Am thoroughly enjoying some peaceful reflection away from the hustle and bustle of usual busy life. Survived US embassy interrogation (of three mediocre questions; for this I have to travel all the way to london and then sit around in the queuing system from hell for four hours?). Am a little irritated that I have to hike three and a half miles with dying laptop in tow in order to access broadband so that I can type out these messages and not have to wait an hour for anything to happen.
Anyway, am on the verge of getting bored, so does anyone who knows me feel like an exciting day trip to maidstone over the next few days? Board and lodging also available. Otherwise I might end up doing something silly, like some work.
20071219
20071210
dial up
everytime i come back, dial up gets worse and worse. why isn't there some kind of temporary broadband you can get? it doesn't help that every time I try to resuscitate the account I set up last time i was here, it is dead, the provider has changed, and I have to go through a tedious set up procedure all over again. my mobile phone is also dead, but since it's about ten years old, it's probably time to pay ten quid and get one from this century.
this time for the first time I do see loads of wireless access points around me from home -- but they are all secured. that's not fair. i'd consider cracking them, but this seems altogether more complicated than it needs to be. why isn't there a one click solution to feed my addiction?
this time for the first time I do see loads of wireless access points around me from home -- but they are all secured. that's not fair. i'd consider cracking them, but this seems altogether more complicated than it needs to be. why isn't there a one click solution to feed my addiction?
20071205
I win at email
Just about to set off for the airport, and after sending the final paper (of, er, about five in the last four weeks), I made a final push, and got the total number of messages sitting unanswered in my inboxen down to 8. Yay. Of course, as soon as I go away, it will start shooting up again, and because of limited email access, will probably reach a hundred or so before I return at the end of the month and start hacking away again. It's like some kind of never ending tetris game, except that there's no limit to how high the stack can get. So, as I mentioned before, this is it. I am now closing 2007, and am not prepared to take on anything further till 2008. Please remember to check out my travel itinerary in a recent blog post and ping me if you will be around in any of my locales for the rest of the month, else I shall bid you adieu for now.
20071203
If you go down to the woods today...
In all this fuss, no one seems to have answered the question: so what happened to the bear?
Now ask yourself, in all of this, who is actually responsible for "insulting religion and inciting hatred"?
Now ask yourself, in all of this, who is actually responsible for "insulting religion and inciting hatred"?
20071130
Brain Scrapings
My laptop almost died yesterday, and I did not mourn its passing. So that means that its time must nearly be up. It's easy not to care when all your data is mirrored across four systems, a couple of back up disks and a flash drive. Some of them are even offsite. Anyway, once the machine had dried out, it seemed to work about as well as it did before, providing I set the date back from 21162. Apparently, a lot of applications crash when it is nineteen thousand years into the future. So that's something to look out for.
Meanwhile, I am no longer accepting things to do for 2007. With one month to go, I no longer have any time available to do anything else in. In other words, if you send me any work to do, I won't get around to it till 2008. If then.
My electricity provider is called "Jersey Central Power and Light". This has been bothering me for ages, and it's only just dawned on me that the reason is that it has the exact same cadence as "Georgie Porgie Pudding and Pie". Presumably this means that I now have to come up with the rest of the rhyme, but I can't think of anything amusing that rhymes with "Light".
Meanwhile, I am no longer accepting things to do for 2007. With one month to go, I no longer have any time available to do anything else in. In other words, if you send me any work to do, I won't get around to it till 2008. If then.
My electricity provider is called "Jersey Central Power and Light". This has been bothering me for ages, and it's only just dawned on me that the reason is that it has the exact same cadence as "Georgie Porgie Pudding and Pie". Presumably this means that I now have to come up with the rest of the rhyme, but I can't think of anything amusing that rhymes with "Light".
20071123
Email Woes
Why is it that my email server always dies right at the start of a long weekend? Well, probably the answer is that that when it fails at other times, it gets more rapid attention, or I have other things to worry about and don't notice. Still, it is rather irritating, and makes me wonder if I should look for a slightly more reliable service rather than clinging on to an address from a few years ago.
So instead of finally emptying my inbox, which is currently AWOL, I partook in my annual habit of data mining my email. I must admit, my heart isn't fully in it this year, for some reason, so just a few brief comments.
* Spam is UP! Or else I can count it better. I switched over to using spamassasin about a year ago, and as a consequence, rather than my old heuristic for counting spam (look for senders who sent me only one message), I instead switched to a new system whereby I just count the number of messages trapped by spamassassin. So this is probably a slight underestimate, since I still get a few false negatives but hardly any false positives. My previous estimates were about 1500 per month, but I'm now happily clocking 3000-6000 spams per month.
