Life is NOT a journey to the grave with the goal of arriving safely in a prettily preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways in a shower of gravel and party shards, thoroughly used, utterly exhausted, and loudly proclaiming: "Fuck ME, that was BRILLIANT!"— Saltation (2004)
(revved-up from an earlier quote,
apparently from Hunter S. Thompson)
Friday, September 30, 2005
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair
From The Times comes a link to this year's winners of the Visions of Science Awards.
And Lo! Truly they remind us how important are the works of Man.
The MIND is an emergent property of a much bigger system. I wonder if our cells study us, and theorise about systems?
And Lo! Truly they remind us how important are the works of Man.
- • Notice how much Surface Tension looks like a Magnetic Field
"The surface tension of water can support even a metal paperclip. By photographing it using a grill in front of the light source, the deformation of the water caused by the clip's weight can be seen. This bending of light is similar to the bending of light by strong gravitational fields, as predicted by Einstein's theories. Surface tension is due to an attraction between the molecules in water, which cause its surface to act in an elastic manner."
(photo)- • Our Own Machinery: a core inter-cellular transport mechanism, on which we rely absolutely for each cell
"The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor is a vital part of the nervous system, and is crucial for voluntary muscle contraction. It is a tunnel that regulates ion flow between a cell and its exterior. Similar channels control many other body systems. The receptor is made up of water (grey) enclosed by five protein sub-units (green/orange). The narrowest part of the water column is the gate. When the neurotransmitter chemical acetylcholine binds to the receptor it opens, allowing metal ions to pass through it."
(CGI)- • Our Own Machinery: our blood supply moves about, hunts down parts of us that need it
"Blood vessels are not passive - they actively seek out areas of low oxygen and grow into them. In this retinal network, the low oxygen area (green) has been detected by the network, which has sent out finger-like projections into it. The projections will guide the growth of new blood vessels to provide the area with oxygenated blood."
(photo)- • Our Own Machinery: it's quite one thing to read about how your own neurons are a constantly moving, constantly shifting, constantly re-interconnecting web of labile cells within your own brain --and that if neurons are removed to a simply electronic platform, they will physically move around this new alien landscape, learning to maximise the output of the platform-- but it's quite another to realise that so are the invader cells, and, more chillingly, so are the traitor cells: Cancer
"Cancer cells can spread through the body in a process known as metastasis. This cancer cell is moving down a pore in a filter. The image was taken at Cancer Research UK, where the spread of cancer is studied in the hope of finding a cure."
(photo)
This is a cancer cell exploring...
The MIND is an emergent property of a much bigger system. I wonder if our cells study us, and theorise about systems?
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Cwip Qlicks
Three things of niftiness, the latter two of large size (apologies, o ye of little bandwidth):
- Virus Viral, or Microsoft Ebola
- A virus is sweeping the computer world:
In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a "corrupted blood" infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.
The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar's corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.
This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.
Although computer controlled characters did not contract the plague, they are said to have acted as "carriers" and infected player-controlled characters they encountered.
This is a hilarious first example of stuff I've been waiting for for a while.
via Fridge Magnet - It's not so hard to make a Guy Ritchie britgangster flick
- A chap at the Times (or was it the Sunday Times?) spent 9 hours filming a 5 minute imitation of every single Guy Ritchie movie ever. As they'd realised, there is only 1 plot and 1 cinematic treatment and 1 set of characters. Plus there MUST be a shot of a boot closing, taken from inside the boot. (yanks: "boot" of car == "trunk" of car).
So they did this as a joke.
And you know?
It's spot on. - Who's your daddy?
- Ah aem
via Brain Blenders
Monday, September 26, 2005
1. 2. 3. It's all about ME!!
Oh, this is one of the more awesome selfcentrednesses I've seen.
We have had a Canadian girl living with us for the last couple of months. And, like the Canadian guy, is one long loud irresponsible self-righteousness. All hail-fellow-well-met social friendliness upfront, but bumping along behind comes a complete disregard for other people and an unshakeable belief that the world is just this big infinitely-replaceable "Context" that's all someone else's responsibility to ensure all the Modern Conveniences are Delivered.
OK, so that last bit is fairly typical of MOST women.
But this is something else again. About once a week, she stuffs someone up.
She has so far smashed then denied ever seeing a literally irreplaceable 24oz. brandy balloon (the glassblowers no longer make this glass) that was both a weekly joy and a souvenir reminder of drinking from them daily in my circumnavigation of the Baltic Sea;
; she spilled detergent all over the cupboard and floor and walked away; she...
Well, you get the picture.
But add to that a strident self-righteousness, a real outrage at the outré arrogance when someone asks her to ask before removing somebody else's stuff, to check first before throwing out stuff she knows nothing about, to wipe up after herself, to clean her dishes rather than holding them under the tap and rubbing a brush over them, to be sure something's not wanted before she damages it. I don't mean she's taken aback. I mean she is genuinely outraged.
SHE is in the right.
Therefore we are picking on her.
About a month back, I took 5 cuttings (tearings) from a great but poorly growing plant. I don't want to sound like a garden nut-- I'm quite the opposite. We don't have a garden, just a roof terrace (a GREAT roof terrace!) with various pots and boxes and so forth.
So when people try to do things there, it's that much more obvious. And this plant is great: it's a chocolate peppermint thingy that our brilliant landlord planted ages ago -- its soft furry leaves smell exactly like deep rich peppermint chocolate, and briefly manhandling the plant leaves your fingers delicious. And its plainer more-ordinary near-siblings have spread, but this one plant has not. It's stagnated.
I'm a sucker for the underdog.
So I tried to help it.
