In the Navel of the Moon

Question: which country’s name translates literally as “In the Navel of the Moon”?

I recently came across this fascinating map which gives the literal translation of every country name. Some are very pedestrian, but some are fascinating. (I’m not sure why it’s on a site dedicated to comparing credit cards, but other places I’ve found it give them the credit. If this is an SEO thing, I’m happy to reward them for producing decent content…) Most appropriately, Canada apparently means “The Village”…

Eurovision Bingo (yet again)

Some people say that all Eurovision songs are the same. That’s probably not quite true, but there is perhaps a hint of truth in the suggestion that some themes tend to recur from year to year. Hence, I thought, Eurovision Bingo.

I wrote some code to analyse a directory full of lyrics, normally those from the previous year of the competition, and work out the frequency of occurrence of each word. It will then generate Bingo cards, with sets of words of different levels of commonness. You can then use them to play Bingo while watching this year’s competition (which is on Saturday).

There’s a Github repo, or if you want to go straight to pre-generated cards for this year, they are here.

Here’s a sample card from the 2014 lyrics:

fell cause rising gonna rain
world believe dancing hold once
every mean LOVE something chance
hey show or passed say
because light hard home heart

Have fun :-)

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain come highly recommended. My wife and I saw them last night in Leicester’s De Montfort Hall, and had a wonderful time. They take themselves only semi-seriously, and play a wide range of music; if you’ve never heard Blur’s Song2 played on a bank of eight massed ukuleles, your cultural education is not complete.

They play all around the world, so hopefully there’s a date near you in the next six months.

Eurovision Bingo (chorus)

Some people say that all Eurovision songs are the same. (And some say all blog posts on this topic are the same…) That’s probably not quite true, but there is perhaps a hint of truth in the suggestion that some themes tend to recur from year to year. Hence, I thought, Eurovision Bingo.

I wrote some code to analyse a directory full of lyrics, normally those from the previous year of the competition, and work out the frequency of occurrence of each word. It will then generate Bingo cards, with sets of words of different levels of commonness. You can then use them to play Bingo while watching this year’s competition (which is on Saturday).

There’s a Github repo, or if you want to go straight to pre-generated cards for this year, they are here.

Here’s a sample card from the 2014 lyrics:

fell cause rising gonna rain
world believe dancing hold once
every mean LOVE something chance
hey show or passed say
because light hard home heart

Have fun :-)

Free Download of UFO: Enemy Unknown

The best computer game ever, bar none, “UFO: Enemy Unknown” (known as “XCOM: UFO Defense” in the USA) is currently available for free for the next day or so from the Humble Bundle website. And once you have a legit copy of the data files, you can play it (on OSes other than Windows, as well!) using the OpenXCOM reimplementation of the game engine. Launch Interceptors!

Modern Communications

I just sent something very like the following to someone buying a house from me:

This text is to tell you that I just emailed you a PDF copy of the fax my solicitor just sent your solicitor, containing the email he originally sent last week which your solicitor claimed he didn’t get, plus the confirmation that the fax was received.

Religions Their Parents Don’t Belong To

More from the excellent “Stuff White People Like“:

2. Religions Their Parents Don’t Belong To. White people will often say they are “spiritual” but not religious. This usually means they will believe in any religion which doesn’t involve Jesus. The most popular choices include Buddhism, Hinduism, Kabbalah and, to a lesser extent, Scientology. A few even dip into Islam, but that’s much rarer, since you have to make real sacrifices and actually go to a mosque.

For the most part, white people prefer religions that produce artifacts and furniture that fit into their home or wardrobe. They are also particularly drawn to religions that do not require a lot of commitment or donations.

Christmas Carols Words Booklet

Morland, the village in Cumbria where I grew up, recently formed a Community Choir, and every Christmas they have a carolling session at the local pub, the Crown Inn. Most of the carols they sing come from the venerable “Carols For Choirs, Book 1“, generally known as the Green Book (other books in the series are orange, blue, and the lesser-known red). There aren’t enough of those to go round, and many participants in the sing-song don’t read music, so in order that everyone might be able to see the words, they used to use some old carol sheets.

However, this were problematic because the sheets didn’t contain all the carols that they wanted to sing and, when they did, the words were sometimes different to those in the Green Book, leading to confusion.

Hence, I have created and typeset “Carols at the Crown“, a 28-page booklet of the words to some of our language’s most famous and God-honouring carols, together with brief explanations and context for each one, and a paragraph on the importance of Christmas on the back. For those carols with multiple translations, adaptions or updatings, the version of words chosen follows the Green Book for those which are in there. Feel free to use and adapt it for your church, community choir or other group.

