Simon's blog

Welcome. ( Read this if you're new here. )

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Yesterday, I went with a friend to see Speaking in Tongues at the Duke of York's Theatre. It was very good, in pretty much every way. It is a new play, with a well-written script that touches on a lot of themes. It's a play on which you have to concentrate, because it doesn't repeat anything and if you miss something you are lost. It's clever, and has an opening scene to each act in which two actors say the same things at the same time for some minutes, sometimes meaning the same thing and sometimes meaning something totally different. This is mostly very well done, although the length of it in Act 1 became a little gimmicky for me. It's very tightly directed and performed. It's a very good production - I especially liked the way in which, in Act 1, it represented a hotel bedroom, two different bars, and two different sitting rooms, with very little in the way of scene changes.

I think my only complaint would be the fact that the Duke of York's theatre, which I hadn't been to before, really suffers badly from audible tube noise - although in Act 1 this happened to occur only in one set, and I actually thought that it was an ambient sound effect :-)

The play is primarily about marriages and about the concepts of fidelity and betrayal in relationships. It touches on peoples' need to be valued, on the importance of communication, and on people getting over things and moving on. It's funny, insightful, and realistic - the dialogue is mostly believable.
The first half of Act 1 is entirely about four people - two married couples - who all love their spouses and yet still want something more, want to be desired by other people and perhaps to sleep with other people. That they are all feeling the same, and that they are all convinced that it is wrong, is perhaps the best argument that I've seen for polyamory.....

Anyway. A good play, only on for another week. I recommend it.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I guess it all starts when somebody, somewhere, decides that their council-supplied wheelie-bin would be really useful for some other purpose than collecting rubbish. Then they have no bin for their waste. If they are sufficiently anti-social (and somebody, somewhere in each neighbourhood, is), they simply steal somebody else's, and then paint their house's number on it.



Then somebody else has no bin. So they steal somebody else's. And it turns into a suburban sliding-puzzle game. Eventually, it leads into me waking up yesterday morning to find that our recycling bin has gone. It is unlabelled, and looks like all the other recycling bins in the borough (except for those that their "owners" have labelled). This is most annoying. We have done nothing wrong, and yet we are unable to recycle. I will call the council tomorrow, but I'm fairly sure that they would charge us for a replacement - even though it is not our fault that we do not have one any more. The only logical thing to do, as pointed out by my housemates, is to steal somebody else's and paint our house's number on it...

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Ivy the cat, my room, 5 minutes ago:

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I haven't done a links post for a while. I don't have a lot to share, but a few things that interested/amused me lately.

• A long but interesting interview with one of the people responsible for designing the proposed (but disliked by the current administration) US nuclear waste depository under Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Just how do you design something to last a million years? You certainly have to consider a lot of stuff that you don't in other circumstances. For example, Sweden is putting their similar store under the seabed of the Baltic... but they are aware, and are having to deal with the fact, that after the next ice age that seabed could be farmable land[1], and somebody could dig a well in it. This is a shorter read, also interesting but less discerning, talking about how to design warning notices ("Do not dig here") that last and can be understoood for as long as possible. There is also content about this in the main interview, which notes that the current thinking is to design for 10,000 years, and hope that whoever is around when the warnings start to disappear (through physical processes or through language / culture / species changes) will see fit to renew them.
• Here is a brief comic which may amuse my design-y friends, web-based and otherwise, and any other contractors to a lesser extent - "How a Web Design Goes Straight To Hell".
• I want one of these. Yes, it's sort of tacky (the all-white-light version less so), but it's very cool. I don't know how dark the room has to be for it to work well, and... well, it's $65 and only currently available in kit form, and my poor soldering skills would probably wreck it.

[1] I'm not sure of the mechanism for this... but even if this example is rubbish, the point stands about long-term planning.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I'd resolved that now that I wasn't working, I should try pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone a little.

Well, on Thursday night I tried role-playing in Call of Cthulu for the first time, thanks to an excellent and gentle GM and my housemates. It was...weird, and I can't quite decide whether or not I liked it. I had no trouble in imagining how a character would behave, but I found it difficult to actually role-play him. I've never been an actor, I know this. Given his backstory, his actions ended up a bit wrong - he behaved more as I would have done in the circumstances, not as he would. Or, perhaps, as I would have done when playing a Lucasarts adventure! It's something I shall try a bit more, and see whether I grow to like it more.