I cleared a dead pot on the terrace, and clipped/tore every grow-able cutting from the plant and arranged the resulting five cuttings in a circle round the pot so each had maximum space, and prepped the pot with fertiliser and deep-watered the dry dry soil (London humidity is near 0: soil dessicates if not daily drenched). Then I daily added the breakfast tea-leaves in a mouldering mound in the middle. Tea is an excellent mulch, not just for its speed of composting, but also for the caffeine in it which triggers growth and branching. And after about 3 weeks the hungry hungry fungus which is the key strength of most plants (the fungus and roots work symbiotically to access nutrients neither could otherwise receive) grew up out of the soil and into the self-mulching tea-leaf pile.
And I was daily monitoring it and adding/subtracting fertiliser or soil and/or water based on how they looked. (I'm not an expert)
The cuttings took.
One was slow. But the other 4 were alive, were re-growing, were putting out roots and fleshing out leaves.
Today was Sunday. Chill-out day. I was reading the papers and addressing the hangover. And as I came out with a topup on the hair of the dog, I noticed piles of dirt surrounding the cuttings' pot. So I walked to it to look. Then stared gob-smacked at the pot. Someone had chopped up the soil, which is nice, but had not bothered worrying about the plants. All the plants had been chopped up and diced into the turned soil. Torn to little pieces.
But not even properly. There was dirt tossed out of the pot. Enough for me to notice from 30 feet away. But even more significantly: there was one strand which had been sliced but left in mostly one piece, uprooted and lying on top of the soil.
So whoever had done it had not been actually trying to prep the soil, to mulch in all the plant life -- they'd just attacked the pot, hacking up the plants randomly and spilling dirt everywhere, then walked away.
That's too many times...
I'd had a note on the kitchen table for the last two days:
"Can whoever took all my shirts [8 of them...] out of the washing machine please bring them back"
No response so far, though I knew she'd been in the house the night before.
I put another note next to it.
This morning I found that note's paper reversed and this written on its back:
I flipped it, boxed "please ASK BEFORE frigging around with things that aren't theirs" and added an arrow to a note:
But I think I should ask her to leave the house.
We have had a Canadian girl living with us for the last couple of months. And, like the Canadian guy, is one long loud irresponsible self-righteousness. All hail-fellow-well-met social friendliness upfront, but bumping along behind comes a complete disregard for other people and an unshakeable belief that the world is just this big infinitely-replaceable "Context" that's all someone else's responsibility to ensure all the Modern Conveniences are Delivered.
OK, so that last bit is fairly typical of MOST women.
But this is something else again. About once a week, she stuffs someone up.
She has so far smashed then denied ever seeing a literally irreplaceable 24oz. brandy balloon (the glassblowers no longer make this glass) that was both a weekly joy and a souvenir reminder of drinking from them daily in my circumnavigation of the Baltic Sea;
(One of the more bizarre "western" cultural myths asserts that females are cleaner than males.
This is literally fantasy.
I'm sure there are acres of psycho-cultural theses that could be written in investigating how this myth (and so many other endemic cultural "knowns") is so prevalent yet normally contradicted by observation. Seriously: I believe this fundamental dynamic of Cultural Myth which denies Observed Tendency, speaking in the general sense, not just this one instance, is one of the most powerful glues and drivers in most societies.
The motivation required to clean up after yourself, in the absence of punishment or fear of embarrassment, is Responsibility and Empathy: taking responsibility for your own actions, and leaving things ready for other people to use.
In Australia, these 2 are wrapped up in the single word "Consideration."
Anyone who has ever had experience of sharing a house with both sexes will bang the table about the careless disregard for other residents of the house of nearly all the females, versus the easily-retrained tendency of a small proportion of males to do nothing and wait for mummy to pick up. 95% vs 10%.
Tidier, yes.
Cleaner, no.
But the myth remains.
There is insight into human group interactions, here, grasshopper.)
; she spilled detergent all over the cupboard and floor and walked away; she...
Well, you get the picture.
But add to that a strident self-righteousness, a real outrage at the outré arrogance when someone asks her to ask before removing somebody else's stuff, to check first before throwing out stuff she knows nothing about, to wipe up after herself, to clean her dishes rather than holding them under the tap and rubbing a brush over them, to be sure something's not wanted before she damages it. I don't mean she's taken aback. I mean she is genuinely outraged.
SHE is in the right.
Therefore we are picking on her.
About a month back, I took 5 cuttings (tearings) from a great but poorly growing plant. I don't want to sound like a garden nut-- I'm quite the opposite. We don't have a garden, just a roof terrace (a GREAT roof terrace!) with various pots and boxes and so forth.
a great roof terrace
So when people try to do things there, it's that much more obvious. And this plant is great: it's a chocolate peppermint thingy that our brilliant landlord planted ages ago -- its soft furry leaves smell exactly like deep rich peppermint chocolate, and briefly manhandling the plant leaves your fingers delicious. And its plainer more-ordinary near-siblings have spread, but this one plant has not. It's stagnated.
I'm a sucker for the underdog.
So I tried to help it.
I cleared a dead pot on the terrace, and clipped/tore every grow-able cutting from the plant and arranged the resulting five cuttings in a circle round the pot so each had maximum space, and prepped the pot with fertiliser and deep-watered the dry dry soil (London humidity is near 0: soil dessicates if not daily drenched). Then I daily added the breakfast tea-leaves in a mouldering mound in the middle. Tea is an excellent mulch, not just for its speed of composting, but also for the caffeine in it which triggers growth and branching. And after about 3 weeks the hungry hungry fungus which is the key strength of most plants (the fungus and roots work symbiotically to access nutrients neither could otherwise receive) grew up out of the soil and into the self-mulching tea-leaf pile.
And I was daily monitoring it and adding/subtracting fertiliser or soil and/or water based on how they looked. (I'm not an expert)
The cuttings took.
One was slow. But the other 4 were alive, were re-growing, were putting out roots and fleshing out leaves.
