Matts Meanderings

Reading a blog post recently, and in it, Duncan Mackenzie talks about never typing “end if” properly when coding - he types it as “endif”, and the auto-correct fixes it for him.

I also stumbled across another article from Google's Jobs Dept about the spelling correction system they use, and the data they have for how many people did searches where they misspelt Britney Spears. Its kinda scary how many people screwed that up.

Its also scary (as Duncan says), thinking about how many people can't actually spell anymore, and just rely on the spell checker to tell them when something is wrong. Especially seeing that students now type assignments up on the computer. How many kids these days are not actually learning to spell? Its also an issue, as spell checkers don't know context, and words can be correct, just not the right word for the context (as the Ode to Spell Checkers illustrates). We're going to have an entire generation that cant spell if they don't have a computer in front of them.

Just goes to show, computers are going to cause the downfall of civilisation as we know it.

PS - yes, I was paranoid about getting grammar and spelling correct in this post

Read a vaguely interesting article the other week when I was trying to find information about the latest NASA launch (I think it was the one that's supposed to impact that comet), about the seismological effects of the earthquake that caused the Boxing Day tsunami:

NASA scientists using data from the Indonesian earthquake calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation.

From: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/news/earthquake-011005.html

Just re-reading an email I'd sent to a friend, about going insane, getting fed up with looking for a contract:

I'm going insane! Shoot me!

I know. I'll shoot me (somewhere where its not going to hurt too much), then find a corrupt doctor to pronounce me dead, get the life insurance, and then I dont have to get a job! yay!

Hmm... need to investigate plastic surgery and false passports... 

Note to self - tell family that I'm not dead.

I'm worried about the way my brain works...

Well, I made it back in one piece from skiing - which is really kinda surprising, given my snowboarding ability .

Anyway, about our week. We went over with a group called Mark Warner, which does holiday packages all around. Pretty good all up, except for a few things that were out of their control, but thats getting ahead of the story. We all got there and got organised with the renting gear and getting ski passes and all that, and got settled in happily. Minor thing was that we didn't really need to get the ski passes, as we spent most of the week on the free nursery slopes, and hardly got out to the other ones. Ahh, but never mind - we all did it, so we all lost out.

Next day, we headed out, and thought we'd have a bash at the whole snowboarding thing, before our lesson in the afternoon. Well, let me tell you, as a complete beginner, going to the top of the hill, and pointing the board downhill is a baaad move. Kinda funny though - lots of face plants and falls. After a very boring lesson (the basics are always boring), we had a lot more success with it all.

Generally, we had a lot of fun, though Biscuit got a mild concussion from hitting his head, Paul stuffed his wrist/thumb, and then a few days later stuffed his knee (stopping his skiing antics), Biscuit, Jon, Leigh and I got a pretty bad bout of food poisoning (or gastro, one of the two), and we all got lots and lots and lots of bruises. The only one of us that actually made it out every day was Lydia.

Even though most of us were out of it for at least one day, we all got lots better at boarding (except for Paul of course). By the end of the week, I got the whole linked turns thing going. Was pretty proud of it, though I could've done with a few more days of it, just to let it sink in, and get some time actually boarding, rather than falling over.

The 'best' part of the trip was the flight back. We had to get up at something stupid like 5am, and on a bus by about 5.45am. A few hours drive, and then we ended up stopping at some random little town café, as we'd been told that Geneva airport was closed, and they didn't know what was happening. About 2 hours there, and then we found out that the plane had been redirected to Lyon. So, back on the bus for 2 hours, arriving at Lyon about midday (the time that our flight was originally planned to leave from Geneva). The thing was, the airport was so disorganised, it was a disaster. Quite a few flights had been diverted there, so it was pretty painful.

Our new flight was supposed to leave at 4pm - only problem was that the girls behind the checkin desk had serious issues checking people in. It took them about 3 hours to check in one flight. Very painful. Then serious issues with getting through security (the line was very long, and not moving for ages). Then, finally got through, and had to sit for ages, waiting to get onto the plane. We finally got on at about 6pm (amid cheers), and we ready to go. Took off, and found that the food was no longer safe to eat, so no food on board either. Just about to land, and the pilot is apologising for the crap days that we've had, and then slips in a “by the way, we left the luggage in France”. Apparently, they had a choice, take off without most of the luggage, or load it on board, taking an extra half hour, and miss our take off window - with an estimated 8 hour wait until we could take off. So, I can kind of understand why they did it, but really, was it that hard to get it sorted in the first place?

