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July 11th, 2008
05:57 pm - Somebody wake the sound guy...
This week has seen me down in Brighton for a couple of days to attend the company's FY'09 kick off event. It wasn't quite the pep rally we'd been expecting, but still better than the marquee in the car park of previous years. Events company really weren't on the ball though, and silence, feedback, dead radio mics, and slideware washed out by stage lights were the order of the day. On the other hand we weren't in a tent directly under the flight path of the Farnborough airshow, no matter how bad it got the presenters were still more audible.
Andy McNab was the guest speaker, and his matter-of-fact style was quite entertaining and enlightening. Certainly his stories are something to make you think about what is important, and isn't worth worrying about. A refreshing change from the ex-army types you tend to run across in the city.
Apparently, one of the other choice was Gordon Ramsey, who would certainly have sworn more. I suspect most of it would have been directed, justifiably, at the Hilton's kitchens for some of the worst food I've had in a while. Room was pleasant enough, though the health and safety people had been let loose on it. The fire sprinkler had one of those "Don't hang your clothes on this" stickers, which was entirely unnecessary. The hotel was Georgian era, and they thought that 5 meters or so was a good height for a ceiling, and without a ladder you couldn't have reached the sprinkler. Similarly, a heavy duty eyelet had been fixed next to the window. However the minimal space between the window and the building opposite was entirely filled with pipework and ducting to the extent that with a little care you could have taken a stroll along it. Certainly access to ground level would have been impossible for anyhing larger than a squirrel.
Didn't get to see anything much of Brighton though, which was a shame.
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June 29th, 2008
08:57 pm - Rainbow mystery reveals secret....
Okay, I should be catching up on all those posts from ConFuzzled and my birthday (43rd!), but I've just had a piece of a puzzle that's been bugging me for the last 35 odd years fall into place.
As I may have mentioned before, I'm partly colour blind, and have particular difficulty with reds, and things with red in them. I struggle to differentiate red from brown, orange from green, and purple from blue. Oh yes, and pink from grey. Another side effect of this is that the colours I see in a rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, and blue. Even the orange is kinda dubious. I certainly have never subscribe to the idea that there are seven colours to be seen. Indigo and violet are clearly a load of bollocks.
A cursory glance at the physics seems to support my point of view, people are supposed to have three colour receptors, at long (red ~600nm), medium (green ~550nm), and short (blue ~450nm) wavelengths. There's no way something should have another colour at a shorter wavelength than blue, it should simply cease to be visible (like the curiously named ultra-violet). I have to say, no school physics or biology teacher has ever given me a satisfactory explanation of indigo or violet.
So today, via the wonders of Wikipedia, I discover that the so called red receptors that normal people have aren't exclusively sensitive to red at all. They've two peaks in their response, one well known at 600nm, and another lesser one at 430nm. That last is at a shorter wavelength than the blue receptor, and explains these weird extra colours you claim to be able to see.
I feel happier understanding that.
And you gay-pride folks, with your rainbow banner, it's divisive and exclusionary! - Just kidding ;)
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June 24th, 2008
10:47 pm - ConFuzzled
... what an amazing, exhausting, and uplifting experience that was. Being part of a team that pulled off an event that people seemed to really enjoy is totally worth all the effort. Reading some of the things furs are posting is bringing a lump to my throat.
Big, big thanks to all the non-staff who helped us out, especially ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) furyfox for the loan of the lighting used for the photoshoot [1], my room mates (Badgerguy, Utlah, and Sandroo) for being so supportive and helping out with the events, and Yagfox for his assistance with the stage and loan of lighting gear. I've a suspicion it was also Yag, in his role as potted plant thief, who started using the paw-puzzle logos as decoration for the stage.
A few of the highlights for me, where to begin, ... Pickle's Kreek fursuit was excellent, meeting old friends, finally seeing Lupus and Alfa in the flesh and the fur, all the dances, ... wonderful furs who just seem to throw themselves into events like these: Lilsi, Ember, Timduru, Frost, .. to name but a few. I wish I'd gotten to see Zuki's RPG, and BBF's panel and fursuit, Devilwuff's bar games, and hadn't missed lunch so often.
And now there's a scant 11 or 12 months to pull the next one together ... What? Yes! Of course I'm doing it again! But first, more sleep.
[1] Which easily gets the most overrun event award. What was scheduled for a morning took one and a half days.
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June 19th, 2008
05:00 pm - A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing...