Yesterday, with the help of prolificdiarist, I persuaded myself to sign up to volunteer for Crisis at Christmas. I'm not sure why this scares me as much as it does.... but it seems like a good thing to do.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

When I posted here that I'd uploaded them all, I lied. I found another folder of images.

They are now all online, here.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

A random thought, while trying and failing to sleep:

Some people are looking into possible geo-engineering - ways to artificially prevent global warming without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I'm just wondering... it's hard enough at present to get nations to agree on emissions reduction, which is something that benefits every nation collectively but hurts each nation individually. What if somebody does come up with a way of, say, artificially raising the planet's albedo? (that's one I can think of off the top of my head - there are some somewhat more exotic ideas around too). Any geo-engineering solution is likely to be vastly expensive, and will be largely untested. It's something that will cost any country that wants to do it, but potentially affect the world - either in its success or, perhaps, its disastrous failure. How will anybody work out who should pay for it? And does anybody, ethically, have the right or the authority to do something like this?

Does that even make sense? It's late...


EDIT: That should, of course, have been *raising* the planet's albedo. Lowering it would be silly. Corrected above.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Interesting post at Boing Boing on the proposed US carbon-reduction commitment at Copenhagen.

This helps to see why it's hard to get an agreement in Copenhagen. In order to avoid "dangerous levels of climate change" the US is committing to reduce its output to "only" 22.7% of global emissions, despite having only 4.5% of the global population.

Full article.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Yesterday I went to a conference at the Institute of Physics on energy efficiency. There were some interesting talks. I learned a little more about my networking problems.

One of the problems is simply that I have difficulty talking to men. I realise that this is the reverse of what men are supposed to say, but it's not a sexual thing, or at least not mainly a sexual thing. It's more that I know that I don't conform to "correct" male behaviour, and this makes me reluctant to stray outside the purely professional in conversation. If I stick to talking about business, people relate to me. If I don't, then they think I am odd, realise I am not interested in football, and lose interest. That's a gross generalisaton, of course, and certainly not true of all men, but it's led to me simply being more willing to engage with female strangers, because I'm more likely to get on with them.

Another issue is the fact that I'm unemployed. Some people who I spoke to yesterday were clearly viewing it as a "networking" occasion, and were interested in what they could get out of the people they were speaking to. They were happy to chat for a while, but weren't terribly interested in maintaining contact with somebody who couldn't offer them anything. Or, maybe. I had some good conversations with people, but only came away with contact details for one person, and she was one who was trying to sell me something. And, you may note, a she. See the previous point. I didn't ask anybody else for contact details - maybe I just feel impertinant doing so, when I know that I can't offer them anything - and nobody volunteered or offered theirs.

Hmm.

There were a couple of other interesting observations from this event. Firstly, that there is some confusion over whether we should be aiming to reduce energy consumption or to reduce CO₂ emissions. The two are roughly aligned in the short term in most areas, but there are some conflicts[1], and with legislative targets being set on CO₂ rather than energy, are we measuring the right thing? Personally I think that we are for the moment, but that we need to keep an eye on that in the long term rather than letting "CO2 reduction is all" become dogma.

Secondly, I got an impression of how fragmented thinking is on energy efficiency. Most people there were concerned with one particular area, which they had thought through in detail, but hadn't necessarily looked at how it interacted with other things. It seems to me that very few people are looking at the "big picture". This may be because the big picture is hard, and very complex.

[1] e.g. carbon sequestration applied to coal power stations. It keeps CO₂ out of the atmosphere but reduces the plants' efficiency by a considerable margin.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I was sitting at a conference on energy efficiency yesterday, and thinking that one of the single biggest energy savings that we could make (without reducing population) would probably be to shift our waking day to correspond with daylight. In the summer we typically get out of bed 2-4 hours after sunrise, and stay up 2-4 hours after sunset... Does anybody know, or can anybody speculate, as to why this is? Any historians reading?

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Last night, I went to see Motorhead at the Hammersmith Apollo. This was a bit unexpected, as it was only a few hours before that housemate commlal failed to find a taker for her spare ticket, and I said I'd come along.
They were not a band I was familiar with, and not even a genre I knew much of, so I had no idea what I'd think - but hey, broadening of horizons is good.



