Flotsam & Jetsam

So I'll borrow the working title of the first episode of Torchwood. (Eventually called "Everything Changes" upon broadcast)...

Went to Lunar House in Croydon yesterday to get Lazarus' visa status sorted out. £500 for a small yellow piece of paper and some peace of mind. Now we can go back to the states for Christmas and not have to worry about any unpleasant surprises upon our return. We could probably have gotten away with something cheaper, but with the potential downsides being pretty unpleasant, this seemed the most prudent option.

In other news, it appears that our proposal to upgrade the infrared camera on the Liverpool Telescope has been suddenly and unexpectedly triaged and killed. We were on the schedule for the PPRP meeting next week, but apparently there was a late change to the rules and we got killed by a committee which wasn't even originally supposed to have seen the proposal. Ah well... It looks progressively less and less likely that we will be staying in the UK after this summer. As it stands I currently only have an Advanced Fellowship proposal and a lectureship application at Keele still pending. Roll on the US job market... (Which is hitting full steam right now).

Meanwhile, I've been getting *looks* for my choice of Tube reading the last couple of days. Even here in what must be one of the most secular cities in the world, reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion seems to draw disapproving looks. I can't imagine how it must go down in the states. The raving blue meme-ies really do scare the hell out of me sometimes. (Usually just about anytime I think about them...) Oh well, that's enough for the moment. I must now meditate on a teaching philosophy.

XYZZY

Here's something interesting. http://www.inform-fiction.org. It appears to be a bit of software for writing interactive fiction. Anyone remember Zork? Back when I was a kid these were vaguely popular computer games where you wander around inside a story. Infocom was by far the highest profile creators of these games, and they had built a moderately clever interpreter which would let you control the game by simply typing in english.

The clever thing about Inform seems to be that you can use it to write interactive fiction by typing in english. In other words, this thing interprets both directions. The author writes in english, the computer interprets this and builds a model world based on this composition. Then the 'reader' explores this world interactively by writing in english, which is also interpreted by the computer in the context of the model world. I haven't played with it yet, but does look quite interesting, particularly since it seems to be extendable with lots of pre-made widgets. There's even an academic paper about it on the website. If nothing else, its an interesting concept.

The Sun Did Not Shine

It's raining today. It's raining quite steadily in a rather sedate and understated way that often does here in London. It's as if the weather is trying to conform to that ever so proper image of British culture which is the typical American expectation of Britain.

This is the first really rainy day we've had in a while so, perhaps predictably, I had to be out in it running errands this morning. Still the walk over from High Street Kensington to my office was fairly pleasant, albeit wet. The rain made the pavement (that's a sidewalk for my American readers) quite reflective, and the lighting was actually rather lovely. The sky reflecting off the pavement lighting the street from below, and the fall leaves adding some vibrant yellow, gold, and orange colour which contrasted nicely with the rather neutral gray of the reflected sky. All in all, it was a surprisingly pleasing walk, and the mellow sounds of traffic and splashing water mixed well with the earthy music of Neil Young's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere album.

Neil Young typically sounds rather too American (yes, I know he's Canadian), and usually jars a bit with the surroundings here in urban London, but he worked well today. The Cure would have fit too I guess, but they didn't survive the hard-disk crash that wiped out much of our iTunes library, leaving us with mostly just the end of the alphabet to work with at the moment. I doubt whether listening to The Cure would have inspired quite such an appreciative opinion of the weather though. Beautiful, yes, but a bit maudlin.

Play: It's the Real Thing

Now there's a mangled title phrase for you.

So what is this play business all about anyway. What is it about certain activities, objects, and stimuli that we humans find so pleasing? This question occurred to me watching Laz play tonight, and seeing him totally fascinated by a clear plastic box of wood screws, and squeal in delight at the sight of a plastic Coke bottle. Not exactly standard issue baby toys. Makes one wonder what sort of subliminal programming Coke is putting into their logo that stimulates the pleasure center of a ten month old child!

What Lazarus finds really exciting does seem sorta random. We discovered he gets super-exicted when he sees pictures of David Tennant in Doctor Who Magazine. He can't really be bothered with the rest of the magazine though. Pictures of Billie Piper do nothing for him, though he does show a mild interest in Cybermen. (Apparently he found them incredibly funny this spring while watching The Age of Steel with his Mama. Not that he should have been watching TV, but Daddy was in China at the time, and Mama was feeling a bit overwhelmed and needed a break.)

