Mister Seahorse

The above photo is of one of my son's toys, named "Mister Seahorse" mid-maintenance.  It's a blue battery powered seahorse that, when pressed, glows and plays various lullabies.  He's had it for some years, but still enjoys having it in his bed when he gets off to sleep.

The trouble with having a battery powered song-singing toy is that about three times a year the battery levels drop to a low enough level that the song becomes slow, out of tune, and basically gives the indication that the seahorse is drunk, or possibly dying from listeria or some such infection. Leprosy, or Typhoid, perhaps - my knowledge of what infections make artificial seahorses lose their ability to play music is not complete.

And of course, the only time that we discover such an event is at bedtime, when my son is tired, ready to sleep, and quite keen for me to clear off and the seahorse to do its job.

So when it happens, as you can imagine the seahorse has to be very swiftly taken away for battery replacement to minimise the emotional distress that a tipsy seahorse can cause.  While I'm frantically fixing the seahorse, I'm always very slightly creeped out by what, to me, feels like carrying out major surgery on a seahorse (albeit a glowing and singing one), by pulling its guts, spine, and skeleton out and frantically testing batteries from our battery drawer to find three (three?!? Who designs a toy that needs THREE batteries?!?) that have sufficient juice in to keep Mister Seahorse singing away for a few more months.  Once done I then have to shove all the innards back into the seahorse skin and magically it works. I'm not completely sure how this counts academically but I feel that I ought to be awarded an honorary degree in something, Medicine, or Electrical Engineering perhaps.  Offers from universities are welcomed.

At any rate, I'm pleased to report that normal service is indeed restored, Mister Seahorse is fully back in action, and my son sleeps peacefully once again.  Therefore, it's time for a beer :)

In other news, my son has invented a new mathematical concept, called "splatting".  Watch the video of splatting calculations now! (and stay tuned to youtube.com/ravenswingthog for the UNCUT version to be released soon!)

Just in time and Kids vs adults

Firstly, the serious bit.

I was interested to read an article by John Naughton in the Observer today.  He talks about a fake tweet about an explosion in the White House from a hacked news twitter account creating chaos, as automated financial systems picked up on the tweet and started selling shares making stock markets plunge (although recovered quickly again once it was realise that the news wasn't real).  He goes on to talk about just in time as a basis for business (very briefly, the principle of just getting what you need when you need it, which saves you from having to stockpile materials or goods, and makes things more efficient.

John rightly points out how fragile this is as a concept - as an example, supermarkets only have a few days of stock at any one time, so if there is a problem at any point in the supply chain they rely on as a result they are without food.  I recall a construction scheme I was involved with around two years ago, when nearing completion we were advised of a delay on one of the final elements of the build, a set of number plates to go on the fronts of houses.  When we asked why we were told it was "due to the Japan tsunami".  Unsurprisingly we challenged this, but the contractor explained the sign makers bought their sign paint from a company in Japan, and the tsunami had indeed interrupted the business of producing paint, presumably because they were busy dealing with the aftereffects of the tsunami.

Perhaps we ought to consider how reliable just in time is.  Construction projects often run over time and over cost, would it actually help to move away from just in time and stockpile more?  It might mean that we need to pay more for overheads such as site storage but would it lead to better value for money overall?

Okay, now the not so serious bit.

Why do adults have to get things that are worse for no reason?

Why is there kids "no tears" shampoo but ours stings like jimminy cricket when it goes into our eyes?

Furthermore it's easy to deal with kids bubble bath - it comes in a fun bottle with a cartoon character or a seafaring chap on!  Why is ours complicated?  You have to decide if you want to relax, or be invigorated and pick an appropriate one. I just want some bubbles.

There's too much choice when it comes to bubble bath.  The variety from one brand can be revived, rejuvenated, refreshed, calmed, stimulated, pampered, relaxed, soothed, recharged, or nourished.  Surely a lot of these are the same?  If I wanted to be rejuvenated then surely being recharged would do?  And what if I wanted to be calmed and pampered?  Do I need to mix them?


And what about medicines?  Calpol (kiddy painkiller for those non-parents) tastes nice.  Until I was forced to learn how to swallow pills due to being prescribed eleven a day at one point, I used to crunch them or open them up and empty the contents onto my tongue which tasted disgusting (and is quite dangerous - if you have pills to swallow then SWALLOW THEM!) - why can't ours be in a strawberry sauce!

