I had a bit of a problem getting the button to go where I wanted because the iframe that gets added to the page doesn’t have an ID or a class for me to address it by. I modified the source to stick in a class quickly and easily and dropped a comment on the guy’s blog to see if he would add it as an option for the plugin so future versions wouldn’t overwrite my change, and then I decided that I would just do it myself.

So I created a patch that can be applied to version 1.0.1 to let you specify a class for the iframe so you can use CSS to move it around more easily.

No? Nor had I… Until this morning!

I connected to the IdleMonkeys IRC server and was greeted by the following statement from Zach:

Did you know that 1 female cat not spayed will produce in 5 years, through her offspring and their offspring and their offspring etc. etc. 700,000!

I thought this sounded high, and so Zach and I did a few pointless calculations before I got the idea to write a script that would simulate this whole thing. I started out by writing a module to represent a cat. I called it Cat.pm and it looks like this:

package Cat;
use strict;
use base qw(Class::Accessor::Fast);
Cat->mk_accessors(qw(gender age pregnant pregnant_days gestation_period days_since_litter sexual_maturity));

1;


Very simply it defines a few values like the age and gender of a cat. Thanks to Class:Accessor::Fast I can easily get and set these values in my main script using something like this:

my $cat = Cat->new({ gender => 'Male', age => 0''});

Or

$cat->gender('Female');
$cat->age(12); #Age in days

I did a bunch of “research” (thanks Wikipedia) on the reproductive habits of the common house cat and found the ranges to configure for the gestation period, age of sexual maturity, etc. etc. It turns out that a female cat can be sexually mature at 5 months old, and can give birth around 2 months later. Cats tend to mate for 9 months of the year, skipping winter. After giving birth to around 3-5 kittens most cats have a period of at least around a month where they don’t get pregnant again, although it could be a lot longer. Zach asked me to specify that 60% of the cats born in a litter be female. I have no figures to suggest this is accurate, but I went with it anyway.

I programmed the first version of my script before I knew all of those facts and arrived at a number of around 5 million cats after 5 years of breeding. This was obviously ridiculous, and so I revised my script a few times.

With all the information I gathered I came up with a much lower figure than either of the previous ones. Over 10 runs of the script the average number of cats after 5 years was 16492.4. I ran the script through 1000 complete iterations and generated an average for all runs. The script took 3 hours 38 minutes and 15 seconds to execute and calculated an average of 10400.693 cats.

There are a few problems with this script:

• The first major problem is that there is no notion of males breeding with any females that are not descendants of the first cat. If other non-related females were around then the number would be significantly higher, as the males would be able to mate with all of them, and would produce a huge increase in numbers. So, this whole thing assumes that there is only one female cat in the entire world when the script starts running.
• The script assumes that the first cat is born right at the beginning of the breeding season. If that changes then the figures would probably be quite different.
• The script assumes that a cat will become pregnant exactly 30 days after giving birth to the previous litter (assuming it is within the breeding season).

Obviously there are many other shortcomings, but there will always be some when simulating any sort of behaviour like this.

I thought it would be a simple matter, but it turned out to be quite frustrating.

Needed for all
var t = document.getElementById('add-comment');

Gecko (Firefox, Mozilla, etc.)
t.focus();

Webkit (Chrome, Safari, etc.)
t.selectionStart(t.value.length);
t.selectionEnd(t.value.length);

Internet Explorer
t.setSelectionRange(t.value.length, t.value.length);
t.focus();

Is there some standard way of doing this that I’m unaware of? I think jQuery would be overkill for this one purpose.

I got woken up by Cheryl at about 5 in the morning because she’d just had some really bad news about her uncle back in Singapore. After a bit more sleep I commenced operation Cheer Up Cheryl. I made some American-style pancakes with chocolate chips in. Then I fell back to sleep again while Cheryl was speaking to her mum on the phone.

After 4pm we headed to town to the cinema to watch The Karate Kid. It was a good film. Jaden Smith is a pretty good actor and is somewhat like his dad at times, which is quite a compliment, I think. The name of the film doesn’t really fit any more since the entire thing is about Kung Fu, but oh well. Jackie Chan is always appreciated in any movie.

After the movie we went to Tamatanga where I discovered that they don’t know how to use capital letters on their menu (is that really stylish?). The food was nice enough, but we couldn’t take what we left because we were heading back to the cinema to watch Knight and Day. We had a bit of time to kill so we played on the IT Box again. We’re beginning to dominate the score board for Word Up.

