Articles by admin

You are currently browsing admin’s articles.

I have discovered a new use for chocolate

May 30, 2014 in Views by admin | No comments

As an “extreme owl” I often stay awake working in the night time.

Mornings are therefore not enjoyable for me. Even when I have a lie-in I can feel grumpy until the coffee flows.

I’m not sure if this is because my senses are heightened or if they are asleep. Either way, I reckon I am more sensitive than most to changes in light, sound, smell, and definitely taste.

Aside from the obvious side effects of morning hatred such as inability to open eyes and short-lived rage at the world (which incidentally can be extended into a general ratty mood for the rest of the day if some negative external thing happens during this window of opportunity) – aside from this I have another strange symptom.

I can’t put anything in my mouth. No water, no food, not even coffee. I have to be awake for at least 45 minutes before attempting to do this. Is this normal?

Today I discovered an exception: 3g of Dark Chocolate.

Not the sweet caramel substances you find in the newsagent. I mean the kind that you put in your mouth which, if stored in a larder, tastes like a cold, hard lump of nothing for the first few seconds.

This is perfect. The initial shock to the tastebuds (texture, sour, salty, watery) I experience with most other foods makes we want to run for cover.

But chocolate is neutral at first. It is already the right temperature for the mouth before it goes in. Then as it warms the flavour gently develops into something that is neither too sweet nor too bitter. It turns into a warm goo, much like being handed a soft blanket.

It gently wakes up the tastebuds.

Then as it disintegrates it slowly releases more and more interesting natural flavours. In doing so it activates the bitter and the sweet receptors just the right amount if it’s the correct balance of cocoa, cocoa butter, and sugars. It activates the sour receptors shortly after this, and gives them something to think about if the chocolate has a red fruit (cherry, raspberry, or strawberry) note.

The chocolates I like are more naturally fruit-like than nut-like, but even my favourite chocolates have a small amount of nut-like flavour, which also stimulates the salt glands – and we know what that does for saliva.

And all it takes is half a square of good chocolate.

Chocolate, I love you.

Tags:

I refuse to buy backup software

February 22, 2014 in Uncategorized by admin | No comments

So, I’m writing a powershell script that:

  • Uses volume shadow service to take a backup of a directory
  • Compresses the above backup using 7zip / whatever
  • Time/Datestamps the compressed backup and copies it off-server to a given location
  • Looks at the above location and deletes backup zips older than a given number of days (i.e. retention period), e.g. keep 30 days of backups
  • But wait, it won’t delete anything unless it knows that a given number of backups exist from the last x days (retention period). After all, if your backups had been failing for 30 days, it would be pretty dumb to delete everything over 30 days old. So the script allows you to set what you deem as a good total number of backups to exist within your retention period in order to delete everything outside of the retention period. Some contingency built in.
  • It connects to your authenticated SMTP server (e.g. Google Mail) to send you an HTML formatted report of exactly what it found in that backup location (filenames alongside their age), whether it detected that recent backups were indeed found, and therefore whether backups older than the retention period were tidied.
  • Obvs, it supports reading / writing to network shares.
  • It supports multiple backup sets per report, using a set of commands like this:

Backup-Tidy 8 6 28 “c:\dir-to-backup” “d:\dir-to-store-zips”
Backup-Tidy 4 2 7 “c:\another-dir-to-backup” “d:\another-dir-to-store-zips”
EmailReport(“hazymat@gmail.com”)

The arguments for Backup-Tidy:

Backup-Tidy 8 6 28 “c:\dir-to-backup” “d:\dir-to-store-zips” “ForReal”

read as follows: “If you find 8 files from the last 6 days, then remove all files over 28 days old”

  • The “ForReal” is a safety belt. Without this argument, the detailed report email is generated but the backups and deletions don’t get done.

And the pretty HTML report looks like this:

Mat’s Backup Tidy Report – 22/02/2014 04:00:36

\\internal.hazymat.co.uk\root\Backup\Mat’s Files [retention period = 28 days]

Recent backups were NOT found. We needed at least 8 zip files 6 days old or less; there are only 3.
We didn’t touch any files; it wasn’t safe to delete anything.

