Just a picture I took in the HM Garden.
The Mass I Lost
The quick way but maybe not the easiest way I could lose mass would be to change the cross component of the Higgs Field, a by-product of which would be adjusting the mass of the Higgs Boson. I failed in my quest to do this, the scientists at Cern weren’t happy with my suggestions.
Towards the end of 2011 I wanted to lose mass. I had been large (95Kg) for a while and it was time to get fitter and aim for a healthy mass. I had heartburn a lot and snored a lot with some sleep apnea rolled in for fun. My details from Wolfram|Alpha.
By simply calorie watching and keeping to a maximum of 1800kCal a day I lost weight. Probably at about half a kilogram a week. The sums are quite simple! A kilogram of body fat contains around 7000kCal. So, if you reduce your calorie intake by 500kCal a day, you will lose around 3500kCal a week of body fat. If you don’t believe my fat energy content then just look up the calorific content of butter or margarine. They are both pretty similar to body fat.
Within 3 or 4 months I had reached a natural limit of mass loss by diet alone and so decided to up the game with some serious exercise. I started small. Running and jogging a mile. Eventually I built this up to 4 or 5 mile runs over about a period of six months. I lost the rest of the mass and settled at about 80Kg. I tried to do about three runs a week at roughly 500kCal each. That means about 3 miles per run. You could walk this distance and achieve roughly the same effect, it just takes longer to complete the 3 miles.
My heartburn has vanished. I no longer snore. I don’t have sleep apnea anymore. I have a resting heart rate of around 50 bpm and I can run for 10k without feeling dead. As long as I run I get to enjoy some bad foods now and then. I feel pretty great.
There are days I hate this. There are days I really don’t want to run or I find it particularly unenjoyable. You have to get over these. It’s so easy to slip back into old habits.
I know the BMI isn’t perfect as a measurement but it’s a good guide to use.
Logging My Life
I’ve had a request [!] to cover some subject matter on this website! What a wonderful thing to happen. I’m quite excited to use this opportunity to pass on information that might influence others. Mind you, I guess the point of some of my communications is to persuade readers to think and to challenge their current thought patterns.
Since December 2011 I have been recording everything I eat. I did this originally to help me lose mass. I do it now to maintain my mass. I think I have a curious relationship with food, although it’s probably not much different to anyone else’s. Over the last twenty five years or so my mass has varied from around 80Kg to 95Kg. Long gone are the active days of my teenage years where I didn’t have to think about these things. I can still remember going gliding with the Air Cadets at RAF Wethersfield and being asked my mass in pounds, it was 140lbs. I don’t think I could physically get that low any more.
During the first half of 2012 I actively tried to lose mass. The process of this will be covered in another communication. To help this process of losing body mass I logged my food using an iPhone app. This is good for a few reasons. Firstly, you get to learn and understand the calorific values of the foods you eat. Secondly, you realise that it’s extremely easy to over eat. Lastly, you start to see the body as an incredibly efficient food-to-energy machine. It shouldn’t really be a surprise but the amount of food needed to sustain the body is not really that much in comparison to the amount we expect to eat. There is a big social problem in that large portions are acceptable and that people can’t add up. When you learn that walking or running 1600 metres will burn around 160 calories [just under two slices of plain bread] you realise that it’s a lot of effort to lose half a kilo of fat!
I use MyFitnessPal to record my food intake and, early on during my mass loss programme, I used this to record my activity and exercise too.
Food can be scanned and the nutritional details are entered automatically. It’s a very handy way to keep track of what you eat. Sometimes you have to guess, especially if you eat out, but over time you get a good idea of how much energy is in the food. I will be a bit more specific in another communication.
To track my exercise I use an app called MapMyRun. It tracks the route that I run and then also converts the information it receives to calculate my energy burn. This app can be used for cycling, walking or logging any activity.
I have spent quite a while looking up energy burn and calibrating the data I get from the app. I have looked at academic papers about energy use and also looked at information from Australian sports institutes. In very basic terms, if you walk or run 10m you use 1 kCal. I think the apps I use are accurate to a sensible level of accuracy. If there are errors it could be within a 200kCal range and it wouldn’t really affect the outcome. Just by being more aware of energy intake and output you learn to self regulate a bit.
I like the apps I used to log my life as they synchronise with my Up software. This means that all the information I enter cross-pollinates and everything adds up nicely! It saves having to enter lots of data into different apps.
