Oooh
Roger Ebert has published another of my e-mails in his letters column. I have lost count how many times he has done this, but it is at least seven or eight I think. This time he only published to first part of the e-mail. I added some stories about buying Thunderbirds toys for children of friends of mine in Japan, but he doesn't appear to have had the space to print that.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Wednesday evening song lyrics
-- Andrew Ridgley, from Black Box Recorder's third album Passionoia (2003). (Actually I think it is more Luke Haines speaking). And yes, I also remember 1992.
I never liked George Michael much
although they say he was the talented one.
Andrew Ridgley drew the map
that rescued me, took me to paradise
I was brought up to the sound of the synthesizer
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will till the day that I die
I had a tooth pulled as a child
I put it underneath my pillow
and when I looked the very next morning
There was a ten pound note
I took it to the nearest record shop
and put it down upon the counter
I've got to tell you what I know to be true
I bought my first record because of you
I was brought up to the sound of the synthesizer
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will till the day that I die
I loved everything
I loved to be around money
a daughter of negative equity
a child of Black Wednesday)
This is Sarah Nixey talking
Midi'd up and into the groove
I've got to tell you
what I know to be true
I didn't do too well at school
they said I couldn't concentrate
The day you flew off into the sunset
was the day my education was saved
then years later on Kensington High Street
I saw you drive a white convertible Golf GTI
carefully edging out into the traffic
just like a real live human being
I was brought up to the sound of the synthesizer
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will till the day that I die
Daddy lost everything
Our beautiful house
His beautiful sports car
His beautiful wife
I held his hand and told him
everything will be all right
This is Sarah Nixey talking
Midi'd up and into the groove
I've got to tell you
what I know to be true
I was brought up to the sound of the synthesizer
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will till the day that I die
I was brought up to the sound of the synthesizer
I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums
I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes
I love you now and I will till the day that I die
-- Andrew Ridgley, from Black Box Recorder's third album Passionoia (2003). (Actually I think it is more Luke Haines speaking). And yes, I also remember 1992.
Redirection:
I have a Samizdata quote of the day on John Kerry. No time for any more blogging than that today.
I have a Samizdata quote of the day on John Kerry. No time for any more blogging than that today.
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Efficiency
At the request of a potential employer, I have been giving myself a crash course in the programming language S (the most common variants of which are named S+ and R, just to confuse people). I am an old C programmer, mainly, and this language is much higher level than that. Plus it is object oriented and more more function based than what I am used to. Still, this is quite impressive, and very easy to code.
That's right, one line. Works for an array of any data type for which the logical comparison a<b makes sense, too.
At the request of a potential employer, I have been giving myself a crash course in the programming language S (the most common variants of which are named S+ and R, just to confuse people). I am an old C programmer, mainly, and this language is much higher level than that. Plus it is object oriented and more more function based than what I am used to. Still, this is quite impressive, and very easy to code.
qsort=function(a) if (length(a)<=1) a else c(qsort(a[a<a[1]]),a[1],qsort(a[a>a[1]]))
That's right, one line. Works for an array of any data type for which the logical comparison a<b makes sense, too.
Civilization
A new continental (or, more properly, just Belgian I think) style bar named the "Beer Circus" has recently opened in Croydon. It has around 15 Czech, Belgian,English (ie real ale) beers on tap, and over 150 bottled beers (mostly Belgian, but also a good selection of German and a few from other places).
Truly, a fine innovation. I asked the proprieter how long the bar had been open, and he said a couple of months, and that the business was doing very well.
Of course, it would be impossible for me to open such a bar in Sydney, as I would have to have a pub licence and these are finite in number and sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars each (thus meaning that if you have one, you have to open a huge soulless establishment also containing lots of slot machines to make a decent return on it). There would be no problem whatsoever if I wanted to open such an establishment in Melbourne, as former premier Jeff Kennett (who, whatever might be said for the man, didn't take any shit from anyone) reformed the laws a few years back.
No problem except for the logistical difficulties of importing the beer, anyway. If you want to run such a bar in London, you can stock it by driving a van to Belgium every now and then, filling it up with beer, and driving back. (Plus you have to then do some paperwork to make sure the appropriate taxes are paid). Doing that from Australia is a little harder.
A new continental (or, more properly, just Belgian I think) style bar named the "Beer Circus" has recently opened in Croydon. It has around 15 Czech, Belgian,English (ie real ale) beers on tap, and over 150 bottled beers (mostly Belgian, but also a good selection of German and a few from other places).
Truly, a fine innovation. I asked the proprieter how long the bar had been open, and he said a couple of months, and that the business was doing very well.
Of course, it would be impossible for me to open such a bar in Sydney, as I would have to have a pub licence and these are finite in number and sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars each (thus meaning that if you have one, you have to open a huge soulless establishment also containing lots of slot machines to make a decent return on it). There would be no problem whatsoever if I wanted to open such an establishment in Melbourne, as former premier Jeff Kennett (who, whatever might be said for the man, didn't take any shit from anyone) reformed the laws a few years back.
