Daily Archives: November 28, 2006

Goofs

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We watched the wonderful Manon des sources (1986) on Sunday last. It was one of Sue’s favourite films, and I can see why. Later, I went looking on IMDB to find out who directed it and noticed the “goofs” link, which led to:

Revealing mistakes:

  • As Manon visits her father’s grave, a gravestone falls over notice in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
  • Crew or equipment visible: When Ugolin is hunting around 11:00 min into the film, you can see a crewman duck behind a bush after releasing the rabbit Galinette goes chasing after.

    • Did I notice them? Of course not.

    The benefits of being laid back

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    Well, whaddya know? Sitting straight is ‘bad for backs’…

    Sitting up straight is not the best position for office workers, a study has suggested.

    Scottish and Canadian researchers used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show it places an unnecessary strain on your back.

    They told the Radiological Society of North America that the best position in which to sit at your desk is leaning slightly back, at about 135 degrees.

    Experts said sitting was known to contribute to lower back pain.

    Data from the British Chiropractic Association says 32% of the population spends more than 10 hours a day seated.

    Pardon me while I adjust my posture. Zzzzzz…..

    The next Millennium Dome

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    James Miller pointed me to this splendid rant by Andrew Rawnsley on the ballooning cost of the London 2012 Olympics. Sample:

    The Games’ supporters do not like to speak about cost; they prefer to talk about ‘investment’, implying there will be some sort of return. Which will be what exactly? The experience of other cities is that international sports festivals do not attract tourists – they repel them. Tourists stayed away from Germany during last year’s World Cup because they did not want to spend their holidays in the company of thousands of football fans. When Australia and Greece staged the Olympics, tourists boycotted the countries, fearing traffic jams, a security clampdown and hotel rooms to be had only at rip-off prices. Who in their right mind is going to want to holiday in London in the congestion and security hell that will be the capital city in the August of 2012?

    Just as with the dome, supporters of the Olympics say they will regenerate part of London. I’m all for the regeneration of the East End, but you didn’t need to do it by bringing this overblown, ludicrously expensive spectacle to town. It is a perverse and wasteful way to regenerate that area of the capital by squandering money on facilities for which there is no long-term use and stuffing the mouths of developers and contractors with gold.

    When all their other justifications turn to dust, the cheerleaders fall back, just as did the supporters of the dome, on the claim that the Games will be some sort of tonic for the nation’s morale. The unfailingly optimistic Tessa Jowell proclaims that we should cheer for the Olympics because three million primary schoolchildren think they are going to be medal winners.

    That’s three million children who are going to be bloody disappointed, then…

    Great stuff. Worth a read.

    Online video ‘eroding TV viewing’

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    Another canary in the mine — a BBC report saying that:

    The online video boom is starting to eat into TV viewing time, an ICM survey of 2,070 people for the BBC suggests.

    Some 43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result.

    And online and mobile viewing is rising – three quarters of users said they now watched more than they did a year ago.

    But online video viewers are still in the minority, with just 9% of the population saying they do it regularly.

    Another 13% said they watched occasionally, while a further 10% said they expected to start in the coming year.

    Of course this is all minority stuff — for now…

    The problem with programming

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    Interesting Technology Review interview with Bjarne Stroustrup, the guy who dreamed up C++. Excerpt:

    Technology Review: Why is most software so bad?
    Bjarne Stroustrup: Some software is actually pretty good by any standards. Think of the Mars Rovers, Google, and the Human Genome Project. That’s quality software! Fifteen years ago, most people, and especially most experts, would have said each of those examples was impossible. Our technological civilization depends on software, so if software had been as bad as its worst reputation, most of us would have been dead by now.

    On the other hand, looking at “average” pieces of code can make me cry. The structure is appalling, and the programmers clearly didn’t think deeply about correctness, algorithms, data structures, or maintainability. Most people don’t actually read code; they just see Internet Explorer or Windows “freeze,” have their cell phone drop a call, read the latest newspaper story about viruses, and they shudder.

    I think the real problem is that “we” (that is, we software developers) are in a permanent state of emergency, grasping at straws to get our work done. We perform many minor miracles through trial and error, excessive use of brute force, and lots and lots of testing, but–so often–it’s not enough.