Today was Sunday. Chill-out day. I was reading the papers and addressing the hangover. And as I came out with a topup on the hair of the dog, I noticed piles of dirt surrounding the cuttings' pot. So I walked to it to look. Then stared gob-smacked at the pot. Someone had chopped up the soil, which is nice, but had not bothered worrying about the plants. All the plants had been chopped up and diced into the turned soil. Torn to little pieces.
But not even properly. There was dirt tossed out of the pot. Enough for me to notice from 30 feet away. But even more significantly: there was one strand which had been sliced but left in mostly one piece, uprooted and lying on top of the soil.
So whoever had done it had not been actually trying to prep the soil, to mulch in all the plant life -- they'd just attacked the pot, hacking up the plants randomly and spilling dirt everywhere, then walked away.
That's too many times...
I'd had a note on the kitchen table for the last two days:
"Can whoever took all my shirts [8 of them...] out of the washing machine please bring them back"
No response so far, though I knew she'd been in the house the night before.
I put another note next to it.
"Guys,
Can whoever destroyed the plants I've been nursing for the last month please ASK BEFORE frigging around with things that aren't theirs.
Sal."
This morning I found that note's paper reversed and this written on its back:
"Whats yours is yours is yours?
"What isn't in this house 'share'?
"Can whoever ask/notify or communicate that there are projects in communal areas of importance. Thank you."
I flipped it, boxed "please ASK BEFORE frigging around with things that aren't theirs" and added an arrow to a note:
"Basic Consideration."
But I think I should ask her to leave the house.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Hilarious
Something for the weekend! Everyone should and must watch THIS:
Starts good, gets better.
Men in Coats
Starts good, gets better.
DIY RoboCop
It's always a little spooky the first time you ever build something that affects the real world. And I was going to recite my own experience of that then looked at the result and realised that what was a big thing then is now so basic a task that the story lost all its impact.
Similarly, this particular experiment is a glorious example of the commoditising of computer science:
Someone has built, quickly and casually, a human-targetting self-aiming self-firing gun. He's just used toys immediately to hand for many Americans, but 20 years ago, this was a major Pentagon project.
The opening seconds of this little movie are chilling. The robot gun with a stupid vicious limited little mind of its own, utterly disconnected from the consequences of its actions. Frighteningly reminiscent of Politicians.
Click on the pic to see the gun move, identify a human, then shoot him when he moves:
The original goal was to have it imitate that chilling scene in RoboCop: the gun would order the person to freeze, and shoot after 5 seconds if the person didn't.
Amusingly, it was a mechanical version of this which created the UK Judiciary's knee-jerk reflex which causes Homeowners so many problems in the UK when attempting to protect themselves against burglars. In the 19th Century, TripGuns were used to discourage poachers: a gun on a swivel was setup with wires running off into the surrounding forest, and when a poacher hit the wire, the gun would swivel to aim down the wire and shoot. This was eventually ruled in the Courts as being a bit out of order. And in modern times, rather than homeowners' lawyers citing simple Self Defence against Apprehended Assault --which IS a valid defence to the charge of assaulting a burglar in the dark at 3am: no change in the law is necessary, merely that lawyers pull their heads out their arses and use the whole of the law rather than one tiny reminiscence-- they have this reflex memory of these Precedents on an unrelated charge, as do the judges, and the case is decided on this basis.
How far we've come.
Similarly, this particular experiment is a glorious example of the commoditising of computer science:
Someone has built, quickly and casually, a human-targetting self-aiming self-firing gun. He's just used toys immediately to hand for many Americans, but 20 years ago, this was a major Pentagon project.
The opening seconds of this little movie are chilling. The robot gun with a stupid vicious limited little mind of its own, utterly disconnected from the consequences of its actions. Frighteningly reminiscent of Politicians.
Click on the pic to see the gun move, identify a human, then shoot him when he moves:
The original goal was to have it imitate that chilling scene in RoboCop: the gun would order the person to freeze, and shoot after 5 seconds if the person didn't.
How We Built the Quintessential Sentry Gun
Okay, "quintessential" might be going a little far, but it's enough to frighten me. The idea of this project was to create a fully-automated sentry gun, capable of picking out a human target and accurately tracking and shooting him or her in the heart. Really, the idea was to find a cool robotics project for the summer while I was working at an advertising agency, and I'd only ever seen sentry guns in movies (like Congo) and video games (Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress Classic). I couldn't find any record of anyone building one, even the military, although it seems likely I just didn't look hard enough. It's a pretty simple technology. One of my friends did mention the Phalanx anti-missile gun, which is of similar design, but uses radar for tracking instead of an optical method. The Phalanx has been around since the early 80's. He was also quick to add that there are some pretty good reasons for not building an optical sentry gun, a big one being that it's generally a good idea to shoot down any missile headed in your direction, but that same philosophy may not be the best when applied to humans. If you're here just to see my little brother get shot with it, scroll to the bottom. :)
Construction
The first part of this fun little summer project was to write all of the necessary computer code to control the turret. I started by learning Microsoft's DirectShow technology and utilizing the OpenCV library according to the tutorial by R. Laganiere to access the pixels being sent by my web cam. If you try to use the tutorial, you'll have to use the new library paths for DirectX 9 because the ones in the tutorial are a little outdated. I used simple algorithms from a Machine Vision course I took at Boston University to develop the aiming program. For those interested, it's just background differencing, thresholding, recursive region segmentation, your standard binary morphological operators to clean up static, and my own quick algorithm (basically simple template matching) to take care of camera shake and reduce background motion interference.
via Slashdot
Amusingly, it was a mechanical version of this which created the UK Judiciary's knee-jerk reflex which causes Homeowners so many problems in the UK when attempting to protect themselves against burglars. In the 19th Century, TripGuns were used to discourage poachers: a gun on a swivel was setup with wires running off into the surrounding forest, and when a poacher hit the wire, the gun would swivel to aim down the wire and shoot. This was eventually ruled in the Courts as being a bit out of order. And in modern times, rather than homeowners' lawyers citing simple Self Defence against Apprehended Assault --which IS a valid defence to the charge of assaulting a burglar in the dark at 3am: no change in the law is necessary, merely that lawyers pull their heads out their arses and use the whole of the law rather than one tiny reminiscence-- they have this reflex memory of these Precedents on an unrelated charge, as do the judges, and the case is decided on this basis.
