Dublin marathon

I finally, after much prevarication, signed up for the Dublin Marathon on the 31st October. Along with hill-walking, I've been doing a fair bit of running. Yesterday I sat down with my running partner and we sketched out a training plan for the next nine weeks. As part of that, we ran in the Pewsey 1/2 marathon last Sunday, and we did some decent-ish threshold pace work this morning.

This will be my fourth marathon, so I've a fair idea of what to expect. The other three were all in London. That involves training in the dark of winter (race is in April), but this time we'll be making use of the late summer and autumn.

I've been to Dublin once before, for a friend's stag do, so I'm looking forward to seeing it in a slightly calmer, i.e. less pissed, state of mind. Now to look for a hotel, preferably mid-range but with a sauna.

3 peaks roundup

The long and the short of it: we did it! In 23 hours and 52 minutes to be precise.

I've more or less recovered, caught up on sleep, and have even been for a run to squish the three-hills badness out of my legs. It's good to be back in my own bed amongst my favourite creatures again.

The previous blog posts, which I did on the fly on my Treo, were looking unruly, so they've been culled. You can still see the Treo images and the texts by following my 3peaks Flickr tag. There will be some nicer photos soon so keep an eye, e.g. RSS (what's that?) on that tag (what's a tag?).

Update: Liam did a nice set too.

castle acre qi gong

castle acre qi gong
Originally uploaded by Drift Words.

First morning practice begins.

The sun is warm and happily forgets the stories of the stones.

Our limbs soften.

Art Loves Science and wants to go out

Science and Art, despite going about their businesses by seemingly different lights, occasionally desire each other, as it were glimpsing something attractively other-worldly in an after-work encounter. Part of the mutual desire must arise from recognition of a kindred soul, the common ancestors perhaps being creativity and patience.

After all, to make progress in either, an individual must endlessly observe, absorb the work of others, form a unique theory and push something new, no matter if it is imperfect or unlovable, into the world.

All very well, and despite some fumbling, occasionally something fruitful develops from Science/Art partnerships. Their less glamorous and rowdier cousins, Engineering and Craft, seem to have no difficultly in getting it on, and have been in and out of bed together for as long as anyone cares to know.

Now and again, there are official efforts to unite the two haughty suitors (thinking of the Wellcome Trust's or Research Council initiatives). Hoorah, you might imagine me saying, as practitioners are brought together. I generally find the the matches are too formal and unnatural. Here such-and-such-in-residence takes the letters of her name arranged in a double spiral, there, bits of the solar system is painted onto institutional car parks. The forced connections seem superficial and insincere, as well as probably taken down after two months. It is the processes and thoughts of the Two Cultures that really need to be connected, not their artefacts and manifestations.

Some more success at unifying the traditions comes when individual practice can be refracted through the glass of the other. UCL Graduate School has run a photo (actually any image) competition Research Images as Art / Art Images as Research for some years, and here's another one in Princeton (via Ratchet Up).

These things are fun to wander around, and wonder. To my mind, the most successful partnerships - bearing in mind that the dancefloor is the mind of one person - are those where both are trying to achieve the same things at the same time with the same materials, albeit with complementary steps. In other words, where the aesthetic values of the artworks and the scientific story visualised in the same document come from the same qualities in the image.

Sadly there seems, even in these exciting competitions, to be a tendency to hold up examples such as where some microscope slide or other just happens to look nice.

UK digital printing services

So I've got digital photos to print, where do I send them? I could do without being a member of anything in particular, and I'd like to specify aspect ratios and and finishes fairly precisely. I certainly don't want to schlep around the chavvy high street with memory cards and CDs.

Therefore email/upload to send and letter box to receive.

As well as speed, cost and quality, I'm interested in the way that metering is done, and whether this can be controlled at my end. I'm also curious as to whether there's any integration with my software - e.g. an export plugin for iPhoto. (Jessops had something like that going with Windows XP, as I recall.) I'm not interested in sharing, cos I've got all the Flickr I can handle.

Can anyone recommend anything in particular?

Having built up a short list, I'll do a few test runs, and report back here as I find out more and as the results come back in. If I give a price it's for a 6x4, with quantities in brackets.

1. Jessops photoexpress "Register now" blah blah 20 p, 15 p [100+] +£1.50 or pickup. The annoying ofoto Kodak gallery model? Sharing options.
   
2. Truprint Registration. 10 p + 99 p p+p. Pay in advance facility for cost reduction.
   
3. Snappy Snaps No registration. Based on local stores (you can email the store directly -whoo!) who offer varying services. Mine offers loads of print options (25 p for small quantities). Equivalent to walking in to the kiosk, as no delivery option (cos no payment system, presumably). SS is a franchise outfit, which explains the local variety.
   
4. photobox 15 p each, but lower if you buy credits. £1.50 p+p.
   
5. Bonusprint 12 p +99 p p+p
   
6. dlab7 a sister-outfit of the VAT-busting Guernsey based 7dayshop. (cheap consumables, but mixed reviews in other cases) 80 p to 10 p [100+]. Prints from CD, with restrictions on what sizes you put on your submitted CD. Free delivery (I should jolly well cocoa as you've had to pay to get the files to them).

