Illogical Operators

Microsoft Silverlight: Installation failed (successfully)

2009-05-11T18:18:00.001+01:00

The message told me, “Unable to install Silverlight.”

I clicked for “More information”:

According to the error code, it “installed successfully”. Hmmmm!

Web Translation Services

2009-02-18T13:34:00.001Z

I recently received an e-mail from a delightful young lady called “Alina”.

Now, I don’t actually know anyone by the name of Alina, but she clearly knows me, because she “liked my structure on one of places for acquaintances”. Alina tells me that she wishes to “find much unique love and the true partner in life” and shall “wait my answer with impatience”. Alina is clearly a good catch because she is “very cheerful and at me am a good comic genre”.

If you too wish to be able to send e-mails to acquaintances in foreign climes, with at least the same eloquence and charm as Alina has sent me, then I suggest you resort to randomly firing it through a web translation service and not checking the result.

If, on the other hand, you have some foreign text that you wish to translate (as I recently did when I was given a set of documentation in German) into something vaguely intelligible, then I suggest that use several different services in tandem. Note that I would never dream of using this approach for external documentation (Find someone that speaks the language, and speaks it well), but that for my own internal use, this approach worked well.

Most often these days, I found myself using simply Google Translate. However, back in the old days, Yahoo! Babel Fish (once AltaVista Babel Fish) was the way to go. I also discovered Windows Live! Translator.

Running the same German text through each, I discovered some interesting results. On the whole, I found that text translated via Yahoo! Babel Fish made the least sense. Being “the original”, I was actually quite disappointed about this.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the results I got from Windows Live! Translator. This was likely due, in part, to the fact that I was translating technical documentation, and apparently Microsoft has their existing (and vast) technical library behind this technology.

Google Translate came somewhere in-between Babel Fish and Live! Translator.

Oh, and as for Alina? I’ll pop that e-mail back into my Junk folder now, but thanks for the chuckle all the same. For entertainment purposes, her e-mail in full:

Greetings the Friend!!!

I liked your structure on one of places for acquaintances, and I have made a decision to write to yours. Wash name Alina. In me 28 years. I wish to speak at once to you, that I search for serious communications. I wish to find the one who wished to experience a long and happy life. I very cheerful and at me am a good comic genre. I wish to find much unique love and the true partner in life. I wait that you will answer me,

I ask you to write only to this direction – some@email.address

I am applied my photo and with pleasure I shall answer you if you will write to me. I shall wait your answer with impatience and I wait that you to not neglect my letter. It is thankful in advance, Alina.

Crazy

2009-02-12T22:52:00.001Z

One for £1.96. Three for 88p.

Excuse me while I swear very loudly at the new lows of the illogical supermarket deals.

I had to buy some…

2009-02-04T13:48:00.000Z

…Because I couldn’t work out what they were!

“Baked Mini Cheddars”

“Crinklys”

“Salt & Vinegar flavour”

“Light & crispy texture”

…

So… Do they taste of cheddar? Do they have the texture of Mini-Cheddars?

…Are they in fact in any way like Mini-Cheddars at all, beyond the fact that they happen to come in a packet?

The Results

Well… They are crinkled. They do taste of cheddar and salt and vinegar. They do have a light and crispy texture and yet also the feel of mini-cheddars. Verdict: I like!

An update to add support for the serialization of complex Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data types in the Windows Imaging Component

2009-01-14T14:55:00.001Z

Link: An update to add support for the serialization of complex Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data types in the Windows Imaging Component

The current version of the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) does not support the serialization of complex Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data types that are embedded in arrays. For example, the Windows Imaging Component does not support embedded structures, arrays, or alternatives. This behavior violates the Adobe XMP specification. Therefore, applications that use the Windows Imaging Component, such as Windows Live Photo Gallery, cannot write bags of complex XMP data types to an image.

Everybody got that?