How far we've come.
BBCLogmeet!
> From: "Grunewald Jank"
> To: "Jones Bryan"
> Subject: Re[9]:
>
> Tonight no time for boredom!"
So true.
Spam is the new philosophy.
Bleeningly G. Sponwinkle assured me exactly this just last week, shortly before offering to make my small penis much larger and much harder and much $25million dollars richer after a much small bona-fide deposit.
Am I one to contradict such a legend?
No!
Not Sal!
I know my limits.
Sadly, the BBC also knows its limits. If not mine.
Tonight, I was promised, and I quote*, "Free piss-up for London Bloggers."
Well!
I ummed.
And I ahhed.
I also ooohed, but did so quietly, as this is less heroic. Heroes can deliberate (verb! it's a VERB, too, dammit!) volubly ("I knew him well, Horatio. But not like that. You perv. Marry! Not me; it's a nonanachronistic expression, for fucks' sake. Didn't you read the Study Guide? God, you are SUCH a perv. Put that down. WhooAHooo!"), but may not do so in a non-tradsexually-emphatic manner.
And, after due consideration...
I was down there like a shot. In the dark, too. Winter drawers on.
But I was delayed by an earlier drinking session.
4 pints later, I leapt aboard a Westerly tube and in no time at all except for the clock had wrestled it down to Fulham Broadway. No tube can stand between ME and alcohol. Except maybe the oesophagus. (Snuffalophagus?) In which case, it's really doing me a service. I'd hate to have to mainline alcohol. That stuff's inflammable, you know. (Utterly without Flam? English is not well.)
I reeled out. Then highland flinged out. Then after some free interpretative dahhhhnce finished with a stunning melange of Vogue, Morris Dancing, Breakdance, and Minuet that had the crowd oblivious with joy. "More! More!" I heard the beggar call, though possibly not to me.
"Left out of tube, 100 yards up on the left" -- according to the very specific blogstructions posted.
100 yards later on the right, I observe the pub. Sofa Sogood.
There's a chap inside the door with "CREW" on his regulation-issue black T-shirt. "Are you one of the BBC crew?" He dialled 999 and fled, all the while screaming "get away get away get awayyyyyyy!!!!!!!"
I'm always impressed to see a genuine multi-tasker.
On I pressed. It was either that or leave.
I saw no sign up saying "Bloggy Types Here Please."
On the third lap of the pub, I recognised a face from a photo on a blogpost, so approached that there micro-group.
"Hello!" I cried, exclamation marks akimbo.
To a man, they turned and fled. Fortunately (well, for me), that man screamed and fled faster than he saw them coming, so they reluctantly turned back and greeted me.
"Fuck off!" they cried, in traditional cheer-drenched fashion.
"Ha ha!" I laughed, and joined their happy thronglet.
I immediately turned the conversation to the burning issue of the day.
"Where's my free drink?"
I was pointed at the girl at the bar I'd made a point of not gaping at as I'd walked past in the first place. Does life GET any better than this? (© Friends)
Sadly, yes. On pitching up at the bar, I discovered that when she speaks she's (even) more beautiful than she looks, but was grimly informed that the BBC (MY BLOODY LICENCE FEE, MIND YOU!!!) was buying precisely no drinks but had stood a round of 2 packets of crisps. I had to shout over the standing ovation from the crowd but eventually managed to ascertain that that was fucking it and I should sort myself out.
After a brief existential crisis and cry (crysis?), I managed to get served.
It was 8 o'clock at night and yet the sun came out. There is a god. And he rehydrates and alcoholises all at the same time. Go god, go.
Over to the blog group. 3 BBCians. BBClings? BBCorg? 3 bloggers. And a friendly chap who seems to be bridging the divide, via organising conferences and such, re such. And the raison d'autre girl is rather more attractive than her photo. Well, I say "rather"... She may be 7 feet tall, but still...
How come the two core players here are both gorgeous?
Hummm.
I gotta getta jobbat the BBC.
The people with good faces for radio are all on TV and vice versa.
Very much vice versa.
Actually, the other Professionals are both a bit good looking too.
Hmph. Is my current unemployitudenessosity due to my face?
In that case, I can see a bit of a career for me, stretching out in front of me.
Random chattosity. Then, hideously, a microphone appears, attached to an energetic hand and face, and a walkman, and a pair of earphones. Oh dear Lord. This is PRECISELY what I'd hoped wouldn't happen. Umm. Now, I KNOW what the first question's going to be (and I probably should have thought about an answer for it when I saw it on the post): it's going to be "Why do you blog?"
Errr...
Ahhh....
Ummm....
"Free Beer!!!!"
This didn't go down very well.
Then there were various other questions. Oh. Ah. It. I probably should have thought about some of this. Oops. Oh fuckit, what's the first thing that springs into my head as she's speaking.
Some happy blithering that *I* thought was reasonably entertaining, while not actually diverging from the key issue of the day: Why Blog?
And short beauty turns to tall beauty at the end and says "I don't think we can really use ANY of that, can we?" And vigorous horrified shaking of head. "Shall we just move on?" "YES!" they shout together.
Humm.
*cough*
I apologise at this point to all those paying their TV Licence Fee for that fraction of a penny I apparently just flushed.
Chattings all round. And some completely NOT scripted recordings.
Good people, all.
And interesting to hear personally the non-blog interconnections underlying several's presence.
But dear lord, everyone bailed about 9pm. Whimps!! We still had legs left!
I dunno.
I worry about people.