Name Size Age
backup-log-2014.02.19-193402.txt 8k 2d
images-2014.02.19-193402.zip 930m 2d
images-2014.02.18-193409.zip 870m 3d
images-2014.02.17-193355.zip 840m 4d
Total size: 2.6g

 

\\internal.hazymat.co.uk\root\Backup\Big Files [retention period = 7 days]

Recent backups found. We needed at least 5 zip files 7 days old or less; there are 7.
Old files were removed: jolly good.

Name Size Age
backup-log-2014.02.19-193402.txt 8k 0d
images-2014.02.21-193402.zip 930m 0d
images-2014.02.20-193409.zip 870m 1d
images-2014.02.19-193355.zip 840m 2d
images-2014.02.18-193402.zip 930m 3d
images-2014.02.17-193409.zip 870m 4d
images-2014.02.16-193355.zip 840m 5d
images-2014.02.15-193355.zip 840m 6d
Total size: 6.12g

One year today

February 21, 2014 in Uncategorized by admin | No comments

I wanted to write an eloquent status update reflecting my thoughts, beliefs, and status one year on.

But I am so besieged with grief, and so incapacitated by regret that I cannot.

Last night I walked his last journey from Lilac Ward Tolworth Hospital to the tree. It broke me that I could walk back, get in my car and drive home again to a warm home with loved ones.

* Please see my previous post “one week today”

An open letter to my Facebook friends

January 9, 2014 in Rant, Views by admin | No comments

Facebook, it seems, has become a front-end for cheap, baiting, advert-laden websites like Buzzfeed and apparently my Facebook friends are falling for it by the droves by posting links to “Top ten tatoo fails”, “8 reasons you are single”, “10 things you can do to be nice to a single person”, etc.

I thought Facebook and its evil advertising ways was the devil – not my friends themselves!

Get out there and create your own engaging content, write your own blogs, talk about your own life experience, create your own world – an authentic one, one that does’t pander to the brain-numbed masses, one that requires some kind of attention span to read – instead of posting links to pointless articles that only draw your friends into the frivolous world you inhabit online!

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t a great writer, photographer, baker, political mind, whatever. Your friends will read it and like it because it’s you, because they are your friends, and because you expressed a piece of yourself.

I have no problem with posting links to newspapers, news stories, or even the odd mild distraction to your friends.

But spare us the copious amounts of crap that line the pockets of sites like Buzzfeed who only exist to bait link clickers, and to profit from the lemming-like nature of unthinking humans.

Such websites have utterly no intention of making a positive contribution to humanity, to an online community, no intention to inform or educate. They are not built around a particular subject or theme. They are the internet’s cess pit and you are pulling your own friends into it when you post such links. Stop it!

How To Touch Type (for beginners)

July 27, 2013 in Tech by admin | No comments

Today I came across my old website which is hosted on the University of Manchester Compsoc server. I had an account on this server since I studied Computer Science at Manchester which was in 1999 (before I gave it all up to read music instead). I can’t even log on to my account, but I’m glad to see my account and therefore my webspace / website is still online. For posterity, I am salvaging some of the stuff I wrote back then when the word “blog” didn’t even exist, and blogging it here…

Introduction
It seems to have become the norm that in order to learn to type fast you should pay for a software package or take evening classes.

Well, I strongly disagree with this need for ongoing typing lessons. Perhaps they are necessary for some people – but if you are able to practise on your own and motivate yourself, then the only thing stopping you from typing at 80 words per minute is a lack of knowledge of the basic principles.

Health and safety
Goodness knows why the user manual for the Microsoft Mouse has in it the following advice:

“Eat a balanced diet and get adequate rest.”

Sounds like my mother. Oh well – even though it seems a little random, I’m sure Microsoft pay their medical consultants lots of money to come out with such gems. More importantly when considering the health and safety aspect of computing, however, you must ensure that your sitting position at your computer is natural.

