Social – Page 41 – Fooyah

April 24 2017February 19 2020

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 is a space station 5 miles long. The adventures of this ship are chronicled in the TV documentary Babylon 5. Using interviews, memoirs, video messages and data harvesting a company managed to recreate what life will be like on Babylon 5. There are some stark warnings from the future for the current political elite.

Babylon 5 series 1 episode 1. Goodbye life. Hello escapism. See you in a year or so.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 4, 2014

So this tweet was dated 4th April 2014. That’s when I started working my way through Babylon 5. If I had paid more attention to when I started watching this then I would have tried to tweet the following two days earlier:

Babylon 5. Season 5. Episode 22. “Sleeping in light”.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 5, 2017

So, it took me three years and 2 days to complete the series. I don’t think that’s too bad. There’re 120 or so episodes and that averages out at one episode every ten days. It was a damn enjoyable experience. Jase gave me the box set a long time ago and I’ve been using them as a way of stabilising thoughts and also watching sci-fi. I haven’t stayed exclusive to this series and I have watched others along the way.

The stories are excellent and this show deserves the accolades it gets. I really enjoyed it. Obviously some episodes aren’t as good as others but overall this was a great TV show.

I am currently working through the spin-off series, Crusade, but there is only one series of that. Then there will be the B5 films.

Crusade. Episode 1. “The war zone”.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 6, 2017

If you want to see when I watched all the episodes of B5 then look at my offline-online twitter archive and search for “Babylon 5”.

April 23 2017April 23 2017

Obsessive Pedometry

Since April 2013 I have tracked my daily movement. I started using the rather stylish but shit Up by Jawbone. I bought this while in Washington DC and I loved it. The problem was that they don’t last long. I had three within a year, all replaced by guarantee.

My general thoughts are that this was a new company and reasonably new tech. It seems necessary that their early models would be rubbish to force improvement in the product. The early iPhones were shockingly bad in terms of the technology involved but at least the product worked as advertised.

To see previous communications about the Up by Jawbone, click or touch here.

In October 2015 my final Up band died and I switched to a Garmin Vivofit. Eventually I stopped wearing a watch because the Garmin on my right arm had a clock which pretty much negated the need for a separate timepiece on my left wrist.

At the end of March 2017 I had to replace the batteries in the Vivofit. They had lasted over two years. I don’t recall replacing them before and probably would have written about it within these esteemed communications. The replacement procedure was easy. The device worked within acceptable parameters after syncing with my phone.

While I was in Cyprus I swam in the sea twice in two days. I didn’t take my Vivofit off. I failed to remember that the seal may not have created a seal post battery replacement. On the penultimate day of the trip the Vivofit slowly drowned. I took it off.

When I got back to Blighty I took the Vivofit apart and let it dry out properly for a few days. In the mean time I had started wearing a watch again. I’m not young enough to want to look at my phone for the time. I like my watch. It is a nice looking watch.

I also ordered a Garmin Vivomove as I wanted to track my steps. When this arrived the clock face was too large for my tastes. I didn’t like it. for what it was it seemed quite expensive too. If it had been a third of the price I probably would have kept it and used it occasionally. But the look/price ratio wasn’t the correct magnitude.

When I put the Vivofit back together it seems to work fine. There will be some salt ingestion and I pondered rinsing it out and drying it thoroughly again but I think I won’t. I’m trying to be brave, I’ve taken the batteries out and the Vivofit is currently in a drawer in the bedroom. So, I have decided to give up counting steps.

This unnerves me greatly. But the arguments are sound:

I haven’t increased my steps/movement over the last two years. I do try to walk around work a few times a day but that’s not changed for two years.
I know roughly how far I have moved because of the years of tracking.
I like wearing my watch.
Being aware of my steps hasn’t changed my behaviour for a long time.
I use different apps for measuring my running and calorific intake.

If I feel too unsettled I can always put the batteries back in the Vivofit and start wearing it again. But overall, I consider this a positive thing. I managed about forty years of my life without a fitness tracker and maybe I can manage some more now. It’s always worth challenging yourself, even if it’s the obsessive part of you.

