Name The Decade! Teenties? Tweens? Eleventies!
What is in a Name? 1910 -2000 Back In The Decade!
Over the past hundred years, it has become more and more popular a cultural phenomenon to name the decade. There was the Roaring Twenties, the Thirties and Forties, Fifties and Swinging Sixties. The Seventies, Eighties and Naughty Nineties were relatively straightforward. Right up until the new millennium it took little imagination to perpetuate this new-found tradition.
Some kind of social genius, with a degree in semantics, came up with a name for the decade following the Millennium; The Noughties. It's not like it was entirely on the money (not many people say nought-one, nought-two etc...) but it was quirky and kitsch and it rolled of the tongue. That's what we need for this decade, something that sounds cool. It doesn't have to be massively accurate, just passably sensible. Oh, and it has to end in "ties", you know, to fit in with all of the other decades rhyming scheme.
What Shall We Call This Decade 2010-2019 ?
There are a few suggestions out there on the internet, and let's face it, that is where this will be decided. We have the "Teens", now obviously this doesn't come up to the standard of ending in "ties". We could add "ties" to "Teens" and get "Teenties", but that is a really unwieldy word, also it doesn't cover the period of 2010 to 2012 with the numbers ten through twelve not actually being classified as teens. We could take what we know so far to make a new word "Tenties", but that sounds really awkward and like a vague reference to camping. The list of examples in this ball park is fairly short so I might as well include all of them, here is the last runner up, "Tweenties" (shudder).
My favourite concept word for this occasion is definitely the "Eleventies", it may surprise you, as it seems to defy any definition itself, let alone as a defining term for this decade. My favour is spawned from the repeated utterances in the literary classic series Lord Of The Rings, and lead furthermore by the repeated references of the word such as "111EleventyOne!111!1!!" etc on internet messaging boards due to it's overuse in on-line gaming. The word eleven (11) refers to the number between ten (10) and twelve (12), the word Eleventy refers to the number range of a hundred and ten (110) to a hundred and nineteen (119).
Why Will Eleventies Work?
I believe these factors; previous knowledge of the word amongst a large sub-culture (Examples of it's use in context already found here , here and here) and the numerical logistical applications of the word itself, will contribute to the word Eleventies becoming the defining term used for this decade.
Mirror, SIGNAL, manoeuvre: Cause
Why Don't Some Drivers Indicate Correctly?
I am a humble pedestrian, occasional cyclist but never a driver, so maybe it will be hard for me to understand the effort involved in remembering to indicate. I know some of the Highway Code, I was thinking about taking my test some day, but the way some people drive just makes me think too much about dying at the hands of a moron. I personally find this off-putting.
Of all of the initial lessons one learns when mastering the art of driving, mirror, signal, manoeuvre is a mantra too quickly forgotten on the roads. Those flashing yellow lights are for warning all other road users of your intentions, those you are aware of and those you haven't seen. On many occasions, this negligence has lead to me being stood directly in front of a car making a turn towards me, while I was crossing the road, on one occasion it didn't quite stop in time and gave me a bump. What was really galling was the fact that these drivers seemed so indignant and defensive of the idea that it was their fault for not signalling.
Maybe it's a generational thing, in my experience younger drivers tend to be more guilty of failing to signal. Older drivers tend to indicate every time; my Dad for example indicates round car parks because it has become so second nature to him. This leads me to believe that it may have something to do with falling out of the habit due to some form of encumbrance, such as not being able to indicate for some reason. I noticed that upon looking into the window of the cars that don't indicate, about a 30% were ON THE PHONE, 40% were sticking their left gear changing hand somewhere else (up their nose, on the gear lever, on their face, drinking HOT coffee, TEXTING!). At least another 20% were resting their right arm out the window, the other ten were miscellaneous in case you were wondering.
What Can Pedestrians Do About It?
I have personally confronted drivers about their failure to indicate or being on the phone, sometimes a simple dirty look is enough to evoke a look of shame and apology. Sometimes they get out of their car and harass you verbally for telling them how to drive, but the advantage of being a pedestrian is that I can walk away, they are making a journey of some kind and usually want to get along, in their car. Maybe if it was the norm for people to be openly critical of other's stupidity things would be better. As for now I am the one with a chip on my shoulder from being bumped over by a car driver in this situation.