The main thing that I found out from the evening is that my hearing is worse than I thought. For a while now I've tended to hear everything a little muffled, with the top end missing, almost as though I were experiencing life via a low bitrate mp3. It's part of my symptoms-of-a-cold-for-years-now thing - if I hold my nose and blow a little, changing the pressures in the ears, it clears and I get a *lot* of top end for a few seconds, presumably since my brain has got used to there not being much there.

There's another related and unfortunate effect, which I'd noticed before but forgotten about, which means that when I hear loud sounds - such as metal at gig levels - I get some sort of resonance in my ears and sinuses which means that the top end distorts and becomes an annoying mush that masks the high-mid. I experienced this for most of last night's concert, which is why I was occasionally holding my nose and exhaling throughout, presumably to the bafflement of anybody who noticed. The effect is such that when I did that, and cleared my hearing, I would sometimes go "oh, there's some really cool guitar-work going on there, I couldn't hear that before". So my ears at present, when applied to Motorhead, seem to mask most of that same really cool guitar work and all of the lyrics and turn it into fairly uniform high-energy noise. That was fun, nevertheless, but I didn't really get to fully appreciate the music. I need to get it sorted out, but I'm pretty sure it's a symptom of my general permanent congestedness.

Anyway, the concert. It was good. I've concluded that it's not really my thing, but I enjoyed it and I'm really glad that I went. The Damned were on as support, and were really rather good - I especially liked some of their slower, more ambient, numbers - and Motorhead themselves were bloody impressive. I especially appreciated some rather awesome drum solos, and their first encore in which they appeared on the front of the stage with acoustic guitars and did a sort of "Motorhead Unplugged" track, which was... odd, but rather cool :-)



On the technical side, it once again made me nostalgic for working on live performance. I can't judge the sound, because my hearing was messed up, but the lighting... I had mixed feelings on. I liked the design of the rig, in that it wasn't too high-tech. It was a proper old-school ACL-wielding PAR-fest, only using wigglies when they'd give good effect rather than as the default. (translation: flashing lights rather than robotic stuff). It was a good update of the sort of lighting that would have been around when the band first achieved prominence, and it was exactly right for the music. The show design had some nice set-pieces, but in general I thought that it was a bit sloppily executed, especially at the start. In between those set-pieces the flishy-flashy stuff seemed... not quite tight, not quite with the music - although that did improve through the gig - and I couldn't help feeling that there was more potential there for imaginative and planned uses of the rig as opposed to "flash flash flash". There was also a FAR too prolonged use of strobes near the end - at least a couple of minutes - which struck me as "hmm, we seem to have blown all our interesting stuff already, let's just flash strobes at everybody to make a bigger climax".

As always, I will note that this is comment on the specific performance that I saw, and not the abilities of the operators - I have no idea what the circumstances were, and nobody manages a 100% show all of the time, or even any of the time in some situations..



A good night, and I only got out of bed at 10am today :-)
(this is very late for me)

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

When I woke up this morning, my plan was to stay in and have a lazy day waiting for the dishwasher repair man, as everybody else was going to be out at Dragonmeet. It didn't quite work out that way.

First of all, housemate wyrdness decided that she wasn't going to Dragonmeet, and that she would therefore be in to wait for the repair guy. This led to me spontaneously agreeing, amid much encouratement, to go to Dragonmeet - at about five minutes notice.

Once there I concluded that there wasn't very much for non-roleplayers - enough to occupy an hour perhaps, but not a day. However, I got dragged into the Ticket To Ride Regional Championship tournament (I enjoy the game, but am not competetive, so I was intimidated by the "championship" element. However, this was negated somewhat by the fact that there were only 8 entrants, and four of these were my housemates and friend). This sucked up much of the day, and in the end I sort-of won (also sort-of came second. We were a bit confused by the tournament rules). Umm, oops?

Anyway, during the course of the day at Dragonmeet, housemate commlal failed to find anybody who wanted to use the spare ticket to a Motorhead gig that she had ended up with. I said "well, no sense in wasting it, I'll come". It's not a band I really know, it's not even a genre that I remotely know. So I went to that at a few hours notice. It was fun, although I've decided that it's not really my thing. I shall write more about that tomorrow.