Anyway, changing subject, allow me to present to you the first of many (possibly) BLOG OF THOG WORDSEARCHES!

What's the first word you spot in the wordsearch above?  Leave me a comment and let me know.

Sprinkle of Glitter mixed with ingame genocide

Hello!

It's cold!  I had to de-ice cars on Thursday, which is never a good sign!

My son started at a new class yesterday to help with his speech development.  The class is run by the charity KIDS  and seems to be really good, they do a mixture of songs, playing, arts and crafts, having a snack, and music all jammed into ninety minutes of activity.  He was seriously knackered afterwards and it took place when he usually grabs an afternoon nap - after the class we popped to see my parents and he wasted no time in snuggling under a load of covers and catching forty winks!

I'd like to point peoples attention to a rather decent YouTube channel called Sprinkle of Glitter run by a mum called Louise.  I must admit I stumbled across the channel somewhat by accident (I think I clicked on someone elses video on another channel, looked at another one of their videos and saw Louise on there, she seemed pretty funny so I checked her channel out.  It's not my usual choice of channel at all but it's actually really interesting and I've enjoyed listening to a lot of her videos, especially the ones with her friend Zoella!

When I say listen to YouTube videos, I mean listen.  I like to have something going on in the background while I'm playing a game, and my current game of choice is a rather old one called Space Empires III.

Space Empires III is a turn based space strategy game where you basically conquer the galaxy.  You colonise planets, destroy enemy spaceships, muck about in politics, all kinds of fun controlly stuff.  It does get quite involved, especially once your empire gets bigger you can spend loads of time tweaking the productivity of your planets one-by-one, but it is rather cool if you like that sort of thing.

Trust me - I'm about to kick some ass.

I do tend to role play the game, though.

What I mean by that is I tend to keep notes on how my empire is doing and what my plans are.  For example in my current game:


Stardate 2402.3 - The foolish Levolrie declared war.  We promptly destroyed one of their minor colonies!  A slight concern is that their vessels appear to have significantly better shields than ours, and because we've invested so heavily in our colonisation programme we don't immediately have the resources to defeat these aliens.

No progress regarding the Eteru, they appear to be xenophobic and I fully expect them to attack when they are ready.

Stardate 2402.6 - The Eteru wiped out a minor colony we had in the Ulrikan system.  Bizarrely the Levolrie have not acted yet, but their ships are all around our colonies.  I am ordering colonies to begin the construction of fighters to act as defenses while we build and mobilise a defense fleet.

Stardate 2402.8 - Our defenses continue to build and as our colonies develop our resources become greater and free up to allow the construction of ships to intercept and destroy the alien invaders.

Stardate 2404.0 - The Levolrie have started to suffer losses to our forces.  We have captured and deconstructed two of their vessels, aiding our research channels.  We have also conquered one of their colonies and have no reason to assume that we cannot, given time, swallow their entire empire whole.

I have slight concerns around the Eteru - although they have not chanced upon our space yet I feel it is only a matter of time and indeed have seen ships of theirs only 1 system away.  We do have a defense fleet building that will bring them to their knees but at this time it is not quite ready.

Stardate 2404.1 - The Gamalon system has been cleansed of Levolrie control.  However, the Eteru (and another alien race not yet contacted) moves closer to our colonies on the eastern edge of our control.

Stardate 2404.2 - The unidentified alien race has been now named as the Memnorak.  They have entered the Dtarkn system, where our colonies are still poorly defended.  I hope to stall them using diplomacy while our defenses are fortified.  I see more and more evidence of significant Eteru forces that will pose a significant threat.

Stardate 2404.3 - Diplomacy didn't work.  The Memnorak have, without provocation, wiped out one of our colonies and destroyed two of our ships without breaking a sweat.  The Dtarkn system has been declared as a lost cause.  We are sending mine layers to blockade the warp point from Dtarkn to Xzintus to protect our ship building yards there.

Stardate 2404.6 - The Dtarkn system has, to be frank, got off lightly.  Rather than cause total genocide the Memnorak wiped out two colonies, and have apparently fallen back, possibly to rearm.  However, this does not mean that the system is safe.  That said, one of our task forces has now entered the system including a group of our new Sovereign class Battleships that I hope will be a match for the enemy vessels.  But yet more new aliens appear to be headed for the Dtarkn system, all I can think is that it is some kind of conspiracy between these various races to work together for our annihilation.

The elimination of the Levolrie on our Western front carries on unhindered.


Any comments? :)