So far, I've had my luggage delivered, but everyone else hasn't got theirs. I'm happy, cos I had no clean clothes. Insurance would've covered new clothes, but its just the annoyance of it all.

So, all in all, it was a good week, with a few painful bits. I could've done with a stomach that wasn't queasy for half the week - lots of nice food that I couldn't enjoy. Hopefully, next time, it'll be a lot better .

[Edit: Added a link to the dodgy spreadsheet thingy, cos some whingers (okay, one whinger) complained.]

Thanks to a dodgy spreadsheet thingy that my good old buddy Simone sent me, I just realised that I'm 10,017 days old. That means I just missed my 10,000th day. Damn, I should've been out celebrating.

Well, happy 10,000th day to me anyway .

I think I’ve been avoiding this for long enough, so it’s about time that I actually got started and got something down about my France travels. Especially seeing that I’m just about to head to France for a second time.

So, I believe that when I put this scintillating narrative down last time, our brave, dashing hero was bunking down at Berlins Schoenefeld airport.

[Our dashing hero] Got woken up at about 4am (not good when you get to sleep about midnight), by the staff coming in to work. Rather odd - they didn't seem to think anything strange about us sleeping on the chairs there. I s'pose they must see it quite often. I will note that the chairs were surprisingly comfortable. I was jealous of Amy and her sleeping bag, but I’m glad I didn't have to carry it around. 

Seeing I had time to kill, I thought it'd be a good idea to ring the bank about the fraudulent charges on my visa. Now, when you've got a flight to catch, don’t go and ring a bank. Managed to nearly miss the flight. That woulda been stupid. But, managed to climb onto a flight at 7.30, and traveled sedately at horrific speeds inside a steel tube at stupid heights. Despite gravity's attempts to drag us down into a very hard thing called the ground, we managed to get to Nice safely.

Was quite excited to be in France. Nice is right on the coast, and curves around a pretty cool looking bay. Managed to make our way into town (the airport is surprisingly close to town - its built on land reclaimed from the sea), and found our hostel really close to the railway station. Only problem was you have to watch were you're walking - the French and they're poodles... Oh, yeah, our hostel charged for the showers - very short showers. Damn annoying.

Had a nice time just wandering around, exploring the place. Found a little place called Johnny's Wine Bar (happy hour!), with a cool old dude playing a guitar (at least I think it was a guitar). Had a bit of a chat with him - damn he'd had an interesting life. When he gets bored, he just moves on to a new place and plays in bars for money. Cool guy to meet, and coupled with some nice wines... Well, it was a good night :)

Following day, the weather made itself known, and promptly decided to rain on us. So, we did a bit of wandering, but ended up sitting at a café for ages, drinking coffee, playing chinese checkers, and trying to speak French to the café staff (lots of blank looks - need to work on that).

Also climbed up to a hill overlooking the town (La Colline Du Chateau (castle hill)), which used to have a fort on it. Nice views, and a nice waterfall (which Amy and Lauren climbed the fence and went in behind), but nothing very exciting.

I've just realised that you probably have no idea who Lauren is. She's a girl that Amy met in Prague, who was also traveling around by herself, and had similar plans to us, so joined us for the trip.

The next day we all got up early, and went expeditioning. We headed down to Villefranche - a very cool little town, built around a narrow bay. Very nice - very relaxing too. Someone had thrown some bread in the water, and there were schools of fish eating it - looked quite odd until I figured it out. Explored the town, and randomly wandered for a while, taking random photos, and then it was time to head onwards.