April 2 2017April 12 2018

Gotta Love A Wokka

What’s better than a Wokka flying overhead?

Three Wokkas flying overhead.

iPhone photos. No telephoto. Sorry. #avgeek #wokkas pic.twitter.com/4OYZz0MhiU

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 2, 2017

Everyone should love the sound of these elegant beings. They are gorgeous.

March 31 2017June 20 2018

Carterton

I recently had a day trip with the cadets to RAF Brize Norton. We visited three main areas of the base:

TMW – Tactical Med Wing
GEW – General Engineering Wing
47 Sqn

I learnt a lot and saw two types of aircraft I hadn’t seen before. The weather was quite grey and so the photos are a bit of a washout, I don’t do Photoshop. The low cloud base did mean that the aircraft would take off and about fifteen seconds later they would climb through the cloud.

March 25 2017October 19 2017

Carbon Footprint

I recently ordered a day-sack cover from a company using Amazon. It arrived and I was somewhat shocked.

The rest of the box had that paper-stuff in it to hold the rain cover in place. I have written about this before in this communication.

While this sort of packaging excess does seem a waste I’ve got some other ideas. Fuel use for transporting goods is largely dependent on the mass of the object. So although the box added something to the mass it was still reasonably light and so not a huge carbon drain. If the box is recycled then it doesn’t really matter about how much cardboard there was. There’s probably more carbon used in making the plastic wrapper of the item than in the box, as long as the box comes from a sustainable source.

So, upon reflection this excessive packaging may not be as bad a first thought.

I do think that eventually everything will be labelled with a “carbon factor” to make people aware of just how much carbon they emit and how well we are fucking the planet. Because we are. It is fucked. Utterly fucked. I am glad I will be dead in one hundred years. There are going to be wars over water, food and power. I am just very sorry that my children, or potential grandchildren, will be involved in that and the people to blame will all be dead. My parents’ generation and mine have screwed this planet over.

I could be calmed, I guess, by fluffy cat or dog pictures. But they don’t distract me from the bullshit. They reinforce our collective ability to ignore all that is going on.

March 13 2017October 19 2017

Gojira – O2 Forum

I don’t understand the Sunday night gig thing. I do know that the law changed a while back to allow dancing and music for public entertainment on Sundays but I don’t understand why so many gigs are now on Sundays, in London. Can’t the cities in the rest of the country have the Sunday gig? Sunday nights out are a big inconvenience.

First band up were already playing when Smith and I got into the venue. They were called Car Bomb and they were shit. Some of the crowd really liked them, but I couldn’t get on with their music. There didn’t seem to be any method or pattern to it at all, there wasn’t really any good riffing or beat.

There’s a possibility I’m too old for the newer styles of metal like core-metal and nu-metal. Code Orange were the next band. They had a drummer singer and a bassist who ran around and got the crowd going but who didn’t sing. There was also a female guitarist but I’m not sure if mentioning that is sexist or not. They were much better than the first band and they actually had some songs that had a good rhythm. I’ve got written down that they were core-metal with some good riffage. I don’t think this is my thing.

And we come to the finale. Gojira are a French metal band along the lines of Mastodon but less pretentious? I have listened to some of their stuff and think it’s better than Mastodon.

The sound was BIG. The light show was excellent. There was a video backdrop and it fitted very well with the songs and general atmosphere. The crowd was heaving and packed.

This was a good gig and it was nice to get back to the heavy metal sound.

Unfortunately I felt incredibly rough during the show and I left early. It had been a long weekend with lots of travelling. I feel bad for leaving Smith there, but I needed to get into fresh air and home. At least I saw the first half of the show. Gojira seemed overwhelmed at the support they had in London.

March 11 2017March 11 2017

Pre-Amp Filter

These communications contain many items concerning the virtual radar system that lives in my loft and you can see a selection here. A short while ago I decided to buy an pre-amp and filter for my system to improve the range and number of aircraft being received. So, this communication now requires a large number of pictures to give you an idea of what this means.