Yes, I do know that I used the term MASS throughout this communication and I am aware that I was actually referring to what most people would call WEIGHT. The problem is that I’ve not been measuring my weight for a few years, if I had the units would be in Newtons. If I use the units of KG then I must be measuring MASS. If you don’t like the use of this term then I suggest you don’t read any more of these communications.
Up – One Year
I have been a member of the Up community for a year. I first found out about the Up band on the flight to Washington DC and then bought one in the Apple Store in Georgetown.
The Up band measures and stores information about my movement. That is pretty much it. What this allows me to do is track my steps each day and also my sleep patterns. The Up app on my iPhone also connects to my food intake app and the app I use to track my runs and other forms of exercise.
In the year that I have owned an Up band I have had a number of replacements. I think I have had to get three replacements. I’m not sure if there is a build issue but something seems to go wrong. While I still have a band that is in the guarantee period I will continue to use an Up band. Eventually, the company will stop replacing them for me and I’ll probably jump ship to another fitness tracker.
Over the last year and for the periods that data is available [there’s about two months for which I do not have any data as I had no band] I have:
- Eaten an average of 2492 kCal per day
- Burnt an average of 2502 kCal per day
- Made an average of 9064 steps per day
- Walked an average of 7803 metres per day
- Average sleep per night is 7.04 hours
I have just noticed that n=308, so two months without the band is about right.
My Up band, large, onyx.
British Summer Time
I don’t like change. I particularly don’t like changing the clocks. Some of my distaste for this biannual event is that it means I have to walk around my house adjusting various time displays and I also have to find the instructions for the cooker because I can never remember how to change the time on it. Why does my cooker need a clock? I also don’t like the day being asymmetric for around six months of the year. Finally, more daylight in the evening means more glare on my television [I need to buy some curtains but haven’t for ten years and so the likelihood of me getting around to it is quite low].
For around six months of the year we change the clocks so that we are in British Summer Time, what our American cousins would call Daylight Saving. I find this bizarre. I like how our clocks are aligned during the winter. When it is midday the sun is at its highest point in the sky and also due south. This makes an amazing amount of sense. I am aware that local midday is different across the UK and it depends how far east or west you are from the meridian but as a general measure it works well.
What I don’t like is the notion of midday during British Summer Time. The sun is not at its highest in the sky and won’t be for about an hour (depending on where you are). There is apparently an economic argument for having more daylight time later in the evening but I have yet to be convinced that it makes any difference. The “farmers need the light” argument is quite pathetic. Farmers would just get up earlier. I am not aware of any good reason to perform this ritual mess up of my routines.
Let me explain a couple of things.
The definition of noon is, first and formost, MIDDAY.
The definition of midday is the MIDDLE of the day. If our clocks say 12pm [12:00] then this should be the middle part of the day. If the sun is yet to rise to its highest point and we have more daylight hours after 12:00 than we had before the 12:00 BST is NOT midday. AM and PM both contain M which stands for meridian.
So, meridian refers to midday which refers to the middle of the day which, to me, is quite clearly the middle of the day when the sun is at its highest.
I could almost accept us changing to be in line with other European countries as we trade and work closely with them but unfortunately they are also wrong. France is either GMT+1 or GMT+2 and given that Paris lies on the meridian they clearly have no idea about how time works.
By the way, the National Physical Laboratory recommends the use of the 24 hour clock. I think I tend to use the 24 hour clock on this site more than I do am and pm. Apparently there is no convention to indicate whether midday is am or pm. I had thought that this was solved and that midday is pm but amazingly not.
If the NPL are telling us something we should listen.
I am quite aware that my bad feeling towards BST is mostly to do with my interpretation of the definitions and that other people might decide to define midday as the point when our clocks are halfway through the day rather than use the sun to define the halves of the day.
Just so you are aware the international time standard is UTC.
Although UTC is synonymous with GMT and for all intents and purposes the same it is no longer a recognised standard. UTC is maintained by the scientific community and GMT is not. I used UTC as the time indicator on my tattoos.
Five Finger Death Punch
I snuck into London last night to see Five Finger Death Punch at The Forum in Kentish Town. Curiously Kentish Town didn’t look as Kent-like as the name implies. Here’s a power station viewed from the fast train from Ebbsfleet to St Pancras [who was a Roman convert to Christianity and beheaded for his belief].
