http://creativeflurries.com Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:34:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en How often do you fire up Excel just to do some simple data analysis? Meanawk '{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;}'") Mediansort -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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2007/05/21/awk-for-data-processing/ 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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2007/03/05/where-to-buy-root-beer-in-london/ 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! ... http://creativeflurries.com/2007/01/02/want-to-vent-some-not-on-my-skiing-holiday-yet-frustration/ 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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2007/01/01/the-undercover-economist/ 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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2006/12/03/live-looping-joe-driscoll-cargo/ 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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2006/11/12/this-life/ 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 - ... http://creativeflurries.com/2006/10/05/google-codesearch-and-a-design-patterns-fight-off/ 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, ... http://creativeflurries.com/2006/09/27/pesto-pork-loin-with-patatas-bravas-and-rocket/ 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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2006/09/24/plug-in-cars-podcast-about-tesla-motors/ 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 ... http://creativeflurries.com/2006/09/24/touchscreen-sketches/