Furthermore: September 06

September 25, 2006

Saturdays Run

Here’s where I went - courtesy of Gmap Pedometer.

I tried to raise my turnover a bit, and found I could run comfortably at around 160 just by paying a bit of attention to it. That’s quite a big improvement on what I was doing before, so I think it should be possible to incrementally raise it further before next year.

Based on the gmap results and my run time (about 1.02 for the whole circuit), my best current estimate for my marathon time is about 4.15. I’d like to get it down to 4 hours at least, but again, it’s early days yet. Plenty of time to get injured…

Legs are quite stiff today. Next short run is tomorrow - it’s getting harder to get out of bed now the mornings are getting darker.

September 24, 2006

Big year for weddings

We went en famille on Saturday to Donna and Simon’s wedding reception at Bassmead Manor just outside St Neots. Although they are the third couple we know getting married this year, they’re the first where we’ve actually been able to get to the wedding (the others were in Wales and Australia, respectively).

Bassmead Manor was beautiful and very peaceful. There was a nice garden area for drinks and nibbles on arrival, and then the reception meal was in a marquee set up to adjoin the converted barn where the ceilidh band played afterwards.

The food was good, and there was plenty to drink (although I was driving unfortunately). A lot of thought had gone into the planning - L and E got party bags with toys appropriate to their ages. H got dairy free food with no problems. We had lots of little amusing things on the table to help break the ice - little quiz cards, and puzzles and sweets etc.

A bonus for me was meeting an old friend from school - Jim, who I knew before I met Donna in fact, so I’ve known him over 20 years now - a terrifying thought.

Anyway, it was a really good afternoon and evening. We had to leave about 9, although the girls were enjoying the ceilidh - E kept pointing and saying “DANCING” in a very excited way. They both did a bit of dancing, but you could see they were really tired by then (to say nothing of their parents).

September 21, 2006

Out on the road

I’ve managed to run both Tuesday and Thursday morning this week, which I’m quite proud of. Not particularly far - just round Cherry Hinton and back. The short version of the route takes about 35 minutes.

I’ve been looking at my turnover - currently about 152-154. I wasn’t sure what was considered a “good” turnover, but apparently 180 is where it’s at. So I’m going to look at gradually picking up my turnover - apparently higher is actually better at reducing injury too, as it means you tend to run lighter and without raising your foot so much.

September 16, 2006

Catching Up

I seem not to have been blogging for a while. No particular reason, but I just haven’t felt like it. Anyway, this is just a quick catch up post.

Running is going well - I did an hour this morning and felt fine. Whenever I look down to see where my right knee is going, it’s going to the right place (ie above the second toe, rather than collapsing in like it used to). My physio was pleased with progress when I saw her on Monday, so I don’t have to go back again unless I have problems. Now I just have to start doing a third run in the week, and I have the basis for my marathon training all set.

What else? I’ve been out a couple of times - once in London after a day working onsite for one of my company’s clients. I saw an old friend and we had sushi at Moshi Moshi in Liverpool St. She’s looking for a new job, so if anyone is looking for an experienced C++ developer in London let me know and I’ll pass your details on.

Then the other Thursday I went out with some old friends from college at the Kingston Arms in Cambridge. We were joined by Jay and one of her friends and a good evening of drinking and talking ensued. I can’t drink beer like I used to though - I was wasted after 5 pints, although I didn’t seem to suffer too much the next day.

That’s about all, except to recommend the Thursday night comedy on BBC2 - Extras didn’t quite get going, although there were some excellent cringe-making moments. Mitchell and Webb were genius - I loved the SS Officers sketch (”our badges are skulls - does that mean that we’re the baddies?”) and the drunks who think they are heroic crime-fighters (that one could have come straight out of my brother’s imagination in fact). I wasn’t expecting much from Mock the Week, but it was great. The bit about the dinner witch had me creased up, but too long to quote. Maybe it’s on YouTube somewhere.

Furthermore: August 06

August 28, 2006

Out and About

I’ve had the week off, so we’ve been out to eat a few times in Cambridge and nearby. Friday night Jay babysat for us, so Mrs F and I went to the Riverside Restaurant at the University Centre. Last time we went was not long after we moved to Cambridge and it was deathly quiet. This time it was reasonably full, and the food was very good and good value for money too. The service was less impeccable - the staff were quite friendly but didn’t seem to be entirely on the ball - eg we were brought pre-starters but the waiter couldn’t remember what one of them was called, and eventually just gave up trying to describe it. Coffee was not so good either, and the sweet trolley seemed a real touch of the 70’s. I quite enjoyed the fact that the place seems quite out of time - I assume it can’t be making money for anyone, and is presumably kept as a sort of vanity adornment for the University.

For Saturday lunch we went to Teri-aki at the Quayside which was great. I haven’t had good sushi really since I left London so it’s really good to have somewhere like that in Cambridge. It’s similar to Wagamama but better executed. Only gripe would be that there’s no baby-friendly seating. Fortuately E was well behaved and didn’t try to throw herself off the bench. She also ate like a horse (well, a horse that likes Japanese food perhaps). Even L seemed to enjoy the dumplings and tried a little bit of some other things too.

Finally today we ventured up to the Five Miles Inn at Upware. Great location right on the river, and the food and service were both pretty good (although my steak and ale pie needed some gravy or something grumble grumble). Unfortunately it seemed to be raining over a small radius around Upware but nowhere else, so we couldn’t sit out, or go in the playground. I slightly preferred the Fish and Duck for shear remoteness and eccentricity (although last time we went we immediately bumped into Jay) but when we went past the little road leading to it the sign was gone, so I think it is probably still closed.

August 21, 2006

Preaching to the uninterested

I saw one of those guys in town on Saturday who have to get up on a box and talk about Jeeesus for the benefit of the rest of us heathens. I was quite impressed though, that he’d come up with a novel approach. Rather than the usual straightforward haranguing, he was offering a test with a cash prize of ?20. You had to answer a few questions to prove you were a good person, and then he’d give you the money.

I’m not quite sure what the catch would have been - if unsubtle, it would probably be that you don’t worship Jesus; if subtle, it would probably be a more Socratic attempt to show that nobody lives up to their own standard of goodness, and that therefore we all need - guess who? - to help us on our way.

The whole scene was ironic on so many levels though: firstly, nobody was taking him up on his offer. Everyone could see it was a trick, or they didn’t think they needed someone offering them ?20 to know whether they were good or not, or they thought it politest to ignore him. At any rate, the effect was that the chap was standing there offering free money, with no takers.

Except one. The whole time I was there, there was a guy standing right in front of him, his hand slightly raised in an attitude of supplication. The preaching guy was desperately trying not to pay any attention, only acknowledging the man’s presence by saying “Take the test! You just have to be sober and speak English!”

So to sum up, the preacher is trying to do good by spreading the gospel. He wants to give away his own money, except that the only person who wants to take it is seemingly not worthy to receive it.

Personally, I’m tempted to say that Jesus would have given the drunk guy the ?20. As an example of charity, I’m sure it would have had more effect than any number of hours of preaching.

August 10, 2006

A somewhat Jonathan Carroll moment

I was eating breakfast when I noticed some movement in the street outside the front of my house. It looked as if a person was bobbing up and down outside my garden, so I went to the window to get a better look. Outside was a metallic helium balloon.

I thought maybe someone dropped it so I went out to look. At first I couldn’t see where the balloon had gone, but then I noticed it about 20 metres further down the street. It was tethered to a small weight, so it was bobbing along as the wind picked it up. There was nobody in sight and no indication of where it might have come from.

I took it in the house and gave it to my children. It says Happy Birthday.