  • Straight back
  • Don’t rest your wrists on hard surfaces (in fact not at all unless you have a wrist-rest: “rest not your wrists without right and ready wrist-rests”). Best of all, get a chair with adjustable rubber armrests
  • Both feet flat on floor
  • Forearms almost horizontal
  • Eyes at same horizontal level as the top of the viewable area of your monitor. (Tilt monitor up slightly.)

Know the default typing position
The basic tenet of good typing practise is found in the following directions:

  • Place your index fingers over the F and J keys. Thumbs over spacebar. There should be little bumps on F and J: these are useful if you are blind, but they also exist should you want to find the default position without looking (hint: you should want to do this).
  • Place all other fingers over the keys that are directly next-door to F and J. Your fingers should now be on all of the following keys:

A S D F J K L ; SPACE

Establish a personal regime
The following step is possibly the hardest because it involves re-learning to type, and also it involves making some critical decisions about your preference and the way your hands work.

  • Consider each key on the alpha side of the keyboard (i.e. excluding the numeric pad on the right hand side). When your fingers are in the default position, which finger is closest to each key? This step will take some time to figure out, but must be done in full. This step is vital to the process.
  • A S D F J K L ; …. all these keys have one and only one finger option. H and G will be pressed using only the respective index fingers. Shift buttons will be pressed by each little finger. T and V are pressed by left-hand index finger. U and N and possibly Y (preference) are pressed by the right-hand index finger.
  • Try to use both left and right shift keys equally, instead of just using the left one. This kind of variation is necessary to equally disperse the number of key presses per hand per volume of text.
  • Once you have established a regime for your typing presses, practise typing a sentence v-e-r-y (painfully) slowly. Be absolutely sure that each key you press is the one you initially thought should be pressing it. Be strict in this respect. Again tedious – but vital to the process.
  • Start slowly, and speed-up your typing by practise and repetition.

If you are a key-prodder (1+ words per minute!), the above should be relatively straightforward if tedious.

If you are fairly new to typing, but can already do it fairly well – be reminded that this is probably easier for you than for those who can type 35+ words per minute!

If you type over 35 words per minute, or you use computers a lot - but do not ‘officially’ touch type – this process will be exceedingly annoying. Indeed, you may be able to say the following: “I don’t officially touch-type, but I can do 60 words per minute”. That is a good result: now re-learn and attempt 90+ words per minute. You will probably be quite taken by the whole thing. You will probably see how much faster you could type if you try the above. You will probably want to give up after 5 minutes. If you want to type faster, you need to start-off properly, so don’t give up.

If you are already an OK typist, then you may simply not be able to re-learn properly (supposing you have work to do and can’t afford to type at 5 words per minute to start off with). In this case, you should try to set aside ‘typing time’ – preferably every time you use a computer, preferably for at least 5 minutes depending on your time constraints. When you get acceptably good at proper-typing (i.e. typing under your strict regime), then try to mix this in with your ‘old-style’ that you have been using till now for the sake of practicality. Personally, I see nothing wrong with this crossover approach. Learn properly alongside carrying on the way you were working before – and then gradually mix the dodgy old technique with the new with a long-term view to fully substituting new for old. It’s worth it. Because I’m worth it.

  • Whatever level you are at: start slowly, and speed-up your typing by practice and repetition. Do not let your speed overtake your accuracy at any point, unless you are ‘mixing’ techniques as described above.
  • I believe that the more time you can give to abandoning your current typing technique and adopting a systematic technique, the more time you will save in the long run. Be motivated.

Use shortcuts
This isn’t part of touch-typing, but if you class yourself as an efficient computer user you should at least be using the following Windows shortcuts (it should be second nature):

  • Ctrl-S (hold down control key and press S) to save your work
  • Ctrl-C to copy a bit of selected text (or Ctrl-X to cut)
  • Ctrl-V to paste
  • Alt-tab to cycle through the different programs you have open
  • Alt-F4 to close the program
  • Alt-S to send email (or save and exit items)
  • Ctrl-B; Ctrl-I to bold or italicise text.

Tags:

One week today

March 1, 2013 in Views by admin | 6 comments

The last seven days have been a blur. I have eaten and slept, but only because of the efforts of my nearest and dearest.