You need to know where your towel is. If you are a fursuiter, you need to know where your towels are. Most importantly, your towel will not be provided by the YHA in Manchester. Similarly, the hostel won't be providing flannels. Probably no shampoo, shower gel, little tubes of toothpaste, diddy bars of soap, slippers, shoe shine kits, shower caps, or executive bath robes either.
You do get a duvet, a pillow, and blankets (should you need them). There's no turn down service, no delicate minty choccy on your pillow when you retire for the night. In fact, your bed will look exactly the same as the way you left it. Do not leave your shoes outside your bedroom door expecting them to be cleaned when you get up. There are no early morning alarm calls, or even early afternoon ones, and no all day breakfast!
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02:37 pm - ConFuzzled - Registration opens in 24hrs
So all the big stuff (things to run the con, sponsor goodies, et c.) is packed in the car, leaving a slot to fit in Kibble. Just a scant few hours of work and I will be on my way North to join some of the staff and a few of our international attendees at the YHA. Tomorrow the event we spent 18 months or so preparing gets under way.
I have to say I really am rather excited!
I'm sure it's going to be a crazy few days, and I'm probably going to be exhausted by the end of it. Will be offline at least until Monday. No laptop, no time. I do, however, expect LJ to be covered in ConFuzzled posts before the weekend is out.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) excited
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June 14th, 2008
03:50 pm - Head drying rack
This afternoon has seen the last of making things for ConFuzzled. As well as finishing things for the fursuit games, I've also completed the head drying rack. This will allow seven heads to be aired out simultaneously, and probably see a fair amount of use during the dances. Inspired by Trigger Happy Squirrel's creations at FC and adapted to the quirks of British plumbing.
Going to take a breather now, well away from the pipe solvent.
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June 3rd, 2008
03:55 pm - Fox trot fox
So, back from the very enjoyable spiritfurs canal trip. This year with improved weather; improved boats, and improved location! All added to the great time. Plus it was a pleasant change of pace after the ConFuzzled con book. I feel thoroughly recharged (and slightly hung over and sunburnt). Thanks again to Badgerguy and Kyy.
For those waiting for the inevitable fursuit photos, you'll be waiting for tungro to upload the photos taken with his camera.
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May 24th, 2008
09:52 am - One two
...testing
Okay, so haven't posted in a long while. Work has been going through a mad phase, with some very long days and travelling into London. Did five hours of presenting on Thursday. So basically if it wasn't work, or urgent ConFuzzled stuff, it didn't get done.
On the flip side, however, I won an iPod Touch for various work stuff. Still getting used to the oh-so-sexy UI, but an obvious disadvantage is that it can't be operated out-of-sight in the pocket.
What else? Well I have my PAT testing certificate (frankly rather easy), ready to keep ConFuzzled on the right side of UK legislation, and snagged a tester of eBay.
And OneTwo? Getting on for 20 years later, and Claudia Brücken is still sexy.
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April 17th, 2008
09:34 pm
It would be remiss of me not to mention the Birmingham fursuit walk (in honour of Hawthorne's visit) , and subsequent barbecue and party as I had a great time. As to be expected the big critters went down well, though the walk had to be cut short due to a brief rain/sleet/hail shower which caught us out in the open. My big footpaws became rather sodden, and the effect was rather like walking though a field of wet clay in wellies. Thanks to colifox and badgerguy for organising and being great hosts [1], to our handlers, and to Yag for his disco lights and smoke. Apologies to Ben (née Erasmus, and not named after the computer in the second series of Auf Weidersehen, Pet) for invading his home.
It was the first time I've wandered around Birmingham in many years (other than the route between Birmingham New Street and the pub where some ConFuzzled staff meets have occurred), and I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. To put this into some context, the last time I explored Birmingham was when my dad was working on the construction of spaghetti junction, and the Aston Expressway was new [2]. I also got a bad nosebleed, though I'm not suggesting any kind of causal relationship. Brum has changed so much that I'm still rather disoriented walking around. Driving in central Birmingham remains a disaster area of futile proportions, the inner ring road with its frequent roundabouts and underpasses is just as bad today as it was then.
Since then, work has been taking up most of my time. My current task is to use the latest version of the product to make the web pages of an old demo "sexy". So plenty of CSS nonsense, funny shaped buttons, PNGs with alpha channels, AJAX, faux-tabs, with mash-ups and other excrescences to come. I hate web standards with a passion. Or rather, I hate the posing academics and slackers of industry who get themselves on committees to promote themselves whilst committing these travesties of good design and specification. They deserve a special hell.