Now I am finally blogging about it, maybe I can convince people of why it's important to signal at all times to get into the good habit. Mirror, SIGNAL, manoeuvre is not just for when you see other cars around, but all the time, for the people you don't see (like in your blind spot) too.
I started a Facebook Group about this after I nearly got hit again, and shouted at the middleaged lady driver only to get the finger for my wisdom. Please join it and invite your friends, it's open to all and only takes a minute!
In summation this current trend in bad driving could be due to many of the other bad driving factors I have seen, or it could be a phenomenon of it's own. This does not matter, what really matters is that it stops being so prolific. We need to scold drivers with a simple phrase that will put them right back in the learners seat; Mirror, SIGNAL, Manoeuvre!
Firefox Pwns Internet Explorer: Opinion
As we all know, Microsoft have done their level best to completely distort the way you see the internet, for many years now. Their browser, Internet Explorer (a massive misnomer, as is not that great an explorer, it's the one that got lost on the way to the shops and was never heard from again as it couldn't understand the simple directions a kind stranger offered along the way!), is written into Windows in such a way that everybody who uses a Microsoft Windows OS will at some point in their lives have had to use it, if only to download a better browser.
The rare occasions I have used IE in the past have indeed been to download better browsers, such as Firefox. I have only been using the internet comprehensively for the last five years, and I have used IE for a combined total of less than five minutes. I originally used it to download Opera, a fantastic free browser with many cool features like multi-tab browsing, session restore, password saving and of course, it's more secure than IE!
I used Opera for several months of my first exploits on the net, it was fast, reliable and rarely crashed. I found out about other alternative browsers, reports were split on them all, except for Firefox. Here was a browser that all users seemed to get along with happily, with it's wealth of built in features, great availability of extensions, security, plug-in availability, it was all thumbs up!
I downloaded the latest version Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2, and I never looked back, it was awesome. I enjoyed adding extensions and playing with themes for my shiny new Firefox, the community that sprang up around it to support it's Open Source code are very quick to release updates for new versions too. I used Firefox exclusively for over four years, as part of a minority, a community of people who wanted a better browsing experience.
More recently it seems as though Firefox has crept into the lead in regards to browser popularity, so now we are in the majority! I'd love to say it's official and this is categorical evidence, but it's not. It is however indicative enough for me to want to write a blog on the subject, which I hope is enough to mark the occasion. I believe the most part of Firefox's recent conversion rate success is due to the fact it was endorsed so highly by Google, with their Google Toolbar, and Adwords campaigns. Also the fact it does so well in test such as The Acid tests for browsers. There was also of course "Download Day", to try and take the world record for the most downloads of a new release of software in a single day.
I have been trying out a new browser this last year, Google Chrome, it is remarkably simple to use though it's full of complicated components. Here is how the latest browsers stand up to rigorous testing! I have always been a big fan of Google and their ethos "Don't be evil", and it really shows through browser. I'm looking forward to the time when Google release their Chrome Operating System, that they've been talking about recently. I have been using Firefox as my back up browser though, because it very rarely lets me down!
Monkey Island – Roger & I Hunt for Treasure!
I remember as a boy sitting for hours in front of the cathode ray tube attached to my Amiga 500 games console, clicking every part of the screen in a vain attempt to figure out the solution to a puzzle on The Secret of Monkey Island TM. The original game was enthralling to the point where my parents had to take the floppy disks out of my room every night to stop me staying up and playing it after they were asleep!
I only ever played the first two games as a child and never even knew there were more games released, until a couple of months ago. It was late Spring of this year when my house mate used the infamous line "How appropriate, you fight like a cow!" in conversation. This sparked a lively conversation about the franchise, and lead to him telling me there were in fact more games. We decided that as I hadn't played the more recent games, we should start playing all of them together. We were excited and enthralled as we clicked our way through Mêlée Island and Monkey Island TM as Mighty Pirate; Guybrush Threepwood.
I was ecstatic at the idea of playing more Monkey Island games, that I never had the chance to as a kid. The third game didn't disappoint, it had cartoon style graphics that blew my mind and the musical score was given a new lease of life after being released from the confines of the Amiga's sound chip! The storyline was creative and remained true to the original mythology, the puzzles didn't disappoint either.
