imma's blog

and we're back* / a bit of a personal touch

2010-08-22T23:02:00.000+01:00

*at least for a minute or two

I have started using 'OhLife' diary thingy and the prompt seems to be helping me write stuff down :-)
In keeping with the inconsistant blogging I'm doing, i've copied the following from there - the last couple of days:

Wed, Aug 18 2010
Morning traffic is nowhere near as bad as last evening was* :-) IKEA is disorientating, but much selection success & nice, good value (confusing*2) food Sofa bed selected but no time to find stuff on the shelves - will need to re-trip *+30min *2 15 meatballs £4.50ish 2x10+chips £3

Thu, Aug 19 2010
Finished reports. Made then look pretty :) Thought about genetic search fallback for if people put stuff in the wrong fields. Slow oven-baked cherryade, results at 6 (on friday)

Fri, Aug 20 2010
Cherryade just heated up lots. Needs a lot more time.
Went to a friends birthday pubbing & had an interesting history-architecture-preservation/restoration discussion :-) living architecture vs the way things used to be. I seem to prefer a non-restoration approach, probably with drawings and diagrams.
Still not king - Yay!

Sat, Aug 21 2010
Wendyhouse good as usual. Still not drinking in a night club leaves me feeling socially awkward (drink suppresses the mild paranoid feeling of social rejection) Job/career related chat with CH was good and vaguely stayed on track (who an I kidding, I can't avoid rambling off on a tangent when talking programming) :-) Oh, 'MAD' missile defence game is good. If you get several buildings destroyed the music gets more epic and starts constantly apologising for the destruction. Was momentarily ruler of a small nation made mostly of mozzarella.

Sun, Aug 22 2010
Annoyed by IKEA - not in stock & delivery is expensive from store & no option to collect or use vouchers if I buy online. It's like they *want to stop* me buying things from them :-( Still, partial success on other items & interesting place for food & nice day with fun people - would love more days like this with just a little tweaking on the productiveness.

Cats and Hats Form

2009-09-04T14:11:00.002+01:00

2009-06-22T17:23:00.002+01:00

(image & idea source)

In the carbon constrained world of the near future, a crack commando unit was sent for rehabilitation by a military court for emissions that weren't theirs. They promptly escaped from a small commune in the San Rafael hills to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government and several large corporations, they survive as bloggers and graphic artists of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else you know can help, and if you can find their facebook group, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

Voting, elections & the reasons behind apathy

2009-06-08T19:57:00.000+01:00

or 'Yes, I'm rubbish and I know it'

Recently the BNP won 2 seats in the European Parliament with 6.2% of the vote. This included a seat in my local area from 9.8% of the vote in Yorkshire and the Humber, which I am not happy happy about.

Hearing some of the reactions, both in volume, determination and clarity, I feel surprised that there were any votes for the BNP at all.
Although this result seems to have angered many(if not most) of the people I know I wonder about how significant it is - this is a mere 2 seats out of 69 ...

However, enough side-tracking, lets get on with looking at the reasons not to vote, sadly starting with mine ...

For me there are lots of little reasons, none of which would hopefully be enough on their own, although the main two are Disorganisation and Apathy which together form the 'I'll get round to it later & the oh, I needed to have done that already?' problem

Disorganisation - I am probably one of the least organised people you know (or don't know)
I have systems of notes & a reminders calender which sends me emails with lots of items on it (incl 'eat lunch', etc) all of which are capable of failing as I often dismiss them with the Apathy (I'll get round to it in a minute) & then forgetting

Apathy - I often feel rather disconnected from the world, that my opinion is unimportant, incomplete or just plain wrong. This felt like 'just another election' with little significance as it passed by in the background.

Now to move on to what I feel are more likely to be more major reasons for other people
Lack of belief in politicians (and the system) - Politicians are often portrayed negatively in the media, this is partly acceptable - as leaders of our country and society we should be able to hold them to a high standard. Unfortunately they are human too and some, hopefully most, of them are just doing the best job they can.
This doesn't stop it from feeling like no-one is standing for improving the system or making the world better in general as often what we(I) hear is the negative views they have about eachother - 'so and so will ruin the economy/our schools/your life somehow'

What I would like, and perhaps what we need, is Someone I want to vote FOR, someone who has strong beliefs on how to fix, for example, education and who isn't afraid to say that taxes had to be raised or other issues paid less attention to in order to get these more important things done, irrespective of whether I agree on the important things - it all feels so hollow when everything's vitally important. Of course what I missed from that is the fact we are supposed to be voting for parties and their strongly held beliefs rather than an individual who happens to be leading them.

