I was checking out the website of one of my favourite Geek Gods, Matthias Wandel, when I came upon a rant of his that I had been brewing myself, to whit: Hardware as a Trojan horse for software services.
Oddly enough, my complaint is also with an HP. The drivers for my new printer nobble fullscreen games by opening then immediately concealing windows at uncertain intervals, go CPU-bound and hold up my music composing program, and are generally way overblown for their purpose, which is to make my printer work. I just ran “Stop HP Product Survey” from the start menu and I got two choices:
Note neither of these says “Cancel”, nor is there a close box, nor indeed any standard GUI furniture that tells me I am in control of the computer.
HP’s shonky driver software also fails to honour paper selections made through the standard boxes. You have to drill down further into the settings, past the paper selection screen, to another special HP paper selection screen. Slack.
The worrying truth is that the driver to make software any good is gone: in the 80s and early 90s, it was important to make a piece of software appealing to the end user, or it wouldn’t get used. Now, for all practical purposes, it is mandatory that you have windows, that you have MS Office… there is no need to convince the end user of anything except his utter lack of authority in his relationship with the vendor.
My car’s due for its MOT.
Garage A have always given me good service. They’re a small concern - three people, two ramps and an air compressor - but they’re a bugger to get to, being more-or-less diametrically opposite my home on a map of york, and by no stretch of the imagination on the route to work.
When I tried to take my Spitfire there for some work, they declined as they didn’t want it stuck on the ramps for weeks waiting for a part, so I took it to garage B.
Garage B have given me reasonable service, though once let me drive away in a car with brakes significantly below par. You can drop down to a cyclepath from them and be at my office within 40 minutes’ walking. They are also the garage that Garage A takes my car to for its MOT.
Tricky.
On friday night, teach a 1 hour salsa class then go social dancing for 2 hours. On saturday, go for a 4 hour walk around Castle Howard. On sunday, forget to have breakfast or lunch, teach a 3 hour salsa class, cram a pizza and social dance for 4 hours, all in summer heat.
Don’t expect to wake up feeling at all hydrated.
I had lost something like 3 or 4 pounds when I weighed in in the morning, but I seem to have put most of that back on again now.
You know when you have a really physically active weekend and you go to bed all tired and in the morning you wake up feeling fantastic?
Didn’t work for me.
Yesterday involved teaching a 3 hour salsa session, then dancing in the evening from 8pm to midnight. I’m a little bit knackered this morning.
I think it was something to do with the forgetting to eat part. As far as I recall I had a can of coke for lunch and most of a pizza for tea. Still, I seem to have managed to lose 3-4 pounds in weight over the weekend…
Sunday afternoon, after waking at Charles and Andrea’s place and hanging out for the morning finishing off party food and waiting for brain to start working, Kate and I headed back the 20 miles to York. And somehow managed to make it last all afternoon and clock up something like 60 miles. Here’s the route from memory.
Played my first live gig for … uh … 9 years? last night. Well, I say live, it was a live P.A. The laptop knew what to play, I just had to shepherd it a bit. It froze a number of times in a 20-minute set, something it had not done until the night before the gig. Great. Met a guy who had had to reboot his powerbook in front of 12,000 people supporting Kraftwerk so I think I got off lightly.
The line up of the evening was
DJ Pippa Murphy
IMP (dropped out)
Namke Communications
Robomanuk (me)
Voiceless Public
Skeletor
Kreepa & Black Galaxy
Tombola
TOMBOLA?!
It was a strange night. Ergo Phizmiz was a guy with a shaved head, a powerbook, and no charisma, Skeletor were a couple of student types with a bank of equipment, high concept, and no charisma, and Kreepa & Black Galaxy were… well, they were something else. Right to left on stage were Simon, with a bank of electronics including a mixing desk and some interesting effects, which were applied to the trombone noodlings of a bloke called Hillary, next up, then after Hillary was Nick, who had an electric guitar laid flat on a table, which he played with a suede brush, playing card, name tag, stick, knife, etc, and finally John and the Kreepback device. The kreepback device is essentially a collection of broken kit, with all the wrong bits wired into other bits. If featured a tobacco tin with knobs on, a biscuit tin with two huge metal bolts sticking out, which “affected” the sound in a way most like, but still unlike, the way a theremin works. During the set he would alternate between leaping about like a mad scientist, either trying to tame or torture the kreepback device; and sitting hunched and rocking like a loony when the device stabilised, listening for clues of it next impending break for freedom.
The opening was great, though all the sounds being produced were arhythmic and unmelodic, the musicians were paying attention to one another and there seemed to be structure in the evocative soundscape they were producing. That and John’s antics were enough to sustain interest for nearly half an hour. Unfortunately it felt to me like there was a moment where all the band went one way and John went the other. The kreepback device is so dominant that the rest of the band had to go along with him, and the dynamic seemed to be lost for a moment.
I think their set could do with some respite after about 20 or 30 minutes I was crying out for everything to drop back, and for some sweet melodic work on the trombone, but it never came, and after a while I found my senses shutting down from overload.
