"Nothing but the rain"
I’ve been using the Garmin Vivofit since October 2014, that makes it roughly 8 months. These are some “badges” I have gained in my Garmin app on my phone.
It turns out I have moved more than 2 million steps which is quite impressive I think. Also, I get entered for the challenges automatically. It’s not something I do deliberately. Whether I win those challenges really depends on how many runs I get done that week.
This communication doesn’t really say a great deal, sorry!
So, Sally and I went to the Electrowerkz venue in Islington on Friday 1st May for an AC Club night.
The event started at 20:00 and continued until 06:00 the Saturday morning. We spent most of Friday evening getting ready and then drove in to London where we had booked a parking space via Just Park. The route into London was easy enough and the parking spot was simple to find. After parking we took a three minute walk to Electrowerkz and arrived at around 22:30. It was quite cold but I left my jacket in the car I couldn’t be bothered to carry anything, but this meant I also forgot my hat, which I had spent an hour sewing and embellishing. That was slightly annoying!
Once in the club we wandered around the various rooms to see what was happening. There were three main music rooms, a chill out area and some specialist areas. I’d been to Electrowerkz before to see Aesthetic Perfection and Combichrist. I really like it as a venue, it’s small and dark, it has a real atmosphere about it. Much like cinema seats I would not like to see it in daylight.
The layout of the club required lots of walking up and down awkward stairs. Awkward stairs are ones where the rise/step calculations, while mathematically fine, do not induce a sensible physical step pattern. I was fine as I had big boots on. It turned out that Sally’s shoes were somewhat less comfortable for walking down stairs. She did last until 04:00 in her shoes though which is pretty good going.
The TheatreOfSin had the main stage was quite cold and well air-conditioned so we didn’t spend much time in there. The bars were all pretty nice places and the other two music rooms were full of happy people dancing. The atmosphere was gentlemanly and completely unthreatening. I’ve been to a couple of clubs [literally less than 10] and I often fine the atmosphere quite oppressive and angry. Electrowerkz had a friendly atmosphere and feeling about the place.
The PFI [PureFuckingIndustrial] room created a slight discussion about the music. I would never describe it as dance. I don’t even like calling it dark dance. But, if I am honest with myself, then I would suggest that the songs are constructed in the same way and have many of the same elements. I would then go on to mention that the lyrics are quite possibly as far from happy dance as is possible.
The HELLFIRE room was playing Rammstein when we entered and progress to some Ministry. Definitely the more “metalwith a twist” room. A live feed of the music was played into the Chillout Room which had a tube carriage doubling up as a bar. The Hellfire bar was decked out like the set of the film Alien, it was quite impressive.
At one point I was chatting with Pete. He was impressed with my outfit and also my mark of ownership. Quite randomly a man [who possibly is a member of a famous band] came along and handed Pete a very nice top hat, which then meant that he gave me his top hat. My hat problem was solved, although there were too many top hats in the club for it to be a cool look. I do need to get a decent top hat though, in time for the M’era Luna festival in the summer.
We left at around 04:30 to get home just as the sun was coming up. Overall it was a really enjoyable night and I am looking forward to doing it again. The recovery time is longer than I can remember from my days at university, but then I am quite old now!
The evening will be remembered for many great and wonderful things, but this communication is entitled “Fucking Stairs” because that’s pretty much all I heard every time we walked from one room to another!
I can’t wait to go again. It was great.
This was the view as the sun set over the Isle Of Sheppey, viewed from Whitstable.
It is time for us to accept that our mind exists entirely within ourselves. The construct that is Duality is false.
For far too long humans have talked about our “mind” almost as a separate part of our existence. We long to avoid death and we would like to believe that we aren’t just the product of cells, chemicals and electricity. We talk about consciousness as though it’s some magical, other worldly, thing that produces us. There’s this idea that we have “free will” and we are able to make choices and react to things outside of our experiences. The worst possible interpretation of this is that our mind is our soul and it will be preserved when our body dies. This kind of thought leads to myths and stories of eternal life, these things are dangerous to mankind.
The evidence is quite clear though. We exist within our bodies. Our thoughts are contained within our skulls. There is no single place within our brains where our “soul” or consciousness reside. What we consider to be our thoughts and free will are simply electrical and chemical signals developed within our brain, across the entirety of it. If parts of our brains are damaged our personality may change. Other parts of the brain can learn how to counteract the damaged parts. We are the sum of our experiences mixed with some pretty basic instincts.
Just because I dismiss the human psychological construction of duality doesn’t mean I don’t find everything fascinating. It is simply quite stunning how we have developed over time to become these thinking beings, able to discover the rules of the world around them, able to manipulate the environment to produce more humans. Very slowly we are coming to a collective recognition that we are failing the planet, that we need to stop carrying on, but that requires political will and that is desperately lacking.