And about bloggers, too.
BBC-people got no STAMINA.
Surely our licence fee can pay for a better class of liver transplant?
I, for one, or two, feel DEEPLY disappointed at how our government has SO let down our earnest struggling BBC drinkers, such that they feel any pressure to leave a pub before Leaving Time.
On a Thursday, no less.
Were I English, I'd be ashamed to be. Such.
> To: "Jones Bryan"
> Subject: Re[9]:
>
> Tonight no time for boredom!"
So true.
Spam is the new philosophy.
Bleeningly G. Sponwinkle assured me exactly this just last week, shortly before offering to make my small penis much larger and much harder and much $25million dollars richer after a much small bona-fide deposit.
Am I one to contradict such a legend?
No!
Not Sal!
I know my limits.
Sadly, the BBC also knows its limits. If not mine.
Tonight, I was promised, and I quote*, "Free piss-up for London Bloggers."
Well!
I ummed.
And I ahhed.
I also ooohed, but did so quietly, as this is less heroic. Heroes can deliberate (verb! it's a VERB, too, dammit!) volubly ("I knew him well, Horatio. But not like that. You perv. Marry! Not me; it's a nonanachronistic expression, for fucks' sake. Didn't you read the Study Guide? God, you are SUCH a perv. Put that down. WhooAHooo!"), but may not do so in a non-tradsexually-emphatic manner.
And, after due consideration...
I was down there like a shot. In the dark, too. Winter drawers on.
But I was delayed by an earlier drinking session.
Aren't we all?
Delayed-wise, I have still to this day never quite recovered the much-hailed speed of my drinking extant prior to one particular drinking session which shall remain nameless, unless you have access to the court transcripts and/or hospital records or sunday papers of the time. All of which I deny. And am on record as formally entering a plea of precisely that. So there.
4 pints later, I leapt aboard a Westerly tube and in no time at all except for the clock had wrestled it down to Fulham Broadway. No tube can stand between ME and alcohol. Except maybe the oesophagus. (Snuffalophagus?) In which case, it's really doing me a service. I'd hate to have to mainline alcohol. That stuff's inflammable, you know. (Utterly without Flam? English is not well.)
I reeled out. Then highland flinged out. Then after some free interpretative dahhhhnce finished with a stunning melange of Vogue, Morris Dancing, Breakdance, and Minuet that had the crowd oblivious with joy. "More! More!" I heard the beggar call, though possibly not to me.
"Left out of tube, 100 yards up on the left" -- according to the very specific blogstructions posted.
100 yards later on the right, I observe the pub. Sofa Sogood.
There's a chap inside the door with "CREW" on his regulation-issue black T-shirt. "Are you one of the BBC crew?" He dialled 999 and fled, all the while screaming "get away get away get awayyyyyyy!!!!!!!"
I'm always impressed to see a genuine multi-tasker.
On I pressed. It was either that or leave.
I saw no sign up saying "Bloggy Types Here Please."
On the third lap of the pub, I recognised a face from a photo on a blogpost, so approached that there micro-group.
"Hello!" I cried, exclamation marks akimbo.
To a man, they turned and fled. Fortunately (well, for me), that man screamed and fled faster than he saw them coming, so they reluctantly turned back and greeted me.
"Fuck off!" they cried, in traditional cheer-drenched fashion.
"Ha ha!" I laughed, and joined their happy thronglet.
I immediately turned the conversation to the burning issue of the day.
"Where's my free drink?"
I was pointed at the girl at the bar I'd made a point of not gaping at as I'd walked past in the first place. Does life GET any better than this? (© Friends)
Sadly, yes. On pitching up at the bar, I discovered that when she speaks she's (even) more beautiful than she looks, but was grimly informed that the BBC (MY BLOODY LICENCE FEE, MIND YOU!!!) was buying precisely no drinks but had stood a round of 2 packets of crisps. I had to shout over the standing ovation from the crowd but eventually managed to ascertain that that was fucking it and I should sort myself out.
After a brief existential crisis and cry (crysis?), I managed to get served.
It was 8 o'clock at night and yet the sun came out. There is a god. And he rehydrates and alcoholises all at the same time. Go god, go.
Over to the blog group. 3 BBCians. BBClings? BBCorg? 3 bloggers. And a friendly chap who seems to be bridging the divide, via organising conferences and such, re such. And the raison d'autre girl is rather more attractive than her photo. Well, I say "rather"... She may be 7 feet tall, but still...
How come the two core players here are both gorgeous?
Hummm.
I gotta getta jobbat the BBC.
The people with good faces for radio are all on TV and vice versa.
Very much vice versa.
Actually, the other Professionals are both a bit good looking too.
Hmph. Is my current unemployitudenessosity due to my face?
In that case, I can see a bit of a career for me, stretching out in front of me.
Random chattosity. Then, hideously, a microphone appears, attached to an energetic hand and face, and a walkman, and a pair of earphones. Oh dear Lord. This is PRECISELY what I'd hoped wouldn't happen. Umm. Now, I KNOW what the first question's going to be (and I probably should have thought about an answer for it when I saw it on the post): it's going to be "Why do you blog?"
Errr...
Ahhh....
Ummm....
"Free Beer!!!!"
This didn't go down very well.
Then there were various other questions. Oh. Ah. It. I probably should have thought about some of this. Oops. Oh fuckit, what's the first thing that springs into my head as she's speaking.
Some happy blithering that *I* thought was reasonably entertaining, while not actually diverging from the key issue of the day: Why Blog?
And short beauty turns to tall beauty at the end and says "I don't think we can really use ANY of that, can we?" And vigorous horrified shaking of head. "Shall we just move on?" "YES!" they shout together.
Humm.
*cough*
I apologise at this point to all those paying their TV Licence Fee for that fraction of a penny I apparently just flushed.
Chattings all round. And some completely NOT scripted recordings.
Good people, all.