And once again, a post finishes at a tangent.
[1] and for having a vast bathroom with (can I use the word?) epic amounts of toilet roll, which the combined forces of furs totally failed to make a dent in.
[2] 1972 ish. The Coventry Evening Telegraph had a special pull out feature on all the ways you could navigate spaghetti, complete with artists impressions of all the junctions. Though at 16 odd pages of newsprint, you probably wouldn't want to be reading it and driving at the same time. It was also widely hypothesised that a civil engineer's doodle had accidentally been built.
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March 2nd, 2008
10:44 pm - Cirque de Stansted
clearly the most unattractive aspect of a wine cellar, architecturally, is the dank, dark, underground part. So what better alternative than a glass fronted wine tower, three stories high? Add proto-Jolie types on electric hoists to ensure any sediment is well and truly mixed up with their energetic acrobatic wire work, and you've got the main feature of the Radison's lobby.
I'll be trying to put it, and my 4:30 wake up call, out of my mind. Next stop Lyon.
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February 27th, 2008
01:10 am - Quake?!
I've just been woken by what I can only assume was an earthquake. They're not exactly common in this part of the world.
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February 26th, 2008
11:46 pm - Grenoble
A week on Sunday (2nd March) I'm off to Grenoble (via Stansted) for a week's training on a new version of JavaCAPS. This means I'll miss the ConFuzzled staff meet that takes place the day after I get back (okay, technically on the same day I get back). There's a good chance I'll also have to miss the MK based midfurs meet on the 1st in order to get Stuff(tm) done.
Of course the trip does put me in Valrhona country.
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February 25th, 2008
05:13 pm - ... and sometimes I do dumb things ...
The washing machine has been playing up; specifically the back light on the LCD display, that glowed an interesting Čerenkov blue when it was new, has gradually failed. First it just got dimmer, and recently it has taken to flicking on and off, making it particularly difficult to see what program has been selected.
I'm no stranger to the inside of this appliance, what with cats and fursuits, matted fur has to be removed from the impeller, heater, and condenser every couple of months. So it was a matter of a few minutes work to unclip the control panel from the inside, get to the LCD and discover that it was lit by 5 3mm LEDs. These LEDs turned out to have failed, one was actually cracked (it's curious that they've failed at all, it's not like the machine is old).
Didn't have any 3mm LEDs to hand, but plenty of bright blue 5mm ones, ... and a bastard file. I figured replacing three of the five would be sufficient. Another few minutes and I've got them to fit, and soldered in place. Replace the panel, turn the machine back on, and there's that steady blue glow again.
... except it's really difficult to read the display ...
I wonder if I've lost the polariser, and check the floor and the guts of the machine. No, it's not missing.
About 4 hours later I realise that I've made a blue backlit display where the segments light up blue. Those burnt out LEDs must have been white!
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February 21st, 2008
06:19 pm - Gone.
Rather belatedly I've found that a former workplace, Radstone Technology (map), has been demolished, no doubt for the construction of new houses. The company is also gone, the remains bought up by GE Fanuc.
The site had used to be a show factory for Mansfield shoes, back when Northampton was known for its leather industry. It was then used by Plessey, first by Memories (I think) and then by Microsystems. The oldest part of the building was still called the Mansfield lab. It was joined by a few Nissan huts, a generator building, then a more modern office and manufacturing area, and finally a steel and glass erection that boasted all the architectural goodness of a built-on-a-budget sports centre.
From this ramshackle collection of buildings came commercial and military boards used in all kinds of applications from warehousing to fighter planes, stock control to the accelerators and instrumentation at CERN. The last core mats that went down on the Atlantic Conveyor were woven here, and bubble and holographic memory systems built.
Opposite us (where the supermarket car park is now) was a caravan site, which I never saw anyone use. It supposedly was popular when people used to camp to attend the horse racing. The people who owned it built the two houses to the north, and used it to store strange and collectible cars. I remember seeing the futuristic Doctor Who car there once.
I wish I'd known, would have been good to go look round Radstone one last time. It was easy enough to get in at night, the guard used to regularly doze off, and there had been at least one theft and one arson attempt.
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February 15th, 2008
06:44 pm - Back and forth
Received an unusual item in the post yesterday: a typewritten quotation. It had been prepared on a dismal specimen of its kind, possibly a Lilliput Junior Typewriter, by someone unfamiliar with its operation, and making mistakes every 20 or so characters. The headed notepaper had an e-mail address.