* Legitimate mail is UP! During 05 and 06, I was processing about 1200-1500 messages a month (and many of them were spam, since I had a lot of false negatives with my old manual procmail spam filtering). This year, I've been clocking 1600-2000 messages a month. Some of these are from heavy mailing lists, but that doesn't explain everything. I must just be more popular all of a sudden.
* Certainly, I'm sending more. One month I sent 300 messages (and this undercounts by loads, because I'm only looking in sent mail, and not in folders which some sent mail is automatically placed in based on recipient). Generally, the trend seems to be up and up. Amusingly, I used to send about 150 messages a month during my undergraduate days; the only exception was Novermber 1995, when I sent 230 -- and that was my second month of having email. Clearly must have had a burst of excitement that month.
* Am still missing loads of data, since I only have procmail logs for my academic email account, not my work email. So goodness knows what the real story is.
So instead of finally emptying my inbox, which is currently AWOL, I partook in my annual habit of data mining my email. I must admit, my heart isn't fully in it this year, for some reason, so just a few brief comments.
* Spam is UP! Or else I can count it better. I switched over to using spamassasin about a year ago, and as a consequence, rather than my old heuristic for counting spam (look for senders who sent me only one message), I instead switched to a new system whereby I just count the number of messages trapped by spamassassin. So this is probably a slight underestimate, since I still get a few false negatives but hardly any false positives. My previous estimates were about 1500 per month, but I'm now happily clocking 3000-6000 spams per month.
* Legitimate mail is UP! During 05 and 06, I was processing about 1200-1500 messages a month (and many of them were spam, since I had a lot of false negatives with my old manual procmail spam filtering). This year, I've been clocking 1600-2000 messages a month. Some of these are from heavy mailing lists, but that doesn't explain everything. I must just be more popular all of a sudden.
* Certainly, I'm sending more. One month I sent 300 messages (and this undercounts by loads, because I'm only looking in sent mail, and not in folders which some sent mail is automatically placed in based on recipient). Generally, the trend seems to be up and up. Amusingly, I used to send about 150 messages a month during my undergraduate days; the only exception was Novermber 1995, when I sent 230 -- and that was my second month of having email. Clearly must have had a burst of excitement that month.
* Am still missing loads of data, since I only have procmail logs for my academic email account, not my work email. So goodness knows what the real story is.
20071121
$1 for your thoughts
Hmm, apparently, I have to pay an extra dollar to hear amy swearing.
(Back to Black
Back to Black by Amy Winehouse (Audio CD - 2007) - Explicit Lyrics
Buy new: $13.98
Back to Black [Clean Version]
Back to Black [Clean Version] by Amy Winehouse (Audio CD - 2007) - Clean
Buy new: $12.99 )
(Back to Black
Back to Black by Amy Winehouse (Audio CD - 2007) - Explicit Lyrics
Buy new: $13.98
Back to Black [Clean Version]
Back to Black [Clean Version] by Amy Winehouse (Audio CD - 2007) - Clean
Buy new: $12.99 )
Things I Don't Like #21491
Sketch shows that have the same sketches every week, and have a little titles sequence before each sketch.
20071113
Britain, prepare yourself
OK folks, here are the dates for my upcoming trip to Englandland:
Dec 6: Bleary eyed in LGW
Dec 7: Cambridge
Dec 8: Cambridge
Dec 9: Cambridge
Dec 10: Maidstone
Dec 11: Maidstone
Dec 12: Maidstone
Dec 13: London
Dec 14: Longborough
Dec 15: Longborough
Dec 16: Longborough
Dec 17: Longborough
Dec 18 - Dec 22 Open
Dec 23: Maidstone
Dec 24: Maidstone
Dec 25: Maidstone
Dec 26: Maidstone
Dec 27 - 29 Open
Dec 30: Back to the United States of USA.
If you want to plug any of my gaps, then let me know.
Dec 6: Bleary eyed in LGW
Dec 7: Cambridge
Dec 8: Cambridge
Dec 9: Cambridge
Dec 10: Maidstone
Dec 11: Maidstone
Dec 12: Maidstone
Dec 13: London
Dec 14: Longborough
Dec 15: Longborough
Dec 16: Longborough
Dec 17: Longborough
Dec 18 - Dec 22 Open
Dec 23: Maidstone
Dec 24: Maidstone
Dec 25: Maidstone
Dec 26: Maidstone
Dec 27 - 29 Open
Dec 30: Back to the United States of USA.
If you want to plug any of my gaps, then let me know.