    Software developers have become adept at the difficult art of building reasonably reliable systems out of unreliable parts. The snag is that often we do not know exactly how we did it: a system just “sort of evolved” into something minimally acceptable. Personally, I prefer to know when a system will work, and why it will.

    TR: How can we fix the mess we are in?
    BS: In theory, the answer is simple: educate our software developers better, use more-appropriate design methods, and design for flexibility and for the long haul. Reward correct, solid, and safe systems. Punish sloppiness.

    In reality, that’s impossible. People reward developers who deliver software that is cheap, buggy, and first. That’s because people want fancy new gadgets now. They don’t want inconvenience, don’t want to learn new ways of interacting with their computers, don’t want delays in delivery, and don’t want to pay extra for quality (unless it’s obvious up front–and often not even then). And without real changes in user behavior, software suppliers are unlikely to change.

    We can’t just stop the world for a decade while we reprogram everything from our coffee machines to our financial systems. On the other hand, just muddling along is expensive, dangerous, and depressing. Significant improvements are needed, and they can only come gradually. They must come on a broad front; no single change is sufficient…

    It’s a good interview, worth reading in full. There’s a lovely exchange towards the end:

    TR: How do you account for the fact that C++ is both widely criticized and resented by many programmers but at the same time very broadly used? Why is it so successful?
    BS: The glib answer is, There are just two kinds of languages: the ones everybody complains about and the ones nobody uses.

    ITV makes the Grade

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    Michael Grade is leaving the BBC to join ITV.

    Michael Grade has resigned as BBC chairman and is to join ITV, the corporation’s main terrestrial rival.

    ITV, which has been struggling with falling advertising and ratings, said the appointment was a “real coup”.

    Well, it is for ITV. I’m not sure it’s the smartest career move for Grade (who I know slightly and have always liked a lot; among other things, he’s a serious cigar smoker). He’s been offered huge amounts of money — a pay package which could hit £2 million a year, compared to the £140,000 he earns now as Chairman of the Beeb. But when he took the BBC job, I had assumed that he had made enough money not to have to worry about it for the rest of his life. Maybe I was naive.

    His departure is a terrible blow to the BBC, but he has done great things in a short time. He was appointed in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry, when the Corporation was bruised and demoralised by Hutton’s ludicrous whitewash of the government, and for many people his appointment signified that the BBC would survive and bounce back. And it has.

    “Being the Chairman of the BBC was the most unexpected job I have ever had”, he writes in his farewell letter.

    The welcome you gave me on my arrival is embedded deep within my emotional dna. At that moment I realised what was at stake for me, for the BBC.

    So much has been accomplished in the last two and a half years that I feel comfortable that I have achieved what I set out to achieve – namely restore the equilibrium of the this great institution, to lead the process to appoint a new DG [director general], to secure a new ten year Charter and to reform the governance of the Corporation.

    With the help of my fellow governors and the new Governance Unit, the future is secure, the independence of the BBC is safeguarded and, most important of all, our programmes across all media are maintaining the overwhelming support of the licence fee payers.

    All of that’s broadly true. He claims in his letter that the real reason he’s going is that he hates not being involved in (TV) programming. (As BBC Chairman, he has to take a hands-off attitude and leave it all to the management.) I can believe that: he comes from a showbiz family. One of his uncles (Lew) was a great ITV entrepreneur; another was a theatrical agent. Grade has entertainment in his blood. As Executive Chairman of ITV, he will be able to get stuck into scheduling and commissioning and luring talent and all the stuff he loves doing.

    But… The problem is that Grade is a wizard at popular broadcasting — the few-to-many stuff that was the basis of the old media-ecosystem. But that world is eroding fast. ITV’s chronic problems are partly to do with the abysmal management it has had for nearly a decade. But it’s also due to the fact that its glory days are over — because broadcast is in inexorable decline. Michael Grade was a wizard in the old system. My conjecture is that he’s about to start playing Canute in the new.

    This email address will self-destruct in ten minutes…

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    Here’s a neat idea for dealing with sites which won’t let you use them unless you provide a valid email address that they can then use to spam you. — 10 Minute Mail. Blurb reads:

    Welcome to 10 Minute Mail. By clicking on the link below, you will be given a temporary e-mail address. Any e-mails sent to that address will show up automatically on the web page. You can read them, click on links, and even reply to them. The e-mail address will expire after 10 minutes. Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don’t want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable. And it’s free.