The Fry Effect

Thanks to Kate Smurthwaite and Stephen Fry, my new blog (God and Son) has had a very good first couple of weeks.

Today was spectacular, thanks to ‘The Fry Effect‘… A  single retweet by Stephen Fry and God & Son went ballistic… Within a couple of minutes over 2,500 people had visited the blog…. This quieted down to about 1 hit a second for the next 3 hours….

I don’t expect to keep up such incredible numbers, but the initial publicity is fantastic!

This is the link he re-tweeted: http://wp.me/p2mtvw-2N (Pop Goes Your Head)

And this is the effect after 3 hours….

During typing this blog entry, another 1000 hits have taken place….

Crazy….

I figure (and this works quite well on ‘celebs’…)

• 25% of a Twitterers followers are active (the rest just add them as a friend and don’t really interact).
• 1% of them would click a link the Tweeter posts.
• 1% of them will be repeat site visitors.
• This worked out pretty accurate when Wossy re-tweeted my Twitter Guide.

So.. for Mr Fry:

Over 4,200,000 followers… my theory says 1,050,000 active…. so 10,500 people will click the link and 105 will be repeat visitors.
So far, 14,000 people have hit my site today, so I’m a little out, but that is down to how many ‘ripple effect‘ re-tweets.

The ‘ripple effect‘ re-tweets work out just the same as the initial re-tweeting. Someone re-tweets the initial re-tweet…. Fry re-tweets me, someone re-tweets Fry…. someone re-tweets the person who re-tweeted Fry… etc

The percentage breakdown of those ripple tweeters followers now add to the hits my site gets… which explains the additional 4,000 hits above the theorised 10,000 initial hits from Stephen Fry.

At 10,000 hits I did notice a drop in hits per minute…. from 75 per minute to 50 per minute… which would suggest the initial Fry effect was now being passed over to the effect that HIS re-tweeters were giving me.

It all works out somehow….

Anyway, as a rule of thumb, it’s not too bad…

Rusty Gob Iron Blues

Once upon a time I used to be pretty nimble playing the blues harmonica (blues harp / gob iron). I’ve played a few impromptu gigs, jammed backstage with bands at concerts, and randomly joined in with street blues performers who noticed I had a harp in my pocket (shut up….you KNOW what I mean).

I haven’t played/practised for quite some time, but hey, It’s a bit like riding a bike…. At first it is a struggle to get going, but after a while – and a fair bit of frustration – you get the hang of it… and then you get good…. You start to pull a few tricks and the more you do it, the better you get.

You never forget how to do it, but after a break from doing it, you do lose the subtleties and wobble a bit… You need to keep practising.

So yeah…. Several years down the line I’m talking to a friend who is starting to play and foolishly say I’d post a clip of me playing.

First the excuses….

Rusty from lack of playing, cheap microphone and a cold… Yet I promised a twitter friend @AliQuant, that I’d lay down some bits and pieces of me on my old blues harps… I had no idea what I was going to play, so this was all off of the cuff.

Hence…. “Rusty Gob Iron Blues“….. Not exactly fast and furious… but then again, I like my blues dirty.

I like the Delta Blues scene. Simple call back blues – Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson… A bit dirty, a bit gritty, but full of life.

This recording showed me that I have the right ideas still…. but Jeeeeeez, I need to practice and get it back together!

Twitter Collapse

It’s that time of year when SMS, email, phone networks and so called social networks all grind to a constipated halt, just letting out dribs and drabs of messages  in flatulent bursts….

With that in mind, I hope that this WordPress blog entry gets out to you all!

From all in the Black household, be that human, hen, cat or horse….

….. We wish you all a…

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2012

Click image to biggerfy it

Be quiet! What’s that smell?

A couple of old amusing anecdotes suddenly popped into my head today.

I was reading some tweets and saw someone state:

I have a sore neck. I think I slept funny.

Now it’s not funny… but it made my mind go off on a tangent…. so I posted a tweet saying:

I woke up with a painted face, wearing clown shoes, baggy trousers & a hat with pom-poms on. I think I slept funny.

Whilst in that daft mood I then posted:

Isn’t it lucky that an orange is orange  I mean, fancy the name matching the colour…..

That’s when it hit me…. the orange comment wasn’t as new as I thought. It was back when I was studying standardisation for my quality qualifications that I had heard something similar said in all seriousness….

