XKCD progress indicator
You all read today’s xkcd and wanted to incorporate this formula into your programs straight away. Here’s my Ruby implementation, if you would like a quick fix: require 'date' class XkcdDate # Progress indicator formatted as a date, as in http://xkcd.com/1017/ def self.progress(amount, total) percent = (amount.to_f / total.to_f) years = Math::E ** (20.3444 * percent ** 3 + 3) - Math::E ** 3 Date.today - (years * 365.25) end end It takes two arguments (amount and total, used to form the ratio) and returns a Ruby Date object, which you can format any way you like. And examples of its uses, as in the comic: >> [7.308, 31.12, 47.91, 70.33, 90.42, 100].each {|p| puts "#{p}: #{XkcdDate.progress(p, 100)}"} 7.308: 2011-12-18 31.12: 1995-02-15 47.91:...
One of my new year’s resolutions
Was to post an insightful and interesting article on my blog at least once a week. Well, I kept that, then… Normal service will resume when I have even one spare moment to devote to this outlet!
Music of 2011
As we come to the end of another year, it’s time to look at the best music released in the last twelve months. I think it’s been a pretty good year, overall. I’ve bought 14 new albums released in 2011 and attended 9 live events, and none of them were particularly disappointing. I’m not going to try to review them all, but here are my top five albums of 2011… #1 – My Morning Jacket, “Circuital” My Morning Jacket are a band I’ve been following at a moderate distance for some time. Their breakthrough success Z and 2008’s Evil Urges were already among my favourite albums ever so I was very excited about this year’s release. Turns out it surpassed all my expectations and earns its place at the top of my list...
Twitter owns @
Here’s a fascinating cultural phenomenon I’ve observed recently: The @ symbol, placed before a word (such as @gourmethotdogs) is beginning to become an instant reference to that username on social network Twitter. In the same way that the popular early subdomain “www” identifies web sites to the average person without the need for text explaining that it is a web site (or even the http:// part of the URL that specifies the protocol!), we’re starting to see signs and adverts for businesses just identifying their presence on Twitter with their name preceded by @. Essentially, Twitter now owns the @ symbol for the purpose of brand recognition. What’s even more interesting about this is that the use of the @ symbol was not a...
Let’s talk about fraud prevention
Debit cards are amazing inventions. Wherever I am in the world, I can get access to the cash in my bank account through an international banking network (for a small fee). The name ‘Visa’, originally applied to credit cards and now increasingly found on debit cards, was adopted as a symbol of this worldwide acceptance. Well, that’s how it should work, anyway. Unfortunately, the modern prevalence of identity theft has caused my bank and many others to introduce a cumbersome fraud prevention system on top of this freedom. I first encountered this in force on a business trip in September – I tried to take money out of a cash machine in Taoyuan Airport, Taiwan without first contacting my bank to say I was going out there. Reasonably enough, it...
Office icon colours: an unusual Microsoft legacy
Here’s an interesting thought: When you think of word processors, spreadsheets, and overhead presentations, what colours come to mind? Blue, green and red respectively, right? As far as I can tell, this branding exercise was a Microsoft invention, added in early versions of Microsoft Office to associate the components of Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) with the existing four-colour Windows logo (with yellow representing Outlook Express), but it’s persisted much further than that. Google Docs, OpenOffice and LibreOffice all use the same colour scheme. Even Lotus Symphony has broken out of the Lotus standard colour scheme with its 2.0 icons. I’m fascinated by subtle corporate branding that makes its way into the common consciousness without being...
I’m not stupid, but: how do semicolons work?
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...
Leeds-based non-binary nerd and sewist. I won't break my streak on Duolingo for anyone. 
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