Author Archives: stonysleep

Music Quiz

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I got tagged in this game – i’m useless at guessing and was far too slow off the mark.
But thought i’d give it a go from my collection and see how well others fair with the results i get.

If you want to have a go yourself here’s the steps/rules:

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing. See which of your friends can name the most songs.
Step 3: Strike out the songs when someone guesses both artist and track correctly.
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game post your own.
Step 6: Tag 20 friends to guess

Here we go – sometimes i’ve been generous and given 2-3 lines if they’re short or for no reason at all. Other times (when i don’t feel like helping) i’ve stuck to just the first line:

1. You can force it but it will not come – Radiohead “Planet Telex”
2. From the coast of gold, across the seven seas – Iron Maiden “Wasted Years”
3. *song title* all in my brain – Jimi Hendrix Experience “Purple Haze”
4. I was driving on the freeway in the fast lane
5. *song title* Be my everything
6. This is a mantra for myself
7. Fall back take a look at me and you’ll see I’m for real
8. You hide behind barricades
9. Bite the bit, scream till you’re blue the face
10. Anytime but now, Anywhere but here
11. In the unlikely event that sarcasm is an unfitting dress
12. There are no monks in my band
13. My name is *song title* and I am here to unlock the secrets of your mind
14. If it’s a bad day you try to suffocate – Placebo “You don’t care about us”
15. Back and forth, I sway with the wind
16. Care not for the men who wonder
17. Take me in your arms…. come on
18. Sometimes I need to remember just to breathe
19. Fall, white, light fell
20. Funny how I find myself in love with you
21. A grand hope a rope
22. Come down to my house, stick a stone in your mouth
23. How can we make you understand
24. You were just a work of sperm
25. Bombers rip across the screen

So there you go – try and guess what they all are and i’ll strike them off as you get them
To give you a pointer, I would say the easiest (in terms of least obscure and/or easiest to guess from the lyric) are:
1,3,4,7,12,13,14,18,20,22,23

and that therefore leaves the following as the harder ones:
2,5,6,8,9,10,11,15,16,17,19,21,24

Though clearly it would depend on whether you know the artists/tracks that came up, i can tell you if i didn’t have the answers in front of me i wouldn’t get any of the harder ones apart from number 5 and possibly number 2.

I would add that it was made so much easier by having downloaded any lyrics i had a while back into itunes as you can see them on your iPod. It meant i only had to grab 4 or 5 CDs off the shelf to double check the lyric and googled 2 or 3 that didn’t have lyrics in the sleeve.

Good luck, and if you are struggling, check out an old version of my music collection. If there are still any outstanding in a few weeks i will probably reveal the answers then (if i remember).

As an addendum – although i’ve got my facebook setup to accept the RSS feed and the post appears as a note here, the updates will only happen here as it won’t update or allow edits once it’s been imported – sorry, didn’t realise that at the time! It’s much nicer here anyway.

It’s been ages since i posted this so thought i’d post the answers in case anyone was wondering

1. Radiohead – Planet Telex
2. Iron Maiden – Wasted Years
3. Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze
4. Weird Al Yankovic – Everything You Know Is Wrong
5. Type-O-Negative – Be My Druidess
6. My Ruin – Diavolina
7. Avril Lavigne – Nobody’s Fool
8. Trivium – To The Rats
9. Napalm Death – Diatribes
10. Fugazi – Burning Too
11. At The Drive In – 300 MHz
12. Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Funky Monks
13. Goldie Looking Chain – Professor Doppleganger
14. Placebo – Without You I’m Nothing
15. Faith No More – Falling to Pieces
16. Alice in Chains – God Smack
17. Evoke – Arms of Loren
18. Linkin Park – Don’t Stay
19. Obituary – Back from the Dead
20. Talk Talk – It’s My Life
21. Kicks Joy Darkness – American Television
22. Garbage – Supervixen
23. The Libertines – Road to Ruin
24. Slayer – I Hate You
25. Low Fidelity Allstars – Nightmare Story

The Real Millennium Bug

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On one of my many trips around wikipedia I stumbled across a date that has been called the real millennium bug.
Contrary to belief, the computers which run the most important systems including most webservers and database systems run on a variant of Unix/Linux or Unix-like aka *Nix.