Good. ;)

Well, I can see why they had to desperately get a hotfix out for that, then :-/ I wonder why I only just got this hotfix, when the article is dated September ‘08. Perhaps because I installed Windows Live Photo Doohicky yesterday? Or perhaps because Adobe had a bit of a go at Microsoft about it? ;)

The Fat Lady Steps Up

2008-12-06T23:49:00.003Z

Phwoar, look at that, even the installation screen is looking a bit sexy.

Check out the Opera Desktop Team Blog for more! :)

Meanwhile, I notice it's been a while since I wrote anything... And I'd been meaning to write a bit about synchronicity, too...

11/11 11:11

2008-11-11T11:11:00.000Z

We remember.

Fourty-For

2008-10-22T13:47:00.003+01:00

I was simply writing a cheque, but after I'd written it, I sat there staring at it for a moment.

Forty pounds only.

I then had one of those bizarre moments where you're sure something is right, but it looks wrong. "Forty. Forty. Doesn't 'four' have a 'u' in it? But that is how you spell 'forty', isn't it."

I had to write them both down to check ;)

Random Holiday Statistics

2008-10-18T14:30:00.004+01:00

Holiday length: 15 days
Number of pictures & movies taken: 2,429 (excluding any on my phone, or of the flight home)
Total size of photos and movies taken: 8.76gigabytes (enough to fill two standard writable DVDs)
Number of times I used up both my camera battery and 2gb SD card within a single day and had to swap to spares: Two.
Total distance driven by me: 1,771 miles.
States visited: Three.
States visited that I had not visited before: Two.
Number of states “very-almost-but-not-quite” visited: Two.
Greatest number of beverages produced by the Coca-Cola Company drunk in one session: 48.
Total number of record-breaking escalators ridden: One.
Number of films that I took with me to watch: Six.
Of which, number watched: Zero.
Number of TV episodes that I took with me to watch: 63.
Of which, number watched: Zero.
Books completed: One.
Number of photos purchased following rides/events: Eight (six in one go, on a CD).
Number of towels bought: One.
Number of times fallen out of a raft: Zero.
Altitude as I write this: 9,443 metres (30,997 ft)
Boxes of teabags taken with me: Four.
Record number of steps a one-year-old could take by the end of my first week: Five.
Record number of steps the same one-year-old could take by the end of my second week: Twenty-five.
Total number of additional nights spent in the same hotel after the first night: One.
Money saved by buying a new 16gb blue iPod Nano in the US: £30.
Of which, amount saved by happening to buy it the day the US Bailout Plan was first rejected: £6.50.
Number of times gas bought: Four (I think)
Greatest single distance travelled in freefall: 16 stories.
Distance travelled on roller coasters: 20,673 feet (3.92 miles)

Plastic Power

2008-10-11T08:20:00.005+01:00

It's 3am. I'm in a hotel somewhere between the Smoky Mountains and Atlanta.

I got woken up by a plastic bag rustling. Don't know why it rustled, sure made me wake with a start though. Thought someone was in my room for a minute.

But I woke remembering what I was dreaming at the time...

I don't remember how the dream started, but I'm pretty sure it had some sort of plot. An incidental point was that I wanted a snack. Well, next thing I knew was that I was in a top-secret peanut manufacturing plant, surrounded by packets of peanuts.

I picked up two packets and legged it... Seemed to be able to get out too... Leaped out the first story window, onto the roof of a van, onto another van, and onto another, and then onto the floor. Turned a corner, as I could see the perimiter wall (it may have been desert on the other side, not sure), and wandered into an area that set a whole bunch of alarms off.

Immediately, two armed guards appeared. I put my hands to my head.

They gestured to the floor. I kept my arms to my head and got down onto my knees.

They fired a cannister of gas of some sort at me. That didn't really seem to do anything (plot-hole? :) )

They fired some other thing at me, which separated into four and each aimed at one hand or foot.

And it was about there I woke up.

