Aching Brain

What on earth motivates the choice of hold music? In my last workplace I didn’t even realise that we hold music until I rang in one day to say I would be late. Terrible crimes against music were being perpetrated via our telephones, the worst examples of midi lift Muzak I had ever heard. Needless to say I turned it off, and changed it for a nice computer voice telling people they were on hold every 20 seconds, with some inoffensive bleeping in between (the choices were limited, and there was no ‘upload your tune here’ option).

At the moment I am on hold to IT and for some reason they have chosen a tasteless midi version of the music from France Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (more popularly known for its use on Our Tune).It is driving me round the bend, and I am just wondering why on earth IT thought that the romantically-tinged midi strains of Our Tune would inspire me to continue to hold rather then destroy the telephone with a sledgehammer.

I would like to know what the readers of achingbrain have heard while on hold, either truly awful or pleasantly surprising. My personal favourite is the one at my Dad’s office, a marine salvaging and surveying company, where they have chosen to greet callers with the Titanic soundtrack (with its terrible midi choir, but that’s another blog in itself) - awful music, but appropriately snigger-worthy given the line of business.

Alternatively please join Pipedown in their crusade against ear-assaulting piped Muzak in general.

Popularity: 94% [?]

Yes, the rumours are true. After years of experimental transport schemes involving the drilling of tunnels and buses with unstable middles, not to mention their occasionally explosive rear ends, the Mayor of London in his infinite wisdom has decided that the tram, beloved of Dr Zhivago-era Moscow and Judy Garland’s St Louis, is the way forward for transport. Better still, it will link those of us marooned on rock unsuitable for tunnelling, with our friends and jobs op’North and their fancy underground system.

After a lot of whispers and countless rumours it appears that the proposed Cross River Tram has finally gone to, wait for it, consultation. This means that they will probably push some bits of paper around for a long time and then might finish it by the time I’m forty and living in the sticks somewhere. As part of the consultation they want the local opinions of local people to add to their paper pile.

It is thoroughly important that you exercise your democratic right to inform our elected mayor of your opinions. Get your consultation document here. It won’t even cost you the price of a stamp to get your opinions on the route and the termini heard.

I am however rather miffed that some locals have already hijacked this scheme and decided it’s an entirely stupid plan because apparently artists’ studios, churches and businesses might have to be bulldozed to make way for a tram depot, which, after looking at their map, the businesses in question seem to be Trinketz, Ash’s Meat Centre, I think a car wash place, and that unsightly factory with the yellowed and broken windows you see as you come into Peckham Rye station from London Bridge. It is, according to these locals, an “area with potential for redevelopment.” They have already had their petitions out, you may have seen one floating around your nearest twee shop recently. This attitude says to me that a better, sustainable, and environmentally sound transport system for the area would be entirely pointless if they couldn’t buy unique prints entitled “Pain” and “Freedom” to put on the mantelpiece of their Bellenden boudoir.

I have a feeling that they may have missed the point. The tramline will bring better access to jobs in central London for many people. It will provide redevelopment in their “area with potential for redevelopment” and jobs on the trams and at the terminus and depot for local people. It would involve new building, and I suspect a more light and open feel to the area around Peckham Rye station. Not to mention the fact that it will hugely help the redevelopment of the bit of Peckham that no one likes to think about, which includes everywhere North of Peckham High Street as well as the Aylesbury and Heygate estates, by providing them with a fast and much needed link to Peckham town centre, and to Waterloo and beyond, and thus jobs. At then end of the day people living there have far more need for a better transport system.

I might sound like I’ve swallowed a bit of Ken’s propaganda on this, but having seen the change that the tram brought to Croydon (okay, I still wouldn’t like to spend too much time there, but the place has smartened up a lot since the tram was opened) I am convinced that the benefits far outweigh the problems of having a depot in Peckham.

I’ve said my thing, whichever way you lean on this, and whether you think I’m talking rubbish or not, please examine the consultation document and make those opinions heard to ensure that the area continues to thrive in the future.

Popularity: 95% [?]

Me: Oh look, they’ve released a pink Zune. Would you like one for Christmas?

Her: I’d rather stick my head on a pike.

Although on closer reading of the article, it seems that the pink Zunes are a very rare limited edition and they are not marked as such. Consequently the guy who bought it thought he was getting a white one, didn’t like the pink, saw an opportunity and promptly put it on eBay.

