Lego 58 Model 42065

There was a mini Lego season recently and this is the first beast from that. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the RC Racer:

This beast uses a lovely little IR transmission system. It’s pretty well designed and have 4 channels just in case you are near other systems.

Possibly the only drawback is that the battery pack takes SIX AA batteries, but then that does give a decent about of power. It’s the same battery pack as the Excavator I built about a year ago.

In this picture (above) you can see the right (front) and left (rear) motors along with the battery pack and IR receiver.

March 28 2018

A trend I have noticed more and more in the news these days is the use of quotations in a headline. This is probably because of two reasons. The first is that it is incredibly expensive to defend “libel” accusations in the English court system. This gags publishers to a certain extent. The second reason is that it makes headline writing easy and removes controversy because the publisher can say “we were using quotes”. Here are some examples from the best UK news organisation the BBC.

In the Toby Young article the term “regret” is used in quotation marks because it’s a feeling that an organisation is having. It’s obviously a bullshit term for the fact that the Office for Students’ were WRONG, but rather than admit to being wrong they claim the organsation has “regret”. Let’s face it, they were wrong.

“Intorlerance” is written because someone said it and the BBC don’t want to put any form of objective fact into the reporting. Also, this article relys on what MPs and Peers said rather than any form of what does and will work. It’s entirely opinion and therefore possibly wrong. Hence the quotation.

“Down to privilege” used in the third article is ammusing. Being in quotes means that it’s treated as an opinion rather than a potential objective truth. This saves the BBC from having to defend their wording for the article because all they are doing is quoting a scientific study, or maybe they are putting their own spin on it. It doesn’t really matter. What the BBC have done is shy away from stating an objective truth.

The world these days doesn’t seem to like the idea that some things can be known for sure and they are truths. We can test them. Hell, you can test them if you want to study for long enough. Other things are opinion. I’m not sure opinion belongs in headlines.

Look at these headlines. The BBC aren’t claiming the welfare system is at critical point. They aren’t being objective about it. They haven’t looked at the evidence and declared it is fucked. They have been lazy and just written down what someone said. It weakens the argument being made for investment.

“Lots to do”, if we were honest and objective then we could clearly state, without the need for speech marks, that there is a ton of stuff still to do on Brexit. Once again the quotation weakens the argument being put forward. It lends a sense of opinion rather than reality.

“Cheating”, yeah. They were lying weren’t they. They spent more than they were allowed and yes they cheated. It doesn’t have to be in quotation marks. We know that’s what they did.

“Sexism”. This headline says that although someone accused Boris, the sexist, of being sexist, we aren’t sure and are really relying on the speech of someone else rather than declaring our foreign secretary a rascist, sexist idiot.

Just look at the US press. They accuse their president of telling “untruths” or being “misleading”. Bullshit. He’s a liar. Let’s call him that.

News agencies have a duty to report the objective truth as much as possible. The rising use of quotations means there’s less chance to offend people who can’t cope with objectivity.

March 27 2018

Tomb Raider

Having ranted and raged about the entitlement in the film Peter Rabbit you might be interested to know that I’m going to completely ignore the quantities of privilege in this film.

I went to the cinema. We know the drill. I write something about the tide without even knowing when that started, but knowing it was a coded reference to the time of day within a movie review because I went when I shouldn’t have. The tide was middling. For a while I was the only person in the cinema and that would have been nice for the whole film but people came in. I think my record for a film is me and one other person, two sad gits together, not that we were together but you understand.

