Brain Spooge

I'm old enough now that I can be nostalgic for my long since passed childhood, to such extent that I now have trouble recalling things, which sucks.

But I need to make this post such that I can remember this, (it is without irony that I type the following:- ) When I were a lad...

Please, bear with me...

When I were a lad I enjoyed many toys, I had a pretty good childhood, privileged, cared for and provided to, my parents -for all my gripes- actually did give me a lot of 'stuff' -- sadly they then took it all from me and promptly sold it off at car boot sales - thus LITERALLY taking my childhood away (probably quite a lot of trauma to unpack there... I digress.)

Among my cadre of toys, I had many of the Lego sets (the kind that people would today spill blood for), a vast array of Action Force and G.I. Joe figures, Starcom play sets, Micromachines, A Boglin, A good handful of Muscle Men and then also Monster In My Pocket, a full set of the four original Ghost Buster Characters, and also the four original Turtles... I was never left wanting - for this I am thankful, and should reflect more on just how much my parents did give me.

Among all of these is one that I consistently forget: Legion Of Power

Of all the things I had this one was a firm favourite, but I still (even while writing this very post) forget it's namesake - and in times of wistful nostalgia, I just need to recall those happy days.

And so, I write this post not for anyone but myself, to help me remember when I was a happy, innocent and carefree lad with nothing to worry abotu other than which toy to play with after school.

I miss those days.

Old Man Yells at ... History

So, it's been a hot minute since my last utterances, but not for lack of things to bleat about. Rather, quite the opposite.

For the best part of about 4 maybe 5 months now, I've been deep inside of an unusual spurt of energetic release of artistic endeavours. I've taken up writing, and found it to be very rewarding - I really enjoy the 'style' I seem to use when putting words to paper in a narrative form... Something just feels good. I often end up quite giddy after an evening typing away.

So, at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future, I shall release two very different books. Certainly in the realm of 'short story' the very concept of 'novel' is daunting. But I'll write until the story is told. In one book I'm writing an overly elaborate character background for a character I am currently playing in a Vampire the Masquerade Role-Playing Game.

It is with no shame that the other story is the re-telling of one of my own hosted Role-Playing Games from two years ago, The stories and nostalgia are often broached by the players and I decided that with my newfound urge to 'do' I would make the best and also create the story of that game, a tale of surprise and misery set in a cyberpunk world.

Two very different settings, and two strangely different narratives, both giving me a lot of fun!

Along with this, I decided why not do EVEN more (probably too much) and make an actual computer game... from scratch... not knowing the slightest of how to do so...

Thanks to ChatGPT (which I personally think is a fantastic tool) I can very quickly discover many things, including how to code. It has been a truly fascinating experience; I still know next to nothing about coding, and yet already have a 'working' base of a game! It's got a LOT of work yet to do, but now I have an actual reason to use my Patreon!

And so... With this and my general attempts at playing games a lot and attempting to have some form of social life, I've actually been very busy and a little exhausted. I'm genuinely amazed at how little time there is in the day, I find myself fighting to get a little more done and realising too late it's gone 4am ... again.

I have to give a little shout-out to Mum for making this possible, without having what she gave, I could not do what I now do. RIP mum.

My Muse Must Unleash

Just posting this as I've been mad about this track on repeat and too often I forget about the tunes I've been 'into' but then, over time, they just stop existing in my mental space. So this one is staying...

I GO OUT - Deborah De Luca (Rework 2020)

My song of 21 / 22

- About 350 Kcal - Prep time 10 mins

- vegetarian

What You'll Need

A half doz. Cherry Tomatoes
Handful of Red Grapes
3 slices Halloumi Cheese
About a cup of Iceburg Lettuce
Balsamic Vinegar
Pickled Red Cabbage
Salt
Olive Oil
Frying Pan / Spatula
Bowl (to serve)

The How to Step-by-step

Halve the grapes, throw them into the bowl.
Shred the lettuce, throw it into the bowl.
Add 2 tablespoons of the red cabbage with a little of the pickle vinegar.
Half the cherry tomatoes & fry until very slightly charred in a little olive oil. Into the bowl they go...
Fry the Halloumi until golden/browned (after the tomatoes, in whatever oil remains. Only top-up is absolutely needed, better to 'dry fry' this)
Cube or dice or more finely slice the halloumi (bite-sized bits) and into the bowl lobbeth it.
A light dash of salt to season.
A generous sprinkling of good quality balsamic vinegar.
Toss the content to mix well and get that vinegar over the stuff.
Garnish with croutons if you want?
Consume

Story Time

A lot of recipes begin with an elaborate story about the food or why it's awesome, but I'm not a chef or a professional food blogger, the 'read-time on page' is not something I care about. Make food eat it.

Why does this recipe exist? I made a salad, it tasted fucking awesome, I wanted to share. A pretty short story. Let me elaborate on all of the above. I'm on a bit of a health thing at the moment, and so I'm looking to put things in my body that won't kill me, or try to.

