Flurries of Latent Creativity

awk for data processing

dps — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:20:44 +0000

How often do you fire up Excel just to do some simple data analysis?

Mean
awk ‘{s=s+$1;n++} END {print s/n;}’
(of course you might like to say alias mean=”awk ‘{s=s+\$1;n++;} END {print s/n;}’”)

Median
sort -n | awk ‘BEGIN {n=0} {d[n]=$1;n++;} END {CONVFMT=”%.f”;print d[n/2];}’
Histogram!sort -n | awk ‘BEGIN {CONVFMT=”%.f”;} {g=”" ($1/10);print g*10;}’ | uniq -c | awk ‘BEGIN {m=0;} {if ($1>m) m=$1; d[$2]=$1;} END {CONVFMT=”%.f”;for (a in d) {n=(d[a]*(80/m));b=”";for (i=0;i

Where to buy Root Beer in London

dps — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:15:38 +0000

A convert/addict after one or two too many bottomless sodas in the States, I have for several months been searching for Root Beer in London. You might think this should be a simple quest, but despite the number of US visitors they must receive daily Harvey Nicks, Selfridges and Harrods food halls all left me drawing a blank. Finally, Felicity discovered at Christmas that Partridges on the Kings Rd sells cans of A&W root beer at £1.20 per can. Mmmm… But still I was missing my favourite brand Barqs. Imagine my delight to discover a new shop called CyberCandy in Covent Garden (map) selling cans of Barqs for £1.10. You can also buy direct from their website and they carry full-fat and diet A&W as well as Barqs. Lovely.

Want to vent some not-on-my-skiing-holiday yet frustration?

dps — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:00:59 +0000

Check out this great little Flash game called line rider at http://official-linerider.com/play.html. You draw a slope and the little man sledges down it… then you waste hours and hours making him do cool tricks. The Physics they’ve achieved in the game make this little guy very enchanting! Here’s a video of the best course I’ve managed to come up with so far:

The Undercover Economist

dps — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 22:50:23 +0000

I’ve just finished reading The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. It’s an excellent introduction to "real world" economics. The book begins with a brisk and fun analysis of the price of coffee (and particularly why the coffee in Waterloo station costs so much…) and eventually explains how China got Rich (or at least, richer), visiting some basic economic theory, how to reduce traffic congestion, trade liberalization/globalization, auction design and more along the way. It’s all written in an immediately accessible style which you can sample in some of Tim Harford’s other writing, and his Dear Economist column from the FT. I really enjoyed the book and learned a lot (that I thought I already knew, but didn’t really understand in the same way). Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics was the other hit popular economics book of 2006 (which was also a great read, bar the final chapter on baby names), but The Undercover Economist taught me more and kept me hooked to the last page. Highly recommended.

Live Looping - Joe Driscoll @ cargo

dps — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 18:48:01 +0000

At Simon’s suggestion, we went to Joe Driscoll’s awesome album launch at Cargo on Wednesday night. His performances use Live Looping - right there on stage, he first lays down a live beatbox drum loop and then gradually layers bass (in some tracks, involving a digeridoo!) etc on top until there’s enough texture for him to break into a verse. It’s amazing to hear a full band sound come from just one guy on stage. Here’s a video of him performing at Cargo earlier in the year on YouTube.

Also check out: joedriscoll.net or his myspace page (which has more tracks to listen to). You can see loads of photos of the Cargo night on flickr here. His new album is called Origin Myth.

This Life is back!

dps — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:11:20 +0000

Back in 1997, I became fairly addicted to the second series of a late-night cult BBC show, This Life, charting the lives and loves of a bunch of house sharing twenty-something lawyers in London. It was ground breaking at the time, shot in fast shaky real-life closeups, sparing no blushes and dealing frankly with controversial subjects (which kept it in its late night timeslot as it grew in popularity); I loved it. I rediscovered the series again in 2000 when I managed to get hold of the first series on DVD (to my disappointment, they didn’t launch DVDs of the 2nd). Well… Great news, Anna, Miles, Milly and Egg are back! The BBC have commissioned a ten years on special to be shown at Christmas and in anticipation, they’re re-running every episode in Monday - Thursday double bills straight after Newsnight. The Series 2 DVD I longed for has also hit the shelves! It’s amazing how the series continues to resonate 10 years on [now many of my friends *are* twenty something lawyers in London!]. It’s also amazing how some of the ground breaking innovations now look like old hat (shaky closeup camera work, dealing bluntly with no longer so taboo issues) and bizarrely, I now live on the same street as the housemates did back then. Don’t forget to tune in - BBC2 all this week.

Google codesearch and a Design Patterns fight-off

dps — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 13:09:30 +0000

Google has just launched a great new search tool - Google codesearch searches over public sourcecode.

I decided to have some (very unscientific) fun by searching for the names of the Design Patterns from the GoF book to see which are the most popular. And the results are in - the winner (rather unsurprisingly) is the State pattern!. NB Singleton (my Surname) is about halfway down. Click on the graph to see the detailed results!

Pesto Pork loin with Patatas Bravas and Rocket

dps — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:07:00 +0000

This was a delicious meal I cooked for Felicity and myself a few weeks ago. I’ve finally got round to writing down the recipe for everyone who requested it:

serves 2

2 pork loin pieces, 6 tsp green pesto, one medium onion, 8 - 10 fresh or 1 tin chopped tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, 200g new potatoes, 1 tsp hot chilli powder, 50g rocket leaves, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil.

Wash and quarter the potatoes (no need to peel them) and set them parboiling for approx. 10 minutes. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion; press or finely chop the garlic cloves and fry together in the olive oil until the garlic turns golden, add the chilli powder. Drain the potatoes and fry with the onion for 4-5 mins. Add the tomatoes and allow them to simmer for a further 10-12 mins.

Slice each pork loin deeply along one side to form a little pocket and stuff 1 tsp pesto into each. If you have a couple of basil leaves, stuff them in too. Now, grill/fry the loins in a cast iron griddle pan for 5 mins on each side until cooked through and so that any fat along the side turns crispy at the top. Spoon two tsp pesto on top of each loin and spread evenly; cook for a further 1 min on the pesto side.

To serve, prepare a bed of rocket on each plate; spoon over the patatas bravas and place a pork loin delicately on top. Enjoy!

“Plug-in Cars” - podcast about Tesla Motors

dps — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:00:14 +0000

I tagged it below, but would just like to re-iterate that the current episode of the BBC Radio 4 In Business Podcast “Plug-in Cars” is very well worth a listen. It’s about Tesla Motors - a Silicon Valley based startup building desirable high-performance electric powered cars. They have several working prototypes powered by Li-ion batteries (just like the ones in your laptop) which do 0-60 in 4s and go on to a max of 130 mph. The production models will sell for $100k and are to be manufactured alongside Lotus Elise units in Norfolk, of all places! The BBC’s treatment is a little quaint, but the end product very interesing. Grab the mp3 before they replace it with the next episode.

touchscreen sketches

dps — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 19:11:51 +0000

Back in 2004 I had a Nokia 7710 for a while, and tonight I just rediscovered its MMC card, complete with a number of fun sketches I had made with it. I’ve created a Flickr set of my favourites. There’s even a fun sequence of iPod ad parodies - check it out!