And I have a strong sense of deja vue about the whole experience. Bizarre :) Wish I could remember the first half of the dream, I think that was slightly less surreal, and I'm sure it had an interesting 'plot' :)

Thought I'd write it down, as I don't often remember my dreams :)

Phew, right, well.. best get back to sleep :)

Stories

2008-09-24T00:20:00.000+01:00

I had one of those "woah!" moments over the weekend.

I was engaged in a big ol' bout of tidying, organising, and filing. These things often tend to take me a while, as I can often end up getting distracted by whatever it is that I'm trying to tidy/organise/file ;)

I keep a lot of things (read: random old junk) that spark memories. Leaflets collected on holidays, train tickets, pieces of paper with random scribbles, ... Things I keep that I think may later prompt a smile when I rediscover them.

And it's true, many of these things do spark those memories, spark those smiles, as I later come to rediscover them.

But I didn't really specifically think about this until I found something that I couldn't remember the story behind. Certainly, regardless of what that story is or how long its telling would take, it will have a story. But it felt very strange to hold in my hand something I had chosen to keep, yet not to know its context.

This got me thinking about stories. The stories behind all the things around us.

Everything has a story to tell. From the big things everyone knows about - the stars and the sky, the rivers and the hills, the mountains and the trees - to the little things in forgotten places. Some of these things simply pass through our lives, no more than an idle narrative as the page is turned. Others are a part of the story. And there are so many types of stories behind these things. There are the technical stories and sentimental stories. The stories of where things came from, and the stories of what they were. The stories of things seen, and the stories of things cherished.

The tapestry of life is an ever-changing, ever-evolving wonder. I wonder how these things thread through it?

The pound coin down the back of your sofa. How did it get there? How did it come to you? What has it seen?

The flimsy piece of cardboard that was your train ticket for a day. What did it mean to you? What did you do on that day? Where did you buy the ticket and where did it take you? Where did it come from? Was it once a part of a tree in a forest near you? Or did it come from the other side of the world?

The notes you write for yourself. Reminders and things to do. Would you know now what they meant? Did you do them? Did something more exciting come up that you forgot? Or was there so much going on to begin with that you had to write them down?

A hundred million things pass through our lives, and every one has a story to tell.

I like blogs. Blogs capture a fraction of that most personal of stories, the story of ourselves. Why did you start your blog, and where did it take you? Did the very act of telling that story take it to new places?

We are absolutely surrounded by stories. Most sit, tantalisingly out of reach, hovering beyond our awareness.

I wonder where we would go, who we would be, were we to know those stories. How much would they teach us, and how much would we learn?

Everything has a story. Everything has at least a glimmer of true and absolute wonder behind it.

I am glad that we do not immediately know the stories of all these things, or I would not have thought to write about it :)

What fun would it be, without the mystery?

Windows has Relationship Issues

2008-09-19T17:19:00.001+01:00

Restored a computer from the "Windows CompletePC Backup" for the first time.

Trying to logon to the domain:
"The trust relationship between workstation and primary domain failed"

Well. Thanks for that. What do you want? Counselling? :S

The 007 of Windows Updates?

2008-09-18T14:00:00.000+01:00

There was a small bundle of Windows Updates appear last week. But is update 947821 - better known as "CheckSUR", or the "System Update Readiness Tool for Windows Vista and for Windows Server 2008" - the James Bond of Windows Updates? Is it designed to secretly slip past undetected, like a certain top secret agent?

What, you may rightfully wonder, leads me to ask these questions?

Well, I'm glad you wondered that. If you didn't wonder that, then you might as well stop reading now ;)

You see, I had ten Windows Updates appear that day.

Nine of them installed successfully. One did not. The one that did not was, of course, our cunning little friend, the CheckSUR utility.

Well, fortunately, we did also have an error code to investigate:

Ah. So. A stealth error, then. And hang on a minute, look at that error number... C00701E7. So, nobody's had any record of it, and the code includes 007? Well, it gets worse...

Because when I rebooted, Windows was very pleased to tell me that updates has been installed... And that none were remaining.

"Hmm," thought I, "did it install while rebooting?"

Nope.

