Sunday August 25
Beware the man with the light purple hair, for he has just finished painting
his room, and a darn sight better it looks now.
Tips for other people who
want to redecorate:
1) Get the assistance of someone who knows what they're
doing. Not me.
2) Ensure you have a ladder that will allow you to reach all
parts of the room. Especially if redecorating a staircase.
3) Don't forget to
wash your brushes after use.
4) Seriously, don't call for my help.
5)
Er...
6) That's it.
Saturday August 24
Chants would be appreciated.
Friday August 23
Oh, stuff it. The Friday Five.
1. What is your current occupation?
Is this what you chose to be doing at this point in your life? Why or why
not?
Database tinkerer, helpdesk resolver, all round good egg, and
able to be sarcastic at the company's expense thanks to a manager without the
ability to comprehend subtle humour. Or anything subtle, come to it.
2. If time/talent/money were no object, what would your dream
occupation be?
Wouldn't mind being a properly published writer.
3. What did/do your parents do for a living? Has this had any
influence on your career choices?
Enough to know that I want to
carve my own niche, not follow their footsteps.
4. Have you ever
had to choose between having a career and having a family?
Not
exactly. Those who know, know.
5. In your opinion, what is the
easiest job in the world? What is the hardest? Why?
Hardest would
have to be builder in the summer. Easiest must be signal controller at New St,
where one just puts one's feet up and goes to sleep, oblivious to the chaos on
the platforms.
Inspired by a discussion on plastic.com, and referring right back to my
degree project. There is a real-world application for the 3-D binpacking
problem, and this might be it... The bag is constrained by four variables: three
physical dimensions and weight.
Rules for successful packing of shopping
bag:
1) Heavy stuff on the bottom. Bit of a no brainer, this. You'll fail
Bagging 101 if you put the heavy stuff on top.
2) Put squishable items on
top. See 1.
3) Put rigid items, like cereal boxes, near the sides of the
bags. This gives it a more clearly defined shape, and makes it more easy to
manage. In mathematical parlance, this reduces the dimensions in a controlled
manner, allowing the new problem to be solved as a linear subset of the
original. (And to think I only got a high 2:2 for my project. Blast.)
4)
Don't overfill the bags. Plastic bags tend to be fairly strong, but anything
over 5kg is not going to last forever. This would be the secondary constraint -
the main one is the volume of the bag.
5) Don't put two glass jars or other
glass items next to each other. They will cause an annoying clink, and may well
break if the bag is handled roughly.
6) Individually wrap meats and other
items that might leak in small bags. One bag per item. Don't want to get food
poisoning now...
Optimal packing requires one to look ahead, at the
groceries that are coming next, and make snap decisions. Alternately, one can
put items on the conveyor belt in roughly this order (heavy - bulky - light) and
switch between two or three bags.
The looking ahead method is known in
the binpacking trade as the Lower Local Bound method, which tries to keep items
together in terms of one or more constraints. This is more of a heuristic
method, incorporating rules of thumb. These are easy for the human brain to work
out, but very difficult to codify for a computer.
For instance, the
heavy stuff is locally bounded in terms of weight, and size doesn't come in to
it. The bulky stuff is locally bounded by one or more physical dimensions, but
can be assumed not to fall into the earlier heavy category. Each bag can have an
approximate limit for items from the heavy class, and from the bulky class.
Research into the generalised case shows that packing items as they come
along *can* be up to 70% over optimal. Ordering the items from largest to
smallest, then putting them in the first available bag, will not be suboptimal
by more than 22%, and no efficient algorithm (as opposed to brute-force
calculation of all possible combinations) can be guaranteed to do better.
Other research suggests that for small constraints, where each item
takes up a significant percentage of the available bag (height, width, weight),
the pack-em-as-they-come algorithm is as good as any other.
Overview
of binpacking
Britney comes out as having sex 'n' drink 'n' fags. We can wean her off two of those, and who wants to wean her off the third?
Thursday August 22
For the past few days, VH1 has aired a sequence of number one singles, as
determined by the Sales Volume chart. This morning saw the second half of 1989
as breakfast television. Classics (in the loosest possible sense of the word)
from Sonia, the flame-haired Liverpudlian teenager who sung the most anodyne
candy pop imaginable.
Then from Jive Bunny, two Rotherham remixers who carved
up old rock 'n' roll records and turned them into something else entirely. It
says something when I've not heard the records in a good ten years, yet can
still remember *exactly* where the cuts from one track to the next went. [Anya was right]
Then Blackbox sampled
Loletta Holloway's "Love Sensation" and turned it into "Ride On Time." This has
become *the* obvious record to sum up the summer of 89, with its high-powered
Italian beats and joyful vocals. And, just for good measure, a second blast of
the Bunnies.
All this nostalgia set me wondering: which was the first
number one that was clearly Of The Nineties? First one that sprung to mind was
U2's "The Fly" on 27 Oct 91. Did we go almost two years into the decade before
having a topper that exemplifies 90s music?