Next town on the day trip was Ville d'Eze, which is a town which is sort of split in two, with a long walk uphill in between. (I’ve got a feeling that the town down on the waters edge was Ville d'Eze Sud or something). Even though it was a pretty painful walk, it was worthwhile. The views on the trail were pretty darn cool. At the top town/village, there was an old castle with lots of nooks and crannies, and little winding lanes. Lots of things to take photos of :D. Very cool. It seemed to have been taken over as an artist’s community. Lots of cool art and arty type things.

And then, it was all the way back down to the village to the train, for the piece de la resistance, Monaco. The playground of the rich and famous, full of expensive yachts, expensive cars, rich good looking people, and now me.

We wandered up to Monaco’s fort, which also holds the Princes Palace (Monaco is a principality), all pretty cool. About this point, Lauren was feeling pretty tired, and Amy wanted to see different stuff, so we split up. I went to the Musee d'Oceanography - very very very very cool. One of the best aquariums I’ve been to. Could've sat there for hours, just staring. They also had lots and lots of old stuff, charting the history of ocean science. Very cool. Could've spent a day in there.

After that, did a lot of wandering around, trying to become rich by osmosis (or something), but just generally exploring. I managed to find the Monaco Casino (not too shabby), and also found the Monaco Grand Prix track (by asking a doorman in abominable French). Just to rub it in, to my friend Paul, who's into Grand Prix racing, I took a photo of me on the race track . You'll have to take my word for it that it is the race track though, cos you can’t really tell. People looked at me a little strangely when I did that.

Other than drooling at all the very nice, very expensive yachts there (I want one!), that was about all I did in Monaco. So, it was back on the train, back to nice. Which leaves us on the 10th of November, I believe. And that’s enough for this post.

Bright and early Sunday morning, Biscuit, Paul & Lyds, Leigh, Jon and I are off to Chalet hotel L’Aiguille Percee in Tignes, France, for a week of skiing. Yay!

So, I get to learn to ski, which I'm told is not too hard if you've water-skied before. So, should be fun, but cold. The town is pretty ugly apparently, but the skiing is really good. So, I'll take good skiing over a good-looking town. Its also got a pretty good night-life, I'm told .

Hmm... Note to self: Go hire some ski gear. Wandering around ski fields in a t-shirt is probably not a good idea...

PS - If you cant figure out the title, go ask google.

When I was rather sick, and coughing up lots of horrible stuff, I was drinking hot water with lemon and honey - to sooth the throat and all that.

The other day Paul tried to pour some lemon juice out of the bottle, and it wouldn't come out. He opened it, and there was lots and lots of grey mouldy stuff in it - generally gross.

So, I'd been drinking mouldy lemon juice. In hot water, so that may have killed off some of it, but still... No wonder it took me so long to get well(ish).

[Edit: Apparently putting object tags in a post is evil, so i've taken it out the embedded video. Just use the download link to view it]

This has been doing the rounds for a while as an email, but someones gone and made a video of it, so I just have to share it.

<snip/>

Or, you can just download the file.

C/o Monica, who passed it on from someone else

Is your monitor dirty? Here's an easy way to clean your screen.

[Shamelessly stolen from http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000372.html]

A week or so back, Wendy told me that she didn't enjoy my Greece stories as much, cos I didn't include enough anecdotes and perceptions about the place and the people. So, even though I’d said I’ve finished the Greece stories, here's another short one.

With Nafplia, once you got out of the centre of town, it was pretty dirty. There were places where there wasn't any footpath, and rubbish all over the place. The buildings were also pretty dirty (but that seems to be a Europe thing), and it seemed curiously reminiscent of India. Much cleaner, but they seemed to have something in common. I had this impression a few times there - something about the cramped towns and the lack of Australian/American 'suburbia' I think.

As for Athens - it’s been transformed into a cool, hip city, especially around Plaka. The 2004 Olympics meant that the city (at least the touristy parts) got a makeover. Now, it’s full of cafe's and cool bars. I'm not sure what it was like before, but now it’s pretty good. But, get away from the touristy parts, and once again, you get to see the real city, without the make-up. Its dirty, crazy, and very much not the "sanitized" western city that I was expecting.

It’s quite odd: for the country that pretty much invented civilisation, it’s remarkably behind the mod-cons, and the conditions that most western cities have. The transport was definitely second rate as well. Most Western European countries, it’s pretty easy to get around, but the Greek public transport system seemed to go out of its way to make it difficult for you.

