Month: January 2016

You have got some great posts in your blog. Keep up with the good work.
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It’s been a little too long since the last one of these !

I do like these posts, they’re inspired from a lovely book (I will link it at the end this time). It’s well past time for another and today it’ll be K and L.

What’s first ?

K is for Karma.

Karma is Sanskrit for “deed” or “act”. I’m a firm believer in the “what goes around, comes around” theory. The theory that if you do a kind act, it’ll mean something good for someone, something good will happen to you. It’s why I send happy or kind messages to people who … quite probably ignore them (I’m talking about the internet people there).

The reverse also seems to ring true. I’m hearing from the Twitters that someone on the Eurostar train tonight decided that he needed a sneaky fix of his e-cig while on the train and the resulting stoppage has resulted in at least a 3 hour delay, cancellation of that train, cancellation of subsequent trains. All for a sneaky hit of the e-cig. That guy’s got a lot of karma to work off now. (It may come to get him when the other passengers find him)

Oh ! Perfect pic to illustrate.

Be good to people. It’s a great investment.

K is also for Knowledge – pass it on.

The worst thing in our world is ignorance and everything that flows from it. Like not realising you have hurt someone with your words. Not realising the consequences of your actions. Not helping someone out when you could have made something much easier for them. Seeing mistakes made because you withheld that crucial piece of knowledge.

Passing on knowledge is tricky though. It has to be done in just the right way. You can hit people with knowledge like hitting them on the head with a hammer. They don’t appreciate it and it scares them away. I’ve seen cricketers who had the potential to be extremely good but there were basic flaws in their technique that let them down. Gently guiding them down the path they were going was far more effective at getting the best out of them than “You’re doing it wrong, do this instead”.

It was far more satisfying to see people come back and learn new and better skills than see them walk away from the game because over zealous coaching made it Not Fun.

There’s another case from a year or so ago which is especially poignant today. It’s from Nick Hancock of Longest Stay On Rockall Rock Fame. He had been contacted by an individual who wanted to use his Rockpod in an attempt at breaking his record. I advised him to not allow use of the Rockpod (don’t enable idiots by making things too easy for them to hurt themselves) but to support them with knowledge. Because he’d have felt absolutely rotten if something bad had happened to the individual if he’d withheld information that later led to Bad Things. Besides, that Rockpod had had a hard time up on that rock, I doubt whether it would have been a good idea to use it again anyway.

(It’s poignant due to the death of an explorer who was attempting to cross Antarctica unaided – very sad)

L is for Lisa Miskovsky who has a wonderful voice and I really must get more of her albums. Restless Heart just started purring away in the background.

L is also for Lies.

Lies are horrible. “They toss and they turn inside us, trying to escape, tearing us away from our own deepest truth. If you lie, ask yourself why.” “Lies often cover our deepest fears, of being discovered, found out, unmasked; of being seen for who we really are. To be all you can be, tell the truth. It might hurt at first to admit it, but it will truly set you free.”

Given that, there is such a thing as too much truth. The truth can really hurt people as much as a lie can. But is truth kinder in the long run ?

I try to avoid lies. They wrap you up in Bad Stuff which is guaranteed to catch you out at some point. Be honest with yourself and others, it’s always the best way.

What’s worst though are the lies that we tell ourselves. Like me telling myself that my shoulder was ok and I could still play cricket despite crying out in pain when I tried to pick anything up with that arm. (This is way back when the injury originally happened). That probably led to more recovery time (as it happened, I had recovery time due to not having teams to play for).

I used to memorise the letter chart that opticians use, this led to me getting glasses that weren’t strong enough. I was honest the last time, said which letters were sharp and which were not and … these glasses are over ten years old and I’m just about on the verge of needing new ones.

L is for … you guessed it … Love.

Yep. Been looking for a chance to use that pic. There’s a certain relationship with dogs. They love their people and return all the love you give them. They are very adoring individuals. Cats have their moments too.

True.

Love ? “In life, we lose our youth, our strength, our influence, our memory, even our bladder control. In the end, all we have and all we will be remembered for is the love that we give; not just to one person, but to everyone we meet. Remember this – and you will be remembered.”

“What is there to say about love that has not been said before, except : I LOVE YOU”.

Yep. You. Reading this post. Those lovely people who stay with me, reading what random thoughts have escaped from my head and fingers today.

I love you all. And you return that love by keeping coming back. Every page-hit that Google tells me about makes me smile. It means people care, it means they (to some degree!) love what I write.

The world is a much better place when we show our love for each other.