One week ago today, a kind man – a man I may never meet – was walking with his dog through an open green space in South London.

At first this man must have wondered why his dog, which had disappeared into the middle of a copse a few hundred yards ahead, was barking incessantly.

After a few minutes of calling and whistling, the man must have realised he could not bring his dog to heel and so went to see what the fuss was about.

Nothing could have prepared the man mentally or emotionally for what he was about to see.

For there, through a small opening into the copse in which the dog was barking, he saw a human body, hanging from a tree.

I never had the chance to tell my dear brother Steve how much I loved him.

I did not visit him daily in hospital.

I did not lock myself in a padded cell with him until his terrors were over.

I did not rugby tackle him to the ground.

I did not think up a master plan for his survival even more intricate and watertight than the far-fetched conspiracies he had built-up in his poor tortured mind over the years.

Why not? I was capable of doing these things. Because he didn’t let me close enough to see the signs? Was I simply not good enough to figure them out myself?

I have seen signs before in others. Like the dog with its killer sense of smell, you could not put me off that scent. I have called parents in the middle of the night to tell them to come to the hospital soon because their daughter may not make it – and please take a taxi.

I knew he was very ill; at Christmas time I tried to rally the troops around him to show a unified front of love and support. I failed.

I did not know he was that ill; since last week I have learned his family, my family, knew of his intentions. Since then I have heard his friends were party to the intimate details of his plans. Since then I have read diaries, letters, emails, text messages. Since then I have hacked his computer to find his final goodbye note.

Since then I have felt his darkness, hugged his children, reasoned with their mummy, cried uncontrollably.

Since then I have tried to reconcile this new Steve I did not know with the old Steve I grew up with.

My tears have turned to frustration at my parents’ inability to discern his truths from his lies. I have listened to every part in the play justify, defend, blame themselves, blame others, disagree, blame doctors, sob.

Since then I have identified the five stages of bereavement, related them to my own loss, tried to break free from them, in order to support my family, and failed. Like a rat stuck on a treadmill.

I considered myself enlightened and strong. I am neither enlightened nor strong.

Since then I have learned of his mantra over the last few months: better an end with terror than terror without end.

I have of course taken my mind to that dark place. Researched his hanging technique. Found out just how much planning was necessary. Walked through the procedure in my mind. Read medical accounts, reviewed statistics, and cried at the sheer terror of the fact that hanging was, for Steve, less painful than the mental torture he was suffering.

I understand mental illness this much: it is an entire mystery. I have not felt such terrifying depths of depression myself, but I have spent sleepless nights before Steve’s death trying to feel it. Trying to understand what it must mean to be unable to pull myself together.

I have heard hints in the past from Steve’s friends about how dark his thoughts had become. Nothing shocked me. I am not shocked by things which 99% of the rest of humanity would be shocked by. Why didn’t he talk to me? I am unshockable.

I imagine that Steve lost his battle with mental illness approximately twelve hours before the point he was found. Unbeknownst to me, this had a been a long battle lasting more than several years. How had I not known this?

Dear readers and friends, if you take just one thing from this, please contact a loved one, or even a distant friend, whom you know – or even suspect – struggles with depression or mental illness.

Go gently, but go. Ask questions until you are weary. Ask the difficult questions. Ask how bad it has been for them at its worst. Ask how they thought they might end it all. Go into the detail even if it does not seem appropriate. Just ask questions.

You may think they have people closer to them who are better placed to support them.

Forget that. Forget other people. Ask the questions yourself. Meet them in their darkest place, if you have the strength to do this. Of course, this can cause more harm than good if you are not prepared. But at least consider it. Consider opening up a dialogue.

Or if you have yourself battled, I would like to hear from you. Have the courage to share your mental state with someone you know can be trusted.

We live in a culture which has, in the most part, banished shame from mental illness, and so there are no excuses.

To my personal friends: I’m not taking calls right now. I need you to be there for me when I do, though.

Please donate to the charity below:

http://memoryspace.mind.org.uk/MemorySpace/memspacemindorguksteve-smith

Surely nobody thought “Fiscal Union” was really a good idea?

