Thursday, September 30, 2004
All Kinds of Everything
Another cryptic crossword completed! That's 3 this year.
Members of the Family Ness :
BabyNess, CarefulNess, CleverNess, EagerNess, EyewitNess (lame! I don't remember this one), FerociousNess, GrumpyNess, HeavyNess, Her HighNess, LovelyNess, MightyNess, SillyNess, SpeedyNess, SportyNess.
Equinoxes and solstices were discussed recently - loads of Googleworthy pages, so look yourselves. To summarise : the summer solstice is usually 21st June, but doesn't have to be (last time it was not was on 22/06/1975, the day one of my friends was born). The autumn equinox generally occurs on 23rd September (just - 02:19 on average), and in the period from 1900 to 2100 has fallen as early as 22:58 on 21/09 and as late as 05:42 on 24/09 (sorry, no years).
The most likely reason everyone thought it was 21st September is that the equinox is not defined as "the day when daytime and nighttime are of equal length" any more, it's the point when the centre of the sun hits the celestial equator (projection of the Earth's equator onto the sky), which occurs very close to, but not exactly at, the same point in the Earth's orbit. It also fluctuates relative to the calendar because we have a 365-day calendar, but a 365.2425 (ish) day orbit around the sun, and what with leap days monkeying around with things, there's (roughly) a 400-year cycle over which the times repeat themselves.
Calendars are complicated!
I have a feeling I'd promised to put something else here that we discussed in Ha Ha last night, but I can't remember what it was. I was going to keep minutes of everything Iasonas says from now on ("Superman's a silly name - I'd never call my son or daughter that."), but I wasn't paying full attention.
Bertie's back in town this weekend, so we're having another poker night to celebrate. I might need another coin jar after Saturday...
I hate reading books that are part of a series before the series is fully available. Once again, I've done exactly that though with Coalescent by Stephen Baxter. Pretty good book, with a pretty amazing central idea that doesn't get properly revealed till very late on, but now I'm left hanging on for the subsequent books. Hurry up and write!
UPDATED : Snarf! I didn't even have to look it up, it came to me at the same moment as I remembered that I was supposed to remember it!
Members of the Family Ness :
BabyNess, CarefulNess, CleverNess, EagerNess, EyewitNess (lame! I don't remember this one), FerociousNess, GrumpyNess, HeavyNess, Her HighNess, LovelyNess, MightyNess, SillyNess, SpeedyNess, SportyNess.
Equinoxes and solstices were discussed recently - loads of Googleworthy pages, so look yourselves. To summarise : the summer solstice is usually 21st June, but doesn't have to be (last time it was not was on 22/06/1975, the day one of my friends was born). The autumn equinox generally occurs on 23rd September (just - 02:19 on average), and in the period from 1900 to 2100 has fallen as early as 22:58 on 21/09 and as late as 05:42 on 24/09 (sorry, no years).
The most likely reason everyone thought it was 21st September is that the equinox is not defined as "the day when daytime and nighttime are of equal length" any more, it's the point when the centre of the sun hits the celestial equator (projection of the Earth's equator onto the sky), which occurs very close to, but not exactly at, the same point in the Earth's orbit. It also fluctuates relative to the calendar because we have a 365-day calendar, but a 365.2425 (ish) day orbit around the sun, and what with leap days monkeying around with things, there's (roughly) a 400-year cycle over which the times repeat themselves.
Calendars are complicated!
I have a feeling I'd promised to put something else here that we discussed in Ha Ha last night, but I can't remember what it was. I was going to keep minutes of everything Iasonas says from now on ("Superman's a silly name - I'd never call my son or daughter that."), but I wasn't paying full attention.
Bertie's back in town this weekend, so we're having another poker night to celebrate. I might need another coin jar after Saturday...
I hate reading books that are part of a series before the series is fully available. Once again, I've done exactly that though with Coalescent by Stephen Baxter. Pretty good book, with a pretty amazing central idea that doesn't get properly revealed till very late on, but now I'm left hanging on for the subsequent books. Hurry up and write!
UPDATED : Snarf! I didn't even have to look it up, it came to me at the same moment as I remembered that I was supposed to remember it!
posted by Chip : 22:22
2 comments
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Collateral's Damaged
Where to start...for a film whose main plot point is Tom Cruise having grey hair, I mainly want to go to bed, but need to cleanse myself of this before I can get to sleep!