All these operating systems operate a time keeping mechanism that starts from 1st January 1970
The measure of this time keeping is that it counts in seconds from this.
Most versions installed are 32bit Operating Systems which means that the largest number in seconds that can be represented would occur at 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038
This is the Year 2038 problem (or Y2K38 bug) and the result is that all these computers unless upgraded to a 64bit OS (or other patches applied) will have their calendar reset to 1st January 00:00 at 03:14:08 on 19th Jan 2038. 64 bit OS’s will last well into the future – 290 billion years. A less radical solution of assigning the size of the time character to unsigned 32 bits would extend the problem till the year 2106 but could cause other problems. Other suggestions are to reset the date that is counted from from 1970 to 2000 which would extend the problem by 30 years.

I’m sure a solution will be found, but given that these operating systems are not found as often in home computers (with the exception of linux and Mac OSX operating systems) it has not become as well known but am sure that it will hit the press at some point in the future.

51 All Out – What Next?

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51 all out scoreboard
Yesterday, the first test England vs West Indies ended with a dramatic result in Sabina Park as Jerome Taylor and Sulieman Benn routed England for just 51. Both ended with 8 wickets in the match, but it was Taylor who finished with Man of the Match for his 5 wickets in the second innings and devastating figures of:
9 – 4 – 11- 5

England leave Kingston in tatters, shell-shocked, with new captain Andrew Strauss, and no official coach.
Changes will be in order for the 2nd Test which starts on Friday, but all is not well in the England camp.

Meanwhile things are rosy in Chris Gayle’s West Indian dressing room:
Chris Gayle

English Sports Coaches

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Following the resignation of both Peter Moores (and Kevin Pieterson) this month I have resisted the urge to post anything until the dust settled a little bit more.
I was very curious about his appointment nearly 2 years ago and posted an entry on Peter Moores

However, when I heard that Peter Moores was also going to be paid off to compensate for his contract not being completed I started thinking about the bigger picture – how much money has been spent on England sports coaches over the last say 10 years?

Sven Sven-Göran Eriksson
Football manager Jan 2001 – Jan 2006. Salary £4.5 million – total £22.5 million
steve mclaren Steve Mclaren
Football manager 1st August 2006 – 22nd November 2007. Salary £3 million plus £5 million break clause payoff – total £8 million+
Andy Robinson Andy Robinson
Head Rugby Coach October 2004 – November 2006. Salary £330,000 – total £700,000
Duncan Fletcher Duncan Fletcher
Head Cricket Coach 2000-2007. Salary £350,000 plus 1 year break clause payoff – total £2.8 million
Peter Moores Peter Moores
Head Cricket Coach April 2007- Jan 2009. Salary £250,000 plus 1 year break clause payoff – total £710,000

This totals nearly £35 million though it is clear to see that the football coaches are earning a vast amount more money than their cricket and rugby counterparts. We also see that sacking a coach can be very costly if a payoff is involved

England vs India 1st test 2008 & the 1st test in 1986

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What links my last post to this post is that they are both about what is happening now and what happened 22 years ago.
This year Venice has had the worst floods since 1986
Tomorrow is the final day of a test match that reminds me of one of the most famous tests in 1986

So, the 1st test between India and England is at the MA Chidambaram Stadium
Chepauk, Chennai, India and sees the match finely balanced with India being set 387 to win and approx 120 overs to do it in. With 90 overs remaining they have 256 more runs to score and 9 wickets in hand. If they achieve it, it will be the highest total on this ground scored to win a test match – the current highest for a side batting last and winning is 155 in 2001.
An interesting match in itself, however the match I want to look at happened in 1986, though again we have a similarity, because like the 2001 match it was Australia vs India.
Back then, the city of Chennai was known as Madras, and in September was to become the stage of one of the greatest games of cricket.
Part of the reason for it’s greatness is it is the 2nd of only two international tied tests. Note this is not a drawn match, as tied refers to both sides scoring identical scores and losing all 20 wickets over the course of 5 days.
Both sides were full of greats:
David Boon, Dean Jones, Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Armanath, Mohammad Azharuddin, Ravi Shastri, Kapil Dev, Craig McDermott, the list goes on.