Before standard measurements came along (very basic explanation coming up), people would buy a jug of beer in one pub, and it would be different amount of beer to a jug of beer in another (for example….) and it would cost a goat. No one knew really what the value of a goat was – or how much the beer cost per pint or litre… because there were no units to measure anything.

You couldn’t write a cook book and expect people to get the same results, as a pinch of this, a spoon of that, meant nothing – people had different spoons and different size pinches… You try to explain to someone how to make a cake WITHOUT referring to measurements…. and that includes TIME… Hell, try to tell someone how long a film lasts WITHOUT using time…

Eventually measurements standardised (although we still have duplicate measurements – metres/yards etc – but we at least know what a yard or metre is where ever we are in the world). The SI system (metric) was introduced – Within this you get your metres, seconds, kilograms etc.

Each measurement had to have come from somewhere, and very simply put, a kilogram was defined as the weight of 1 litre of water.

On being told this, one of the guys in the class earnestly said :

How did they know that 1 litre of water would weight a kilogram?

It was one of those times when, no matter how you explained it, the guy already had the thought locked in his head and it was near impossible to explain: There was NO kilogram… then someone weighed 1 litre of water and said “From this point on, this will be a kilogram“… to which he responded… “Yes, but how did they know it would be a kilogram…?“.

We all tried to explain again – that one day there was no kilogram, and then they weighed a litre of water and said that it would be a kilogram…

He looked like he’d got it that time… until he said: “It was a bit lucky that the litre weighed a kilogram then….”

Great guy – and we’ve all been there. It’s a bit like the picture of the old lady/young girl. Once you have the idea in your head that it is the old lady, it’s hard to see it any other way…

The same guy made another classic ‘logic brain freeze’ comment during the time we were studying the statistical side of quality management when we had to work with algebra.

Algebra scares people – but they use it everyday without being aware they are doing it.

If you didn’t know, algebra is (very basically) where numbers are substituted by letters to help solve problems. You do it all the time without realising it – like calculating shopping lists, figuring out how long a car journey will take, etc.

A very common bit of algebra is used for telling you the fuel economy of a car – MPG (miles per gallon).

If you do 50 miles for each gallon of fuel, then you can pretty easily figure out that for 10 gallons you could go 500 miles… that’s simple algebra…. 50miles/1gallon = 500miles/10gallons.

Anyway, this guy had managed to get through life without realising what algebra was, or that he did it anyway without realising it. I explained it briefly to him as he really needed to know it for the subject we were doing.

To help, I gave him a quick example to work out:

“What is A if A+3 =5?”

Straight away it clicked with him. “Oh yeah! A is 2… I see what you mean!”

Fantastic… that was easy.

Next thing you know and the instructor was writing up a huge formula on the board. Loads of numbers and letters to solve and find out the answer to some statistical analysis.

The board was covered with X,Y, Z’s and A,B,C’s along with a multitude of numbers. This was going to take some solving…

As the instructor finally finished making the board more white than black, he turned and smugly said…”You have 45 minutes left of the lesson today, so solve this and you can knock of early… ha ha ha….”

In a flash, my newly trained algebraic mate threw his hand up with a massive smile on his face…

“A is 2…….”

The instructor looked at him and asked what on earth he was on about (he was so far wrong it was laughable…).

“A… it’s 2……..Lucas told me…”

Okay…. maybe he needed more work…..

.

Lucas Black… That’s me, but not that one.

It keeps happening….

People see my name on Twitter and Facebook and think I am Lucas Black.

Okay…. the game is up… I AM Lucas Black…. but here’s the big shock…. I’m not THAT Lucas Black…

I even tried editing Wikipedia, but SOME lover of the ‘actor’ decided to edit out my FACTUAL addition to the information….

Click to embiggen...

I get asked “Am I REALLY Lucas Black?” …. Yes I am… so is he…

It’s not like I hide my blog or profile details from people. If you go to my Twitter page or Facebook page there is a link to this blog…. and there is even a good quality photo of me… not standing next to a pimped up Japanese racing car or small American gothic type town…

I feel sorry for the guy – He must get loads of questions about me. There he is looking through his fan mail and slowly he realises he doesn’t do half the things these people are talking about… He must read about this other Lucas Black and wish he was me. Well, it ain’t going happen Lucas “Fast and the Furious” Black…. you could never be me, but don’t feel too bad about it – at least you’ll always be the guy who isn’t Vin Diesel….