My routine in the cinema is to normally stuff my face with either ice cream or hot dogs [don’t tell the vegetarian police] and then I read a book on my kindle-phone app while stuff non-feature-film occurs on screen. I don’t watch adverts and I watch each trailer once unless it’s an important film [Star Wars, Blade Runner] in which case I don’t watch. Some trailers I watch a little of before ignoring them because I know I won’t be going to see it [Mama Mia 2]. The book I am reading currently is

Dressing for Altitude, U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits-Wiley Post to Space Shuttle – By Dennis R. Jenkins

It’s a free e-book from Nasa and it is quite fascinating. It’s technical enough to challenge my understanding and written well enough to keep me interested. I have read a book on the X-15 program mostly while waiting for films to start and that one was brilliant. Quite technical writing has also helped when I’ve been broken and unable to think about things properly. Having decent technical challenging data and writing restores the balance of logic in my mind when it’s been screwed over. I do still intend to write about the two main times I’ve been quite mental but getting that stuff down in text is going to be hard.

So, the film, Tomb Raider. I rated it on IMDB and now is where I point you to the communication discussing the rating system and then I normally comment that the scoring system is broken and I may get around to addressing that at some point.

I rated Tomb Raider (2018) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/O0rt2IZbgK

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 27, 2018

I enjoyed this film. I didn’t enjoy the two women behind me talking constantly through the film but I still enjoyed the film.

Let’s face facts: it’s a film based on a best selling game. Therefore we don’t expect it to be great. We expect it to be clichéd and full of stupid action. Guess what? It is. It was a perfect film covering a good game series. It was probably better than the Jolie version and that’s saying something as I can be a bit of a Jolie fan.

In all honesty, if you want a decent movie in this genre then you should watch Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It does all the things that this film does but far far better. But. Indiana Jones isn’t female.

A couple of minor points that struck me in this. When Lara is riding her bike around London, which is looking lovingly cosmopolitan and resplendent, her chain/gears creak. I’m not sure if this was designed so that we know she’s cycling, I mean she is peddling, but no decent biker would put up with that creaking. They would fix it.

The next point is people in these movies seem to get punctured in many un-sexy ways and yet they don’t bleed out or get infected. It’s almost like they are fixed within minutes and able to run around at 100%.

Finally, Hannah John-Kamen was in this movie for about 3 minutes and it was lovely to see her in something where she isn’t playing Dutch. I am currently watching Killjoys on Netflix and she stars in that show.

March 27 2018

Peter Rabbit

I’m trying to realign my IMDB scores with the initial intention rather than score higher than where the films should be. I have been concerned with ratings-inflation for a while now and feel I am getting back to where it should be. There is a chance this one is going to be quite controversial but message me if you are bothered.

I went to see Peter Rabbit. The tide was halfway in the river and on the way in I guess as it was fully in on the way home. I rated this film on IMDB and you should probably see this communication which goes someway to explain how the grading system works.

I rated Peter Rabbit (2018) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/fAG5LNxlX9

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 24, 2018

I didn’t really like this film. I will admit that I found it funny at times, but humour doesn’t make a good film. I will also admit that I have never read any Beatrix Potter and have no emotional attachment to Peter Rabbit or any of the rest of the folks.

This is likely to descend into a discussion about the role that film plays within our society and for that I apologise in advance. There is a argument that this is a kids movie, it’s meant to be entertaining, the deeper lessons from this movie don’t need to be analysed because it’s meant for entertainment and we love these sorts of stories.

After the opening credits I was quite distressed as four birds flew across the sky singing and my thoughts were “Oh, shit. No one told me this was a musical, I will hate it”. The singing didn’t last long and that went on to become a running joke.

If I was being generous then I would say this is a cute family film with some slap-stick violence. I’m not in the mood for being generous though. I want to look at this film through the lens of social change in influence.

The messages from this film are mostly about the acceptance of illegality, violence and lies. The two human characters fall in love even though the male lies constantly for ninety percent of the film. The female is unaware of how obvious these lies are and yet she fully accepts this man at the end of the film. The rabbits in this film are vermin, much to their consternation. They invade and steal property consistently throughout the film, it’s ok to steal if what you take is “definitely yours” by a thought process of seeing things and so wanting things.