Honestly, that’s a stroke of genius only matched by releasing a brown Zune in the first place.

You can just see little Jimmy’s parents in some electronics shop going:

Parent: Oh look, there’s one of those Zune things Jimmy wants. Excuse me, Mr Shop Assistant, we’d like to buy a Zune.

Shop Assistant: Wonderful, here you go.

Parent: Excellent, he’s going to be so pleased.

Of course, the parents left it to the last minute and the black/white Zunes sold out a long time ago - something the shop assistant neglects to mention lest it should damage his chances of making a commission and/or missing his sales target.

Little Jimmy then spends the next six months being bullied at school for having a poo coloured Zune before it’s finally stolen and destroyed by muggers on the bus who can’t bear to suffer it’s existence any longer. Little Jimmy is secretly thankful.

Popularity: 96% [?]

This just dropped into my inbox:

Hi,

VjAGRA_zd_$1,78
CjALiS_lx_$3,00
LEVjTRA_fz_$3,33

www [dot] removed [dot] info

——–

tiny growl is permitted.

Tiny growl indeed. Fuckers.

Popularity: 95% [?]

I downloaded the release version of Vista today via my work MSDN account and my first impressions were:

Hmm. I can’t quite focus on the text on this screen. Either my hangover is really, really bad or I need to get my eyes tested.

Oh, wait, it’s just ClearType.

Aside from that, I’m amazed at how complicated they’ve made everything. For example, when downloading files through IE7, you now have a “Downloads” folder in your home directory. Can you get to this via the start menu? No. Is it a sub-folder of your Documents folder? No. What’s wrong with just putting them on the Desktop? Isn’t it what it’s there for - files you are currently working on and/or might not want to keep?

The Windows Explorer seems to have become a maze of semi-coherent short cuts and file system abstractions - see the address bar for what I mean. Even the Control Panel has succumbed to this mess. It seems they’ve sat around a table and gone “What are the most popular things people do with the Control Panel” and made shortcuts to them all, rather than organising the different areas in a logical manner in the first place.

And then there’s the whole off button thing.

Never mind the hundreds of pop ups “This program wants to do this” “Do you know this program?” “Do you want to let this program do this?” “Are you sure you want to let this program do this?”. And the really obnoxious one that greys out your entire screen and puts the dialogue box right in the middle. “LOOK AT ME”, it screams. “FUCK OFF”, I think.

And what happened to the File/Edit/etc menus? It took me a good twenty minutes to work out how to show hidden files and folders. In the end I had to ask Google for the answer.

Ugh. Maybe I’m just getting old, but does it really have to be this way?.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Biometric passports cloned. It seems all it takes is 174 quids worth of hardware and 48 hours of a programmer’s time to write the software.

Given the government’s track record for IT, is anyone really surprised by this?

Popularity: 67% [?]

John Gruber has a go at shonky software hiding behind the “Beta” label (so hot right now).

Too bloody right.

Popularity: 55% [?]

There’s an article on eWeek.com about the storage requirements of eBay.com. It’s mostly large number willy waving, but this quote from the third page caught my eye:

eBay’s application servers, according to Strong:

* use monolithic two-tier architecture
* boast 3.3 million line C++ ISAPI DLL (150MB binary)
* have hundreds of developers, all working on the same code
* are hitting compiler limits on number of methods per class.

Now, I could be wrong, but the last three points don’t really strike me as much to be proud of, not to mention possibly inaccurate in the case of the first two.

In other news, this morning I did something that some people might find a little odd. I cleaned my bike.

Truly, I am entering into the realm of the unwell.

Popularity: 34% [?]

I have a sort of love hate relationship with OO support in PHP. On one hand it looks like a dirty hack due to a combination of the duck typing, lack of function overloading, no proper namespaces and the way everyone talks about object methods when the code itself calls them functions. On the other hand it just feels right (although I’m told this kind of wooly thinking is my degree showing) and if you are putting anything together where scripts run to more than a hundred lines or so it’s really the only way to do it and keep it all manageable. One of the major problems I have with the whole thing is that there is no standardised way to store your class definitions and consequently no way to import them in a neat and tidy way. I personally favour having each class and interface in it’s own file, named thus:

DatabaseConnection.class.php
SQLQuery.class.php
JSONableItem.interface.php
etc..

