Irregular Verbiage

from the desk of Colin Nicholls

Page 14 of 61

360 San Rafael

May 11, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday I took a walk into Barbier Park,
climbing up San Pedro Mountain. It's really just a big hill on the
North side of the San Rafael valley, but it is big enough to have very
nice views.

The trail starts at the end of a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood,
and is initially quite steep, but soon levels out and is a much easier
walk. It took me about 45 minutes to get fairly close to the top

I expected to get to one of the highest peaks and take in some
panoramic vistas, but actually the radio relay stations or suchlike are
surrounded by security fences and dense bush on either side of the
trails, and the best views are to be found about 3/4 of the way up:

This is a true 360 view, with San Pablo Bay in the North East, Mt
Diablo far away in the East, the Richmond Bridge in the South-East, and
the San Rafael valley in the South-West, and the glorious Mt Tamalpais.
The Sun is thinking about setting in a couple of hours, behind the hill
to the West.

Deer at McNeer

April 28, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I walked down to McNeer's Beach yesterday as part of an effort to get
regular exercise. It was very busy, lots of people picnicking and
playing volleyball and suchlike, but also some quiet areas without
anyone around, where if you were patient, you could see some wildlife:

Tod at TED

April 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I had heard of Tod Machover from the pages of KEYBOARD magazine many
years ago when he was working on augmented Cellos. This 20 minute video
of a talk he gave at TED this year is fascinating, but from about the 13 minute mark on, it actually brought me to tears:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/246

I was reminded of William Horwood's book Scallagrigg, which also blends the themes of Cerebral Palsy and Computer Software, and enablement.

Death By Chocolate

April 13, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I've been so busy recently that I haven't been thinking about posting here. Well, here's a report from the end of February.

With J and A living in Napa we occasionally hear about food-related things that interest us. This time it was that COPIA,
the American Center for Wine, Food, and The Arts was holding their
annual Wine and Chocolate Tasting, billed as "Death By Chocolate: The
Ultimate Chocolate Festival". Naturally, we were interested.

We drove up to Napa with a couple of co-worker/friends from China,
thinking they would enjoy the drive (and the chocolate) and possibly
get to meet up with J and A who were also planning on being there.

Alas, the weather was grey with odd spots of rain but it was still fun and the chocolate was delicious.

The wine-tasting part was frustrating for a couple of reasons. One was
that the various chocolates on offer were overpowering for the most
part, that I never felt I was appreciating the full flavor of the wine.

Another was than I'm not used to wine tasting – I know you are
supposed to taste and spit and to be honest, there wasn't a lot of
spit-receptacles available and this place was crowded. I don't think
they were really set up for the formal taste-and-spit process. Best you
could do was sip, taste, then spit discreetly back into your glass at
which point you had to make your way through the crowd to the nearest
"wet trash" bin. So I stopped sampling the wine and focused on the
chocolate.

One thing I really wish: 1) that I had discovered the Port Wine
vendors upstairs sooner, and 2) that I didn't have to drive us home.

The variety of chocolate goods on display was quite astounding,
including icecream and also some gluten-free chocolate souffles which
were very delicious and reminded me of my numerous gluten-intolerant
relatives (as well as my own history). I meant to take down the details
of the vendor but I seem to have misplaced my notes. Darn.

The other product that sticks in my mind are Jade Chocolates. These were quite special.

Discriminating Taste

March 12, 2008 / / 0 Comments

[Ferraro] ignited a flap by telling a California newspaper that
"if Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position."

"And if he was a woman he would not be in this position.
He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is
caught up in the concept," Ferraro said.

Source: Clinton supporter defends Obama race remarks

What a load of bollocks. I think there might be reasons
other than being Black in Obama's case. However I think the only
reason Clinton is still in the nomination race is because she's a
woman.

A Short Interlude

February 22, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Scene: Driving to work

Me: So I got a reply from Ed in the CD office. He likes my code, says he is learning something from it.

Her: He's not allowed to fall in love with you. I fell in love with you from reading your code. Anyone would.

Me: I think "anyone" is a little broad…

Her: Are you calling me short?

Me: …I would use the term "petite".

Cloverfield (2008)

January 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I feel stupid about this because I really wanted to see this film in
the theater, with a bunch of people around me. I dragged L along with
me. I thought it would be part of the fun to not know anything about
the movie going in, but perhaps that was a mistake.

SPOILER

Is it fair to say that the film is "Blair Witch Project vs. Godzilla"?
Yeah, it probably is. Except that it's an apt description of the movie
I'd wished I'd seen, because it only really describes the first half of
"Cloverfield".

Blair Witch succeeded (for those who enjoyed it) because we never really saw anything.

The producers of Cloverfield were not brave enough to maintain this
throughout the film, and the second half of the movie is an unlikely
sequence of Perils-of-Pauline near-miss encounters as we see more and
more of the monster until nothing is a mystery anymore. (Any fan of
Doctor Who knows that monsters are scariest when you see only  glimpses
of them.)

Actually the only mystery remaining is how the handi-cam's battery powered the thing for 84 minutes.

And of those 84 minutes, the film actually seems 20 minutes too long.

"Cloverfield" succeeds when it is focused on telling a personal
story of regular people on the periphery of an extraordinary event. It
fails when – like a dinosaur trapped in a tar pit – it is unable to
break free of traditional block-buster movie cliches.

Disturbances

January 14, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I found a couple of things on the 'web today that I found disturbing*.

The first is a short, amateur produced documentary on what really
happened in Portland, OR, in 2002, when a supposedly peaceful
demonstration was broken up by Police. At the time it was reported as
"the demonstration turned violent" but somehow the producers of the
film got their hands on the authorities' own videotapes of the
incident. Narrated by someone who says they were there at the protest.

This is What A Police State Looks Like

The second is the results of the New Hampshire Democratic Primary
election. Many people have commented on the variations between exit
poll numbers and actual vote counts when comparing manual counting with
the results reported from electronic voting machines. The fundimental
points are:

  • Why should exit polls be reliable result indicators everywhere except where electronic voting machines are used?

  • Why should the EVM results be biased in favor of any particular candidate?

We ignore questions like this at our peril. It doesn't have to be
conspiracy but we'd better know what is really happening. I have no
opinion on whether there was any actual vote rigging taking place. I'm
not qualified. However it is really encouraging to see people from
around the country collaborate online on ad-hoc analysis projects such
as this one:
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/1/12/191247/981

So that was New Hampshire last week or so. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, they can't even get the machines to accept votes:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5579

It is clear to me that electronic voting machines should not be
used, ever, because while they are in use we will never be free of this
crap.

* Only 2? Clearly I'm not looking hard enough.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Irregular Verbiage

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