The bullying by Peter on his family is pretty bad. He’s a tearaway character, acting on impulses with little regard for the welfare of those he drags through his capers. He only stops to think once the damage has been done and even then he self-justifies his actions as the proper course. He is an horrible character. He gets away with these things in the eyes of the audience because he is cheeky and winks at times.

This film showed it’s OK to fight and to electrocute people to get what you want. It’s perfectly OK and even justified to harm humans if you are an anthropomorphised rabbit. You actions are deserving of praise because you are stealing the food that grows in someone else’s property. They live in the luscious countryside of the Lake District and yet these rabbits couldn’t find food? I don’t want to defend property ownership entirely. I have massive issues with the few who own the majority of everything. But, I’m just looking at the messages in this film.

In the end the woman still falls in love with the liar even though she knows he’s a liar. The violence of the rabbits gains them acceptance in the human world and the man changes. Perhaps in some ways this narrative is about the struggle of the small and weak to gain recognition. But, I’m not convinced. The ambitious toff keeps control in the end, restoring the natural order of things where the british love being subservient to the higher born.

It’s curious the level of violence that is normalised in TV and film. It starts early with Tom and Jerry. Then it moves to the Tom and Jerry satire which was the Itchy and Scratchy Show. Stop and have a look at cartoons and superhero films and examine the motives behind them. Do they teach fighting is OK? Do they teach about a natural order of human behaviour with hereditary leaders making decisions for the rest of us? Do they reinforce the current standing of your class?

Perhaps it will always end up with a few families controlling this planet not matter where we start. Maybe it’s because humans are nasty, violent creatures who need to have a sense of order and place-in-society to function. The issue is that it’s always the little man who gets crushed by this.

Maybe this film is just a fun-filled family caper but I do suspect it’s more sinister than that.

March 26 2018

Rationalisation

I spent some time yesterday dusting the AV corner in the lounge. There’s a fair amount of kit there and dust had built up. While doing that I realised that I don’t need the PS3 there anymore. I don’t play it. I had kept it lying around for GT6 in the days before GT Sport. Now the game is on the PS4. There are probably a few legacy games I will miss but I don’t have the time to play them!

This is a picture of the cabling I cleared out:

I decided I don’t need the Blu-Ray player connected to the LAN, nor the Amp. It’s likely I don’t need the Blu-Ray player there at all because of the PS4 but I’ll leave it there for another day.

March 24 2018

MV 22B

I spent real money on a computer game add-in. Like I really pressed the “buy” button with the full knowledge that it was going to cost me money. However, I think it was worth it. I have spend actual £ on an F-18, and F-35 and now a MV22B Osprey.

There are real ospreys that fly over Lake Bassenthwaite in the Lake District and now I have my own [made from steel, although more likely carbon fibre as it’s a very expensive aircraft].

What a lovely looking beast. I haven’t managed a successful landing yet. But I will keep trying.

March 22 2018January 29 2022

BAH!

On Saturday I went with a friend to BAHFest London. The Bad Ad Hoc Hypothesis Festival is a celebration of bad science presented as good science with graphs and everything. The London version is held at Imperial College and so this seemed fitting to spend my birthday in the grounds of a place I have spend previous birthdays.

After dinner out with Mazza we arrived in the Great Hall to be seated in the second row as we were running slightly late. I’ve not been to one of these before but I have been a fan of Zach Weinersmith for a long time as he writes the SMBC online comic. There are quite a few of these printed out and on the wall in the maths office. BAHFest was slated to start at 19:00 and so, this audience is one of the nerdiest I have ever been part of. An event about science in a science university at 7 on a Saturday! You have to go some to beat that for qualifications and jokes about i.

The host was Matt Parker and the judges are below, but Tim Harford was the one I recognised the most although only his voice. I have listened to his radio 4 show More Or Less for many years. The other judges were Lindsey Fitzharris, Dr Jen Gupta and Sydney Padua.

There was a keynote speaker, a cartoonist from France, Boulet, once the six bad ideas with good science were presented the crowd voted on them and the applause was rated using a sound meter. It was lovely to spend time in a geeky environment and have intelligent discourse.