To the extent that I have a copyright interest in it, this booklet is available under Creative Commons CC-0, which means you can do what you like with it without needing to do anything in return, including crediting me. Note that some of the words in the book are still under copyright, and so you will need to make whatever arrangements are necessary (e.g. for churches, putting your CCLI number on the back page) to make sure that’s OK.

If you are printing it, you may find my booklet printing page order calculator useful. :-)

A Measure of Globalization

A couple of weeks ago, I decided I needed a steel 15cm ruler. This sort of ruler doesn’t have a margin at one end, and so is good for measuring distances away from walls and other obstructions. I found one on Amazon for 88p including delivery and, thinking that was excellent value, clicked “Buy now with 1-Click” and thought no more of it.

Today, after a slightly longer delay than I expected, it arrived. From Shenzhen.

I knew container transport by sea is cheap, but I am amazed that 88p can cover the cost of the ruler, the postage in China, the air freight, a payment to the delivery firm in the UK, and some profit. And, notwithstanding my copy of “Poorly Made in China” which arrived the same day and which I have not yet read, the quality seems fine…

Church Member Flummoxed By Non-Standard Sermon Application

I’ve been enjoying The Babylon Bee recently. Here’s a submission which apparently did not make the grade over there:

DAYTON, OH—The household of George Arnason, a faithful church member at the Seventh Street Bible Church in Dayton, Ohio, has been reportedly thrown into confusion after a visiting preacher gave a sermon where the application did not involve any exhortations to read the Bible more, pray more or evangelise more.

Sermons at Seventh Street are normally given by Rev. Jeremiah Scholes, who has been the minister for the last 43 years, and has presided over a period of unparalleled stability in the membership and teaching. The trouble arose when Mr Steven Prendeghast, who was asked to speak because he is a candidate for the pastorship when Mr Scholes retires, preached on Matthew 22:36-40, with the controversial application being to “love your neighbour”.

“A passage like that, I’d expect to be a ‘read the Bible more’ passage”, said Mr Arnason. “After all, it does say to love the Lord with all your mind, and it mentions the Law and the Prophets. Those are two parts of the Bible, you know”, he explained helpfully.

Rev. Scholes was unavailable for interview but issued a written statement to the Bee. “At Seventh Street, we are clear on the fundamentals of the faith. All passages of scripture instruct us to either read our Bibles more, pray more, or evangelise more – or even two or three of those things at once, for the really practical passages in Paul’s letters. That’s what our church has been faithfully teaching since 1878 and, God willing, will still be teaching it long after I’ve gone. The elders will be reviewing the cassette of this guest sermon to find out what went wrong.”

Mr Arnason proudly showed off his sermon application calendar. “I bought a three-pack of markers, ” he explained, “and I use this to keep track of what we’re learning. ‘Read the Bible More’ Sundays get coloured in red, ‘Pray More’ Sundays in green, and ‘Evangelise More’ Sundays in blue. Those are the three primary colours, so if the preacher makes more than one application on a given Sunday, I can cope with it by blending.” But the recent sermon has thrown the viability of this scheme into doubt. “Love your neighbour? I don’t have a colour for that,” he said worriedly.

Mr Arnason was last seen getting into his car, reportedly on his way to Staples.

Eurovision Bingo (again)

Some people say that all Eurovision songs are the same. (And some say all blog posts on this topic are the same…) That’s probably not quite true, but there is perhaps a hint of truth in the suggestion that some themes tend to recur from year to year. Hence, I thought, Eurovision Bingo.

I wrote some code to analyse a directory full of lyrics, normally those from the previous year of the competition, and work out the frequency of occurrence of each word. It will then generate Bingo cards, with sets of words of different levels of commonness. You can then use them to play Bingo while watching this year’s competition (which is on Saturday).

There’s a Github repo, or if you want to go straight to pre-generated cards for this year, they are here.

Here’s a sample card from the 2014 lyrics:

fell cause rising gonna rain
world believe dancing hold once
every mean LOVE something chance
hey show or passed say
because light hard home heart

Have fun :-)

Facebook Switches Off Email Forwarding

You remember that email address @facebook.com that Facebook set up for you in 2010, and then told everyone viewing your Facebook profile to use in 2012 (without asking)?

Well, they are now breaking it:

Hello Gervase,

You received this email because your gerv.markham@facebook.com account is set up to forward messages to [personal email address]. After 1 May 2016, you will no longer be able to receive email sent to gerv.markham@facebook.com.

Please update your email address for any services that currently send email to gerv.markham@facebook.com.

Thank You,
Email Team at Facebook

Good work all round, there, Facebook.