What's your number?

The number of people on Earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years.

I'm the 3,590,041,063rd person alive on Earth, and the 77,663,256,209th person to have lived since history began.

Even though we were born the same year, J is the 3,656,109,360th person alive on Earth, and the 77,767,540,053rd person to have lived since history began.

V is the 6,153,222,753rd person alive on Earth, and the 81,760,052,259th person to have lived since history began.

Just under three years later, F is the 6,375,343,969th person alive on Earth, and the 82,143,638,420th person to have lived since history began.

What’s your number?

Everything under the sun is in tune

We went to see a performance by the Classic Albums Live group at the Centre in the Square last night.  They did Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.  I was reluctant to go originally, thinking I might be disappointed.  I was mistaken - the band was incredible.  Their tag line is "Cut for cut.  Note for note."  And it was.  The lead guitar player is outstanding. He not only had the notes down, but he had the exact guitar tone on every song.

The second half of the show was a greatest hits - Shine On, Mother, Wish You Were Here, Young Lust, Sheep, a thundering Run Like Hell, and they wrapped up with an extended Comfortably Numb.  Again, note for note - the solo at the end was exactly the same as the one on the Pulse live album.

Relax

Relax, whilst I take a dump.

10:39:59,689 ERROR [[WADO]] Servlet.service() for servlet WADO threw exception
java.lang.Error: Unresolved compilation problem:
RELAX_MIN_MAX_PIXEL cannot be resolved or is not a field

Eight!

My little monkey turned eight today!

Conversation of the day

V: Hey, did you hear about the new book called “I fell off a cliff”?  It’s by Eileen Dover.

Me: Yes.  Her brother’s name is Ben.

V: What?

Me: [slowly] Her… brother’s… name… is… Ben.

V: [pause] Oh!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Email signature of the day

Software is like smoking a joint. The best kind is when you roll your own, share it, and get laid afterwards.

C is for... uh, cookie?

The YouTube channel for "Sesame Street" is expected to be back online shortly after hackers forced its shutdown by loading X-rated material.

Conversation of the day

We were hunting around the office today for some of the tablets...

Me: Do you have one of the iPads?

Joe: No, I don't have any of the mobile devices.

Me: You're tethered today?  Off the grid?

Joe: I am BlackBuried.

Prank call of the day

[Ring…]

Hello, RIM?  Is your Internet running?  Bwa ha ha ha haaaa.

Hard sell

If you can't decide to laugh or cry, always choose laugh.

It has been revealed that Steve Jobs, founder and former CEO of Apple Computers, is to be laid to rest in a sleek, black, intuitively functional casket in a tasteful private ceremony. Jobs, best known for creating such devices as the Macintosh Computer and the iPhone, left explicit directions in his will as to the design of his eternal resting place. “It should be smooth to the touch—no protruding buttons or handles—with an almost organic feel in the hand.”

and, a statement from Barack Obama:

Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56. "We haven't just lost a great innovator, leader, and businessman, we've literally lost the only person in this country who actually had his shit together and knew what the hell was going on," a statement from President Barack Obama read in part.

I've always admired the capacity that Steve Jobs had to turn a piece of mediocre hardware (iPad/iPhone) and truly abysmal software (iTunes) into gold.  That kind of snake oil is a hard sell.

of the day

That word you keep using…

I had the great opportunity to attend an Ontario Curling Association Competition Coach course last weekend.  It was two days chock full of coaching instruction, delivery analysis and tips and tricks, from two experienced coaches.  There were fourteen students in the class - a mix of club coaches, high school/university coaches, and a couple of Tour players.

We spent quite a bit of time on Sunday discussing strategy.  The current styles of play are termed "pursuing", "protecting" and "probing", for offensive, defensive and patient styles.

The "control zone" in curling is the area between the four-foot lines, from the T-line up through the front of the house.  This control zone has gone by several different names in curling history.  The Canadian Curling Association revamped some of its strategy terminology a couple of years ago.  In the pilot project, they renamed the control zone to "the box".

Our instructor pointed out to the CCA that teaching Bantam aged (12ish to 16 years old) girls about "pursuing the box", "protecting the box" and "probing the box" was probably a bad idea.

It's now called "the key".

See Matt. See Tim. See Matt chase Tim. See Tim run away.

Matt Galloway chases Tim Hudak around the studio, trying to get an answer.  Tim runs away and hides under a chair.

Listen here.

Damn you, Firebug

Why don’t you just tell me the code that crapped out?