To both of our surprise we found a fourth Monkey Island game to play, this time the game had been given a 3D retrofit to bring it fully into the modern gaming age. It was the same old characters in a good old pirate romp, but with a very Final Fantasy VII feel to it. We both enjoyed it immensely, especially the idea of time travelling paradoxes!
Shortly after completing the fourth game in the series, we were already getting withdrawal symptoms. We were missing the Monkey Island TM characters and longed for a new adventure. Lo and behold mere days later we found out that a BRAND NEW Monkey Island game was in the pipeline! Lucas Arts were to team up with Telltale games to create a new vehicle for Guybrush and pals! This wasn't to be the fifth game, but an episodic storyline set after the theoretical fifth game (confusing isn't it?). We immediately signed up to download a copy as soon as it was released!
The day of release for the first episode: Tales of Monkey Island; Launch of The Screaming Narwhal was announced and we waited impatiently for it's arrival. The day came and we sat hitting refresh all afternoon but had yet more of a wait as the Telltalle games server had some issues, probably due to unforeseen massive demand! Finally we downloaded and played the game, we were pleased to see a blending of the styles seen in the last two games, cartoonish yet 3D. The original voice actors and composer had also been re-hired to lend authenticity to sound of the game too. The storyline and the puzzles were exactly what we had come to expect from the Monkey Island franchise, with the humour of the original games still intact.
After completing the first episode , we decided to write a walkthrough, we have to admit that we did get stuck ourselves on the original games! The walkthroughs available online really helped us out! We thought we should make sure other people had that option to complete this new game, as we couldn't find one online ourselves! Tales of Monkey Island Walkthrough - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.
Now the second episode has been released and received the same walkthrough treatment Tales of Monkey Island Walkthrough - The Siege of Spinner Cay. We have also been treasure hunting on the Screaming Narwhal map, which is a great new feature! Now we are simply awaiting the release of the third episode, and again, writing a walkthrough for it! The withdrawal symptoms are starting to reappear, from idly clicking around the screen on web pages, to trying to use random items together for no reason!
Cyclists Wearing Earphones/Headphones: Bad Idea
As somebody who very occaisionally will take his bike out for a spin, and only on cycle lanes, I can honestly say I have never even contemplated the idea of listening to music at the same time. For starters, when listening to music I can't help but move some part of my body along to the beat. This is a very Bad Idea when urban cycling, which requires fast changes in tempo all the time. If I was listening to music I would be slower to react to a change in the speed of what was going on around me.
The other downside is that, essentially, you can't hear very much of what's going on around you on the road. This is obviously very dangerous considering how quiet cars are getting these days, and they will practically be silent assassins when they are all electric cars. As much as you should be looking around you at all times on a bike, you should also be listening. Most times a change in revs in the cars around you can be a great indicator that they are about to do something to endanger your life.
Here is a great example of the kind of accident that can happen due to this incredibly Bad Idea. I have seen so many people doing this on a regular basis, I'm surprised that there haven't been more accidents. Obviously, there have been more than just this one, they just don't all get reported, probably because the embarrassed cyclist doesn't want people to think of them as the fool they are.
Cyclists also seem to find it hard to understand what a red light means, I have seen so many near misses out of the bus window at traffic lights. A cyclist will come steaming past us as we roll to a stop, and nearly get side-swiped by a car coming towards the lights from the left as they change. Combinations of two or more bad road habits are all it takes to guarantee a road traffic incident.
The worst example of stupidity I have seen recently on this subject has to be when I saw a cyclist on a road coming towards me in full proffessional gear, pointy helmet, shorts and all. Despite all of his expensive stretched latex and nylon strapping, he was using both hands completely off the handlebars to send a text message as he stared intently at the screen of his expensive looking phone. He was also wearing earphones, at first I thought he was changing tracks but he clearly had a separate mp3 player hooked up to his headgear.
With products like the Soundwalk Audio MP3 Cycling Speaker Vest, or Slipstreamz Cycling Earwear for Headphones out there I'm not sure if this Bad Idea is going to end without government intervention. These products are trying to market themselves as safety devices, as in you won't have to wear earphones to listen to your music. You don't have to listen to your music on your bike in the first place surely, music is distracting no matter how it is blasted at your ears.
So dear reader I leave it up to you to spread the word to the people who are still putting other peoples lives in danger by proclaiming (loudly, earphones remember!) to them that it is indeed a "Bad Idea!"
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