General

Culture Consumed

| | General

Inspired by the segment on the Galactic Suburbs podcast.

A Fistful OF Dollars  – The first in what many consider the archetypical spaghetti western series, directed by Sergio Leone and staring Clint Eastwood. A wandering drifter finds himself in a town with two feuding families. He sees an opportunity to play them off against each other. It doesnt end well for most. A great film. I have to watch the next 2 in the series soon.

Dr Who – I haven’t been a fan of the modern Doctor Who series. Haven’t watched many of them. Decided to give the new series a go. It is Peter Capaldi after all. I liked the opening episode. Although I did have to ask Twitter who some of the alien characters where. Given I hadn’t watched the recent series where they were introduced. I though the 2nd episode was a bit weak and predictable. But maybe they are still setting up for later in the series. The ‘heaven’ bit is interesting. Wondering how that’ll play out. Hopefully by not actually being heaven!

All Quiet on the Western Front (1979) – Caught this by accident when it was on TV. It’s a 1979 colour film adaption of the famous book about life on the German lines on western front in World War 1. I liked it a lot. Very graphic, for the time, and the depiction of the horror or trench warfare was very good. Several parts of it were like Band of Brothers. Not really surprising I expect. War is war, and horrible.

Five stages of Grief After the Alien Invasion – A short story from the latest Clarkesworld Magazine. A story of the aftermath of an (accidental?) alien seeding of Earth. Who claim they didn’t know it was inhabited. Read online at the link above or listen to the audiobook version via their Podcast.

The Lady Astronaut of Mars – A really great short story from Mary Robinette Kowal. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette this year. Deservadly so. It’s crisp, focused, evocative and thought provoking. Read it at the link above.

Before The Dawn – I now live in a world where I can say that I have seen Kate Bush live in concert. I never thought it would happen. I had high hopes for the concert. They were surpassed. The venue, the lighting, the staging and theatrics were all brilliant. But what topped it all was that voice. Kate Bush truly has one of the best voices ever. 

Why SocialChess or Chess24 is better than playing a computer

| | General

In a SocialChess game I was playing earlier, I left my Queen hanging after one of my moves. I played 17. e5 to attack the black bishop, and open the diagonal for my white square bishop to put pressure on the exposed black king. Here is the position after my move.

[will put image back in shortly]

Yikes. Queen hanging and open to the Bishop on b7. If I was playing a computer then this would be game over. The computer would not miss that move and would take the Queen off immediately. As it should! But I was playing a real human on SocialChess. And he didnt see the hanging Queen. He was more focused on protecting his attacked Bishop, and played 17…Be7. When I got a notification on my iPhone that it was my move I spotted 18.Qxb7 as soon as I opened the app. I did not see it after playing 17. e5. My opponent resigned shortly after. Game details :

[Event “SocialChess”]
[Site “Internet”]
[Date “2014.08.17”]
[White “IanRobinson (1413)”]
[Black “REDACTED (1276)”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “D00”]

1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 h6 4.e4 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nf6 6.Bd3 Bb4+ 7.c3 Be7 8.O-O O-O 9.b4 a6 10.Bb2 b5 11.Ne5 Bb7 12.f3 Nxe4 13.fxe4 Bd6 14.Nxf7 Rxf7 15.Rxf7 Kxf7 16.Qf3+ Kg8 17.e5 Be7 18.Qxb7 Nd7 19.Qe4 Nf8 20.Rf1 Qd5 21.Qg4 Qxa2 22.Bc1 a5 23.Bxh6 1-0

Computers are great for analysing your games after the fact, but playing against a real human is a much more enjoyable experience. Especially when learning and your skill level is low to moderate. Even if your skill level is high I expect playing a human is more enjoyable. Hopefully one day I’ll be good enough to answer that question!

So, play humans. There are lots of places to do it on the Internet. I like SocialChess and Chess24.