It just didn't install it. It snuck in, blew itself up, and then vanished quietly in the wind.

And the ironic thing is that this update is one that is designed to fix problems in Windows. What happens when the thing that fixes things needs fixing!? :S

Ah well. It's not like it actually updated any files, so I won't worry about it.

And I do notice that since my original screenshot, Google does now have some relevant results.

In the words of The Klaxons

2008-09-10T09:15:00.000+01:00

It's not over yet.

Ooh, but that was jolly exciting listening :)

I mean in the end, if there ever was going to be a disaster, it was always going to be when they actually tried to collide the things. So, who knows? There's still every chance to be frozen in time and for the world to be torn asunder ;)

End of the World?

2008-09-10T00:20:00.003+01:00

Personally, I don't think that the world will end tomorrow when the Large Hadron Collider is turned on and powered up.

But at the same time... The whole point is to see what it is that happens when we do these things. That means that, by definition, there are unknowns. That also means, in my opinion, that you cannot be absolutely positively certain that it won't do something unexpected. After all, if they knew what to expect, they wouldn't have built it.

And so, I find that I reall can't help but remember a short science fiction story I read when I was young(er).

Mr Top Thief is in his office, planning his next heist, when some funny lass walks in. He's not exactly sure what it is that makes her a funny lass, there was just something 'off' about her.

She puts down her plan for him, and his team of merry men (ok, fellow partners-in-crime), to steal vast amounts of world-famous antiquities and masterpieces.

Now, Mr Top Thief is by now thinking that she's a few nuts short of a Picnic bar - I mean, we're talking priceless pieces from all of the country here, we're talking some serious wonger wangling.

Until Ms. Suspiciously Offish Lass points him to the window of his office.

He looks out but nothing is really happening.

He looks some more and realises that nothing is happening.

Literally nothing. Nobody is moving, there's no background noise around him, trains are at a stand still, cars are lined in endless lines of traffic... Ok, those last two might not help, but you catch my drift, right?

"Look," she says, "I've got this right nifty bracelet that slows time outside its radius down so much, that it appears to have stopped. So if you're wearing it, you can do whatever you want, and nobody will ever even see you."

"Hang on a minute," says Mr. Top Thief, "why do you need me then?"

"Well, you've got the equipment, the man power, the experience... things we don't have to pull off a job of this scale."

"Right. Right. And what do I get out of it?"

"After you've gone out and picked out my shopping list of priceless goodies, you can keep the bracelet."

Hoooooh! Now there's an offer too good to refuse!

So, Mr. Top Thief and his merry band of freedom fighters - uh, I mean co-conspirators - agree.

And at each place, it's exactly the same - they go in, they load up with everything they want, they go out - and by the time they've done it, the security guards haven't even been able to blink an eye.

So, they pull off all the jobs, and they liberate all the gear.

And sure enough, our original Ms. Oddish Lass turns up and takes it off their hands.

"So, like, uh, what's the deal?" asks Mr. Top Thief

"Take a look at this morning's newspaper."

Mr. Top Thief looks around and notices a guy frozen on a bench, half-way through reading his paper. He leans over and takes it, looking at the front page.

"Superbomb testing today!" reads the headline.

"That testing," adds our enigmatic lass, "has already started. This morning, the test was initiated. Within mere seconds of real time from now, that test will rupture your planet's core, decimating all life and ripping your whole world apart from the inside. This process has already begun, and nothing can be done to stop it.

"We come from the future, but we are unable to prevent this disaster which wipes out your entire civilization. Due to the massive forces involved in the explosion, it has created enough of a rupture that we were able to harness that same force to materialise here, and using our technology we can freeze your time and save as much of your culture as we were able - but I am afraid we are unable to bring back any organic or living material with us. The awesome forces involved in the transfer make this impossible.

"So, you may keep your bracelet and live in this frozen time, forever an observer to the world, between tick and tock. But when you take off the bracelet, normal time for you will resume and you will be vapourised."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And who knows? Maybe tomorrow the world will freeze and we'll never know. Maybe even as your eye scans from one end of this line now, unknowable forces have already wreaked their terrific consequences, and, in the blink of an eye, everything that we are, everything that we have achieved, has been relinquished to a museum exhibit on an alien world.

