All posts by Mike

Unanswered Questions In Star Wars: The Force Awakens

You’ve had well over 3 days to watch the new film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the 7th in the epic series of films about Jedi who do fights in space. The film, directed by JJ Abrams, is wildly heralded as a return to form for the series which has been much maligned since George Lucas’ misadvised Ewoks: Caravan of Courage.

But great though the new film is – 93% – there are still many unanswered questions about the film. Some of those may well be answered in the upcoming Episode VIII, but some might remain mysteries.

1) Who is Han Solo’s father?

Lineage is so important in the way the force manifests itself in the Star Wars galaxy. We know who Luke and Leia’s father is – Darth Vader. We know who Boba Fett’s father is – Jango, We even know who Wedge Antilles’ father is – Alan de Bottain. But one of the great unanswered mysteries of the whole saga is the nature of Han Solo’s father.

2) Who is Admiral Ackbar’s father?

Veteran of the great battle of Endor, Admiral Alan “It’s a Trap” Ackbar’s ancestry is not touched on at all in The Force Awakens. Was his father a Jedi? A pilot? Or maybe a librarian? Perhaps he always dreamed of being a dancer, or maybe he disguised himself as a woman to see his estranged family. It’s never touched upon. Ackbar remains a fishy enigma.

3) Who is Luke Skywalker’s father?

I just realised after I’d started writing this one that it was explained the the Empire Strikes Back and I’d forgotten until I wrote the paragraph for number 1.

4) Who is Princess Leia’s father?

Yeah sorry done this one

5) What’s the deal with that bit where Han goes to live with the Amish people?

That made no sense.

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

4 Christmas Mistakes You Are Making

1) Opening your presents early with a lion

While it’s exciting that Christmas is coming, opening your presents early with a lion spoils it for everyone.  Christmas is a special time for families and part of the tradition of that is opening presents together, away from a lion. Lions do not appreciate Christmas as many of them are Jewish.

2) Forgetting To Fully Defrost The Turkey With A Lion

Uh-oh! Forgetting to defrost the turkey is a common error at Christmas. After all, most meat we buy will defrost quite quickly, but a massive turkey requires quite a long time to fully thaw out. If it’s not fully defrosted, it may not cook properly and nobody wants food poisoning at Christmas! Also remember the turkey must be kosher, for the lion.

3) Buying terrible presents for everyone; getting them mauled by a lion

Some people are gifted with a supernatural instinct for gift buying. They scour the shops for that perfect gift, and then find it. The rest of us often end up buying those boxes with shower gel and deodorant or whatever from Boots.  But getting the wrong brand can cause real problems with children, for whom the right gift is vital. What if they ask for a Playstation and you buy them a pair of sandles – easily done in today’s world. Also, there is a lion.

4) Watching the Queen’s Speech with a lion

Lions are staunch republicans. They will heckle the Queen and eat your legs.

 

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Top 6 Presentation Mistakes You Might Be Making Now

Giving presentations in front of your colleagues and clients is an important skill for anyone in business from cleaner to CEO, but not all of us are instinctively skilled at it. For example, a recent survey from Company Magazine blamed 78% of work absences and 19% of heart attacks as a result of poor work presentations. Heed these tips – the tips that Obama, Jobs and even Space Hitler used to rise to the top.

BudgetPresentation

1) Not using someone’s name

People love the personal touch. Remembering people’s names makes them feel important. When giving a work presentation, remember to look everyone in the eye and say their full name 3 times before moving onto the next person. A recent study for TeenCorporation Magazine stated that not mentioning everyone’s name makes 37% of people uncontrollably angry and 5% violently sick.

2) Do not use Pie charts

What do you think this is? The 1980s? Nobody even eats pies any more, let lone makes pie charts. The best way to show proportions of a total in diagrammatical form is using a puppet show or interpretive dance.

presentation-to-employers

3) Nudity

Nudity is inappropriate in most non-nude business situations.