I had a pleasant walk from the London terminus to The Forum, about 40 minutes, and waited in The Assembly Rooms for Smith. Once he had arrived we chatted and ate. The queues to enter the auditorium were large, but gave us time to digest the contents of the flyers we were handed before discarding them in the traditional manner.
The first band on were called Pop Evil. They played ROCK. It was ok. Not to my current tastes but they were a good warm up band.
Then, on came Upon A Burning Body. A band from Texas. They played pretty good music although I couldn’t understand most of what the singer sang. This didn’t worry me, I don’t really do lyrics. Although I wouldn’t go out of my way to see this band again they were pretty good over all. I liked the suits they wore.
During their set all the lights stopped working and they carried on while lit from torches held by security and the guys in the “desk-in-the-middle”. The pit opened up in front of me and it was quite funny to see this close. Young men running in circles and generally pushing into each other. The atmosphere was one of comradeship as when someone fell down after being hit, they would be helped up by everybody. I saw a couple of rugby tackles and at some point it turned into a competition to see who would be the last man standing. Then, it went wrong. A short tubby man decided he was going to hit with his hands. He threw a punch and got warned to stop by most in and around the circle. He had gone too far. You don’t intentionally hit people in this small world of machismo. Then he threw another punch, caught a chap on the chin and stood gloating. About five guys rushed at him, pushing him to the floor and then two of them dragged the guy to the side and security. I didn’t see him again. As much as most people would look in horror at “the pit” it’s actually a safe place where, if you accept the rules, you will be looked after and everyone has the same needs.
Five Finger Death Punch burst onto the stage playing “Under and Over It”. There was energy and excitement. They played well and have a good stage presence. I was really impressed at Download last year and so was looking forward to this. They played songs. I don’t know the names of the songs. I just recognise them. I’m pretty sure my head is full up and can’t learn new song names. Also, the way I listen to music has changed. I no longer sit in my bedroom staring and the record sleeve, I play music while running, driving or working.
It was a solid gig. They played well. They played 3 ballads too many. I hate ballads. The atmosphere gets lost and the energy of the room fades during ballads. Also, as a rock child of the eighties, ballads were how bands promoted themselves. They had their place but are not necessary anymore.
The set finished at 22:30. This made the FFDP stage time about seventy minutes which was rather short. I was hoping to hear four more hard and heavy songs when the houselights went up. I was left feeling a little disappointed. They didn’t quite “bring the house down” in my opinion. A big problem for me was the singing of the chorus to Champagne Supernova by Oasis. I never liked Oasis. I think they wrote poor songs, sang badly and were hyped in a battle with a group of real intelligent people who could write songs. Don’t be a metal band and then play some Oasis. They were shit. It’s shit and it makes you shit.
White Hart
The White Hart in Godstone is a place where I meet with a close friend, named Penguin, to put the world to rights, to try and figure out answers to the questions and to have old fashioned conversations without using the internet to find out the real answers.
We normally meet on an evening and arrive around 19:30 and are the last people to leave, barring the few employees still around. Our usual waitress is Caroline. On the times when I have been there at different times somehow Caroline is working! I went on a Sunday with Smith and family and Caroline was working there and today, Caroline was on shift and looked after us for the duration of her time working, she left before us!
Our conversations are rather Sorkin-like. Or, at least that’s what we like to think. We jump from topic to topic and sometimes never resolve the original problem or question. I had intended to write up a summary of our conversation but after meeting and chatting it was quite clear I would not be able to do this. Our topics changed so frequently and jumped back and forth that to produce an accurate representation would require recording the conversation and then categorising it while listening to about six hours of audio. I couldn’t write stuff as we were talking, it took my concentration away from the listening.
Here’s what I managed to grab from the first 10-15 minutes:
- XKCD and XKCD prints
- Waitress and whether we should eat outside
- The hierarchy of conversations
- Gran Turismo 6 and my note pad
- Fingernail and the rock evening
- Punctuation marks
- Cameras
- 80s pop music and memory theories concentrating on facial recognition.
This does not include any matters that were discussed that shouldn’t appear in this particular format! To keep recording conversations for about 5 hours would be detrimental to the conversation. Maybe next time we should hire a stenographer?