Our emotions are chemicals and reactions developed and evolved over millennia. This doesn’t make it any less magical. It makes it more magical. The mystery isn’t removed when we accept what is plainly true, it allows us to wonder at what we now know. Just because we know the truth it doesn’t stop feelings being real.
On the matter of free will I should explain why we have none. We have the ability to make decisions and we constantly do that based on the available information. As our decisions are part of a chemical and electrical brain it is clear to me that if we were placed in exactly the same situation again with the same stimulae we would make the same decision. There is no way we would have done something different. Our language has developed so that we talk about “changing the course of history”. What a bullshit phrase that is. The things that have been can’t be changed. The course of our futures is unknown. We don’t change the future. The future just happens. We can’t change the decisions we have already made and we most definitely won’t choose a different path in the future. We are the product of our chemistry.
Does this mean that we can predict our future choices? No. Our brains are quite brilliantly complicated and simple at the same time. There is no way we can really model a brain at the moment. We can’t take a snap shot of our brains and then run those processes forward. Even if we could as soon as the external influences were different the two minds would diverge with increasing speed.
I am constantly amazed at how we humans have developed our understanding of the universe while at the same time deluding ourselves about reality.
Here is a picture of my Indiana Jones Minecraft character. The Cylon version is staying at home to look over my lounge. Indiana is based in my work room. He looks great, I am happy to have him.
It’s a Cylon Minecraft character made from cardboard and painted. I didn’t make this, it was made for me and I feel proud to be the owner of a Minecraft Cylon. It matches the Cylon in my dining room.
For those of you unsure of what a Cylon is, then you should go here. For those of you unsure of what Minecraft is, go here.
Also, for those of you who haven’t seen the BSG series you might want to know that “Nothing but the rain” is a quotation from that series.
“What can you hear, Starbuck?”, asks Adama.
“Nothing but the rain.”, she replies.
So, I went to see this film last night. As ever I rated this film on IMDB, you should read this communication before moaning about my rating system.
I rated Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/X91ogrVXTl
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 24, 2015
Overall I enjoyed this film. I don’t think it was as good as the first film. The action sequences were perfectly fine although nothing really stood out for me. The buddy aspect of the film was ok but the best parts of that were dealt with in the first film.
Look, this is a solid superhero film and works very well. It is probably better than most of the standalone films that have been released, it just wasn’t as good as the first film. Sorry.
I am annoyed.
The BBC are arseholes. The headline and photo ALL imply that plucking makes hair grow in humans. Here’s the first few paragraphs. With my emphasis.
Plucking hairs in a precise pattern can make even more pop up in their place, a US study suggests. Playing with the density of hair removed altered how serious an injury the body recognised and in turn how much hair regrew. The team managed to regenerate 1,300 hairs by plucking 200, in the study using mice reported in Cell journal. Experts said it was “really nice science” but were uncertain if it could lead to a cure for human baldness. Half of men have male-pattern baldness by the age of 50. The team at the University of Southern California were investigating how hair follicles communicate with each other to decide on the scale of repair job needed.
So, with only a single reference to the fact that the study was in MICE and lots of human type text and a picture this article screams that plucking in humans will cause hair growth.
Ok, so it happens in mice. So fucking what. When they can show it works in humans I may interested in knowing about it. Not for myself although I am mostly bald, I’d rather have less hair.
This is extremely poor reporting. There is no need for this article. It is a waste of time.
So people. What I thought of Thunderbirds Are Go:
Oh my! @ThunderbirdsHQ was so awesome. I loved it and I loved watching it with my kids. Brilliant!
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 4, 2015
Quite simple really. I loved it.
The show looked brilliant. The mix of miniatures and CGI was perfect. For a great example of where this works well you could see Moon. For examples of where just CGI doesn’t work see Star Wars Episodes 1-3. The whole look was organic, more natural than pure CGI.
I have no idea of which Tracy brother is which. I just can’t do similar faces and names. I will probably end up knowing them by colour. Quite clearly Kayo, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker were obvious. The others? No idea. My facial recognition fails me completely.
The vehicles looked and sounded brilliant. I had two “moments”. The first was when TB2 took off from Tracy Island and there were a couple of “boom” sounds that made me shiver. Then, and this is just brilliant, when TB1 flew there were condensation clouds behind shock waves that made my hairs stand on end. Yes, I am that much of a nerd.
Who cares if the story was over the top, that’s just what we want. Overall, this was a great piece of television. It is something I am really looking forward to sharing with my children The wait for something like this has been too long!