Also yesterday, went to see Casablanca at the multiplex cinema. Restored and digitally projected, I was amazed at all the detail I'd missing during many, many previous viewing of this classic film. I'm not sure what impressed me more, that the modern technology was able to extract so much from the original film stock, or that so much attention had gone into the sets and lighting that probably wouldn't have survived the reproduction and projection process when the film was originally made.
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February 8th, 2008
04:14 pm - Through the looking glass, again
A while back I posted about Eric Laithwaite's somewhat controversial ideas about gyroscopes and his Royal Institution Christmas Lecture back in 1974. Some truely grotty windows media files for one of the six lectures were available from a gyroscope site.
I'm not sure when it happened, but the Royal Institution has finally got around to putting all of them online as webcasts, and they are available for free. You do have to work a little to get them as the process isn't the most intuitive (like, for example, clicking on a link and watching might be). First you have to register, then go to events and then webcasts. Add the lectures you want to see to your basket, they cost £0.00, but you have to click add-to-basket twice just to be sure, then go to the checkout and "purchase" them. Login, and go to "My Webcasts" and then you can watch.
It's kinds encouraging to see that these programs had used to be quite challenging; presenting puzzles that aren't readily explainable, then exploring them. Kinda wish we had decent science programming on TV now.
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February 4th, 2008
10:07 am - The collective noun
ConFuzzled had 144 places. Does that mean we will have a gross of furries?
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January 31st, 2008
05:57 pm - Cup of tea and a long hot bath
Or in other words, am back from FC. Had a good time, though this was a rather different experience for me, as I decided to Gopher in order to get a feel for things prior to ConFuzzled. Spent Friday morning working the registration line, and managed to sell around six sponsorships to impatient folks who hadn't pre-registered. Was on stand-by on Sunday, and helped take down the main stage equipment on Monday. Got back from Smash's corner of the warehouse (so much Sun kit in there) around six pm, so avoided much of the pain of seeing people leave.
Met new people (though I'm not so good at this), missed people I'd meant to catch up with, missed people who weren't there (Ultah, Yakeo, Xavier, Timduru,....), didn't spend as much time in suit as I'd planned, got to just one panel (though it was Tioh, Furvan, and Lorianna's advanced head construction). I'm not going in for the whole con-report thing - my thoughts aren't that well organised, and my camera failed (didn't bring the SLR), so it would just be a huge block of black text.
Ahh, yes, some last minute impulse purchases at Fry's: a clamp meter, and an IR thermometer.
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January 21st, 2008
06:45 pm
So, almost sorted for tomorrow, picking up Zuki early, then heading to Heathrow, and many hours later to San Francisco and FC.
In what I can only begin to think of as a "Shockwave" moment, the months of careful planning, of making it quite clear what I was doing and when, have lead to a 48th hour guilt-trip incident. I've dropped the ball calendar-wise again (see various preceding posts about thefts, broken machines, and reinstalls), and will be in-flight (returning) on the day in question. However, this is why I repeatedly asked, and cannot be fully to blame if I was given the green light each time.
Yesterday also saw me meeting with my father for the first time in around 3 years, in and attempt to resolve The Issue (tm). I'm not sure how well it went, lots of conciliatory things were said, but I'm somewhat doubtful of my dad's ability to remember all the detail until he got home.
So, a couple of emotional hot spots, but I'm going to FC! I've a week of escapism to enjoy, and I really feel that I need it.
In a repeat of last year's timing, work has managed to organise a Sales Training (read: Piss-up) day just after I get back. Memories of December's gathering, and the discovery of the laxative effects of getting really drunk on black Sambuca, are still fresh in my mind. Ahhh, the aniseed! I wonder why there are no meat flavoured liqueurs? Perhaps something with maple syrup and bacon ... maybe in Heston Blumenthal's head they exist. And on that erratic note I shall search for more things to pack.
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January 7th, 2008
08:31 am - I can has velcro?
Seems like the newest game for our kitten Yum-Yum is launching herself at vertical surfaces to see if she sticks. While curtains, beds, and other upholstered objects meet with some success (and irritation from us), she's still to learn that she doesn't stick to walls, cupboards, radiators (loud), doors, the TV screen (irrespective of the image), and air.
I missed getting a photo of her yesterday proudly trotting into the lounge carrying her latest find in her mouth; "I've got a little shiny red ball onna stick". We like to call those cherries, they aren't cat toys.
EF registration number: I don't have one. I'd love to go, but not around Ailsa's birthday.
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