This way you can identify what is in each file just by reading the name and you can order them in directories like so:

ajax
JSONableItem.interface.php
database
DatabaseConnection.class.php
SQLQuery.class.php
etc..

Even giving you a sort of memetic namespace of

ajax.JSONableItem
database.DatabaseConnection
database.SQLQuery
etc..

Which encourages code re-use by making it very easy to transfer classes between projects. This brings me on to the next problem in that there is no standardised way of importing these classes into your script files. I normally have one file that imports all the class definitions into the project, somewhere high up on the bootstrap page but this means that every single class in the project is being loaded for each request to the server that is answered by PHP - not exactly ideal. I found a little class on the Pure PHP website called Include_once which is based on an interesting little idea - keep a list of imported files and only import a requested file if it is not in the list. Inspired by this I’ve written a little utility class rather unimaginatively named ClassLoader which does the above but via a sort of namespace that allows for nice structuring of class definition files in the file system and also the importing of whole folders of class files (packages). An example of it’s use is as follows:

or even

There are also a couple of other fun methods

tells you how many classes have been loaded and

tells you how many times ClassLoader has been asked to load class definition files. The reason that these may be different is because you can use ClassLoader to include class definition files at the top of other class definition files much in the same way you’d use the import statement in Java. So for a trite example, with the following file structure:

classes
  pretend
    InterfaceA.interface.php
    ClassA.abstract.php
    ClassB.class.php
    ClassC.class.php
  util
    ClassLoader.class.php
index.php

InterfaceA.interface.php

ClassA.abstract.php

ClassB.class.php

ClassC.class.php

index.php

Neat. Of course, you don’t have to follow my file naming convention, feel free to do whatever you want, as long as the file has the name of the contained class before the first ‘.’ and the last four characters are ‘.php’ Configuration of the class is pretty simple - just change the static member variable ClassLoader::$classPath to suit your set up. Just make sure it’s readable by PHP. So, for example:

or

or similar. Given the above, there’s a really tiny part of me that says I should start using proper stuff like J2EE or something. I try not to listen to it.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Nike 10K

Aggregate kilometre times (”splits” to those in the know):

2K: 00:10:10
4K: 00:21:06
6K: 00:33:44
8K: 00:47:39
10K: 01:00:34

Position

Team (South): 7836
Race: 15776

Average times

North: 56:26
South: 56:09

Ouch. Might have to do some training next year…

Popularity: 31% [?]

Why did no-one tell me that cycling through the city on a single speed mountain bike with bouncy forks was so enjoyable? I was having a great time on the way home yesterday trying to see how high I could jump off speed bumps. Not the flat topped square ones that let emergency vehicles past but the old skool sleeping policemen types which are nicely rounded.

What fun. Mad steez, gnarl shred, etc.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Mouse is in the house,
Crooked of tail and ugly.
Please get stuck on glue.

Popularity: 29% [?]

I’ve just been reading this presentation paper on colourblindness while trying to be a back seat designer as the actual designer in the office chooses colours for buttons.

An amusing statistic from the paper is that 8% of caucasians have difficulty distinguishing between red and green. From the perspective of a web designer, it’s more worthwhile designing for their needs than the entire macintosh user base (even after accounting for the 8% of red/green colourblind mac users).

Popularity: 25% [?]

Just picked up a Sony Ericsson K800i. It’s a bona fide Web 2.0 (tm) telephone complete with rounded corners, drop shadows, an RSS reader and photo blogging tools.

I briefly had this phone on a contract with 3, but their network is so restrictive that I had to send it back - for example, you can’t access any websites that haven’t been “specially formatted for 3 Mobiles” (e.g. vetted to make sure they aren’t selling any mobile content) and you can’t use the built in email client unless you a) pay through the nose and b) have some huge pre-specified smart phone. No thanks.

Then I noticed that T-Mobile are currently being foolish enough to offer unlimited (okay, 2GB) mobile Internet access for a mere seven pounds fifty a month, even with 3G phones. Bwahaha. I will show them the error of their ways.

Now all I need to do is actually call someone with it.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Oh dear - the amazingly vapid Sandi Thom is back with her latest hit, What if I’m right? Some have suggested that my particularly high levels of venom towards Sandi are caused by my insane jealousy of her archetypal girl next door’s rags to riches success story. Just to clear this matter up, if anyone has ever seen me playing on stage on my own then you will know that musical recognition or a career as a solo performer is not something I aspire to; it seems to trigger this strange all over shaky effect coupled with a rabbit-in-the-headlights style reaction.