Nerd Stuff:
The animators have been very clever. They have given the humans a slightly shiny face in homage to the plastic models of the original series AND at the same time they have avoided falling into the UNCANNY VALLEY. Well done. Any more realistic and people would have felt an urge to throw up and turn off. Also, creating a smooth surface with certain reflective properties saves a ton of rendering time.
If you aren’t sure then think about why in Toy Story ALL the characters have plastic faces [rendering time] and then think about Monsters Inc, only one character has hair, why? Rendering time and computer power. I saw a documentary about Pixar where they essentially said that if they tried to re-create Cars using the computer power available when they made Toy Story the rendering would have taken around 2000 years. Computers are awesome.
[I had watched the Reggie Yates documentary called No Strings Attached, but I got bored. It was a modern documentary with reviews and reminders bracketing every advert break and that ruined it. Not worth watching.]
So, here’re some photos from the Disaster Area gig on the 20 March. Our set list, although small, was perfectly formed.
The quality of these photos is terrible, mainly because they’ve come from the Disaster Area Facebook page. If you really want to see more head over to that stuff. As I’ve explained before: I don’t do Facebook.
I went to see Insurgent. It’s the second film in the Divergent series [if that’s what they are called]. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and you should read this communication for a better understanding of how I rate films, it’s subjective you see. I reviewed Divergent.
I rated Insurgent (2015) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/9LN5sHiHhv
— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 20, 2015
I’m not entirely sure this film had a stand out moment. It was a quite pedestrian storyline. I have a feeling it could have been made more exciting, but I may be suffering from YAL overload. You see, I watched Maze Runner recently. It’s probably fair to say that the overall plot of the films are exactly the same. I’m not sure the youth can claim this kind of dystopian future for themselves, but then every generation needs their own films and music to claim. We have to give the youth these views so that they feel empowered to contribute and change the system.
I feel a certain nostalgia for the badfuture films of the 70s and 80s. Granted, we did have a cold war and the threat of death within four minutes [if you were lucky] but we also needed the films to promote social change. The problem as I see it is that the wrong kind of social change happened. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that politics, power and greed gets in the way.
The poor youth of today constantly worried about the extremely low probability of being killed by a murderer [or terrorist as we now call them if they are a little different to us], they must find it very upsetting. Bollocks. It’s been worse in the past. It’ll get worse again.
Anyway, the film was OK. Nothing brilliant.
Gran Turismo is a wonderful game. If you log in on your birthday you get a car from the year of your birth. Me? I was born in 1972. This is the car I got. Sheer beauty.
Here’s another, these are like buses!
Some pictures from the East Kent Coast.
I guess this is an historical type communication. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to write this but this site does have some odd pages, like this one and this one. The communication about my home network is incorrect now and one day I intend to update it.
I am a bit of a gadget fan. Although I would like to think that I evaluate whether something will add to my life and make it easier before I go ahead and buy something. The Apple Watch, for instance, or any other smart watch is not something that I am currently willing to invest in. I have looked at it, and decided that I am currently happy to stick with my watch and phone as separate devices. My phone is within easy reach and the watch tells me the time and date [if I remember to correct the date at the end of months where d<31]. I also spent quite a long time looking into wearable technology when my Up band died [again].
So, this communication is a list of televisions I have owned. The title really does say it all.
Pre-personal ownership:
So, there it is. The list. I’m not sure I get the 4k thing. Once the resolution is high enough your eye can’t differentiate a higher resolution. I think 4k content providers are also a long way away. Curved TVs – WHAT!!!!? How does a curved TV improve my experience? It reduces your viewing points and take sup more space, surely a backwards move.
I saw this film last night. As ever I have rated it on the IMDB website, or rather the IMDB app.
I rated Chappie (2015) 8/10 #IMDb http://t.co/UNefdZ4Xsk
— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 6, 2015
I think a little next morning rethinking means that I could possibly downgrade this to a 6/10. If you need to understand my rating system then read this communication.
I really enjoyed this film. Within the last six months I watched District 9, made by the same people and I enjoyed it and also found it a very interesting film given the storylines and location. District 9 dealt with the legal repression of a race of beings in South Africa. I thought it was a great film you can sit and watch or an even better critique of the recent past.
Chappie [apart from having an awful title] was quite similar. Many of the locations seemed very similar as it was films around Johannesburg. The laboratories looked and felt similar. I wonder whether the director has the same location or a very distinct look that he wanted for both films.
I would describe this film as a grown up version of Short Circuit. There was so much about it that I liked. There were some science-type issues that I had, but I am willing to let the film have those technological problems for free. This film is worth a watch, just make sure you put the kids to bed first.