And interesting to hear personally the non-blog interconnections underlying several's presence.
But dear lord, everyone bailed about 9pm. Whimps!! We still had legs left!
I dunno.
I worry about people.
And about bloggers, too.
BBC-people got no STAMINA.
Surely our licence fee can pay for a better class of liver transplant?
I, for one, or two, feel DEEPLY disappointed at how our government has SO let down our earnest struggling BBC drinkers, such that they feel any pressure to leave a pub before Leaving Time.
On a Thursday, no less.
Were I English, I'd be ashamed to be. Such.
* Caveat: Quote has been modified for the sake of self-righteousness
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Lies, Damned Lies, and
It's even worse when you discover that even numbers which you'd regarded as part of the fundamental bedrock of day-to-day life are themselves utterly untrustworthy.
A pithy analysis of the problematical mister two has been posted on Saltation.
I urge you all to read it with care and alarm. Trust no one. Trust no two.
A pithy analysis of the problematical mister two has been posted on Saltation.
' "2 is not equal to 3 - even for very large values of 2."
Grabel's Law
(cited in the Fortune file)'
I urge you all to read it with care and alarm. Trust no one. Trust no two.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Spot the Difference
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Cry me a river of jazz, Katrina
Friday, September 09, 2005
It's good to cook
Do not, repeat NOT, strap eggs to your head while talking on the phone.
Weekend Eating:
Mobile Cooking
with Suzzanna Decantworthy
additional research: Sean McCleanaugh
Many students, and other young people, have little in the way of cooking skills but can usually get their hands on a couple of mobile phones. So, this week, we show you how to use two mobile phones to cook an egg which will make a change from phoning out for a pizza. Please note that this will not work with cordless phones.
To do this you will need two mobile phones -they do not have to be on the same network but you will need to know the number of one of them. The only other items you will need are:
- An egg cup, (make sure that the egg cup is made of an insulating material such as China, wood or glass - plastic will do. DO NOT use stainless steel or other metal).
- A radio, AM or FM - you can also use your hifi.
- A table or other flat surface on which to place the phones and egg cup. You can place the radio anywhere in the room but you might as well put it on the table.
How To Do It:
- Take an egg from the fridge and place it in the egg cup in the centre of the table.
- Switch on the radio or hifi and turn it up to a comfortable volume.
- Switch on phone A and place it on the table such that the antenna (the pokey thing at the top) is about half an inch from the egg (you may need to experiment to get the relative heights correct - paperbacks are good if you have any - if not you may be able to get some wood off cuts from your local hardware shop).
- Switch on phone B and ring phone A then place phone B on the table in a similar but complementary position to Phone A.
- Answer phone A - you should be able to do this without removing it from the table. If not, don't panic, just return the phone to where you originally placed on the table.
- Phone A will now be talking to Phone B whilst Phone B will be talking to Phone A.
- Cooking time: This very much depends on the power output of your mobile phone. For instance, a pair of mobiles each with 2 Watts of transmitter output will take three minutes to boil a large free range egg. Check your user manual and remember that cooking time will be proportional to the inverse square of the output power for a given distance from egg to phone.
- Cut out these instructions for future reference.
Note: We cooked our egg during the evening using free local calls, if you were to cook an egg for lunch it would cost £3.00 - not cheap but you do have the convenience.
Photos of Germany
Just seen on boingboing:
- AFTER:
WWII Aerial Photos found by accident 
- BEFORE:
Photos from15 years earlier 
As someone said on boing^2, it's like a fairytale. It's all the more pungent if you can see the real drenched-green richness of the forests, if you've tramped some of those swooping streets, slept in some of those castles.
The "Before" shots of Dresden are rather poignant, in context.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
An Unfortunate Name for a Dead Guy
Friday, September 02, 2005
Harry Potter
"Nahhh! 'Ah men'y uv yoo 'ave seen 'Arry Po ' ' er?" *
Murmur murmur.
"Well, THIS! Is Diagonalley."
Oooo murmur murmur oooo.
Oh god, it's him again. The corpulent likely-lad East Ender who decided last year that doing a London Walking Tour in summer through Jack The Ripper's hunting grounds was easy money, because they were all a bunch of gullible tourists.
£5 a head; that's a couple of hundred in the hand.
I pop my head out, the window over the bed next to my desk 2 floors above his gaggle of wide-eyed tourists. I'd forgotten just how much of a caricature he is: bullet head over body that swoop-droops into belt-foldingly floppy belly.
He's vatically spouting re the lightpost's Gas origins and Jack o'Lanterns' use of the sidebars to rest their tapers on when lighting them (but amusingly, hasn't pointed out that the odd-shaped bollards they've all just walked through are not only shaped like 19th century artillery pieces but are actually made from 19th century artillery pieces seized from Napoleon at Waterloo, brought home as trophies, and symbolically melted down for placing around England's original old Artillery Grounds).
And I'm grinning as I lean out and over them, invisible above their 2D world. But for one. She's right up the front, short thick blonde crop round a rich-lifed energetic American face, near-grown up kids and her first time in Europe, filling time between the tour leader's words by looking up and around and drinking in this Victorian oddity. And I lean further out over the alley and look down at her, and humans see eyes, and she looks up at me with an opening mouth and a delightedly surprised face, and I grin and wave and she grins and laughs back.
Murmur murmur.
"Well, THIS! Is Diagonalley."
Oooo murmur murmur oooo.
Oh god, it's him again. The corpulent likely-lad East Ender who decided last year that doing a London Walking Tour in summer through Jack The Ripper's hunting grounds was easy money, because they were all a bunch of gullible tourists.
£5 a head; that's a couple of hundred in the hand.
I pop my head out, the window over the bed next to my desk 2 floors above his gaggle of wide-eyed tourists. I'd forgotten just how much of a caricature he is: bullet head over body that swoop-droops into belt-foldingly floppy belly.