I love Halloumi, it's a cheese that you can treat like bacon, fuck me that's a good enough reason right there! I guess if you hate your arteries you could substitute bacon into this instead of the Halloumi, or just add it in as well?

I'll be honest, the trick here isn't that I found a secret salad combo... The balsamic vinegar does a LOT of heavy lifting in this.

What to expect from this food thing

It's crunchy, sweet with pops of umami. Well-fried halloumi brings a chewy yet crispy mouth-feel the 'dressing' aka the vinegar & pickles add a sharp tang to everything all wrapped in the freshness and light bitterness of the lettuce.

I bloody love this, and it's kind of healthy, so. there ya go.

Frying Halloumi

So, it occurs to me, not everyone may be comfortable with this concept, or even really know-how, so let me blather here about how I do it, and hopefully, it may help those aspiring chef-du-partie out there.

I slice some halloumi about a quarter-inch thick, about the width of a knife's handle I guess? a little thicker or thinner won't matter. I warm a pan with a scant amount of olive oil, and I really mean like it's nearly dry, too much oil can spoil the cook here but you need some to help the cheese along its journey.

In this recipe, I've cooked my Halloumi in fingers by halving the slices into finger-width slivers, but it can just be cooked as it is sliced. With the pan at a good medium-hot temp, the little oil you have in there should easily sloop about when the pan is jiggled or tipped, the cheese goes in. It may spit a little so be prepared for your fingers getting a little oil spittle!

Wait about a minute, you should see the cheese beginning to seize a little as its underside takes the heat. Use some tongues to very gently flip the slices, be careful you can tear it at this point!

Again, wait about a minute and you'll see the cheese visibly pulling into itself - It is VERY nearly ready, at this point there should be little to no colouring on the cheese, but you need to pay attention now.

Flip the cheese again, and you'll now start to smell the cook, it takes only a few seconds now over constant heat to get the cheese to begin to colour, check intermittently by just holding up an edge to look under a piece to see what it's doing.

You're looking for a brownish golden colour, a little black charring is okay, but if this happens too quickly you're at risk of burning it. When you see that golden-brown flip the slices and do the same for the other side.

You can now flip and re-flip the cheese it should have stiffened up a little and be easier to work you don't want too much fresh white or light yellow, you're looking to get most of its surface well browned.

When you are happy the cheese is browned, even if the edges are perhaps just a little charred it's ready!

Halloumi sald picture

A Recipe For A Salad

Unless you live under an actual rock, the 'craze' that is Gamestop stock has been consuming a lot of my attention, I've learned quite a lot browsing the associated subreddit's and reading through a lot of source details of stuff. And, I must confess, the whole thing seems like it could be a very interesting nexus of events...

And, because I'm a sell-out, and I want some of that sweet sweet 'association' formed cash-grab, I've put a dew silly designs on Spreadshirt which can be bought for sums of money that I'll make a few pennies on... Skip to the bottom of the page for my 3d print DeepFuckingValue / Roaring Kitty free download (donations most certainly welcome)

peall

FREE 3d Printable Download

And more impressively, I'm trying my fist attempt at creating a meme-worthy 3d printable STL...

So, While GME goes brrr, I'm hoping my paypal account might go brr just a little. Shirts and hoodies at spreadshirt [clicky]

Or, for the 3d printers out there... a model that is NOT A CAT, an STL DOWNLOAD based on the OG artwork you can see here: I am not a cat... wait, yes I am - by: PunchingPandas The 3d version of which, I'm taking donations for my effort. I spent a couple of days trying very hard to get this thing right, and If you think it's worth it, I'd very much appreciate a few pennies dropped in my digital coinbox over at >>> https://paypal.me/RichPeall donations are entirely optional, just take the thing if you want it. click the image-link below!

$GME go BRRRRRR

And so we find ourselves amidst a global pandemic, who would have thought this would be my 40th Birthday 'gift'... Thanks world!

More seriously though, wash your hands' people!

Aside from the fact that I'm a reclusive socially awkward introvert even when I'm not told to stay at home, I'm at home anyway, so the world is just living on my terms now. People are going bonkers because they have to spend time with themselves, and I suspect many of them are finding out that they are rather dull.

I personally really like my own company, I rather like me.

And so, while the world turns, and the news of toilet paper shortages and an ever-rising death count, I carry on much as I normally do, playing video games, doing a little 3d Blender stuff, writing out bits and bobs for my currently ongoing role-playing group.

And today I found something special which I decided to share;

Rhubarb sweet & sour / teriyaki sauce.

I was just making a little lunch for myself using whatever was at hand, I had some leftover prawn-fried rice and a cupboard full of condiments, and on the kitchen side, a glass with some leftover rhubarb juice.

I would have been silly not to try, so I did, and it was really lovely. And so, here I share with you the 'basic' concept of my fruity 'Asian' inspired sauce.