July 10, 2012 in Rant, Views by admin | No comments

Far from being an Orwellian nightmare, I love the idea of greater fiscal and political union with our neighbours. Maybe it could even work… in 100-500 years?

But right now, as long as different countries within Europe teach different versions of history, value different types of trade, have different climates that affect their vastly diverse national identities – and not to mention different politics – I believe a single currency is a terrible idea.

Why? A given generation’s workforce in a given country (or ‘economic zone’) depends on the social values of its predecessor generation(s).

Example: let’s talk dinner parties. Your average dinner party of middle-aged professionals in Germany would hold an ‘engineer type’ in the same esteem we Brits hold ‘artist types’ (i.e. high esteem). The UK is largely numerically illiterate and, with the possible exception of medical professionals, we pretty much like to make fun of scientists.*

* I attend dinner parties (not with the middle-aged) with people who do like scientists. I am basing this on media representation, proportion of elected MPs who are actual scientists, the take-up of science subjects at ‘A’ Level or degree, school results in science and maths, and other soft statistics / observations.

If, within the global economy, money is to be made from science rather than art, then Germany is going to whip our asses, whichever metric you use to define economic success (GDP, GPI, etc.)

Now let’s say Germany and the UK were in some kind of hypothetical fiscal union. Given the above, the UK would need to become more competitive on a global scale, otherwise it would run out of money and not be able to buy drugs for the NHS or pay teachers to maintain a decent education system. It would have to ask Germany for a loan. Of course, it could go elsewhere looking for a loan, but I’m pretty sure Germany might have something to say about that.

Sure – in the short term, the ailing UK would benefit from being in the fiscal union, as it would mean it could pay for those drugs, teachers, police, prisons – and maintain some kind of status quo. But it really will need to buck-up its ideas. The problem is: how can it become more competitive? The UK can’t simply change its interest rates – they no longer exclusively control the bank! Businesses can’t magically pay their employees more to attract more talent.

British people won’t magically decide they suddenly like scientists over artists. Worse still, the position of Germany would ironically make Brits dislike scientists even more.

(Aren’t we already seeing the above phenomenon, where although a country is benefiting from being in union with stronger country, they are ironically resenting them at the same time?)

Eventually Germany would have to say to Britain, “right. You need to become more numerically literate if this is going to work”. Germany would invest in education programmes in the UK for decades, but this wouldn’t address the core issue.

This scenario can only end in one of two ways:

1) an amicable break-up of the fiscal union
2) full-scale … wait, don’t mention the war …

The above is of course a hypothetical, over-simplified version of the truth.

But tell me dear readers, do you agree with the basic analysis?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How to configure your NTL 250 to work with wireless

July 9, 2012 in Rant, Tech by admin | 1 comment

If you are merely browsing this blog, don’t read the below. It’s dull as dogs. This is for incoming google searches.

(Hint. If you actually want to configure wireless for your NTL 250 cable modem, skip to the far quicker and superior “Option B”.)

This blog is for the benefit of anyone who might be going through the same problem as I did…