PS Oops – forgot something. Here’s the book link …

I had a request yesterday – a playlist for a shop …

I think we’d find it difficult to get a cd over to shop (plus I really don’t trust my cd drive !) but it sparked one of those dangerous things … An idea !

So – shop music ? Depends on the shop really. Some shops want to bring you in and show off what they’re selling. Other shops want you to hang around, chill out, empty them of coffee, have a natter. Bars will be similar. Nightclubs want to make your ears bleed. And there’s the tunes which will stick in your mind and drag you back to the shop later to buy the album.

Mood is a definite reason for selecting certain music. Whether that’s wanting to set a certain mood (coffeechill, hyperdance) or catch the general mood. So at the moment, there are two major moods going in music :

Chill out with Take It Easy by The EaglesSet a romantic mood with Absolute Beginners by the genius Bowie;
Go for a bouncy mood with Daft Punk (One More Time ?)

The shops will want to draw you in though and hopefully keep you around. And one way of doing that is by having the good music on. I’ve been caught by that a few times when the shop has been playing some of my favourite music.

It wasn’t Untouched by the Veronicas that got me buying their albums in (that shop ending with a V), it was actually You Ruin Me. But Untouched is the track of their’s that catches in my head. I’ll stick around for that.

The Pretenders do this too, with songs like Brass In Pocket.

More instrumental styles help too, where conversation is important. Enya will always catch the ear with songs like Evening Falls. One for those candlelit restuarants ?

Some artists are a bit mixed. They do gorgeous songs but the mood isn’t right. Duffy’s Mercy was a nightclub favourite (haha – what do I know about nightclubs ? very little!) but while most of her other sings are absolutely stunning, they’re a bit too sad for shops and bars.

With some songs, it’s not about the music. It’s where you heard it first. Things like hearing Bear Necessities made me want to buy The Jungle Book.

Wonder if I have any songs about chocolate …

Haha – the Levellers just started with Far From Home. But their song The Boatman makes me dream of being on that narrowboat. Definitely one to play in the bar/coffeeshops near the boating exhibitions.

Christmas songs are very situational but pretty effective too. Can’t beat a bit of Wishing On A Star (Rose Royce) or Baby It’s Cold Outside.

I wonder how Yello’s The Race would do in a car sales place (depends on the car!) or a betting shop ?

Oh my – Eric Clapton with Wonderful Tonight for that bar. Magic. Most of Seal’s stuff too. Although sometimes songs like Killer might … kill the mood. But if you can start a playlist with something like Alisha’s Attic’s Wonderful You ? (It’s a b-side, probably ultra difficult to find sadly) I’m currently listening to Love from Seal’s album 7 and it’s a good one.

Fleetwood Mac’s You Make Loving Fun – wonder when the last time was that this was played in a nightclub ?

Something I’ve not watched for far too long – T.V. Carpio’s version of I Wanna Hold Your Hand from Across The Universe, which had so many fantastic versions of Beatles songs. Imagine that one coming over the speakers when you have someone with you who you wish was … holding your hand ? And on that note, there’s Lisa Miskovsky (who I really need to acquire more albums from) with Take Me By The Hand.

A happy boppy song just started – it’s Good Time from Carly Rae Jepsen’s album Kiss. Definitely a happy song, it’s got me doing the chair boogie that hopefully no one notices you doing. Three albums escaped with me last night, Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss, Seal 7 and Sia was in there too with We Are Born. I’ll be enjoying listening to those bit by bit over the next week or so :-).

Going down my pointers/reminders list I see Glamour Puss (weird video!) by KT Tunstall – one for the clothes and accessories shops ? Also Pretty Woman. Classic.

[cough-splutter] A little further down that list is Lisa Hannigan with Safe Travels (Don’t Die). SERVICE STATION MUSIC ! Safe travels on them motorways :-).

And talking of a song that’ll stick in your head for days, actually there’s a few :
Mindy Gledhill’s I Do AdorePretty much anything Nina Simone sings – Feeling Good ?

I’m so tempted to say Ting Tings The Wrong Club, although I’m not sure that’s just me seeing it in my list of best songs or whether it’s something that might send the wrong message in a shop or a bar. Love the song though and it definitely catches the ear. (Has a swear though!)

I better stop now cos it’s going to take a while to catch up with the Youtube links and listen to all these great songs.