In the above picture you can see that there are around 20 aircraft and the black area [the range of the receiver] doesn’t quite reach Norwich, Portsmouth, Bristol or Calais. There is the NW-SE block as described before.

This coloured splat gives pretty much the same information but uses colours for the ranges of aircraft at different altitudes.

I bought a filter which only allows signals close to the 1090MHz requirement through to the USB stick I bought. It also acts as a pre-amp so there is an overall 14 dB gain.

Pre-Amp and Filter held securely in place

Here is the whole Virtual Radar system living in the loft:

Once this kit was turned on I looked at the DUMP1090 output from the Raspberry Pi and pretty much shat myself at the number of aricraft shown:

When this view is compared to the twenty or so aircraft that I had before you can see an immense improvement in the receivers ability.

Virtual Radar Server is a program I use on the RPi for a more detailed view, there are quite a few customisations you can create also. It is the software that will create the splat over time, keeping track of the aircraft and their position.

The distances have increased as has the overall coverage. I now track around 100 aircraft at a time. For a small sum of money the overall increase in detail has been terrific. I can now reach over northern France, over Wales and a lot of the channel to the SW.

A side by side comparison.

March 2 2017October 18 2017

Contrasts

Saw a lovely part of London today when I walked along the Regent’s Canal today. I was learning some maths in town and I had to walk from St Pancras to the venue and rather than walk along the main roads I took the tow path. I’m glad I did.

I also saw this exquisite book shop. There was music playing from loud speakers as I walked past and plenty of vinyl on display.

I also saw a lovely old industrial building that, if I had loads of money and the relevant experience I would turn this into a music venue.

It’s a shame I don’t have money, the contacts, the experience or any industry knowledge at all!

When I got back home I went for a run and jogged past this quality piece of Kent countryside. I think this is the second burnt out car to grace these pages!

But, there is good news: This lovely view over the Medway and Tonbridge and Malling Borough.

February 27 2017October 18 2017

VNV Nation – Scala

The Scala is a curious venue in Kings Cross. It might not actually be in Kings Cross geographically but it is close enough to the station and so that is where I proclaim it to be. I had been here before to see Therapy? and quite liked the venue. This time I was watching VNV Nation who I very briefly saw last year at M’Era Luna when they got a harsh review from me but Smith and I were rushing off to see Hocico so we only saw them briefly.

Doors were at 7pm and we got in there around 19:30 hrs after grabbing some food at a Cho Zen [where I had never eaten before]. The room is up three flights of art-deco stairs [I think they were art-deco] and around a few corners. It’s not an easy venue to fire exit I imagine.

This particular tour was a compendium tour. I hadn’t realised that, I think Smith and I got tickets because we thought the atmosphere and people would be quite similar to Slimelight and we figured the music would be bearable. There was no support. Just straight in to VNV Nation playing loud and proud.

I didn’t know a great deal about the band before this gig and I still don’t really but I can tell you the singer is Irish. He also has similar issues with people using camera phones as I do. After the first song he said that he is happy with people videoing or photographing the band but everyone needed to turn off their flash/lights and also keep the camera in front of their own face, not block those around. In terms of the flash he is spot on. Why use a low powered flash in that sort of scene, it won’t work, it’ll just ruin your final product.

One of my issues with people and cameras is they use the digital zoom to get a “better close up” but the problem is they would be better off taking a full zoomed-out picture and then cropping. Digital zoom and cropping achieve roughly the same thing but less jerky.

So, I need to speak about the songs. All of their songs are pretty good. They are well constructed and good to dance to. The lead singer was good at getting the crowd going and he was really the only one doing any movement as the others were stuck behind electronic stuff.

They played two slow songs. During a song, which may or may not have been a slow one, the singer got the lights turned down and the room was lit by people holding the lights on their phones up. This was very nice and atmospheric.

https://www.facebook.com/42907656257/photos/10154257794271258/

This was a good fun gig. Nearly three hours of a single band playing their greatest songs from over twenty years of work. I enjoyed it. I’d happily see them again.

The “scene” wasn’t as alternative as I was expecting. There weren’t that many people who were part of the dress up scene such as the ones at Slimelight or M’Era Luna.