Talk about having your mind in the sewer…

Being kinder to Year 12 is good. But this sort of implies they are meaner to Year 11 which is bad. Very confusing.

This one from work (company logo removed). I don’t see the point of it. If the door is closed then the sign is redundant. If the door is open then the sign is wrong. Under what circumstances could this possibly be useful?

These little things amuse my small mind.

The standout act for us this year was Truckstop Honeymoon, a husband and wife act playing banjo, guitar (him) and acoustic bass (her) and both of them singing. The name apparently came from the fact that they ended up spending their wedding night at the Tiger Truck Stop, somewhere between Lafayette and the Atchafalya Swamp.

They have four kids, who they usually take on tour with them (!) and many of their songs resonate with anyone who has children. Songs about marriage, families and life on the road. Classic stuff.

We also caught:

ℵ a group call Mojo Juju and the Snake Oil Merchants who do a sort of 1920’s speakeasy grunge jazz which was a lot of fun.

ℵ Dougie Maclean, a Scottish singer who is married to one of Pamela’s vast collection of cousins. Good Scottish folk music.

ℵ Vince Jones, a well-known Australian jazz musician, who was disappointing. Twenty to thirty years ago he was at the vanguard of jazz in Australia; now he comes across as an old man stuck in the past. He sang a number of self-composed protest songs which, although dealing with modern problems, were stuck in the now slightly embarrassing attitudes of the sixties and seventies.

ℵ Genticorum - a trio from Quebec who played and sang in the Québécois musical folk traditions. Flute, guitar, fiddle and a rhythm provided by the fiddle player by stamping with his feet while sitting down. This is apparently traditional and was surprisingly effective. They sang everything in French and although they explained it all beforehand, I prefer my lyrics in English. They were good though.

ℵ The James Valentine Quartet. James Valentine is an ABC radio host as well as a jazz musician and Pamela knew him quite well during her stint at the ABC so we had to go along. He plays the sax and plays it well and, once he got into the jazz standards and away from the more experimental stuff, was excellent.

There were a few other acts we would have liked to catch but we were pretty exhausted - there has been a lot of unrelated stuff in our lives lately - and ended up napping on the Saturday afternoon. Good fun, albeit rather wet and cold. But what’s a music festival without a little rain?

Some fly better than others; some are tricky to make; some are very odd shapes; and some are just beautiful. The one at the bottom left, called Moth, is one of my favourites but others include jets, bi-planes and spaceships. I don’t peek ahead so I have no idea what new designs are still to come.

Here are the first 30 examples:

click on the image for a larger version

The only problem I have, and I still have trouble believing this, is that none of my cow-orkers have any interest in playing with them. I mean, how can anyone just sit there when these terrific-looking planes are being thrown? It’s weird.

One of them even said something along the lines of, if your son was here he would tell you to grow up. I’m proud to say that Robert would do nothing of the sort and would be throwing planes around as fast as he possibly could.

It is a very bad sign for a software group when no-one is prepared to play anymore. I mean, what’s the point of being a programmer if life has stopped being fun? I am already looking around for another job.

Anyway, I have just one thing to say to these people:

Grow down! Look where growing up has got you.

Occasionally they show movies in the graveyard. This one shows that at least someone there has a sense of humour.

Victor’s Challenge
Walker Books 2009

The Australia Day weekend is the time for the annual Aurealis Awards for Australian science fiction/fantasy/horror writing.

Pamela was shortlisted in the best children’s (8-12 years)
short fiction/illustrated work/picture book for Victor’s Challenge, continuing the story of the nice but stupid prince, Victor whom we first met in Victor’s Quest.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, she won and from a very strong field.

The rather ghostly photo shows her acceptance speech.

Congratulations to the judges for recognising Pamela’s wonderful writing. And congratulations to the author for a really great children’s book.

Currently it has been decorated in a sort of seaside theme (although we are nowhere near the sea) with lots of beach umbrellas, beach balls and a couple of fake bathing huts. Coloured banners are flapping on the flagpoles. Various food facilities and bars have been set up under canvas and there is a portable stage with band.

I should have brought my camera, or at least got a phone with a decent camera and memory card on it. So we’ll have to make do with word pictures instead. It certainly is an uplifting sight.

There is bunting and some of the beachballs are hanging like lanterns from the trees. It is a warm day but a breeze is blowing so it’s not too uncomfortable. Oh yes, and there is one little ride thingie which has a mechanical surfboard in it. You balance on it and it moves up and down, faster and slower. Doesn’t look much fun to me but then I’m not a surfer.

Crowds are milling. Admittedly at the moment they are mostly queuing for food and/or drink but undoubtedly they will mill more effectively in an hour or so. I believe the party is scheduled to go on into the evening. Special buses and wheelbarrows are being provided for the incapacitated.

So I have to ask myself, why am I sitting in the first floor lounge of Building F, overlooking everything through large sheets of tinted glass rather than being out there having a good time?