1 tablespoon (14 ml) rice wine vinegar (as an afterthought, 2 tbsp would add a little more zing)

2 tablespoon (28 ml) rhubarb juice, fresh (aka; leftover from making a rhubarb crumble)

1 (or 2) (~21 ml) tablespoons tomato ketchup.

1 teaspoon (5 ml) soy sauce

To increase the flavour a little, you could add (but I didn't today...) a little ginger and garlic.

I roughly mixed it with a fork, passed it through a drinks sieve to remove unwanted 'bits' and then mixed into my prawn rice. Very fruity, a little sour/tangy and a simple way to use up some bits.

My Place In The World...

So much has changed in a peculiar way and so quickly, the world feels odd. Out of place in some way. But, as I had mentioned above, my life remains unreasonably unchanged. One thing however that I am forcibly attempting to change is my 'value' in the world.

For whatever reason, I find myself in a place where I am essentially retired. I have a passive income which requires minimal effort to maintain, occasionally I pick up some piecemeal jobs, more to keep myself entertained than to generate income. But, I still do many things which I know have an inherent value, and I want to tap into that value so I can better enjoy my time.

Sadly, money, and the amount you have access to, still means the difference between getting by or enjoying oneself. For that reason, I'm currently attempting to start a Patreon page, I have nothing exact or specific to offer, and I'm not even sure how to properly integrate such a thing into my activities, but I do feel like I should get some reward for my many little efforts.

Coronavirus Contemplations

Part of my inherent nerd-dom is that I enjoy tabletop wargaming, thanks to some bad choices as a young teenager, a little disposable income as a young adult and a brain that soaks up 'fantasy' like an axolotl eating a fish-food pellet (look it up if you need the visual reference...)

And so, within my now ageing brain rattle details that nobody cares about, and that have exactly zero effect in any real-life circumstance. Thanks brain! ... Within this mess, I include my contemplation of how machine-guns are portrayed in the game Battletech. It is with some annoyance I find myself at the wrong end of how these are perceived at large. But, it's annoying enough that I shall now go into a lengthy internet-bound diatribe detailing my upset on the matter.

ELI5: Battletech-

Set in a fantasy future in which technological progression is halted by the spread and politic of humanity among a (widely spread) universe. Huge, stompy, gun-toting robots aka "mechs" (battlemechs) are a de facto way of ending future-space arguments.

Machine Guns

Along with lasers, and other 'future' weaponry, mech's have an array of more conventional ballistic weapons. Most are akin to what our modern battle-tanks might have, be it a 30mm automated cannon or a 280mm howitzer style weapon. These are easy for my minds-eye to envision as I get heated and excited mid game as we players discuss the battlefield carnage attempting to bring a cinematic edge to what otherwise boils down to grown men rolling dice and filling out a spread sheet.

But then comes "The Machine-Gun"... and here's where I differ greatly from nearly all flavours of Battletech machine-gun I'd seen put into video games, and from that, posted into the mind of players everywhere.

Too often, the machine gun is depicted, or enacted as though it were a trusty modern heavy machine gun probably around 12.7mm / 50 cal. in format and with that familiar thuuba-thuuba-thuuba noise associated to such weapons...

Listen to some dakka:

Well, in my head, this is just wrong... plain and simple, just, well... not right. It's the FUTURE... and also, the image of a 'machine-gun' in the reference materials looks like this:-

I'm gonna need more Cowbell...

Now, as impressive as it might be hearing a 'machine-gun' slowly shouting pop-pop-pop. In my mind, and in my opinion, far more impressive/fear inducing is the BRRRAAAAAAAP of seevral hundred rounds all being spat out in near simultaneous succession.

More audio dakka:

And to me it meshes well with the fact that in the canon (pun intended) of the fantasy universe that is Battletech, machine guns are supposed to be very fast firing, primarily anti-infantry defence weapons but (and it is a big but...) they are also supposed to be able to just about cause damage to some of the most highly armoured fighting machines ever made... And to me... a minigun has far more potential to find a weaker spot, an exposed gap or even just through impact tear away armour more so than a less lead-spewey weapon.

More so, I would hesitate on a side of caution to state that the weapons of the Mechwarrior sci-fi are more developed than any modern equivalent. I could guess that such a multi-barrelled weapon would likely be akin to the weapons we see on out attack helicoptors or even the ship-bound air-defence weapons...

All while firing some sci-fi armour-piercing tipped bullets of doom. It also follows that in the lore of battletech, one ton of ammo (including the cases and load-feed mechanisms) can fire a machine gun 200 times... Warning BORING MATHS AHEAD...

I would postulate the following;

A machine gun can be fired once in a game turn.
One game turn lasts for 10 seconds of time.
A rotary barrelled machine gun could expel up to around 100 bullets (not including downtime for cooling...).

