Category: Personal

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Analytics

Since creating the www.whatuseismaths.com website I have been trying to increase my understanding of who might be visiting this website. You can see a widget on the right giving page views and from where they are being accessed but I am currently trying to get a better picture.

Step forward, Google Analytics. Hopefully with this I will be able to satisfy my curiosity as to who reads this stuff. I know some friends in the USA do and a few people in the UK but the others come as rather a surprise.

I have added a little plugin to this site to help me track via Google Analytics what is going on. I’m just curious. Also, my site seems to be happy to cope with the plugins. There was a period of about a month last year when the site seemed to be running very slowly but over the last six months I haven’t had any issues with it.

So, a more analyitical approach to my ego awaits!

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Vindication

The BBC News website carried a story yesterday about a high speed yacht that broke the world record. I was instantly interested as my final year project at university was the conceptual design of a high speed yacht.

The major design innovations of my yacht were:

  • outrigger
  • hydrofoils
  • aerofoil shaped sail

Here’s a picture of my concept: 

High Speed Yacht Concept - Drawn By Richard Oussedik
High Speed Yacht Concept – Drawn By Richard Oussedik

Here’s a technical drawing of the main body of the yacht:

Conceptual Yacht - Drawing

And so, to compare, here’s some pictures taken from the Vestas Sailrocket website.

High Speed 1

High Speed 2

So, the sail is in a different place and at an angle but I think my original choices for my final year project have been vindicated. I feel quite pleased that I managed to conceptualise a design that, in general, has worked.

Well done to the Vestas Sail Rocket Team.

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Cleared For Landing

In the field at the back of our house there rests a large number of geese. They come at this time of year and chill out over night before going on their way somewhere. The can be hundreds possibly thousands. Tonight I caught some on final approach but you might have to squint to see them.

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Also, here’s the moon. It looks bigger in real life but then that’s just an optical illusion.

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Two Rules

My personal rules for the bands in which I have played are:

  • No Girls
  • No Keyboards

    • Pretty much anything else goes. I don’t think I have to justify these either, the rules stand by themselves!

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    First Gig

    It was the first live performance of the band Disaster Area today. We played the MGS Battle of the Bands as guests.
    So for prosperity it’s the 16 November 2012 and the venue was the MGS Great Arena.
    Here’s the video:

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    Pod Bay Doors

    The T-shirt I am wearing today has a 2001 film quotation on it. This is so I can quickly see the video.

     

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    Executive

    Thanks to Hilton at Canary Wharf we just got upgraded to an Executive Suite. It’s nice! Top floor overlooking London’s Docklands.

    Here’s our room:

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    The bathroom:

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    Here’s the breakfast table:

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    Dodgy Websites

    Thank goodness for the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority). If we didn’t have them then the country would be full of misleading claims about products and services. However, there is an issue, adverts and websites can only be adjudicated once the ASA have received a complaint. This means that the misleading claims (lies) have to be made public before there is any action. Therefore most of the population aren’t aware of the fact that an advert might have been withdrawn. The damage will have been done. Perhaps adjuducations should be carried in a short segment at the end of the main TV news shows on ITV, BBC and Sky. This would cut some of the issues of publish and then retract, maybe making advertising even better than it is now.

    If you are unsure of what sort of adverts have had adjudications then click here. This should take you to a page with the most recent rulings. Look carefully as this is a list of adverts and claims that have been ruled upon and not just those that are lies. Check the complaint to see what the issue was with the original advert.

    The ASA also has a page of non-compliant online advertisers. The list is here. It will probably come as no surprise that a lot of these websites are for products or services that must be considered “woo“. If you can’t substantiate your claims then the chances are you are peddling bogus products or SCAMs.

    I am proud to let you know that a complaint I sent to the ASA was acted on for print versions but the website of this company still (as of 7 Nov 2012) promotes amber necklaces for toddlers as a way of soothing teething pains. There is no good evidence that this works. The ASA page on this non-compliance is here. Avoid their products!

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    Alien

    Here’s #2 son with a bike helmet on. Most amusing I think you’ll agree!