20071112
Embed this, mofo!
Oh, I've been really struggling with my fonts. I'm sure I've complained about this before, but I can't find the reference. A number of idiotic publishing companies (ahem, IEEE and ACM) have recently started getting really snotty about embedding fonts into files. In particular, they complain like crazy if you don't embed fonts like symbol and helvetica into your PDF files when you send them to get published. This is particularly idiotic, since these files are part of the "14 base fonts" which every PDF reader must be able to render without needed the fonts to be embedded. So it's a pretty ridiculous rule, and I've wasted some amount of my life whinging at them for having such a rule. In particular, because some perfectly nice PDFs generated by pdflatex have been rejected for this reason. These folks wouldn't give any useful suggestions about how to fix the problem, other than "send us the PS version, and we can generate the compliant PDF." But I'm using PDFLaTeX -- there is no PS version (not even a DVI version). Generating PS would be silly, I'd have to use pdf2ps or similar.
Finally today, I have worked out a clean solution which does not offend me.
Firstly, it turns out that most of the problem is actually coming from the embedded graphics. pdflatex itself does seem to satisfactorily embed most fonts, although you can force it to if necessary, and there are various sites around which say how to do this. But this doesn't help included PDF figures which don't have fonts embedded already. For xfig and so on (another tip: in xfig, the "view --> portrait/landscape" option will fix it so that your figure is output with the correct orientation if it's coming out twisted when you export it), just export direct to PDF and it should work. But some figures are generated in eps format, and then converted to PDF. Usually, I use epstopdf to do this, since it gets the bounding box right, but it doesn't seem to do the trick. So here is what you need to do: issue the command
and then all will be well. You can work it out for yourself why this will work.
Finally today, I have worked out a clean solution which does not offend me.
Firstly, it turns out that most of the problem is actually coming from the embedded graphics. pdflatex itself does seem to satisfactorily embed most fonts, although you can force it to if necessary, and there are various sites around which say how to do this. But this doesn't help included PDF figures which don't have fonts embedded already. For xfig and so on (another tip: in xfig, the "view --> portrait/landscape" option will fix it so that your figure is output with the correct orientation if it's coming out twisted when you export it), just export direct to PDF and it should work. But some figures are generated in eps format, and then converted to PDF. Usually, I use epstopdf to do this, since it gets the bounding box right, but it doesn't seem to do the trick. So here is what you need to do: issue the command
export GS_OPTIONS=-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress
and then all will be well. You can work it out for yourself why this will work.
20071107
Stating the Obvious
A letter falls into my hands from my gas supplier, with the following message emblazoned on the front: "Forecasts call for below-normal temperatures this winter".
I know what they mean (since they say the same thing every year), but that's not actually what they've said.
I know what they mean (since they say the same thing every year), but that's not actually what they've said.
20071105
Paxman, you idiot
More shocking ignorance from Paxman on University challenge, again leading to him claiming that a valid answer was incorrect. This time, from the program on 22nd October 2007:
Paxman: In statistics, data that are binomially distributed, individual values may be placed in one of two mutually exclusive categories so that the sum of the probabilities of occurring in the categories is what value?
Liverpool Ling: Er... unity.
Paxman: No, it's 1, or 100%
LL: (rolls eyes)
Something should be done!
Paxman: In statistics, data that are binomially distributed, individual values may be placed in one of two mutually exclusive categories so that the sum of the probabilities of occurring in the categories is what value?
Liverpool Ling: Er... unity.
Paxman: No, it's 1, or 100%
LL: (rolls eyes)
Something should be done!
20071101
Near Miss
I was getting very confused, since I had mixed up "Show Me Love" by Robin S with "Show Me Love" by Robyn. Youchoob embeds below:
20071028
Pledge
With all this fuss around "In Rainbows", and discussion of whether this is going to revolutionize the music industry, no one seems to have mentioned that there is an entire industry that has been running on essentially the same principal for decades.
Public Radio in the US (think Radio 4, only twee in an entirely different set of ways) basically operates in exactly the same way: it gives its wares away from free (broadcast radio), and requests the listener to make a donation. Since there's no necessity to comply, they perforce request 'whatever you think is appropriate', although they are keen to give suggestions as to what is appropriate ($10 per month, or 'just a dollar per day' are common examples). The model is a little different in places: since the good is a continuous stream, rather than an album, they periodically interrupt this stream to beg for money. Sometimes for days at a time. Moreover, the game theoretic aspect is slightly altered, since there is a greater incentive to contribute to NPR: fail to donate, and the service might go away, or at least become less usable (more begging, less content). Probably you can argue the same about Radiohead albums, although it's more discrete, and there are more competitors than there are for speech-based radio stations not broadcasting insane rants.