For an example about the presentations one of the plans was how to mitigate or reverse the current global warming trend line of increasing temperatures by inducing a small nuclear winter. The discussion was then based on where to explode the nukes and it turns out that the middle bit of Canada where no-one lives was just perfect, forest with a low population. This idea was backed up with graphs and diagrams and calculations.

After the event the panel were available to sign books they had published. Mazza and I didn’t go to that. I’d already bought a couple of the books and have ordered another. The rational part of my brain tells me that having a squiggle of ink added to a book doesn’t change that book. The financial part of me is aware of the actual value people place on such objects.

Mark and I then went to the Student Union Bar. It’s just over Prince Consort Road inside Beit Quad. Both of us have Life Membership of the SU, mine is Honorary, I can’t remember if Mark’s is. I hadn’t got my HLM card though and Mark signed me in. Our purpose was to have a drink using one of the pots / tankards that live in the Traditional Bar. I had a choice:

Aerosoc Chair
Departmental Society Officer
Spanner Bearer
Deputy President Clubs and Societies

My tankard of choice would be Spanner Bearer but it wasn’t there! I’m not sure what has happened to it but I was a little saddened. So, I chose DPCS. I had a lovel ypint of an IPA and it was good. As far as I could tell the Traditional Bar hadn’t changed. The main bar was quite different and as we walked through it I can tell you there is nothing to make you feel old as walking through a student bar when you are in your mid-forties.

There’s another tradition that if someone named before you on the pot comes into the bar then it is your duty, as the junior, to finish your pint and then buy that person a fresh pint and relinquish the pot. As I am the second person on this pot, the post being new a year before, there is very little chance that I get “potted”.

FYI, the Bolt Bearer pot is still behind the bar.

March 11 2018March 22 2018

Red Sparrow

I went to watch Red Sparrow at the cinema in Rochester. I definitely did check the state of the tide and it was neither fully in nor fully out. I have no idea which way it was travelling. I rate the films I see at the cinema on IMDB and there’s a guide to the scoring system in this communication. With the current score I believe I am shifting the scores I give back to a proper system. I’ve been worried that my scores have been creeping.

I rated Red Sparrow (2018) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/bBIqfnFV4B

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 10, 2018

So, clearly I didn’t like it. I am going to sneak over to some reputable websites and read a few reviews of this movie because I found it mostly poor. I’m probably going to end up with spoilers in the following text so you may want to not read on.

The premise that Russia is using sex and honey-traps to entice people into betraying their country isn’t new or exciting. In fact the whole “training” section of this movie had absolutely zero effect on the rest of the movie. You could remove that entire section and the movie would still make sense. This means it was pointless. It wasn’t even insightful. It encouraged spies to be rape and get raped. It was pretty shit. All it did was set up the idea that our heroine wouldn’t sleep with just anyone. Oh, that and allow a gratuitous nude shot of the lead.

I got about 75% through this movie and ended up confused about who was going where to do what and I stopped caring. It seemed remarkable that the Russian spy agency wasn’t watching their own spy as she travelled around screwing them over. She was a famous person being a spy. This is utter rubbish. We all know spies blend in. They don’t stand out.

Who can open a bank account in another person’s name with just their passport number? Really?

This movie contained violence, torture porn, blood, and overall was a bit shit. I don’t recommend it.

March 10 2018

Natural Consequence

Listening to the radio this morning and during the “What The Papers Say” section the presenters discussed an article in the Daily Mail. Now, clearly, anything in the DM is utter bullshit and should be ignored but I couldn’t help but be curious at the language the news BBC presenters used. It went along the lines of:

Councils are going to charge more for car parking . . . . . this will affect Sunday shoppers and church goers.