Anyway, I'm sure that what adults find interesting and exciting is probably just as random, it's just not so obviously so. Although, having said that, there are some pretty bizarre adult hobbies too. Trainspotting; what's that about?!

Speaking of Trainspotting, I love that Brits use the word "anorak" as a synonym for "nerd." Apparently an anorak is what Americans would typically call a rain poncho. It is part of the traditional attire of trainspotters who spend lots of time standing in the rain next to train tracks. This is almost as fun as rhyming slang, which is really bizarre and a bit harder to explain. Plus it tends to lose something in the translation.

Ah well... time to move on...

The magic numbers are: 45, 39, 51.

Yuppieitis

Ah sleep... not always the easiest commodity to come by, and unfortunately not always something that you can make flexible. We've been on a slightly later schedule the last couple of days, but Laz went to bed quite early tonight. I actually need to get up early tomorrow to go in for lab, but my own brain isn't willing to slow down enough yet.

I'm not helped by the fact that I'm physically not terribly comfortable either. I seem to have developed a number of random aches and pains, and what is probably a Repetitive Stress Injury (maybe plural) on my right arm. Been bugging me on and off for months now. I've finally decided to see a doctor about it, so I have another early day on Thursday to see our old GP for my 10 min NHS appointment. (Whoo Hoo!) Make it fast but at least it's free.

Of course typing like this probably isn't going to help my arm feel any better.

Frankly carpal tunnel seems like a bit of a pathetic complaint. I mean really! A medical condition from typing too much? Seems rather reminiscent of George Jetson's sore button-pushing finger. Even so, it is rather surprisingly painful.

Enough moaning. It could be worse. I could actually have to make a living at a real job.

Quantity vs Quality

What is it about our culture that seems to make us tend to value quantity of quality?

It seems to me that virtually everyone I know is overcommitted. We all have our fingers in too many pies and as a result, we quite often don't have the time to really do things right. For example, my job is primarily a research position, but there is a teaching component. In my case, I'm one of the demonstrators in the second-year physics lab. Now if I had the time to spare, I would have gone through the entire lab in an ordered and organized way, filling out a lab book as I went along and really doing a nice work-up. However, other fires need to be tended, and so I went through the entire lab in an afternoon, and took some data, but not always high quality. i've worked through the analysis a bit, but my "lab book" is not at all useful as a demonstration of what a good lab book should be.

This is just a single example, but there are many. Consider what is newsworthy about movies, & music. We hear about the number of albums sold, and the TV ratings. The number one movie is determined merely from the weekend box-office takings. Even awards, which should be some measure of quality, are now enumerated. "Winner of 7 Academy Awards".

Perhaps Ken Wilber is right about the modern world reducing the universe to a flatland of numbers. Are we attracted to quantity simply because we can count, and that gives us some sort of measure? There are metrics of quality, and some even get used on occasion, but we seem to be more and more a people driven by our own lowest common denominators. More often than not the things that get done are the things that aren't risky.

Perhaps therein lies a bit of an answer. Striving for quality requires imagination and innovation. It means taking longer to accomplish less so that the less that is done is done "better". But "better" is necessarily a somewhat subjective judgement, and what if others don't see the quality? You can always justify quantity. 14 is always more than 7, even if its 7 Mona Lisas. (Of course, the 7 Mona Lisas are only valuable if everyone thinks there's only one, and you'd better be sure that nobody discovers the words "This Is a Fake" written in felt-tip pen under the paint.

Little Green Man

He was once a little green ball of clay... GUMBY
But you should see what Gumby can do today... GUMBY
He can walk into any book,
With his pony pal Pokey too.
If you've got a heart, then Gumby's a part of you.

For some reason, the songs that we end up singing to Lazarus have mostly turned out to be the theme songs to old TV shows. The latest addition is Gumby, which bubbled up from my subconscious the other day when a sudden need for a new song came up. Other favorites include The Flintstones, Mr. Ed, and something called Skinamarink. The Doctor Who theme gets sung quite a lot as well.