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    Reaper

    This is not a communication about the TV show Reaper, although I thought that was good fun. It is also not about Mr Grimm as what could I say about death? It is definitely not about the rock classic “(Don’t fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. This communication is about the rare ambiguity that occurs in iTunes.
    I rather like the music genre of Aggrotech or as it is also known – Hellectro. There is a band called Reaper who have released some music and recently it appeared that is was quite cheap on iTunes so I downloaded all of it.
    The problem is that when I played back the EP “Monsters in my head” it was quite clearly a different genre of music. It was more electro than hellectro. Perhaps this was an early Reaper piece but I had my doubts. A little bit of Internet research and I discovered that there were two Reapers of similar music but different enough for me to spot. Bugger. “Monsters in my head” is a little too clean for me.
    So I checked the other Reaper downloads and it turns out that the Reaper album “Gardens of Seth” is by a metal band and definitely not anything whatsoever to do with Aggrotech. The ban might be Italian, definitely not from an English speaking country. As it stands “Gardens of Seth” is rather outdated and has a rather late eighties sound. It is quite good at what it is but not quite what I want. Perhaps I will listen to it more when I’m having an Iron Maiden revival.
    The moral of this communication is that you should check discographies on the Internet before downloading songs by an artist whose tunes so far you have rather enjoyed.

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    Bridge

    Here’s two pictures of the Forth Rail Bridge taken (while moving) from the Forth Road Bridge.

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    Home Grown

    Picture of a spider we found at the bottom of the garden. It was about 20 mm long in the body.

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    Best Place In The World

    Here’s a few photos of the best place in the world. When you are an aircraft geek there’s only the Smithsonian in Washington DC, all other places pale in comparison.

    Space Shuttle Discovery

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    Another of Space Shuttle Discovery

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    The Lockheed SR71A Blackbird

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    More Blackbird

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    A Grumman F14 Tomcat

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    315 Feet

    The car had to go to the tyre and brake people this week. I had noticed the feel of the brake pedal was changing slightly from smooth to a bit jerky when releasing pressure. This didn’t really concern me but the fact that the rear discs were looking rusty and there was only a thin band of clean metal had me worried.

    The car went in to ATS Euromaster at 08:30 and I’d had the call by about 09:30. New pads and discs at the rear (I’d expected that), two new tyres as the fronts were worn to just about legal. I hadn’t really expected that but then I don’t hang around and a little sliding when it’s damp is good fun (no kids in the car and only where it’s safe and there’s space). I had mentioned that there was a slow puncture on the nearside rear tyre and it’s just aswell.

    When I went to pick up the car it was still on the jacks so the guys could show me the problem that was causing the slow puncture. The inside of the tyre where the join normally occurs and is “welded” nicely was just a split. It had gone down to steel and would eventually have caused some serious issues. They believe it was a manufacturing fault and the tyre has been sent back to Pirelli and I hope I get a refund and I ended up paying for 3 tyres.

    An interesting little fact that I hadn’t considered was that the new tyres went on the rear of the car and the worn tyres were swapped to the front. This is to try and ensure that when the car is on the limit it will understeer rather than oversteer. Understeer is much safer that oversteer and so by keeping the grip at the rear of the car (especially an estate where the rear is quite light) the car is safer to drive. Nice.

    315 feet is the stopping distance of a car travelling at 70mph. This is the number given in the Highway Code. Most cars will stop much shorter than that. Should you ever be lost for a stopping distance then the formula s=v+(v^2)/20 works to give you the Highway Code numbers. The thinking and reaction time is the same number of feet as miles per hour and then the actual breaking distance is proportional to the speed squared. It’s all down to kinetic energy! See the Wolfram|Alpha stopping distance calculation here.

    Stopping Distance Formula

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    One Night

    Over the last week I have “borrowed” the soundtrack to the Megadeth live DVD recorded in Buenos Aires – That One Night. Once the soundtrack was ripped I had to separate out the tracks so I could import the files into iTunes. This was rather fun and I enjoyed using Audacity.

    This process is now complete and I have a lovely album on my iPhone of Megadeth live. I have to say that the energy and quality of the music is brilliant. It really makes me want to listen to the original songs again.

    There were some issues. The orignal rip was rather quiet and I had to try and increase that within iTunes. Also I cut the tracks without always listening to them and I had two which had some acoustic impovisation in front (which would make sense watching the DVD but not when listening to the soundtrack) so I have gone back to my original recording and re-cut those tracks. Going to import them back into iTunes and onto my phone tonight. Love it all. :-)

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    In Sewer Ants

    First things first. I love my dog. He is wonderful company, very playful and more than a little crazy. He doesn’t necessarily do as he is told but he fits in well to my family.

    The renewal notice for his insurance came through about a week ago and the yearly premium has changed from GBP 400 to GBP 640. This was apparently due to increasing vet’s costs and his age being more of a concern. The whole reason I got the dog insured was to save on vet’s bills. Also, he’s only six years old and so has some way to go before he takes his final walk. A GBP 20 a month increase, or more than 50% increase, seems a little high.

    I went to a price comparison website to see what other offers I could get and there were companies willing to insure him for last year’s rates but they would not cover pre-existing conditions.  Unfortunately for us, George has had a few fits over the couple of years and should this become more of a problem than it is currently then a new insurer would not cover that cost. Bugger.