He's vatically spouting re the lightpost's Gas origins and Jack o'Lanterns' use of the sidebars to rest their tapers on when lighting them (but amusingly, hasn't pointed out that the odd-shaped bollards they've all just walked through are not only shaped like 19th century artillery pieces but are actually made from 19th century artillery pieces seized from Napoleon at Waterloo, brought home as trophies, and symbolically melted down for placing around England's original old Artillery Grounds).
And I'm grinning as I lean out and over them, invisible above their 2D world. But for one. She's right up the front, short thick blonde crop round a rich-lifed energetic American face, near-grown up kids and her first time in Europe, filling time between the tour leader's words by looking up and around and drinking in this Victorian oddity. And I lean further out over the alley and look down at her, and humans see eyes, and she looks up at me with an opening mouth and a delightedly surprised face, and I grin and wave and she grins and laughs back.
Katrina and the Waves
The reports from New Orleans of the deaths caused by the flooding, and then the amount of the looting, and the rescue helicopters being grounded due to looters firing on them -- all these I find saddening and sad.
My deepest sympathies and condolences to all who have lost property or livelihood or persons to Hurricane Katrina.
But...
At the risk of sounding insensitive...
I am a little bewildered.
Not by the looting etc -- that's just a function of the USA's disturbingly actively deliberate social stratification. Those weird invisible social shells that Londoners create for themselves, such that they can Live and Work with but never really Meet people outside that invisible shell (we used to describe it as "Londoners spend their lives running through glass tunnels"), are a country-wide feature of the USA.
So the looting and shooting's no surprise -- bluntly: there's been no real change there for at least the last century.
No, I mean I'm bewildered by the deaths and chaos from the flooding.
Or rather, by the literally surreal and literally hysterical behaviour of the population of New Orleans, with regard to the hurricane and the flooding. Apart from the mid-hurricane wind damage, there should have been no deaths, and there sure as shit should have been no major problems from the flooding.
And here's why I'm bewildered:
I grew up in an environment fairly similar, physically, to New Orleans: the Gold Coast in Australia. Over and above the summers of 90+% humidity and average 30-40° temperatures (86-104°F), we get hit by hurricanes every few years.
In 1974, we got hit by a doozy. Not just your common or garden cyclone, oh no. This was a big 'un.
Floods.
BI-IIIIGGG floods.
Floods that make New Orleans's last week look like a summer thunderstorm.
The coast was flooded for about 50+ miles inland along at least a strip of coast from above Noosa to below Coolangatta (I'm just going from a 7 year old's memory of people complaining -- it could have been further), which is what, about 150 miles. And Brisbane's population alone (the city halfway between those points) would be the same as New Orleans (back then: it's about twice as big now).
And when I say "flood", I don't mean like wading knee-deep through water. I mean some serious inundation action.
Our two-storey house stood atop a slope that dropped 2-3 storeys down to a tidal canal, about a mile and a half from the sea as the crow flies and about 5 miles as the water flowed. The floodwater came up ~4-5 foot into the ground floor of the house. So that's what, a rise of ~40 feet of water at the waters edge. (By comparison: going by the overwhelming bulk of published photos at this point, New Orlean's average seems around 5 foot inland with one single media quoted maximum of "up to" 20 feet. Note nearly all photos of streets show the door lintels clearly visible above the water.)
But rather than demanding immediate restoration of normal life, the Aussies just grabbed tins and food and tinopeners and camping stoves and hurricane lamps and blankets and climbed onto the roofs or were offered other peoples' second storeys (we billeted next-door) and waited a few days till the waters went down.
People with boats had mostly prepared by putting out sufficient rope slack; then after the water had risen, swam out to them and used them to help ferry people round after the storm passed. (Every boat left tied up normally either sank or broke (or their jetties did).) We used surfboards and kayaks to get to the shops -- they'd pulled as much food as they could onto their roofs and there was no reason for us to not buy the bread and milk while it was still fresh.
The waters went down to the point you could walk through them after a couple of days. I was kinda disappointed. It was fun! Sitting on the outside steps looking at the brown swirling through the open downstairs door. Dad pulling the kayak out of the garage. The delight of the world turning a new colour and a new shape as far as I could see. Mum told me (I never saw it) that a pool up the road had had a little shark left in it.
We got over 10 metres rain (33 feet) in a week and some serious wind.
And people didn't die, people didn't panic, people didn't demand internet access or mobile phone coverage, they didn't even demand electricity, let alone phones.
They accepted that the real world could affect their lives.
And they took action to prepare, to ensure that they themselves could cope reasonably, to prepare themselves so that they wouldn't be dependent upon anyone else, at least for a reasonable while. And then they helped the other people around them.
In Australian language:
"They just got on with things."
(An amusing observation just now: I'm not sure that any nonAustralian will read that last sentence correctly. In all other English-speaking cultures I've had useful experience with, "get on with" is a responsibility-avoiding pure amelioration verb (-al phrase) confined to social interaction. "Oh, it was tense. But we managed to get on with them after a while."
In Australia, it's a driving active punchy Achievement-Driven verb.
for example: "Get on with it!"
or: "The building burnt down and then exploded and then sank into the swamp and then disintegrated before being swallowed up by the earth's core. So it needed rebuilding. So we got on with it.")
It seems less physically dramatic in New Orleans. From the one-eyed or half-eyed perspective I can get from the TV and the papers and the web, including all the "on-the-spot!" pseudobloggers (many Americans and all journalists seem to (want to) confuse the word "blogger" with "amateur journalist"), Katrina did some serious wind damage initially, but the real problems have come from the flooding. Yet the flooding is not dramatic.
And some things particularly stick out in my mind.
And I can't help seeing these as all just different aspects of the same social environment, the same learned culture of both behaviour and conditioned perception of self versus others versus "the authorities".
That is, the same conditioning that underlies the second two, created the learned helplessness that underlies the first two.