These are the presents I received and I’m very happy with them too. In my opinion you can’t go wrong with Lego and a book explaining how to watch NFL is a good move.
We do allow ourselves a chance to correct or inform post-meeting. If one of us finds out something important or a correction then we SMS each other. I got a link to this graphing website after discussing The Newsroom and The West Wing [both Sorkin]. I also got some news about a couple of New Orleans Saints players who might be traded.
My time spent in Godstone is incredibly precious to me. It’s a chance to really nerd-out and discuss any issue without fear of what might be thought of me. I am very grateful for this.
Rain, Sunset and Fields
A Kent sunset:
A panorama. To be honest it looked much better than this!
GT6 Birthday Present
If you sign into GT6 on or after your birthday you get a present. The car you receive is from the year you were born. I will remain grateful for the present but surely there were other cars released in 1972!
Super Licence S-5
The last of the Super Licence tests and it’s to Ronda in Spain and the Ascari race circuit in a Bugatti Veyron. A big heavy car with loads of power.
Times required:
- Gold 2:14
- Silver 2:16
- Bronze 2:20
Here’s the car at the start line [I’ve been playing with the photographic settings within GT6].
A map of the track:
The start line is inbetween KZ1 and Rafael.
Progress was as follows:
Lap 1 – 2:30:848
Lap 2 – off 1/4 of the way around (Copse).
Lap 3 – Off at Rafael.
Lap 4 – Off 2/3 way (Sebring).
Lap 5 – Off KZ1, too fast on exit.
Lap 6 – 2:18:833 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 2:16:873.
Lap 8 – Off at Copse.
Lap 9 – Off at Senna S.
lap 10 – Off at Copse.
Lap 11 – Off at The Screw.
Lap 12 – Off at Oulton.
Lap 13 – Off at Sebring.
Lap 14 – Off at Brundle.
Lap 15 – Off at Senna S.
Lap 16 – Off at The Screw.
There now followed 6 laps where I didn’t record my progress. I was getting frustrated and just wanted to keep trying rather than write down everything.
Lap 23 – 2:14:526 Silver.
Again, there is a recording intermission of 6 laps of frustration.
Lap 30 – 2:13:583 GOLD.
I have all GOLD for all my Super Licence tests. Good job.
I did get some reward cars, but didn’t note them down. The next time I turn the PS3 on I’ll have a look and try to remember to write them down here, because you care about that sort of thing.
All the pictures on this page came from my fastest lap. I do like how I got airborne at Rafael (the first corner). After watching the replay I can see plenty of apexes I missed and areas to improve my time if I so wished, but I probably don’t.
Pigeon Check Update
The “pigeon-check” is not longer necessary. See this communication. My place of work (see the EXIF data in the photo) has installed pigeon-spikes along the top of the building and so the level of poop has decreased to zero. Win!
Doodle
Many thanks to Google for my personalised Google-Doodle today. I guess it’s not hard to figure out when to show that particular doodle but it made me smile.
My age today is officially the answer to the meaning of life the universe and everything.
Super Licence S-4
Part of the continuing series in trying to develop a parameter as an example to use in teaching a topic I might not teach for a while. It’s an extremely feeble excuse, I know. This is a record of my attempts to pass the S-4 Super Licence in Gran Turismo 6.
This test is a timed lap of the Brands Hatch GP circuit in Kent, UK. The car to be used is the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4. The only car adjustments that can be made are to the TCS and ABS systems.
GT6 needed to perform an update before I could play. It was a “light” one coming in at 100MB. I had to wait a short while before I could start the game.
The required times were:
- 1:34:5 Gold
- 1:36 Silver
- 1:39 Bronze
Lap 1 – 1:43:258.
Car seems stable in the corners and not too much oversteer on exit when putting the power down. Now time to find where I can increase corner speed, especially exit speed on Surtees and Stirling’s.
Lap 2 – Hit cone on inside of Hawthorn’s trying to cut corner and get power on along the Derek Minter Straight.
Lap 3 – 1:38:825 Bronze.
Lap 4 – Off at Paddock Hill Corner.
Lap 5 – Off at the exit of Druids, too wide.
Lap 6 – 1:37:999
Lap 7 – Off at Hawthorn’s, lost rear of car on inside of corner.
Lap 8 – Off at the exit of Hawthorn’s, too wide, too fast.
Lap 9 – 1:36:428
Lap 10 – Off the exit of Sheene.