August 9, 2006

Happy Blog Anniversary

Three years blogging at Furthermore today. I’ve posted about 330 articles in that period, so I guess that’s roughly one every 3 days.

You’ll notice there’s been a fair bit of family history just recently - I was spurred back into it when I got an email from someone who is another descendant of my great great grandfather, John Freestone. The Freestones seem to fairly well covered now, and one of my mum’s relations has done a lot of work on my mother’s maternal line, so I thought I’d pick up the remaining two and see what I could do.

August 8, 2006

Walter James Freestone (1897-1954)

Walter Freestone was my grandfather on my dad’s side. See the Freestone Family Tree page.

He married Mabel Humberstone, and they went on to have the following children:

• Cathleen Freestone


• Dennis Freestone (1924-1999)



• Gordon Freestone (my dad) b1933


• Colin Freestone b1936

Walter died well before I was born, so I don’t know that much about him. He ran the Duke William pub in the Bail in Lincoln from about 1940. I have a note that around 1930 the family were working in the Clinton Arms, Princess St, Lincoln. Apparently my dad remembers looking into a flour mill that used to be near there.

Humberstone Family Tree

This will be the permanent link page for the family tree of my dad’s maternal ancestors (Humberstone family).

Matthew Humberstone (b ~1841) m ?

• Martha Humberstone (b ~1874)


• William Humberstone (b ~1876)


• George E Humberstone (b ~1878) m1897 Gertrude Alice Vamplew (b ~1881)




• Mabel Humberstone (b 1898)



• Eva Humberstone


• Ernie Humberstone - no children


• Dorothy Humberstone m Ron ?


• Tom Humberstone m Pat


• Harry Humberstone (b ~1897) - killed in WW1. [Commonwealth War Graves Commission Record]
  


• Mildred Humberstone (b ~1883)
  

Notes: all this information is from the 1891 census, based on my finding the marriage record between George Humberstone and Gertrude Vamplew in FreeBMD.

Hmm, and now I’ve found George in the 1901 census and he’s single and still living in Matthew’s household. There’s only one Gertrude Humberstone of the right age, and she’s single and living in Nottingham. None of the children seem to findable at all - not even Mabel and Harry, who should certainly have been born by 1901. I think the marriage record I found in FreeBMD is the right one but I may well have the wrong George and the wrong Gertrude from the 1891 census.

The census record records Matthew as a widower, and includes in his household a Martha Goddard, 28, described as his sister in law, which suggests he had at least one brother. He’s a gardener by occupation.

The family are living at 14 Foundry Street, Horncastle, which is significant, as a newspaper cutting reporting the death of Harry Humberstone says he was “residing for some time with his parents at 39 Foundry Street”. As a bit of local colour, William Marwood the hangman who devloped the “long drop” lived in the same street, and would only have died a few years before the 91 census.

I haven’t pursued the Vamplews as yet, but the 1891 census has the following:

• Joseph Vamplew (b ~1857) m Lucy Ann ? (b ~1859)




• Fanny M Vamplew (b ~1878)


• Gertrude A Vamplew (b ~1881)


• Herbert Vamplew (b ~1885)

The family are living in Horncastle Road, Woodhall, and there are two servants in the household - Joseph is an agricultural foreman and the servants are described as agricultural waggoners.

August 7, 2006

Adorable Child Blogging

I was putting L to bed last night, and she asked me, “Daddy, what does ’startastic’ mean?” - I assumed it was something she’d heard on kids TV so I was trying to explain about making up words based on other words but then she said, “no, no, it’s like when you say ‘I really like your dress’ but you mean ‘I really don’t like your dress’”. Finally the penny drops. L can do a really good sarcastic voice, and I’m just a bit worried who she’s going to use it on.

I also discovered that L sees (at least some) words as colours - she volunteered the information quite spontaneously. I say the word, she closes her eyes, and opens them, and then she tells me what colour she can see. Everything I’ve tried so far seems to be purple or pinky purple though. My mum and brother both have some synaesthesia, so maybe she’s picked a bit up too.

Meanwhile E has acquired a fantastic new trick. She’ll say, “dot, dot” (knock, knock). If you say, “who’s there?” she says “dotta hoo” (Doctor Who). She’s been listening to L of course, who is obsessed with knock, knock jokes. She can repeat quite a few, but she still doesn’t quite understand what makes the format funny. Until recently she’d make up jokes like this:


Knock Knock

Who’s there

Elephant

Elephant who?

Elephant lampshade

Now we’ve progressed to a more sophisticated version, where the “who’s there?” is likely to be answered with just an initial sound or letter, and then the reveal will be something beginning with that letter. So now she gets the importance of the link between the responses, but she’s not quite sure how to make it funny.

Furthermore: July 06

July 30, 2006

Running when it’s hot

Huh, having just read this Making Light thread on heat stress on Friday, I went out for a run on Saturday morning about 8am (thinking it wouldn’t be too hot) and I didn’t drink enough water before I went, and I ended up with what I’d diagnose as mild heat exhaustion.

Fortunately I realised I didn’t feel quite right and cut the run short, but it left me kind of vulnerable for the rest of the day. In the late afternoon, I mowed the lawn and felt fine, but when I tried to do a bit of work in the garage after that, I started feeling really stressed, and making stupid mistakes. Again, fortunately I realised something was wrong, and went to lie down and drink more water till I felt better, but it was amazing how quickly I went from fine to really-not-right-at-all.

Today the weather is cooler, but take heed from my lesson kids: be careful if you are running (or otherwise exerting yourselves) in the sun.

July 28, 2006

Up and Running

I seem to be fixed now for running, all being well. I saw Dr Speed again and she was happy, and my physio says she’ll see me one more time in 6 weeks or so, unless I have any more problems.

The main things I’ve changed to fix the PFS are:

• exercises to strengthen the inner quads


• exercises to strengthen the butt muscles


• hamstring stretches - although I still seem to be very tight there


• motion control shoes - I’m using Saucony Grid Stabil now

So far I’ve only noticed minor twinges, which is probably just me being hyper-sensitive to anything in the right knee. I have felt a little bit of ITB tension, so I’ve been given a stretch for them too. Have to see how that goes.

I just added a short run in the week, as well as a weekend run. I’ll just build up the times gradually, then add another one in the week if all goes well.

July 22, 2006

Cambridge Galleria

Went into town this morning to help out with the No2id stall. We actually had a lot of people there today so I went out into the market square to hand out leaflets - I think I got through a hundred or more over the hour and a half or so I was there.

After that, I met up with H and the girls and we decided to try somewhere new for lunch. So we went to Galleria on Bridge Street. It was really good - H had a salad (very tasty but a bit on the small side), I had a steak, which was very tasty, and done to perfection. They were quite happy to do pasta and tomato sauce for L and E and the restaurant was nice and cool, given it was pretty hot outside. I think we’ll go back with just me and H and try out the terrace by the river.

July 18, 2006

Google Talks

As if surfing the web didn’t already consume enough of my time, I’ve now discovered the online Google tech talks (on Google video). So far I’ve seen Doug Lenat talking about Cyc (now there’s a long-term AI project). I should have skimmed more of it, but you never knew when he was going to say something very interesting - the stuff about using Cyc to generate fragments of English then feed those to Google to generate more knowledge for the Cyc ontology; the large number of special purpose reasoners within Cyc (Lenat: if we have to fall back on the general theorem prover then we’re doing something wrong); and the presumably funding-related quest to make Cyc think about terrorist plots and attack and defence plans.

