Last night I saw Iron and Wine and Calexico at the Bristol Academy, not usually my favourite venue but last night it didn't matter. Iron and Wine were so good, brought a tear to the eye. Calexico were really good too, but Iron and Wine were on a higher level.
The gig also reminded me of something I've been thinking for a while, especially when I listen to GYBE! or when I saw Broken Social Scene. Alot of interesting music is coming out of the States and Canada at the moment. By interesting I mean complex arrangements, weird instrumentation, large ideas. I think this is because of how music is funded and taught in schools in Northern America. Their school orchestra's are just that - orchestras - not the cobbled together mish mash of saxophones, recorders, flutes and guitars you see in English schools.
The UK has historically, in my opinion, punched above its weight musically, the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Pink Floyd for example. But now I think we as a nation are being relegated out of the top forty. I can't really think of any UK band that has the level of intricacy of the raft of US and Canadian artists. Gorillaz maybe, Mogwai certainly rock but it's not in the same league as GYBE! We do innovate still (dubstep would be a good recent example) but it's not on the same scale as what comes out of the US.
We are also in severre denial of our musical heritage. Not many Morris troupes left are there?
I guess my point, dear reader, is if you have a kid get them to learn a weird instrument. There can never be enough hurdy gurdy players.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Monday, April 17, 2006
Djing
So last night I was djing at the Hijack Poll Winners Party. It was ace! I want to play out more!!We played a mixture of latin funk and heavy metal. It was very fun. Getting in at 5 and waking up at 10:30 wasn't so great...
Making me think of buying a couple of CDJ's, those Denon's were fun...
Photo's of the night here, here and here.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
The Cutting Edge
Ok so I've had my new macbook pro two days. I still think its great, really great. In fact I'm thinking about getting a mini mac for home....but thats another post. This one is about something different, well sort of, something more abstract.
This is the first time I've ever had totally new hardware. Bleeding edge even. Now this, for me, is very exciting. I like the idea of being one of a small (well not that small) group of people who get their hands on this stuff first. Which made me think (or more precisely made me realise I had been thinking) about my job.
It's easy to get a bit complacent and bored when you realise that you have been doing approximately the same thing for three and a half years. But I started to realise last week that what we do is so far ahead of the curve. Yes we particle physicists make mistakes, some times some gloriously big ones, sometimes some painful ones, but we are doing something new. We are the cutting edge. I'm happy with my job and I'm looking forward to where it will take me. Something that I hope to get involved in more is dissemination/out reach - showing other people how to use the new fangled tools we are creating, helping them learn from our mistakes. It should be fun. I like helping people.
Oh and I just have to mention my friend Rosie. She wants to be on the internet. Her namesake is a sex therapist. Rosie King. Go google it!
This is the first time I've ever had totally new hardware. Bleeding edge even. Now this, for me, is very exciting. I like the idea of being one of a small (well not that small) group of people who get their hands on this stuff first. Which made me think (or more precisely made me realise I had been thinking) about my job.
It's easy to get a bit complacent and bored when you realise that you have been doing approximately the same thing for three and a half years. But I started to realise last week that what we do is so far ahead of the curve. Yes we particle physicists make mistakes, some times some gloriously big ones, sometimes some painful ones, but we are doing something new. We are the cutting edge. I'm happy with my job and I'm looking forward to where it will take me. Something that I hope to get involved in more is dissemination/out reach - showing other people how to use the new fangled tools we are creating, helping them learn from our mistakes. It should be fun. I like helping people.
Oh and I just have to mention my friend Rosie. She wants to be on the internet. Her namesake is a sex therapist. Rosie King. Go google it!
Monday, March 20, 2006
No Reply = Yes
So this is the song thats nearest to being complete. Band still has no name, so give me a shout if you think of one :)
New toys for Simon
So I got my macbook pro today. It really is freaking sweet. I am very happy. One thing that has annoyed me is X11 has to be installed from the DVD, and weirdly its not that obvious. Everything else is, so far, utterly ace :)
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Fun with beards
So I shaved off my beard this morning. Decided to have a bit of fun with it on the way and went for the James Hetfield/Ra's Al Ghul look. Whaddayareckon???
Friday, February 17, 2006
More than words
Ok so I'm downloading Extreme - "More Than Words" for my housemate. I say for him, it's more to annoy him. In one way its the greatest love song ever (I swear I'll have it played at my wediing, should such an unlikely event ever occur) and in another way its a complete bag of toss.
I love the idea that you could woo a girl with this track (I've seen it done, so I know it happens/happened). It's so saccharine, its scary! But at the same time that we've all become so cynical that playing a cloyingly sweet love song to someone is no longer enough. The whole dating game must be played, obeying all its arcane and shifting rules. Odd. I yearn for the simple days.
