Photo by florriebassingbourn on Flickr
When I was young, I was always told that if someone was blocking your way and you needed to move them – for instance in a busy supermarket – you simply had to say “excuse me” and they would know to move. I was told this was good manners and the polite way to handle the situation.
Just lately though, I’ve noticed three things:
1) People don’t say “excuse me” any more… they just stand as close to you as possible until you move, burning a hole into your back because you’re in the way and aren’t moving, even if you aren’t aware of their presence.
2) If you say “excuse me” to people that are in your way, you get a shocked look and a rapid apology, as if they were preventing you from getting to something urgent and that they couldn’t possibly have any right to be standing where they are.
3) If people need to get past, the just force their way past while muttering “sorry, sorry, sorry” with no regard for your personal space.
What’s going on? Has the British nation forgotten about the simple “excuse me”? Why are people so shocked to be asked to step aside in a polite manner? Have we got to the point where even communicating with our fellow man kind can only be met with repulsion and shock?
I have no answers… all I know is that I will continue to use my manners as my mother raised me to and I will continue to “excuse myself” whenever I need to.
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There’s been quite a bit of buzz in the geek news lately due to the introduction of some new legal requirements regarding a websites use of cookies and how you declare them. I recently had to create some graphics to support a “cookie policy” page, and the happy little cookie I created makes me smile so much, I couldn’t help but make some wallpapers featuring my new cookie friend!
They’re both 1080p, so will be fine on most widescreen monitors. Click the previews below to download the large version.
These wallpapers are free for non-commercial use. Go crazy.
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I’m a nerd and an obsessive consumer of content, so for me social news sites, like Digg, Reddit etc have always been a big draw for me. In their early days, these sites always seem to attract a decent quality of reader and the conversations held in each posts comments are always educational and interesting. However, these sites always seem to have a tipping point, where their popularity brings them into the public spotlight, and a less enlightened user begins to enter the ranks. These users, post irrelevant comments, endless memes and generally lower the standard of the whole site.
When this happens, the original members start to get aggrieved by the new users and start looking for new places, this happened not long after Reddit launched, and droves of former Digg users moved to Reddit. Over time, more and more of the unenlightened users swarm into the original site, pushing more and more of the original users to another site. Eventually, the unenlightened users themselves are pushed out by an even lower form of life – the trolls, spammers and other layers of pond-scum, leaving a site that barely functions and nobody wants to be a part of.
This leads to a continuous migration of users from site to site, First Slashdot, then Digg, Then Reddit, even niche sites like Hacker News seem to be suffering lately – once a dedicated community of like minded entrepreneurs, they too have slowly begun to attract a number of “Digg caliber” users.
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Wow… I can’t believe it’s been almost a whole year since I got my iPad 2. I wanted one from the moment Apple first announced the tablet back in 2010 but due to the exorbitant expense that comes with buying a house and having your first born child in the same year, the funds just weren’t available to me. Last year came around and the iPad 2 was announced, but still money was a bit tight and so, my financial advisor (her indoors) denied me the opportunity to own my own Shiny Tablet.
Luckily, last year fate threw me a bone and my wonderful boss rewarded me for some particularly sterling work by treating me to a top of the range iPad 2 with 3g. I use the iPad now, every day, almost without fail, whether it’s for surfing the web, streaming music to my car stereo, answering emails or watching my favourite shows (Breaking Bad is my current addiction).
One thing I wasn’t expecting to use much, was the 3G as I spend 90% of my life in range of Wireless internet connections – I even pick hotels based on the availability of a decent free wireless connection. However, last year when I attended WordCampUK in Portsmouth, I found myself in a hotel that didn’t provide free wi-fi. In fact, the wi-fi was expensive and coverage was patchy in the room I had been allocated.
Luckily, one of the first things I had done was order a microsim from O2. *just in case*. So, from the comfort of my hotel bed, I whipped out my Mastercard and ordered 24 hours of mobile broadband from the lovely men at O2 for the not at all shocking fee of two British Quids and a couple of pennies. The speed was acceptable and allowed me to stay in touch with my wife and son using Skype messaging when in the hotel, or to quickly jump online when the wi-fi at the conference venue flaked out (which it did quite a few times).
Since then, I’ve had no reason to use the 3G connectivity but it’s nice to know that it’s there for me, even if I don’t need it that often.