4) Morrissey

Despite being beloved by Smiths fans, and producing many classic  hits throughout the following 2 decades,  Morrissey is  not experienced at business presentations and will insist on using pie charts and being racist

Presentations -3 c

5) Going on and on about your shiny pants

Nobody cares! Get to the business figures, man!

6) Going back to the original Greek.

Not everyone needs to know the original Greek to fully understand the New Testament passage you are expounding. In fact, you’re kind of second-guessing the scholars who have done the translating and are probably better at it than you. By all means, have other translations to hand to get a great angle on it, but you don’t need to bore your colleagues with it.

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

New Javascript Framework: Bois=JS

Why a new Javascript Framework?

There’s lot of javascript frameworks around – CrampJS, Lewjs, js0nwt, Drainage to name a few – and all fit a particular niche within the front end dev community. But these all have a steep learning curve & are probably designed by crazy people.

Bois=JS is a quick,performant, learnant and agiliant framework which works on the following paradigm: Extensible, Extended, Extant. It uses SOLID principles, HOLO principles and seperates front from back in a way that is desirable for modern, universal systems. It uses XML to provide a consistant interface. It is also orange.

How does Bois=JS work?

<bois wrapper="G">
<div method=44>
 <method type="int" return="click">
   ...insert your Javascript here
 </method>
</div>
The Bois=JS "Thunking" PreProcessorThe Bois=JS “Thunking” PreProcessor

Tell me more!

Yes.
Bois=JS leverages modern development paradigms to extend reality beyond 19.

It is

  • Open source
  • Leveraged
  • Ajax-compliant, Redux compliant, flavoursome
  • Runs on all compatible machines
  • Free

How do I install it?

Using npm

apt-get install npm
npm install boisjs --definitely --now --return

Using bower

apt-get install npm
npm install bower
bower install boisjs --now --please --ok

Using kon-pak

apt-get install npm
npm install bower
bower install kp --now --please --ok
kp --requirement /boisjs !!! 500 return

Using INTERSLICE

apt-get install npm
npm install bower
bower install kp --now --please --ok
kp --requirement /insterslice!!! 500 return
npm install bower
bower install kp --now --please --ok
kp --requirement /insterslice!!! 500 return
npm install bower
bower install kp --now --please --ok
kp --requirement /insterslice!!! 500 return
INTERSLICE12

Or compile from source, whatever.

94% of installs will get an obscure Disabled dependancy review error which we will probably address at some point. A quick workaround can be found probably.

API

Bois-JS has an API. Full documentation will be finished as soon as version 2 replaces it.

Anti-Patterns

Be careful not to overuse the G parameter. While the G parameter is integral to how Bois=JS works, using it more than once will result in your program being so slow that it will melt most mobile devices. If you need to work around this, simply use normal Javascript. The same goes for all of the framework. On the other hand, don’t do this because otherwise why bother using the framework.

Contributors

  • Dave
  • Carlos Internet
  • Dave (another Dave)
  • Konstantin Cobra
  • Klondike Roger
  • “Third” Dave
facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

3 Pictures of First Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald That Will Look Directly Into Your Soul

1. “I spent 10 years growing this moustache and you’d better look at it and not my dreamy social democrat eyes”

Ramsay MacDonald ggbain.29588.jpg

2. “Look into my tired eyes. I’m fed up of this Tory and Liberal nonsense and I just want to sleep now.”

Ramsay MacDonald ggbain 35734.jpg

3. “Look there’s a great depression leave me alone I’m trying really hard and my moustache is thinning. Stop giving me that look this is really difficult.”

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

6 Facts That Will Change The Way You See Jeremy Corbyn

1) Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite TV show of all time is “Jossy’s Giants”

In an interview in 2004 Corbyn announced that his favourite TV show was 1980s BBC children’s comedy-drama “Jossy’s Giants”.  He used to cycle home from Parliament to his Islington home at 4pm every Thursday to watch the exciting football related show.  Said Corbyn “I saw myself in Jossy; a maverick, yet a maverick who could lead the Labour party. Or a football team.”