I love the idea that you could woo a girl with this track (I've seen it done, so I know it happens/happened). It's so saccharine, its scary! But at the same time that we've all become so cynical that playing a cloyingly sweet love song to someone is no longer enough. The whole dating game must be played, obeying all its arcane and shifting rules. Odd. I yearn for the simple days.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
New blog from a friend
Apparantly an "Accident Waiting to Happen". Knowing Mark this will be full of reasoned arguements of a leftish bent. Actually its far more likely it'll be full of a wide range of rants :)
Friday, January 27, 2006
Skinning windows
With a bit of windows hackery (described here) you can skin windows without any third party software , which is pretty cool. Deviantart has some styles to download for starters.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Today I took time out from work to take a stroll up to the downs. They are practically on my doorstep and I never go up there (well not as often as I'd like to - need a dog I guess). Took along my new camera phone and took some panoramic shots. I like them, hope you do to.
Really helped clear my head and I feel a lot more positive. Before Christmas I kept finding myself trying to do stuff but not thinking. I guess it was too much wood to see the trees.
Monday, December 12, 2005
I speaking with a friend over a drink after my birthday meal. He is telling me that certain vintage video games consoles have doubled in value in less than a year. Ideas I've been having for a while condense around his words. My generation are in the ascension. We are reaching that point where we can decide what happens to us, around us. We are starting to get powerful, starting to shine. We are coming into the focus of the twenty year cycle.
The twenty year cycle hasn't been around long, since the late seventies I suppose. In fact I think it might be shortening. It couldn't exist without the speed at which our media progresses, and it stands to reason that as the media gets faster (blogs, the internet, email) the cycle will shorten. The cycle is the product of people growing up and having the disposable income to purchase the weird and wonderful things they have wanted since they were children, or to replace something they had as a child for that nostalgia.
It's an interesting time. What will we do with our new found power? What sections of our childhood pop culture will be resurected?
The twenty year cycle hasn't been around long, since the late seventies I suppose. In fact I think it might be shortening. It couldn't exist without the speed at which our media progresses, and it stands to reason that as the media gets faster (blogs, the internet, email) the cycle will shorten. The cycle is the product of people growing up and having the disposable income to purchase the weird and wonderful things they have wanted since they were children, or to replace something they had as a child for that nostalgia.
It's an interesting time. What will we do with our new found power? What sections of our childhood pop culture will be resurected?
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Ok so I've added some nice fades to the background of text areas, which make everything a bit easier to read. Sadly IE does something silly as the transparancy is done using a png, so I have to use the (proprietry) gif format. I plan to do some browser sniffing serverside one day so the IE users get a (dirty) gif and the FF/Opera bods get a nice clean friendly png.
To be honest with you I don't know why I care, but for some reason I do!
To be honest with you I don't know why I care, but for some reason I do!
Birthday Celebrations
Well it was my birthday on Sunday so the weekend became one long celebration of me :) Friday night a load of people rocked down to Mr Wolfs for a few beerios, which was nice. We stayed there until our numbers dwindled a little then wandered up to Giant Robot at the Cooler (didn't get in) then to The Woods. Stayed there till about 4am chatting with randoms then went to a friends house and carried on chatting drinking and eating pasta till the morning. Went home, sent a few texts to people basically saying do not disturb and fell asleep.
Saturday all the plans went awry. Had planned to be in The Woods most of the evening but there was a private party there and we wouldn't have all got in, so we went to Morphs for a few lagers (nice place, looked like it did good food, but not really an ideal bar...). Met up with the stragglers there then tried to get into Mr Wolfs, but that too was full, so we ended up in The River, which turned out to be pretty cool. There was a pretty decent blues band playing and I think most people had a good, or very good time. About 1:30am we decided to move onto somewhere else (the band had finished), tried Mr Wolfs again, and were again turned away, so wandered round to the Arc Bar, which was playing some fairly decent UK Hip Hop.
Left there about 2 I think, wandered home via a chip shop with Dee and Colin (carrying Dee a fair amount of the way), and was nicely tucked up in bed by half three.
Sunday went for brunch with Colin and his friends from Uni, mooched around the house and then went for a curry at the Redland Tandoori. Nice way to end the weekend :)
What made me really made me happy was how many people came out. I have a lot of very good friends, and I'm lucky.