Me .... and another Lucas Black ... and another guy that the other Lucas Black isn't

Urban Myth Generation…

We need new urban myths…

In an idea kicked off by Nickie (friend on Twitter) …. how about spreading this baby and seeing how long it is until your friends report it back to you as “something that happened to their mates mate a few years ago….”

The basic myth:

A baker  working for a well known supermarket in Wolverhampton decided to get rid of his brothers huge stash of pot to try and get him off of drugs.

He took it to work to ditch later, but started to worry about getting caught on the way home, so put it in with the gingerbread man mix.

He was found out when an drugs bust a few days later on his brothers house found the place to be clean… apart from a bag of gingerbread men sniffed out by the police dog, that his brother had purchased a few days earlier….

The druggie brother wasn’t charged as they found no trace of his drugs (as they had been stolen and turned into gingerbread hippies)… but the brother who was trying to get the other off of the drugs was sentenced for endangering the public and tampering with food.

Go on…

The Lucy Palmer Guest Spot

Once in a while I come across a friend on Twitter who raises awareness in things that often go by unheard of unless people are involved in them (either personally or via a friend/family).

Lucy Palmer is one such Twitter friend. Inspirational in her tweets (and amusing, cutting, serious, educational etc…), she is fighting with endometriosis – and also raising money for Endometriosis UK.

This is an excerpt from her charity page:

Some of you are aware that I, Lucy, have endometriosis. For me, it means a LOT of PAIN. So, it hurts, it stops me being able to do normal stuff, like working, driving, having holidays, planning simple things… many things maybe you take for granted and can do without thinking about.

Endometriosis almost completely controls the lives of millions of women and girls and, sadly, they aren’t always listened to by their doctors or family or friends. Luckily, my Ma, Pa and brother have never doubted me, likewise close friends and my GP. It took 14 years to be listened to by consultants, to be diagnosed, during a laparoscopy, and to receive the appropriate treatment for this horrendous disease/condition.

I aim to run or jog my way round the 5k course in Hyde Park on Sunday 5th September this year. The training is already hard for me to do. The treatment I am receiving, called decapeptyl SR injections, causes joint pain, and for me, that’s in my knees. Constant fatigue from endo and its treatment and HRT, plus the medication for depression, does not make this an easy task for me. It is hard work. It hurts me. A lot.

On top of all she does, she also publishes a blog about how she copes with endo. In a rare blogging moment, I am posting an entry from Lucy as a guest blog within my own.

Please read her blog, visit her charity page and follow her on Twitter…. and spread the word.

Is this the endo my pain?

Probably not, no.

I was lying in my hospital bed on Monday 15th March this year, after the laparoscopy, when the consultant I had seen several times since 2008 came to see me. He had been “in clinic”, over the other side of the hospital. He hadn’t been able to perform the surgery; he was meant to on the previous Thursday but various occurrences meant my operation had to be postponed.

The decision was made, by me, to have a laparoscopy to find out, once and for all, “if” there was anything “wrong” relating to my womb, ovaries and/or ladybits. Some of you may be aware that, from the age of 18, I have been continually told there was nothing wrong and my irregular, heavy, prolonged and insanely agonising periods were something I would “grow out of” or that would “settle down” in time. The pain before and after periods and the bleeding between them was also not something I ought to concern myself about.

Not only have I been told that my pain was “psychological”, I was also told that I was “too young for anything to be wrong with (my) ovaries, darling”. And, that the only thing which would cause the sharp, tight, stabbingly-sharp pains in my lower right abdomen was “endometriosis of the ovaries, which you don’t have”, the non-surgery-performing-but-bed-visiting consultant said.

Still in immense pain after the laparoscopy with my awesome Ma beside me, I was told, by the NSPBBV consultant, that during the operation, the Mega-neat surgeon discovered that there “was endometriosis on both ovaries”. We found out later in the patient copy letter from the Mega-neat consultant who performed the surgery, that it was also present on the posterior uterine wall and the left pelvic side wall. In the letter, it states that the larger right side (ovary) had to be drained. This accounts for, not just the pains with periods and between them (every day, in fact) but also the amount of pain after waking from surgery; he used diathermy to remove the endometriosis he found. That essentially means my innermost ladyparts were burned, hence the incredible agony I felt, not to mention the utterly horrendous “wind” pains in my right shoulder and chest. I mentioned it. Oh.