Now, it is 0230, I have got home, I shall shortly sleep, hopefully for quite some time.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

It took me six months, but I've finally got around to sorting through the photos that I took on my trip to Israel last April, and putting the not-terrible ones online.

See here if you're interested.

EDIT: Turns out that wasn't all of them - I just found another folder! Will post soon.
EDIT 2: Now they are all there. Link is the same.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Just before I left my old job, I assembled a folder of "Stuff wot I have done" - things I'd like to be able to refer to when compiling a portfolio, outlining my key achievements in the last five years. Unfortunately, I discovered today that in the rush of my last day I didn't actually copy this folder to the portable HDD that I had taken in for the purpose. Not impressed with myself...

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I've always said that the reason I can't freelance is that I'm no good at networking. I was explaning this to a new friend last week, who I'd just met, while in a group of her friends, who I'd been chatting to... and I sort of went "oh!" to myself. I remembered that a couple of days earlier, a housemate had exclaimed to me "Is there anybody you *don't* know?". And I remembered that at university, I had a reputation for knowing half the population of Durham[1] and was generally the Person Who Would Know Somebody for technical theatre.

Oh, indeed.

It doesn't seem to work for professional stuff, for some reason. Part of it might be that I'm a little too keen to maintain a barrier between the "me me", which likes to meet random people, and the "work me" which is really careful about meeting people in case I make a bad impression. With non-work people I can be open and be myself, and if they don't like me it doesn't matter - wheras for work stuff I feel the need to conform more to peoples' expectations, which makes me a whole lot less open.


[1] The female half, mostly, but not for the "obvious" reasons.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I have an old Jakar slide rule - a little 15cm one. It is in a little pouch with some instructions. The rule itself is in very good condition, though the packaging isn't.

Would anybody like it? I've been carrying it around with me for curiosity value for years, but I doubt I'll ever actually do anything with it...

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I was waiting for a Decision Maker to make a Decision on whether I am
entitled to benefits. Apparently I am. I know this for all the wrong
reasons.

They wrote to me saying so, but sent the letter to my parents'
address - which I have never given them. Privacy fail. Presumably they
must have retrieved the address from some record based on my NI number
which I gave them for a different purpose many years ago - data protection
fail. Fortunately (a) my parents still live there (so they didn't sent my
name, my NI number, and details of my benefits claim to total strangers),
and (b) I am on good terms with my parents (so the letter wasn't torn up or
used as ammunition against me).

My Dad opened the letter by mistake (it was addressed to Mr. Waldman at his
address) and then forwarded it on to me, in
a plain white envelope. The envelope arrived. Empty. At some point in
transit it had been torn open and re-sealed with a Royal Mail "we're sorry
that your letter was damaged" sticker, which was then itself damaged. There
is no sign of a further sticker to say "we're sorry that your envelope was
damaged, and we have no idea what happened to the contents".

So. Apparently, I am entitled to benefits, but I have no evidence of the
fact. This may not be a problem, since it should be paid automatically into
my bank account. Since the letter was in a plain white envelope and not
from the DHSS, there is no reason to think that it was targetted
deliberately; however, the fact remains that there is a letter floating
around with my name, my address, my NI number, and details of my benefits
claim, which makes me uncomfortable.

I would like to complain about the mis-addressing, and to warn whoever
needs to know about the possibility of identity / benefits fraud. However,
I have no idea who to write to. I daren't tell the job centre, because it
would confuse them. Fortunately my Dad took a photocopy of the letter (he
is also my accountant), so when he sends another copy my way it may shed
some light.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

I have a preview account. If anybody else does, and would like to have me as a contact, it's on swaldmanfirecloud@googlewave.com. No, I didn't get to choose that. It's not integrated with gmail or apps for me, because my mail is on an Apps own-domain thingy, which (presumably) doesn't have Wave.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused

Sadly I don't have time to understand the proposed legislation myself, but I'll link here to what Cory Doctorow is saying here and here, and what Charlie Stross has written.

Doctorow in particular tends to be a tad partisan on such things, but I don't doubt that it's very bad.

I shall be writing to my MP later this week. If you're British, please consider doing the same.

Original post | comment(s) | Reply? | Instructions for the confused