The scorecard is available here – on it’s own does not tell the full story, but is essential to follow.

The Wisden Almanack article on the match details some of the finer points which I will attempt to summarise (though you need to create an account to read it).

Winning the toss, Australia batted first and scored 574 for 7 declared in the first innings over 3 days thanks to 122 by David Boon, 210 by Dean Jones (playing in only his 3rd test match) and 106 by captain Allan Border. Jones had to have treatment for exhaustion, nausea and cramps after his 8 hour innings which was the highest by an Australian in india. The humid weather conditions made the innings even more impressive – reports state that it was 40 degC in the middle and 80% humidity. This was Australia’s highest total in india, setting a good platform. The pitch favoured the spinners, with Yadav, Maninder Singh and Shastri bowling over 135 overs between them (of the 170 overs delivered). Yadav and Shastri took 5 of the 7 wickets to fall.

In reply, India lost wickets and were struggling at 65-3, 142-4, and 206-5.
The follow on target was 375 and looked a long way off, but thanks to a century from captail Kapil Dev they surpassed it and got to 397 before being dismissed. Australian off spinner Greg Matthews took his first 5 wicket haul in a test match. Their other spinner Ray Bright took 2 wickets also.

Australia had a lead of 177 with less than 2 days to go there was not much time to force a result. Ending day 4 on 170/5 again the spinners had taken the wickets, this time Shastri and Maninder Singh shared the 5 between them.

Border decided to gamble the following morning setting India 348 to win in 87 overs

The scoring rate had been high throughout the game
Aus 1st inns: 3.36
Ind 1st inns: 4.42
Aus 2nd inns 3.46

348 in 87 required 4 runs per over exactly and had been done by India before when they scored 406 to beat the West Indies in 1977. In that match they did have 147 overs to do it. In addition, Sunil Gavaskar and Mohinder Armanath were part of that winning team. So, coupled with playing at home, hopes would’ve been high especially since the popularity of one day cricket batsmen had learnt how to score at over 4 runs per over on a regular basis.

There were no hundreds this time, but Gavaskar lead the way with a anchoring innings of 90
Armanath hit a similarly paced 51 as was Azharuddin’s 42
Going to tea at 190 for 2,
CS Pandit upped the scoring with a run a ball 39
Shastri hit 48 off 40 balls but lost Cheetan Sharma for 23 with 18 needed off the last 5 overs

The damage was again done by the spinners Matthews and Bright

India got to 344 for 9 with 8 balls remaining.
Shastri was in with the last man Maninder Singh
Going into the final over with Shastri on strike…
He hit a 2 and a single leaving the scores tied with Maninder on strike and 4 balls remaining

At 5.18 pm after defending the first ball was defended Matthews had Maninder Singh adjudged lbw to collect his 2nd 5 wicket haul and 10 wickets in the match. The match was tied and the 30,000 supporters there would talk about it for the rest of their lives.

Dean Jones (210) and Kapil Dev (119) were awarded the man of the match awards though Matthew’s profile suggests he shared much of the plaudits for the “match-winning” figures:
68.1 overs, 10 maidens 10 for 249

Matthews never performed bowled anywhere near as well in a test again with those two 5 wicket hauls remaining the only ones in his 33 test match career. He finished averaging 48 with the ball and 41 with the bat. His profile also says that while every other player sweated profusely during the match, he wore a wooly jumper throughout

Floods in Venice

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floods in st marks square, venice
This picture really says it all – this is St Mark’s square and the flood water is up to the hips
The worst flood for 20 years