I had very low expectations for the film, but I was quite pleasantly surprised by how not-shit it was. There were enough funny moments to make it light-hearted, and enough action to keep anyone interested. It was a bit like a Jason Bourne comedy, starring an crazy midget and Cameron Diaz. It could have been a lot worse…

When we got back I was updating some apps on my phone when I noticed that Google were publicising Sky’s app on the marketplace. I took a quick look and saw that it has between 10 and 50 thousand downloads already. It makes me so sad to know that the audience for my app was so large, but I hardly tapped it at all. Oh well.

Before I had anything to do with the other blog the styles and modifications were simply placed into the existing default theme. This meant that every time there was a WordPress upgrade the changes got overwritten and the blog lost all branding. This meant that updates weren’t being applied quickly, which is a security problem.

When I took over the maintenance the first thing I did was to create a theme for the various CSS changes. The second thing I did was learn how to write a WordPress plugin to turn our code modifications into widgets. It may sound a bit complicated, but it’s not actually that hard if you know even the most basic PHP. The theme itself is just a zip file containing a few fairly standard PHP files and a stylesheet. The plugin is just a simple PHP file that (in this case) spits out some random sections of markup that we want, in the form of a widget that can be managed through WordPress itself.

Now when it comes to making an upgrade I have a test installation that I keep up-to-date with the current one (plugins, posts, comments, etc.) and I test it on there first. Today I upgraded the blog from the last 2.9 version to WordPress 3.0.1 and encountered absolutely no problems whatsoever. That’s how it should be!

After the film we went to pick up our tickets for the 9pm showing of Twilight: Eclipse. when we had the tickets we headed to Chiquito to get some Mexican food. I tried another sub-par quesadilla while Cheryl had macaroni and cheese (yes, really).

Eclipse itself was kind of like this for me:

First 90 minutes
Bella looks just to the left of Edward with a pained expression on her face looking slightly confused by something in the distance.
Bella looks just to the left of Jacob with a pained expression on her face looking slightly confused by something in the distance, then breaks her hand punching him in the face after he kisses her.
Edward does his necessary macho thing to Jacob, then they both pull back with pained expressions on their faces.
Bella looks upset, still.
Bella kisses Jacob, Edward doesn’t mind because he knows Bella loves him more than Jacob.

The next 20 minutes
There’s an awesome fight scene with werewolves and vampires all over the place!

The last 10 minutes
Teenage girl heaven.

We ordered our cards online yesterday and then printed the temporary passes out. We met near the cinema in time to watch Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was a really good film. It was sad in parts, hilarious in parts, and just plain great overall.

After that had finished we went to get our tickets for Inception. After getting the tickets we went to Subway for a quick sandwich. We sat upstairs and had to listen to chavs talking about their illegitimate children, or whatever it is chavs talk about these days. We left there as soon as possible to go play on the IT Box in the cinema. We ended up playing on Word Soup about 6 times. We did fairly well, but couldn’t seem to be consistent enough to win money.

We went into the screen to watch Inception and sat down. When the film was ready to start the lights came up to full brightness for some reason. They stayed like that until someone went to speak to the people. Then the lights dulled, then flashed bright again. Stupid lights or stupid staff, I’m not sure. Eventually they turned off and we could see the screen properly.

Inception itself can be a bit confusing with the timeline changes, but the film itself isn’t that complicated. I’m sure it could be difficult to follow if you have a short attention span, or if you lost concentration for a few minutes, but it’s still enjoyable. It’s jumped into IMDb’s Top 250 at number 3, which is ridiculous. I’m sure it’ll get lower and lower over the coming weeks, but I imagine it’ll stay in the middle of the list for a fairly long time.

We got out of the cinema at 11:50pm after arriving there at about 5:30pm. It was a long evening in the cinema, and there will be many more to follow.

It used to be the case that the teams could order their drivers to let their team member pass them so they could maximise the result. This was banned a long time ago after notable incidents involving Schumacher/Barrichello in 2002 and Coulthard/Hakkinen artificially deciding the outcome of the race in 1998.

At around 15 laps from the end of the race Rob Smedley gave Massa the following message: “Ok, so, Fernando is faster … than you. Can you confirm you understand that message?”

