My blog has something to tell you Rotating Header Image

September, 2011:

I’m not stupid, but: how do semicolons work?

Sep 23rd, 2011
by Rich.
4 comments

Punctuation lovers are always complaining about the decline of the semicolon. It seems to be gradually disappearing from the printed word entirely, being replaced by the comma, which serves a related but different purpose.

Sadly, the distinction between the comma and the semicolon is a really useful one for comprehending sentences correctly the first time.

The rule for when to use a semicolon is actually really straightforward; once you know it, you’ll probably never confuse it and the comma again.

Use a semicolon when you want to connect two strongly related phrases that could stand on their own as sentences.

Here’s an example I saw on the Manchester Metrolink tram the other day. When a stop is announced, an LED marquee displays something like the following:

This is an Altrincham service, the next stop will be Cornbrook.

Here a comma is used when a semicolon would be much better. Reading this sentence with a comma causes the reader to double-back and try to work out how the second part fits with the first part. A semicolon would break the sentence up properly and alert the reader to there being two separate phrases in the sentence.

This is an Altrincham service; the next stop will be Cornbrook.

The stop system gives us four “levels” of stop and, in most cases, the rules are pretty simple:

  • Comma [,]: Most of the time the comma is used to delimit non-defining clauses, like “in most cases” above. A non-defining clause is a piece of the sentence that can be removed but cannot stand on its own as a sentence. Commas are also used to separate items in a list.
  • Semicolon [;]: As above, the semicolon is used to join two phrases that could stand alone as sentences but are strongly related to one another.
  • Colon [:]: The colon does the same thing as the semicolon, except it usually ties together one phrase with an explanation of that phrase. For example, “Rich is a blogger: someone who writes pedantic articles on the web.”
  • Full stop [.]: Separates entire sentences, as I’m sure you know.

Join me in reclaiming the semicolon and making long sentences easier to read!

{lang: 'en-GB'}

Laptop lids

Sep 17th, 2011
by Rich.
6 comments

(Goodness, this is only my second post this month. Evidently real life is getting in the way. I have a massive list of things I’d like to write about, if that’s any consolation to my readers.)

We live in the time where the laptop computer is ubiquitous. Most people who have a home personal computer use a laptop now, and it’s starting to become the primary workplace device too. Although tablets are gaining in popularity, it’ll be a while before they have anything like that market share.

So let’s talk about laptop lids.

Laptop computers fold away for ease of portability. It’s very easy to carry around a cuboid-shaped device. This isn’t news to anyone.

But wherever I go — home or office — I see people walking around with their laptop lids open, precariously balancing the computer and anything else they need to carry, such as notebooks and cups of coffee. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. It’s such a common image it’s almost unnoticeable but when you think about it, it’s pretty hilarious.

Why does this happen? Well, most modern operating systems are configured by default to initiate an ACPI sleep event when the laptop lid is closed. This shuts down the monitor, hard disk and CPU and leaves only the RAM powered up — great for saving battery power when on the move, but causing a delay of a few seconds on wake when the various hardware springs back into life. On top of this, most authentication systems will use this as an excuse to lock the machine, requiring a password or fingerprint to unlock.

The delay caused by the wake and unlock event is traded off against the distance travelled and in most people’s eyes a journey from desk to meeting room (or living room to bedroom) is too short to warrant that delay and effort and so we end up in that silly state of balancing the laptop instead of closing it for easy movement.

But my engineer’s brain is not satisfied with this! There must be a solution where we can have the best of both worlds!

The easy solution would be to have a switch on the taskbar to say whether to sleep & lock when the lid is closed. I’m sure such features already exist. But I don’t want to be having to remember to click this, especially before going home for the evening or travelling — the risk of accidentally leaving my laptop fully powered and wasting energy (or not having any power at my destination) is too great.

We could program the ACPI based on our calendar information — my laptop already knows when I have meetings so perhaps it could decide not to sleep when it knows it’s being transported in or out of a meeting room. But this relies on the information in my calendar being accurate and it doesn’t solve the same problem at home.

What about just allowing us to specify a minimum time after the lid is closed before the sleep and lock events kick in? If I could say that any journey of less than a minute should be considered just closing the lid for convenience’s sake, and not because I’m travelling or leaving my laptop alone, that would probably work. There’s a tradeoff here in battery power (not much) and physical security (I could still manually initiate the lock if I’m worried about that) but I think the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

This would be easy to do in GNU/Linux where ACPI is scriptable, but do similar tools exist for Windows 7 or OS X? And if we can solve this problem, how do we go about retraining everyone out of this habit?

{lang: 'en-GB'}

You’re grounded

Sep 11th, 2011
by Rich.
6 comments

This week I have been abroad on business, and suffered a major delay of about 5 hours coming home when one engine of the aeroplane failed to start during the takeoff procedure.

When this happens on a long-haul flight, the passengers are subjected to something rather odd: They are asked to stay on the plane. In the dark. With nothing to do.

From asking around, it seems the explanation for this has two key components:

  1. Pilots are only permitted to work for a certain number of hours, so they can guarantee alertness. For this reason, letting people back into the terminal building when there is a race against the clock could be disastrous, as one lost passenger could cost the entire flight.
  2. The main cabin lights, entertainment system and microwave/fridge for food and drink are powered by an alternator in the jet engine. No engine = no power (well, OK, some power but just enough to keep low-level lights on and a tantalizing flight information screen saying “Ground speed: 0 mph”).

The in-flight experience on a 747 is a very pleasant one. There is an entertainment system with hundreds of films & TV programmes to choose from. Staff walk through the cabin and offer you cold drinks and hot meals. And there is a galley where you can go at any time and request snacks.

Unfortunately, when you are grounded at the airport all of these luxuries vanish (evidently) because of the lack of power. This seems like a major oversight for the passenger experience!

I’m not sure if there’s a good solution to problem number 1. But surely number 2 could be solved in some way. Maybe the airport could have ground generators that the aeroplane can connect to?

I’m sure this is a common enough problem that someone should have come up with a solution by now!

{lang: 'en-GB'}