The Venetians call it “Acqua Alta” or High Water as it literally translates. It comes in 2 forms really.
There is the mild flooding that comes with the tidal lagoon.
This affects a few areas more than others as the water flows up through the drains into the streets. Warning signs for tourists show which areas are most likely to be affected. It’s not a huge problem at this stage, and life goes on.
It looks like this in St Mark’s square:
Aqua Alta in St Mark's Square

What you see in the first photo though is the more dramatic where the water comes into the squares from the open water
This can only happen when the tide is high and the water level has been raised significantly either by rain or low air pressure. This leads to the dramatic flooding we see now when the water mark around St Mark’s Square hits 1.5 Metres (over 5 foot). 90% of the city is flooded. Tables have to be erected & raised to enable people to get around. Many homes (especially those on the ground floor) are flooded.

There are some plus points to acqua alta, especially if you’re a wakeboarder:

Youtube link to Wakeboarding in St Marks Square
And some pictures of the Wakeboarding

WordPress 2.6.3

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As usual I’ve been slack with upgrading my blog’s software, and it’s only been a few spammers signing up that has prompted me to upgrade things. And again, I’ve refreshed the ip2nation database & plugin to cater for any unusual countries or ip addresses. Things seem to be working, but as usual if you spot anything odd drop me a line and i can do some investigation.

The main reason for my post though is I’ve just installed an autotagger (I haven’t been tagging my posts in the past) and want to see whether it works.

With a bit of luck if I drop some keywords in it should add the relevant tags

Dizzee Rascal on Barack Obama’s Victory

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As we all know now Barack Obama is going to be the first black US president, but I’m not going to talk about the in’s and out’s of the election or the merits of his victory.
Instead I give you
Dizzee Rascal
Dizzee Rascal on newsnight interviewed by Jeremy Paxman – the result is rather comical

Link for those who want to view it on youtube.com

(in the next section i’ve completely copied the transcript of the interview into chunks in case the link isn’t available in the future and to highlight certain parts. DR is Dizzee Rascal, JP is Jeremy Paxman)

The highlights of the interview are:

• When asked if the UK could have a black president it went as follows:

JP: … could you see this happening in Britain?
DR: Yeah. In time.
JP: You’re rather positive!
DR: Yeah, man. Why not, man? There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? …
if you believe you can achieve, innit?

Radio One have been mocking this final line but at the same time it almost is something the “yoof” of today could take to heart.

• When asked on political parties he acknowledged they existed but little else:

JP: Dizzee Rascal, do you believe in political parties in Britain?
DR: Yeah, they exist. I believe in ’em … I don’t know if it makes a difference. But you know what I mean. It is what it is. Politicians … say what they say – you might get every now and again a genuine one, innit? But I think people, like, as a whole make the difference …

• When asked if he considered himself British, Paxman calls him “Mr Rascal”. Dizzee then comes out with a classic on who could run the country:

JP: Dizzee Rascal, Mr Rascal, do you feel yourself to be British?
DR: Of course I’m British, man! You know me! … what’s good. I think it don’t matter what colour you are, it matters what colour your heart is and your intentions. I think a black man, purple man, Martian man can run the country … as long as he does right by the people.

• And finally, Dizzee reckons he could run for PM and that Obama’s victory couldn’t of happened if he hadn’t embraced hip hop:

JP: Well why don’t you run for office?
DR: See, that’s a very good idea. I might have to do that one day. Dizzee Rascal for prime minister, yeah! Wassappenin’! Barack Obama embraced hip-hop, man. That’s the way he got through to kids. There was a more young vote ever. And it was through hip-hop!

It’s Just Harmless Fun

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There’s a new “drug” also known as a Herbal Powder going round called Akuz (sorry, best link i could find in 2 minutes).

sniffing akuz /><br /> <img decoding=

Apparently they had problems with people switching the powder for cocaine when it first launched, but the bottle is now tamper proof so you won’t be sold coke inadvertently.

The company who makes it has been saying it’s all “Just Harmless Fun” when asked whether it encourages young people to take drugs that like Akuz are sniffed up the nose. It’s an orange powder which apparently makes your nose burn and gives a bit of a sugar-rush like sensation. It turns your snot orange.