OK, first off will be the title. I have no idea why this film is called Collateral. Anyone? The closest I can think of is that collateral can mean "happening alongside or in accompaniment with," and that James Foxx does indeed accompany Tom Cruise during the film and have things happen to him as a result.
Secondly, involvement with the characters. Foxxy (note the double X, Sarum - it's someone else!) was obviously supposed to be a sympathetic character, but all I could get out of him was that he was stuck in a taxi-driver's job with delusions of grandeur. And as for Tom Cruise, let's just say that he played his emotionless character extremely well. Heat, directed by the same guy Michael Mann, was incredibly involving, and despite having about 3 million supporting characters and more tension than you could shake a stick at, still managed to make you feel torn between supporting De Niro's and Pacino's characters, not knowing which to root for more. This had lots of points it could have built on, but just ignored.
Finally, I'm reasonably certain that near the end, Mr Cruise got on the wrong train, so I couldn't figure out how he managed to suddenly end up on the right one a moment later. Maybe I blinked (or more likely fell asleep for a moment).
Before the film started, we'd discussed and rejected all the ones shown in the advert break beforehand as looking rubbish. Collateral might make me reconsider that decision, and want to go see Ae Fond Kiss, which looks truly awful.
OK, first off will be the title. I have no idea why this film is called Collateral. Anyone? The closest I can think of is that collateral can mean "happening alongside or in accompaniment with," and that James Foxx does indeed accompany Tom Cruise during the film and have things happen to him as a result.
Secondly, involvement with the characters. Foxxy (note the double X, Sarum - it's someone else!) was obviously supposed to be a sympathetic character, but all I could get out of him was that he was stuck in a taxi-driver's job with delusions of grandeur. And as for Tom Cruise, let's just say that he played his emotionless character extremely well. Heat, directed by the same guy Michael Mann, was incredibly involving, and despite having about 3 million supporting characters and more tension than you could shake a stick at, still managed to make you feel torn between supporting De Niro's and Pacino's characters, not knowing which to root for more. This had lots of points it could have built on, but just ignored.
Finally, I'm reasonably certain that near the end, Mr Cruise got on the wrong train, so I couldn't figure out how he managed to suddenly end up on the right one a moment later. Maybe I blinked (or more likely fell asleep for a moment).
Before the film started, we'd discussed and rejected all the ones shown in the advert break beforehand as looking rubbish. Collateral might make me reconsider that decision, and want to go see Ae Fond Kiss, which looks truly awful.
posted by Chip : 00:13
3 comments
Sunday, September 19, 2004
So Near, And Yet...
Had quite a fun day today.
8 of us took part in the Poppy Day Challenge (sorry, no Web links - they've not quite reached the 21st Century in Strensall yet). Raising money for the British Legion Poppy Appeal, we managed to get sponsorship of about £1100. We had to take part in 6 "physically and mentally challenging events." The 19 teams taking part would be ranked in each event (the best getting 19 points, 2nd getting 18, etc.) and the overall winners getting a trophy.
The 6 events (and our rough scores, from memory) :
General Knowledge Quiz - 50 questions, most of them fairly easy. 493 out of 554 (yes, they managed to come up with a scoring system that beat even Big Iain's for complexity) - I think this was 6th out of 19. Not sure what we got wrong, but a couple that foxed us were "Which country is directly due south of Land's End?" and "In which year was the Queen's Golden Jubilee?"
Aerial Ropeway Challenge - basically a commando slide, from a tower about 40 feet high, but with a slight extra twist - you had to drop a bean-bag from between your knees onto a scoring target (think Super Monkey Ball!) We did particularly badly, with only one team member scoring a 9, giving us a placing of 15th out of 19.
Mountain Bike Challenge - not so much mountain bike challenge as mini-obstacle course with bikes. Several obstacles (tunnel, monkey bars, rope swing) dotted around a field and we had to cycle from each one to the next. This wouldn't have been too bad except my bike was stuck in a very high gear, so I think I ended up pedalling about 5 times as far as everyone else. A time of about 8:46 gave us another 6th place.
Obstacle Course - this was the one most of us had been dreading (esp. when we saw, while walking over to it, some bloke being stretchered off!), and it actually turned out to be the most fun overall. Pretty much what it says on the tin. We all did pretty well, and came 5th overall with a time of about 7:30.