My note taking tags

| | General, Writing

I recently started using tags in square brackets to tag notes in meetings, or to capture ideas that come to me on the go. For example:

[Note] The server needs to be running…

[Action] Do a report that summarises…

I started out with just the [Note] tag but I’ve been adding to it and I now have 23 of them. As you can imagine typing the square bracket around these tags is a pain. Especially on an iPhone. 

Enter iOS and OSX shortcuts. If you don’t know about them, Shortcuts on iOS and OSX allow you enter a bit of text and an associated replacement gets put into the text you are writing. So to get [Note] I have the following setup:

sbnote -> [Note] 

I just type sbnote. And [Note] is inserted instead when I hit the space bar. Really handy. A nice thing is that the shortcuts sync between all my iOS devices and my Mac. You could also set these up in TextExpander. I did have them there but I like the simplicity of the sync between iOS and OSX for these. I use TextExpander for more complex things.

Here is the full list of tags in square brackets that I now use. I keep adding to it! Really useful for categorising quick notes in meetings, and capturing creative ideas on the go. Use in the notes app of your choice. 

sbaction -> [Action]

sbapplication -> [Application]

sbbook -> [Book]

sbcall -> [Call] 

sbchange -> [Change]

sbdate -> [Date]

sbexample -> [Example]

sbfix -> [Fix] 

sbform -> [Form]

sbinstance -> [Instance]

sbissue -> [Issue]

sbitem -> [Item] 

sblist -> [List]

sblyric -> [Lyric]

sbname -> [Name]

sbnote -> [Note] 

sbquestion -> [Question]

sbquote -> [Quote]

sbreport -> [Report] 

sbsolution -> [Solution]

sbsystem -> [System]

sbtest -> [Test]

sbthought -> [Thought] 

 

 

 

Upcoming Chess tournaments #chess

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I lifted this table from a post at Chess Vibes. It lists the upcoming chess tournaments we can look forward to now the World Championship Contenders tournament is over. Magnus Carlsen won the right to challenge Vishy Anand for the World Title.

Calendar: major events in 2013

FIDE Candidates London, England 14 Mar 2013
FIDE Grand Prix Lisbon, Portugal 17 Apr 2013
Alekhine Memorial Paris/St Petersburg 21 Apr 2013
European Individual Championship 2013 Legnica, Poland 4 May 2013
Norway Chess 2013 Stavanger region, Norway 7 May 2013
Sigeman & Co Malmö, Sweden 22 May 2013
FIDE Grand Prix Madrid, Spain ? 22 May 2013
World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2013 Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia 3 Jun 2013
Tal Memorial Moscow, Russia 12 June 2013
FIDE Grand Prix Berlin, Germany 3 Jul 2013
Biel Chess Festival Biel, Switzerland 20 Jul 2013
Sparkassen Chess Meeting Dortmund, Germany 25 July 2013
World Cup 2013 Tromso, Norway 10 Aug 2013
FIDE Grand Prix Paris, France 18 Sep 2013
Grand Slam Masters Final Bilbao,Spain Mid Sep 2013
European Club Cup 2013 Rhodes, Greece 19 Oct 2013
World Championship Match ? 6 Nov 2013
European Team Championship 2013 Warsaw, Poland 7 Nov 2013
World Team Championship 2013 Antalya, Turkey 1 Dec 2013
World Youth Championship 2013 Al-Ain, UAE 17 Dec 2013

Buy your chess books in bulk #chess

| | General

If you want to improve at anything then it helps to study and practice. Working on that premise I’ve ordered a pile of chess books. I want to be a competent player. No rush. Before I die will do 🙂

 

Week 11 goals

| | General

Let’s set some goals for the upcoming week. Gotta set goals. 


Health

Walk 20 miles for exercise.

Do 2 Fast Diet days.

 

Studying

Read chapters 11 to 15 of Maths For Chemistry.

Read chapter 2, ‘Thermochemistry’ of Chemistry (Housecroft & Constable). PDF available here. Chapter 1 PDF, ‘Some basic concepts’ available here, and Chapter 3 PDF, ‘Atoms and atomic structure’ available here. Maths tutor PDF to go with the book here. I have the paper edition of Chemistry. It’s great. Starting this OU course in a few weeks. Hence the maths and chemistry revision.