    I phoned my current company and they said they could reduce the level of cover to a lower premium which sounded nice, but it would be the same as taking out new insurance and so pre-existing problems would, again, not be covered. Double Bugger.

    It would appear that I am stuck with these ludicrous price increases for the insurance for my dog. It would, in all honesty, be cheaper to buy a new dog each year than pay my new premiums!

    Apologies to Terry Pratchet for the title of this communication.

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    Tintin

    Only a short while longer and I will have collected all the Tintin books for my sons to read. I have been buying about two or three every pay day from Amazon for the last 9 months or so and I think I have two more months before I have the complete collection. Unfortunately, I did accidentally buy one in paperback and so I will give that one away and buy it again in hardcover. In all honesty they might be more for me than the kids but I’m sure they’ll read them eventually.
    I already have all the Asterix books as I collected them during my sabbatical year when I was at Imperial College. It was the only time as a student that I had any money and I made sure that I didn’t have any by the end of the year. I put on a lot of weight eating in the Union cafe all the time and bought ridiculous things like a lovely Aiwa portable cassette player (remember those?) and a crazy Casio watch that had a thermometer and a barometer built into it. The watch could even do altitude (based on pressure). Now I guess all of my money for gadgets goes into my phone and it does a crazy amount more. Not just two sides of a C90 but a whole two weeks worth of music!
    Possibly a bit of a random communication for you and perhaps I should aim to include more outrageous stories from my university days!

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    Stunning Mach

    Amazing.

    That’s all that’s needed really.

    Felix Baumgartner and a huge team of engineers and back up crew including Joe Kittenger have done it. It was stunning.

    I wasn’t alive for the Moon landings so I couldn’t see them live and I don’t recall watching Andy Green break the sound barrier live on television although I definitely watched the documentary on it. Felix Baumgartner’s skydive from a billion miles up was something I could watch live and, such is technology nowadays that I streamed it to my phone while I was walking the dog in the park. I was trying to watch it on my phone while the kids had thier dinner. Then it got to bath and bed time and Felix hadn’t jumped. But, then it was time to walk the dog. Fortunately I can get a 3G signal in the park and watched the live stream via cellular technology. It was quite an amazing thing to see. The check list was simple and yet necessary. The standing on the edge and then the fall. I imagine that watching the moon landing was like this but much more so. I felt chilled and elated at the same time. It was as though time slowed and I watched every second of his freefall in utter peace. I am astounded at how it went when all the possibilities are considered.

    Well done to all involved.

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    It Took 20 Years

    About 20 years ago I borrowed my dad’s car. I got in and turned on the ignition. The car radio was tuned to Essex FM and after a few seconds a dance / drum and bass song came on that stunned me! It started with a woman speaking about various sex acts and I was rather surprised it was broadcast.
    I’m used to dodgy lyrics, the song Animal by WASP, Kickstart The Fight by Combichrist, F^^^machine by Combichrist, and quite a few songs by AC/DC all have dodgy or explicit lyrics. I do understand that these will probably never make it to broadcast.
    Someone in Essex FM really messed up. This drum and bass song was explicit and obviously so. I guess they don’t always listen to everything before broadcast. I once heard Killing In The Name Of by Rage Against The Machine played in full on the BBC Radio 1 chart show when it was released!
    Every now and then over the last 20 years I’ve wondered if the song existed. I’d never heard it again and didn’t really mention it to anyone. Recently, when I’ve thought about it, I’ve tried Googling but not really found anything. It was quite hard to decide what search terms to use.
    Today was a breakthrough. One particular key phrase from the song brought up a YouTube link that seemed promising. I have played the link and am fully confident that it is the song I heard 20 years ago.
    I feel somewhat relieved! Firstly I didn’t imagine the song. Secondly, it is as rude as I remember. Unfortunately the song is pretty rubbish apart from the “lyrics”.
    Should you want to sample some of this disturbing song then try searching for “Andy C” and “Dirty lil slut”. You might be surprised or you might not.
    Direct link here.

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    Long Time

    Continuing the iTunes and iPhone theme I have here a list of songs arranged by time (descending).

    iTunes sorted by length of song
    Long Songs

    I need to listen to most of these to check whether they are proper songs or just tricks that have lots of empty space. Time to melt by Lard definitely seems to be a proper song. Over time I will check these and get back to you. The list stands as follows:

    • Lard, Time To Melt – seems a proper song.
    • Therapy?, Sister – seems some parts of silence, cheats!
    • Combichrist, At The End Of It All
    • Senser, Weatherman
    • Lodestar, Iliac Crest
    • Nirvana, Something In The Way – gaps and silence.
    • Throbbing Gristle, After Cease To Exit
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