Puzzle Room - given the nature of the puzzles, sticking 6 actuaries, an accountant and an IT manager on them was always going to give us a high score. Spot the missing domino, complete a magic square and get as many Scrabble words as you can, with bonuses for Jenga blocks removed and for one of those awful buzzing wire puzzles that you need a steady hand for (and I didn't have one). Speed was vitally important here, and Kevin didn't disappoint, completing the magic square in under 10 seconds! Narrowly pipped at the post here - we got 293 points with first place getting 297. If we'd just got one more Jenga block...
Archery - pretty much what it says on the tin again. Two arrows each - Jen was the star performer here (a 5 and a perfect 10, smack in the dead-centre of the board). I was definitely the dunce - I got 1 point off 2 arrows! Still, overall we came first by some margin, with a score of 68 - no-one else scored in the 60s.
"So how did we do, Mr Chip?" I hear you say. Well, we were pretty confident after the 1st, 2nd and a couple of mid-top-tens. We scored an overall total of 77 points (which may not tie up exactly with what I've said above, but I don't care). Sadly, this was only 4th place, the winners scoring 81.
To put it in several other ways (which we were all discussing for some time after the events), we'd have come third with one more Jenga block in the puzzle round, or we'd have won overall either with another 18 points on the rope slide or another 7 points on the quiz round. I feel happy that my archery disaster didn't pull us out of the medals, but perhaps we'd have done that little bit better if I'd had a lower gear on my bike...
8 of us took part in the Poppy Day Challenge (sorry, no Web links - they've not quite reached the 21st Century in Strensall yet). Raising money for the British Legion Poppy Appeal, we managed to get sponsorship of about £1100. We had to take part in 6 "physically and mentally challenging events." The 19 teams taking part would be ranked in each event (the best getting 19 points, 2nd getting 18, etc.) and the overall winners getting a trophy.
The 6 events (and our rough scores, from memory) :
"So how did we do, Mr Chip?" I hear you say. Well, we were pretty confident after the 1st, 2nd and a couple of mid-top-tens. We scored an overall total of 77 points (which may not tie up exactly with what I've said above, but I don't care). Sadly, this was only 4th place, the winners scoring 81.
To put it in several other ways (which we were all discussing for some time after the events), we'd have come third with one more Jenga block in the puzzle round, or we'd have won overall either with another 18 points on the rope slide or another 7 points on the quiz round. I feel happy that my archery disaster didn't pull us out of the medals, but perhaps we'd have done that little bit better if I'd had a lower gear on my bike...
posted by Chip : 22:09
0 comments
Friday, September 17, 2004
Cut Off in my Primes
Well, I was hoping for a puzzle that was a little more involved. Like the one back in the early days of the Net (about 1995) that I can't remember much about other than it involved following a trail through cryptic clues found on various websites, each leading on to the next, with the first to get through all of them winning a pretty big prize.
This one is just 2 rounds, the one you know about from below, and the second asking you for the next number in a sequence, and very straightforward once you spot the rule.
But one good thing came out of it. I'm now eligible to apply for a job at Google. This could come in handy if I get chucked in the redundancy round coming up soon. Google apparently want me for my "big, magnificent brain". Which is nice to know.
This one is just 2 rounds, the one you know about from below, and the second asking you for the next number in a sequence, and very straightforward once you spot the rule.
But one good thing came out of it. I'm now eligible to apply for a job at Google. This could come in handy if I get chucked in the redundancy round coming up soon. Google apparently want me for my "big, magnificent brain". Which is nice to know.
posted by Chip : 23:02
3 comments
Thursday, September 16, 2004
www.1234567890.com
This sounds like a sensible use of a Thursday evening...
I'll let you know how I get on.
I'll let you know how I get on.
posted by Chip : 18:19
3 comments
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Winter's Here
It must be, because I've got my first cold of the season.
I've always found it odd that, although being otherwise disgustingly healthy, I seem to catch every cold on the go, and sometimes twice on the rebound. It's not like I eat particularly unhealthily - I get through plenty of orange juice and my fair share of fruit and veg each day. At the moment, I've got this one because I'm feeling generally run-down, but this has dogged me for years, even at school.
I remember reading a long time ago that there were only about 100 or so permutations of the cold virus (although a longer-than-expected Google - search for influenza - suggests I might be out a bit), so at my usual rate of between 5 and 10 colds per year, I can look forward to being cold-free from ... anywhere between 10 years ago and 2015. Roll on that day!