Oh – one last one … This would be a really bad one to have in a Doctor Shop : The Drugs Don’t Work by The Verve. Peter Gabriel’s Don’t Give Up might be better.
Maybe one more. However tempted you are by mischievous feelings, I would advise against playing this song in a shop. Any shop. It’s Gorillaz with M1A1 and I nearly chose it as a phone ring tone …

Last one ! What does a shop want you to do ? Linger ! Here’s one by The Cranberries, a group that a Very Special Lady reminded me about a little more than a year ago. Cheers !

I’ve been quoted on a news report !

True, it’s a bit of a minority website but it’s one I trust (most of the time) and one that continues to make me chuckle.

Here’s the article : “El Reg mulls entering Robot Wars arena“. I won’t quote any of it apart from my comment because of, you know, copyright and syndication issues but … here’s what I sent that sparked it : “Anyone else hoping that SPB turn their talents to making an all conquering, all destroying, punyhuman enslaving Vulturebot?”

The comment is of course, tailored for the particular brand of gallows humour that is a trademark of that site. I’d never dream of making an all conquering, all destroying, punyhuman enslaving Vulturebot.

Nope. It would be a Dragonbot.

Got you worried for a sec there.

I’d love to do a Dragonbot, designed to crush, burn, macerate and otherwise do Very Nasty Things to other robots.

Hang on a minute – there’s a bit of missing context. I was a huge fan of a series called Robot Wars, which ran for a good few series on BBC (we won’t talk about the Channel 5 seasons). Contestants would run machines of destruction in the arena, with house robots and various traps to liven things up if the robots became boring. It was spectacular, fun, unpredictable, celebrated robot building creativity, a great series to watch and follow. I definitely miss it. The series is coming back later this year, with shooting happening in March.

So when El Reg ran the story, I had to add in that comment with a hope that the architects of PARIS* and LOHAN** would be able to turn their talents to something more destructive. They’re a good mob.

*Paper Aeroplane Released Into Space – a record setter that flew back down from the edge of space.
**Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator – a 3d printed unmanned aircraft that will (when the regulatory people sort themselves out) float up to the edge of space on a balloon before setting off a rocket. Wonder how high it will get.

The March shooting is a little too soon for a good robot to be developed but let’s have a look at what it would need :

Communications – you have to be able to control the beast and this is in what you could call a “hostile” environment. Things like a wireless video sender that goes to snow when the microwave is used, interference can happen anywhere from anything, even if the thing causing the interference is only distantly related to what it’s supposed to be doing. The Robot Wars arena tends to have all sorts of motors, switching things making electrical noise, plus there’s the distance from where the Robot Master stands and the robot itself. Oh and the little matter of making sure the aerial doesn’t fall off.

Moving – sounds simple doesn’t it, just take a remote control car and use that ? Maybe. Wheels are more reliable because tracks tend to fall off easy but you have to protect the wheels under armour, which can mean the robot beaches. Yep. Wheels, plus I’d design a special motor control system for things like : Turn in place, traction control, boost for pushing. This has certain … issues though, due to the way motors work, if you’re not careful the motors can blow up the rest of the electronics when the robot stops suddenly.

Structure – the best weapon is no good if it only works once. So for the robot design, the robot has to keep its basic shape after being whacked several dozen times. If the frame distorts, it’ll jam up the wheels and the weaponry.

Armour – this includes protecting from bashy weapons as well as the flipper bots which were getting very common. Sloped sides have always worked well, their aim is to divert rather than absorb. Skirts are aimed at not allowing the flipper to get underneath where it can do its work. The last consideration with the armour is that it has to allow weaponry …

Ahhh – the good bit …

Sadly, the robot wars people aren’t allowed to make robots like that. No guns, no grenades, no tasers, no flamethrowers. Boo hiss. (I wouldn’t enter a robot like those anyway, those tracks are way too exposed and the weaponry would have trouble attacking a low slung bot).

Weaponry …

Flippers – effective but boring. These are designed to get the enemybot out of the ring, or on its back where it can’t fight.
Hammers – good looking but ineffective. The problem is that the hammer either mistimes or glances off doing little damage. There is little to make the hammer or Pointy Thing pierce the enemy bot.
Saws – similar to hammers, unless you can corner an enemy bot
Piercing claws – there was a stunning robot called Razer, which was too unreliable to be a true winner. But when it did work … it would tear chunks off any other robot. Leverage + something little = huge damage potential from sheer pressure.

And then you have the king of anti robot weaponry – the kinetic disc. The theory of this is that you spin up a heavy disc to 1000 rpm or so, with the disc having lots of kinetic energy. You then ram another robot. And all that kinetic energy goes into the other robot as pure Damage Potential. Oh and because Newton’s Laws are cruel, there’s an equal shock going back into the other robot.