Occasionally a few other songs will show up, but usually not much less bizarre. For example, Waltzing Matilda, even though I know almost none of the words. Lots of Christmas carols. Bits of songs from The Music Man. Occasionally, Sunshine will dig up an old Beatles tune. Very little in the way of "proper" lullabies. Of course, some of those are rather creepy. Just what is supposed to be soothing about Rock-a-bye Baby? Of course, I'm not sure that humming the baby to sleep to The Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back is exactly sending the right message either. At least we have for the most part steered clear of ad jingles.

I'm sure it says something about our culture, or at least our upbringing that these are the 'folk melodies' that come easily to mind.

Mr. Brown Can Mu, Can You?

It is a curious thing this drive to create. Why is it that we Humans feel compelled to bring order and structure and meaning into the universe? Why do we rage against entropy? What is the source?

Ken Wilber would probably say that it is the pull of Spirit (capital S) acting on the universe of spirit (small s) pulling creativity into the world. I'm not really sure if that's an answer or just giving a name to something. Of course Ken Wilber would probably also explain that I'm not really evolved enough to understand this force of Spirit (capital S) and so of course it doesn't make any sense to me. I can't see it. He might even be right. Such is the unanswerable nature of such a statement.

Why all the questions? Does it really matter? Perhaps not. But sitting in the dark of our living room with the lights out and staring at the light cast on the walls by the street lamps outside, I was struck by an urge to write something, to be creative in some form, but I didn't really have much inspiration for what to write about. As a result I've yet again returned to the subject of writing as a subject.

Such self-reflexive text seems rather postmodern. Perhaps postmodernism was just a massive case of collective writers block. (Probably not, but it makes a for a briefly amusing idea. Very brief.)

Of course, it is possible to look at this urge in a much less flattering light. Perhaps it's just the blind pathetic panic reaction to an utterly heartless and slowly disintegrating universe that is completely and utterly indifferent to our lives. Perhaps this drive to create (and indeed procreate) is just our way of fighting off the madness of the
Total Perspective Vortex. (Brilliant man Douglas Adams. Marvelous observations buried in absurd humor and Sci-Fi so you don't notice how stinging they really are. Still, there is a rather distinctive flavor of the broken-hearted romantic in his writing.)

That's the second time today my blogging has led me back to Douglas Adams. I was going to comment in my last post that we really were rather like those telepathic aliens described in the Hitchhiker's Guide, but I couldn't remember their names. (Still can't for that matter.) I did a little Googling for it, but while everyone loves the quote that humans need to talk or their brains start working, nobody seemed to be interested in continuing the quote to the follow-up discussion. I could figure it out by digging out the DVD from the TV series that I recorded off of BBC2 last year, but that would require turning on the lights and I don't want to risk waking Laz up.

Anyway, back to philosophy... I seem to be at the crossroads of Existentialism and Zen. Is God dead? or just waiting inside for me to wake up and notice I am He. (It... She... sigh... pronouns.) Unfortunately, the sages seem to agree that the only answers come from deep contemplation of mu or some such, and frankly such contemplation doesn't seem to be compatible with my lifestyle at the moment. Certainly I can't see listing the contemplation of mu on my CV as likely to land me a job. And the family is pretty needy at the moment as well. Plus Torchwood is showing. Who can contemplate mu when John Barrowman is on the tele? (OK, well that last one does seem a little on the trivial side.)

Waiting for Godot to Download

Sigh... I spend far too much of my time waiting for information to move from one location to another, or perhaps getting modified from one format to another. Bigger computers aren't getting things done faster, they're just convincing us to move more and more bits around.

I wonder if anyone has estimated the bandwidth of the Earth. Or the total data storage capacity. Probably.

Do Sneetches Saunter or Hike?

Lazarus loves reading. How he loves to be read to. It has been one of his favorite activities since he was really quite young (somewhere around three months or so I think.) He's quite fond of Dr. Seuss books in particular, and so Sunshine and I have gotten to know quite a few of these books rather well.

Now since we had to move at the end of the summer, there were a couple of months when many of his books were packed away, and during this time, Laz began to get a bit tired of his unpacked books. As a result, we actually ended up buying a new copy of "The Sneetches and Other Stories" even though my Mother had sent him the old version I had as a child. Anyway, as began to unpack the books in the new flat, we uncovered the old book, and I was quite surprised to discover that the text of "The Sneetches" is slightly different between the two versions.

