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new, old, surprise surprise
01 May 2014 20:38


Last weekend was a weekend of old vs new technology, and of surprises.

Old Technology: CGF Sprog 3 was doing her geography homework, which involved finding various rivers in Asia and drawing them on a map. The internet wasn't ever so good at this. Finding the rivers was fine, but the scale was too large to relate their location to the rest of the continent. And by zooming out to see more of the area, you lost the river. So we turned to old technology and got the atlas out. "What's one of those?" she asked. "Well," I explained, "It's like the internet, but you have to do the work. Instead of typing in the search field, you have to look it up in the index, and then manually turn to the page you need."

New Technology: We (well CGF) received a wedding invitation sent as an electronic card. Furthermore, the RSVP was a website where you enter the names of the guests, get travel directions, look at the gift list, and sign the guest book. All very efficient, but not very personal. I can't help thinking that some things are better with old-fashioned pen and ink.

Surprise 1: Watching (under duress) "Britain has no talent" on Saturday night, and one of CGF's former pupils appeared as of the acts. I won't tell you which one as a) you probably didn't watch the show so it would be meaningless and b) if you did, I wouldn't want to influence your voting preferences. You should vote for the act that you like best, not the one who know someone who knows someone who you know.

Surprise 2: This one was encountered by a colleague, who told us about it on Monday morning. One of his friends announced that at weekends he likes to put on a dress and goes by the name of Susan. Colleague was more shocked that he had known this person for twenty years and had no inkling of his secret life, rather than the secret life itself.

And in other news:

Fire alarms: We have had three emails this week advising that the fire alarms in our building are going to be tested. Begs the question as to why they weren't tested last week when we had a fire drill. And that raises the observation that as the building evacuation was carried out successfully, the alarms probably work. In any event, no alarms have been heard, which means either that the test was postponed, or it failed.

Table hogging: Something that I find annoying is when people hog tables in a coffee shop or cafe before they get their food. You know the scenario: the shop is busy and there's a bit of a queue. Someone in one of the queuing parties says "I'll go and grab a table". NO NO NO. Tables should be taken in the same order as people queue at the counter. Anything else is queue-jumping. Queue theory is a branch of statistics that I remember touching on at A-level (but can't remember much about it). Basically, you work out the likely number of customer and how long they are likely to stay and this tells you how many tables you need. If it is calculated correctly, no one needs to grab a table because one will come free just as you reach the end of the counter and pay for your food. My maths teacher said that the cafe at the National Theatre had it sussed as you could always find a table no matter how busy it seemed. Grabbing a table just messes the whole thing up.

Mum visit: Mum's visit to the UK starts next week and she and CGF will meet each other for the first time. That's a bit of a scary thought. Not because I'm worried that they won't get on; more that they will get on too well and gang-up on me in a girly way.

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