The other one I saw was Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars. Godin says something like “great technology gives you a chance at marketing”, which I thought was quite insightful. There’s quite a bit of good stuff in this one too - particularly where he talks about the “new” model of attracting an audience to your core product, then getting permission from them to tell them about something new, and then letting them spread the word because your product is so remarkable (a purple cow, as Seth would put it). Of course, first you have to catch your purple cow.

July 10, 2006

Palm to Phone - the end of an era

I’ve been using a Palm 3c for about 5 years now, and it’s been a really useful little machine. Lately though I’ve found that I’m using pretty much only as an address book so I find myself with the Palm in one hand and the phone in the other, typing in the number from the Palm to dial on the phone. This is clearly insane behaviour: the phone has a perfectly good address book, but I’ve been holding onto the Palm for some reason.

Anyway, once I looked into what it would take to move the data across, it wasn’t too hard. Fiddly, yes, but not difficult. With the thought that there might be someone else out there who needs to move from Palm to Sony Ericsson mobile, here’s what I did:

• Export all addresses from the Palm desktop app as vCard format. I exported them a category at a time, because I thought I might not want to put all of them onto the phone.


• Just to be on the safe side, I also exported everything as CSV, and since I was going to stop using the Palm, exported all my memos too. I haven’t thought of a good way to import them to the phone yet, but I don’t use them that much, so it may not matter.


• Install the Sony Ericsson phone sync application for Windows. For address purposes, it syncs with Outlook (which I don’t use), or the Windows Address Book, which I didn’t realise existed. If you are like me, just go to Start: Run… and type “wab.exe” in there.



• Now you have to import the vCard files. Before you start though, if you have addresses you don’t want to sync to the phone, you can create either a separate folder, or a separate identity and import them to there. When you set up the sync it asks which identity and folder you want to use, so you can exclude rarely used stuff that way.


• If you exported separate categories, you can create groups in WAB to import them into. Select the group you want before you start importing, and all the imported vCards will be added to that group.

When you import, for some reason WAB makes you press enter for each new card. Very annoying, but unless you have thousands of entries, not a huge problem. I also found that I couldn’t import multiple cards with the same person’s name. If that’s a problem for you I suggest you disambiguate the names either in the Palm desktop, or by just editing the vCard file - it’s plain text.

Now sync the phone with WAB and you’re done.

July 7, 2006

Importing from exported Livejournal XML

I recently wanted to move LiveJournals, for various reasons. So naturally I thought it would be good to take my old LJ posts with me to the new LJ. This turns out not to be as easy as I thought.

You can export entries, a month at a time, from the Export Journal page. However, there’s no easy way to re-import them into another LJ. I admit I haven’t looked into downloadable clients, so that might be another way to do it. In my case though, all I wanted was just to re-import the exported monthly archives as single entries.

The problem here is that you can export either as CSV, or as XML. You could write a program (or quite possibly an Excel spreadsheet) to turn the former into formatted text, but I thought I’d have a go at a simple stylesheet to turn the XML back into simple HTML I could paste into the LJ rich text editor.

Turns out to be quite easy, with even my limited XSL skillz:

• Download my simple Livejournal XML to HTML stylesheet - just use “Save Link As…”


• Export your journal, a month at a time, to XML. For each page, use File: Save Page As… to save the XML to the same folder as you put the stylesheet in.


• Now, open the XML file in a text editor, such as Notepad, and insert the following line as the second line in the file. So, after this line
  

  &lt?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt

  
  

  insert this:

  
  

  &lt?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="lj.xsl"?&gt

  
  
  


• Now save the exported XML, and re-open it in a browser - just double-clicking should work. You should see a very plain HTML rendition of all the entries. You can just cut and paste this straight into the LJ rich text editor.


• If you want to tweak the layout, have a look at the lj.xsl. I’ve left a comment about how to re-order the entries, and I’ve commented out some additional tags in the XML (mood, music etc) that you might want to pull in. Just delete the &lt!– and –&gt to uncomment the line.

Hopefully that will work for you. If not, drop me an email or leave a comment and I’ll try to help you if I can.

Reporting Faults to Cambs County Council

I’m quite impressed by this - I contacted Cambs CC on Wednesday to report that there was a big dip in the road near where I live. I used their online fault reporting service.

Thursday lunchtime they phoned me at work to report that they’d filled in the dip and passed the problem onto Anglian Water to check out the sewers beneath the road there. They weren’t bluffing either - I checked on the way home and the road has been patched.

July 5, 2006

Cafe Adriatic, Cambridge

Mrs F and I had a parents’ evening at L’s school last night - she starts reception in September. Didn’t learn much that we didn’t know already from the nursery class. The teacher seems good though. Since we had to get Jay to babysit for us so we could go to that, we decided we’d make night of it, and went on to Cafe Adriatic on Mill Road. The food was very good - I had a smoked tuna salad to start, and then linguine with mussels and prawns. Mrs F had a great starter - chicken livers and goats cheese salad, but her main was a rather limp pizza. Fortunately, they replaced it without demur so overall we left very satisfied with the food and service.

Do I recommend it. It’s not the cheapest, but it’s not outrageously expensive either. Don’t have the pizza though - Jay thought they only did them still because there are still customers coming who used to go when it was Pasta Fresca.

Furthermore: June 2006

June 30, 2006

Man Bags

Man bags seem to be in the news at the moment, thanks to Mr Roddick. I’ve been carrying various kinds of courier bag for several years without thinking much about it, but recently Mrs Furthermore pointed out that my standard bag was rather too big if all I needed to carry was say, a novel, notebook, phone and PDA.

So I went looking for bags. Nowadays, I tend to look on AskMe for this sort of recommendation. I liked the sound of the Timbuk2 stuff, so I ended up buying one from Ebags (UK link) as they seem to be able to get Timbuk2 stuff in the UK.

I bought a Metro - described as a “small tote”. Lots of useful inner pockets and cunning features. You can, at a pinch, fit an A4 notebook in, but it’s really designed around A5 kind of sized objects.

When I first got it I was kind of horrified - I really thought it looked a bit handbaggy. So I put it in the cupboard for a couple of days to see whether I’d really made a bad error. When I got it out again, I quite liked it, and now I’m using it all the time (except when I actually need a big bag).

When I showed it to Mrs F, she said it looked like a handbag too, but (as she put it) like a manly handbag. I’m kind of glad I didn’t show it her right away though - I think that comment would have done for me. Now, I kind of like that it’s a handbag - clearly, I just need a handbag, and at least mine is manly.

June 25, 2006

Great Weekend

We have had a really good weekend - yesterday we went to a party at our neighbours over the road. They did a fantastic barbeque, and we let the children stay up later than normal - E was fine, but L slept in till nearly 9 this morning - very unusual for her.

Then today we went to the fair, which L really loved - she went on a big inflatable slide, then the helter-skelter (which would have terrified me at her age), then a kind of tiny rollercoaster thing with a barbie car to ride in, and several others, including a traditional “galloping horses” carousel.

Of course, when we left she complained bitterly that we hadn’t been on a bouncy castle, and sulked all the way home. But apart from that, it was lovely.

June 13, 2006

Cute child related stuff

Feel free to skip this one. E is really starting to talk now - she’s beyond just saying mummy and daddy, and she’s now saying garden (taga), spoon, nose, mouth, bath and quite a number of other things.

She recognises things like “garden” especially, and goes to get her sandals so she can go out. If you were just mentioning that “I need to water the garden later” then she’s most annoyed that she can’t go outside.