The change is on the second page in the last sentence, which reads "And whenever they met some when they were out walking, they'd saunter right past them without even talking" in the new version. However in my old version, the Star-bellies don't "saunter". Instead, they "...hike on right past...".

Frankly, I prefer the 'new' version, but it seems like a strange thing that there was a change at all. Is this wording that was changed for a British audience? (I kind of doubt it, since many other Americanisms have been left intact in the other UK versions of Dr. Seuss stories.) Perhaps someone decided that children won't know the word "saunter," and at some point it was changed. I don't know. Perhaps I will do a bit of internet searching and see if I can discover when and why this was changed. There must be some obsessive Dr. Seuss fansite somewhere, right?

Back on the Ecto

Well, having played with the blogger applet on dashboard (sorry, they're called Widgets aren't they... ), I've decided that it's not terribly useful. Frankly, it seems to have less capability than just posting via e-mail, so what's the point. As far as I can tell, it can't edit or even see already started posts, and it can't do any sort of formatting. Just text. Yes it's simple, but so is my e-mail client, and that will at least check the spelling.

So, it looks like it will be back to ecto, the blogging client I was using before. Assuming of course that I manage to actually continue to blog. Perhaps I'll let the trial period run out before I purchase a license and see if I use it enough.

Woah... weird little bobble there... the tool bar disappeared... It came back though... Strange.

Hmm... I use too many ellipses in my writing. That can't be good style. Probably a sign of laziness: I can't be bothered to finish my thoughts.

Is that a correct use of a colon? My grasp of grammatical sentence structure in anything but it's most basic form is just pathetic. I really must sort that out one day. Correct understanding of the proper use of semi-colons would be even better. Not that anyone seems to use them much in text. Probably because the rules are a bit squishy. Still, I think that I tend to think and speak in semi-colons a lot. I really should look into that some time.

I also need to cut down on my use of parentheses. (The above paragraph started as a parenthetical aside.) I tend to over use them. Professor Boyk at Caltech commented on this my senior year. He said he'd heard it was often associated with people who do a lot of computer programming. I can see that. It feels a bit like trying to nest the parenthetical idea like a nested code structure. (Those two sentences really wanted to join together, but I don't know the rules regarding the colon/semi-colon glue! Something to do with phrases that can stand alone or those that can't!)

I'd make a terrible newspaper journalist. My natural prose style is completely antithetical to the short choppy sentences that newspapers prefer. I seem to like my sentences long, with lots of ideas and little twisty bits hanging off. Not Joe Friday "just the Facts, Ma'am" style structures. (Jeez... should that whole phrase from "Joe" to "style" be hyphenated? I think maybe technically yes, though it would look immensely silly.)

Good grief this is a rather self-referential bit of text. (Must not overuse exclamation points!) Perhaps I should cut it off now and go home. It's a long way to Harrow and the Piccadilly Line is probably about to transition from a train into a long tube of human flesh wandering through tunnels, occasionally exchanging a few elementary people particles ("Per-sons" to borrow a joke from David Goodstein). Yikes, overly complicated with parenthetical asides and mixed metaphors! (And gratuitous punctuation!) I should quit before I dig too deep a hole.

Testing Testing

Cough Cough...  Lot of dust around here.  Amazing how fast dust collects in cyberspace.

So I see I haven't posted since January.  Well, I guess I shouldn't really be surprised.  It was rather ambitious of me to start when I did.  Moving along...

So here I am testing the Blogger widget in "Dashboard".  I'm not sure I really see the point in dashboard.  It seems like it's a reinvention of the old Desktop Accessories idea, which pretty much fell by the wayside in OS X.  Only now they've moved it into some sort of weird half-lit pseudo desktop which appears over the real desktop.  I haven't tried to see how much they interact with one another.  Who knows, maybe I will warm to it.  I do like the Tube service widget.  

Posting from a new laptop.  Well, technically it's a hand-me-down, bought for Monica a few months before her grant ran out, but it's been sitting around collecting dust for several months.  So when Sunshine's laptop went belly up earlier in the week, I ended up with this one, which is fine.  It's really much more powerful than I really need.

Hmm... This blog editor doesn't scroll, it just expands the window.  I guess that's one way of encouraging a short post, if you can't see past the bottom of the screen.  

Perhaps I should see if this actually publishes correctly.