Results of trials posted here in due course.

Greetings from sunny Reading

Greetings from sunny Reading
Originally uploaded by Drift Words.

@ WOMAD with my beautiful lover!!

The sun has got his hat on, but I have left mine at home. Off to the market stalls ...

.. as it happened, buying an emergency hat only ensured that it rained all afternoon. Bewaring the drips, crowding into the tents, tempted by veggie curry and filling up with organic beer (Bath Ales stood out, though here it was Guinness), stamping the festival mud to the funky rhythms – splendid!

Bang, bang! bang bang bang.

So, what now?

Last week we (cynical Lan-daners) were sniggling at the London will fucking twat you in a minute, son vein of humour. This was really an oh-get-off-it reaction to faux-sincere empathy, mostly from Over There.

I dare say ex-SAS men in the papers and loads of Americans all over the place were at the same time urging us to collectively Get Tough.

Well, There you go.

What now, may be that the cynical dirty clever mystery of intelligent Intelligence will come to the fore as a police tactic, and running about in tube stations will be largely confined to the TV screen where it belongs.

Another scenario is that the city will have to get used to being "fucking twatted" out of, and by, the blue. Statistically though, this work will make us safer.

Nice cabinet, sir!

Andy Boyd (Croeso) is clearly a multitalented generous-hearted clever person. He eschews TV so can't be bad. But I have questions.

Why does he read Harry Potter? I read the first, middle and last page of the latest lump in Borders yesterday and thought it too much. Still I would never berate random commuters for being Potterists, only my friends.

And why, if he doesn't watch TV, is he building this wonderful Mackintoshian media cabinet?

Not only is it quite stunning as a piece of design, I love the thought of this idea – allowing you to keep the nice doors closed AND fastforward the DVD:

Placed high in the drawer separator is one of my favourite features of the cabinet, an infra red remote control repeater sensor. This picks up the IR signal and via a small amplifier hidden underneath the cabinet feeds 2 LEDs that are housed in the lower compartments to trigger the amplifier and DVD player that will be housed there.

If only the ads on DVD's weren't locked out!

Explosions in London

I was just getting into a happy mood about London (the Games! Yipeee!) and now this, perhaps inevitable, disaster.

Desperate for news
Originally uploaded by Adam Tinworth.

Tom Coates has good roundup of news. More BBC news.


The Olympic bid team slinks back to the capital whilst we keep the telly on. I have friends who work in BMA house, right on Tavistock Square.

I'm struck by the swift professionalism of the emergency services, the ability of Tony Blair to act as a president (compared to the laughable Bush), and the quiet desperation of the English commuters and their international friends.

Awe

Awe
Originally uploaded by Drift Words.

I don't think I'm turning into a steam buff, but I can tell when something is impressive.

Scafell descent

DSC_2132.JPG
Originally uploaded by Drift Words.

An absolutely splendid day of walking Scafell Pike with these two lads. Here we are finding an interesting (i.e. crunchy and technical) route down the northern approaches to Scafell back to our car.

After a misty and grey start (enlivened by a thrilling drive over Wrynose and Harknott Passes - almost the most fun you can have in a vehicle without it being a Challenger tank) the day brightened to give occasional cloud-dappled views over the valleys of the Lake District.

We had reached the summit of the Pike in 1:50 or thereabouts, which was encouraging. This climb was part of our preparation for a forthcoming attempt at Britain's Three Peaks within the space of 24 hours, of which more later.

Blogger codes. Whatever next?

I noticed that certain highly obsessive pasty blogger types (e.g.) (remember Chris Tarrant calling proto-bloggers "netties"?) have blogger codes. Uh what?

My blogger code: B5 d- t k+ s- u- i- o x-- e++ l- c (decode it!)

I really need one of these

snack time
Originally uploaded by phraseling.

I really hate lawns. In an effort to spruce up the back garden we have been scratching around with the "lawn". Why do we have to have one? The moss is clearly winning, so why all the anguish about inadequate grass?

Our garden slopes quite a bit, so regular mowing is just so much faffing about. I really fancy installing one of the grass-munchers as shown, that way we could be in for some cheese as a by-product. The dangers to laundry and our other plants are only too apparent, sadly.

Sunny days

Now and again, the sun breaks through and it pays to get out of doors. This past weekend to the capital, where happy crowds on the South Bank, and the Africa Remix exhibition kept us amused.



Last weekend to friends in North Wales, and a healthy scramble up the north face of Tryfan.

Recalling the Eclipse of 1999

Tihany village, North shore of Lake Balaton, Hungary.

11 August 1999.



This shows the gang assembled in the churchyard. Ady and Sarah, who also work at the lab, were in the town on the same day and we met up with them to view the event. Dawn is pictured sitting next to the device we used to project an image of the eclipse on to a nearby screen. It consists of a small camera tripod, a make-up mirror, and several post-it notes arranged to form a pinhole.