And so, one ton of bullets, being 200 "shots" would allow each "shot" to be around 100 bullets of fire-effect. This means one ton is actually loading around 20,000 rounds. This would also make more logistic sense of scale in the 'fitting' of the ammo into the mech.

200 bullets can easily be carried by one guy in a small plastic bag, but 20,000 rounds, well that would require specialised ammo bins with enough ammo in them to be 'impressive' in a mecha sci-fi scale.

And so, this rant closes as I frown at the many computer games which portray an underwhelming concept of a firearm. When I shoot a machine-gun from my 10 meter tall death-robot, I want whatever is in-front of me to understand that fact and not just laugh at an impotent pea-shooter.

Some Reference Noise Dakka:

Mechwarrior 2:
Mechwarrior 3: I have to say... this is the closest to my liking.
Mechwarrior 4:
Mechwarrior 5:

Credits: Sounds from-

https://freesound.org/

http://soundbible.com/

And a bunch of people on YouTube that have done sound sampling from the games...

Oh, and then by fact of original production; the respective game dev companies that commissioned those sounds...

Wargaming Woes - Battletech

Number 10, and even in this BREXIT fuelled run-up to the General Election 2019, this isn't even a post actually about politics.

No... This is a post about Excel and my nature of sometimes being excessively obsessed on superfluous details. In this instance, the character sheet for a GURPS role-playing game I'm intending to run among some friends.

My wife has assured me, that this point, this one thing encapsulates and captures so much of who I am as a person that I've decided to memorialise the event of me being able to produce the number 10 in an Excel spreadsheet.

The Number 10;

Not just any number 10, and not even always the number 10. But it was the number 10 which sparked literal weeks of commentary on my mentally obsessive behaviour, although not in the true medical definition of obsessive behaviour, more of a flippant observation made about me.

Prepare for preamble reasoning...

Within the GURPS mechanics and within the established core of rules, it is encouraged that players adopt and implement their own concepts. The core rules book (GURPS Basic Set) outright tells players to ignore the published rule books. With this in mind, I use GURPS to do whatever I feel fits my desired game. To that fact, I expand or invent what I want as a character sheet, and what I want as the format in which the numerical details of a character are built and dictate effect within the game.

Thanks, GURPS! I hate having to look up rules, so now I don't!

Excel-lent

It's no secret that one of my geek skills is that of being able to use Microsoft's Excel with some considerable efficiency. Generally, I can make pretty much anything happen in an excel sheet and the things I can't, I can easily adapt, learn or 'borrow' from an online excel forum, with at least some working understanding of what I'm borrowing.

And so, When it came to building out the character sheets I needed a function which did one thing looked at two sets of tables, find some information and do a little maths, and then finally show a number.

When doing this by hand, it's very easy... Look at the tables of numbers (these being the characters 'stats') add one to the other, throw in a little extra maths, adding or subtracting as required for a given stat, a little division and, voila! A character stat is born. Huzzah!

Now, it is important to remember that I've essentially just made up the format of my characters, and so, I cannot use a standard character sheet or even look up a direct reference online. What I have is what I've decided to make, and only I can do anything with it or understand anything of it. And so comes the problem of me not wanting to do each stat for each character by hand.

Each character has 53 calculated details, over 4 characters that's 212 calculations, and while I'm sure I could have done this by hand, each being nothing more than three steps of simple mathematics, Instead I decided to automate the main functions. It was quicker to automate than risk any potential recalculation if I modified anything about how I want the game to work... Which did happen... A lot.

Fair Warning: Most of this blog-post is likely VERY boring.

It's simple really...

I know I'm a dork, but when my better half quizzed me on what I'm doing and pointed at a particularly long formula, asking "well... what does that do?" I replied with: "It makes the number 10", while factually correct, I was avoiding the concept of having to explain several hours of work for no reason other than 'because I could' and leading her through the mass of bracketed formula which I understand that anyone other than me would find dull as mud.

With that in mind, I shall now go through the formula and explain it in detail explaining how I ended up with it being what it is.

If you're still reading, you will need some prior knowledge of the sheet I'm working on. For this, I present the following colour coded screenshot (you can ignore the actual details, this is more as a reference of what is where):

Over on the left, in green are the primary character stats, these dictate how good a character might be at lifting, or thinking etc...

Pretty much everywhere, showing in blue are the characters skills stats these are directly inherited from the primary stats as simple as A+B and usually then with a -1 modifier and divided by 2, this is handled with some pretty boring lookup X/Y stuff that any old Excel jock could do.

In Yellow, however, are the secondary stats. This is where the real magic happens, a second layer of dependency is introduced. These details are derived from a combination of the primary stats and a skill stat. A normal human might have had the skill stats (the blue bits) kept on a secondary sheet as a formula reference, but that just adds more stuff. So, I made the yellow bits simply reference the blue bits they share a table with, as shown by the red containing box.