The best disc robot was Hypnodisc (more at the wiki link). This one was in a class of its own for sheer destructive potential but … tended to lose out to the flipperbots. The bits that made it go weren’t too great (definite improvement potential!) but that disc was a masterpiece … It was a kinetic disc … that was a little special. It had weights that went from the inside to the outside. This made it start off light (so it could be spun up again quicker), with the weights making it heavy (with more kinetic energy damage potential) when they went to the outside of the disc.

The Dragonbot would likely be another variant on Hypnodisc. I think I would design it to be flippable, with larger wheels able to operate the robot inverted. The disc itself would be mostly inside Dragonbot.

Wait – this doesn’t sound like a fitting type of robot to be called Dragon does it. It’s more a Bite Yer Ankles And Chew Em Off bot.

Need flamethrowers !!!!

And more excuses to use the Mad Scientist tag.

Thank you !

I hope you win too. (Especially as you're on Powerball and I'm on UK National Lotto so we win different jackpots – haha)

We can but dream.

Wish you luck! I had the thoughts when I was purchasing the ticket for the massive Powerball jackpot. As I read in thelotter review there were numerous winners. But unfortunately my dreams are still to be made true, maybe the next time!

It seems like we’re losing too many titans at the moment.

Wait … that’s wrong.

If we lose just one titan of the par of David Bowie or Alan Rickman, it’s too much. To lose both inside a week, definitely a massive loss. And that’s not forgetting the others who have left us this year and at the end of last.

I don’t usually mention things like this here, because I prefer to try and keep it to happier subjects. Plus you get to hear way more about it in the general media. This should be different. But I did want to bring out the Twibute Dwagons :

The original line was “By Grabthar’s Hammer, you shall be avenged” and it was from a rather good film called Galaxy Quest. I’d recommend seeing it if you haven’t already. Alan Rickman stole the show yet again playing a character that owed a little to Spock.

But he wasn’t just about Galaxy Quest. He was in so many more films where his excellence in acting, including being able to master different characters (which is a failing in many actors, their characters are written as them) and stealing the show every time. I heard that his part in Robin Of Sherwood (the Costner movie) got watered down a bit because he was just so darn good. (And the movie was supposed to be about Robin, not the Sheriff).

And there are many more too.

Then there’s David Bowie :

A little more work went into that Twibute Dwagon. (I feel a little cheap sometimes posting those – the words are mine but it takes so little time to do them now that it feels like I’m not putting enough effort in).

I wasn’t a fan of all of David Bowie’s work, like I will adore everything that certain other bands have done. But you cannot deny that he was a brilliant genius, flawed by not quite living in the same world as the rest of us. He just saw things different ways. And it was utterly amazing.

And it came out in songs like Starman, Heroes, Golden Years, Life On Mars … need I go on ? You know them all. I really have to see Labyrinth again. It’s been a while since I saw that film but I do remember his portrayal of the Goblin King to be utterly compelling.

And then there’s Lemmy too !

Too many gone this year already.

And other bad news too, like finding out that a friend had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I hope she gets through it. She’s a tough little lady so I bet she’ll be around for a good long while.

I don’t quite know how to end this one … Except that your life is yours. Live it how you see fit. But live it. Don’t miss out. We are not infinite, we need to take advantage of all the time that is given to us.

Nah.

Not me, at least not lately. Although I have been in the game (so to speak) lately with the added interest we’ve had here with the big prize up for grabs with lots of roll overs.

But the thought was – what would you do if you won the lottery ? Here’s what I think I’d do. (And this will dive off at a tangent half way through !)

I’d pay my debts. I don’t have many, my student debt was cleared a long time ago. But I do have a mortgage and finance on the car. I’d clear those. But I don’t think I owe anything to anyone else.

Saying that though, I’d help out some very close friends. That’s … extremely close friends. I think I can count who that would be on one hand. Let’s see … (and I’m not saying who they are !) Ok, maybe I’d need a finger or two (or a thumb!) on the other hand as well.

But that’s not really money. Money isn’t the fix all for everything. Money can get you companionship of a certain kind but would I want that ? No. There’s a song with the line “The best things in life are free” (and then it says “I want money” – haha). Back to that in a bit. Companionship should be about the person, not their car or how much is in their wallet.

Money and doing things for people in that way would depend on how much you won. If you won a few million, that might be where you might look into paying off a few people’s mortgages. If they would want you to do that. That’s an odd thing to say isn’t it ? I can say that all I have, I have earned through my own means. I’ve worked for it. It’s mine. Wholly mine. If someone came along and paid off my mortgage, yeah, I’d appreciate it. But it would no longer be wholly mine. I would feel an obligation.