::Photos::
Saturday all the plans went awry. Had planned to be in The Woods most of the evening but there was a private party there and we wouldn't have all got in, so we went to Morphs for a few lagers (nice place, looked like it did good food, but not really an ideal bar...). Met up with the stragglers there then tried to get into Mr Wolfs, but that too was full, so we ended up in The River, which turned out to be pretty cool. There was a pretty decent blues band playing and I think most people had a good, or very good time. About 1:30am we decided to move onto somewhere else (the band had finished), tried Mr Wolfs again, and were again turned away, so wandered round to the Arc Bar, which was playing some fairly decent UK Hip Hop.
Left there about 2 I think, wandered home via a chip shop with Dee and Colin (carrying Dee a fair amount of the way), and was nicely tucked up in bed by half three.
Sunday went for brunch with Colin and his friends from Uni, mooched around the house and then went for a curry at the Redland Tandoori. Nice way to end the weekend :)
What made me really made me happy was how many people came out. I have a lot of very good friends, and I'm lucky.
::Photos::
Monday, November 28, 2005
Bored get boring
I realised the other day that I've become a bit boring. All I do is work on my thesis. Most days I don't leave the house. I used to be really interested in current affairs. I'd read the guardian (real news) and the register (g33k news) daily. I'd watch the channel 4 news every weekday evening. I took a great interest in music and art. Now I almost never read "the papers", have noticed myself not really listening to music to the point where I now often work in silence (I NEVER used to work in silence). I guess because I'm concentrating on the thesis I'm falling out of touch with things. When it's done I'll become the media savvy, politically charged, interesting person I once (thought I) was.
Monday, November 07, 2005
TODO list
- Finish Thesis
- Complete Grid Chapter
- Complete Analysis
- Start & Finish the rest
- Finish Academic CV
- Finish Metsonet.co.uk
- Update/redesign roadkilart.com
- Make more brushes
- Finish Thesis
- Sort out MPC hard drive (upgrade OS)
- Finish Thesis
- Pay electricity bill
- Finish Thesis
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Which is a shame.
When I were a lad growing up in deepest darkest Essex I used to make mix tapes for girlfriends, before they were girlfriends, to woo them. I was thinking the other day that soon people won't be able to do that, it'll just be a playlist on a scratched iPod or something, which takes out the heart of it. Having to listen to the whole thing from start to finish, pressing pause between tracks, thats what made the thing special, and future generations won't have that. Even making a CD is different, unless you make a cover. Which is a shame.
Blah blah blah
Its been awhile again...
Writing thesis. Have RSI in my right arm, and possible left too. Submitting jobs to the grid and CERN batch farms (watching the output arrive in your inbox is a bit like how I imagine watching racing pigeons come home feels like). Trying this interweb dating malarky. Writing thesis. Trying to sort out a job.
And thats that for now.
Writing thesis. Have RSI in my right arm, and possible left too. Submitting jobs to the grid and CERN batch farms (watching the output arrive in your inbox is a bit like how I imagine watching racing pigeons come home feels like). Trying this interweb dating malarky. Writing thesis. Trying to sort out a job.
And thats that for now.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
It's been a while
Well it's been a while since I last posted to this blog, my work blog has been a bit more active, but I didn't realise I hadn't posted here since the middle of February until I started the redesign of my website. I've been pretty busy with work since getting back from India, including trips to Lake Louise Canada (amazing!!) the day after I got back from India, and Fermi Lab just outside Chicago via New York.
The India trip was pretty great. Hard work punctuated by a great trip to Goa - I still miss those beaches!! I think it really got my thesis on track, certainly all the work that I've done since built up on the work done on that trip.
The trip to Canada was for the Lake Louise Winter Institute, a nice relax after the bustle of Mumbai, a week in a Five Star hotel (the Lake Louise Fairmont Chateaux) discussing physics in a nice laid back manner, snowboarding, snow shoeing, swimming and steam room. It really was tough. Probably the most beautiful scenery that I've walked in. It was also really nice to be around people I knew - India had got a bit lonely. After the week in Lake Louise I went to Toronto to spend a week with my friend Lindz, which was pretty cool. I really needed the week to just hang out and Toronto is a great place to do that.
After the two trips away it was great to get back to Bristol and normality. It lasted a while, but then the CMS physics week at Fermi Lab came up.
Myself and Rob Frazier travelled over together and spent a long weekend in New York, before heading to Chicago on the Monday for the Physics week. The weekend in New York was pretty amazing, it's such a cool city, so big. It's how you imagine a city should be. I want to live there! Rob had a friend living there who showed us the sights and sounds of the place. I think without having a guide we would probablyhve got overwhelmed.
Fermi Lab was a pretty interesting place to visit, and I enjoyed working there for the week. We went out into the city one night for some Persian food, which was very tasty and spent a couple of days in Chicago at Hotel 71 after the conference which was pretty nice. It was a shame that it was just me and Rob against the City of Chicago, but we made friends with some Americans and ended up in a "Keg Party". Very cool. Living in Chicago wouldn't be that bad either.