Now we need full meta third-level, self-referencing, multiple displaced redundancy formula, and Excel doesn't do that natively, so I had to first become the box I that wanted to be outside of.

Normally when you need Excel to look up detail, it has to be in columns of information that can be read with a VLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH formula. Both of which require 'simple' data columns, and my table (the red box bit) has 4 separate columns. It's BIG BRAIN time.

Here's the offending formula:

=ROUNDDOWN((INDEX($F$3:$U$8,SUMPRODUCT(($F$3:$U$8=VLOOKUP(N10,'PC stat share'!$E$3:$G$61,2,FALSE))*ROW($F$3:$U$8))-ROW($F$3:$U$8)+1,SUMPRODUCT(($F$3:$U$8=VLOOKUP(N10,'PC stat share'!$E$3:$G$61,2,FALSE))*COLUMN($F$3:$U$8))-COLUMN($F$3:$U$8)+1+3)+INDEX($A$4:$D$12,MATCH(VLOOKUP(N10,'PC stat share'!$E$3:$G$61,3,FALSE)&"*",$A$4:$A$12,0),4)-1)/2,0)

And here's what each bit means and why I want it...

At the very start is the simple ROUNDDOWN function ... this just takes the output of the following formula and crunches it into the lowest simple form of the result, so a 10.8234782 becomes: 10. It would be a little crap if my printed character sheets had nonsensical and unimportant trails of long decimal places in a game system that really only needs 'whole' numbers.

Next up, it gets a little complex. The INDEX function is now preparing the formula to look at a set of information, in the first instance here within the cell range F22 and U27 (the red box parts).

Usually INDEX/MATCH relies on a reference of detail it must read, which we have.. And then, it requires a detail of which row number and a column number to read from. The MATCH function does this very well in simple columns of details, but refuses to do anything in a situation in which the details a spread all over the place (trust me, I tried...)

And so, I turn to SUMPRODUCT... Wait, what? You see, SUMPRODUCT can produce a normal number as an output, and by abusing this as form of declared lookup reference at the start of its detail, it must operate a fact that can either be true or false. If it's true, the result declares itself as a the number 1.

With this 'truth' equation, I can determine a row number based on a known detail. Here the SUMPRODUCT looks at all of the details of the stats table (red box) as too does the INDEX function, so I'm looking for details 'in the same place'.

Within the SUMPRODUCT I declare a comparison of the entire top section of the stats block (the red box) against the results of a VLOOKUP this creates the outcome of true or false, which, numerically the SUMPRODUCT resolves as either 1 or 0. Handy for later...

The VLOOKUP here is doing it's best to resolve one little detail, using the name of the stat it is calculating, determine on which skill it must base its calculation. but because only one word can be 'true' it can only create a result for the true detail.

The VLOOKUP function, from it's newly acquired information, and with the same 'true/false' declaration that it began with, now tells the ROW function in which row the true detail is from the stats table (the red box) by multiplying [true] by the required detail. Sadly, because SUMPRODUCT is not a lookup function it requires tricking into doing the job by correcting its result... Done with the second ROW function negating a sort of overflow error.

At this point the formula has worked out ONE-HALF or ONE detail required for its first INDEX function. Right now, the formula only has 'some' idea of what it is supposed to be doing, It still doesn't even have a number, let alone the number 10!!!

This all boils into:

Calculate a reference number for when a known detail is equal to desired detail and multiply by one

Time for a short breather...

I'm nowhere near clever enough to do THIS, but borrowed from a source such as the one linked below:

For a FAR better look at using SUMPRODUCT as a reference tool, check this link.

As the INDEX function requires a ROW and a COLUMN declaration, the same calculation from above is done once more, but this time, looking for (by way of calculating a details position as true and then spitting out the number of the column in which the detail exists.

Now that we have both a row and a column, the INDEX can finally do something. It looks up a number, from the stats table, that is called for as one half of a simple addition.

INDEX($F$3:$U$8,SUMPRODUCT(($F$3:$U$8=VLOOKUP(N10,'PC stat share'!$E$3:$G$61,2,FALSE))*ROW($F$3:$U$8))-ROW($F$3:$U$8)+1,SUMPRODUCT(($F$3:$U$8=VLOOKUP(N10,'PC stat share'!$E$3:$G$61,2,FALSE))*COLUMN($F$3:$U$8))-COLUMN($F$22:$U$27)+1+3)

Using the section of formula shown above, Excel can begin to calculate the characters 'Smooth Talk' stat. The reference of N10 is where that stat is shown on the sheet. And from this first and more complex half of the calculation, Excel can now find that 'Haggle' is the required skill, which has a score of 9. Thanks, Excel, you're doing a great job!

The second half of the stat calculation is far easier...
INDEX($A$4:$D$12,MATCH(VLOOKUP(N10,'PC stat share'!$E$3:$G$61,3,FALSE)&"*",$A$4:$A$12,0),4)

An INDEX/MATCH formula looks up which primary stat is required to be added and then gives the appropriate detail of that stat. In this case, it looks for the stat 'Smarts' in which this character has 9 points. Yeah, nice one Excel.. whatever...