Public Radio in the US (think Radio 4, only twee in an entirely different set of ways) basically operates in exactly the same way: it gives its wares away from free (broadcast radio), and requests the listener to make a donation. Since there's no necessity to comply, they perforce request 'whatever you think is appropriate', although they are keen to give suggestions as to what is appropriate ($10 per month, or 'just a dollar per day' are common examples). The model is a little different in places: since the good is a continuous stream, rather than an album, they periodically interrupt this stream to beg for money. Sometimes for days at a time. Moreover, the game theoretic aspect is slightly altered, since there is a greater incentive to contribute to NPR: fail to donate, and the service might go away, or at least become less usable (more begging, less content). Probably you can argue the same about Radiohead albums, although it's more discrete, and there are more competitors than there are for speech-based radio stations not broadcasting insane rants.
20071027
Perspectives
Motivated by the sudden spurt of interest, I watched "Points Of View" this week for the first time in ages. It's, um, not how it used to be. Gone is the catchy version of "When I'm 64" from the opening, either because Paul McCartney now is 64, or else because "Send me a postcard, drop me a line" didn't seem to be easily replaced by "Write on my messageboard, post a snarky blog entry". Instead we get (youchoob embed):
I'm not sure that I particularly like their insinuation, that all the comments are nothing more than "blah blah blah". And that faux jazz tune -- I hope the composer is rightly ashamed of what he has wrought.
The show retains its short (10-15mins) format, but the issues raised seem much more petty than I remember. Perhaps they ever were, but it seems particularly unnecessary to whinge about scheduling decisions in this age of PVRs and timeshifting.
One notably irritating point: just as before, the letters seem to be read by actors. However, in an apparent attempt to fool the viewer, some audio manipulation is added to make it sound as if these are telephone messages. Apart from the dissonance of hearing carefully read speech (with no 'um's or 'ah's), many of these come in over the internet and so are attributed to pseudonymous names like "Bax of delights".
The highlight, though, was probably a rather bizarre segment in the middle which seemed to involve a cut-and-paste piece of found poetry on the subject of BBC cooking shows. I'll leave it to you to work out what that's really about.
I'm not sure that I particularly like their insinuation, that all the comments are nothing more than "blah blah blah". And that faux jazz tune -- I hope the composer is rightly ashamed of what he has wrought.
The show retains its short (10-15mins) format, but the issues raised seem much more petty than I remember. Perhaps they ever were, but it seems particularly unnecessary to whinge about scheduling decisions in this age of PVRs and timeshifting.
One notably irritating point: just as before, the letters seem to be read by actors. However, in an apparent attempt to fool the viewer, some audio manipulation is added to make it sound as if these are telephone messages. Apart from the dissonance of hearing carefully read speech (with no 'um's or 'ah's), many of these come in over the internet and so are attributed to pseudonymous names like "Bax of delights".
The highlight, though, was probably a rather bizarre segment in the middle which seemed to involve a cut-and-paste piece of found poetry on the subject of BBC cooking shows. I'll leave it to you to work out what that's really about.
20071020
Yoof TV
After Charlie Brooker's devastating take down of the current state of Yoof TV, I decided to remind myself of how things were when I was a youth myself. In particular, thanks to the magic of the internet I found a rather grubby copy of "Teenage Health Freak" from Channel Four in the early nineties. I ended up watching the obligatory "Drugs are bad, mmkay?" episode, which was just as cringeworthy as you might imagine it. The basic plot was that the requisite unattainable girl turns out to be regularly getting high on ecstacy tablets, and ends up half-inching some replica guns belonging to the protagonist's cowboy-obsessed father. He confronts her about her misdemeanours, and she takes him to her supplier to retrieve the objects, which ends in about as cheesily a brutal confrontation as you can imagine. The problems with this are principally: (1) there's only so much violence you can show in an early-evening teen themed comedy-drama (2) the sinister pusher and bowling alley manager was played rather unconvincingly by cheery ex-Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan, which rather made the entire episode entirely pointless.
The upshot is that after this confusion, the unattainable girl remains unattainable but at least renounces her life of illegal highs with immediate and lasting effect, and the show moves on with startling rapidity to tackle the equally serious topic of teenage eating disorders equally decisively in the next episode.
The upshot is that after this confusion, the unattainable girl remains unattainable but at least renounces her life of illegal highs with immediate and lasting effect, and the show moves on with startling rapidity to tackle the equally serious topic of teenage eating disorders equally decisively in the next episode.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