I'm now back in Bristol after possibly my last trip to CERN. Works pretty hectic lots of analysis to do, which is mainly working out how to submit jobs running over the whole 5,000,000 event sample. Great fun! Right best get back it....
The India trip was pretty great. Hard work punctuated by a great trip to Goa - I still miss those beaches!! I think it really got my thesis on track, certainly all the work that I've done since built up on the work done on that trip.
The trip to Canada was for the Lake Louise Winter Institute, a nice relax after the bustle of Mumbai, a week in a Five Star hotel (the Lake Louise Fairmont Chateaux) discussing physics in a nice laid back manner, snowboarding, snow shoeing, swimming and steam room. It really was tough. Probably the most beautiful scenery that I've walked in. It was also really nice to be around people I knew - India had got a bit lonely. After the week in Lake Louise I went to Toronto to spend a week with my friend Lindz, which was pretty cool. I really needed the week to just hang out and Toronto is a great place to do that.
After the two trips away it was great to get back to Bristol and normality. It lasted a while, but then the CMS physics week at Fermi Lab came up.
Myself and Rob Frazier travelled over together and spent a long weekend in New York, before heading to Chicago on the Monday for the Physics week. The weekend in New York was pretty amazing, it's such a cool city, so big. It's how you imagine a city should be. I want to live there! Rob had a friend living there who showed us the sights and sounds of the place. I think without having a guide we would probablyhve got overwhelmed.
Fermi Lab was a pretty interesting place to visit, and I enjoyed working there for the week. We went out into the city one night for some Persian food, which was very tasty and spent a couple of days in Chicago at Hotel 71 after the conference which was pretty nice. It was a shame that it was just me and Rob against the City of Chicago, but we made friends with some Americans and ended up in a "Keg Party". Very cool. Living in Chicago wouldn't be that bad either.
I'm now back in Bristol after possibly my last trip to CERN. Works pretty hectic lots of analysis to do, which is mainly working out how to submit jobs running over the whole 5,000,000 event sample. Great fun! Right best get back it....
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Back in Bombay/Mumbai
Well the trip to Goa was ace (took lots and lots of photos which I'll post soon). It was great to see CJ and Taz again as well as sit on a beach and sun myself :)
The train journey back was pretty horrible, vomiting and diarrhea, but I got back in one piece (leaving the contents of my stomache along the way) and slept it off. Have since been a bit more careful about food and am feeling much much better. Also now have my laptop working so have some music to listen to at night. Been thinking about deleting my linux partitions but think I'll wait till I'm back in Bristol and have the XP cd's to hand - I've got a nasty feeling I'd screw up the MBR if I did it here.
Since getting back I've been a bit more active with work. I now have a pretty good idea what I need to do wrt the Invisible Higgs code, a lot of the physics is still above me but I'll get there. I've also started to write my talk for the Dublin IOP. My last talk (at CMSUK) was a bit crap so I'm hoping to get this properly prepared in advance.
Trying to get the last of the MadGraph samples done today, then I can concentrate on getting my ORCA/ROOT analysis code up and running. I still have a few questions and ideas I need to thrash out (which I'll note down in my ORCA blog) but I think I'm pretty much on the right track at least.
Not heard from Greg since I got out here so assuming he's not read thesis (after making a fuss about it at CMSUK). Need to think of a polite way to give him a kick up the arse when I get back...
The train journey back was pretty horrible, vomiting and diarrhea, but I got back in one piece (leaving the contents of my stomache along the way) and slept it off. Have since been a bit more careful about food and am feeling much much better. Also now have my laptop working so have some music to listen to at night. Been thinking about deleting my linux partitions but think I'll wait till I'm back in Bristol and have the XP cd's to hand - I've got a nasty feeling I'd screw up the MBR if I did it here.
Since getting back I've been a bit more active with work. I now have a pretty good idea what I need to do wrt the Invisible Higgs code, a lot of the physics is still above me but I'll get there. I've also started to write my talk for the Dublin IOP. My last talk (at CMSUK) was a bit crap so I'm hoping to get this properly prepared in advance.
Trying to get the last of the MadGraph samples done today, then I can concentrate on getting my ORCA/ROOT analysis code up and running. I still have a few questions and ideas I need to thrash out (which I'll note down in my ORCA blog) but I think I'm pretty much on the right track at least.
Not heard from Greg since I got out here so assuming he's not read thesis (after making a fuss about it at CMSUK). Need to think of a polite way to give him a kick up the arse when I get back...
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