My deepest sympathies and condolences to all who have lost property or livelihood or persons to Hurricane Katrina.
But...
At the risk of sounding insensitive...
I am a little bewildered.
Not by the looting etc -- that's just a function of the USA's disturbingly actively deliberate social stratification. Those weird invisible social shells that Londoners create for themselves, such that they can Live and Work with but never really Meet people outside that invisible shell (we used to describe it as "Londoners spend their lives running through glass tunnels"), are a country-wide feature of the USA.
So the looting and shooting's no surprise -- bluntly: there's been no real change there for at least the last century.
No, I mean I'm bewildered by the deaths and chaos from the flooding.
Or rather, by the literally surreal and literally hysterical behaviour of the population of New Orleans, with regard to the hurricane and the flooding. Apart from the mid-hurricane wind damage, there should have been no deaths, and there sure as shit should have been no major problems from the flooding.
And here's why I'm bewildered:
I grew up in an environment fairly similar, physically, to New Orleans: the Gold Coast in Australia. Over and above the summers of 90+% humidity and average 30-40° temperatures (86-104°F), we get hit by hurricanes every few years.
In 1974, we got hit by a doozy. Not just your common or garden cyclone, oh no. This was a big 'un.
Floods.
BI-IIIIGGG floods.
Floods that make New Orleans's last week look like a summer thunderstorm.
The coast was flooded for about 50+ miles inland along at least a strip of coast from above Noosa to below Coolangatta (I'm just going from a 7 year old's memory of people complaining -- it could have been further), which is what, about 150 miles. And Brisbane's population alone (the city halfway between those points) would be the same as New Orleans (back then: it's about twice as big now).
And when I say "flood", I don't mean like wading knee-deep through water. I mean some serious inundation action.
Our two-storey house stood atop a slope that dropped 2-3 storeys down to a tidal canal, about a mile and a half from the sea as the crow flies and about 5 miles as the water flowed. The floodwater came up ~4-5 foot into the ground floor of the house. So that's what, a rise of ~40 feet of water at the waters edge. (By comparison: going by the overwhelming bulk of published photos at this point, New Orlean's average seems around 5 foot inland with one single media quoted maximum of "up to" 20 feet. Note nearly all photos of streets show the door lintels clearly visible above the water.)
But rather than demanding immediate restoration of normal life, the Aussies just grabbed tins and food and tinopeners and camping stoves and hurricane lamps and blankets and climbed onto the roofs or were offered other peoples' second storeys (we billeted next-door) and waited a few days till the waters went down.
People with boats had mostly prepared by putting out sufficient rope slack; then after the water had risen, swam out to them and used them to help ferry people round after the storm passed. (Every boat left tied up normally either sank or broke (or their jetties did).) We used surfboards and kayaks to get to the shops -- they'd pulled as much food as they could onto their roofs and there was no reason for us to not buy the bread and milk while it was still fresh.
The waters went down to the point you could walk through them after a couple of days. I was kinda disappointed. It was fun! Sitting on the outside steps looking at the brown swirling through the open downstairs door. Dad pulling the kayak out of the garage. The delight of the world turning a new colour and a new shape as far as I could see. Mum told me (I never saw it) that a pool up the road had had a little shark left in it.
We got over 10 metres rain (33 feet) in a week and some serious wind.
And people didn't die, people didn't panic, people didn't demand internet access or mobile phone coverage, they didn't even demand electricity, let alone phones.
They accepted that the real world could affect their lives.
And they took action to prepare, to ensure that they themselves could cope reasonably, to prepare themselves so that they wouldn't be dependent upon anyone else, at least for a reasonable while. And then they helped the other people around them.
In Australian language:
"They just got on with things."
(An amusing observation just now: I'm not sure that any nonAustralian will read that last sentence correctly. In all other English-speaking cultures I've had useful experience with, "get on with" is a responsibility-avoiding pure amelioration verb (-al phrase) confined to social interaction. "Oh, it was tense. But we managed to get on with them after a while."
In Australia, it's a driving active punchy Achievement-Driven verb.
for example: "Get on with it!"
or: "The building burnt down and then exploded and then sank into the swamp and then disintegrated before being swallowed up by the earth's core. So it needed rebuilding. So we got on with it.")
It seems less physically dramatic in New Orleans. From the one-eyed or half-eyed perspective I can get from the TV and the papers and the web, including all the "on-the-spot!" pseudobloggers (many Americans and all journalists seem to (want to) confuse the word "blogger" with "amateur journalist"), Katrina did some serious wind damage initially, but the real problems have come from the flooding. Yet the flooding is not dramatic.
And some things particularly stick out in my mind.
- People are dying. Not in extreme conditions, merely unusual conditions.
- People are demanding to be rescued, including screaming abuse at boats that go past them, too overloaded to stop.
- The various media are filled with earnest reports of people's worthy strivings to solve the "desperate need" for locals to have full and uninterrupted mobile phone coverage and internet access.
- Self-obsessed emails/posts to major public websites and "emergency blogs" all caterwaul their own personal emotional responses to other people's personal emotional responses.
And I can't help seeing these as all just different aspects of the same social environment, the same learned culture of both behaviour and conditioned perception of self versus others versus "the authorities".
That is, the same conditioning that underlies the second two, created the learned helplessness that underlies the first two.
Nifty Linky Bitsy
Oh, there's so much I could post and so few electrons.
But in the meantime, you're just going to have to settle for these two quickies randomly and quickly pulled out my "Blog?" palmpilot memo:
But in the meantime, you're just going to have to settle for these two quickies randomly and quickly pulled out my "Blog?" palmpilot memo:
Lacuna
Oh, why did I think I could hide in a bottle?
It's just glass. It's transparent. You can see straight through it.
It's just glass. It's transparent. You can see straight through it.
Unique Visitors:
Total Visits:
