penguin – Page 113 – Fooyah

April 2 2014April 5 2014

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.

March 31 2014April 5 2014

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.

Universal Coordinated Time

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.

March 30 2014April 5 2014

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.

March 30 2014March 30 2014

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.

March 23 2014April 5 2014

Rain, Sunset and Fields

A Kent sunset:

A panorama. To be honest it looked much better than this!

March 18 2014

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!

March 18 2014March 18 2014

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.

Corner 1 and 2, Veyron, Ascari — Rafael, Veyron, Ascari

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.

Veyron, Ascari, a bit of drift, The Kink

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.

March 15 2014

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.

A Lambo at Brands Hatch, Graham Hill Corner