Comedy script idea

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Scene: A single performer on the stage, sitting at a large bench with a magnifying class and assorted small tools. The performer speaks:

“And now we move on to the Casio CA-500WE-1AEF which combines an 8 digit calculator with timekeeping functions. It uses a single CR2016 lithium coin cell which we can access by removing four 1mm screws found in the back of the case…”

The camera pulls back to reveal an audience of spectators staring earnestly at the performer. The camera continues to move backwards away from the stage, backwards through a corridor, into the foyer and then out through the front doors of the theatre onto the street where it lights on a sign that says…..

“Watch batteries replaced”

Italian for beginners

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Are you embarrassed by your lack of Italian skills? Having bother telling your pancetta from your pana cotta. I present to your this handy way of remembering, and retaining your continental cooking cred.

  • pana cotta: babies sleep in cots, and they like drinking milk. So this is the creamy desert.

  • pancetta: cheetahs like to chase pigs, so this is the one that is a bit like bacon.

  • panettoni: Tony likes eating cake, so this is the one which is like cake

You’re welcome.

A talent for self-sabotage II

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I had a very nice email from someone who asked about my talent for self sabotage and offered me a collaboration opportunity on my blog. I was very flattered, but I fear for anyone who wants to formally associate with someone who makes posts like this:

“Officer, I’ve just been attacked by an enormous camera which beat me up and stole all my money”
“Oh dear, I think it must be one of those new 20 mugger pixel models…”

Discarded wit

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I’m writing some stuff about creating your own programming language at the moment. As I write I find things that I quite like, but aren’t really suitable for publication. Good thing I’ve got the blog then….

  • Bottom-up design: Start with the low level functions and build on them.

  • Bottoms-up design: Start by getting very drunk and writing some random code

  • Bottom-down design: Just get more and more depressed about what you are trying to do

  • Bottom-out design: Hope that things won’t get any worse.

  • Top-down design: start with the big picture and then break it down into chunks to build a map of your solution. Then create each chunk.

  • Top-up design: find a coffee place that does free refills and then keep drinking caffeine until inspiration strikes or you have a seizure.

  • Top-trumps design: forget about writing software and spend your time playing card games from your childhood.

Recycled Humour

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I’m recycling jokes from the past because I think you all deserve to hear them again. This ones from February 27th 2006:

We were discussing paper sizes and I got to thinking about Caesar and his famous discussion about the dimensions of the posters they wanted to put around the colosseum, and how all that went horribly wrong when Caesar turned to his most trusted friend and said "A2 Brutus?".

Old Jokes

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Found this as I was going through the archives searching for something else. It is part of a Red Nose Day Lecture from 2001. If you find any of these funny you are very old….

Little Known Programming Languages

Threetran

- a precursor to Fortran. Programs are written on punched tablets.

Failscal

- similar to Pascal, but is so strongly typed that nothing ever compiles.

C--

- an attempt to take all the dangerous things out of C. The language syntax contains just the open and close curly bracket symbols.

Invisible Basic

- all the program code is stored behind one button on the screen, which is hidden.

Fifth

- a stack based language which uses a much stronger spring on the stack so that programs run faster.

Nescafe

- create secure, distributed, object oriented, platform independent, multi-threaded programs just by adding hot water, rather than grinding beans.

C Flat

- an early version of C#. Also called Microsoft Java.

Disassembler

- used to write machine code programs which fall apart very quickly.

AMLOG

- similar to PROLOG, but used by AI programmers who aren't actually being paid.

Tulips

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So there’s this chap in Holland with lots and lots of hamsters. And then they had the great hamster plague of 1673 which left the poor bloke with lots and lots of dead hamsters. So he did the only thing he could. He made some jam out of them. He was hoping that this hamster form of meat paste would sell well, but nobody wanted it. So eventually he threw the lot out of his kitchen window. Six months later he’s looking at the flowerbed outside the window and wondering why there was suddenly a huge patch of daffodils growing there. He mentioned this to a gardening friend who thought for a while, and then replied (altogether now): “That’s strange. You normally get tulips from hamster jam”.

Bitcoin boilers

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Bitcoin mining, where powerful computers solve mathematical puzzles to generate money that is almost probably real, is consuming an increasing amount of power around the world. As all the power that goes into the computer comes out as heat, it seems to me that it would be sensible to make good use of this power.

Why not make “bitcoin boilers” that use heat from the computers to do something useful? That way you could get paid for having a hot shower. I’m not sure about all the detail - I’m strictly an ideas man here - but I think it is worth a try.