I shall certainly be listening to Radio 4 at 8:30 in the morning to hear this machine be turned on. If anything does go wrong, I doubt we'll ever know.

And if it doesn't? Well, maybe we will just learn a little more about the nature of everything.

Holy House Prices, Batman!

2008-09-02T14:00:00.001+01:00

So the news that the level at which stamp duty kicks has been raised to £175,000 is of only mild interest. Ok, so it could save me a couple of grand, that's nice, but at the end of the day it's not going to change my life.

No, I'm interested in this talk of a 30% "free" loan on the deposit. Tell me more!

First up, I think that anyone who goes for this and doesn't have a deposit is asking for trouble. That's where we are now - people with 95%-110% mortgages - borrowing that same amount of money from two places ain't gonna be a huge help, IMO.

But hang on... Will this be interest-free? Let's say I'm looking at a place worth £175,000.

No stamp duty. That'll save me £1,750. Whoo. Rock on.

Now, hang on a minute though... What else are they talking about? Up to 30% loan? Interest-free for five years? What's a typical variable mortgage rate? 6.4%? Work those sums through - 30% of £175,000 is £52,500. What happens to that amount if we were paying 6.4% interest on it over five years? And let's not forget that it will be compound interest...

Year 0: £52,500
Year 1: £55,860
Year 2: £59,435
Year 3: £63,238
Year 4: £67,286
Year 5: £71,592

That's £19,092 of interest over five years. Let's just round it up and call it twenty grand, shall we?

Twenty thousand pounds saved over five years.

That's one hell of a lot more interesting than a couple of grand saved on stamp duty!

I mean... Are my sums right here? Am I missing something? I for one will certainly be watching for more details to be released on this!

But is it art? Part 1

2008-08-11T13:50:00.005+01:00

Rick Stein was talking on the Today programme this morning about whether cookery should be a type of art.

Well, I know I decided years ago when I was still living at home that there was certainly an art to making a great sandwich :) But I think they were talking just a tad more culturally high-brow than sandwiches.

Food critic Tom Lubbock had a couple of good points - that you "need" food to survive, but not art. He also pointed out how, I believe his words were, someone may feel "deeply saddened" by a piece of art, but he had never eaten anything which caused him to feel the same way. Which is probably for the best when you think about it ;)

So what is it that makes something art? Does it require creativity? Does it require an emotional input? Should its audience receive an emotional output? Is there some level of emotion that should be reached? Should it have the ability to convey a message or feeling? Is it something which is revered by some and reviled by others?

Have you had your CNN.com Daily Top 10?

2008-08-05T11:20:00.003+01:00

I have. In fact, so far today (11:20am) I've had 47 of them.

How does spam relate to viruses (or is it "virii"?) these days? Do viruses infect PCs for the purposes of turning them into spam zombies? Or is spam sent for the purpose of getting people to install a virus?

Or is it both? Or neither?

I think I'll finish my cup of tea and stop thinking about it.

As if that wasn't enough...

2008-07-29T11:39:00.001+01:00

Now Remote Desktop / Explorer has gone loopy...

I Hate Symantec

2008-07-29T11:18:00.002+01:00

They really, really do my head in.

You cannot down revision Symantec Antivirus / Symantec Client Security as that action is unsupported. The Computer '[computername]' already has a more recent version '30964' verse this version '1000'.
If you really want to down revision this Server, you must manually unstall it first and then you may install an older version."

This is trying to apply Symantec Management Server 10.2. Picking on ScsComms.dll, I see we have these three versions available:

1: 10.1.7.7001 (Installed version)
2: 10.2.1.100 (New version - won't install due to above message)
3: 10.1.0.394 (Old installable version - but it's happy to apply this old version which it thinks is newer!)