A drunken Namke and I had our favourite “what is art anyway?” discussion then proceeded to set the world to rights with respect to what’s a performance. I now know that a P.A. (personal appearance, which is what I effectively did live at that gig) is NOT what I really want to be doing. I think that’s part of why it’s taken me so long to gig my material. What I get out of performing is interaction with the crowd, other musicians, and the instrument. I think that’s a lot of what the crowd gets out of it too.
Trouble is, my concept of a 20-minute set played entirely on a sheet of steel is a lot more expensive and time consuming to compose and rehearse than a bunch of synthesised dance music on a laptop, at least it is once you’ve bought the laptop.
I’m milking this “16 years” thing for all its worth. The hygienist was professional, not too chatty, and asked me when I last saw a hygienist. When I said “probably 1988″ she had to concede that well, OK maybe I did take good care of my teeth in general, even if I last spoke to a dentist before bottle brushes and flossing were the intended norm.
It was tricky concealing my scorn when asked how I flossed. For one thing, flossing was unheard of when I was taught how to brush my teeth at school, and another: there are gaps big enough for a toothbrush between most of my teeth. But I’ve been given a bottle brush and a floss thingy, and told that I can get boxes of these toys at the surgery. (other flossing products are available. other suppliers may offer the same or similar products at various prices.)
I can’t help thinking it’s just yay much more landfill though.
… was narrowly averted at the dentists, by careful application of puppy-dog eyes.
What wasn’t averted were 6 fillings and a hygienist appointment, totalling £460. I figure that’s not bad at £28.75 a year. A damn sight cheaper than the £10 a month I’ll be paying for future care. What a bloody con. Still, she’s a nice lady and they have a telly and everything where they can show you the terrifying sights to be seen in your own mouth: things have improved in the last decade and a half.
The Time Team session was interesting. It turns out I have no lateral incisors on the top, so I have bunny teeth, then outside of them are canines which have been re-shaped a bit, then on the right is a gap and on the left is a milk-tooth canine. I always thought it was a freaky chipped tooth but now I know it’s just a baby I’m happier about it. Then I’m off into molar land. Apparently I have no 5s, but I’m unable to account for the presence of all the teeth I DO have.
We had a small chat about “improving my smile”. This would be a big project involving at least two implants, where they glue a metal rod into your jaw bone and mount a placcy tooth on the post. These cost about £2500 each, and the situation is slightly complicated by them belonging in the gaps I do not have between my incisors and canines. At this stage I’m overlooking the fact these canines are ON THE OPPOSITE SIDES to where they belong…
I don’t know where the phrase comes from, but everybody has “buttons”. You push ‘em and you get a reaction.
Some people are bristling with clearly marked buttons, marked “press here to make me relax”, “press here to make me angry”, “press here to make me horny”.
Most people’s buttons aren’t labeled and you just have to try pressing them.
Some people are like a puzzle box where some buttons only work as part of certain sequences.
Some people are like playing Minesweeper, all the buttons look the same until you press one and find out if you are out.
A friend is someone who knows where your buttons are and knows when not to press them.
On friday week I will be going for my 6-month dental check up. My last one was in 1989. I expect they might decide some work needs doing. I’m a bit scared.
This is also a big psychological turning point for me. Back in the late 80’s I was having my face fixed with various operations and braces - my milk teeth never gave way so I had 11 extractions to save me being waay over quota in the gob department. I was part way through a project to get the remaining gnashers all nicely lined up and biting things properly when I moved from mum’s in the north to dad’s in the south. For some reason, which I shall uncharitably term as “dad not giving a fuck”, the work was discontinued and I was left, the boy who always brushed his teeth and was careful with sweets and had less fizzy pop than the other kids at school, with a gob like a derelict churchyard. A mere 16 years later, I’m ready to confront the issue. The plan was to cost up completing the work and then either (a) stump up the cash and finish the job, or (b) get over it. This was my New Year’s resolution for 2004. Obviously I couldn’t book into a dentist at the start of 2004 because I was due to fly out to America at the end of Jan, so I would deal with it when I got back. Slowly the trip got delayed by a month, and I flew out at the end of Feb. While I was there, a tooth exploded! Well, it cracked and a huge chunk fell off. I was gutted about this cos I know dentists hate it when people only book in when they need something fixing, and after 15 years of no toothache and fastidious brushing, the moment I actually resolve to pay attention to my teeth, they go wrong!
Now that I’ve taken the step and booked in to my local (private) practice, I’m looking forward to the first examination. It will be like Time Team: my canines are my original milk teeth and the ones next to them are actually the adult canines, which crossed over inside my gums and came down on opposite sides in the wrong positions, then were ground off and capped to look like the right teeth. I can still hear my hesitating dentist from back then: as a kid it would be
E D C B A A B C D E
… and in the ideal adult it is:
6 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6
… mine goes something like:
6 E D C-rupted-4 2 1 …
Ooo I wonder if I can get Tony Robinson to film it and that friendly brummie to do the actual digging?