And finally-

After much effort, Excel can now lookup (based on the name of a character's stat) what the secondary stat is calculated as, and then include that into the secondary stat calculation.

Smooth talk requires the calculation of the characters 'Haggle' stat score, added to the characters 'Smarts' primary stat. Reduced by 1 and then divided by 2.

To be done by hand this is super easy; Haggle is 9, Smarts is 9, that's 18. And then -1 for 17, finally divided by 2 for a score of 8.5 which is rounded down to 8. And while I could very, very simply do this just in my head, I don't fancy doing so more than 200 times if I decide to change the requirements of a stat, or the primary statistics of a character.

Getting this calculation right took me the better part of two nights of work, and all so I could be lazy.

And it didn't even calculate the number 10 this time...

Number 10

Just like anyone with an email account I get spam email. It just so happens that I have seven email accounts, each of which operates for different uses. Sadly this means I have seven spam folders, and fittingly, seven times as much spam.

For the most part, this is irrelevant, and I usually just eject the miscreant messages into the digital aether, no harm, no foul. Just occasionally, I sometimes find a nugget of interest among the pebbles and detritus of pill offers and bitcoin scams.

Not too long ago, I found an email which I ended up reading out at a live open mic poetry session, such was I taken with it. I'm not usually one to do stand up poetry, but a strange coincidence of events brought it about. And It was actually a little fun.

Today I found a very spammy email. One which in its awfulness just made me smile. My spontaneous smile also then made me sad because I realise that no matter just how terrible the grammar, and regardless of the apparently amusing child-like written nature of the words, this email is written specifically to entice a portion of the population into clicking its included link... and I must assume, that it achieves this goal with enough success that it was worth writing and sending.

Here's the email:

Good day, I'm Alyssa, I'm 24 years old. It's very monotonous near to me, I wish a man to make me a pretty words:( Can U check out my romantic pics, perhaps I can delight u with my stretchy butt, considering that on all of this images I'm clothed only in very small panties. I eagerly desire to lay in the secure men's palms, I just would like U to hit my tits, lick my young kitty, take me on the table... Take a good look at my pics and write in my dating profile, don't make me wait! We can easily spend it lots more interesting ;)

[link removed]

It starts quite well as far as introductions go, a little bit forward maybe, but it is an introduction without notable fault. But from the second sentence on, it's a highway crash of words and nonsense. And the fact that I have drawn the conclusion that there are people that fall for this just makes me sad for humanity

If there are people that are curious enough or compelled enough by this that the click a link, one which I'm certain will not work out well. I'm baffled how we as a species even managed to successfully propagate when clearly there is a gene for utter blind, self-harming stupidity.

But, I'm a curious fellow, and I'm hopefully tech-savvy enough to bypass any potential threat so, I fire up the necessary digital precations and take a look behind the curtain. Sadly, I find nothing amazing, or even unexpected just a few popped windows for "dating" sites all of which are clearly aimed at men. Maybe If I'd followed the links there'd be an email sign up of some kind and that might be the real trap, but I'm really just not that bothered in finding out and so my interest of the email fades away.

I do however take a little joy, just from the line; "perhaps I can delight u with my stretchy butt". I mean, I know what they were intending, but that particular phrasing just makes me chuckle.

If I leave any sentiment from this waffling rant, it's this:

STOP CLICKING ON RANDOM OR UNKNOWN LINKS!

Spam? More like Spasm...

Okay, it's been a forever since I've posted anything pretty much anywhere, the infinite void of the internet holds no interest for me to have my words heard or read any more, but I felt I needed to post this because it's subject is pissing me off...

Or at the very least, I think it's pissing me off, I may yet find it's actually not, and I'm just venting over nothing.

So, here's the schtick, I like hanging about on Quora, for a while I even thought I 'liked' answering questions there, I felt as though I was helping spread a little learning, some positive (I hope...) opinions and making things better.

This feeling has died now and I'm left feeling confused and slightly angry at the Quora site.

As I see it, at the very heart of Quora is the concept of a question & an answer, perhaps not always a good or correct answer, but an answer, inquiry met with feedback, an honest two-way interaction of inquisitive minds and those with the information to feed forward.

But now, I'm jaded, I see a website filled with questions which with even a tiny amount of research are easily answered elsewhere, questions phrased and clearly intoned to be aggravating or 'trolling' and questions which seem to fill no other role than an abuse of the fact that asking questions is rewarded with a share of the site profits (no doubt because of the increase in ad revenue those same questions draw into the site)

Cash for Shit, bring out your shit!

If I might stick with the last point, it seems ass-backwards that a really shit question is rewarded, but a superb, well written and meticulously explained answer yields it's progenitor no benefit.