Option A

  1. Call Virgin Media and request a new wireless cable modem router, because yours is faulty. Argue with them over 3x 25 minute phone calls because they say they didn’t provide the original, and your only option is to upgrade your internet connection and take-on another 12 month contract because the NTL 250 cable modem is out of date and they no longer provide separate wireless routers.
  2. Choose “a bit of classical” as your hold music. Hey, I can choose hold music! Oh wait, they are playing “Jurassic Park”. #fail
  3. In a cavalier fashion, purchase a wireless access point on Amazon
  4. Review the “order dispatched” email and immediately KICK YOURSELF when you read the words “wireless access point”. You need a “wireless router”. Who the hell buys those things? The NTL 250 is a cable modem, and is not a router.
  5. Await shipment. Maybe the Wireless AP you purchased can handle routing as well. It seems to do everything else under the sun, it’s one of those TP-Link devices that seem to have taken over the low-end market. They have awesome chipsets and a web interface that doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out, which more than makes up for the unbelievably cheap plastic they are made from. Take THAT Netgear…
  6. Stop kidding yourself. Really, a router is a router. A Wireless AP is a Wireless AP.
  7. Out of desperation head to Maplin. Make sure you get a Wireless *Cable Modem* Router this time. Uh oh. The only wireless cable modem router in stock is a Netgear.
  8. Scream and struggle and tear your hair out because your Netgear web interface randomly hangs, you never know if it actually ‘applied’ the settings you painstakingly entered, and you can’t get the thing to play ball.
  9. Attempt to use the Netgear “auto detect modem settings”. Yeh, that was never going to work.
  10. Attempt to manually set the router’s IP address and DNS servers (even though they should be dynamically assigned) as if this will somehow help.
  11. Hit Google, pore over various VirginMedia broadband forum posts, none of which assist in configuring your NTL 250, all of which conclude with “Virgin will send you their new Superhub”. Call Virgin once again to say your wireless router is faulty, can they send you a “Superhub”, no they can’t, not unless you upgrade, take-on another 12 month contract, etc.
  12. Ask to speak to Virgin’s tech support team, you need assistance configuring a wireless router for your NTL 250 cable modem. “What is the make and model?” Netgear. “We are unable to support Netgear wireless routers”.
  13. Phone up again and lie, tell them you are setting up a Linksys. They tell you “set your router’s settings to ‘dynamic’. No need to enter any logon information. No connection username and password. DHCP will provide your router with the correct IP address, DNS, gateway”. ARGUE. Say you’ve done that but it is simply not getting an IP address. Angrily explain you have no way of getting online because they won’t upgrade your router and won’t replace your existing one, then eventually hang up because they can’t help you.
  14. Curse, Google some more, etc.
  15. … notice a setting on the Netgear. A strange setting, one that allows you to hard-code the MAC address of the router’s cable modem interface. Think to yourself “surely they don’t filter MAC addresses at the exchange, given they haven’t even bothered to set up any kind of connection encryption in the first place”. (Or perhaps it’s their way of helping NAT to actually work. Either way, it’s dumb.)
  16. Get online within a few minutes of the above.

Option B

Here’s how to set up your wireless cable modem router with your NTL 250 or 255 (thanks to Virgin Media for all their wonderful help):

  1. Make sure you buy a Wireless Cable Modem Router
  2. Find the MAC address of your cable modem. If you are lucky, it will be written on the underside of your NTL 250 or 255 cable modem
  3. Input this MAC address into your wireless cable modem router
  4. Most modern wireless cable modem routers should magically work once you have done the above
Easy, huh?

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Clicktivism or Slacktivism?

March 20, 2012 in Views by admin | 1 comment

I know, I know; the Kony 2012 subject has been done to death. I don’t plan to weigh-in too heavily on the debate, except to make a small comment on what the media has termed “clicktivism”. Or indeed what sceptics have termed “slacktivism”.

Before I go on: my viewpoint on the campaign. Naturally it goes without saying that a Brit such as myself sees the “Stop Kony” campaign – or rather the more bizarrely named “Kony 2012″ (more akin to a Presidential election campaign title, right?) – with a healthy dose of scepticism. I wouldn’t go as far as Charlie Brooker did in likening it to a cult, after all Kony is not a myth and his well-known LRA has been in operation for almost 2 decades, throughout which time numerous atrocities have been reported by the international media.

No, Charlie Brooker’s attack on the campaign was in itself egotistical, and attempting to make comedic capital out of the systematic rape and murder of kidnapped children by a man whose arrest warrant was issued by the ICC a decade ago is unfathomably stupid and shallow.

Satire should be relevant; as such Brooker might have focussed on the core debate which includes the organisation’s transparency, immediate fame, and efficacy. A little side-poke at the ‘cultish’ nature of the campaign might have been more palatable in this case.

Back to the matter in hand: “clicktivism” or “slacktivism”.

Although, in themselves, these terms are cringeworthy, they point towards a social phenomenon unique to the new Twitter/Facebook generation. That is, the belief that fame in itself can solve problems.