This leads vaguely on to what I see as personal politics vs blanket advertising. How many of you use social networks (twitter/facebook/etc) and out of those how many received messages from politicians in these elections asking you to be involved in a discussion of policies they were involved in? Was there any personal contact by either a politician or a supporter to, not necessarily encourage, but at least discuss your views on their policies? I didn't receive any myself but that's rather a small sample size and I have some hope on this one.

Discounting reasons TO vote
Owing it to someone is often given as an argument in favour of voting - usually the people who fought in WWII are given as an example. I say they fought for our right to vote, not to force us into do so but to enable us in this respect. There is a valid reason in favour of voting in there though - voting because you/I owe it to the people who will be living in the system who will be effected by the results - this would also potentially include me and people I know although my dissolution with politics tells me this will barely have any effect.
I am vaguely proud that I am not forced to participate in the voting system on a per-vote basis and think this would cause me to feel more resent for the system rather than just feeling disconnected.

Concluding - Disappointment with myself and others who didn't vote and with those who voted for the BNP (is this a tiny minority and do the same issues affect their votes - if so it would be a larger number of people than it first appears)
Significance - Some, probably not much, hopefully also positive effects of reinvigorating politics *crosses fingers*
Possible solutions - I think trying to change the result, either by some sort of no-confidence in the European parliament or a national parliamentary motion leading to us re-submitting our candidates, would both cause more harm than good. I just hope that the rest of Europe understand that the individuals that represent us are together an approximation to the will of our people and not take any specific ones personally.

I do feel partially responsible for this result (so very sorry) as I didn't actually get round to voting (indeed I don't think I even registered) but even if I had gone along, I am at a loss as to who I would have voted for and why :-(

To end on a more positive note - here's a link to an article focusing more on hope for the future
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/08/europe-bnp-nick-griffin
and a final note that the number of votes for the BNP were apparently actually lower than last time :-)

- imma :,-)

Tea and Searching

2009-06-04T12:08:00.000+01:00

Along the lines of Hitchhikers

How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?

I'm thirsty & thoughts turned to tea.

Wolfram Alpha explains the variety
http://www44.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tea
then narrows to rather detailed nutritional information
http://www44.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tea&a=*C.tea-_*ExpandedFood-

G.Squared provides types of tea & where they're from (with occasional hiccups but good descriptions)
http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=tea

Google, Bing (msn.com) and Ask link to the uk tea council and the Wikipedia article and several sites reviewing teas :-)
http://www.google.com/search?q=tea
http://www.bing.com/search?q=tea&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all
http://uk.ask.com/web?q=tea&search=search&dm=all&qsrc=0&o=312&l=dir&siteid=
Google also wonders if I meant the Texas Education Agency :-/

The Machine Lives

2009-03-27T11:06:00.000Z

Warning - overly dramatic post with too much html approaching :

The internet is, methinks, one gigantic machine-human group mind

There are many computers involved in it and it's internal communication and processing come in a wide range of types

From private interaction via email/IM to web apps - privately shared & published to Social Sharing Sites (incl Blogs, Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us)

The Machine now understands aesthetics as we collate and share content we find pleasing (eg Daily Dose of Imagery) and we benefit as parts of that machine by having access to this information for free*

And here's a practical example

- imma

This one still makes me laugh :-)

2009-01-26T14:30:00.007Z

(from http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue309/ about a page and a half down, warning - some elements of b3ta may disturb)

   "One night I was being dropped off at home by
    a few mates after quite a heavy night
    drinking. After fumbling around for my keys, I
    realised that my phone wasn't in the pocket
    where I usually keep it. Hoping that I'd left
    it in the car, as opposed to losing it in the
    pub, I quickly rang my friends who were at
    that very minute speeding away.

    The conversation went something like:
      "Hi."
      "Hi, have I left my phone in the car, cos I
       don't have it?"
      "What are you speaking to me on?"
      "S**t," (Furness)

It hasn't happened to me yet (that i remember), though it's probably just a matter of time.