Someone asking "is the outcome of 2+2 different on Tuesdays" would likely get a few hundred views, maybe even some earnest answers, and probably a few 'triggered' answers too...

But that question, regardless of how inane it may be, will earn the asker some cash. The asker can then go on to ask the exact same question but rephrased replacing "Tuesdays" with Monday, or June, or 2006... each time they do, being rewarded for their effort and clogging up the site with ever more redundant and objectively poor content.

But, hypothetically; if a theoretical physicist, one whom also has a deep and well-educated grasp of quantum theory and chaos theory (or whatever) were to drop by and give a lengthy and detailed 'actual' answer explaining how even basic mathematics is affected by some hitherto unknown esoteric scientific theorem.

That answer, the sum of their extensive learning, experience, and the time they'd given to put together the answer. Is somehow less valuable?

Fucking what?

And so, I come to realise that once again, idiocy, banality and feigned ignorance are being rewarded while talent, ability and a willingness to help are simply ignored, or even worse - are abused.

Sigh.

I've no doubt I'll continue to read, and even post on Quora, but I do so feeling somewhat ashamed that I cannot find a better use of my time and a little depressed that I continue to sink in an intellectual mire of self-depreciation.

Happy Christmas folks.

Quora Qualms

Warning - Extreme Rant Ahead!

Okay, maybe not 'extreme' but I am going to vent. I have an issue. In fact, I have such an issue that it is other peoples' issue too. I'm sure you all have experienced, either online, or perhaps in-person a sales experience, or customer service experience in which you are politely asked to provide a feedback rating of your days' undertakings..,

Well, IT'S ALL BULLSHIT.

It's bullshit form a customers perspective. It's bullshit from an employees perspective and, when you boil down the elements it's bullshit even from a corporate perspective. And here's my take on why this is.

Story time!

Here I am, Joe Bloggs at Coffee-O-Rama. I've ordered my usual, a skinny-mocha-latte-frapp with hazel syrup and a squirt of cream, y'know.. like any other sane human.

I grab my drink and head to the darkest corner to plot world domination as I enjoy my beverage, I find a little card tucked under my cup... "please rate your visit" the cheery typography chimes at me. Below are three mundane questions each with a 5-star rating to tick.

Was your drink made on the shores of the forgotten lake of Nahelhotep?
Did your server renounce all worldly possessions and swear fealty to you?
Did your drink cost more than the familial income of most small countries?

Well, something along those lines.

And here's where the bullshit begins...

Bullshit Part 1 - The employee

The server, a sweaty looking teenager that has a glazed look on their face will likely have a 'Managerial feedback' process which may or may not include some actual monetary bonus based on the cumulative effect of these little cards. But, generally, and in nearly every example I've found to date... ONLY under the proviso that X% of their card feedback is all ranked as 5 out of 5

And so begins the corporate shaming of any service that isn't seen as FUCKING GOD LIKE.. which in itself is a failing of a company to recognise two things...

Bullshit Part 2 - The customer

As an adult, and being capable of what I hope is rational thought, I have the ability to judge for myself how content I am by any given thing. Being stabbed by an angry and confused meth-fueled-mouse: not so happy about. Being given a shoulder rub by an attractive lady: Pretty happy about. It's not a linear scale, nor does it have a defined frame of reference but sufficed to say I can inwardly decide if I'm happy or unhappy.

And so, a coffee, which required that I take out a mortgage while enjoyable isn't about to have me writhing on the floor in ecstasy. As a customer I have to be aware of certain things, my role in the transaction is to be 'happy' with the outcome.

Most transactions occur without incident and would as an impartial reference be considered 'the norm' - and so in marking the card, I see 1-star as a terrible experience and 5-star being a very good or even extraordinary experience. That means that my mundane morning coffee acquisition which went just fine can only be seen as a 3, perhaps 4 if I'm in a good mood.

BUT WAIT... I didn't mark it as 5? WHAT THE FUCK!?>! AM I CRAZY?

I know from past experience that anything other than 5 means the poor lad that served me isn't going to be up for that end of month bonus. And yet still I did it...

Well here's the thing, my experience WASN'T a 5-star experience, was I greeted politely upon entering and approaching the counter? Did they hurry me or perhaps did they offer assistance in my beverage choice? Did they clean a table for me to sit at? Did they bring my drink over to me, perhaps offer me a paper to read?

There are so many nuanced elements of interaction even in this hypothetical coffee shop that to have a 5-star experience I, as a customer, need to become cognitively aware that something has happened to elevate me from 'buying a coffee' to 'having an enjoyable experience'. if these things do not seep into my brain to be acknowledged then the server has failed to reach that 5-star...

But that doesn't mean they did a bad job, merely that they did their job as would be expected of them. especially when a lot of folks that endure these 'graded' service feedback are on unimpressive wages and have little reason to exert themselves unnecessarily, I cannot begrudge them that.

