smarterthanyouraverage.com

Curious Panda

Cute Panda

For the record, I am not impressed with the elephants painted like pandas. Nothing cute about that.

_{Thanks to christhedunn, and Patty926 for allowing embeds.}

I seem to be using Facebook less and less, but there are sometimes things that make me want to dive back into the blue and white world. My Desk Friend is one of those things.

The little robot connects to your profile and can let you know when you have messages, when your friends log in, and when you’ve been poked.

It also works for other generic services, such as letting you know when you have an email, but it seems to be designed around Facebook. The weird little penguin gets it’s own section of your profile and your friends can give it gifts and things like that. Okay, that may be taking it too far, but it is cute, no?

It is all about the greens this week, as the strawberry crop seems to have become non-existant all of a sudden. I only had about three or four delicious strawberries to eat. The rest were too small and went bad before I could get to them. I believe there are some new buds beginning though, so I will be patient once more.

Meanwhile, I have turned my attention to the rest of the plants.

The lettuce is a stunning addition to the window, and is growing massively every time I blink. I am not sure at what point it becomes edible, or does it not matter? They still look like young plants that need time to grow and I don’t want to pluck them before they are ready.

I am very excited about this. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to see a sign of a tomato, plus I didn’t really know what I was looking for. But after last week’s revelation that trimming a plant does it some good, I now have the above picture as evidence. For reference, the little fruits are about the size of my thumbnail, and I believe they are baby tomatoes so won’t get enormously bigger. It is nice to know the vast amounts of water they are consuming is actually doing something useful.

Yum, yum, yum. With tomatoes and lettuce, I will almost have a full blown salad soon.

P.S. How freakishly hairy are tomato plants?

I watched an episode of Doctor Who last night, with no real reasoning, except it was on the iPlayer and I needed a Doctor fix. I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel cheated of a proper series this year, and even if these specials are the best thing ever, can they really replace a 13 episode run?

Either way, I am one of those annoying people who has only become a fan since the rebirth of the series, and I have yet to get through an entire episode of the early Doctors. Mr Tennant is my favourite, and although I posted previously about being reluctant to let him go for Matt Smith, I’m actually looking forward to seeing how the new dynamic will work. Plus, I hate goodbyes, and I wish it was next year already.

Anyway, here are five of my favourite epsiodes, in no particular order (actually, in transmission order, I think) and for no particular reason:

1. Father’s Day. I do love the time travel element of the show, and the issues surrounding Rose and her father, his death, and how she learnt that changing things is not always the way to go make for fascinating viewing. I’m not entirely sure about the alien things in this episode, but it doesn’t really matter as they are overshadowed by the awesome 70s hairstyles.
2. The Girl in the Fireplace. The woman in this really fascinates me. She is so smart and she spent her whole life waiting for the Doctor to show up again. The way she talks is so eloquent. The only issue I have is the crazy dresses she has to wear.
3. The Shakespeare Code. The idea of the Doctor feeding Shakespeare his best lines is a great one, and its very cleverly done. I like the image of witches in the audience at the Globe, and the idea that they are beyond words is a good one.
4. Partners in Crime. The miming scene alone is one of the best of the entire series, but the rest of this episode makes for a good start to the new series, and reintroduces Donna perfectly. She is still a bit shouty in this one, but her rapport with the Doctor is one of the best partnerships.
5. Turn Left. Again, this is part of my obsession with time-travel, and the process of watching what would happen if the Doctor wasn’t around peaks my interest. The beetle thing is clearly not a great idea, but how brave Donna was to try and resolve the situation meant she really became a decent companion.

Narrowly missing out: The Doctor’s Daughter. I was so ready to hate this episode – the doctor can’t have a daughter no matter how they engineer that to happen. Then she was infinitely likeable, and then of course, [minor spoiler alert - although you really should have seen it by now] it all ends in tragedy. Except it doesn’t, and that’s why it bugs me. It takes a lot to get me emotionally invested and you are not allowed to play around with that.

Also narrowly missing out: Journey’s End. [second spoiler alert] Just because I am gutted that Donna will never remember.

I hadn’t realised until I compiled this list that most of my favourites do not include Daleks or Cybermen, which is no reflection on them, except they are criminally overused. I also realised that I am not a massive fan of the Blink episode that everyone raves about. Still, it is not unusual for me to disagree with mainstream media outlets.

So, what do you reckon? Are my choices decent enough or do you have other favourites? What would your top five be?

I would like to draw attention to this unusually serious but still excellent episode of The Buzz Report from CNET.

I particularly find the conversation about Steve Jobs interesting. Naturally, all anyone wants is for Mr Jobs to get well soon, but it does raise some issues. The medical centre were very, very quick to clarify that Mr Jobs didn’t get any preferential treatment and was at the top of the liver transplant list because he was the most needy person on there. Which in turn puts some of Apple’s earlier claims into doubt. Will they be in trouble with the shareholders for suggesting things were not particularly serious?