Lap 11 – Off at Paddock Hill exit.
Lap 12 – Off the exit of Hawthorn’s, oversteer on the entrance of the corner.
Lap 13 – Off at Hawthorn’s entrance.
Lap 14 – Off at Westfield.
Lap 15 – 1:35:599 Silver.
Lap 16 – Off at Hawthorn’s, oversteer.
Hawthorn’s appears to be my plague corner. It’s a high speed entrance, just after Pilgrim’s Drop and a good exit speed is needed to keep at low time along the Derek Minter Straight. It’s no coincidence that this is the corner I get wrong the most.
Lap 17 – Off at the exit of Graham Hill’s.
Lap 18 – Off on the entrance to Paddock Hill.
Lap 19 – Cut the corner and hit a cone at Hawthorn’s.
Lap 20 – 1:35:241 I was one second ahead until Sheene Curve where it went a little “scrappy”.
Lap 21 – Off along the Cooper Straight [can’t remember what happened there, but it would have been hilarious to watch!].
Lap 22 – Off at Graham Hill exit.
Lap 23 – Hawthorn’s again.
Lap 24 – Sheene Curve caused an exit from the tarmac.
Lap 25 – Hawthorn’s.
Lap 26 – Paddock Hill Corner.
Lap 27 – Sheene Curve exit.
Lap 28 – 1:35:006 a very scrappy lap.
Lap 29 – Druids, the *force* was used to push my car wide.
Lap 30 – 1:33:970 GOLD. Job done.
This was a very satisfying test to complete.
Here’s a shot of the car coming around Graham Hill Corner on my fastest lap.
Super Licence S-3
I’ve a feeling these communications will not prove interesting to most of my readership, but then again, I’m not sure what would interest my readers and this website isn’t for them anyway.
This is my progress through the Gran Turismo Super Licence S-3. The test is a lap of the Silverstone Stowe circuit in KTM X-Bow R. This is a picture of the track with the double blue lines showing where the start and finish line is. The chicanes circled in blue aren’t part of the GT6 circuit.
The challenge times were:
- 1:04:00 Bronze
- 58:50 Silver
- 57:03 Gold
The car is interesting. Here’s a shot as I headed down the long straight.
As this is a licence test adjustments can only be made to the traction control and anti lock brakes settings. My session went as follows:
Lap 1 – Off, first corner, oversteer.
Lap 2 – Collision corner 2, hit cones placed on inside to stop cutting the corners.
Lap 3 – Off last corner. No time set so far.
Lap 4 – Cut corner 1. Restart.
Lap 5 – Cut corner 2.
Lap 6 – 58:913 Bronze.
Lap 7 – 58:072 Silver.
Lap 8 – Off, last but 1 corner.
Lap 9 – Off at the end of the straight, too fast into the corner.
Insert here about 5 offs which I neglected to record.
Lap 15 – 58:137 Silver.
Lap 16 – 57:370. Close to Gold, 0.07 off.
Lap 17 – Off corner 4.
Lap 18 – Off corner 1.
Lap 19 – Off about half way around.
Lap 20 – 57:437.
Lap 21 – 57:121 Gold.
Job done. Here’s an arty shot:
Need For Speed
I rated this film on IMDB as a 4/10 using my new guidelines to rating films, discussed here.
This was a bad film. Let me try and explain my choice of words there. The script was bad, the acting was bad, the racing was comical, the plot was appalling and the geography was bad. The scenery was gorgeous and Michael Keaton was brilliantly over the top. Otherwise, this was in general a bad film. I wanted it to end after about an hour and it didn’t, it kept piling up the turds for another 70 minutes! Yes, this is a long, tedious bad film.
I shall now go into some more detail. Like most things in life we like to focus on the bad things and rant and moan and yet don’t commit the same dedication to the good things. My good reviews on this site are probably pretty short, while the bad ones just let the venom flow.
I fully understand that this movie is based on a game franchise and I have played a version of the game [Carbon I think] which was quite good fun. I’m more of a circuit racer than street racer as I don’t like the unpredictable. It’s why I never really got on with Mario Karts as I hated being in the lead and then some crappy mushroom hitting me and making me last. If it’s a driving game then I like driving and not being t-boned from out of nowhere.