By itself that message doesn’t explicitly tell Massa to give up his position to Alonso, but a couple of laps later Alonso passed Massa without any challenge or difficulty. Something he couldn’t manage over several laps earlier on in the race. Quite obviously the message was sent as a way of instructing Massa to let Alonso pass.

Rule 39.1 of the sporting regulations for Formula 1 states the following:

39.1 Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited.

After the passing manoeuvre Rob Smedley came back on the radio and said “Good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry.”

Once the farce of the trophy presentation was over it was easy to see how dejected Massa was, and how uncomfortable the entire ordeal was for everyone but Sebastian Vettel who finished third. The press conference and conversations with Smedley and Stefano Domenicali were ridiculous. They kept going on about how it’s a job, and Ferarri is their employer, so they have a duty to the team. How about their duty to the millions of fans who fund the sport?

Let’s get this straight once and for all. Formula 1 is a motorsport. Motorsport makes its money from advertising and ticket sales. Advertising money comes from companies who want to get their products in the minds of people who view the races. This money pays for the teams and the sport to exist. Without the public there would be no advertisers. Without the advertising it wouldn’t be worth it for the teams to compete. It is in the interest of the teams to give the people what they want. When it comes to motorsport the people want a race! Specifically, a fair race according the the agreed-upon regulations.

Maybe Ferarri have forgotten what F1 is all about.

I believe that Massa could have held Alonso to the end of the race as he was doing earlier on, but sadly we will never know. Happily, I didn’t place any money on the result, but a lot of other people did bet on Massa to win. All of these people have been cheated out of not only a race, but also their potential winnings. Some betting shops are offering refunds to people who bet on Massa, which is very nice of them, but the people who bet on Massa should have won money, not merely failed to lose it.

The maximum $100,000 fine imposed on Ferarri is a pittance. Ferarri supposedly receive around $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars) a year from Philip Morris (they own Marlboro cigarettes) for advertising on their car. Ferarri could fix the result of every single race and pay the maximum fine and still profit from advertising. In fact, the increased coverage given to the team would probably increase the exposure and therefore the value of the advertising. Since Ferarri appear to have the fastest car it might actually be in their interest to continue flouting the regulations. They could win the championship and make the advertising space even more valuable. The only people to lose out would be the several million people who fund the sport, but Ferarri don’t really care about them. Their duty is to the team, after all.

I don’t really see any need to continue developing Remote Recorder now this app exists. It’s kind of a shame because I was still in the middle of my rewrite. I’ll leave my app listed and I’ll probably finish the new version at some point because it’s actually something I enjoy doing, but once the new version is out and stable I doubt I’ll plan any new features, unless I think I can offer something that BSkyB can’t, won’t, or don’t.

Benicassim Line-up

I’ve been looking at the line-up for a while and wondering which stage to stay at so I see the most bands that I want to see. Most of the time the main stage is where I want to be, but there are some bands I’d like to see on other stages. On the first day I would like to see The Temper Trap and Kasabian, which I imagine will not be possible.

I’ve been trying to work out which stage offers the most so I can stay in one place. I’m really not that bothered by Ray Davies on the main stage, but Charlotte Gainsbourg is pretty awesome. She’s a good actress too. Check out Science of Sleep for proof of that. She’s the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg, so there’s a lot of music in her family.

My favourite part of Science of Sleep

I guess I will just end up going with whatever someone else suggests on the first day. I would be happy to see either of the main two headline acts that day.

The second day is all about the main stage, although I would kind of like to see Calvin Harris, Mumford and Sons, and even Goldfrapp. They don’t come close to Hot Chip and Vampire Weekend though.

The third day is going to be spent at the main stage. Sadly I will miss The Cribs on the third stage, but I imagine The Prodigy will be pretty awesome. I’ve seen both of them live before at some point, but not Ash, Klaxons, Ian Brown, or The Specials. Sarah would kill me when I returned if I didn’t see The Specials.

On the fourth day I really want to see Two Door Cinema Club and Foals on the second stage, but I also want to see Gorillaz. Maybe I can manage all of those. I’m not particularly interested in Lily Allen or Dizzee Rascal, but The Courteeners are pretty cool.

I guess I’ll really have to wait until I’m there to see who I can see. I know that I’ll see a bunch of good bands anyway, so I’m not particularly worried. I suppose I should probably be a bit more worried by the fact that I don’t have a tent to sleep in as far as I know at the moment. I also have no Euros, and nothing to sleep on when I’m there.

I do love a good adventure!