Getting Closer
Posted: Thu 14 July, 2005 Filed under: Music 5 Comments »Having seen Stalker’s review(ish) of it I’m looking forward more and more to tonight’s gig. Nine Inch Nails, Brixton Academy.
I’m still not overly looking forward to the travel home afterwards – but with luck I’ll be deaf for most of it…
Omens
Posted: Thu 14 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 4 Comments »You know, there’s a sign that you’re about to have a bad day. It’s this :
You get on a train, (or any form of public transport, but in today’s case, it’s a train) sit down, and opposite you there’s a woman clutching the cross on her necklace, and singing hymns to herself. At a volume high enough to make the tune identifiable (Closer My God To Thee, I think it’s called) but also at a pitch spookily resembling the “mosquito buzzing in the ear” level of irritation.
Thank Chuff I only had to go ten minutes with it.
Nutter.
Equality and Accessibility
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »I noticed this morning (well, I’ve noticed the first part several times, but the second part I only thought about today) that trains now have braille “text” (and as an aside, what is the name for Braille characters? Text? Characters? Signage?) around things like the “Open” and “Close” buttons on the doors, and on the toilets etc. That’s great, and it’s always good to see these things.
However, there’s no braille on the “in case of emergency” stickers at all, or on the “how to escape from this carriage” ones.
Which seems a bit odd – after all, if a carriage is in darkness, or engulfed in thick smoke, surely the ones with the advantage will be the ones who are acclimatised to not being able to see clearly?
Gordon Ramsay
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts 2 Comments »From the huge splurge in hits from Google searches for “Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares Bonaparte’s, do I assume that last night’s Gordon Ramsay involved him re-visiting the restaurant in Silsden where he got fed the dodgy oyster?
Thought so.
Monitors
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Weirdness 3 Comments »On the subject (well, almost) of multitasking, a geeky set-up question…
At work, I’ve got a dual-monitor set-up. Monitor One comes through the DVI plug, and works fine. The other one comes through the normal DSUBoutput (I think it’s DSUB- whatever the standard plug for video output is, anyway). This works fine in most circumstances.
However, on the second monitor, I can’t see video playback through Real – whether it comes from BBC or wherever, I get the audio, but not the video. Any ideas why?
Multi-tasking
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 4 Comments »Why is it that so many people are utterly shit at doing more than one thing at once?
Example : Walking out of a shop, their brain triggers on “Oh, it’s bright outside, I’d best find my sunglasses”. Slam. Stop. Right in the fucking doorway, so no-one else can get past while they ferret through their bags to find the bloody sunglasses. Outside the door is still in shade from the portico design, so they could wait 5 seconds, get out of the fucking way, and then find the sodding things, but oh no, way too much like common sense.
Example : Walking in a busy street, they hear the “dee-dee-dee deeee-deeee dee-dee-dee” of their phone telling them they’ve a text message. Slam. Stop. Got to look at the message right a-fucking-way, because it might be important, someone might’ve died, you never know. Oh no, it’s my mate wanting to know if I’m nearly there yet. Rather than walking the hundred yards to tell ’em, they’ll stand here like a lemon, blocking the path to other people, while they attempt (yet again) to master T9 predictive text.
Example : Talking on a mobile while driving can quadruple the risk of accidents – as well as being illegal, and leaving you open to a fine etc.
So – why can’t most people multitask?