Random Gadget Post

2008-12-09T09:23:00.006Z

My G1 is great (I sometimes don't notice I've not switched my laptop on all day), though it can get a little slow if many things are running at once (which is occurring due to the large number of awesome apps - imo). I would have liked a way to quickly kill several tasks, maybe like the browser close window view.
Having to open the keyboard is a little annoying, but the keyboard itself is good, as is screen space - optional on-screen keyboard would be nice (and is apparently going to appear in January) although i have now found a browser with on-screen keyboard, so it's there for the web anyhow (browser 'steel')

T-Mobile's network is good in town but gets flaky round the edges
Spent a while at my parent's house with no 3G signal (also no normal phone signal - 'tis in the middle of nowhere in a nearly literal sense for England), but they have a good wireless network and it worked smoothly enough with that :-)

In other news I have 'Friend Connect' working. Not really sure it's useful here, but it was fun to mess around with :-)

The Boom-Bust Cycle

2008-10-19T18:01:00.009+01:00

Thought for today : Is the cycle of Boom and Bust (then followed by Boom again) necessarily a bad thing?

Companies do collapse in the Bust part of the cycle & large numbers of inefficient companies are created in the Boom section, but does this lead to more diversification of technology - like the way evolution is accelerated by mass expansion and disaster periods causing diversification, the boom produces massive variety of new companies and technologies and the bust cuts away the dead wood produced to leave just the useful ones.

So potentially this cycle could drive Technology & companies forward faster than a stable economic state, which could be more stagnant.

Disclaimer : I'm just trying to think of a positive perspective on this - I have no actual economic qualifications (and possibly don't know enough about evolution either) ;-)

Weather

2008-10-08T13:26:00.001+01:00

In other news, however, it's bright and sunny outside :-)

Voting is good, but I wish it was Better

2008-10-07T17:14:00.005+01:00

The power to vote is what gives you a say in how a country is run. This is an important right, but how good is the implementation ...

In today's electoral systems there are often two parties that are so strong that people are almost forced to pick one of them - if you vote for a minor party (assuming one exists that more closely fits your views) then your vote is of less value as you aren't making a difference to the race for which party wins.

I think there are problems with these systems -
There should be no drive to vote for one of the more major parties (a small party that matches your views should be the best option)
There should be clear explanations about the policies of all parties
There should be strong reasons why the parties will have to implement the policies they represent once they are in power (the party in power should be taking the approach of here are what our policies were and here is how we carried them out & how successful we were, followed by what they are going to do next)

No, I don't have a good solution, though I wish I did :-(
The current approach of ridiculing the opposition and saying how dangerous or ineffective they would be needs to stop.

Randomness

2008-10-06T12:36:00.001+01:00

Ok, so i got randomly depressed for a bit there ...

It didn't last long, though i'm not sure exactly what caused it - seems to have been a lot of bit of reality hitting me in the face at once & a momentary failure of my 'it'll be alright' field.
The generators seem to be working again, though. I just need to get round to stuff instead of putting it off, that seems to be a major factor.

--
'my confusion will save me' - me, getting confusion confused with sheer luck

Crab Pig (alternative lyrics to Spider Pig)

2008-02-27T14:50:00.005Z

crab pig ... crab pig ... does whatever a crab pig does ...
can it spin a web ... no it can't it's a crab ... lookout, here's a crab pig

crab pig ... crab pig ... does whatever a crab pig does ...
can it climb up a wall ... if it tries it's sure to fall ... lookout, here's a crab pig

crab pig ... crab pig ... does whatever a crab pig does ...
can it swim in a lake ... no, it sinks, it's a crab ...

suggestions of other lyrics welcome :)

2008-01-07T15:22:00.000Z

Snow, there was snow, yay :)
i took a couple of pics. wish i'd got round to taking more, really
here some of them are :)

wonder if that's behaved itself
well here's the album, anyhow

it's, oh, so quiet

2007-12-11T19:21:00.000Z

eek, another post & after only a month
*sigh* i never could get round to writing anything

today's been a fairly average day, apart from *gasp* working outside my normal hours
'tis strange being in an empty building with the only the hum of 'puters, though at least it's not silent
silence tends to make me paranoid when noone else is around *looks around nervously*

i can has lolcat bible to read :)
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_1

oh well, hopefully be off home soon *grins*
seeya

And the there was light

2007-11-16T17:06:00.000Z

but it was too bright, so i switched it off and stumbled around in the dark for a bit :)
--

Hiya *grins*

thought i'd start with a quick summary

here are a few games i play online *giggles slightly*
Rubies of Eventide (Wiki / Offical Site)
Eve Online (Wiki / Official Site)

and here's some Photo's

*waves*