Enough about me, now Sandi, bless, got her record contract after being spotted when she did a webcast of her gigs from her basement. If you are silly enough to believe that this wasn’t organised by the RCA marketing man in the first place, then you probably also believe that Lily Allen wasn’t aided and abetted in some by her father’s very existence.

I would normally be willing to forgive this, because let’s face it the only way we are introduced to music is via some marketing ploy; even seemingly word of mouth promotion is engineered by them in some way. I have no problem with this state of affairs.

What I do have a problem with is Sandi’s rough book scribble style lyrics. I am not saying I could do any better, because writing lyrics is exceedingly difficult. Even Roger Waters said that he now thought that the words on Dark Side of the Moon were slightly “sixth-form-ish.” I don’t think old Roger has a thing to worry about, next to the banality of Thom’s record Smile, it confuses people. Aside from the laughable title of the record, the first song was set in some kind of crazy Thom-verse where the 60s and the 70s merged to create a land ruled by punk rockers with flowers in their hair, where letters were the de facto communication method, and dirty footballers were every girls dream. Look love, if you detest modern society so much, why are you so comfortable with your online presence being such a large part of your press releases? There’s even another song on the album called When horsepower meant what it said, which features choice lines such as:

And if we’re keeping up with progress why am I standing still
Maybe we should take a walk and talk to the horses on the hill.

I was sure many bands have come up with equally daft lyrics, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I find so especially grating about Sandi Thom. That was until I heard her second single What if I’m right? The song seems to be an ode to her ideal husband. Um, well, to tell you the truth, it makes him sound about as bland as her music. I feel sorry for the poor boy who has to live up to all this. Just for clarity here are the words.

Take me on a journey and be there ’til the end
It won’t be an uphill struggle, on you I can depend
You’ll promise me a dream home with roses round the door
You’ll cover me in diamonds, there’s nothing I’ll want for

You’ll be strong and you’ll turn me on
But I got my doubts and what if I’m right
You’ll be true and be faithful too
But I got my doubts, and what if I’m right
What if I’m right

‘Cause if the rain starts falling, you’ll protect me with your coat
You’ll always tape the football and let me watch my shows
You’ll always be this handsome, and your weight will never gain
And when I give birth to our children, I will feel no pain

You’ll bring me flowers and you’ll bring me showers
But I got my doubts, and what if I’m right
You’ll say I’m thin and bring the washing in
But I got my doubts, and what if I’m right
What If I’m right

We’ll always keep the magic, the tender love and care
And when you need to change the light bulb you won’t hand me the chair
And when we’re tired of the city, and we find a country home
You’ll sell your vinyl records and go get us a loan

You’ll be my sympathetic lover, and you won’t steal the covers
But I got my doubts and what if I’m right
You won’t forsake me, your mother won’t hate me
But I got my doubts and what if I’m right
You’ll be strong and you’ll turn me on
But I got my doubts and, what if I’m right
You’ll be true and be faithful too
But I’ve got my doubts and what if I’m right
What if I’m right

Show me the way to the vomitorium, I mean, have you ever heard anything quite so repellent? Answers below please…

Popularity: 33% [?]

In the dark lanes under the Vauxhall train bridge I know that a Royal Mail van is coming because I take pains to look behind me when I cycle. I think that the driver has seen me, but he probably doesn’t care.

When lazy I can feel my saddle a little too well over the speed bumps.

Once I have picked a line, a pedestrian will probably enter it without a second look. If I focus on them, I feel the urge to hit them.

I have several friends who have worked out how to break bones.

I have to ride 10 miles to work on just a coffee because I’m too lazy to get up with enough time for breakfast.

I would rather drivers ride.

The next skid mark to appear on the road could be me.

Switching to auto pilot in the saddle is when accidents happen. Every action occurring around you must be observed.

I will sweat for a bit at my desk after the ride in. It’s a horrible feeling.

I can’t get the tube home with a broken bike. Although if I can persuade the driver and eBay a kidney I may be able to take a taxi.

I know that once I reach a certain speed the lights will change.

Riding is winter is good because there are fewer fair weather cyclists around.

The worst part of riding in the wet is getting caught half way to work and realising that you don’t have a spare pair of trousers.

