thaw
From Mathmos, a candle holder made of ice that re-freezes overnight to be used again. Clearly not to be used near electronics.
Welcome to Catch
a story of coffee, music and football
the younger model
I’ve been thinking about changing my car for a while now. Despite the fact that my old car could handle a couple of hours on the motorway (or Poole to Abingdon as it was otherwise known) it was a bit draining. Having driven the work’s pool cars (a couple of tdci mondeos) on 5 hour up country jaunts, I felt that when I reached the end, although I was still tired from having to solidly concentrate for that length of time, my foot didn’t ache from having to force the accelerator pedal down constantly and my arms didn’t ache from feeling every bump on the m6.
I thought long and hard on what car to replace my old maroon fiesta with (that’s maroon the colour not maroon the manufacturer for anyone reading this who isn’t familiar with the for catalogue) before deciding on the car shown above, another maroon fiesta. Someone once said, “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”, I say “if you’ve had no problems with it, just get something very similar”. It’s not quite the same, but I’m no philosopher.
On the exterior, it’s got a couple of doors more than the car it replaces, so no more getting out to let people into the back. It’s also got a heated from windscreen which will come in useful if winter decides to make an appearance. However it’s inside (and under the bonet) that you find the real reasons for my choices.
The engine is an environmentally friendly diesel (where environmentally friendly should not be taken literally), which should get anywhere between 55 and 70 mpg, depending on where I’m driving (roughly equivalent to the holiest of cars the Toyota Prius. Being an environmentally friendly diesel, it qualifies for those happy road tax breaks Mr Brown announced a while back, so that’s a saving of 50% on the last car. Exactly how much money I’ll end up saving is still up in the air, but then it wasn’t really number 1 on my priority list (considering I spent £xk on the thing in the first place).
Inside I can counter the global warming being produced by other motorists with my non-environmentally friendly air conditioning, which should make the summer more bearable. Electric windows are nice but not life changing. If anyone knows why there’s no bin then I’d like to know, but other than that I can’t complain! I’m also missing a manual, so if anyone has a spare…
I just have to remember to fill it from the black pipe, not the green!
wasted freedoms
This week we’re all being reminded of how we’re slowly (or not so slowly) destroying the planet, using up the natural resources and killing animals we’ve never even heard of. Apparently we all have to remember to turn off our lights and other electrical equipment when we’re not using it because it’s wasting energy, even if it’s saving on our heating bills.
But yet things like our computers do get left on. While I turn my work pc off every night, many don’t. But there are people to sooth our worries about the planet. Applications like folding@home allow us to put our wasted cpu cycles (and there are a lot of them) to good use solving other peoples problems (like diseases).
However, if the matrix has taught us nothing it’s that every action has a reaction and this is kindly provided by our media attention hungry friends at Sophos, who will gladly sell you a product to stop you using such applications:
“Sophos, has given companies the ability to control employees’ use of distributed computing applications on corporate networks, following concerns that these programs can affect network performance.”
This is part of their new ‘Application Control’ feature, which allows employers to control which applications an employee can run on their computer and is in my opinion, a huge step in the wrong direction.
Firstly, do they really need to make an announcement about how the system can now stop distributed computing systems when you would hope an application control system would be able to do that anyway? Secondly, why back it up with a statistic that 89% of employers want to stop this type of program being run at work when only 460 people bothered to respond to the survey, it’s hardly therefore the opinion of even your user base. Thirdly, ‘can affect network performance’? I’ve used these systems in the past (but stopped because I’ve got speakers to make noise for my computer, it’s not the fans job) and it only went online to get new data about once a week and even then, it would only get new data when I wasn’t using the machine because that’s when it would have a chance to finish it’s work. So unless you’ve got an army of users on the system 24/7 this isn’t an issue.
It’s sadly all about control, while I can imagine that some people would purposely or inadvertently download random things onto their work pc, it’s hardly going to be too widespread a problem. It appears that company (or IT) bosses believe that controlling what their users can do while using their computer will save them money, or hassle or something. I’ll tell you from experience that the more complicated the systems an employer has in place, the more hassle it is for the employees to get things done. Can we please get into a time where people trust each other. Yes, you can’t leave a computer unprotected, but you can’t go to the other extreme either or you might as well put a cctv camera behind every desk. If you want to stop people using an application, try asking them, it might just work.
As for Sophos, what next? A system for repressive regimes to stop citizens from accessing certain data on the web or communicating freely with the outside world? Luckily there’s not a huge demand for that.
the longest saturday
By the time Monday morning comes around, I usually reflect on how little I’ve managed to fit into the weekend and how I really should do more and laze about less, well this morning (I know it’s not a Monday, at least when I’m writing this) but the feeling is a little different.
I’ve been thinking about changing my little car for a while now, but as it’s not something you generally just pop down the shops and buy on a Saturday morning and usually costs a little more than my average weekly spend, I’ve been taking my time over the decision. Last Saturday however, after more than a little research, I did pop down the shops and put down the deposit on a newer model and yesterday, I went to pick it up. Photos and a more detailed description of said machine will follow on a day when it’s not raining so hard that I can’t get outside to take photos.
