Lucy Beaumont: To Hull and Back. I bloody love the Hull accent. I really love it.
Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere four billion years ago. The subheading on this article is 'oxygen was either produced by life forms or by a chemical reaction in the atmosphere of Mars' which seems to cover more or less every angle. Good result though, if not unexpected. Mars is red because it's rusty.
I lived on De Grey Street at number 56, and walked or cycled the length of Newland Avenue pretty much every day. I'm pretty sure Majestic Pizza existed back then, but our house were devotees of the Beverley Road takeaway one-two punch of Falcons Kebabs and Peppino's Pizza. Peppino's pizzas remain among the best take away pizzas I've ever eaten. I'd packed in the whole meat eating thing by the time I left Hull so my kebab experience is more limited, but Falcon's stood head and shoulders above any kebab shop Hull or Norwich (and by extension probably the whole of the East Riding and of Norfolk). Google StreetView tells me both are still going. Indies FTW!
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe. Actually fiendish.
We were next door to the Adelphi Club. Acts playing this month include The Kingmaker Allstars. Kingmaker were big back in 1990. It's not all retro though. Look! Misty's Little Adventure are supported Jeffrey Lewis a couple of weeks back.
Jushin Liger and Prince Devitt were terrific last on Saturday night. It was a great thing to be part of.
Double header weekend ahoy. Down to Basingstoke with Harry, dodgy knee and all, on Saturday for training ahead of a tumbling competition on Sunday. On the Saturday evening I'll be leaving in the care of the other Mums (usually I am the only Dad who does on these outings) loop out to London for a prowrestling show headlined by Jushin Thunder Liger, one of the greatest wrestler in the past 30 years, vs Prince Devitt, who we'll be talking about as one of the greats in 20 years time. Knackering but terrific.
The venue is York Hall in Bethnal Green, which sounds super for fight sports. The venue is important. A good venue like the Wulfrun Hall or Broxbourne Civic Hall really helps build the atmosphere.
Liger's wrestled in Britain before, but not for 25 years. You might have seen him on the telly. Here he is, under the name Fuji Yamada, in a terrific 20 minute match with Mark 'Rollerball' Rocco. By modern standards, many of those Saturday afternoon matches were somewhat lacking, but they put on a fast-paced scorcher that wouldn't look out of place on a card today. And listen to that crowd! They are completely into it.
Here's mid-period Liger in a match against the Great Sasuke, then at the start of his career. I love Sasuke whipping off his mask when he's announced, and his balletic footwork during the match.
It's the crowd that makes wrestling work. The wrestlers feed the crowd and the crowd feed the wrestlers. When the crowd is hot, the wrestling is better. It doesn't just seem better, it is better. If the wrestlers can't engage the crowd, or the crowd is withdrawn or simply doesn't like one of the wrestlers, then it just doesn't work. When I say the crowd doesn't like the wrestler, I don't mean they're booing a villian, a character, I mean they don't like the wrestler, the person playing the character. He can be a technical wizard, but if he can't get a rise somehow he may as well go home.
Another ten years on, here's Liger in a match with another collossus of Japanese prowrestling Keiji Mutoh. Both are in their early forties at this point, but they still put on an energetic, athletic performance. There's a school of thought that says prowrestling is pure symbolism - that a punch is just a punch. And sometimes that's true. For this match, though it's utter cobblers. The reason this match works so well is because of the reputation as a wrestling titan each man brings to the ring. The crowd undoubted knows, and the commentators are certainly selling to the television audience, Mutoh's long standing and pretty serious knee problems. The whole narrative of the match is laid out around Mutoh's bad knees, and that's why everyone goes so bonkers at the finish. As far as I know they had only wrestled once before, ten years earlier. The whole thing is, therefore, laden with history and expectation. It's a cracker.
