Tattoos

It is harder these days to find female models who don't have any tatoos. It's a pity, since the durn things are permanent.

What is a kilo?

The kilogram is drifting.

Anurag said:
Scientists are now taking wise and immediate actions find an alternate to maintain the standard for mass. Even I am abit tensed about it 'cause you see, I am a science student doin' my A levels.

Alex said...
Don't worry, they aren't going to re-write the A level papers before next summer.

The formulae will still work, just the constants will change (and Casio will get another 20GBP from us all).

I remember A Level science and maths were things of wonder. Everything we had learnt at O'Level (or CSE/GCSE whatever they are now) turned out to be "approximate" or "works for 10% of the cases". Can you imagine after spending the whole of 6th form learning calculus , only to be told in University that for most examples you have to estimate, you can't fit a curve to it.

As for a changing standard. I grew up in a time where we still had a coin called a sixpence. It was worth 2.5p. The Kings head was still on the coins, and we were slowly converting from lbs and oz's to Kg, and from pints to litres. Imagine my culture shock when I emigrated from a 60% metric system to US Imperial with their short measure pints of just 16oz's!

For work I used to measure time in pico seconds, and lengths in nm. A few years ago I was living under the standards of knots and nautical miles at work, and trying to coerce lat/long onto an xy plot of a radar return measured in r/theta at a northerly latitude where the convergence of lines of longitude is significant over the 60 mile span of a radar.

Whatever we schooled for, it just set us up to learn faster in the real world.

As the world looks more closely at the details, the more there is to find and wonder at.


The dream is infinitely complex. It's an attention trap.

Irv Thomas

My friend Irv Thomas, author of the book Derelict Days, has been living for great swaths of his life on the road, without any traditional "security" at all, on a spiritual journey. The thought fascinates me and scares me.

That sort of life is called "being a bum" by solid citizens. But think about it, is it disdained because it has no value, or because it, if embraced voluntarily by a sane person, gives a freedom which scares them even more than it scares me?

Irv has a journal. Here is a recent issue and a sort of manifesto.

-----
Final Identity commented...
Fabulous plan. My hope has always been to reduce my material things down to something roughly equivalent to three suitcases worth of clothes, and then live "on the lam" without encumbrances. I'd of course have oodles of money to finance my gallivanting, as well.

Two problems tend to arise for me the few times I've been traveling "heavy". The first is a type of social isolation. Though I get to know a lot of fun people, they tend not to be in close personal friendships in which a shared history or viewpoint begins to build a deep bond. I don't find girlfriends, for example, because I either don't stay in one place long enough (or just because I "ain't got game"?) and I can't join sports clubs or choirs. So I find myself with a lot of shallow connections and few deep ones, which gives me a kind of fake satisfaction masking a real loneliness (not to mention the need for sexual / romantic encounters).

The second problem is one of income. I haven't ever been able to "make it work" without a full-time regular job. I don't LIKE full-time regular jobs -- especially since full time always ends up representing 100% of my time, not just my working time -- but I haven't been able to make a decent living in any other way. Again, I "ain't got game" about coaxing people into letting me have a good arrangement. They're not in business (or romance, for that matter) for the opportunity to help me to have a great life. They're in it for their own trade-offs, and often my life is part of the detriment associated with their benefit.

I haven't solved these conundrums. "Doing without" is the only method for dealing with social isolation (and sexual) and with financial needs that I've ever figured out. I'd rather figure out a better one.

Irv Thomas himself said...
In response to Final Identity, it ultimately boils down to what's really going on in your life and how desperate you are to make a radical turnaround.

Sure, I had to learn to live on a lot less money; but in the end, I got much more for my 'little money' than I ever did with a lot more of it. And as far as companionship and romance are concerned: you have no idea how a truly free soul can strike other people. Yes, many turn their noses up; but many more are intrigued and envious enough to make up for the fools. Even at 80, I'm finding new women in my life!

Update: Irv continues:
The desire to get laid is a honey-in-the-pot trap for staying with the old grind, just like money and fame are. With your nose always buried in the pot, however, you really can't see what lies beyond it. And you tend to discount whatever anyone says lies beyond it. But let me tell you a couple of truths I've learned to live by...

I stumbled a lot, at first. But I gradually came to find out that whatever I actually needed just seemed to come to me. And then I gradually saw that what didn't come to me I really didn't need! Eventually, that combination allowed me to put my free time and energy into DOING what I really wanted to be doing, instead of TRYING TO GET what I didn't have. Do you see the difference? One is living, the other is only struggling or yearning or fighting what's real for you. As I said, I always got what I needed, and that certainly included love 'n getting laid. It is still coming fresh to me at 80, and quite as much as I can handle!

There are just illusions that life challenges us to get over. And one of the major ways that this operates is by the honey-in-the-pot. We get hooked on something that is denied to us. Really, the mechanism is that simple. Learn to look twice, and think about, the phenomenon of consistently being denied whatever you're trying to get. It's a challenge, all right . . . but not the kind you've always thought it was.

Jack of all trades, master of many

Jack of all trades, master of many, article.