The question contains the answer. I do not regard it as being a good time. It is sad, perhaps, but I never have. While I love socialising with friends at dinner parties, gaming sessions or just chilling out I dislike crowds of people, particularly people I am quite happy to interact with at work but about whom I desire no further knowledge. I could claim to be recovering from a virus (which is true) so I might be more willing to play along if I wasn’t feeling so stuffed but I suspect not. Call me a curmudgeon. No, go on. Feel free.

I know I’m not the only one. Various people are still at their desks, working or pretending to do so. However most of these are people with whom I do not wish to be identified. Surely I’m not as weird and asocial as they are?

So I have compromised. I have left my desk and am almost part of the crowd, albeit behind a window about four metres above it. My chair is comfortable, there is just enough party noise to make me feel I am vaguely part of things and it is quite cool. Every so often someone that I am keen to avoid walks past outside, re-inforcing how sensible my choice has been.

If this joy of avoiding parties (there must be a word for it in some language) was a recent development I might be worried and take a trip to the doctor. Alas, it is a chronic condition which has been with me as long as I can remember.

The worrying thing is, I like being safely behind tinted glass. It feels like being at the zoo although I’m not sure whether I’m outside the cage or inside.

In a little while, people will start getting drunk and unpleasant and I will take the opportunity to go home. Pathetic really.

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!

If you somehow don’t know what a palindrome is, the letters read the same forwards or backwords (O No!).

In 1984, a programmer named Dan Hoey wrote a neat algorithm which took a word list and generated a very long version. It includes not only a man, a plan and a canal but also a cat, a leek, a baronet and much, much more.

For your delectation:

A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal – Panama!

(In case you are wondering, I checked it with the following bit of perl code and it is correct)

my $str = 'the string to verify';

$str =~ s/\W//g;    # remove any non-word characters
$str = lc $str;     # lower case everything

print (($str eq (reverse $str))
    ? "Is a palindrome\n"
    : "Is not a palindrome\n");

It was always possible that we had been transported to Mars in our sleep but no such luck. Pity. I’d always wanted to see the canals.

No, what we had was a gigantic dust storm which was sweeping the east coast of Oz. No doubt the good people in the outback would have noted laconically “bit dusty today” but in Sydney it was a major event. Tens of thousands took the day off work; ventolin sales went through the roof; and the car wash people rubbed their hands with buckets of glee as a pall of red dust settled over everything.

I heroically trekked off to work but Pamela very sensibly stayed indoors. Everything was kind of fuzzy like a heavy red mist.

The really cool bit was the sun. Every so often it managed to shine through a thinner part of the dust cloud and it was a perfect, electric blue circle. You could even see discolourations of sunspots. It was like being on a planet circling a Class A star. Or at least, so I assume. Perhaps not quite as bright.

I took a few photos but I have no idea if they came out ok. I’ll post a couple if they were any good.

Update: and here are the photos.

1. It shall not cost more than $200
2. It must have a capacity of at least 1,000 books
3. It must have a battery life of at least 24 hours
4. Contrast and glare must be at least equivalent to black print on white paper
5. It must be readable in all circumstances that paper is readable (e.g. in bright sunlight)
6. It must also be readable at night
7. It supports all major document formats (including Word, Open Office, PDF, ASCII)
8. I can freely upload any document which is out of copyright in the country where I am at the time
9. Purchasing of copyrighted documents is easy from a large range
10. If there is DRM then there should be a standard that everyone supports
11. Authors are compensated to at least the level they are compensated for printed works
12. Books are at least 50% cheaper than the printed version
13. No third party can delete documents without my consent

As you can see, there is a way to go yet. Battery technology isn’t up to it; contrast/glare/readability is getting a lot better but still isn’t as good as paper; there don’t seem to be any DRM standards yet. There are probably other requirements I haven’t listed such as the ability to search text or the ability to move my files to a different device, not necessarily produced by the company from which I bought the first device.

The proximate cause of this rant, however, is a recent action involving Amazon and Kindle. Apparently, Amazon had obtained the right to 1984 from someone who didn’t actually have those rights. So they refunded their customers and automatically deleted the documents from user’s Kindles, without even telling them.

There are two significant points here:

1. Deleting the documents, as well as not being part of the terms of agreement, violates #13.
2. 1984 is out of copyright in various countries; just because the US keeps extending copyright so that Disney can hang on to Mickey Mouse is no reason for the rest of the world to have to follow, thereby violating #8.

I have been told, although I find it hard to believe, that Amazon charges people for loading non-copyright material onto their Kindles. I’m prepared to accept that this is a vicious rumour.

Anyway, even if technology improves such that all the rest of my requirements are met, there is no way I am buying one of these Kindle things. Anyone who believes they have the right to delete stuff from one of my devices without my consent is never going to get a dollar out of me.

So there.