I read a poor short story which has stuck with me for longer than it really deserved to (anyone recognise this?) - the basic idea was that someone discovered a cure for colds, but a few days after administering it, the recipient would be afflicted by an enormous improvement in their sense of smell, to the level of dogs, and in the end the cure was worse than the problem. The story ends with the same scientist having found a "cure" for the cure - a permanent runny nose and sneezing. One of the ideas this touched off is that my propensity for catching colds could therefore be linked to my appalling sense of smell. Well, appalling except when garlic's involved.
I've always found it odd that, although being otherwise disgustingly healthy, I seem to catch every cold on the go, and sometimes twice on the rebound. It's not like I eat particularly unhealthily - I get through plenty of orange juice and my fair share of fruit and veg each day. At the moment, I've got this one because I'm feeling generally run-down, but this has dogged me for years, even at school.
I remember reading a long time ago that there were only about 100 or so permutations of the cold virus (although a longer-than-expected Google - search for influenza - suggests I might be out a bit), so at my usual rate of between 5 and 10 colds per year, I can look forward to being cold-free from ... anywhere between 10 years ago and 2015. Roll on that day!
I read a poor short story which has stuck with me for longer than it really deserved to (anyone recognise this?) - the basic idea was that someone discovered a cure for colds, but a few days after administering it, the recipient would be afflicted by an enormous improvement in their sense of smell, to the level of dogs, and in the end the cure was worse than the problem. The story ends with the same scientist having found a "cure" for the cure - a permanent runny nose and sneezing. One of the ideas this touched off is that my propensity for catching colds could therefore be linked to my appalling sense of smell. Well, appalling except when garlic's involved.
posted by Chip : 20:42
2 comments
Monday, September 13, 2004
Bands ... Lots of Bands
7 in 3 days, to be precise. Here they all are, with mini-reviews (in some cases, micro-reviews), in reverse order of quality :
7 Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - what the hell was I thinking? A nerdy dad, big-haired mum and 10-year-old daughter play "indie vaudeville conceptual rock pop-art" they've written to go with the slides they show in the background that they'd bought from jumble sales. Complete toss.
6 Ava - a girl singing covers of female solo singers. Very good voice. Very bad songs.
5 Sixty6 - possibly being a little unfair here as I only heard 1.3 songs by them, but I have heard them before. Not bad, but I think I caught their not-so-good song as they were winding down at the end of their set.
4 The Open - not as good as I thought they'd be. Most of the songs were fairly samey, and not helped by the band being unsure when to stop playing them - one went on for 10 minutes
3 Motu One - (sorry you're only third Drew, but think of it as something to aspire to!) OK, so I know the band, but they are good. Outdoors music (at the York Peace Festival) is always good, especially on such a sunny day.
2 Thirteen Senses - very good. I've heard 4 or 5 of their songs from Lint, and they only played one that I recognised, but the others were excellent. Really liked "Lead Us" - might be time to dust off my album-purchasing shoes and use them for only the second time this year. Another band to try to find the sheet music for...
1 Kid Carpet - words fail me here. I think everyone would agree that his first song caused the reaction "Uh?" Then his genius shone through. Difficult to describe properly - Helen came closest with "a man bouncing round on stage using too many samples but getting away with it." First time I've seen anyone at Fibbers using a childs "My First Guitar" and a Simon game in their act. Wonderful use of samples from Van Halen's Jump and the Chockablock theme tune. And I got a signed EP, although sadly it's only in the pterodactyl cover, not the stegosaurus one. Lint wants to have his babies.
CNPS side-note : had my best day ever yesterday with 5 cars. It was nearly 10, but sadly the 88 parked near Tsuki & Dom's place had mived by the time I got back there again. Soon be into the hundreds.
7 Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - what the hell was I thinking? A nerdy dad, big-haired mum and 10-year-old daughter play "indie vaudeville conceptual rock pop-art" they've written to go with the slides they show in the background that they'd bought from jumble sales. Complete toss.
6 Ava - a girl singing covers of female solo singers. Very good voice. Very bad songs.
5 Sixty6 - possibly being a little unfair here as I only heard 1.3 songs by them, but I have heard them before. Not bad, but I think I caught their not-so-good song as they were winding down at the end of their set.