An aside is that there was a couple sitting next to me. Before the film they were talking, I was reading a book on my phone, I don’t watch adverts or trailers. The girl asked why the screen was curved. The bloke responded because it makes it look nice. Now that’s not really the case is it? The screen is curved so that all points on the screen are the same distance from the projector so that the focus works properly. I didn’t interject, that seemed rude but I really wanted to. Also, if you have a question like that why don’t you look up the real answer on the internet and learn something. don’t except any answer you hear, even the one I’ve just given, look it up, find out the real reason.
So, I went to see Focus, a film with Will Smith and other people. I rated it on IMDB, as ever you should see this communication to explain my ratings.
I rated Focus (2015) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/dEt2AxFLga
— Ian Parish (@iparish) February 27, 2015
This was an enjoyable film. It was a pretty standard con movie. There were twists and turns all the way. I very rarely watch con movies more than once, hence this is rated 6 on IMDB. The only con movie I can remember watching more than once was The Usual Suspects, although I guess that’s more of a thriller.
This film was quite good fun. It had all the glamour that you would want and rich people being used. The two main areas of play were New Orleans and Buenos Aires. Both cities looked lovely. Both I think I would like to visit.
The big con was interesting as it involves the world of car racing. There are a number of plot points that didn’t make a great deal of sense but I think I only spotted those because I do like car racing and follow the news and events.
Overall, this film was good.
I discovered this on Amazon recently. I used to watch this “back in the day”, or in other words in ancient history. This TV series by Hanna-Barbera is just right to show to my kids. There’s no real violence and it introduces mega-fauna and superheroes.
when reading through the reviews there’s plenty of scorn aimed at this series claiming the Godzilla never worked together with man, blah blah blah. Those should observe that Godzilla isn’t real and so anything can be written about it.
I wish to register a complaint.
Firstly the spelling of the title of this communication is deliberately wrong, I’ve used the US American English version. Secondly, where is this going?
I like watching Hawaii Five-O. I like seeing the wonderful Hawaiian scenery. I also quite like the characters. I’ve been watching for five seasons now and I still enjoy it. OK, the technology is purely comical and the team can hack into any CCTV system and use facial recognition etc. The plots are far fetched and they have jumped the shark many, many times. In fact I think I have tweeted about that before.
I think Hawaii 5-O just jumped the shark.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) June 13, 2014
Now I have a problem with this and many other films and TV series which include dubious science. Having this level of nonsense in the public domain creates an impression where some things are seen as essential or that they actually work. I do understand that 5-O is a TV show and that they must get their man. I honestly do get that. I also understand that a major plot device is that they aren’t the police but a “special taskforce” and so they can blow shit up without too much hassle. Much like Inspector Morse gave the impression that Oxford was full of murderers so 5-O gives the impression that violent crime is rampant in the USA’s 4th smallest state [by land area].
Another thing that this TV show pushes into the public perception of acceptability is torture. Suspects are often beaten and are left chained to a chair in a small room to consider their options. I am pretty sure that this helps permeate public perception that torture works. There are many films where the bad people are tortured and then the world is saved. This is all good for governments who indulge in poor unscientific behaviour. I would suggest you follow the links in these articles to see what I mean.
Ultimately, torture doesn’t work. It’s illegal. It won’t help you get the information you want. It makes you barbaric. For a good discussion about stopping terrorism then I suggest you listen to this episode of Freaknomics. I still watch 5-O. But at the same time I like to think that I can ignore the bullshit aspects of it and use the TV show as 45 minutes of escape and relaxation [apart from the bloody Halloween specials that they do I hate those shows].
Halloween specials in TV series are annoying. — Ian Parish (@iparish) February 12, 2015
While I’m on terrorism here’s why data-mining doesn’t work.
Hmmm. Went to see Jupiter Rising last night at the IMAX cinema screen in the Bluewater shopping complex. Even though it was the 19:40 showing the shopping centre was really busy, I just wanted to use a megaphone and shout “go home people”. Well, as ever I rated this film on IMDB, and even more please remember how my scoring system works.
I rated Jupiter Ascending (2015) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/nq3j8CTt4f
— Ian Parish (@iparish) February 22, 2015
So, I expect that I will watch this film again, probably with my children as an entry into grand science fiction themes. I think we need to call this one fantasy rather than sci-fi though. I quite liked the grand themes and scenery of this film. It was pretty impressive work. The overall story was interesting and a good idea.
BUT. This was not a great film. The acting seemed pretty poor to me and the script was dull. It was like a poor man’s Dune with grand themes of ruling families and expensive commodities. The action scenes were too busy, it was hard to follow or see what was happening. This has been a problem I noticed since Transformers. In that film there was lots of CGI fighting and machines changing but everything happens too quick or too much of it, it’s like they are trying to distract you from the fact that they don’t know what’s going on or how the machines work.
Jupiter Ascending had an awful lot of falling in it.
Overall, this film gets a 6/10 from me but only because I will probably watch it again, not because I thought it was an OK film.