Less than a second after the NSPBBV consultant said those ground-breaking words, I sobbed. My right hand somehow hurled itself to my eyes, which then started leaking, as well as my nose. Messy. I wasn’t crying because I’d finally been told what was wrong with me, or because I knew what it meant from now, onwards. Rather, I cried because I was so disappointed, I had been so terribly let down by people whom I trusted to help me, but instead, they neglected to do their job. They neglected me, allowed me to suffer so much unspeakable agony for so many years. I knew what was wrong with me, I knew, completely, that endometriosis was the cause of my pain. I’d tried to tell “them” so many times what my pain was like, but I was stopped mid-sentence, ignored, patronised and insulted.

What happens now? What do I do? Zoladex injections, every 28 days andPremique. What are they? Well, click the words and find out! Or, I can tell you, not very coherently. It is late as I type this and really need to sleep, but this is the third draft of this post and I just want to get it done. So, Zoladex will halt to ovaries for a few months, inducing a menopause. The break from periods occurring should (hopefully) give me a rest from feeling so tired. All the time. From aching, head to toe, and feeling like my womb is trying to cut its way out of my abdomen. And the Premique is a form of HRT, to try to counteract the menopausal symptoms.

There are no guarantees with this (unfairly-named, to my mind) “disease”. I prefer “condition”. It is not curable, but can be managed. However, “can” does not mean “will”. Some women are lucky, and have no pain, while others have immense pain which can not be controlled. And even hysterectomies and double oophorectomies are not certain to stop the pain. Some women have hormone treatment for some months and are free from pain. But the condition will still be there, it just may not “happen” again.

Since my surgery (with MEGA-neat stitches and wounds, and now scars. Did I mention? Super stuff! Tiny entry sites. Amazing…), I have had a period – on the Wednesday, just 2 days after the operation. It was bloody painful, if you excuse the pun. Less painful than I expected but still enough to wake me at 5am and make me nearly fall down the stairs to get a Keral in my face. Took much longer to work than the 20 minutes the NSPBBV consultant told me but hey, never mind, EH? It actually took around 40 minutes to work.

And now, I await another period. I haven’t had a day or, indeed, hour without pain. Apart from sleep. If there was pain, I haven’t noticed it, so bedrugged am I with anti-depressants and codeine. (I shan’t go into details – although it may be too late, now – but the amount of codeine I had made for a toilet situation vaguely similar to that experienced by Lisa Lynch in her ASTOUNDING blog, AlrightTit. I am also so stupendously proud to call Lisa an actual real life friend of mine, all thanks to the wonder that is Marsha Shandur, via the world of Twitter. (I went to Lisa’s Super Sweet 30th birthday party in London in September last year with the equally AMAZING Amanda, but didn’t get to meet Marsha. Good news for her…)

For 10 days I have had the familiar pre-period pains and heavy, dragging, relentlessness of my womb and parts. It would seem, then, that the surgery to remove the endometriosis was partially successful; bits were taken away/burned, but the pain of it all is still happening. Bugger. Today is day 30 of my “cycle” and I don’t have a clue when it will start. It may be another 2 days, or 2 weeks. I’m not just impatient with my body (even though I know I can do nothing, actively, to stop it hurting); the sooner the period starts, the sooner the Zoladex injections can be started. Must be administered, subcutaneously (in the stomach), within 5 days of a period starting. As the NPSBBV man said, “(my) body needs a rest”. NOW.

So, altogether now… HURRY FUCKING UP!!

Cat Attack – Photo Link and Twitter thanks

Hopefully, and if Facebook isn’t being a pain (yeah…. some hope….), then this link will take you to the photo’s surrounding my cat attack event and hospital visit.

So….FOR PHOTO’S CLICK HERE…maybe….

Thanks to all the Tweeters that kept me going through the (continuing) ordeal – and thanks to everyone else on Facebook, Text and in the flesh – Too many to mention.

The tweeters I shared my hospital bed with….