The all-important screen is again formed of pieces of paper and post-it notes. Jason's motorcycle helmet serves as a support. This was about 3 or 4 ft away from the mirror. We were able to view the shadow of the moon as it crossed the sun, in complete safety and without straining our necks. Passers-by were amused the apparatus that we had set up. We were pleasantly surprised as well since it was totally unplanned! The other two shots show the images of the sun formed by the light passing through natural pinholes (gaps between the leaves of the trees). It was possible to make similar images by holding up cracks in the fingers and thumbs. These effects were seen for about an hour either side of the total eclipse.



The totality itself, not shown in any photos here, was spectacular! We were gripped with suspense in the minutes leading up to the total eclipse because a large bank of cloud had arrived. It looked as if they would threaten our pleasure. At almost the last minute however the clouds vanished leaving us with a good view of the sun. Since the churchyard at that time was thronged with people, there was quite an atmosphere. In our high vantage point we were able to see red skies all around, a 360 degrees sunset!

Our excitement got to a high point as the points of the crescent sun approached one another. With a few seconds to go before totality, only a few bright spots could be seen on the remaining edges of the sun. These were the famous Bailey's beads. At last even these disappeared from view, leaving just the corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun, in view.

It took about 20 seconds for us to become accustomed to the darkness, and to be able to see the corona properly. There must have been a little bit of haze at high altitude, since the structures in the corona were not particularly clear. Some binoculars may have been quite useful at this point! Despite that, it was the most amazing feeling to look at this strange object high in the sky. It seemed so bizarre and unusual. Knowing what it was seemed to make it even more wonderful. Thinking about the objects in space, arranged so perfectly, just seemed to intensify the feeling of strangeness. At this point I really felt as if I could appreciate the astronomical distances of our solar system.

At our site in central Hungary, the totality lasted for about 2 1/2 minutes. There was plenty of time to look around and drink in the strange atmosphere of the crowd. As the time went on the eyes became more accustomed to the low light levels, and the corona seemed to expand accordingly.

It was soon time to reach for our protective glasses, as the so-called diamond ring started to become visible. This drew a loud gasp and a cheer from the people.

After that, there seemed to be a universal feeling of anti-climax. The light levels gradually increased to normality, and the temperature, which had taken a sudden dive during the eclipse itself, took some hours to return to the midsummer levels. The crowds dispersed quietly, with none of the excited chatter apparent before the event. I suspect that most people were feeling emotionally overwhelmed, and did not know what to say to their neighbours.

We retired to an inn for lunch and conversation.

It takes a month

Some cultures have an established routine of mourning. Friends, family and neighbours take food to the bereaved household for period, until things can get back to normal.

Last week I sorted out the last Thing, that is, clump of atoms, that needed to be sorted. It has taken a month, during which my flow of Normal Work has been a minimal trickle.



Now I am the inheritor of two thousand miles on the car, a garage full of boxes, and a head of memories and thoughts I didn't know I needed to go through. It's going to take more than a month, but the proper work of the living in respect of the dead now begins.

The line just got shorter

I'm living in interesting times, but I'm living. I had a half-expected phone call last weekend, so I've been going around the place Registering, Notifying, Organising.



Soon I'll need time to reflect properly. Also consequently, Tommy Womble needs a new home.

Drifting into 05

Whizz. Bang. The celebrations are hollow, the fizz silent in the fridge.

It is truly awful when demons strike in the world's playgrounds. I hope with you - having friends somewhere in SL - that, in this new and already damaged year, our fears are resolved. The resolution may not be want we want to hear. I'm powerless and shameful, my words drift ugly in the water.

Solstice

It's misty and still in my part of England, and the sun's lowest position in the sky can only be a notional observation.

I'm moving delicately, not because of any physical trauma, but my mind feels cold and still. I often feel this way at the end of term, and wish to withdraw into my den. This year, other things, a sad cocktail of the existential and practical, worry me. Cheers.

Today being the Winter Solstice, it's the day of A Day in the Life, a group photo project on Flickr. Somebody (bows) suggested this day as The Day, and it looks like the idea's taken off. There are close on 400 participants. Last time there were 5.

I recorded the actual moment of the solstice in a typical English High Street. My set of photos throughout the day is there for you to see.

It's quiet at work, and there is a shambolic feel to the office. I think about what photos to take, and my workload over the holidays, but mostly about events elsewhere.

Entering the zone

If you buy me enough drinks, I'll tell you how theoretical phsyics (which I've never done any of, really) is more like poetry writing (again, no experience) than you might think. It's not about the symbolic manipulations, the technique, it's the feeling you get as you put the pieces together. It could be like the feeling a chess master or indeed a martial arts master has when engaged in their art.

Deep in the comments of The Numerist Fallacy (an argument of the are-computers-real-art type from Grand Text Auto) you see:

“When I’m writing poetry, it feels like the center of my thinking is in a particular place, and when I’m writing code the center of my thinking feels in the same kind of place.”

Yeah! Everybody gets to this place now and again - artists, physicists, players, fighters - the ultimate creative space where the tools at hand disappear from the problem leaving only the mind to grasp the world, and change it.