Think about that for a bit – it’s one thing working for what you have, it’s another thing to get it the easy way. Not much about my life has been “easy”, although I did get a good start from family.

But if you’re giving someone an opportunity that benefits you both, that’s so much better than doing something like “Hey ! I just won all this money, have some and go buy a house/flat.” That’s a charitable act, it isn’t including them in your life. Some people really don’t like being charities. I don’t think I do.

Back to me – it would be great if I won enough that I no longer needed to work. I’m kinda bored of what I’m working at currently, it’s a bit too far distant from the techie stuff I like doing. (I’m working on a solution and I get involved with the techie stuff where I can at the moment). But I would need to be doing something, keeping my brain busy, keeping myself active with goals.

Because I like to have goals. I go stale without them. What I am curious about is the possibility of making the gaming videos. Cos I love gaming and I’ve been enjoying watching the gaming videos for a few years now while I’ve been away from the gaming due to lack of energy after work in the evenings. I think I could do a decent job with the gaming videos, although I’ve observed a few people’s output declining drastically lately (Yogscast have really gone off, only Hannah’s stuff is worth watching at the moment).

Perhaps not gaming … which gets me to …

Where would I live ?

Bricks and mortar property hasn’t appealed to me for a while now. The new houses seem to be very small, poor quality on the fitting out and the sites have issues with the builders (this impression coming from multiple people). Houses built on the cheap for profit, not for quality. No, I wouldn’t want to move from here to a new house. The neighbourhood isn’t bad here but I do live very close to shops where the workers abuse our road as their car park. And we’re in for another year of mayhem due to poorly conceived roadworks.

Not sure where else around Bristol I’d want to live actually.

Nope – I still have that crazy idea of living on a narrowboat …

Yep, I’d have to change my habits with regards storage of all the stuff I should have thrown out a while ago but a narrowboat (preferably a widebeam) has that potential to be very high quality in its fitting out and cosy too. Oh and if the neighbourhood doesn’t take your fancy, you can just move to another marina.

But I wouldn’t want to do it on my own. My narrowboat would be built with a companion in mind. Even down to things like fittings on the taps. (That matters to some people and I can completely understand). I’d want it to be her place as much as mine.

And a ship’s cat or pooch would be good too. I’ve missed having pooch snuggles.

I think I’ve rambled enough – targets if I win the lottery big :

Move on to a narrowboat;
Make that narrowboat a mini techie palace;
Put enough kit in to make it understated cosiness;
Interesting toys inside – you saw the Smart Meter post, lots more potential for geeking out with various equipment you could fill a boat with;
Having someone to enjoy it with.

Maybe I’d go off cruising around the country (this is limited by the size of the barge, many canals around Birmingham where they all link up are restricted to the narrower narrowboats). Maybe I’d stay in one place to support what the companion was getting up to. That place would be chosen according to what’s convenient for them (My number one choice is the Gloucester and Sharpness canal for access to Worcester for watching cricket in the summer!)

One thing is good, I’m much closer to having my health back. This is another thing about work, we have a very dessicated atmosphere which doesn’t do my outsides much good. It dries out my skin such that it starts breaking up again (it has a chance to recover over the weekend). Being out of that atmosphere would do me good. That’s just my outsides though, I’d like to regain my energy on the inside too.

On people – I’d like to escape the crush of humanity that seems all the more pressing these days. Whether that be on the roads with the collapse in driving standards, or having to stand your ground while walking or be bounced out of the way by people who do not leave enough space. I wouldn’t want to be on my own completely (I need contact with people to keep me out of lonely depression) but I would want to select those who I interact with.

Internet – is all about interaction. But I’d like it to be those who I interact with and on my terms. I do have that addiction to staying in touch though, I go slightly mad(der?) if I’m deprived of that connection to the world. Internet is difficult on a boat – but not an impossible problem considering that mobile broadband access is becoming more widespread.

So yeah ! Win the lottery before May, pay off the debts, sort the house out, head off to Crick Boat Show (end of May) and spend lots on a boat. Live happily ever after.

Sounds like a plan !

[lol] Ah, worth it then….. [grin]

Yep.

New toy.

And with a bit more research :
Cooker takes more power than both kettle and electric heater.
Microwave eats up even more.

Conclusion – it is cheaper to make a cuppa than it is to prepare a sachet of popcorn.