A lesson in sucktitude

Two days ago, we got an email from the Department Head strongly encouraging us to register for a two-lecture deal on ergonomics and stress management. The first lecture - ergonomics at computer workstations, took place yesterday, scheduled for 90 minutes.

Two minutes after I entered the lecture hall is when I started sensing that something was wrong. First of all, I was the only academic staff member from the department present. The Department Head, although present in the very same building, was nowhere to be seen. When the lecture started, I really sensed some serious suctual overtones happening. The physiotherapist in charge started by stating that she was very happy to have the opportunity to give this lecture in English, seeing as how she really needed the practice.

No freakin' kiddin'

She then went on to say that this course was really supposed to have happened earlier, but she was on sick leave due to - you guessed it - back problems and repetitive stress injuries to her shoulders and wrist. Despite her claim of having 20 years of experience as a physiotherapist, she also needed a cheat sheet to give the definition of physiotherapy. So right off the bat this was like taking "how to win friends and influence people" lessons from the two douchebags currently incarcerated in Kongo. Or taking ethics lessons from Sudbø.

In what appeared to be four months but which turned out to be only 95 minutes we then were equipped with shocking new revelations such as "Adjust your chair to a position that's right for you", "take frequent breaks to avoid repetitive strain", "don't have reflections from lighting coming off of your computer screen" and so on.

The maximum sucktitude was saved for last, however, when the physiotherapist had all the participants partake in an impromptu (for us at least) aerobic exercise session to the elevator and supermarket classic "Vem Vet" by the introspective Swedish diary-reciter Lisa Ekdahl. Following this, the instructor even had the nerve to plug her upcoming set of recommended exercises accompanied by a CD comprised of her own selection of what she referred to as "modern music".

That's a cool 95 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Blues tune of the week

Ending this segment of weekly blues tunes with an all time favorite band of mine, none other then the little old band from Texas: ZZ Top. I could have picked a lot of tunes from this band, but I settle for a cover of Stop Breaking Down Blues (no bonus point for guessing the original artist). The reason I went for this tune, is that it featured together a live version of Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings on a CD single in the 90's, and it really restore my faith that ZZ Top still have some more great tunes in them.

Douse that light, enjoy and have a nice weekend!



(Sorry, Wilhelm, I was planing on Just Got Back From Baby's, but couldn't find any clips of it.)

I'm in the top 10 in buisness!

Juhu!
It's only in the tenth position, but I'm still at number 10:

So this is a list over the most frequent used names of daily managers in companies that has gone bankrupt. It has to be at least 1000 companies registered with that name of the daily manager to be considered for the list.

I'm deeply honoured, and will do my best to climb further up on the list!

Sources: e24.no and forvalt.no

Epic Arnold ownage of political opponent

The above is a letter from Governor Schwarzenegger to a local Democrat explaining why he refuses to sign a bill into law.

Hint: Read the first letter of every line in the two major paragraphs. You'll find that two words are spelled out.

I have no idea what the bill was all about and thus whether the Governator made a prudent decision, but damn was that ever funny.

Some more graphical design

So, I came by yet another bad chart here. Check out the graph below, which was used in a presentation:


First of all, it suffers from of number of graphical flaws of more or less importance:

• Vertically aligned text (the years)
• The use of color (too much)
• The grey back ground and the ultrabold lines around the legende.
• The wrong chart type used.

But above all, there is one really major flaw which is unforgiving: It misrepresent the data.
I didn't relised this before I started plotting my own version of this chart. But the stacked bar chart is to represent part to whole ratio. The way it's supposed to be used in this case, is that the whole bar shows the total number of days. The strong color is emergency(ØH) and the lighter color is the planned days (Elektive). I thought it was strange that the emergency days were so much more then the planned days, and when I check the numbers, I found out it wasn't so. The planned days is actually the whole bar, i.e. the sum of the dark and light colored areas. Totally wrong representation of the data.

Also, I do believe that the point of the chart is to show trends over time. That is something a line chart does much better then a bar chart. My version represented the data truely in a line plot, and I also adjusted the colors to look more professional:

I chose to start the y-axis at 2500 rather then 0 (which you can do in a line chart, but not in a bar chart) to expand the data as much as possible in the y-direction to show the variation as clearly as possible. Didn't gain much, so it's better to start at 0 if the relationship between planned and emergency days are important. I also added light grey lines to show the quarters, as these kind of data usually is collected every third month.