No problem except for the logistical difficulties of importing the beer, anyway. If you want to run such a bar in London, you can stock it by driving a van to Belgium every now and then, filling it up with beer, and driving back. (Plus you have to then do some paperwork to make sure the appropriate taxes are paid). Doing that from Australia is a little harder.
Sunday, August 01, 2004
Annoyances
Until recently, instant messaging has been dominated by programs such as MSN Messenger and Yahoo Instant Messaging. Until about a year ago I didn't bother with such programs, believing that real mean use IRC, or possibly the UNIX "talk" program. However, about a year ago, I gave in and started using these programs. (For anyone who is interested, I can be reached as "mjj12@btopenworld.com" on MSN Messenger, and "mjj122" on Yahoo instant Messenger).
Both these programs are based on centralised servers. There is a centralised database of information about you, and this centralised information also includes a contact list. When you log on from any computer in the world, your contact list is loaded onto your computer and appears on your screen. The downside is that the owner of the system has a centralised database of information about you, and that if something goes wrong with the server, you are screwed. Also, for high bandwidth communication such as voice (which these instant messaging programs also offer) going through a central server is perhaps not ideal from an efficiency point of view.
Which is why people on the internet have taken to Skype in a big was recently. Skpe is sold as principally a voice communication tool, with instant messaging as a secondary feature whereas earlier services have sold it the other way round, but I think a better way of looking at it is that Skype is the same sort of application with two things changed: firstly it uses a far better audio codec so the quality of voice communication is much better; secondly it is not centralised but is instead peer to peer; (thirdly it is also encrypted end to end, and this is good, but I think it is less important as a selling point).
The peer to peer part is good from the point of efficiency and privacy, but it causes one little foible. Because there is no central server, your contacts list can only be stored locally on your hard disk. (Also because there is no central server, the information that you have gone on or off line takes longer to reach all your contacts, as it has to propagate around the network to them via a non-direct route, too. Again, this is important but less of an issue than the first). This means that if you log on to Skype from a computer other than your usual one, you do not have your contacts list with you. Personally I have thre Skype installations in this room with me now: one on a laptop, one on the Windows partition of my desktop, and a third on the Linux partition of my desktop. (Another good thing about Skype is that the people behind it have done a Linux version, for which they have my sincere thanks). These have contacts lists consisting of different subsets of my actual list of contacts. I am slightly concerned about logging onto each and adding the same set of contacts again, because I think it may annoy my friends if they are asked repeatedly if I may add them as a contact. (Actually, if Skype is well designed then they will not be asked again, but I am not sure if it is in this regard).
The Skype people claim they are working on a solution to this type of problem. Hopefully this does not involve going back to the whole idea of a central server, but I fear it may. Thems the breaks, I guess.
Until recently, instant messaging has been dominated by programs such as MSN Messenger and Yahoo Instant Messaging. Until about a year ago I didn't bother with such programs, believing that real mean use IRC, or possibly the UNIX "talk" program. However, about a year ago, I gave in and started using these programs. (For anyone who is interested, I can be reached as "mjj12@btopenworld.com" on MSN Messenger, and "mjj122" on Yahoo instant Messenger).
Both these programs are based on centralised servers. There is a centralised database of information about you, and this centralised information also includes a contact list. When you log on from any computer in the world, your contact list is loaded onto your computer and appears on your screen. The downside is that the owner of the system has a centralised database of information about you, and that if something goes wrong with the server, you are screwed. Also, for high bandwidth communication such as voice (which these instant messaging programs also offer) going through a central server is perhaps not ideal from an efficiency point of view.
Which is why people on the internet have taken to Skype in a big was recently. Skpe is sold as principally a voice communication tool, with instant messaging as a secondary feature whereas earlier services have sold it the other way round, but I think a better way of looking at it is that Skype is the same sort of application with two things changed: firstly it uses a far better audio codec so the quality of voice communication is much better; secondly it is not centralised but is instead peer to peer; (thirdly it is also encrypted end to end, and this is good, but I think it is less important as a selling point).
The peer to peer part is good from the point of efficiency and privacy, but it causes one little foible. Because there is no central server, your contacts list can only be stored locally on your hard disk. (Also because there is no central server, the information that you have gone on or off line takes longer to reach all your contacts, as it has to propagate around the network to them via a non-direct route, too. Again, this is important but less of an issue than the first). This means that if you log on to Skype from a computer other than your usual one, you do not have your contacts list with you. Personally I have thre Skype installations in this room with me now: one on a laptop, one on the Windows partition of my desktop, and a third on the Linux partition of my desktop. (Another good thing about Skype is that the people behind it have done a Linux version, for which they have my sincere thanks). These have contacts lists consisting of different subsets of my actual list of contacts. I am slightly concerned about logging onto each and adding the same set of contacts again, because I think it may annoy my friends if they are asked repeatedly if I may add them as a contact. (Actually, if Skype is well designed then they will not be asked again, but I am not sure if it is in this regard).
The Skype people claim they are working on a solution to this type of problem. Hopefully this does not involve going back to the whole idea of a central server, but I fear it may. Thems the breaks, I guess.
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