The plan for the remainder of the day was quite handy, given that the dealership I was buying the car from was just the other side of the new forest and it was easy enough to drive the new car straight into Southampton for event #2, the home game against Stoke.
Despite having a handful of ex saints players (who are usually guaranteed to score on their return to St. Marys) we still managed to win 1-0, and while it wasn’t a spectacular performance and we wasted too many good build up moves, it puts an end to our 3 game loosing streak, it also made the fact that me and Si got soaked walking back into town a little more bearable. After a quick bite to eat and a change of clothes, we jumped into the car again and headed north on the M3 to event #3, the Keane gig in Reading.
People have expressed their disappointment with my liking of the south coast keyboard touting three piece, but I’ve never taken any notice. Other people might say that a sports halls isn’t a gig venue and that Reading is a bit far to go to see a band, I would tend to agree with both sentiments but argue that we were halfway there already. Ably supported by Captain, I was surprised at how much noise three guys with a handful of keyboards could produce and the atmosphere was superb with a real mixture of people in the audience all happily singing along. It’s revealing to see (ok, hear) the songs sung live because with the backing visuals and odd comentary you get more of an incite into what each song is about than simply reading the lyrics or hearing the tune on the radio or cd. It’s also genuinely good to see in Tom Chaplin, someone who has (by appearance at least) gotten over the troubles he was having a while back. An hour and a half of further singing followed (added to the stress on the voice caused by 90mins of football chanting) and we were on the long dark drive home.
I don’t think I’ve every managed to fit so many different and geographically separated things into one day, and boy did it tell, but boy was it enjoyable.
The photo above is kindly stolen from sophie as my phone doesn’t take good pictures. Yes I forgot the camera.
today isn’t special
It’s an ordinary day, just like any other, but for the reason that people in the future, just might want to read about what we did in the 21st century, before aliens invaded, or the planet got so hot that everyone was forced to wear sunhats all the time. This is my day, starting off in the style of a weird flashback…
I could hear the radio (my alarm) and opened my eyes to check whether it had just gone off or whether I had overslept. It was the former. I headed for the shower using autopilot, eyes hardly open, brain completely asleep. Shave, wash, shower. Slowly my brain decides that it’s protests against the light and sound it’s having to deal with is futile, and starts to do some work. After thinking about what I should wear to work for all of a fraction of a second, I reach into the wardrobe (clearly out of the shower by this point) and pick out the first shirt my hand finds, I’m too hungry to worry about fashion right now. Breakfast (the most important and highly enjoyable meal of the day) is a bowl full or Cornflakes and a large glass of orange juice finished off with toast and marmalade. My toothbrush gets some attention before it returns to it’s boring life of staring at the wall and before I have to drive the 8 or so mile journey to work.
The first few minutes of the exciting day of a graduate consultant/software developer are taken up much like the last few, by catching up with the news on the web, checking nothing life changing has happened since the last time I looked. Same old depressing stories from the same old predictable media. Fine, time to move on. The rest of the day is taken up attempting to convert code from tcl to Java, no please wake up… today’s code is a thoroughly uninteresting general data structure but it’s not that bad and the day passes quite quickly. Coffee is at about 10, lunch 12:30, tea break at 3. The morning is spent listening to the radio, the afternoon is spent listening to my iPod, on shuffle mode. As it was raining at lunch I don’t get the daily stroll and bit of fresh air I like. It’s still grey when I leave just after 4:30.
Back home, tea (or dinner if you want to be contraversial) is a nice steak pie from the butchers in town, after which I get to check my own email and stick the television on to watch Arsenal in the champion’s league, they lost. Played a couple of games of squash with the guys in Poole, I lost (if only narrowly), found out that Saints had faired no better against table topping Cardiff, which just tops the evening off. I take final quick surf around the web and down a glass of apple juice before I collapse into bed, knowing that my shoulder will probably ache in the morning.
I know I finished that off quite quickly, but it’s really hard to write about the boring details of your day without being rather sad or pretending you’re either in therapy or a police interview. Either way, it’s only interesting topics on here from now on!
driving it into a wall
Dear Mr Vauxhall, or should I say Mr General Motors, I wish to know what the hell you were on when you accepted the design for the new Corsa, seriously. While personally I’ve never like the design of any of the Corsa models (and every time I see one of the old ones I expected it to have had it’s Vauxhall badge removed to hide the owners shame, a new set of stupidly big alloys put on and to have pumping drum and bass blaring out of the holes in the bodywork) but you’ve gone out of your way to make this new one ugly. Or have you???