If the total numbers of days are important, I would represent this in a three panel chart. Every chart has the same range on the y-axis, but different starting point:

Of course, if the relationship between emergency and planned days is important, a fourth panel of the ration could be added. Or replace the total panel.

(PS: I just noticed I forgot to add the correct weight to the line on the x-axis, but I'm too lazy to correct it)

Edit: I did notice that my source for the numbers was wrong. So the actual numbers may be wrong, but the design of my charts are still valid.

For Torbjørn - Sonata Arctica

Two songs off of "Silence" - San Sebastian:



Weballergy



Update: Until The Last Drop Falls:

Disappointing releases from bands you like

I noticed a thread with a similar title over at the Scream magazine board, and thought it was kewl enough to totally jack and revive over here. The point isn't to diss bands you didn't like to begin with, but rather to list releases you found to be not what you expected from bands or artists you actually enjoy.

• Megadeth - Risk. Big fan of Dave, but he totally rolled the dice and lost on this one. He even admits as much himself, in that he uncharacteristically caved in to pressure from record label and band members to change the musical direction to something that would move more product in the brief period of time when "alternative" music was hot.
• Iron Maiden - Virtual XI. Just...NO. Good job that Bruce Dickinson returned.
• Poison - Native Tongue. On paper, replacing C.C. DeVille with a technically superior guitar player - Richie Kotzen - looked like it could work. Upon closer inspection, DeVille wrote most of the music and Kotzen didn't want to play anything but inferior, white boi blues. Thus, the album sucked and still sucks, with the possible exception of "Until You Suffer Some More".
• Running Wild - Rogues En Vogue. OK, this was the final Running Wild album before Kasparek decided to call it a day, but this release is still very much disappointing.
• W.A.S.P. - Still Not Black Enough. One would have thought that Blackie Lawless got all of the introspective rebel in search of acceptance, identity and love out on the spectacular "Crimson Idol" concept album. If so, one would be very much mistaken. Not the same quality in songs as on "Idol" either.
• Joe Satriani - Crystal Planet. Guitar deity Joe Satriani on a synthesizer and techno trip. Ugly. Very ugly. Two thumbs way down.
• Yngwie Malmsteen - Unleash The Fury. By normal standards, this album reeks of awesomeness. Compared to Yngwie's usual gold standard, it just reeks.
• Rhapsody - Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret. Following up the wonderful "Power Of The Dragonflame" with a name change (Rhapsody Of Fire,due to some copyright issues) and recycled, lameness is just that - lame. Coincidentally, right before this release, the band solicited the management services of one Joey DeMaio from Manowar - the Overlords of All Things Bad about Metal. Subsequent albums have sucked hard. Quite the coincidence...thanks a lot Joey, ya greasy guido POS.
• Luca Turilli - The Infinite Wonders Of Creation. The guitarist from Rhapsody also hosted a successful side project with similar but more hard-core guitar-oriented music. His first two solo albums, featuring the vocal stylings of Olaf Hayer, totally rule. His third album, with the dubious title featured in bold type, features Nightwish-like vocals, tons of synth and an overall goth vibe. From king of the world to chumpstain in three albums or less, by Luca Turilli.
• Last Tribe - The Uncrowned. Strong contender for the title of my absolute favorite band not featuring Yngwie Malmsteen. Their debut album "The Ritual" is in my opinion one of the best albums EVER, and the follow-up is also kick-ass. Their third and final album thus suffers from not being able to live up to the phenomenal standard set by Magnus Karlsson and his former bandmates.
• Eminem - Encore. The low point in Eminem's solo career, as he even admits to himself. Just not his usual standard. Very few strong tracks....
• Sonata Arctica - Reckoning Night. "Silence" was a phenomenal power metal album by any standard. "Reckoning Night" is a weak attempt at moving away from power metal and into harder material. Fail.
• Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape. Right off the bat it's a major downer with a title like that. Coming off of two fantastic albums like "Keeper ..." I and II it's pretty hard to keep the trend going, but that's not really an excuse for this reekazoid product.
• Gary Moore - Blues For Greeny. I much prefer the hard rock version of Gary Moore to the blues version, but all things considered, I really like "Still Got The Blues" and "After Hours". With "Blues For Greeny", however, the Moore-train really goes off the tracks as far as my musical preferences are concerned.
• Extreme - Waiting For The Punchline. Still waiting...
• ...many more I'm sure...