technology: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

For the last few weeks when trying to post to Facebook I regularly have to fill in some Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. I don't know if this is because I am posting links to my blog or because I am using my phone to post on a regular basis but it is really starting to bug me.

In the past this wouldn't have been a problem because CAPTCHAs where easy to read if you were human (and even for computers, old CAPTCHAs were pretty pathetic) but now they are impossible to complete. The other day after failing 5 and rejecting 6 others because I had absolutely no clue what most of the characters were I resulted to using the audio CAPTCHA which still took me two attempts. Honestly, I was there for 5 minutes just trying to post an update to my Facebook. How is this progress? If we have to make CAPTCHAs this difficult just to foil the computers we might as well give up and let SKYNET win because we don't stand a chance.

Below are some examples of the ludicrous CAPTCHAs that are currently prevalent on the internet. 

I call this 'What's up with my monitor?'

This one is 'My Head Hurts'

And finally 'I don't think I'll bother'

And just for giggles

entertainment: make it stop, for the love of god please make it stop.

Some time ago, in the distant times known as the past I posted about all the television programmes that were unceremoniously cancelled during their prime. But there is another group of television programmes, I like to call them the 'How the feck is this show still going' programmes. Below are a few examples of such shows.

Strictly Come Dancing
X-Factor
Britains Got Talent
Doctor Who
Sanctuary
A Town Called Eurkea/Eureka (Yes I know it is now cancelled but it took 5 years)
Warehouse 13
Doctors (that daytime TV show about a doctors surgery on BBC1 during the daytime)
Hollyoaks
Any soap opera
60 minute makeover
The One Show

And these are just the ones I can remember at the moment.

I propose to any TV executive a new system to use when deciding whether to cancel or renew a TV show. I call this the 'Would tgwmcm bitch about this on his blog?' technique. Basically, if your decision results in me arbitrarily posting nonsense on a blog that nobody reads then your decision is wrong. Perhaps you could first email me a list of all shows you are planning to renew or cancel and I will then return to you a tgwmcm approved list of shows to be renewed and cancelled. My rates are very reasonable and I guarantee that your  output will be liked by 100% of viewers that work for http://www.theguywhomoanscalledmatthew.blogspot.com

anouncement: let it flow

Today a loyal reader of my blog, well let's face it the only reader of my blog, informed me that in order to post a comment you were required to have a Blogger account. Not wanting to hinder fellow citizens of the internet in complimenting me on my eloquence and congratulating me on my witty posts I have loosened the restrictions on posting comments to my blog. By loosen I mean completely remove, Joe Bloggs Anonymous can now comment anything on my posts. I of course maintain the power of veto and will unceremoniously remove any comments I disagree with. Areas of comment that will not be tolerated include;

1. Comments that do not start with the phrase 'Matthew, overlord of all that is great and forever my master I pose to you the following ...'
2. Comments that question my brilliance.
3. Comments that contain the phrases 'I disagree with you', 'I do not agree with your argument' 'You are incorrect/wrong/mistaken on this matter'. I will of course view the context in which the comment was made before deletion.
4. Comments that are wittier and/or more entertaining than the blog article that they relate to.

So baring this in mind, get commenting. I welcome any feedback so long as it is complimentary.

entertainment: haters gonna hate.

'Haters Gonna Hate', it's one of the oldest memes on the internet. What really riles me up is the haters always hating on one of my favourite bands, Muse. They aren't my favouritist (yeah I know it isn't a word) band, but they are certainly up there and conveniently forgetting 'The Resistance' have made some of the most perfect albums in recent history with Absolution containing some of my all time favourite tracks.
Yet utter the phrase 'I really like Muse' or 'Muse are one of my favourite bands' and you'll be swept away by a torrent of 'They're a wanna be Radiohead' or 'All of their songs are the same', yada yada yada.
Often these same people will then say 'The Black-eyed Peas are awesome', well they're not, The Black-eyed Peas are absolutely terrible, they are an abomination and anybody showing even a casual or cursory appreciation of them should be strung up by the dangly bits.
I get the obvious irony of complaining about the haters hating on Muse, but you are ignoring the simple fact, I am always right. If I say The Black-eyed Peas are terrible and Muse are awesome that is a FACT, indisputable, undeniable, FACT. Have The Black-eyed Peas written anything close to Time is Running Out, The Small Print, Knights Of Cydonia, Stockholm Syndrome, Darkshines or Sober. So they have Fergie strutting around provocatively, don't get me wrong I have nothing wrong with scantily clad ladies gyrating in front of me, but that doesn't mean their songs aren't shite.

So all you haters out their, redirect your hate onto a worthy target, The Black-eyed Peas, and leave Muse in peace. At the very least ask for Absolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ck6Hcg2cjk&ob=av3e

driving: read between the line.

My the parking spaces in supermarkets are far too small, I only drive a Clio MK III.5 and they are too small for my car. Originally this was going to be a rant about the small size of parking bays in public car parks (especially pay and display car parks) and how this is to maximise profits at the expense of actually being able to park a car.
Breathe.
Then, as I was getting into my car after a fruitful trip to Tesco in which I didn't purchase any fruit I saw a fine example of parking. I took a quick picture of it with my phone for the world to see. If there are any readers of my blog working at the DVLA or for the police could you send me the address of this :censored:? However I then noticed it wasn't just the blue Ford Ka (I really hate the Ford Ka, from it's pathetic name to the stupid egg like shape) but a white van also parked across two bays. So which vehicle originally parked like such a twat? I'm guessing it was probably the white van.