Robert KvH ventures:
I believe that the statement one can become world class in almost any skill within one year is meant to be a throwaway teaser. There have always been polymaths among us who are gifted and can master many things. But that is far from the norm.
In the three fields that I know well, from participation, observation, and practice (Sailing, aikido, and embedded systems), I can state that I have never encountered, met, or read about anyone who achieved mastery, let alone world class status in one year. I live in Newport, RI, have worked for the America's cup, and met sailors such as Ken Read. They did not become world champions in one year. In aikido, one year of dedicated practice (say 4-5 times per week) wouldn't get you close to 1st degree black belt, generally considered the entry level into being a serious student. I have asked my instructor, who has been studying for almost 30 years if he has met anyone, or heard of anyone that mastered aikido in one year. He just laughed. You can't master the physical/technical aspects in one year, even if you are already an amazing athlete. The spiritual/mental aspects of aikido will take much longer.
As someone who designs embedded systems for 30 years, I have met many good programmers and software engineers, but none of them became competent embedded engineers in one year.

Finding a home

A different way of finding a home.
As far as I can see, this method will also bypass the real estate agents and their exorbitant fees.

Leatherstrip

An interesting "band" is Leatherstrip (or "Leather Strip" or "Leæther Strip"). Not only does the music really catch my attention, but it turns out it's just one man, and not only that, a Dane like me, with the very Danish name Claus Larsen, sitting in a small Danish town. Very kewl. Not easy to find on iTunes or file sharing, but Amazon has a nice collection with samples.

Nikon rumors

Upcoming Nikon cameras? Just rumors, but very interesting ones.

Update: Thom article about such speculative cameras.

Skambankt

Here is another great track for the hard rock fans.
I'll note that while Skambankt (Norwegian for beaten to shit) is a good band, this is by far their best song, in my opinion.

Banner ads

Have you ever bought anything from a banner ad?

I think I click on a banner less than once a year, and then only because I am puzzled by something about it, never with the intention (or the result) to actually buy something.

But banners are still around, and more animated and irritating than ever, so I guess somebody is buying from them. Maybe you?
----
I wonder if people who actually do mistake banner ads for Windoze messages or games are intelligent enough to buy by credit card?

Black Books

Quick note: English comedy series Black Books is wonderful.

A different note: often I will start with a short post about something, and then add to it several times as the hours (or maybe even days) pass. So if you're interested in a post, it may pay off to scan it later to see if something has been added. (I don't always make a clear "update" note on it, depending on relevance.)

Pandora tailor made radio

Wow, here is something interesting: Pandora.
(Seems to be US and UK only, for the usual licencing/copyright/human-condition BS reasons. Hope they solve it soon.) (It can be circumvented by routing one's web traffic through a proxy
in the U.K., I hear. Anybody know how to?)

The music companies will hate it. Even though, like usual, it probably will be a boon to everybody, like all the past technologies they hated. (Radio included. And these days they pay to have their music played on radio.)

Pandora takes a name of an artist or song you like, and then with a little guidance creates a free online radio station, tailor made for you!

I tested it with something I thought would be obscure, Skinny Puppy. But lo, it handled it perfectly.

The music companies will think that it will discourage people from ever buying music at all. Which might happen with some people. But in fact it's a highly interesting way of finding new bands you may like, and perhaps buy them. For instant, I never heard of Nitzer Ebb before, but it turns out they have many of the qualities I like about Skinny Puppy. And even their third selection, Leather Strip, sounds really interesting.

In fact I've now listened to five or six of their selections, and I like them all. This is spectacular performance, no two ways about it. It's as good as my own iTunes favorites lists...

I wonder how they find similarities? Do they have editors who sit around and attribute qualities to songs and bands? (Update, a little info here.)

... It seems like you can't re-listen to a song you really like. Which, I guess, is consistent with the idea that it is radio, not your own music library. You're s'posed to buy it if you like it. (Update: it seems you can bookmark a song and play it later though. Kewl.) (Second update: no you can't, only a sample. Basically you can't play song you select yourself.)

Here's a strange line from Wiki: "Potential subscribers should be advised that many songs are not the original recorded versions and may sound altered in some manner." Whu? How and why would they alter songs?

I can't believe this is new to me. It just goes to show what it says in The Long Tail: that the world is becoming so complex that we have already lost what you could count on ealier: that if something was big and cool, most other people would know about it too. This is getting increasingly rare. This may be good or bad, but I think mostly good.

Wow, synchronicity (I am getting so much of that these days)... Just as I was writing the paragraph above, the speaker in the video presentation on their site started talking about how the music sold via Pandora is a long way down in the "tail". As he says, "relevance replaces marketing". What you listen to is determined by your taste (and some software), not a DJ or what a music label pays to have played.

Update: wow, the downside to this service is overload. I've now used it for like an hour in total, and already I have four or five bands I "need to check out later". I will never have the time! I already have stuff in iTunes I have bought but never listened to.

I'm impressed by the huge selection they have. They have to get licences for everything, and they have to have a person analyse each song. They even have an info page for each band. I'm trying to imagine what resources they use on all this.

Mustard and ketchup

Nikon camera lineup article.

He compares Nikon and Canon to Hertz and Avis, and to mustard and ketchup.
Love this line:
(Which one is mustard and which one is ketchup? Let's just say they each take turns playing ketchup.)

I agree with him. Surely Nikon can't do without a higher-rez Nikon D3, but even more important to some of us would be a full frame camera which is cheaper, smaller, and lighter, similar to Canon 5D. An amateur photographer, even a keen one, generally don't like carrying a 3-kilo camera around (which is what a D3 and a good lens easily comes to).

See these image quality samples. Wow.