Facebook's news feed is trying to get me killed

Facebook is supposed to have these awesome algorithms that show you things of interest to you, right?

Today I got a link encouraging me to "Leave The City And Go Raise Huskies In Lapland", a link which talks about living in a cabin with no water or electricity in Lapland. To be fair it's quite an interesting read, but the title really isn't for me.

These aren't huskies, but I don't have any pictures of huskies.

I'd be rubbish at raising huskies in a specialist dog raising school in a nice warm climate, never mind sending me to Lapland.  My thumbs and heels would crack in the cold weather, I'd have no phone without electricity (and even if I got it charged would I have superfast broadband?  Seems unlikely) and meanwhile the huskies would lose all respect for me and spending their days chasing me round and round until I fell over and they could run me over with the sled.

Apparently on a good day you can get some water boiled in twenty minutes.  I expect over twenty minutes to have made a drink, drunk it, and then be trying to get someone to make me another one.

No, as interesting as a life in Lapland sounds, I think I'll stick with mine for now. If only there was a post advertising "Stay In Your House And Earn Money By Writing Not Very Funny Tweets"...

(I did this post as a vlog also, if you want to watch it...)

Weekend end

When I got up this morning I managed to pull a hair out that had somehow got under the skin of my little toe, and I suspected that it would be the greatest thing that I did all day.

I was right.

Although I did note the below while shopping:

Which just goes to underline the importance of marketing - because a "scratchy bath glove" just wouldn't be the same at all.

Do you think that you can use it in the shower though?

Viruses are exposing themselves

Saw this in the shop the other day...

I'm particularly interested in the statement at the bottom of the box - "Use before exposure to viruses or the 1st signs of cold".  How do you know that you're about to be exposed to viruses?

Viruses, or virii (to use the proper term), typically measure somewhere between 104 and 109 nanometres in size.  You can't see them, just like you can't see bacteria (even though they're 500 times bigger).

My wife is currently studying a science course, so I asked her how you could detect if a virus was heading for you, and she obligingly came up with a solution.  Apparently if you have a scanning electron microscope, you could take a sample of something and indeed then scan it to see if there was a virus there waiting to expose itself to you.  Of course you'd need several thousand pounds to buy one, but no solution is perfect.

In other news, I've done an entry for the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards 2016, and it'd be kinda cool if people had a listen and perhaps even "like" it on Soundcloud (assuming that you do like it)

A Rubbish Timetable #FixThePlus

I've noticed a pattern...

Monday morning - time for work!
Monday evening - phew, what a day!  Time to relax.
Tuesday morning - hmm, that kitchen bin is starting to look a little full.. hey, it's time for work!
Tuesday evening - I definitely need to empty that bin in the morning, but it gets too full.

Wednesday morning - boy that bin needs emptying... hey, time for work!
Wednesday evening - man that bin really needs emptying... First thing tomorrow, I'll empty the bin.

Thursday morning - running late!
Thursday evening - oh man, I meant to empty that bin. (Gives all the rubbish a big push down to try to make more room)  First thing tomorrow.

Friday morning - hey, it's Friday! Nearly the weekend!  Right, time for work!
Friday evening - that bin is far too full. But it's Friday night, time to kick back with a beer.

Saturday morning - why is it that every time I empty the bin is it overflowing?!? Next week, I'm going to empty it ahead of time.

If you liked this (or even if you didn't) go check out another blog I did recently mentioning rubbish.

Thanks to BBC News for this update

Methinks someone at the BBC Humberside news desk has a sense of humour...

Working On A Card Game #FixThePlus

So, I spent the other evening printing and cutting out pieces of paper to trial my new card game.

Which, I can advise you, takes ages.

But the worst thing was when I realised that I really needed to be able to identify the cards (pieces of paper) when face down.

Bring on the ballpoint pen.

All done!

Still, I did get there in the end, and this morning I and my wife gave the game its very first playtest.  The game is called "Exos", and my game intro text is as follows:

You’re not doing too well on the old planet of Earth in the year 2139, so you’ve scraped together your savings, and you’ve jetted off to Mars - rumour has it that there’s some seriously valuable stuff on that rock, if you can find it.  You’ve bought yourself an Exo (Exoskeleton) suit, and you’re gonna mine yourself a fortune.

Just one problem - you’re not alone.

Get yourself geared up before it’s time to settle, once and for all, the question of which of you is going to get to do some mining, while everyone else is left selling their Exo suits as spare parts.

As fully expected the game came out with a decent pile of changes, but I was pleased to see that at its core, it doesn't seem to be an entirely bad game.  I've just finished revising it ready for another playtest, and I'm hoping to get it to a position where more people can see it in the not too far distant future.

Washing Up Fairy #FixThePlus

Seriously, ever since I moved out the washing up fairy has been slacking.  Must be nine years since that darn thing showed up.

LinkedIn is full of bad news #FixThePlus

Oh no! My rank for profile views moved down by 12% in the past 12 days!

Well, I had great fun with the little April Fools "Travelling Tablet Project" for my 500th post - it seems hard to believe that I've managed to churn out 500 of these over the years, but still I'm very happy.  I've also had the great news that I'm in line to become an adult education tutor, teaching social media on an evening and/or weekend, I had an interview on Thursday which I enjoyed immensely so being offered the job is wonderful!

Finally, you might note the #FixThePlus in the tagline - I've picked this up from Jeremy Crow and his blog about Google+, like Jeremy I use Google+ a huge amount, especially for my blogs and videos, and the Plus feature (where you click +1 on posts) hasn't been working for some time now, and it's one of the main ways that I identify which of my posts are more popular - blogging is something that I hope that I'm improving over time, and one of the ways I do this is by looking at my more popular posts to see what people liked about them.  So being without the +1s from people is really awkward.  So do read Jeremy's post, but in short I ask that any creators add #FixThePlus to their posts, and let's see if we can make a trend that will make Google notice.

Onwards and upwards!

The Travelling Tablet Project!

I'm delighted to announce on April 1st, after the success of the Travelling Book Project, a brand new project, taking the Travelling Book Project and making it truly twenty first century.

Selfies are everywhere, everyone takes them, everyone shares them.  The Travelling Tablet Project allows for people to do this by finding one of the Travelling Tablets, taking a selfie, and then passing on to another person.  It's all the goodness of the Travelling Book Project without any of that old fashioned writing required.  As long as no one steals the expensive piece of technology travelling from stranger to stranger it'll work fine!

Maybe you'll find a tablet here!

 Or here!

Or even here!

I'm delighted to announce the launch of the Travelling Tablet project on Indiegogo, where you can contribute to this amazing cause - but be fast, the campaign closes at the end of April 1st!

Thanks again, and I know that together, we can make the world a better place.