L is discovering cheek and basic profanity - when I was putting her to bed last night I pretended to listen to her balloon whispering to me. I told her it told me a secret. So then she had a go - she told me the balloon kept saying that I was a poo-poo. I said she’d better tell it to stop, or Mr Balloon might suffer a nasty accident…

Back on the Road

On Saturday while England were playing, I was busy buying new running shoes from Hobbs (Grays as was). It was very quiet, so the guy was able to spend some time advising me and looking at me walk (he was impressed with how relaxed my hamstrings were but not in a gay way oh no). Anyway, I ended up getting some Saucony Grid shoes, my usual Asics not being up to correcting the pronation enough.

On Monday I had physio so I got her seal of approval on the shoes as well. She seemed to be happy enough for me to start doing some short runs (10-15 minutes), so I shall get out there and give it a go, probably at the weekend. Just have to see how the knee behaves itself.

June 12, 2006

Perfect Sunday

I think Sunday was just one of those days where everything you do goes well - I managed to get the girls up, bathed, and out to the Coleridge playground. The paddling pool had been filled up for the nice weather, so they both had a go in there - although E decided she didn’t like it this time, and L fell over and got completely soaked - next time remember to bring swimming costume.

After lunch I fitted a triple socket in the hall (I found that Homebase do a single to triple converter - you just take off the original plate, wire up the new one, then it fits onto the same screws at the back as the single one). Then since I was on a roll I fitted a double socket in the garage - the one in there has been broken for ages because if you plug something into it, it will get hit with the up and over door and smash into pieces.

Then L wanted to go out on her bike so I walked with her up to the corner and back - she’s got the pedalling pretty well now, and she’s learning how far she can turn the handlebars safely.

After that I had a fantastic idea about how to fit another shelf into the bookcase in the hall (something that we’ve needed for a while). Even with my rudimentary skills, there’s something quite satisfying about making things from wood with saws and drills. And the result even looks quite good. Still need to make another one - and paint the bookcase too I think.

Mrs Furthermore and I got the kids to bed, then we had an enjoyable evening together without them :-)

June 6, 2006

John Crowley news

One of my favourite authors, John Crowley, now has a livejournal. Perusing there the other day, I found this speech that he gave in December 2005. There are some very interesting comments in there about the role of “romances” in literature, but more interesting still to me is that he says that the final part of the Aegypt series is done - there’s even an extended quote from one chapter. In the LJ comments he implies that there will be news sooner rather than later. I’m on tenterhooks - I enjoyed The Translator and Lord Byron’s Novel, but I’ve been waiting since 1990 for the Aegypt series to be completed.

Furthermore: May 2006

May 30, 2006

Some Kind of Denouement Occurs

I had quite a busy week for me - went to the beer festival on Tuesday, which was good. I split my time between work colleagues, and meeting up with old friends - Ian, Chris, Donna. The beer fest is often a place where you meet people serendipitously (there’s only so many geeks my age in Cambridge after all). Not that night though.

Saturday I was doing the door for the penultimate Amnesty Big Gig event at the Romsey Labour Club (the final event is tonight, at The Junction - tickets still available as they say). The music was a mixed bag - there was some Celtic-ey folk-ey kind of group on first (Emily something - I can’t be bothered to google right now), then Indie rock - The Pony Collaboration. I quite liked that.

Then there was a Capoeira group. It’s not music, it’s a Brazilian martial art combined with dance. You know the two guys who mock-fight on a rooftop in the BBC programme links? That’s Capoeira. Anyway, some of them were fantastic - you have to be really strong to perform the moves all in slow motion.

Finally there was another band called The Beards. I think it was kind of funk perhaps. Didn’t do much for me anyway, but it went over well with the crowd. We took quite a bit of money (I’d guess ?250-?300) and the place looked quite full towards the end.

Didn’t do much over the BH - just a bit of gardening, played with the kids, tried to do my finance course (forwards and futures, feh). I did come across a lovely little short story sketch by John Crowley, from which I’ve taken the title of this post. Check it out. On the literary theme, I’m also quite taken with Jonathan Carroll’s blog - he has a lovely eye for the poignancy of everyday life.

May 24, 2006

Things to do in Swanage

We were on holiday in Swanage in Dorset last week, so I thought I’d just mention a few of the places we went. We stayed in a cottage we rented from Swanage Holiday Properties - nice little place, just up the hill a bit from the beach. The town itself is quite pretty - lots of Purbeck Stone buildings, and the beach is lovely (although we only managed to get on there one day because the weather was quite unpredictable). There’s a pier, and a tiny museum, and just up the coast there are some fantastic cliff walks. We were hoping to walk up to Durlston Country Park but there doesn’t seem to be a pushchair accessible route unless you go by road. So we just drove up instead. I mainly just wanted to see the Great Globe they have there.

Places we ate that were good included:

• Beavers (14 Institute Road, 01929 427292) - a nice cafe, very child friendly, and with fantastic cakes


• Cauldron Bistro (5 High Street, 01929 422671) - fantastic steaks. Only open Thursday to Sunday. Child friendly but they have no highchair.

Less good were the fish and chip place on the seafront - very soggy batter, and Antonio’s Italian Restaurant - not that there was anything wrong with the food, but it was horrifyingly expensive.

There’s quite a few places to go nearby, but the nearest and most obvious is to get the steam train to Corfe Castle. There’s a model village of the village itself (and yes, it does have a model of the model village in it) with a very good cafe. If you go there first you get a two for one entry to the castle + you get a further discount for going on the steam train. The castle isn’t really good for pushchairs, but they actually had some back pack baby carriers you could borrow, which I thought was pretty good. The only problem with the castle was that the top bit (ie where all the most interesting stuff is) was actually shut for some kind of conservation work when we went. Not sure how long that’s going to last.

We also went to Dorchester, where we visited the dinosaur museum. Our 4 year old really liked it, especially the activity room upstairs. I’d say it’s a bit overpriced for what it is - the interactive stuff is running on an old Commodore Amiga for instance. There are some more museums there too - one each for Tutankhamen, Mummies, and The Terracotta Army. Didn’t try those. We did have a very good lunch at Potters Cafe Bistro.

Just outside Dorchester (we discovered, as we got slightly lost on the way out) is Maiden Castle. There’s a good path up to the top - our 4 year old was fine on it, and it’s not too arduous to get up there.

There’s quite a lot of other stuff locally - Lulworth Cove, Portland and Chesil Beach, apparently Bournemouth now has an aquarium that looks quite good. We also kept seeing signs for Monkey World. Didn’t get to check those out, but there’s enough to make us come back again. Probably when the 1 year old is able to walk too, then it will be easier not having to worry about accessibility so much.

May 11, 2006

The Big Gig

I went to my first gig for many years last night - saw The Morning People supporting Cath Coombs and the Awesome Soul Collective at the Portland Arms. The gig was the first night of The Big Gig for Amnesty, which was one reason I thought I’d go along. I liked The Morning People - guitar pop with keyboards. I won’t embarrass myself trying to say who they sound like. Cath Coombs was impressive - I’m not a big fan of soul, but they played really well, and her rendition of I Put a Spell on You was awesome.

Lots more to come in The Big Gig - check out The Big Busk in the marketplace on Saturday.

While I’m talking about music, let me do a bit of pimping by mentioning my friend from work, Tim, whose new band is playing the LEL in St Ives on May 26th. They’re called The Wayback Band and they play a range of Soul, Funk and Pop tunes from the 60’s to the 90’s. If you’re in St Ives, check it out.

May 5, 2006

Amnesty Big Gig

Cambridge Amnesty International is organising The Big Gig for Amnesty in venues across Cambridge between May 10th and May 30th. Come along and help raise funds for Amnesty and celebrate the Cambridge music scene!

