Passive Aggressive August 28, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Funny, Miscellany , add a commentWe’ve all been there. Someone keeps parking in “your spot”. You go to the fridge and there’s only an empty milk bottle. Every day for the last week you’ve arrived at work to find your office door unlocked when you know you locked it the evening before. Some of us are rude and obnoxious and will “explain” to the perpertators of such attrocities the error of their ways but not everyone has that luxury.
Which is where the passive aggressive note comes in. Anyone who has lived in a shared house has probably experienced these. Fortunately (more…)
Memes R Us August 15, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Cool, Miscellany, Technology , add a commentAh, internet memes. Where would we be without them. They come along, make us all laugh for a few days and then disappear.
Who can forget Dramatic Chipmunk, Diet Coke+Mentos, Numa Numa, Star Wars Kid or All Your Base Are Belong To Us. Not to forget 2 girls, 1 cup.
Mapping Local Crime August 3, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Cool, Miscellany , add a commentRecently there was a news story that the UK government was considering the introduction of monthly crime maps showing the nature of crimes in a local area in an attempt to close the gap between the actual recorded crime figures and the general perceptions of the level of crime. It was mentioned that there were already examples of this in other areas of the world.
Totally unrelated to this I came across this site that does exactly what has been proposed for dozens of cities in the US. It categorises crimes and allows all or a selection of these categories to be mapped over a 3, 7, 14 or 30 day period. It makes interesting reading. Different cities provide differing amounts of information but the level of detail is still quite interesting. As an example of a real case I chose Palo Alto, CA. From this example it is clear that the placement of the crimes is down to a fairly precise level on the map.
One thing that I did find interesting was that in some of the smaller cities there appears at first glance to be a fairly large amount of crime and it is only when you start to read through the categories and details that you realise that the large number of crime icons on the map may be due to an aggressive targeting of a particular offence, for example youngsters with alcohol. This shows that as with all information designed for the “public” there needs to be a clear explanation as to what the data shows. It isn’t too big a leap to imagine a situation where an area gets a bad reputation simply because there are a large number of icons on the crime map whereas a closer inspection shows that in fact the opposite is true and there is relatively little actual serious crime due to a “zero tolerance” approach by local police.
The Crime Reports site relies on local police departments volunteering the information and obviously any UK service needs to be a nation wide operation if it is to be meaningful but I think it could be a useful addition to the debate on crime.
Finally a good use for CCTV May 19, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Cool, Miscellany , add a commentThere are now something over 13 million CCTV cameras in the UK making us the most spied on nation on Earth. It’s a full on 1984 scenario but as was recently reported they aren’t stopping crime. ArsGeek has a piece on an unsigned band called Get Out Clause who finally found a use for some of them. In the absence of a budget to make a video they used CCTV cameras to shoot various clips and then used the Data Protection Act to get the footage that they were able to stitch together to make a video. Genius!
Lost Generation May 8, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Miscellany , add a commentThis is a clever take on society and our “lost generation”.
¡uʍop ǝpısdn llɐ s,ʇı ¿ɟʇʍ April 27, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Miscellany , add a commentOK so this on sits in the too much time on your hands catagory but in case you ever need it, this site will take text that you type and turn it upside down. ˙(-: ʇuoɹɟ oʇ ʞɔɐq puɐ uʍop ǝpısdn ‘ʎlsnoıɹǝs.
Music and Life April 18, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Miscellany , add a commentAn interesting Alan Watts talk set to a nifty cartoon. Deep. Take note!
Interesting Recipe Site February 17, 2008
Posted by Drew in : Miscellany , add a commentI like food and I like cooking. Of course it’s nice to try new things and there are a stack of sites out there with recipes on them. Cookthink is an interesting take on the idea. The site allows you to select by ingredient, mood, dish and cuisine to get to some ideas. As an example you can select One Pot (dish) and Hearty (mood) and it will generate a prefered recipe. Don’t fancy it? Well there will be others. Quite a good range already and they actually work.