The characters were pretty one-dimensional. There was a successful racer, Dino Brewster, who had left town and raced at Indy but was a bit of a cock. Well, those people exist. The reason he left town was because he was better driver at the time than the main character, Tobey Marshall. There’s a race. There’s a failing company and a last chance at redemption and getting the company going again. It seems that Tobey isn’t very organised or clever. He wins a race. There’s a death. Tobey goes to jail. Tobey gets released and immediately jumps bail to enter a race on the other side of the country. Oh god, it’s bad writing this, making me relive the film. I’ll cut to the chase and keep it simple.
They don’t where seat belts while racing. Now, you can’t get decent feedback from the car unless you are tucked in nice and tight.
Every corner requires oversteer. This isn’t the fastest way to get around a corner. Yes it looks flash but to win you need to go fast and sliding isn’t fast.
Geography. One moment we are in Detroit and then we are in the Grand Canyon [looking remarkably like Pixar’s Cars scenery] and then they are flown by helicopter to the Bonneville Salt Flats a mere 500 miles away. Really? Maybe I’m being too much of a realist?
The cars were quite nice but let down by deliberately jogging the camera while racing to make you think they were going faster than they really were. You know the simple tricks to make you worry about the speed limit:
- Camera down by the road
- Shaking
- Endless gear changes
- Filming close to increase the pan speed
- Smoke from spinning wheels
- Noise
Curiously most of the cars in the final race were European. There was a Saleen and possibly another US car but it seems that we Europeans have the best aesthetic appeal when it comes to cars.
The Ford-Shelby Mustang was interesting but then if you are renovating a car you don’t fit it with a HUD or Recaro seats, you make it like as it was intended to be. Oh, and the JUMP!! The Mustang was clearly heading for a major front axle bend when it landed. It’s like the old Dukes of Hazard when their car would launch and then obviously land at such an angle as to break the car in half and then in the very next shot Luke and Bo (?) would be seen driving normally.
If you have a USA Police Car chasing a Koenigsegg then, let’s face it, the Koenigsegg is going to win and at the same time it will speed away from the police, especially around corners. The film had police cars easily keeping up with the Koenigsegg. That’s not really how it works.
I’ll explain the biggest problem. I didn’t LIKE any of the characters. They were pretty much all arseholes.
It’s interesting now that when I see a film I form sentences that will eventually appear on this website. I try to remember my thoughts as the film develops and then commit them to this website. How did this film go? I remembered a lot and I’ve had to try and stop myself from filling pages about how bad this film was. If you want a car chase watch The Blues Brothers.
From Where?
Here’s a picture giving you some information about Fooyah visitors. I use Google Analytics for this type of data and very nicely it works too. These data cover the calendar year 2013. I think I’ve had this site for around 3 years, I’m not sure, I’ll have to have a look at my GoDaddy account.
So, what does this tell me? It tells me that somehow people find their way onto my site from around the world. I don’t know how, there’s nothing here that is of interest, unless you know me, and I don’t know people (1 degree of separation) from these countries!
Here’s a list of countries from where people have visited my site:
The actual list goes on some more but there’s not point going down that far. Heck, I only had three visits from Slovakia.
The map does tell me that most of Africa along with the Middle East and Central Asia aren’t that interested in what I have to say. You can’t blame them really. Oh, and Greenland, which looks massive but it’s a poor map projection.
No Heart
I noticed this earlier in my cupboard while I was putting away some crockery. It remains from the days when I had an FM radio/cassette/CD player in the kitchen.
This tape is Mechanical Resonance by Tesla. It’s actually a pretty good album. I don’t have the heart to throw away any of my old cassettes, records or CDs. It’d be like throwing away books – wrong.
NAS Drive Failure
On a list of things you don’t want to read [first world problems] is:
Drive 2 on this device is at risk of failing, please replace.
I guess there are worse things that this such as:
Drive 2 has failed.
Both drives have failed.
But still, it was enough to make me worry a little. My data on the NAS is organised in Raid 1 configuration so that both drives are exact copies, just in case one of them fails.
I spent some time investigating new NAS drives and making sure that I have space to expand but I think that will have to wait a few years. I would like a three or four bay device with two 2TB drives to start. I would only use Raid 1, but this configuration could potentially give me 8TB of data storage. I currently have used about 0.5 TB on the current NAS and that is after two years of ownership so I shouldn’t worry too much about needing the space until my sons get older.