We also used the iPad at the conference with MailChimps excellent Chimpadeedoo app as a competition sign-up form on our stand (we were a sponsor of the event). It came in really handy and acted as a great conversation starter allowing us to engage visitors to our stand.
So… if you have an iPad with 3G, make sure you keep a micro-sim loaded ready for those little emergencies when you might just need it.
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According to this post at Macrumors Apple have recently settled with Elan over claims of multitouch patent infringement for around $5 million.
I can imagine how that conversation went:
Elan: Patent Infringements, blah blah blah
Apple: Here's $5 million. Fuck off and stop wasting my time.
Elan: Ok!
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I recently started work on a theme that I wanted to make truly flexible. As part of this I wanted to add a CSS class to the <body> tag of ‘has_sidebar’ in the condition that the site had a sidebar with widgets present (an active sidebar).
I found a few tutorials but they were for old versions of WordPress and didn’t work in the current (3+ versions of WordPress). After a bit of hacking about I managed to get the following code working.
To use, simply add this to your Themes functions.php file:
function has_sidebar($classes) {
// add 'class-name' to the $classes array
$classes[] = 'has_sidebar';
// return the $classes array
return $classes;
}
if (is_active_sidebar('right_sidebar')) {
add_filter('body_class','has_sidebar');
}
Following some discussion with some WordPress experts, I now present to you, a new improved version of the above code that moves the conditional inside the function rather than flapping about on its own.
function has_sidebar($classes) {
if (is_active_sidebar('sidebar')) {
// add 'class-name' to the $classes array
$classes[] = 'has_sidebar';
}
// return the $classes array
return $classes;
}
add_filter('body_class','has_sidebar');
It’s also recommended that if you use this code in your own theme that you prefix the function name with the name of your theme (replace all occurrences of ‘has_sidebar’ with ‘yourtheme_has_sidebar’. This just prevents clashes with any other functions contained within plugins.
The updated code has now been merged into all of my currently available themes: Terminally, Hello Sexy and Fiver.
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Well… who’d have thought it. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be celebrating 30 years on this planet. I feel like I’m doing pretty well all things considered and I’ve had a much easier life than many people on this planet so despite my birthday approaching rapidly I don’t have much to feel blue about (although I do feel a mid-life crisis may be in order in coming months #firstworldproblems).
The good news is, November is the month all the awesome games start coming out. I don’t get to play games much since the arrival of my little sprog, however I’m putting some time aside after my birthday for some fun and games. I’m a huge fan of The Assassins Creed and Saints Row series of games, and they both have sequels coming out on the 15th November (Assassins Creed Revelations and Saints Row the Third). I’m also likely to grab the new Batman game – Arkham City as I love anything that’s open world and sandboxy, especially when it involves super heros!
I’ll be celebrating with a birthday buffet at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant in my home town of Stafford with my son and family around, then home and a week off work during which time I’ll be trying to fit in three large sand-box games! Should be fun!
I’m not a huge social butterfly, but if you know me in reality and want to come along, consider this an invite – drop me a tweet or an email and I’ll give you the date/time and place.
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my wife just emailed me this lovely tale… Enjoy!
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’
The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.
The sand is everything else–the small stuff.
‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
‘Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf ball first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.’
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One more thing I forgot during last weeks little rant on the lesser known peculiarities of being a parent… DANGER! Kids are dangerous. Today my son has head-butted my wife three times, tried to jam a whole stick of Celery down my throat and woken me up by stamping on my man-danglies. I shit you not.
That’s just today. The little thug has already broken two pairs of glasses this year and this morning pulled a mug out of a cupboard and hurled it across the kitchen. Babies should come with riot equipment as standard cos you can guarantee that you’ll be hurtin’ once they gain the ability to move around freely.
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Over night some images appeared on Twitter showing supposed evidence of people having stolen iPads and iPhones from major outlets during the London/Birmingham/Manchester riots (not Apple stores as far as I can tell… they were well protected).
Anyone that partakes in these kinds of activities is wasting their time. Each store will have a list of serial numbers stored, when they report those numbers to Apple, Steves minions will simply hit a bit kill switch over at Cupertino and the device will cease to function. And thats if you’re lucky.
Photo by Beacon Radio
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