Finish reading ‘Flying with Objective-C‘. 

Read Chapters 1 to 9 of ‘Navigating Xcode 4.6‘.

Read Chapters 5 to 11 of ‘Programming in Objective-C 5/e‘.

 

Writing

Do 4 blog posts.

Add 2000 words to current SciFi project.

Fast Diet Update 2 #fastdiet

| | General, Science

Quick update on my fast diet progress. See the original post for more details, and fist update. 

Weight: 82.5 Kg. (down 5.3 Kg).

BMI: 23.3. (down 1.5).

Waist: 99 cm. (No change).

Surprised that my waist hasn’t reduced even though I’ve lost 5.3 Kg. Must be losing internal fat. Which is good if true. Want to get waist down to about 88 cm. Onwards.

Fast diet update #fastdiet

| | General, Science

I started The Fast Diet about two weeks ago. As outlined in the first post my weight was:

Weight: 87.8 Kg.

Height: 188 cm.

BMI: 24.8.

What are the changes after about 2 weeks and 5 fasting days? Stats on Sunday morning:

Weight: 85 Kg.

BMI: 24.0

Waist: 99 cm. I started recording this today after buying a proper measuring tape.

A decrease of just under 3 Kg. That’ll do for a start. As outlined in the previous post it’s the blood biochemistry changes that are the real prize. Weight loss and waist measurements are just easy an tracking method that can be done at home.

I got my blood checked for cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose last week. These were non-fasting numbers but will do as a benchmark for checking again in 6 months. The numbers:

Total cholesterol: 5.63 mmol/L. This should be below 4.0 mmol/L for me.

LDL cholesterol: 3.45 mmol/L. This should be below 2.0 mmol/L for me.

Triglycerides: 2.18 mmol/L. The target for me for this is 2.26 mmol/L. Okay on this one.

Glucose: 8.4. This was non fasting measurement. Will get a fasting one done in 6 months.

My current podcast subscription list

| | General, Science, Technology, Writing

I recently pruned the number of podcasts I subscribe to in Downcast. I was deleting too many episodes without ever listing to them. Here is a list of what podcasts survived the cull, with links to the feeds to subscribe to them.

Started the Fast Diet

| | General, Science

There is a new lifestyle and diet scheme in town. It’s called the 5:2 Fast Diet. Fast as in fasting, not as in speedy. Unlike most (all?) other diet regimens, this one does seem to have some science and data to back it up. The 5:2 bit of the name equates to the fact that you can eat normally for 5 days a week, and then on 2 days you restrict yourself to 600 calories. Thats for men. It’s 500 for women.

Extreme fasting, and its sibling prolonged calorie restriction, have been studied for a while. Current research is showing that the gentler, and more easily doable 5:2 Fast Diet can provide many of the benefits that extreme fasting does. 

Grab the book by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer to get more info. Only a few quid in paperback and Kindle formats on Amazon UK. They also have a web site.

I’m making Monday and Thursday my fasting days. Starting today. Will fast from breakfast until dinner then until breakfast next day on those days. With the 600 calories allowed split between breakfast and dinner. That’s the same as what Michael Mosley does. Seems sensible. 

My current weight stats are:

Height: 188 cm.

Weight: 87.8 Kg.

BMI: 24.8.

Not overweight, but BMI close to entering 25+ danger zone. I know from when I was playing cricket regularly that I feel better when my weight is about 79 Kg. So I’ll make that my target.

Weight Target: 79 Kg.

BMI Target: 22.4.

It’s the biochemical changes, as outlined in the Fast Diet book that are the real prize though. 

Follow me on Twitter to comment or discuss. 

Reading list

| | General

Books I want to read this year. List is in no particular order. I’ll select from the list based on whim. Let’s all gather round the glow of our screens in December to see how many I managed to read. 

