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So I’ve been working on this mobile phone application. The primary purpose of the app is to stop people who’d had a few beers and taken the train home from dozing off and missing their train station. My app will use the GPS to track their progress, then wake them up before they sleep past … Continue reading “Need a spot of help naming an application – winner gets three (yes, three) free copies of the Septics Companion”
n American: Hey, did you hear Bob had moved to New York and married a septic? From Cockney rhyming slang “septic tank” / “yank,” where “yank” is in turn used in the U.K. to mean “American.” If you don’t believe me, look it up, but I have to warn you that I also wrote that definition. The Australians use the same term and have further abbreviated septic to “seppo.”
Media I was interviewed on the September 5th 2009 edition of the radio programme Travel With Rick Steves. I don’t get interviewed very often so this was great fun for me. The piece was actually recorded in March 2009 – they record most of the programme material during winter and spring so that Rick can … Continue reading “Media”
This list is in approximate favourite order, with my favourite current site first: The Wonder of Whiffling – a rather charming investigation into unusual English words (blog and book) Postcards From Across The Pond – Mike Harling’s excellent blog, the earlier posts from which are also a book of the same name UK-Yankee – a … Continue reading “Links”
About the Site and Author This site is written and maintained by Chris Rae, a comparatively unattractive man whose one great achievement in life has so far to have had his Twitter account homepage appear as the #1 Google result for “sad napper”. And these days that isn’t even true. He lives in Seattle, Washington, … Continue reading “About”
PALO ALTO, CA – High demand for the Model S from Silicon Valley auto manufacturer Tesla (TSLA) is greatly increasing demand for holier-than-thou electric-themed vanity plates, a spokesman for the company said during a press conference this morning. “A large part of purchasing this automobile is the sense that one is saving the environment, and … Continue reading “Tesla to take US license plate legislation head-on”
Some web sites are bad. Just clicking on a link in an email can send you somewhere that looks like PayPal, asks for your login details and will then instantly automate the emptying of your account. Some web sites prompt you to download software which will encrypt all the files on your computer and then … Continue reading “Why you don’t want a curated app store”
“How fast do you go?” You: Erm, well, I don’t really know. There’s no speedo. Maybe a hundred and ten at the end of the straight? Them: My brother did a hundred and thirty between Dead Squaw, Arizona and Coleslaw, Nevada You: Uh-huh? “How long do you each drive for?” You: The serious teams can … Continue reading “Questions people ask when they find out you do Lemons”
I find that car advertiser web sites are pretty well-geared towards finding a blue Honda Accord, but not so great if you’re trying to find a pink Borgward Isabella. Which probably makes sense from the point of view of the web site owners, but can be somewhat irritating if you’ve got your heart set on … Continue reading “How to shop for an unusual car”
As a non-religious person, I applaud the renaming of various things which once had religious significance. Until last year, “Christmas” in my house involved singing hymns, praying, nailing ourselves to crosses and drinking the blood of bats. Now, with the invention of the new “holiday yuletide snow fun” period, the event has been completely transformed. … Continue reading “Renaming “Christmas” – next steps”
As you probably know already, I am not a great gun fan. Like everyone else, I spend my lunchtimes sitting watching videos that already agree with my point of view. Because, y’know, otherwise how would you learn anything? Anyway – one of the things that is often cited by people on my side of the debate … Continue reading “Some more anti-freedom ramblings”
There are some people who spend their lives determining what makes an R-rated film and what makes a PG-rated film. And, of course, there are all sorts of factors. But if you took the visuals out and compared just the dialogue? What words appear in R-rated films but not PG-rated films? And vice versa? I used the Internet Movie … Continue reading “The words that really get your film an R-rating”
This is what happens when your company gives free soda to its software developers. This fine creation is located in building 35 of Microsoft’s main Redmond campus. It was made by a friend of mine called Thibaut, who informs me that it contains 512 cans. He matched up the drinks to the pixels … Continue reading “Soda Mario”
When I first moved to the US, I spent quite some time getting the necessary paperwork together in order to get a firearms license. The rules vary state-by-state, but in Washington it’s actually quite difficult for a non-US citizen to own a gun. I had to get together a bunch of paperwork, including my original … Continue reading “Bad guys with guns”
Here’s a scenario that played out for me this week, and has probably played out for you before too. I’ve been tinkering around with the idea of recording on-track video from car races, and I was looking for a mobile app which could record video along with telemetry from an OBD2 engine management system while … Continue reading “Sometimes I wish things were more expensive”
I have a rather bad carbon footprint. We have two cars in which we drive around 25,000 miles a year (11 tons of CO2). We have a large house with ancient oil-powered heating (9 tons). I fly several times a year for a mixture of business and pleasure (15 tons), I don’t make any attempts … Continue reading “The cute little elephant in the room”
The purpose of having a blog, as we all know, is to complain about stuff in an acerbic fashion without proposing solutions. Today, we’re going to talk about SOPA. SOPA, as we all know, is a bill going through the the House of Representatives in the United States right now. It is intended to stop … Continue reading “Why I hope there’s a SOPA v2”
I’ve often wondered how successfully one could choose a car by looking purely at numbers, and nothing else. So, without further ado, here’s my list of the best road cars to drive on a race track, as declared by my spreadsheet. Position Car 1st Tesla Roadster Sport 2nd Porsche Cayman R 3rd Lamborghini Gallardo … Continue reading “The ten best track cars, chosen by a spreadsheet”
As promised, I am going to get a photo on Explore. This, my friends, is that photo. Here goes nothing. Click the photo to view on Flickr.