But this is the issue with one person parking across two bays, it causes a domino effect and everybody ends up straddling the lines. It's happened to me, the last bay in the car pack is next to a BMW (and it is nearly always a BMW, I wouldn't be surprised if a BMW was parked straddling the lines before these vehicles pulled up and caused the whole thing) taking up more than one bay and I've had to squeeze in with my wheels in two separate bays because of this, then the person parking next to me does the same. Alternatively just managing to get into a single bay but being unable to exit the vehicle because the door won't open wide enough due to the obstructive BMW.

So if you see a car straddling the lines, feel free to break open the fuel filler cap and throw a burning match into the pertol tank. I've often found that a crowbar is very effective at prying open a filler cap with the minimum of effort. Head over to the tgwmcm official store to pick-up a tgwmcm branded 'line straddler preparedness kit'

technology: taking the easy route.

Shortcuts, in computing a shortcut is a key combination that is designed to make performing a common task quicker and easier. We all know the common ones such as Ctrl+F to bring up the search/find dialog, it makes perfect sense because I want to find something and find starts with an F.

Then you have the less obvious shortcuts Ctrl+X to cut and Ctrl+V for paste. Now Ctrl+X/V are chosen for logical reasons, most of the time you want to copy and not cut so Ctrl+C is copy (copy starts with a C you know), now after copying you want to paste and V is right next to C on a keyboard so just move your finger and everything is jazzy. Now Ctrl-X, well that's because X is the other side of C, so it's just convenient.

Anyway, I'm not here to compliment well chosen shortcuts, oh no, I am here to shame the stupidly chosen shortcuts.

Let's start with Google Chrome because according to the statistics for my blog that is the second most popular browser and also my browser of choice, if you are reading this post in Google Chrome you can sleep safe in the knowledge you have a tgwmcm approved browser and if any companies out there would like to join the 'Approved by tgwmcm' programme please send me a cheque for £1000 and I will officially endorse your product on my blog. But have you ever wondered what the shortcut to open the download history page is, logic would dictate that Ctrl+D would show downloads (download starts with a D obviously). Give it a try, I'll wait. Hah, got you , you just bookmarked my blog because Ctrl+D in Chrome bookmarks the currently opened tab. In what language does the word for bookmark start with a D because in English it doesn't even contain a D? So now you are asking what shortcut does open the download history, maybe their isn't a shortcut for it and they ran out of letters by the time they got to Bookmarks and had to use D. There is actually a shortcut for downloads, Ctrl+J. Ctrl+fecking+J, downloads certainly doesn't contain a J so where'd they get that one from?

So now you ask if Ctrl+J is downloads because Ctrl+D is bookmarks what did they map Ctrl+B to because obviously Ctrl+B was in use so they used Ctrl+D for bookmark instead of downloads. Well Ctrl+B isn't a bloody shortcut in Google Chrome and it just boggles the mind that this ever made it through usability testing.

And it gets worse, if you ever used the Perforce source control client, or more specifically P4Diff the shortcuts are even more bizarre. Atleast Chrome stuck with Ctrl+<letter>, P4Diff decided to eschew (that means to deliberately avoid using for my Lithuanian readers) letters in favour of numbers. If you want to go forward you use Ctrl+2 and backwards is Ctrl+1. WHAT? Why not Ctrl+N(ext) and Ctrl+B(ack), even Ctrl+<Left><Right><Up><Down> would have made more sense although it would have seemed like you were playing Dance Dance Revolution when performing a particularly complex diffing operation.

In summary it's counter intuative to add any shortcut that is harder to remember or use than completing the Kobayashi Maru.

daily life: i went to grammar school you know.

So a discussion at work got me a thunking. As you have noticed from previous postings I utilise a large quantity of 'run-on sentences' with very little punctuation. This is a deliberate act and is often challenging, sometimes I remove punctuation intentionally to give the illusion of ramblings; my posts are actually carefully planned and edited prior to posting. Well I am changing it up for this post so you'll see a lot more punctuation.

Anyway, I realised I am a bit of a 'grammar nazi', always finding fault with others and in particular a certain colleague who isn't a native English speaker. The problem is that I enjoy it so much, despite the fact English is frickin' difficult to learn and I was completely incapable of learning even basic French, German, Spanish or Latin, I find fault with the almost perfect (but not perfect enough) English of my colleague.

Sometimes I've catched caught completely incorrect use of language, but most of the time I'm just being a twat and for that I am sorry. But it still doesn't detract from the fact we need people to enforce good standards of English.
While I studied for my GCSEs and A-Levels only 5 marks were awarded for correct Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, this even included English exams. The point was obviously not to punish those with dyslexia. The by-product was that correct use of grammar and the ability to spell just wasn't drummed into children in order to pass the test. There is a completely different debate on 'Teaching to the test' that I won't go into now.

But what about the parents? My dad used to be pretty hot on my grammar, mum can barely string a sentence together, but dad was a completely different story and ensured my grammar was top notch. But now we have a generation that can't spell or correctly punctuate a sentence, they certainly aren't going to ensure their children's grammar is impeccable. No more 'thick ears' for saying 'sheeps'.

I have no solution to this problem, that isn't my job, but at least I can continue picking up on my colleagues mistakes, that always gives me a warm feeling.