4 The Open - not as good as I thought they'd be. Most of the songs were fairly samey, and not helped by the band being unsure when to stop playing them - one went on for 10 minutes
3 Motu One - (sorry you're only third Drew, but think of it as something to aspire to!) OK, so I know the band, but they are good. Outdoors music (at the York Peace Festival) is always good, especially on such a sunny day.
2 Thirteen Senses - very good. I've heard 4 or 5 of their songs from Lint, and they only played one that I recognised, but the others were excellent. Really liked "Lead Us" - might be time to dust off my album-purchasing shoes and use them for only the second time this year. Another band to try to find the sheet music for...
1 Kid Carpet - words fail me here. I think everyone would agree that his first song caused the reaction "Uh?" Then his genius shone through. Difficult to describe properly - Helen came closest with "a man bouncing round on stage using too many samples but getting away with it." First time I've seen anyone at Fibbers using a childs "My First Guitar" and a Simon game in their act. Wonderful use of samples from Van Halen's Jump and the Chockablock theme tune. And I got a signed EP, although sadly it's only in the pterodactyl cover, not the stegosaurus one. Lint wants to have his babies.
CNPS side-note : had my best day ever yesterday with 5 cars. It was nearly 10, but sadly the 88 parked near Tsuki & Dom's place had mived by the time I got back there again. Soon be into the hundreds.
posted by Chip : 07:40
2 comments
Saturday, September 11, 2004
24 (SPOILERS)
Finally got round to watching the second (!) series of 24 last week. 'Twas very good - not quite as exciting as the first one (possibly because of the slight lack of novelty), but I thought the story was better-constructed this time round, and as with the first series, it definitely didn't let the tension up for more than a few minutes at a time.
Some of my highlights :
Vice-President Jim Robinson (and then later without the vice!)
The bomb actually going off and not being the primary focusof the entire show.
The continuing extremely disturbing portrayal of Sherry Palmer (Penny Johnson Jerald - excellent actress)
Kim Bauer's "day in an ordinary life" - let's see ...
Some of my highlights :
- Falsely accused of kidnapping
- Beats someone up with a wrench
- Caught in a building when a bomb goes off
- Steals a car, gets pulled over and arrested because of the dead body in the boot
- Causes a car crash to escape (incidentally causing her boyfriend to lose a leg in the process)
- Caught in an animal trap and nearly eaten by a cougar
- Locked in a nuclear bunker by a psycho
- Dad rings her up to tell her he's about to be killed in a nuclear explosion
- Becomes a hostage in an impromptu supermarket hold-up
- Re-arrested but then freed again to go pick up her things from her house
- Forced to shoot the man she earlier beat up with the wrench
posted by Chip : 08:17
2 comments
Bye Bye Bertie
So you're off today to Glasgow,
We hope you'll be happy there.
Do you know yet who'll be paying you -
Abbey Life? Scot Prov? Santander?
Why am I up this early?!
We hope you'll be happy there.
Do you know yet who'll be paying you -
Abbey Life? Scot Prov? Santander?
Why am I up this early?!
posted by Chip : 07:59
0 comments
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
I've started so...
This is starting to bug me. I found the link on a blog a few weeks ago, and it sounded like fun, but the puzzles are hard! I'm stuck on the word puzzle for week 3 at the moment.
I have a 3x3 grid, with the following layout :
Then there's a clue : "The key to this device is its temporal calibration with the moon. Lunar time is numbered in a particularly simple way, you see, and if you understand that then everything fits into place."
The answer is a single word. And I'm stuck. Doesn't seem to be a crossword-like clue (I've got a long list of words that will fit, like partially, prostates, popularly, pregnancy, etc. but none of them seem to answer the clue). Can't spot any obvious pattern to the grid either.
I need to sleep on this one.
I have a 3x3 grid, with the following layout :
p1 4 3
9 6a 5
7 2 8
Then there's a clue : "The key to this device is its temporal calibration with the moon. Lunar time is numbered in a particularly simple way, you see, and if you understand that then everything fits into place."
The answer is a single word. And I'm stuck. Doesn't seem to be a crossword-like clue (I've got a long list of words that will fit, like partially, prostates, popularly, pregnancy, etc. but none of them seem to answer the clue). Can't spot any obvious pattern to the grid either.
I need to sleep on this one.
posted by Chip : 20:55
2 comments
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