

The new input types

number, tel, email, url are already being used in several forms on visitlondon.com and it makes me smile 'cos me and a handful of other Opera users get to see the benefit right now. I think these will be my favourite part of the new spec for some time to come.

There's a lot more to HTML5. This isn't meant to be a tutorial, just some personal observations and use cases. I'll try to delve a bit deeper into how I'm using these pieces of code and why I'm using these but not others in future posts.

NaBloPoMo No Go

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:12:42 GMT

FAIL

I spent Friday evening and all day Saturday being ill and unlike certain bloggers (I'm sure we all know at least one) I wasn't going to inflict the details on you. So the goal of posting every day in November has taken a hit even quicker than it did last year. I'll still try to make "30 posts in 30 days" though.

Worst laid plans

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:27:02 GMT

This blog was down for a few hours this evening. I could have spent the time composing a post and having it ready to cut and paste in here now that everything is working again. I could have done that.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day (spent at an users' day for the CMS we use at work, held in a building that is one minute's walk away from the office) and the it's the weekend.

Very Good Musical Thing

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:37:49 GMT

Reasons to love the joined-up-interweb: musicians you love telling you about new musicians they love, with YouTube vids embedded, etc.

Tanita Tikaram recommends Marina and the Diamonds' I am Not a Robot

Antlers of Gormlessness

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:25:19 GMT

Just a quick one to point out that when you build a Christmas web site in October, sometimes things go a little strange...

Big Game Hunt

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:11:56 GMT

I've been updating my Dinosaurs in Miniature pages. The main differences have been the addition of the MegaMiniatures megafauna that I posted about previously, the continuing expansion of the Dazed Miniatures range and some new miniatures from Wargames Foundry, including the Terror Bird shown here.

BTW, Foundry have a 20% off sale until the 10th November 2009. So now's a very good time to pick up these new goodies.

At SELWG last month I picked up a "new" Smilodon from the "old" DZ range sold by Trent Miniatures. It's in a walking pose rather than the leaping pose that's been available for a while. This range is now available over the web from North Star though this additional Smilodon isn't listed.

There have also been a few additions to the 10mm DinoMight range form Magister Militum.

MY Miniatures ice age range seems to have melted away from the web with the close of Geocities. Does anyone know if they have a new web site elsewhere?

And finally, the Tusk rules are available as PDF via Wessex Games/Wargame Vault. You can still buy the paper version from Irregular but the new version has full colour photos throughout.

I am currently growing a moustache as all big game hunters should.

November - houses, blogs & moustaches

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:13:56 GMT

November has arrived accompanied by wind and rain and cold (and indeed a cold). How to spend the month?

Well mostly Lettice and I will be spending it buying a house. Or trying to. The other day we took a tame civil engineer to have a look round the place we're hoping to buy (in a sort of "look for the massive faults before paying a surveyor" kind of way) and he could only see one potential problem. Fingers crossed that it isn't.

Like last year, I'll be taking part in NaBloPoMo as a form of half-hearted solidarity with the people who are attempting NoNoWriMo.

And I'll be growing a moustache. Some banter in the office on Friday has somehow led to me agreeing at the last minute to take part in Movember. Now, despite having a silly name and being an Australian import, this is a very good cause so please make a donation. I promise to only post very occasional photos of the mo's progress.

Finally I'll be hiding from the bad weather and watching telly, not least Doctor Who which is back for a special on the 15th.

Klingons!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:24:49 GMT

Via SFXmagazine on Twitter.

SELWG 09

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:23:56 GMT

Today was the SELWG show, back for the first time since 2006. So once again I had a nice stroll up the hill and then a few hours shopping and gawping at the games.

The renovated Crystal Palace Sports Centre meant that there was considerably more room for the Bring and Buy sale and for the first time ever I actually found something I wanted to buy. The B&B wasn't helped by people standing in front of it chatting to their mates who were serving. Come on guys, I know that shows are a chance to catch up with old friends but not whilst they're trying to run the most chaotic and crowded part of the whole show.

But the highlight was a buying these chaps and if you don't get why they're so exciting to me, take a look at the original paint scheme, and if that still means nothing to you then I can only say that this was a nostalgic trip back to my childhood.

Spam, spam, spam

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:04:47 GMT

Vaguely in honour of Monty Python's anniversary and vaguely in honour of the fact that I haven't posted in ages. Here's a quick dive into the spam comments folder. Except I can only find two that are remotely interesting. Maybe I need to learn to read Russian.

What is the budget and head count of the office of accountability?

Ooo, I like the sly "why is there only one Monopoly Commission" implication behind the question. However, in this case the answer is very easy to find.

How do people actually make money with porn?

They sell it to other people.

jQuery plugins I have known and loved

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:50:20 GMT

One of my goals over the last year has been to convert most of the JavaScript I use on visitlondon.com to use the jQuery library. One of the big advantages of jQuery is a library of pre-existing and thoroughly tested plugins for simplifying a lot of common tasks.

Here's what I've been using; if you use jQuery, what plugins do you think are essential?

Obviously, jQuery itself, the latest version (which is 1.3.2 at the time of writing).
jQuery UI, the latest version (1.7.2) customised to contain just the core, draggable (see it action on the tube map^[1]) and datepicker functionality. I have a project on the horizon where I'll probably be using the full range of widgets and interactions.
Lightbox plugin, (see it action on our Peter Pan site)
Validation plugin, just starting to use this (see a simple example) but very pleased with it so far.
Mouse Wheel Extension, to enable mouse wheel based zooming of maps (see it in action)
jCarousel plugin, (see it action at the bottom of the page on our London Restaurant Festival site)
Flashembed plugin, I'm actually using an old version of this as I had to modify it to avoid clashes with some of our CSS but most of the modifications have now been done better in the new versions so I'll probably be upgrading soon

There's a problem with Webkit powered browsers - if the item to be dragged is an image map then the mousedown action never reaches the drag code. Hence Chrome and Safari users will see a box with scrollbars instead on that page.

Deadpool Update

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:32:59 GMT

You've probably seen the news that Patrick Swayze has died.

Only one person had him on their deadpool list.

One of these things...

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:59:42 GMT

The screenshot below represents what eBay things I might be interested in. How did they decide on the last item?

Oook!

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:24:18 GMT

Do you like hairy, sweaty Essex boys¹ making themselves even hairier and sweatier?

Um. Let's start that again.

Do you like gorillas?

Then check out my ~~idiot colleague~~ good friend Chris who is running in this year's Great Gorilla Run and sponsor him

[1] Though if you do, Chris would probably like to hear from you and an introduction could be arranged.

Mega Miniatures Megafauna

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:57:23 GMT

Mega Miniatures have enhanced their extensive range of animal miniatures with some prehistoric mammals - a Doedicurus, a Diprotodon and best of all a Chalicotherium.

I've been fascinated by Chalicotheres ever since I saw them on Walking with Beasts but up to now the only miniature representation has been the 1/72 scale David Krentz version, which whilst a better sculpt is small and pricey. So big kudos to Mega for bringing one of my favourite animals to life.