Early 1991 had seen a lot of
old stuff. Direct covers from the 60s (Cher) 70s (Jason Donovan) and 80s
(Clash); 80s soul from Color Me Badd (sic); 80s balladry from Bryan Adams; 80s
rock from Iron Maiden and Queen; timeless humour from the Simpsons and Hale
& Pace; and the oddity of Enigma.
We had seen two records that had
the freshly-broken cellophane feel of the new decade: Chesney Hawkes' "The One
And Only" (Mar 29) was early 90s disposable pop, while the KLF's "3am Eternal"
(Jan 27) couldn't have been more contemporary if it tried.
But that was
1991. What about 90? Again, revivals for the Righteous Brothers, Steve Miller
Band, Timmy Mallett (!!) Elton John, and Kylie. Old-sounding stuff from the
Beautiful South, Madonna, Partners in Kryme, and Sinead O'Connor; and novelties
from Vanilla Ice and Cliff Richard.
The new stuff came early in the year.
Englandneworder's "World In Motion" (Jun 3) should have been a novelty single,
but there's something so sublime about a rock track suddenly featuring a rap,
and a rap by and professional footballer, that it broke ground. Adamski's
"Killer" (May 6) and Snap!'s "The Power" (Mar 25) broke new rap/dance crossover
ground, perhaps helped by Beats International's "Dub Be Good To Me" (Feb
25).
And then there was the manufactured band. If one thing would go to
define the 90s, it's the group put together with two eyes on profit, and none on
musical credibility. Step forward the New Kids On The Block, with "Hangin'
Tough" (Jan 7) and "The Right Stuff" (Nov 19, 1989).
There's our answer.
The first 90s number one was actually six weeks before the end of the old
decade.
First number one that sums up the 00s? Tricky: from this time,
it's hard to say exactly what the 00s are. Could be Mel C and Lisa Lopez's duet
on "Never Be The Same Again" (Apr 2, 00). Could be Spiller's "Groovejet" (Aug
20, 00). Probably doesn't go past Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" (Mar 4, 01). Certainly
no later than Daniel Bedingfield's "Gotta Get Through This" (Dec 9, 01).
Wednesday August 21
Shugborough Hall, near Stafford, looks for a hermit to live on his own in the
estate grounds.
It's only a hundred years since having a hermit on the
estate was the height of credibility. It was an extended form of purity and
virginity, and we all know how important those values were. Victorian gentlefolk
would flock for miles to the place with the man who lives on his own, isolated
from the rest of the world. They couldn't actually *see* the hermit, otherwise
he wouldn't be kept apart from the rest of civilisation, which rather ruins the
whole concept.
Eventually, of course, some cad figured that he could make
a quick killing by *pretending* that there was a hermit in his country pad, thus
raking in the cash from nineteenth century tourists, without the expense of
actually providing a hidey-hole for the hermit. When he was rumbled, this
bounder was driven out of polite society, and became his own hermit. Plus ca
change.
Tuesday August 20
People in the US launch a lawsuit against those they claim are responsible
for last September's fantasy attacks against humanity. They seek compensation to
the tune of USD 116 trillion. This is approximately 2.5 times the annual global
production. The proceeds would enable them to buy up a number of small Middle
Eastern states, and impose their own form of government.
The US airline
industry should be good for a few billion, thanks to the pisspoor state of
airline security at the time. And, to be frank, right now.
As the case
will be tried in the fundamentalist christian USA, Satan expects to be found
liable as the root of all evil in the world, while God has already put in an
out-of-court settlement offer for that whole 'free will' thing.
This caused a jaw-drop moment. After figuring that the place was being used
by kids showing off their cars, Houston police blocked off a store car park and
arrested
everyone there. Funseekers, car thieves, and people committing no crime
other than shopping at an open store or eating at a neighbouring fast food
store. City police chief Bradford ordered "an investigation" into the outrage,
while officers on duty called the arrests "utterly senseless" and suggested that
the sting "went to hell in a handbasket" and was "a complete waste of weeks of
work and a huge amount of manpower."
The man pretending to be in charge,
Mark Aguirre, ordered 278 arrests, most of whom now face criminal trespass
charges. Aguirre had rowed with the area chief earlier in the day, and failed to
follow accepted procedure - similar operations had previously issued citations,
rather than arrest.
The arrests were contested through lawsuits as early
as Monday morning, and those victimised by this latest attack of police
senselessness are considering a class action suit against the cops. No
resignations have been tendered.
What's to do in a case like this?
Boycott K-Mart, on whose property this outrage happened, until
the failing store agrees to drop all charges against everyone. Boycott
Houston, perhaps, until their "law enforcement" officers decide to
enforce the law as it is written. More generally, starve the fledgling
police state of its oxygen of moolah. Next time a proposal appears for
a new "justice center" or "jail" - vote against, protest against, object. If
they want more money for more cops on the force - say nay.