And so... In my mind, a score of 3 is just fine, the job was done, I am satisfied, the world continues to spin.

Bullshit part 3 - Corporate / Business interest

Now, I don't profess to be a business boffin (I'd be earning a fuckton more if I were) but I think I grasp the basics, please stop me If I'm wrong:

Businesses want to make money

Was I close? Well anyway, I'll continue. In the process of making money a business has to be aware of how efficient it is being, what it's business practice costs financially and the potential gains of its practice. And here's where the 5-star fuckwaddery reaches an all-time peak bullshit.

Let us presume, that poor server lad is now asking that customers give 5 stars so he can get his bonus burrito, and let us assume that all customers are dullards and actually do mark 5 stars on their cards...

This, this selection of lies washes over the most fundamental ideal of business... because now, regardless if that server spat in my drink, throws it over me all while insulting my mother, I mark the card 5 stars but never return for more business...

The managers, looking at their feedback see's a clear 5-star feedback, but their losing money? "how can this be?" they bemusedly wonder?

It's because anytime a customer gives feedback, it should be exactly that their feedback. When it becomes polluted because of incentive or reprisal driven managerial details which only accepts a 5 as being 'acceptable' that feedback is no longer helpful.

Rant summing up

I apologise this was a long one, and if you made it through, thanks for bearing with me.

Let me wrap up by saying this, Customers should be allowed to have 'just okay' experiences... it's what we have most of the time. However, when good things happen, we as customers should be responsible to properly feeding it back, just the same as when something bad occurs.

Retail workers, customer service agents and the rest need to be allowed to just 'be good enough' for most of their working effort they will likely be 'good enough' and that should be okay, not something to be scolded about. But again, If an employee does go above and beyond, or if they're falling short there needs to be proper recognition of their work, good or bad.

And businesses need to take more into account when measuring their business processes. Attention needs to be paid to shortcomings and proportional congratulations or reprimands made where their employees are involved.

And so, please, rate out of 5 your blog reading experience today...

Please rate your experience...

This is a thing that's very recently annoyed me... eBay feedback beggars.
It's story-rant time folks!

So, here I am... I am Joe Shmo, the customer...

I go to buy a thing. I buy it and then after I have received it I'm asked by the dude that sold it to me (or more accurately I'm asked by the service through which the item is sold) - "hey chap, would you leave some feedback about your purchase experience so that others can know how the seller is?!"

Which is good, I think it's awesome that we the customer are granted power.

But that power is a two-way street... and involves the seller meeting their promises.

Accurate Feedback

So, when I leave NEGATIVE FEEDBACK, it is for a reason. That reason is that I am informing future customers of my experience so that they can be aware when, or before they make their purchase.

If the seller says, sure I'll deliver it on about day X ... Aand it then arrives on day X+20 (yes, nearly three weeks late) I will damn sure be marking delivery as 'poor' and perhaps even making a comment of it in the 'description'. There's even a giant button at the top which completely encompasses such occurrences... It reads: "Did this item arrive on time? [ Yes ] [ No ]"

I'm not about to lie to other potential buyers, If it arrived late I'll damn well say so. If I wasn't happy I'LL DAMN WELL SAY SO.

Now, fast forward into a world post-purchase, post-feedback-leaving world. I've moved on with my life, my eBay thingy is here, the seller has my money, the exchange is complete.

But then, what's this in my Inbox? A message...? From the seller? (aside from correcting some punctuation I copy/pasted the following verbatim- )

"Dear friends，we have received your negative feedback from eBay regarding to the following item:[cool item number here yo]

We are really sorry for all the inconvenience caused. I hope I can solve the problem for you. if there is anything I can do for help, pls let me know,

Meanwhile, it would be much appreciate if you could revise the feedback to POSITIVE one, as it is really very important for me

We sincerely look forward to hearing from you soon and sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Best regards"

First off, I'm super, super stoked that there is an apology of sorts in there (I mean it, apologies are in short supply these days, regardless of sincerity the fact it's there is good stuff).

But, with apology accepted... I reply to them that No, I shall not change my feedback, to do so would be lying. I had rated the 'dispatch time' as poor because of a THREE WEEK DELAY ... And honestly, even giveing two stars out of 5 seems like I'm being kind. I guess I'm marking it as such because it did arrive, and was in one piece when it did so.

Oh There's a kicker;

After I formed this rant, but before I'd typed it all up... I went over to eBay and noted that the seller had not left me ANY feedback. Even though I paid immediately (PayPal via Android)

So, not only are they complaining about my accurate and IMHO, fair feedback ... but they've not even given me any or perhaps are about to give me negative feedback as some kinda blackmail bargain tool.

You know what, I think all in all I was right to mark as a negative experience, even now, well after the purchase, I'm still getting negative experience because of it.

Aaaaand /rant

TTFN peeps.

The crap that leaks from my brain, made tangible for others to see.