The programme is below, or you can get a nice PDF (about 83K)

Wed May 10	Cath Coombs	Portland Arms	Cath Coombs and the Awesome Soul Collective + The Morning People. ?5
Fri May 12	PeaceJazzLove	CB2	The Hot Club of Cambridge + Jazz Wave. ?5
Sat May 13	BIG BUSK for AMNESTY	Market Square	More performers wanted! Get in touch! (outdoor no amplification)
Mon May 15	R*E*P*E*A*T	Man on Moon	Gouge, Jet Set Willy, The Perfect Crime, Light. Colour. Sound. ?3
Mon May 15	Acoustic Routes	CB2	Bernard Hoskins, Roland Chadwick and folk duo Megson. Free
Tue May 16	KAMI’s Open Mike	Kami’s, Hills Road	Jade + Clifford Ward + Ronan Boyle
Wed May 17	Elm Tree Jazz	Elm Tree	Pamela Givens and Friends
Thu May 18	PeaceJazzLove	Sino Tap	Redhouse + The Ouse Brothers
Fri May 19	Teenage Riot Night	Romsey Labour Club	TBA
Wed May 24	Godfather	Portland Arms	Godfather + Fargas
Thu May 25	The Furious Sleep	Man on the Moon	PiNATA!, There Was an Accident Here
Sat May 27	BIG GIG CARNIVAL	Romsey Labour Club	Collective, Senzala Capoeira, the Calabocas, the Afro Cuban Hair Styles, DJ Kid Klave.
Tue May 30	The BIG GIG Junction Fiver	Junction	Emily Maguire, The Rude Mechanicals, Arco Iris Samba Band, HoraceX

May 1, 2006

Renew For Freedom

If you’re worried by the imminent introduction of ID cards and the National Identity Register, but you have to have a passport, now is your chance to renew and stay out of the system for 10 years. There’s a number of good reasons to do it, and I recommend the factsheet at RenewForFreedom.org if you still have some unexpired validity and you’re not sure why you should bother.

Really though, do you need any more incitement than that Charles Clarke has said that anyone who opts out of the NIR scheme is foolish? Here is the UK Passport application site. Download the forms and you’re away.

Furthermore: April 2006

(I also had some posts on saving for retirement, but I think I shall pull those out to a separate group)

April 26, 2006

Physio

I had a second appointment with Dr Speed last Thursday, where she put me on a treadmill to observe me running. The thing that was immediately clear to me on the video was that the front of my right foot splays out as I land, which inevitably forces the knee in and contributes to the PFS. Anyway, Dr Speed thought I should try physio first, rather than seeing the podiatrist about orthotics. Just as well, as the podiatry appointments are pretty expensive, and not covered by my insurance. I’d go anyway if I thought it was necessary, but best to leave it in reserve.

Anyway, I saw the physio, Jane Warrington, on Monday. She focused a bit more on the muscular imbalance between the outer and inner quad muscles - she reckoned this was pulling the kneecap out of alignment. So I have exercises to strengthen those muscles, and my glutes. They’re quite subtle exercises, but when you isolate the muscles you realise how easily they tire. The other interesting thing to me that I’ve noticed doing the quad exercises is that if I lunge / squat down the way I’m supposed to, with my knee over my second toe, it tends to put my weight more on the outside edge of my foot, and I realise that the fact my feet are quite flat may also be causing my knee to roll in. So I think when I start running again I’d better have a look for some motion control in my shoes. Not sure what make and model to go for yet - I’ve used Asics for a long time, so I guess I’ll look at their range first.

April 23, 2006

Last week or so

Nothing very exciting happening. I saw the consultant about my knee again on Thursday, and I’m seeing a physio tomorrow - I’ll talk about that after I’ve had the appointment. It’s strange really - I watched the marathon this morning and I didn’t really feel bad that I wasn’t there, but I do miss running.

Doctor Who was too scary for L last night. She watched about 15 minutes then asked to go to bed. Fortunately she was already in her night clothes and just had to be tucked in. Smart decision, as I think it was one of the most scary episodes so far. L also seems to have suddenly gone to another level in maths - she’s started telling me things like “3+2+1 = 6. Because 3+2 = 5 and one more makes 6″. I don’t think I could do that when I was 4.

Oh, I’ve started a “my adorable family” post haven’t I. Oh well, while I’m at it, I may as well add that L is currently planning to be a ballet dancer for her hobby, and a private investigator for her job. She’s going to live in a pink house near to us. And she’s decided that since her house will be pink, no boys will want to live there, so she’s not going to get married. Except possibly to a girl.

Smallest of all has learned how to throw her arms up in the air and go “raaaargh” like a monster. Kawaiiii desu ne!

April 20, 2006

East Africa Famine Appeal

From the Oxfam email:

East Africa is in the middle of a serious food crisis. Water is scarce.


Food is running out. People have died and more will die if sufficient aid

is not delivered fast. Nomadic herding communities are most at risk, with

over 70 per cent of the animals on which they depend already dead in many

areas. Recent rains, far from solving the crisis, have actually increased

the risk of disease and are hampering the transportation of relief.

To donate to the Oxfam appeal, you can:

• Donate online


• Call 0870 333 2500



• Donate at any Oxfam shop

April 16, 2006

Finance Links

• Composing Contracts: An Adventure in Financial Engineering - Simon Peyton Jones - MSR paper on a combinator library for valuing financial derivatives. Looks very interesting.


• LexiFi - company set up to capitalize on the research in the MSR paper above.


• Review of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat - Edward Leamer - more than just a review. It’s a jumping off point for looking at economic geography, and what globalization means for the US economy.



• The Volatility Smile by Don Chance - helped me to understand this concept.

April 14, 2006

Fixing my knee

So I got a referral from my doctor, and by the power of private medical insurance I saw Dr Cathy Speed at the Lea hospital on Tuesday. She was very good - she runs herself I think - and she seemed to think I do have PFS, and that it is fixable by a combination of physiotherapy, and possibly orthotics.

She’s referred me on to a physio Jayne Warrington and a bio-mechanics specialist, Sophie Cox. Plus I have to see Dr Speed again next week and she’ll put me on the treadmill to confirm what she thinks is causing the PFS - she reckons its lack of core stability, basically causing my leg to collapse inward as it lands.

All pretty hopeful really. It’s the marathon next weekend of course, so it would be nice to get going again around that time.

April 10, 2006

Links

• SF Futures - my friend Jonathan Cowie runs an SF website which I helped set up a long time ago. He’s just launched a new section with short, short stories from Nature. Some good authors in the initial selection - Ted Chiang, Charlie Stross amongst others.


• Global Imbalances: The New Economy, the Dark Matter, the Savvy Investor and the Standard Analysis - Barry Eichengreen [pdf] - good survey article of the standard analysis of the problems of US Budget deficits compared with recent ideas on why things are different this time.


• Edge Magazine - Kevin Kelly on the future of science. I like the triple blind experiments - collect lots of data upfront and you can mine it later to test hypotheses you hadn’t even thought of when you started.



• b3ta.com - reasons for getting sacked. Pretty funny.


• Boohbah - great site for very young children. Much easier to navigate and more intuitive than CBeebies. My 4 year old still gets something out of it, but it’s probably a bit babyish for her.


• Our place in the universe - remarkably precarious.


• via Making Light - painted room illusions



• Deadprogrammers cafe - how to advertise on your blog. Interesting stuff on using Amazon associates etc. I’ve kind of given up on that here.

April 4, 2006

Self Motivation Links

While I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with myself, I’ve accumulated a number of useful links, which I’m posting here.

• Paul Ford on Good and Bad Distractions - trying to make the difficult distinction between being distracted by something you need to know about, vs aimless fact-gathering. There’s too much to know, and it’s now too easy to know it. Make it harder for yourself to be distracted pointlessly.


• Michael Nielsen on Tough Learning - how to learn difficult material. The key points of the talk are that you need a purpose or meaning to get you started, a vision of where you’re going, and a social environment that promotes the behaviour you want to achieve.


• Steve Pavlina on Self Discipline - six part, thorough account of building up your ability to do what you tell yourself you will.


• Richard Hamming - You and Your Research - interesting talk on what it means to dedicate yourself to your work. A bit like the Tough Learning talk, but more hardcore.



• One Quality of a Leader - interesting comments thread on what makes a good leader.


• AskMe thread - on soul searching, and knowing what you’re looking for.


• How to stop procrastination - very interesting psychological account of different types of procrastinators and what the underlying causes are.

April 2, 2006

Bits and Bobs

Just a quick summary of what I’ve been up to:

• been to visit my parents just outside Lincoln, taking Smallest of All with me. H told me afterwards that L said she missed her little sister, even though she didn’t think she would. She’s actually been nicer to her since then as well, so perhaps it was a good thing for them to have a day or two apart.


• wireless goodness now infuses both machines in the house, and I’ve also got a workgroup network set up, although I think there are still some glitches with that. Installed Google desktop search too, and it’s worked really well - I have thousands of files and emails that I’ll never be able to organise in any other way than search.


• Jay babysat for us on Saturday night, so H and I went to the Peking restaurant on Burleigh Street. Really good food. I highly recommend it - it’s not cheap, but I’d say it’s the best Chinese I’ve had - certainly in the UK.



• disappointment - the John Crowley Little, Big 25th Anniversary edition hasn’t got enough subscribers yet, so I have to wait another year to find out if they’re going to produce it or not. I’m kind of annoyed that if they were not getting the sales in quickly enough, that they didn’t publicize it a bit more - I’m sure a lot of the subscribers would be keen to recruit other suckers, ah, customers.

Furthermore: March 2006

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Furthermore: February 2006 - Self Analysis (part 2)

(The third part of this never materialized, but I might try to write a "3 years later" post when I've finished the importing)

So this part is a bit more general, about a few things that I’ve been reading lately, and how that’s made me think about what to do next. The key quotes are below:

The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged type-B procrastination (MF - working on unimportant things), because it doesn’t feel like procrastination. You’re “getting things done.” Just the wrong things.

Any advice about procrastination that concentrates on crossing things off your to-do list is not only incomplete, but positively misleading, if it doesn’t consider the possibility that the to-do list is itself a form of type-B procrastination. In fact, possibility is too weak a word. Nearly everyone’s is. Unless you’re working on the biggest things you could be working on, you’re type-B procrastinating, no matter how much you’re getting done.

- Paul Graham, Good and Bad Procrastination

Ow. To be fair, GTD is pretty agnostic about what you should be doing. Dave Allen’s take is that he gives you a tool to make you more effective at whatever it is you choose to do. The interesting thing he also says is that if you do it for a while, most of the clutter in your life will disappear, leaving enough space for you to consider the question above.

Onto another one:

If you encounter difficulties in choosing a life purpose, the problem may be further upstream. Dive deeper into your understanding of reality. Question your beliefs, especially the ones you were taught never to question. What if you're wrong? My current beliefs about reality bear little resemblance to those I was raised to adopt. Through interaction with the real world, I found my initial beliefs to be inaccurate. And that led to more than a decade of searching for truth, one that still continues to this day but which has gotten a lot easier.

- Steve Pavlina, Deciding what to do with your life

There’s a lot more on living consciously on Steve’s site, and a lot of it makes good sense. Steve is either one of those scary people who can do everything and still be a nice guy, or he’s a brilliant liar. I’d bet on the former.

So I guess that’s the core of it. I’ve reached a plateau where I’m feeling good. Now along come Paul and Steve and say, “yes, but are you really pursuing your dreams? Do you even know what they are?”

I think those are very serious questions, and I don’t want to immediately start an answer of the form, “I can’t do something great because I have to code to put food on the table for my family”. Having said that, listen to Paul again for a second:

Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore them (perhaps taking friends with them). Others, like mowing the lawn, or filing tax returns, only get worse if you put them off. In principle it shouldn’t work to put off the second kind of errand. You’re going to have to do whatever it is eventually. Why not (as past-due notices are always saying) do it now?

The reason it pays to put off even those errands is that real work needs two things errands don’t: big chunks of time, and the right mood. If you get inspired by some project, it can be a net win to blow off everything you were supposed to do for the next few days to work on it. Yes, those errands may cost you more time when you finally get around to them. But if you get a lot done during those few days, you will be net more productive.

This advice may be a necessary condition for doing something amazing, but it’s also going to make you a total pain to live with unless you are rich enough (as Paul is, I guess) to have a PA or someone who doesn’t get to blow off their errands.

The thing I don’t like is that it seems like only some kind of self-selected elite get to do “great” things, and the rest of us have to pander to their whims. Plus, by definition, you don’t know you’re going to do something amazing up-front, so it may be that all you’ll achieve is being really annoying for many years.

Perhaps this is a bit of Buddhism in me coming out, but I feel you’ve got to try to be a good person first, and then try to fit your passions in to what you’ve already committed to (although the Buddha is a pretty bad exemplar, as he left his family to seek the truth).

There’s a fine line between using your commitments as an excuse to not get things done, and accepting that you have responsibilities to other people that are not optional. I’m sure Paul Graham is lovely in person. I’m just saying that achievements are not everything.

So in the final part, I’m going to look at my own answer to Paul and Steve’s question, and try to resolve the tension between pursuing what you want with doing what you’ve got to.

Furthermore: February 2006 - Self Analysis (part 1)

(fair to say I've moved on a bit from this, but I haven't edited it)

It was my 35th birthday on Friday 3 February. I’ve been taking stock of my life for a while now, and my birthday makes me want to try to draw together a few of the ideas that have been in my head.

I’m going to do this in 3 parts. This part is about where I am now, and how I got here. The next will be about what I’ve been reading, and my responses to that. The third will be some sort of thought experiment about where I go from here.

This is a bit more personal than I usually blog, but I want to see how much of this I can make public. Partly to make it more real for myself, and partly in the vague hope that it will be useful to other people.

The main thing I’d say is that I’m really happy at the moment. Although they’re almost too obvious to think about, it’s worth remembering the basic things that I take for granted:

* I’m healthy
* I have a place to live
* I have enough to eat
* I have what possessions I need
* I live in a (moreorless) free country

More specifically personal reasons:

* I have a lovely wife, and two beautiful daughters
* I have an interesting job, which is reasonably well paid
* I have a life outside work
* I have a pleasant environment to live in

I’m not trying to boast here, I’m just saying I have all the necessary conditions to be happy. A lot of people don’t have those things. A lot do and are still not happy for a variety of good and not-so-good reasons.

I’d say in the last year or so that a couple of things have happened that have made me evaluate what I’m doing. Firstly, back in October 03 I was made redundant from a job based in the City. I got another job in Cambridge, which I didn’t enjoy, and so I had to leave that pretty quickly and start another new job. Around the same time as that, my dad had a serious stroke, and I was pretty worried about him.

So, I think the combination of the redundancy, the bad job experience, and my dad’s health meant I just didn’t really settle in at my new job, and I ended up having a few problems there because they still weren’t sure about me. I think that gave me a bit of a shock and fortunately I responded positively to that.

I started working harder, but fortunately I also discovered Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done book around that time. Once I’d grokked his system I was able to get control of a nagging sense I’d had for a long time that I had a large number of things I wanted to keep track of, but no way of doing it that would ensure I actually got reminded of what I wanted when I needed it. I won’t go into why GTD works here - there are loads of sites on that. For me though, it has gradually sunk into the framework of my life, and made me much more focussed and efficient at getting done what I want to get done, and also reduced the amount of mental clutter I deal with.

So, having got to this state, and having succeeded at work (I’m now managing a small group, which I’ve wanted to do for a while), I’ve reached a plateau - I feel relaxed, productive, open to new things - it’s a great feeling. At the same time, it’s given me a space in which a new question has opened in my mind: what do I want to do with the rest of my life?

This is maybe the first time I’ve consciously asked myself that question. It seems strange to me to say that in a sense I’ve been on autopilot since I was a child, but there’s a lot of truth in it.

Now I don’t really want to psycho-analyse myself, but I think a little history will help make it clear how I got to be where I am today. As a child I was a classic brainy, shy kid. I found it difficult to make friends (although I always had some) and I was teased and bullied quite a bit. I was good at maths and science, and I got a ZX Spectrum at an early age and learned to program it.

So I enjoyed those things, and found human contact difficult and often unpleasant, although I also craved affection. So I emerged from the education system with a good degree in mathematics from Cambridge University, and very little self-confidence that I could do anything other than hard thinking.

I initially thought of carrying on into further study. I tried that, and it didn’t work out for me. I did Part III maths (not a good choice of course, I think) and just found it an incredible struggle. In retrospect I think I was actually depressed during that year, and when it was over I had no desire to continue with academic study, at least in mathematics.

So what then? Get a job of course. I didn’t question the idea that I should. That’s just what you did when you finished studying. I thought software development sounded like the nearest thing to what I knew already. It required technical knowledge, abstract thinking, and little interaction with the “grubby” side of actual business.

So having got into that, I slowly followed a technical career path: CASE tools, analysis and design, C++ and object orientation, Java. I had an idea that I should try to keep myself marketable by learning skills that were generic, such as OO, C++ etc, but it never occurred to me to look outside the box marked
“software development”. Not until I was at Mercator, and even then, not until quite late on was I thinking that I had skills that weren’t just writing code and specs.

My wife tells me that ever since I’ve discussed moving out of development and into management with her, I’ve talked about it in terms of managing my career - ie, I believe that as a guy in his mid-30s, I’m now surrounded by people who are younger, cheaper and in many cases better at programming. That’s certainly true where I work now, where the standard is really quite high. I think that to still have a career in 10 years time, I’ve got to be more focussed on the business side of what I’m doing.

So there’s a lot of things there that I “have” to do: I have a wife and a family, so I need a certain level of income to stop us being thrown out of our house. I want to stay in Cambridge, so I have only so many companies I can go to. To get the kind of salary I have now, I need to be either a developer or manager. As a developer I think my career options are limited, and will get more so as we get more outsourced development going on in India or Eastern Europe. So I “have” to become a manager. But what do I want to do? Apparently I never talk about that, and I think it’s because I’m scared that the answer won’t be “become a software development manager” and then how will I reconcile my life with what I want to do?

So in Part 2 I’ll link to a few of the things I’ve been reading lately that have stuck with me, and try to say a bit about how I responded to them.

Furthermore: February 2006 (part 1)

I also posted several items in February reflecting on my life and what I wanted to do. I'm going to pull those out to a separate item.

February 27, 2006

Frivolous and Various Links

• MSN - various little health hacks



• Arbury Camp - the website for what’s happening in that mudbath full of bulldozers just north of Kings Hedges Road.


• NYTimes - [no reg] intelligence linked to calculated risk taking


• WaPo - interesting article about a children’s entertainer in the DC area. Oblique comment on the child-rearing culture, and much more (it would spoil it if I told you).


• Guardian via Chris L - children tested on a standardised developmental basis are not as advanced now as they were 15 years ago. Education, education, education.



• via Chris L - George Orwell’s school memories


• What qualities do parents want in their children?

February 23, 2006

Political Links

• The K Street Project - good summary of the background to the whole Abramoff corruption story now playing out in the US


• Will Iran be Next - fantastic piece from The Atlantic on a desktop exercise to wargame US options for Iran. Conclusion: basically the Iranians won the Iraq war.



• The Torture Papers - The New Yorker on the background legal justifications for torture at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib etc. Fascinating and disturbing in equal parts.


• Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - David Howarth (Cambridge MP) in the Times on new insanity from our government. See - it’s not just the Americans.

February 10, 2006

Quote from Mrs F

We’re watching TV when an ad comes on for the George Foreman grill. My wife turns to me and says,
“Is that the George Foreman that fought Idi Amin?”

I would have liked to see that fight.

Being Human

I really enjoyed the pilot for this, so I have high hopes for the series, although I reserve judgement until I see what changes have been made - I see two of the cast have been replaced for example.

Progress has been made

I'm gradually getting the old Furthermore posts moved over here. I've done from 03 - 05, so there's a similar amount left to do. Oddly, Furthermore is not letting me access my monthly archives at the moment, the site is up, but Wordpress is not happy for some reason. I'll have another look tomorrow - it may just be some temporary glitch.

Once that's done, I think I shall strip Furthermore down completely, and hopefully I'll finally get round to using it for some web projects. I have now started my book on PHP web mashups, so I should be able to knock up some trivial app fairly soon.

Furthermore: January 2006

January 26, 2006

The Book of Gold

The Book of Gold is the name used by the librarian in Gene Wolfe’s New Sun books to describe the magical book encountered in childhood that opens up the great world within books for a particular child.

It was also a short-lived Gene Wolfe fanzine, published twice in 1989 by a chap called Jeremy Crampton in the USA. Both editions are largely concerned with the Soldier of the Mist series, although they touch on other works.

Jeremy was also good enough to make copies of Castle of the Otter available when it was pretty much unobtainable outside the US, for which I am very grateful - I still have my copy, even though I have the more recent, expanded version too.

Why am I telling you this. Mainly, I’m telling Google. I’ve responded to a couple of requests for copies from the Urth mailing list, but I don’t read it much anymore, so if anyone else wants a copy, they can contact me here, and I’ll send them one.

January 22, 2006

Another quote from my daughter

Okay, so I said I wouldn’t do this, but I thought this was great. L and I have been playing at swordfights with rolled-up tablemats. I’ve been killed several times over and I decide to rise from the dead and fight as a zombie.

“What’s a zombie, daddy?”

“It’s a dead body that comes back to life again.”

“Jesus was a zombie, wasn’t he daddy?”

January 20, 2006

Going to the Gym

I tried out Keeping in Shape on Mill Road on Monday evening. It’s a fairly small gym that runs circuit training sessions. Rates are not too bad - about �25 a month for one session a week + access at weekends. Users (on the night I went) were a mix of men and women of various ages. Dave (who runs the gym) seemed to know his group pretty well, and spent time with me to make sure I was using the right weights etc.

I enjoyed it, and I need something to help keep me fit while I’m not running, so I think I’ll sign up from next week.

January 11, 2006

Ugly

Sorry the site is currently looking very ugly (if it still is). I’m just in the process of upgrading to a 3 column stylesheet, and I’m kind of doing it by trial and error. I’ve looked at Erik Heels Movable Type braindump and basically copied the stylesheet from bluerobot.com.

So far the basic design is working, but I need to put back all the Furthermore specific styles, or think of updates that I like better. I have been meaning to get a proper banner for instance.

Update: It’s now looking pretty good, once I understood which stylesheet elements affected which bits of the main template. You should be seeing delicious links and blogroll on the right now.

January 8, 2006

Out of the mouths of babes

Well, I’ve waited 4 years, I figure I’m entitled to one post of amusing things my daughter has said. This won’t become a habit, I promise.

L - I don’t believe in god, but I do believe in fairies. Fairies are real aren’t they daddy?

Me - umm.

L - I know fairies are real, because there’s the tooth fairy.

Checkmate. I did win one over Christmas though:

L - Even if I don’t get anything from Father Christmas, I’ll still get the presents under the tree won’t I daddy?

Me - (thinking quickly) I think Father Christmas takes them to give to the good children.

L - (considers whether to cry)

Me - (quickly) but you’ve been a good girl haven’t you? So I’m sure you’ll get presents.

L - Oh yes.

Furthermore: December 2005

December 31, 2005

The Goodies

I watched the Goodies anniversary show on BBC2 last night. I dimly remember some of the sketches from my youth - mainly the tomato ketchup squirting one, and the beanstalk one for some reason. Having watched the show, I feel it’s probably best left in the past - I don’t think I’d watch it if it was on now, although I think my older daughter would enjoy it.

The thing that struck me though, was how much visual humour there was in the show, and of course it was all done with “real” effects since there was no CGI to speak of in those days. Tastes in comedy have moved on since then of course, but what goes around comes around, and I wonder whether we won’t see some kind of blend of comedy and computer graphics. Where is the Terry Gilliam of machinima?

Just as I wrote that, I thought - why would I expect to see that stuff on TV (although no doubt it will appear eventually). It’s already happening on the internet. You only have to look at sites like b3ta or somethingawful to find photoshop parodies and funny little animations in Flash. I can’t think of any individual creator who I recognise, and I’m not sure if it’s just a matter of time, or whether the medium has become more like the joke-telling culture - you never know where the originals came from.

December 30, 2005

Secret Sites and Personal Blogs

I just linked to this piece: Secret Sites at Kottke. It’s about using “private” web journals as personal journals. I’d been thinking about similar things for a while - one of the things that I’ve begun to find frustrating about Furthermore is that I don’t feel comfortable posting a lot of personal stuff here because it’s effectively going to be preserved for ever, which is a long time for transient thoughts to be kept. At the same time, it is meant to be a personal blog, rather than being “about” some particular topic - I’d quite like to keep all my personal stuff in one place rather than have a lite and full-fat journal. Possibly what this shows is that you shouldn’t associate a personal blog directly with your real identity.

What I really need I guess, is fine-grained access control. Maybe I should move the blog elsewhere and just keep Furthemore for projects (which I never get round to).

Feh. Maybe this is all just a post-Christmas slump - I feel like I’ve had a week off and accomplished basically nothing at all. Which would be fine, but I don’t really feel relaxed either. Just fed up.

Links

• Meat - fantastic Terry Bisson short SF story showing us as others might see us.


• Kottke - on secret sites. Maybe more to say on this one in a bit.


• Cringely - on the Google box. Very interesting speculation.


• Bike videos - insane urban cycling around New York, SF etc. Mrs Furthermore found these videos made her feel nauseous because of the movement. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.



• Alternative Last Calvin and Hobbes - apparently well-known on the internets. I’d never seen it before though, and I thought it was good.


• From Google Cache - The Harry Potter Nimbus 2000, with all the original comments still in place.

December 23, 2005

Out of the marathon

Unfortunately, I’m out of the 2006 marathon I think. My right knee started hurting after my run on the 11th, and it’s the same problem as before - PFS. So until I can work out what’s causing it (gait, footstrike, could be various things) and whether I can fix it, I’ve had to stop running, which is basically going to destroy my training schedule for the marathon. So I’m pretty much decided that I’m going to defer until 2007, unless I recover by a miracle.

By some sort of irony, I saw this link the other day: How Running Made Us Human - quite interesting theory.

December 22, 2005

External Links Clicked

I’ve been using MyBlogLog to track outgoing links from the site since about July. The free service seems to work pretty well. I’ve aggregated all the outgoing links and the top 12 are below. Why 12? I had about 920 outgoing clicks, so I took the top half. As you would imagine, the distribution looks like it follows some kind of power law.

• Gmaps pedometer (120 hits) - the original site. You should probably use this link now.



• my survey of Cambridge blogs (90 hits) - somewhat moribund. Try Geoff Jones wiki for this instead


• Realist personality type (60 hits) - from the BBC Myers Briggs personality test show


• Gmaps pedometer route (37 hits) - a running route around Cambridge


• Freesat from Sky (33 hits) - I was surprised how many hits I got on this.



• AAA Watch Club (22 hits) - 24 hour dial watches


• ThinkGeek (18 hits) - more 24 hour dial watches


• cam.misc (17 hits) - lunch recommendations around Cambridge


• pic of me from Wiki Wednesday London (17 hits) - taken by Geoff Jones, I now notice


• Myers Briggs personality types (16 hits) - a more in depth site than the BBC show



• Tony Robinson (15 hits) - but not Baldrick. A chap in Cambridge who had a site with info on estate agents


• Dunster Castle (12 hits) - well worth a visit

December 8, 2005

Marathon Training

Well, I got up at 6 today and on Tuesday and ran a four mile circuit. Took me just under 50 minutes both times - which is pretty slow, but I’m not so worried about times at this stage. Just getting out and round is enough.

I’m going to try skipping the short run for a while at least - I’m not sure if I’ll get the benefit from it. I may try to start doing it if the training isn’t hurting me too much later on. I discovered that running to work is not a sensible idea - I’d realised I’d have to take in spare clothes the day before in order to have something to wear when I got to work, but I forgot about a coat, and at that point, the idea just began to seem absurd. All these logistics? Why bother when I can just do a circuit from home?

Useful things so far:

• gmap pedometer - I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s really handy for working out distances for run routes. Here’s the coming Sunday’s 8 mile run from my parent’s place.


• Google Groups search - on energy bars. Pro-bar opinion seems to centre on CLIF bars (not tried yet myself). The anti-bar sentiment seems to think it’s all hype, and you’d be as well to eat, say, a Jordan’s Frusli. I looked at those in Sainsbury’s but the sugar looked very high as a proportion of the carbs. I got some reasonably priced bars from Holland and Barrett (3 for �1) which were quite nice: CarbWise Caramel Peanut Crisp. V popular in the Cambridge store apparently. I may stick with those unless I find something better.

December 4, 2005

London Marathon

Fantastic news this week - I’m in next year’s London Marathon. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but the amount of training has always put me off. Ironically, now I have two children, I have less time to run in than when I was single and lived in Blackheath (where the race starts), but what the hey.

Moments after the initial elation come the doubts about whether you can actually do it. Fortunately, I had read about this book:

which sounded ideal for me - I think I saw it on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools. A quick Amazon later and I’m reading it.

Jeff’s method, in short, is that you have to run and walk from the start. There’s a lot more to it than that, but the idea is to stop your legs getting so fatigued. Also you run the full distance before the day itself, so you don’t have a “wall” to hit.

The program is really for 26 weeks, but I only have 20 till the race, so I started at week 6 of a 4 hour time program to see if I could do it. Today was to run 11 miles. I got round okay - the run walk thing really works well. He also recommends short, low steps, and eating while you go. Anyway, it’s by far the longest run I’ve done recently, and my knee problem didn’t bother me, so I’m sold so far.

In the coming week I’m supposed to do two 40-50 minute runs on Tuesday and Friday + a 30 minute run on Wednesday. I’m thinking I can do the longer ones by running to work (although it’s a bit further than is ideal and it means I have to use the godawful buses to get home). The short one maybe I can do at lunchtime, but I may just have to drop it this week as I’m not sure how I’m going to fit it in really.

I’ll try to blog what I’ve done against the program, and how I think I’m going to do. I’m hoping for about a four hour time, but my run today suggests more like 4.30 - 4.40. Still, early days.