Also, I am 100% in agreement about the green avatar thing.

The Hawk-Eye technology to record a tennis ball’s movements and then review controversial line calls has been around for a while, and been included within the rules since 2006. The Wimbledon Championships are on right now, and we quite often see the players calling for a challenge on a call.

Personally, I find the challenges a little bit disruptive. The player has to request it, we have to wait for the footage to be prepared, and then we have the audience “ooooh” as the result is displayed. However, this is much more preferable to relying on human eyes that can easily make a mistake. Some of those serves reach 150mph, literally blink and you’ll miss it. Having the option to question some of these decisions is a good idea.

The whole Hawk-Eye thing really began because of a match with Serena Williams in which too many erroneous calls were made. At the time, there was no challenge system, but the footage was reviewed afterwards and the umpire was sacked. I wonder if tennis will get to the point where there are no linespeople and it’s all videos and computers?

Also, I didn’t know that the technology is also used in cricket, football and snooker as well. It’s not just about making umpiring decisions, but it provides a lot of the excellent stastics and representative images we see. In cricket, there are Pitch Maps which detail where a bowler is, um, bowling, direction, consistency, etc. In snooker, we can see a player’s eye view, plus animations of potential or alternative shots to be taken. In football, it’s being developed to help with controversial goal decisions.

I wonder what other sports could benefit from a spot of Hawk-Eye.

As a big cheerleading fan of the iPlayer, I’m glad to see that other channels are gradually trending towards some of the innovative work the BBC have done.

Channel 4 upgraded their on-demand service a while back, and now it is all good to work on both PC and Mac, has online streaming instead of just a desktop application, and is generally a lot better.

I have only found a couple of things on the schedule there I would want to watch, and they are coming to the end of a series, so I can’t start watching them now. However, I will be keeping an eye on it, and it does mean I can look at all the sections of the TV Guide, rather than just the Beeb.

What Channel 4 have done which flies in the face of the BBC’s rights issues, is offer lots of classic comedy and drama in their entirety. For example, all four series of Teachers are available and the awesome Green Wing, and my god, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

There are adverts on the player, naturally, but this has never really bothered me. If you’re getting free online streaming of a show, sitting through an advert or two isn’t entirely unreasonable. (Please note, this attitude may change if I start using the service regularly and get fed up.)

Last night, I was awake at 1am due to some pretty vicious lightning and thunder cracking right over my head. Thankfully I was indoors, but for the couple of hours I was awake, I was not amused.

At what point does lightning cease being awe-inspiring and become more of an annoyance?

When I was a kid, massive storms were great fun. There was one particular day, I was waiting for a long distance friend to arrive. My mother and I were standing in the open front doorway, marvelling at how muggy it was. Suddenly the sky turned a deep, dark yellow, the rain came crashing down and the lightning soon followed. That was a good day.

It must be something to do with being an adult. I always say that there’s nothing better than masses of rain when you are safe and sound indoors with a cup of hot chocolate and no reason to go outside. How often do all those elements come together though?

Normally, it’s raining when you have to go to work. Or it’s supremely noisy when I have to record a podcast. Or there is massive thunderstorm when I am trying to sleep.

Still, at least it has cleared the air a little, and I have a headache only from a restless night, rather than from the humidity in the air.

_{Photo: Hugo!}

Jealous, much?

Cutest.panda.ever.

_{Thanks to Rodrigo Sardinha for allowing embeds.}

A few times recently, we’ve been asked the question: I’m starting a new blog, which platform should I use?

Of the free software that is available, the two main ones are Blogger and Wordpress and I will always opt for Wordpress. Here are my five reasons:

1. Wordpress just feels more professional. Even if you’re starting a blog for purely fun reasons, I feel like the layout of WP admin is a lot cleaner and more intuitive to use.
2. There is a progression path. With Blogger, you can set up a free account and type away. You can purchase a custom domain if you want, but that seems to be the limit. On WP, you start with the free account, and if you get on with it, there is the option to take the host-it-yourself path which gives you unlimited choices in terms of themes, widgets and customisation.
3. Themes. There are a million themes out there if you choose the DIY route, but even on the wordpress.com domain the selected few themes you can choose from are pretty nice. It’s easy to make them unique and individual by changing header pictures and tweaking the widgets. Blogger seems more limited in this sense.
4. Comments. Trying to leave a comment on a Blogger site is sometimes more hassle than it’s worth. There are the crazy spam-blocker pictures, plus confusing options when it comes to identifying yourself. Wordpress has the four standard text entry fields, so you always know where you are.
5. Wordpress is better. It just is.

Okay, so I ran out of reasons, but I will always recommend WP over Blogger. It’s a personal decision, though, and above all else, getting blogging is more important than your software of choice.