The first page of the CS website of the Uni. of Birmingham displays random images οf the links to the undergraduate/postgraduate and research sections of the site. I visited the website today and the following is a screenshot of the page I viewed.

So, the experience of a CS undergraduate in Birmingham=Pub drinking/eating/socialising…whatever… I don’t mind the message the image is trying to put across (even though I should probably mind)! However, I think the moment you visit the website this image strikes you as contradicting the site’s look and feel. What do I mean? In general the page is what you would expect to see in a CS department’s page… nerdy stuff! On the top there is the brain with the monitor to emphasise the strong AI background of the department. The image for the research is full of post-it notes. The image with the undergraduates in the pub… well it just doesn’t fit!

I am talking of course about Stewie Griffin, the baby from Family Guy! On http://www.stewielive.com/ you can interact with him. You type in a command and he replies. I played a bit and found out he responds to the following commands (in parentheses are my comments):

  • doctor
  • simpsons (that’s naaaastyyy as Cleveland would say!)
  • meg (I know quite a few women for whom Stewie’s opinion applies perfectly!)
  • brian
  • chris
  • kill lois (of course!)
  • deuce (of course!)
  • victory is mine (or broccoli)

Moreover he responds to the following commands:

money, dance, sex, eat, sleep, poo, ass, stewie, time machine, evil twin, quagmire, tricycle, walk, scratch, baby, damn it, bitch, fat, hands, blink, nose, mouth, spit, talk, mind control, god, cow, love.

On the other hand he doesn’t seem to respond to the following commands:

herbert (I mean come on… if stewie doesn’t have a line on an old, pervert paedophile… who does?), hair, bertram, shut up, fox, easter egg, seth, MacFarlane, Quahog, imbecile, cleveland, adam, west, teeth, diaper, sewing machine, car, beat up, Rupert, swim

YAP (Yet Another Post) on iPhone Annoyances

A couple of months ago I decided to become the proud owner of an iphone. The one I got is the UK version with the 1.1.4 firmware. I am also still using my old (really old) nokia 6210, which is an (almost) 8-year old phone. I became annoyed that my 8-year old phone has certain simple features the iphone doesn’t have. So:

Things nokia 6210 can do, but the current version of Iphone (firmware 1.1.4) can’t (at least without installing any additional packages):

  1. View how many characters you have typed in your SMS message. This is really important.. Continue reading