You’ve clearly got the shape by taking one of the new Astras and driving it into a wall. Sure it’s shorter than the Astra, so you got the result you wanted, but sadly it looks out of proportion, I can’t quite place it, it’s just wrong. Are you sure the pictures I’ve seen aren’t for the remote control car and its size isn’t just necessary to fit the electronics in? Next, I can also see that you took the bubble shape of the ka and Micra as inspiration, hence those silly back windows. But then you realised that not only might adults possibly want to sit in the back, but that children now have to sit on booster seats in this country so you had to extend the roof horizontally from the middle until it hits the back, which doesn’t do anything for the looks. I wouldn’t be surprised if there still isn’t actually space in there either, damn. Finally the rear (which most car manufacturers seem to be ignoring at the moment) has clearly been ‘borrowed’ from the Seat Altea, so have the lawyers ready. I would put up a picture of said theft but as the rear is so ugly it would crack the glass on peoples monitors, I really shouldn’t. So, in conclusion, I owe your designers an apology, they’ve not designed an ugly car, they’ve taken bits of other ugly cars and stuck them together with some bits from your other models and then decided that it was good enough. Give them a pen and paper and tell them to do some proper work, designing monsters is a job for children and film makers.
Sadly, despite my vitriolic opinion of it’s looks (no I’m not going to try and drive one, I’ll wait for Clarkson et al. to handle that job) I know that thousands of people are going to go out and buy one, for a reason which I will never truly get. I don’t know why I bother really… Now where did I put my megaphone and billboard truck.
healthy slides
Apparently, riding these giant slides in the Tate Modern can help relieve stress. I’m not stressed, but I still want in.
party politics
Don’t walk away, this might be the only post about politics I ever do. Listening to David Cameron, leader of the conservative party and shock horror, 40 year old, on the radio this morning, I can’t help but think that the three main parties in this country have shortened their all their policies and opinions to single logical statements, which go as follows:
Labour
While Tony is seeing out the last few months of his leadership, he seems to have stopped talking to the rest of the party/government and with it the rest of the country, no matter what, he’s going to do what he wants (which is pretty much how it’s gone for the last 9 years really). His statement:
It doesn’t matter what you just said, I’m right.
Conservatives
Vote chasing Cameron constantly seems to be on a charm offensive trying to pick up support from whoever he happens to be around at that particular moment, no matter whether thier views contradict the people he was talking to yesterday or go along in any way with any of his parties policies in the last x years. His statement:
It doesn’t matter what you just said, you’re right.
Liberal Democrats
Sadly, the “we’re a serious option” thing won’t wash around here, you’re always going to be the little guys, trying to punch above your weight. The only reason I can name more than 1 Lib Dem MP is that I live in a Lib Dem constituency. The statement for Ming Campbell, Lib Dem leader (and everyone’s favourite former olympic running granddad):
It doesn’t matter what you just said, I didn’t hear you, can you please speak up?
the pacifier
I’ve mentioned Defcon a couple of times in the asides on here. Defcon is the third game from indie developers Introversion and is nothing less than a simulation of global thermonuclear war, very similar to that seen in the 1983 film ‘War Games‘. Cue up a simple outline of the world, stick various military buildings in your territory and then do your best to blow up everyone else.
While it’s not so realistic that major governments are going to come down on you for playing it and while the world in the game is certainly a little fairer than the real world (where I doubt many countries have the technology to shoot down an incoming icbm) it’s still realistic enough to realise that what happens in the game could just as easily happen outside the little grey box on your desk. It enough to put all but the coldest of souls off the idea of a nuclear war. The game’s tagline gives it away: ‘Everybody Dies’.
Having played a number of games against numerous computer controlled opposition, I can safely say that nobody should ever leave me responsible for their real nuclear arsenal, I inevitably end up coming last and the haunting music (where the game music is 50 times as big as the rest of the games files combined) is enough to stop you playing for too long and attempting to perfect any technique. I can only see one tactic that is sure to work, don’t press that big red button.
over the hill
Some amongst you will know I’m a bit of a rollercoaster junkie. Just rollercoasters mind you, not those other thrill rides which simply spin you round on various axes, they just server to make me dizzy, then sick. So after the slightly disappointing introduction of ‘Rita’ at Alton towers last year, when Thorpe Park announced their new ride, ‘Stealth’, the question inevitably was “when am I going?”. On Friday, after a couple of changes of plan, I did get to go and despite the weather forecast being for frequent heavy showers, it was great (and dry).
While the major attraction of a hydraulically launched coaster like Rita or Stealth (or the numerous others around the world) is the acceleration out of the station. In stealth’s case this is 0 to 80mph in a little over 2 seconds before you are thrown to the top of the 205ft hill to before coming down the other side. The experience is nothing less than breathtaking and perfect for those people who just don’t like being taken upside down. The only negative being the feeling I got 30 seconds after getting off, when the contents of my head finally caught up with the rest of my body, giving me a massive headache (it’s like hitting your head against an invisible wall). Still it didn’t stop me going on it twice, because common sense just isn’t top of the agenda when you’re at a theme park.
Still, the rest of the visit was spent going on those rides which weren’t going to make me sick, or get me too wet, not that it stopped the other visitors, you crazy lot, who obviously have a higher pain/nausea threshold and who don’t mind having a cold for the next week. Sadly, I don’t know of anything new or exciting being built at any uk theme park for next year, so I might have until 2008 to throw my stomach and head around again, which might just give them time to recover.
Photos of the rides can be seen in the thorpe park photo gallery.