Corbyn-_466

2) He doesn’t have a favourite Spice Girl

In 1997, at the height of Spice Fever, Corbyn stated at Prime Minister’s Questions “I do not have a favourite Spice Girl, nor will I ever have a favourite Spice Girl”.

His favourite former Spice Girl is Geri Halliwell.

jeremy-corbyn-dont_3341770b

 

3) When you go type “Jeremy Corbyn Your Mum” into Google Image Search for some reason this picture of him and Gerry Adams comes up and I can’t be bothered to look up the context but I’m sure it’s just a beard convention or something,

Jeremy-Corbyn-with-Gerry-Adams

 

4) Jeremy Corbyn has never killed a man, or has he?

He definitely hasn’t, but once, he might have done. There are lots of things we don’t know about. Think about that.

5) Jeremy has only read one book and that book was a short biography of Terry Wogan written from the perspective of  Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp which was written by Liz Kendall’s Mum

In an article for Cosmopolitan in 1989 Corbyn stated that he is generally too busy with left wing politics for reading but that he recently finished reading “Terry’s GOLD: The Life Of Terry Wogan As Told By Martin Kemp Out Of Spandau Ballet” by Mrs Kendall.

3840

6) Jeremy Corbyn looks like a disappointed train driver

Perhaps he is disappointed that the railways are privatised. Or perhaps he is disappointed that he has to do night shifts.

download

 

 

 

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

5 Classic Albums To Listen To Before Irreversible Hearing Loss Or Similar

1) The English Heritage Discount – 1917 was cold (Vestige Records, 1989)

Darren “Knife” McDarreth’s is probably now best known for his seminal eclectic 1998 album “Drainage” but in his former band’s 1989 opus he sounds like the end of Thatcherite apartheid, the dawning of a new era, and a feedback static loop from hell. With Dee Da Collins guesting on theramin it’s the vestigial sound of Jupiter before it falls apart.

Best track: 1919 – warmer

2) Oh My Cretacious Jackson - Oh My Cretacious Jackson? (Truth Sounds, 1992)

Paradoxical pop-dance trio Oh My Cretacious Jackson are best known nowadays for their one-hit-wonder from the soundtrack to Super Mario Brothers, Return To The Crazy Space, but the album it featured on sank without trace. A shame, because this almost self-titled album features some of the greatest sounds you’ll hear this side of heaven, and probably irreversibly changed the nature of reality for the better.

Best track: I’m In The Bath (Who Is In The Bath?)

3) Cancel My Netflix Subscription – Most if not all (Gravy, 2012)

With the late-naughties indie boom a thing of the past it fell down to the pleasingly contemporary Cancel My Netflix Subscription (now known as Cancel My Amazon Prime Subscription) to create angular yet miserably dance rock indie ballads. Sounding like a cross between your last favourite album and your next favourite album, Most if not all shows that if indie is dead, then it’s soul has been transferred and it’s living on in the bodies of the members of Cancel

Best Track: Whence

4) 7 Gaz! – 7 Gaz 9 (Verboten, 1972)

If you ask anyone who was alive in 1972 – (which you can – many are still alive) then they will tell you amongst the West Berlin hipsters  1972 was the year of 7 Gaz 9, the East Germany’s “Krautrock” pioneers 4th album. An influence on all that followed and came before it, 7 Gaz 9 sounds like a melted glass sofa infused with a golden handshake, but in German. It still sounds like the future.

Best Track: Auf Mein Trabant

5) The Windows 95 – Grouse (Helen, 1999)

After the demise of Stormie Xerxes’ cult band Splicer, few thought that he would regroup within 6 weeks and create this, his 90-minute masterpiece Grouse. Simultaneously prog and punk, old and new, up and down, The Windows 95 proved to be as short-lived as the lawsuit brought it to it’s knees and all the albums were pulped.  Thom Yorke and Alan Moore are among the few people who still own a copy which has passed into legend through scarcity, even though it is on Spotify.

Best track: track 6

facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather