Year: 2014

I think you'll like the IS, although as per usual, I'd take a test drive first to make sure it would fit with what you'd want in a car. It's an outstanding car but there's a few things that it could do better – I like hybrid personally but it's not everyone's cup of tea …

Have you watched Gravity yet ? Think you'd enjoy that one. Although it does have the "Oh hell the critics liked it" stamp of doom from the Oscars.

Often pretty to look at but I thought it had far too many problems and tried far to hard to even make my Bronze list I'm afraid.

We were blessed with quite a few decent movies in 2013. I’m watching one of them at the moment – Elysium.

What is it ? It’s a scifi spectacular based in the year 2154. Human society has been split in two, the majority live on Earth. An apparently post apocalyptic Earth with Los Angeles in ruins. The minority live in an orbiting space habitat called Elysium where they enjoy the benefits of hyper advanced technology. Things like being able to cure Leukaemia in minutes by effectively taking the body apart and putting it back together again the right way.

I’ll try and avoid too many spoilers but here’s the major characters :

Lead protagonist – Max. Who lives on Earth but dreams of reaching Elysium. He experiences a factory accident which irradiates him with a dose that will be lethal in 5 days. Desperate times indeed … The desperate measure is an exo suit that gives him super strength to counteract the radiation sickness.

With Max is Frey, who gives Max another very good reason for wanting to get up to Elysium.

Jodie Foster plays a megalomaniac defense secretary who is prepared to do anything necessary to protect Elysium.

Sharlto Copley (the breakthrough star of District 9) plays a wonderfully psychotic mercenary for hire who is Jodie Foster’s muscle. And by wonderfully psychotic, that’s definitely an understatement.

You have other characters in there as well but they take a second place to the leads and the technology the writers get to play with.

It starts with the space station – Elysium. There’s a lot done right here. If you’ve read the Ringworld books, that series has a massive ring in space orbiting a sun. It gradually spins, which keeps the air in. This time, it’s a much smaller station that is about 19 minutes travel time from Earth.

Aside – it’s not “centrifugal” force. That’s a fallacy invented to explain something without any true understanding of what’s going on. The BBC commentators in the Winter Olympics used it a lot in the bobsleigh coverage. The ball being spun on the rope doesn’t fly away due to mythical centrifugal force, it goes round in a circle due to centripetal force exerted by the rope. It’s similar with the air in a ringworld. The atmosphere wants to carry straight on outwards but is kept inside by the surface and high walls.

The average movie viewer doesn’t care about that though – it’s the visuals that count and they’re top notch.

Aside 2 – although they don’t mention it in the movie, there’s a series of Lagrange points up in space. They’re the places where things stay where they’re put. I’m assuming the Elysium habitat is at one of the L4 or L5 (between Earth and Moon – see link for more) points. Reason ? It’s in the same place in the sky. This is another sign of how they were clever, it’s presenting something complex in a simple way. People who know the orbital mechanics thing recognise it but … the average movie viewer isn’t interested.

Exo suits – these are coming. Perhaps not as gruesomely as in the movie (think chop shop but with a human having things screwed into him) but they’re on their way. Hopefully soon too because an exo suit, full or partial, will be an amazing way of getting our amputees their mobility back. The trick is to make the movement natural and precise and it’s that precision which will be the tough part of the pie. We’ll need to precision that lets us close fingers on an egg, without breaking the shell.

The progression from that is AI controlled droids – these guys are Nasty.

Using the brain as a memory store. I dunno the stats on this but we don’t use much of the space in our brains. Elysium sees data being stored in our heads. I think this is coming too, although the interface will need work. Nasty copy protection here ;-).

The medical tech – this is the true miracle. Will it be possible in 140 years ? I hope so.

Should you watch Elysium ? Hell yeah. It’s a great movie. There’s enough action and explosions in there to keep most movie watchers happy. And the science in there keeps the scifi geekster happy too. Although there are bad points that we won’t mention too much :

The engines on the spaceships. Ok, it is 140 years in the future ? Plausible ? Maybe.
Shooting down shuttles in a manner that will pepper the habitat with debris – ouch.
Having a handheld launcher capable of shooting down shuttles in orbit – want one.
Using computer speak from now (assembler language and BIOS screens) – make something else up !

Apart from that, it has pretty much everything : Great story, amazing visuals, science fiction that makes a lot of sense, excellent characters.

Well worth catching. I think I wrote about it around August when it was in cinemas, I just finished watching on Bluray and it still holds up. It’s not the best movie of last year, Gravity was better. Need to buy that.

I totally agree the IS is a much better car, I love mine to death and will upgrade to the IS in 2015

I’ve been playing with the new toy 🙂

I haven’t had an excuse to take it anywhere for pleasure, just business. We can ask for hire cars with work but I prefer not to for a few good reasons :

You can’t trust the hire car company – a few colleagues have been caught out by the hire car place claiming our people have damaged the car when the damage was either done by the hire car people or was on the car before it was dropped off. It’s a serious problem and our people have taken to taking camera phone pics of the cars as evidence.

The expenses cost difference is trivial. The way it works is : hire car cost is the hire charge plus fuel used. With our own cars, it’s a straight pence per mile (which incidentally hasn’t changed in 15 years, even though petrol has gone up from 80p/litre in 2000 to 130p/litre now). Because I have an economical car, I make a profit on the trip on the petrol cost alone although that goes away when Total Cost of Ownership comes in. We get 25p a mile, the CT cost about 13p/mile on petrol and 80+p/mile on TCO, although that would have gone down after the finance period finished.

My car is already set up for me with Bluetooth and satnav destinations. Well kinda, it’ll take a while for the satnav destinations to be programmed back in.

There’s too many variables from the actual drop off of the hire car.

And that’s leaving out the elephant in the car park of comparative quality between hire cars and what I’ll be paying loads for over the next few years.

I’ve done the business run twice now, it’s 120 miles each way so it’s a good drive but not too long. Most of it is motorway, so it’s where a relaxing cruiser comes into its own. Which is what the Lexus IS is.

This is going to read like an advert isn’t it ? Sorry about that – it’s just being honest ! The IS is my second Lexus after the CT and the CT was good enough to convince me that Lexus know how to make very high quality cars. The only problems with the CT were lack of power (10 secs to 60 but I like more) and a few trim niggles. It was an outstanding car but you could tell where unfortunate compromises had to be made to fit the price point and the concept.

The IS is better in almost every way, although they are two different cars with different interpretations of how some things should be done. Like me not knowing where the button to unlock the doors where, as it is done differently between CT and IS. Hitting “Park” would unlock the doors in the CT, the gear selection is done a bit differently in the IS.

But we don’t really care about that. How’s it do on the road ?

It’s a supremely relaxed cruiser. It cuts through the air effortlessly at 70 and the engine is barely above idle. That nets it about 51-52mpg on the long run. It got the 51.2 at the end of the return 120 miles yesterday. I’m hoping for better when the car loses some of the new car stiffness and in the summer. Hybrid tech is very interesting when implemented well but it does demand the engine run more in the winter to keep the warmth going.

The sound is supreme from Bluetooth streaming to the car. I read some stuff about incompatibility between the Bluetooth in the car and the iPhone 5, I suspect that’s more to do with the Apple side than the Lexus side. As in, Apple have variable quality and some of their kit just doesn’t work right. Like this Macbook Air struggling to stream over 2.4GHz wifi. I think I must have got lucky with my Iphone 5 and got a good one.

Yeah – I enjoyed the two trips and next week’s should be a good one too. It’s another meeting at the same place, this time I’ll have a new guy along. Actually, he’s an old guy because he’s been on the project before but has been on other things for quite a few years. It’ll be good to catch up.

Oh – weird coincidence : With my CT, the first time I tried to fill it up with fuel I came across one of those garages where it refuses to give you more than a thimbleful. Never had that problem again. With the IS, it happened again … first fill up, uncooperative pump. Hopefully I never see that problem again ! Another coincidence, it was at two different Insert Supermarket Name Here (same chain) garages …

One thing that was weird – getting almost 600 miles out of a tankful. It’s a 50mpg (claimed 60-63 but you rarely get the government figure) car with a 66 litre tank. That makes for lots n lots of miles …

Shake apart ?

My skin’s been mostly improving on the outside, although I’m not quite free of the need to treat it with the gunk fairly regularly. On the inside it’s a different story. I get the feeling my outsides will be capable of cricket but the insides won’t want to know. Whinge list ! :

Shoulder feels like it’s disconnected – like it’ll dislocate if I pull on something too hard.
Hip is still stiff
Back feels like it’s had concrete poured down my spine
Wrist badly needs some Game Therapy*
Fingers still cramp up at the slightest excuse
And the rest
*(it’s weird, the RSI in my right wrist seems to go away with certain games# – dunno why)
#(HEY ! I caught that snigger … single player games@ seem the best type)
@(Ooo eck – think I’m digging the hole deeper there)

I’m going to stop that little train of thought before it plumbs new depths of deviant depravity.

I’m sometimes hobbling because the skin on my knees isn’t cooperating, I’m sometimes limping because my hips or knees are being stiff.

Getting old 😉 But … one thing that’s guaranteed to make me pick up my feet, stand up straight and Walk Strong :

Pretty Ladies !

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being caught mid – OUCH, it takes the gloss off that Big Grin 😉

Oh – everything’s on pause, I have one of those classic albums on. It’s Gran Turismo and you’ll recognise My Favourite Game. And that’s not their best album !

2 sides – definitely. The more interesting people are the more complex ones. The ones who will surprise you.

Lol – just spotted that error as well. Oops.

Pete said: Is it healthy to be talking about 2 sides of a personality like that ?

You only have 2 or just 2 worth mentioning? I have at least 12 that I know of…. [grin]

Oh, and the Inner Geek thing – first thing I noticed was the mistake which kinda distracted from the message…. [lol]

Shouldn't it be TOO much and not TO much?

Haha – I have stuff I can write about … and no clue on what title to put on it.

Ok. That’s actually not quite right. I’ve usually got about 5 different threads rattling around the marbles and I either can’t remember them when it comes time to tappy-scribble or they’re things that have no business hitting da interwebs.

There’s a few posts that I started that never got posted here. You’ll understand why, here’s a few from the Drafts folder :

Build your own … Starship ? This was a treatise on a real size NCC1701 Enterprise that someone was thinking of building in the near future. So I dismantled what they were looking to build and it ended up as a boring Wall Of Text Monster.

And there’s a few more too. I think I was writing something on orbital mechanics (I blame the Kerbals !) which is another post that got a mercy killing. Other’s get whack-a-moled because I really don’t like the way they’re going.

Hmm. What way is this one going … Nobody knows … Not even me !

Here we go :

It’s been a good day for smiles today. I’ve had a few smiles directed my way but two stand out most of all :

The HUGE smile from the Little Person. A teacake can be a great way to start the day but if the teacake run is timed (no planning or intel – honest!) to coincide with this particular Little Lady coming back ? I have no words to describe the awesomeness of that.

And there’s another not-as-little (still little) lady in our team who has the most wonderful smile too, when you can get her to show it. It’s always there, just under the surface waiting to break out but I don’t believe she thinks it’s right to look at people at their desks on her way past.

Even if they’re doing the Meerkat Silly Grin thing looking up at them hoping for that smile to erupt.

The infectious silly grin is another sign that Mad Pete is still doing his thing. I flip between a manic side and a depressive side. Mad Pete is the manic side and I think it’s fun to be in that state. It’s definitely a better state to be in than the depressive side. Trouble is, the rash and brash side of it can be difficult for others to cope with.

Is it healthy to be talking about 2 sides of a personality like that ? I think it is. We are who we are, we should own that. Everybody has flaws. The best thing is to acknowledge the flaws, the worst thing is to pretend that they’re not there. If they’re acknowledged, that’s the first step to figuring out how to manage them.

For me, just a few of them are :
The Mad Pete tendency – enjoying the ride while hoping I don’t upset people
Missing out the working – I tend to rush-think straight through to the conclusion, which leaves everyone else hopelessly clueless as to the logic that led to it. I’m steadily learning to deal with that.

Depressive – this is ok, I just tend to hide. But … it can get me thinking the world is out to get me.
(Not healthy, in my experience, the world tends not to care enough to expend effort in “getting you”)
Indestructible – people never seem to see when I’m hurting, need a friend or otherwise struggling
Smiler – I like it when the grin gets another victim, cheers us both up. But I think it freaks a few people out.

I’ll close with another one grabbed from the legendary Thumper’s archives :

I’ve forgotten when I last had pizza. Which means it’s time. Yeah, the cheese will upset my tummy but. It’s pizza. It’s worth it.

Ok ! One more. Cos I think she needs it :

Been in the wars lately …

Which is weird, cos I’ve been fairly lazy lately. What’s the issue this time ? Shoulder isn’t actually too bad, although I suspect it’s just biding its time. Nah – it’s another old injury, plus something I suspect caused by last year’s leg injury.

No 1 – Back

Unless you’ve actually had back problems, you won’t realise that it feels like you’ve had your strings cut … In my case, I originally injured the lower lumber area (the bit above your bum) of my spine while playing cricket twenty years ago. Let’s just say it was doing too much too soon, attempting to bowl stronger than my frame and muscles could support.

The knock on effect of the inflammation when it gets poorly is that the nerves controlling the legs get a bit cramped up. That leads to cold feeling legs and the control messages don’t get through as well as before. When I originally strained my back, I kept on playing cricket (although my bowling wasn’t as effective) but while I could still sprint with my right leg, the “sprint” message to the left leg was turning into “jog”. Ho hum.

It’s another injury that never completely heals, although when it’s not acting up I still have most of my mobility.

What happened this time ? I haven’t a clue how I did it, as it flared up during a meeting last Wednesday … Thursday was really bad, so bad I upgraded the usual Friday pm off into a 3 day weekend. Cue a few days of barely being able to move without going OUCH in a big way. It finally started releasing on Saturday night and has improved through 2 days at work to the point where I nearly have all my mobility and concentration back.

What’s concentration got to do with it ? It’s tough to concentrate when you have constant pain, even at low levels. It’s not jut the distraction of the actual pain, it’s also loss of quality sleep. Again, that’s not something that people who don’t have to live with pain will understand. Thankfully the low level pain I manage doesn’t need painkillers.

My back’s improving now, I have most of my mobility back. That can be a bad thing because I use full mobility as soon as I have it, leaving me prone to aggravating the injury again 🙂 No sense, no feeling ?

Could be hopeful for a peek at cars again, which I’ve been putting off due to : Waiting out garages that are asking silly prices and wanting to test drive without going OW from my back.

Issue 2 – Legs …

I suspect I have a Venous Leg Ulcer … (Look it up, I’m not going to describe symptoms cos they can be icky). It’s not big, about 2cm by 2cm and only slightly icky. It fits the various symptoms, as in it’s a wound that wasn’t healing. Looking up the causes, it seems like something unwell or old people get and I don’t think I count as that just yet. However … the prime cause is damage to the veins. That can be caused by a few things :

Getting old
Trauma
Deep Vein Thrombosis
Sick stuff (tumours, infections, high blood pressure)

The symptoms fit but not the cause – except when you think back to a year ago and consider what I suspect was a minor fracture on my shin … (Not enough of a break to stop the leg supporting my weight but still awkward). That whack probably damaged the blood vessels on its way to becoming an 8 inch long bruise.

Right – that’s probable cause 🙂 And I suspect the ulcer itself was initiated by a forgotten cricket thing from the 2 games early this summer.

And after some attention to it over the weekend just gone, I suspect it’s now turned a corner and seems to be improving (no icky today). The recommended treatment involves a compression bandage but I think I’ll wait a while longer before I resort to seeing the quacks. With that and the back though, no cricket for me for a while.

Lesson though for the wannabe docs out there –

Wiki and Google are great tools for finding out information. However, always, ALWAYS take a balanced view over what you’re reading. It’s easy to match a series of symptoms to a prognosis you’ve guessed at but make sure you’re not turning Symptom 1 + Symptom 2 into an OMG I’M GONNA DIE Cause.

The problem with looking up stuff on Wiki and Google is that there isn’t a knowledgeable doctor or nurse who’s seen it before moderating what you’re looking up. Especially as we tend to look for stuff that supports a prognosis instead of looking to disprove a theory. It takes a degree qualification plus a few years on top, plus more years of practical training to turn a smart person into a medic. Amateur investigations just don’t compare.

Heh heh heh – that’s me done preaching for the day 🙂

It’s been a painful week but I appear to be turning the corner on it. Just a shame it happened last week instead of this one, as there’s a Test Match starting this Thursday.