Over the last few days on social media, I’ve seen examples of this;

  • a young black English rap artist (early on in his career) tweeted about wanting to make friends with the rich in Chiswick, because he believes that by association this will bring more fame to his music career
  • a young New Yorker friend of mine posted a video on Tumblr of herself saying “our job is to stop Kony, we have the power to do something. As internet users, teenagers have the power to control how famous Kony becomes”.

Whilst the first is obviously a clear case of today’s obsession with celebrity over that of talent, the second is worthy of a little more debate.

I’m in two minds about the effect of fame on politics and international law. On the one hand I lament the fact that charities like Oxfam and Amnesty have been chipping away at this campaign for decades, and one single-issue movement gathers pace, produces a glitzy video, and blows their attempts on the given issue out of the water by engaging young people.

On the other hand, is this not just the new form of political campaign? Throughout the history of representative democracy, politics has been about issues and people gathering fame, whether this involved those on the campaign trail knocking on doors and delivering leaflets, or more recently making glamorous videos. Was not the Obama ’08 campaign the blueprint for the latter?

Head of Research at Oxfam UK, Duncan Green, blogs with scepticism about the issues of fame and charity. Whilst he makes some valid points about the absorption rate of human rights issues into the minds of young people, I can’t help feeling that his response focusses mainly on the style of the campaign rather than the effect it might have. He is “appalled” by the tone, the depiction of Africa, and the “feelgood schmaltz”. Whilst I don’t personally like these aspects of the Kony 2012 campaign, these are the very things that made it successful, and brought 60 million viewers to the cause. They are mere stylistic objections.

In summary, whilst I want to dislike the whole focus on glamour, the Invisible Children published a thorough response to current criticism of their campaign, detailing their breakdown of expenditure.

If the pie chart tells a truthful story, then I’m all in favour of how they are spending their money and running their ads.

Those who want charities to remain chipping away quietly at issues of human injustice rather than making grand statements that engage young people may have to start rethinking their position, because global, single-issue movements will play an increasing part in the future of charitable giving.

Tags: , , ,

Top Ten Grammar Peeves

February 1, 2012 in Rant by admin | 1 comment

I recently read one of those annoying graphics that are being ‘shared’ or passed-round Facebook.

What makes them annoying is not that they are faddy, inert, and positively dull, but that they are low resolution JPGs of plain text which have been resized to look like arse.

Anyway, the latest – which I simply couldn’t let lie – was this.

Top Ten Grammar Peeves

  1. It’s “I couldn’t care less.” “I could care less” means that you actually do care.
  2. An apostrophe is never used to form a plural.
  3. “Literally” means it actually happened, not that it figuratively happened.
  4. “Loose” and “lose” are two different words.
  5. “Your” and “you’re” are also two different words.
  6. “Their,” “there” and “they’re” are actually three different words.
  7. “nonplus” does not mean what you think it means.
  8. “Affect” is a verb. “Effect” is a noun.
  9. “It’s” is short for “it is” and “its” means “belonging to it.”
  10. “Irregardless” is not a word.

So I read this and thought “nothing gets up my hackles like a pedant who is wrong”.

Firstly the phrase “I could care less”, whilst a little American in tone, is perfectly acceptable. In fact it is rather subtle. It means “it may be possible for me to care less, in which case I might; however I do not”. Such linguistic subtlety has clearly passed-by the writer of this little ditty.

Secondly why has the writer consistently included punctuation marks not relevant to the sense within the quotation marks? Fowler’s A Dictionary Of Modern English Usage states that “all signs of punctuation used with words in quotation marks must be placed according to the sense”.

As for “literally” meaning “actually”, what rubbish. It means, “in a literal sense” or “pertaining to a literal”. In fact my dictionary says it is often used as an acknowledgement that something is NOT to be taken literally. Such is the flexibility and subtlety of the English language, and any true lover of language will appreciate this, rather than getting annoyed by it.

The word “affect” can be a noun as well as a verb, and in this form is synonymous with the word “emotion”.

Finally the word “irregardless” has an entry in my Concise Oxford English Dictionary, an edition from about 12 years ago. If that doesn’t make it a word in some official sense, I don’t know what does.

Tags: ,

« Older entries