About Chris

This is not about the subject of local democracy, and just describes my blogging past, and a few other notable experiences. You can look at my previous posts to prove I am not some weird nutter. Or perhaps I am?

My name is Chris McEvoy and I started "blogging" in 2003 after reading this article by Bill Thompson "All Over for Blogs?".

But blogging has been mainstream for two years - how many days can someone keep on posting to their LiveJournal site, or visiting Blogger to add more details about their cat's mysterious illness?

Sitting at a computer does not seem to be the way to understanding, enlightenment or happiness when the long hot day is beckoning you outside, and reading other people's postings can seem like a waste of good thinking time.

Perhaps everyone else feels the same, so the things we are writing about, the things we are posting, are simply less well thought through, and our filters for what is worth saying are not working properly.

I am pleased to see that Bill is still writing thoughtful posts at "A Stick a Dog and a Box With Something In It".

My blog "Confusability" was mainly about Usability and related technology topics.

I published 374 posts at Confusability and still get page views even though I stopped publishing regularly in 2008.

Some of my favorites are: "Usability Review of a VCR with HCI Rap", "Bin or Trash? - The Google Dilemma" and "More Bloglines Analysis: Wendy Johnson is the knitters knitter".

I had a couple of items that went "viral" (ish). One was a spoof of a Jakob Nielsen article (Frames Suck) that fooled a number of people into thinking that Jakob had declared that "Ajax Sucks". This caused a fit of a furore in the usability world, especially as so many people thought it was real.

But my most successful post was "Kate Bush sings Pi (incorrectly)" where I described how I checked the Kate Bush song to see if she had actually recited Pi correctly (spoiler alert she didn't) . My discovery was mentioned in the national press, and also triggered the formulation of the "Kate Bush Conjecture" on Radio 4's More or Less. Twenty years later it is still referenced in articles.

I will admit that I am a bit obsessed with data and patterns. I think this is because I am Autistic. Recently I decided to check if the credits for the film "The Bed Sitting Room" were correct (the cast were listed in height order). Spoiler Alert: They were incorrectly ordered. I posted about that on "The Dull Men's Club" as I thought they would appreciate it.

But as my "special interest" in data and numbers is what led me to the creation of "Bristol Uncovered Data" it does have some useful benefits.

I have volunteered in local school's where I would teach primary school children in Bristol about "Computer Science" in my "Binary Man" alter ego. I taught them advanced concepts using the Scratch programming language. Even though the topics were much more advanced that what was in the curriculum, the schools let me drive the lessons and were really pleased with how all the children engaged with the material and my somewhat eccentric approach to teaching.

Examples: "Bubble Sort Guy", "Rock Paper Scissors", "Swarming Creatures", "Eating Nemo", "cat-a-sketch", "Caeser Shift Cipher" and "Boolean Logic".

I was very pleased when I found out that one of the 150 children I taught reached the finals of the All Ireland Scratch National Finals in 2019 and mentioned me.

Ella in the All Ireland Scratch National Finals 2019

The fact that I take things literally has also led me have some unusual experiences. When the cookery show "James Martin's Saturday Morning" asked viewers to send them their questions, I asked them what they could do for someone who couldn't cook and had almost no sense of smell. I didn't realise they were expecting people to ask questions like "How do I get the perfect terrine consistency?" or "What is the best way to smoke your own fish at home?". A researcher from the show contacted me and wanted to make sure my question was serious. I explained that most of their viewers probably didn't cook and I was likely to be more representative of their audience than the "proper cooks". This led to my appearance on the show in 2021.

I suppose I should mention my qualifications as evidence of my "expertise", but the truth is that I am rubbish at examinations and just about managed to get a couple of 'A Levels' before I got a job as a Trainee Programmer in Bristol. I have read 1000's of books and written about 2 million lines of code, but don't have a "wall of certificates". For the record, here is one certificate. It might come in handy if I ever fall into the docks.