And does Google find anything for "cannot down revision Symantec Antivirus" ? Or even "cannot down revision" ? Or even "more recent version" and "verse this version" ?

Does it bollocks.

Frown at the Stupid Things

2008-07-18T09:30:00.003+01:00

Gah! As if to balance out the smile I described in my previous post this morning, a daily newsletter from a major UK distributor included this headline:

THE PROFFESSIONAL CORPORATE SOLUTION

ARGH! For goodness sake! "Professional" has to be one of the most idiotic words you can mis-spell!

Yes, I understand that with a single 'f' and a double 's' it can be a difficult word to get right, but seriously, how professional is it if you actually get it wrong!?

Please, please, use a spell checker, or even a good old-fashioned dictionary.

Smile at the Simple Things

2008-07-18T09:09:00.000+01:00

As I headed to work, I saw a dog walking along, carrying a very big stick in its mouth.

There's something about that image which just makes me smile :)

No-Brainer

2008-07-13T18:26:00.005+01:00

As I was wander around the supermarket filling my trolley, my brain is always analysing the products I'm interested in - how much do I need? How long will it last? Will I save money if I buy more? Will I save money if I buy less?

Now, I know that different people do this to differing degrees.

But sometimes things just leap out at you and make you really wonder - WHY?

Uncle Ben's rice, in Tesco, today.

Yes, that's £1.75 for 500g, or £1.81 - a mere six pence more - for a kilogram; twice as much.

Six. Pence. Double the amount. And hey, it's rice - if it takes twice as long to use, it's hardly the end of the world (the box advertises best before 20/12/2010).

I mean... It's just daft... Why? How? Who would buy the 500g boxes?

Some questions just have to be asked. ;)

Missing Herd on the Radial

2008-07-09T09:13:00.004+01:00

I'm not sure whether it was my brain or my ears that weren't quite in gear this morning, but there were a couple of things I mis-heard on the radio.

An army chappy talking to John Humphrys in Basra:

...and of course, the English razed the original Iraqi army.

Huh!? He dropped that casually in! Oh wait, that was...

...and of course, the English raised the original Iraqi army.

Then an introduction to a piece by Tim Berners-Lee (the Daddy of the Web):

...the Symantec Web...

The Symantec Web? ARRRRGH! ARRRRRRRGH! ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH! ...Oh wait...

...the Semantic Web...

Ok... breath..2, 3, 4... phew... Thought the Wibbly Wobbly Web was a goner for a moment there ;)

Now excuse me while I try to figure out what else I can do while these Windows Updates sloooowly apply...

Poor Old Angelina

2008-07-07T13:52:00.001+01:00

Poor old Angelina Jolie. She's certainly having a bit of a time of it. Well. According to the subject of e-mails I've received in the last 24 hours, anyway:

- Angelina Jolie shock pregnancy discovery
- Russel Crowe admits to love affair with Angelina
- Angelina Jolie giving Brad Pitt a blowjob
- Angelina Jolie suffers miscarriage
- Angelina Jolie dies in plane crash

Clearly, it doesn't take much to read between the lines.

The shock discovery must have been that Brad wasn't the father. At this point, Russel Crowe stepped forward and admitted the affair. Then, as if it wasn't one heck of a day already, highly intrusive filming footage showed her and Brad during an intimate encounter.
The shock & stress of the whole day was beginning to overwhelm Angelina by this point, so she hopped aboard a private jet to head back home. It is at this point our tale of sorrow becomes a true tragedy. The aeronautical antics of the cocky young captain in command of the craft, combined with a session of excessive binge drinking, wrought havoc upon Ms. Jolie's mental, emotional, and physical state.
She flew into a blinding rage with the pilot, screaming and yelling at him, demanding to know why he'd allowed cameras on board previous flights containing her and Brad.
This was just too much for the pilot, who was in the middle of flying a loop-the-loop, and found it impossible to simultaneously fight off Angelina whilst also maintaining control of the plane.

Or, possibly, just possibly, it's just a load of old spam.