The effort involved in attempting to maintain a clean chain and gears in the city is disproportionate to the benefits gained.

If I’m relaxed while cycling I’m not commuting.

Some days my body finds the ride hard, but I can’t use that as an excuse for being late for work.

I know that to ride faster I need better luck with the lights and fewer Bromptons getting in the way. I have no particular wish to ride further.

I’m alive when I ride, but I’ll be dead quite quickly when hit by a white Ford Transit or Mumsy and Tarquin in their ludicrously oversized Chelsea taxi.

I know peace of mind when I’ve shouted at a few pedestrians and given a few cabbies the finger.

I hope I’ll still be alive in six months time.

With apologies to Howies and Adrian Gunn.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the Time Machine UI is just a tad excessive?

It’s a neat idea though, sort of like having a single user Subversion repository for your whole computer.

Popularity: 24% [?]

‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello what have we ‘ere… My afternoon began with a buzz on my buzzer.

“Police,” said the crackly voice.

“Police?!” I replied in my best pubescent boy voice.

“Yes, police,” the voice retorted.

Regaining my composure, “Sure, yes, I’ll just come down.”

Turns our that the next door basement flat has had the door kicked in, and stuff taken. The classic quick smash and grab crack addict method burglary. Apologies, reader, but my views on crack addicts are slightly unsympathetic, following our burglary a couple of years ago and six months of window/door-smashing hell in New Cross. I’m sure with support, love, and rehabilitation they would all be fine upstanding citizens.

Anyway back to the story. The copper wanted to know if I saw anything, heard the alarm going off etc. I explained that I’d just been in the shower and hadn’t heard anything.

In my attempts to replicate Jimmy Stewart as sick bed PI in Rear Window, I tried to remember what I’d seen out of the window while boiling an egg this morning, while reading my book, while on the phone to work. I couldn’t recall anything strange, and then suddenly realised that I thought I had heard an alarm.

I have become totally de-sensitised to sirens, alarms etc. Not a day goes by without a continually siren-punctuated soundscape and at least one car/house alarm going off in the vicinity. If this had happened where I grew up, I would have been twitching at the net curtains all day. Needless to say I feel awful. I had probably subconsciously ignored this warning sign and allowed this crime to happen.

New resolution - pay more attention.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Further to Alex’s Tesco Metro queuing drama last week, I had an interesting experience in Primark, while paying for some very lovely (and extremely cheap) stripy jumpers.

Now as much as I love the Primark, I do have one rule: never buy the underwear. It is badly constructed and just looks cheap. If you are going to spend a lot of money on clothing you should spend it on good underwear. I am no fashion expert but I do believe (and think that many ladies will agree) that it is the structuring underneath, which will make or break a good outfit.

So there I was paying for my jumpers. To my left was a young looking girl in some very dubious looking pleather and lace ensemble, to my right was a thirty-something in twinset and pearls. On my left, a basket full of underwear sets, at least eight or so. On my right, one item - a yellow and purple, ribbon-fastening basque. On my left, pays with a ¬£50 note and almost drops it down her sizable cleavage, giggles, bats eyelids, and says in Eastern European accent, “Vil I get change from zat sir?” On my right, a look of indignation and says in the queen’s very own English, “But I am sure it said ¬£4 on the rail, I don’t understand how it can cost ¬£8 here,” huffs and puffs a little.

This entertained me greatly, and as I left the store I thought to myself, “Only in Peckham.”

On a totally separate note, I’ve just seen the new Cillit Bang advert on TV and it’s about 50 times more shouty than the last one - hilarious.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Standing in the queue at Tesco Metro. I’m next. One cashier serving.

Her (brandishing small ciabatta in plastic bag):

Do you mind if I go in front of you, it’s only 20p

Me (looks at salad, bottle of water and piece of fruit in basket):

I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t exactly have a lot of stuff either

Well, if you are really in that much of a hurry, knock yourself out

Her (gestures vaguely away from the shop):

I am actually, I have to get back.*

Me (supressing rage):

Perhaps you should have left earlier
If you wanted to go in front of me, you should have got here earlier
If you can’t get the job done in the time permitted, ask for help
We all have places to get back to, or do you think people wake up in the morning and think “Today I’m going to spend some quality time queuing in Tescos”
…

* = said in a really patronising “oh, you know how it is” kind of way.

Popularity: 24% [?]