As for the people - I didn't actually spend much time with them, but nearly everyone spoke English (giving me no incentive to learn Greek). At one point I did see some old guys playing checkers on a side street, which was sort of the typical-old-greek-guys-playing-checkers-on-the-street-cliché, but it was cool nonetheless.

Anyway, this has been more of a ramble, and hopefully it adds a bit to my other stories, and lessens the 'i did this, then this, then this’ aspect of it. Maybe Amy'll wander past and add a comment to expand the story & remind me of a few things.

Had to change a bit of the site today, for a few reasons:

• Legions of lazy scrabrous mangy fleabags were complaining that they couldn't access the photos link in the menu. So, I've changed it to something thats a lot more ugly, but supposedly cross-browser compatible, and also backwards compatible. And, as an added benefit, I didn't write it, so thats an extra point in ensuring it will actually work. If it doesn't, well.. you know what you can do. Thats right. Whinge about it.
  
• Due to overwhealming amounts of spam in the comments on the blogs here (two, thats right, two), I've turned on an option to “make sure you're a human“, rather than a computer. I know that some of you dont technically qualify for the label "human", but we'll just let that slide - you should still be able to handle it. If you dont type in the short string-of-random-characters, it will ignore your comment. So, type it in carefully. But, then again, most of y'all weren't leaving any comments, even when I specifically asked for them, so its not really going to affect you. And, if you cant already tell, I'm a little put out by that.

So, now that I've told you stuff, and had a whinge, I'm going to go and suck my thumb. Again.

Just downloading FireFox (which is a different internet browser, like Internet Explorer, but stupider), and i came across the download link:

But... I thought the British invented English...

Nerd bit: If you must know, I'm downloading cos of the increasing number of people using it, and when you write websites, you need to test in all of them. I must say, for a browser that is supposedly so much better that IE, and fully standards compliant, I've found quite a few non-standard-compliant issues with it already - enough to drive me up the proverbial wall.

I've decided one of the bad things about being over here is the lack of females that I can dragoon into helping me shop .

I had to go buy some stuff today, cos its getting annoying wearing the same things for nearly 5 months. There I was, braving the hoards of bargain shoppers, looking through what passes for fashion here in the UK (I mean, does anyone actually buy that stuff? I mean, really!). I wanted to buy some jeans, as my old ones had a hole in them, and they're torn. Only problem is, the ones in the shops are in the same condition! Gah! How is this fashion? There was a t-shirt that had seams and patches on the outside. Stupid. Why cant I just find normal clothes? And then when I do find some, have to figure out if it actually suits me - as if I know!

Gah. Over it now though. Managed to get a jumper and a long-sleeve t-shirt though. Think they're alright. If they're not okay, I'll just have to hope that everyone's polite enough not to say anything .

Note to self: get a girl to go shopping with.

Over Christmas, I wasn't the most well, but I'd pretty much recovered by New Years Eve.

But, due to, ahem, an overindulgence on New Years Eve, my immune system has decided to check out what the weather in Majorca is like, and consequentially, left me without one.

So, now I'm coughing up all sorts of things that aren't supposed to be coughed up (lungs, diaphragms, horrible green stuff, and a golf ball, of all things).

Just have to hang out for the doctors appointment on Thursday now (by which time, I'll be well, but...). You've got to love this country - the earliest appointment I could get was over a week in advance.

I just felt that I had to inflict my whinging on you all.

I'm going to go and sulk now, and suck my thumb.

[Edit - apparently it was over 4 years, not 3 years]

It seems that the curse “may you live in interesting times” might have been inflicted on me again... (Not to self - stop calling Confucius funny names...)

Momentus times, it seems, momentus times...

• some friends of mine just got engaged...
• some friends of mine just split up (after 4 years or so)
• a friend of mine split up with his girlfriend (but this was last year though)
• a friend of mine finally found himself a woman (once again, last year)
• a friend of mine got himself an evening in jail for “drunk in a public place”. On Christmas eve, even.

Scary stuff. And I'm sure its only going to get worse...