Iraqi embassy in Berlin taken over! The building, opened little more than a
month ago, was taken over by dissidents today. The group, the Democratic
Iraqi Opposition of Germany
claimed to be
against Sadaam Hussein, but a google on their name turned up nothing, and
London-based opponents knew
nothing about this group. The stench of that drifted across the Kdam was
more like US foreign agents than slightly overcooked brioche.
A regular
correspondent reports that he's no evidence to question meetup.com's
motives, and suggests giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was the
clueless tone of the message that got me on the wrong foot, like an outsider
trying to ingratiate itself in a close community. Heck, it *was* an outsider
trying to ingratiate herself in a close community. One that traditionally
organises its meetings in the open air - park benches or street corners - not
licensed establishments.
If you have input, throw an email towards meetup
{at] daweaver.free-online.co.uk. Break a window and I'll be annoyed.
This doesn't feel like a Monday.
1. Many children have blankets, or a favorite nubby stuffed animal
that they like to keep near them for security. Do you recall what you had for
your "security blanket" as a child? When did you finally give it up? What
brought that about?
I may have had such a thing, but I really don't
recall it. Must have gone by the time I was three.
2. Now that
you are a big kid, what do you have to give you that same sense of
security?
It's the little things. In fact, it's usually the
keyring. First year at uni, Manor hall gives out a keyring with the bar number
on it - if we're really worried about our safety, ring them and they'll get a
taxi back and put it on the tab. It was one of those clear plastic numbers,
ideal for scratching Cara's number into. Then some years later, that almost
falls apart, and gets replaced by a keyring celebrating the voyage of the
Matthew
. That was John Cabot's ship, the one in which he discovered Terra
Nova in 1497. Five hundred years later, the local college makes metal disks
embossed with an image, and sells them as keyrings. This was Ali's idea of a
joke, as we'd both rather ridiculed the celebrations planned - they *were* a bit
silly, in retrospect. The highlight was having Peter Snow come over on board a
replica.
3. With a little over four months left in 2002, have
you accomplished everything you wanted to for the year? Is there anything that
you would like to accomplish before the year is over?
I may not
have totally conquered my inner demons, but they are known and measured and a
heck of a lot of them appear like Gacknar, the Fear Demon. As for plans:
whatever happens, happens.
4. I don't know about you, but it
seems to me children have it pretty good these days. Game systems, computers in
the home, microwaves, cable TV, the internet, cell phones and pagers, they
certainly have a wider variety of technology than most of us did as children.
What modern convenience, if any, do you think it would be good for children
today to do without? What would they gain?
Add an imagination: add
books: subtract computer games.
5. Many of us have one thing in
which we believe we excel. What do you do better than most?
Writing? Listening? Empathising?
6. In the United States,
and possibly other countries, teenagers in High School usually wind up falling
into several social circles or "cliques." Stoners, Rich Kids, Jocks,
Cheerleaders, Band, Drama, Goths, and so on (though the names are probably
different today). What High School "clique" did you find yourself in? Was it by
choice or did it just happen? Did you look down on other groups? (Aw it's ok, it
was/is High School, we all did dumb stuff)
In the UK, such cliques
aren't so clearly defined. For various reasons, I was often stereotyped as the
Slightly Gay Kid, though that wasn't my label of choice at the time. Did help me
to fall in with other slight geeks of clear flamboyance and dubious sexuality.
Eventually spent more time with the goth/rocker set, which was more by choice.
The Dallas Posse would have liked to have me on their ranks, but they were as
empty-headed as Quinn's fashion club.
7. (it begins) I have
great news! I won the contest and we now have plane tickets to anywhere in the
world. The bad news is we have to pick a place now and leave in the morning. I
can't decide where to go, so you get to pick. Where should we go, and what is
the first thing we should do when we get there?
So we're going back
to Jaeville, sort out the ex-boss's computer, and then sort some heads out.
This week's comment question: What's your favorite
dessert?
Pineapple upside down cake - so long as it's in a syrupy
sauce.
Monday August 19
There is a massive plot hole in 17
, so big that it calls into question
the entire season's continuity. Mighty Big Spoilers, the w*nkers who spoiled
pretty much the whole series with one misplaced comment, have (er) completely
missed the cockup.
(Opens in new window, requires Javascript.)
The Hunt For The Anthrax Mailer
on BBC2 last night showed just how
ludicrous was the rush to judgement last autumn. I've argued consistently that
the deliberate spread of noxious substances was far more likely to be the
actions of an internal militant, possibly advocating a seccessionist agenda,
than overseas terror. While the BBC's doc was short on motive - preferring the
weak "mad scientist looking for more funding" concept - it was long on annoying
violin stings and pointless repetition of stock footage of bacteria multiplying.
Twenty minutes of hard evidence spun out into an hour show.