@drop4three @Drolgerg @Annjj @Boolbar @brynmorgan @CaminoHolidays @lowster @Mangowe @janetc413Nelso @noodlechett @Anglia_PA @VALENTINO_KING @Xenaclone @DaivRawks @thefuckingpope @flangelina @FlissTee @MinxITup @SerenityWorks @hang_check @rutitoottoots @hairlessheart @ngowers @XlilmissdeppX @feline9 @Shawnsewcrazy @pinwingirl @1Bibson @ScottyLikesCake @zafkhanjc @belindaang @troublebrother @srs11 @victoriark @belle_lulu @fudgecrumpet @Orchidflower @Care4Horsescom @LAH27 @appleblossombea @marathondog @raincoaster @ross_owen @noSPicedhAM @castewar @speedwaysquad @Aussiemandias @JennWebb @doriens @mrsfudgecrumpet @DaveMyers1 @SunnyNici @Dalevich @notjustmum @janeslee @VonOtter @red_lego_man @Spangila @balemar @pitstopmark @helengregory @xGallifreyGirlx @gillian_b @_lyraelson @lizgoingon @DarrenGriffin @Dolly61 @_NSL @crissyrob @ladyjanefairfax @widget53 @tylermassey @loopy_lala @moogyboobles @pixies_mum @ambernectar @Welshracer @AtteroIgnis @MillaJovovich @bobbyllew @suziperry @RichHL @warrenparkinson @herodian @lowster @eBeth @Twistedlilkitty @oneluvgurl @AliBee16 @JabberingJude @iknowitswinter @peekaywrites @_Bryony_ @AKGlass @mediacoach @dai_bach @sylv666 @Sheshel @KizzieAwful @Anflaw @bonnycross @KingofShaves @BenSmith9 @karenstrunks @DC_Zol @mediocre_mum @GrahamLawler @OlorinLorien @Moonchild66 @dartacus @h0llytweet @jojosim @victoriark @KazHall @linda01923 @michelledh @nannynick @ShoeGal007 @Gonk

Yup…. there’s a lot of them and they all rock! Cheers for the conversations and concern. I feel a very wealthy man for the number of people who stepped up to give me support.

From Guns to the X-Factor to Augmented Reality

Flickr reorganised my photo’s & broke picture links….

So… let’s try again – and this time with an update & more pictures!

I was on the lookout for some captioned t-shirts recently and just couldn’t find what I wanted. In the end I found a place that allows you to design your own… and sell them if you want.

Well, I purchased the one I wanted (after designing it…) – and once it arrived I was impressed by the print quality and the actual quality of the t-shirt. I then went back to the store and looked into how to sell my designs, after all, why not?

Since then I have added several designs – including a mug and notebook case to go with all the shirts…

If you like any of them, go to http://sometimespace.spreadshirt.co.uk/ and have a shop around… if you can’t find what you want, I might be able to sort something out for you (if you don’t want to do it yourself!).

I started out with some shooting orientated ones and then added a few more various others…These are a few of the designs…

SOMETIMESPACE – THE SHOP

Click the shop link above to buy any of the items below! These designs are on shirts, bags, mugs, bumper stickers…. Go for it! Alex needs new shoes!

Twitter is a DJ

A few Twitter users will have noticed some users are posting tweets from something called Blip.fm.

Quite simply, it’s a free web page that allows users to post songs and videos to various social media sites – such as Facebook and Twitter.

It’s really pretty good – I didn’t really get into at first – but after giving it a fair try I’m getting into it now!

You can just tune in to favourite DJ’s (or rather people who also use Blip.fm). Other users select songs and their playlist builds up, and you can just select to listen to it.

To be more involved you can start to create your own playlists. This allows other people to then go to your list to listen to your chosen and growing selection of songs.

It’s quite simple – and a top way of finding long time forgotten songs, and discovering new ones you wouldn’t have otherwise thought about.

I particularly like searching through the “Mash Up” selections – song mixes such as Lady Gaga vs. Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas.

For iPhone users there is currently an app called “Boombox Pro” which allows use of Blip.fm via the iPhone. It is a bit temperamental, but there are fixes for it. I have found that it failed totally after my first tries, but by resetting my application key in my Blip.fm settings/password section, Boombox started working again. It’s not faultless yet, as some of the playlist doesn’t update – but the search and Blip function works fine.

Hopefully, Blip.fm will bring out their own app soon… or Boombox will pull their finger out and sort out their bugs.

UPDATE: Received an email from Boombox designers today – They are working on fixes along with Blip.Fm. As that is the case I would recommend Boombox to anyone, simply because the app is a great idea, it almost works and the people working on it offer quick customer support. Good customer support is a must for me.

Anyway, I just thought I’d share a little bit more of what is out there on the web for those who hadn’t heard of it yet!