I’m not sure I agree with their assessment. I think it will affect people who want to park their cars. What those people do after they have parked their cars is entirely up to them. If you are using a service then you should expect to pay for it somehow, this seems a sensible approach to me. I’m don’t even want to get started on the righteousness invested in “church goers” as if they should have the freedom to do their religioning. I’ll shout this out later but going to church regularly doesn’t make you any more “moral” than the next person. May I kindly remind you of which system of moral belief has spent the last fifty years systematically covering up child abuse: step up the catholic church.

Councils charging more for the services they provide is a natural consequence of the austerity measures imposed on this country by successive governments since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Local councils have had their central government funding cut massively and so they need to either raise more money by themselves or cut services. It’s ingenious because it keeps the anger at local politicians rather than those in Westminster as your local council has to charge more but it’s NOT their fault.

Austerity has royally screwed this country over and the natural consequence of less money around was Brexit. The Tories have imposed their version of hatred on the peoples of this land and will make us all poorer.

Just for amusement here are some quotes from the DM website article about the parking charges and my comments:

Motorists face steep hikes in parking charges to plug holes in council budgets.

True, but no explanation about why the government isn’t funding the councils.

Some town halls are bringing in fees on Sundays to catch shoppers and churchgoers.

Replace “catch” with “charge for services”.

A number of local authorities are in extreme financial difficulties with much of the pressure coming from the rising cost of social care.

Because we don’t want to help those who are less well off or damaged within society. We want to park for nothing. The pressure is coming from chronic underfunding and rising inflation costs.

‘The war on motorists has got to stop,’ said Tory MP Robert Halfon.

“WAR”. Ha ha. Making people pay for a service they use is considered “WAR”. Perhaps the Tory MP could argue for increased central government funding for the councils to ease the legitimate parking charges. I hadn’t noticed a “war” on motorists. I’d love to hear an expanded explanation about that.

Dover and Bristol are planning to reintroduce Sunday charges in car parks as well as on streets.

So why the fake outrage? It’s hardly a war is it if these charges were in place before.

‘When will councils recognise that growing their income depends on low-cost and accessible parking, not knee-jerk cash grabs from hard-working motorists?’

English councils made a £819million surplus from parking fines, fees and permits during the 2016/17 financial year.

“Cash grabs” interpreted means paying for services. “Knee-jerk” implies a sudden change and easy decision. I suspect that having to raise charges is the last thing the councils want to do but is a necessity. The £819 million figure is disingenuous as it includes parking fines and is spread over the whole of England. Let’s face it, if you park somewhere you shouldn’t and get caught then pay the fine. There is no distinction in the article about how much income comes from those who break the rules. This figure use is designed to increase rage at councils rather than place that anger where it is deserved. This is what happens when your media is biased. To balance this I will probably have to have a look at a left leaning newspaper and so I promise to do that at some time.

Ninety-five per cent of town halls plan to increase council tax next month. Meanwhile, bin collections, libraries, social care and other services have been slashed.

NO DISCUSSION OF AUSTERITY MEASURES IMPOSED BY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

The number of households enjoying weekly rubbish rounds has plummeted by a third since 2010, the National Audit Office revealed this week.

OK, and this is important because? . . . . . . .

There are three paragraphs defending the action and it would be remiss of me to neglect to mention them.

Martin Tett of the Local Government Association said: ‘Local authorities remain on the side of hard-pressed motorists, shoppers and businesses and do not set parking charges to make a profit.

‘Car parks cost taxpayers money to maintain and improve and any surplus is spent on essential transport projects, such as tackling the £12billion roads repair backlog and creating new parking spaces.

‘To protect such provision, and in the face of an overall funding gap that will exceed £5billion by 2020, councils are being forced to make difficult decisions.’

These are followed directly by a paragraph telling of charges increasing in Bournemouth. The overall “reporting” in this article is designed to keep people angry, to keep them annoyed at “social costs”, to keep them thinking that motorists are hard workers and shouldn’t have to pay for these things. This is social engineering on a massive scale and it keeps happening in EVERY article in the piece of shit newspaper and website. The DM claims that the web version is an entirely separate entity but as Private Eye points out they both share the same executive editor.