Lonely Planets (David Grinspoon) – Finished

Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success (Ken Segall) – Finished

Chocky (John Wyndham) – Finished

The Geek Manifesto (Mark Henderson) – Finished

By Light Alone (Adam Roberts) – currently reading

Solaris Rising (Various) – partially read. Short stories.

Manhattan in Reverse (Peter F. Hamilton) – partially read. Short stories.

The Fabric of the Cosmos (Brian Green) – partially read

The Devine Wind (Kerry Emanuel) – partially read

Paradox (Jim Al-Khalili)

Why Beauty is Truth (Ian Stewart)

The Rough Guide to the Future (Jon Turney) – Finished

The Equations: Icons Of Knowledge (Sander Bias)

Very Special Relativity (Sander Bias)

It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science (Graham Farmelo)

The Quantum Universe (Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw)

Why Does E=mc² (Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw) – Finished.

Calculus Made Easy (Silvanus P. Thompson)

China: Illustrated History (Patricia Buckley Ebrey)

America: A Narrative History (George Brown Tindall, David Emory Shi)

The Seven Basic Plots (Christopher Booker)

Writing Fiction: A Guide For The Narrative Craft (Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French)

Reading Like A Writer (Francine Prose)

How Not To Write A Novel (Howard Mittlemark, Sandra Newman)

The Etymologicon  (Mark Forsyth)

Snuff (Terry Pratchett) – Finished

Dodger (Terry Pratchett)

The Long Earth (Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter)

Starmaker (Olaf Stapledon)

Odd John (Olaf Stapledon)

Last And First Men (Olaf Stapledon)

Jack Glass (Adam Roberts)

Novelists Boot Camp (Todd A. Stone)

God: The Failed Hypothesis (Victor J. Stenger)

The Comprehensible Cosmos (Victor J. Stenger)

Irreligion (John Allen Paulos)

The Universe (john Gribbin)

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots (Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, Jon Warshawsky)

Consider Her Ways (John Wyndham)

Land Of The Headless (Adam Roberts)

Gradisil (Adam Roberts)

50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need To Know (Tony Crilly)

50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need To Know (Ben Dupré)

50 Physics Ideas You Really Need To Know (Joanne Baker)

Logic: A Very Short Introduction (Graham Priest)

Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction (Timothy Gowers)

Guerrilla Home Recording (Karl Coryat)

 


 

 

 

 

 

Proposal to up motorway speed limit to 80mph

| | General

The UK Government are holding a consultation to canvas views on whether the speed limit on UK motorways should be increased from 70mph to 80mph. It seems to me that many people currently drive at about 75mph when the motorway is clear. They see 75mph as enough over the speed limit not to get prosecuted. If the limit is raised to 80mph then 85mph will become the new norm. I can’t see the point in this. In my experience all this will mean is that you will get to the next part of your journey with congestion more quickly. It won’t make much difference to overall journey times. I’ve tried driving long distances going faster than the speed limit when I can, and then the same journey sticking to the speed limits. Over a 2 week period the times the journeys took each day were with 10 minutes of each other. Some of the fastest journeys were the days I stuck to the speed limits. So I can’t see this increase to 80mph making journeys quicker. It’ll also burn more fuel for no gain.

If they want to decrease journey times it’d be better to make it an offence to sit in the overtaking lanes on the motorway when there is space on the inner lanes. 3 points for everyone hogging the overtaking lane would do more to increase traffic flow on the motorway than increasing the speed limit!

Switching Soapbox to a new theme

| | General

I’m in the middle of switching my Soapbox site to a new theme. Canvas from WooThemes. I’m planning of doing a lot more writing on 4 main topics on this site in the future. These will be science, technology, teaching myself mathematics (to better understand science) and also some fiction, and posts about writing fiction.

I wanted a cleaner, simpler and whiter layout for the site. Canvas theme fits the bill very nicely 🙂 So over the next few days the layout of the site will change as I mess about with the settings in the WooThemes framework and the Canvas theme.

 

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