So on Saturday, Liger, both debuts in and returns to Britain. He's still a terrific wrestler, but he's towards the end of a scintillating career. Rocco, who was also a big star in Japan in the 80s, wrestled Liger many times, and whose career was cut short by a heart condition, will be at ringside. Devitt, who's started wrestling in Britain but has been working in Japan since 2006, current holder of the two Japanese titles, is a superstar on the rise. It's laden with history and expectation. It'll be a cracker.
Android version fragmentation is 'terrible for developers' says Tim Cook. Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? There are some fascinating/hilarious quotes in that report
iOS 6 is now installed on 93 per cent of the 600 million iDevices that Apple has shipped. Cook compared that with 37 per cent of Android devices running Gingerbread, 26 per cent running Ice Cream Sandwich, and 33 per cent running the most recent version of Android, Jelly Bean.
These numbers include only "those versions of Android that talk to the Google Play store, so it doesn't include things like Kindles and Nooks," Cook said. "But even then, it's a pretty bleak story."
The CEO of Apple, speaking to audience of people who write software for Apple devices, at Apple's largest event of the year has to take the time to make them feel good about themselves because the Android picture is bleak. Remarkable.
"iPhone users use the iPhone 50 per cent more that Android users use their phones,"
You can take that in all kinds of ways, and it doesn't actually tell you anything. On the odd occasion I use Daniel iPod, I find typing anything really painfully slow. Do you still have to jailbreak your iPhone to install an alternative keyboard?
Piggly Wiggly, America's first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tenn. in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. Clarence Saunders is exactly the kind of name you'd expect a Tennessee store owner to have in 1916.
Perhaps those Apple devs need a bit of ego massaging. One of the most touted new features of iOS 7 seems to be the Control Center, something that looks like it's been lifted directly from Android and which its had approximately forever. I confess I did snigger at this report:
A decision to revamp the look of its Calendar software, ditching the current version's use of a leather and torn paper design, also drew applause from the audience of software developers at the San Francisco announcement.
They clapped an icon. Dear God. Perhaps that's why people spend 50% more time on their iPhone - they're wincing at the icons.
I had completely forgotten that Java ships with an embedded Javascript engine. It's only been there for seven odd years, so that's forgivable I suppose. Rediscovering it might save me a whole load while simultaneously making me look a boss. I'll get back to you.
Enough of this willy waggling. Use what you like. Write software for what you want to.
Why so little Chinese in English? Many purported experts are willing to explain China to curious (and anxious) westerners. And yet I can't think of even one Chinese word or phrase that has become "common parlance in English" recently.
(But Android is cheaper and the dev tools don't crash as often Xcode.)
Patellar Tendinitis also known as jumper's knee.
DSM-5, the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association's ever controversial Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders removed Aspergers syndrome as a diagnosis. The new diagnosis, according to the DSM, is an autism spectrum disorder. I can't help felling that retaining Aspergers syndrome as a diagnostic label, if nothing else. While the lay public, on the whole, have wildly misplaced ideas about Aspergers it's not regarded as a disability, while autism, in general, is.
The Wikipedia pages on autism, aspergers, and high functioning autism are all semi-protected. Hmmm.
Need a new tendon patellar? Order one from the NHS Blood and Transplant Tissue Services. Order form for frozen tendons includes vital Do you have a freezer question.
Coventry bus route is longest in Europe at 31 miles : Centro said it was six miles longer than the number 11 outer circle route in Birmingham which has been Europe's longest urban route since 1926. Bastards!
The Duckworth Lewis Method : Jiggery Pokery
Gumley Cricket Club - The road from Gumley to Laughton quaintly passes through our outfield, during matches signs are positioned at each end politely asking drivers to wait until the end of the over before driving through. Harry and I tandemed along this road and did indeed have to wait. At the conclusion of the over, the umpire signalled the scorer then turned to where we were waiting and raised a hand to us. Magic.
Practical applications of statistics : Duckworth-Lewis method
The people of Krikkit are just a bunch of really sweet guys who just happen to want to kill everybody.