The DM and Express along with other media have used their positions and influence over the last 12 years to engineer a social divide, to encourage hatred, to encourage an insular approach. They are the scum of this country. They are the ones fostering hatred towards people who are different or have needs. They promote the entitled view they so desperately mock.

It is time for me to stop or I’ll end up in a full blown rant and that’s not needed on a Saturday morning. I’ll leave you to ponder the use of language by our media.

March 6 2018

Correction

In this picture from yesterday’s communication I noticed that the author has named Graham Hill. The downhill section from Druids to Graham Hill Bend.

By John Chapman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

This naming is incorrect. While that section of track is informally called Graham Hill it is not named anything officially.

The corner is most definitely named Graham Hill Bend but the downhill section is name-less. It is occasionally and informally referred to as Graham Hill, but clearly should be called Graham Hill Hill if it was going to be named correctly.

March 5 2018

Corners Not Mastered

Here, just for fun, is a list of corners I still strugglw with in Gran Turismo Sport. I can’t consistently take these corners in a manner that makes me feel I’m getting the lowest lap time.

March 4 2018

Coco

This weekend I took at trip to the local cinema [possibly not the closest, will check . . . . . yep, second closest, about two miles further than the Odeon in Maidstone] to see Coco. Here’s a picture so I don’t have to write about the state of the tide:

Today the weather is back to boring grey. I preferred the white and cold. At least now I can turn the heating off for a while!

I rated the film on the IMDB website and there’s a guide to the rating system within this communication.

I rated Coco (2017) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/TGhKwBNdjL

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 3, 2018

I have to say I thought the film was far better than the trailers had made it out to be. I was concerned it was going to be a religious load of rubbish but it turns out to be a lovely touching film about death. Seriously, that’s what it is about. It tells the story of how Mexico copes with death. It allows the world to picture that death is coming for us all and we only live on in the memories of those we leave behind. Coco tells us how fleeting this life is and how ultimately useless our lives are if we can’t get to be with those we love.

Along with looking just lovely, it’s Pixar, this film made me laugh and smile and want to cry. It was very good.

March 2 2018March 4 2018

Oh, I’m Soooooo Grateful

This has made me so angry:

The royal family is ALLOWING some SCUM (public) to attend a shindig within the GROUNDS of a shitting castle.

The language in this news article and the way it has been reported on the radio implies that WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL. Fuck them. I am not grateful. I don’t care that two people are getting married. I don’t want to live in this bullshit hierarchical society.

Oh, the NORMAL people are being chosen by the Lord Lieutenants. Woopee-fucking-do. At least we now know whose cock you’ll have to suck to get an invite.

All of this royal family OBN reporting is an utter waste of energies. All it does is fuel the social beliefs that those people are better than everyone else. It reinforces that this society exists and class exists for a reason: that the public can’t be trusted. These nobs are born into their place in the world and so the rest of us had better get used to it.

Viva La Revolution

March 2 2018

Lo-Tech

I clicked on a click-bait type link on Twitter a few days ago and watched a video for the Light Phone 2. It’s a lovely looking basic phone that does phone calls, messaging and alarms. This has got me thinking [a rare event I know!].

Perhaps it would be good to just have a phone. A device designed to make phone calls. Send the odd text message. Not a lot else.

This morning as I thought these things I felt a sense of release from the pressure of modern communication. There was a release growing. The freedom to be away from connections. The freedom to not know what is going on.

So, I’ve been looking at basic phones. I have a plan to use a basic phone. To get one and leave the smart phone at home and just have the basic phone. Get rid of the connections to the world. A chance to be free when I want to be.

I can edit this website at home. I can use a camera to take photos. I can read a book. I can removed myself from the constant drivel and pain that following the news brings at the moment. This is looking like a very real prospect for me. A chance to recapture my freedom and to learn to live my life again. And I say that as a committed tech follower.

Month: March 2018