I ordered a Western Digital 1TB Red drive as the WD website said that it was a suitable HDD for the ix2 series of NAS. I had planned for the whole operation to take an hour but in reality it took about 10 minutes and that was with me taking my time. Really impressed with how simple it was to replaced the drive.
Here’s the NAS.
After removing the two screws on the base of the device I removed the old disk 2.
Unscrewed the old HDD from the plastic casing.
Screwed the new HDD into the casing.
Slid the new HDD and casing into the NAS enclosure and replaced the screws in the bottom of the device.
Placed NAS back in its place in the “tech corner” of the house and turned it on.
After a lot of drive reading and writing it was ready for log in access and the control panel said it was rebuilding data protection [most instructions I read had said I would have to authorise this action]. I will amend this once the data rebuild is complete.
This whole process was pretty simple and I’m impressed with Iomega for the drive and am feeling quite smug at the moment.
Water Ice
I find the water ice crystals on the roof of my car yesterday morning rather attractive.
This photograph isn’t a brilliant representation of what I saw, so, I shall try again to take a picture next time the car is covered in a beautiful blanket.
#nerd
IMDB Ratings
I am considering re-adjusting my IMDB ratings. When I see a film I tend to give it a rating on IMDB [btw – I remember IMDB when it was a little web project at Cardiff University]. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I need to change my scoring system for these films and I am actually considering using even numbers only.
I have been worrying about what the difference between a 5 or a 6 might be. Also, Restricting the scoring to just the even numbers will mean that I have to consider the film and try to be more realistic. If I currently give something a 6 or 7 what does that difference show? What would be the difference between a 3 or a 4? I just don’t know. The scale of 0 to 10 seems too big for these things [especially as I’m not taking the mean of lots of scores].
I also think there is a human tendency to give middle of the road scores when we think something is average or even below par. If you have seen Come Dine With Me, you will be aware [or will be after this] that when the contestants don’t really know how to score a meal or want average then they tend to plump for a 6 or 7. Their words describe an evening that is probably below par but their score is one that is not meant to offend [6 or 7] but is really rather damning. I want to call this the “Come Dine With Me Fallacy”, which would mean that sub-optimal experiences receive scores that are perceived as “average”, rather than risk offend or come across as a nasty [but realistic] person.
So, at some point in the near future I am going to adjust my IMDB ratings. I will only use the even numbers [thoughts: I need to check if I can score a zero].
Have returned: I can’t score a zero on IMDB. That is not good. So, the default scoring system means that even the poorest film ever made will receive one star. This causes some problems. But I shall try to get around that. So, my new system goes:
- 10 Stars – I loved this film, I would pay to see it again in the cinema and maybe buy it to keep [Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, The Fifth Element].
- 8 Stars – A good film which I
certainlyprobably will watch again [The Rock, Independence Day]. - 6 Stars – While it was enjoyable at the time it is not a film I will spend the time to watch again [The Railway Man, Hunger Games], this might include films I think were really good critically but not ones I’d see again.
- 4 Stars – I only got to the end of the film to see what happened but I’ll admit it was poorly made and rubbish, maybe this is a good “bad film” [Titanic II]
- 2 Stars – [lowest possible score] I gave up watching this film before it had finished. I hated it [Sharknado]. I left the cinema [I would have left the cinema had someone not been in my way – Van Helsing].
I shall update this or write a new communication once I have updated my scores using this crib sheet and let you know which films I struggled to pigeon-hole.
Addendum
I have just started looking at my IMDB ratings and have decided that I will use the above scoring system BUT please understand that I am now using the “Will I watch again?” criteria and this is a personal thing, very subjective. I am able to spot a “good critically acclaimed film” but think my ratings should reflect my intentions about the film and not what I think the wider world will think (1st March 2014).
Further Addenda
I have just realised that this means that any film I enjoyed but won’t intentionally watch again ends up being scored a “6”. Oh, the irony, given I complained about the “Come Dine With Me” fallacy earlier. But, in my favour, I have declared that my scoring system will be 2,4,6,8,10. This means that a score of 6 is the mean and median of the scoring values. When reading my film scores you need to understand my system which I have at least tried to communicate here.
Even More Addenda
These are my latest (updated) scores using the system explained above. I don’t care if you think otherwise about some of the ratings.
Human Target appears twice because I rated an individual episode as well as the whole series.