Cognitive Blindspot

TED Talk: Rives on the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:27:00 +0000

I saw this video on the TED website and it put a huge smile on my face. As part of my work over the last few weeks I've become mildy addicted to the videos on TED. A significant portion of my hard drive is now consumed with videos from the site. All of them are free to download, free to promote, free to pass on. Go and see if there are any there that catch you fancy - I would be very much surprised if there is not something for everyone.

My personal favourite: Joshua Klein talking about the intelligence of crows, and how he designed a vending machine for them to use. Quite simply, one of the best talks I've ever seen.

So What Happened?

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 10:21:00 +0000

Basically, I finished my writing every day for a month, got caught up in tutoring for three days on a workshop and then started working from home. For some reason it felt like when I was at home I had to work, even though when I was doing my PhD (and working for the grad school for those three weeks) it never seemed to bother me if I wrote two or three blog posts some times.

Has been an interesting couple of weeks. I've got another two workshops lined up over the coming month, and have been commissioned (in the first instance) to spend a day developing an outline for some new online resources for the university's Graduate School. I'll be doing that this week, before the workshop this Wednesday to Friday, and if the man at the top is happy on Thursday then it looks likely that I will be commissioned to actually make the resources. I'd say there's about a 75% chance that that will happen, he seems really up for it.

Above and beyond the financial reward for doing it, there are two other reasons why it would be very good for me to do it:
1). It gives me valuable experience of actually being able to do these kinds of things, developing resources being the other half of the job that I'm carving out for myself.
2). By developing multimedia resources it gives me a very cool showreel of things that I can show potential clients.

An added bonus is that the man at the top has said that I can sit down with him and copy his list of contacts for people in his position at other institutions, and then he'll give me some pointers on what to put in a general letter/leaflet that I can send out.

So all is going well, even if I feel like some times I'm not progressing as quickly as I would like. I've been to a couple of courses on being self-employed, and also one on tax for the self-employed. Just have to keep on top of my records.

So there it is. All is well. Just a bit busy. And National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner!

Day 30 - Work Work Work

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Thirty days. All done.
I wish that this post was longer.
But it isn't.
Work was busy today - and tomorrow, when I start tutoring, it will be even busier!

More soon.

Day 29 - End In Sight

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:17:00 +0000

A short post today: London was good, especially not going around all of the sites as I've tried to do in the past. We didn't go to Hyde Park or the Houses of Parliament, or Downing Street or Leicester Square, or the West End or Soho. The Tate Modern on Saturday was tiring enough by itself! Lots of interesting things in there, some cool pieces... And I can now say that I have seen a video of a naked man rubbing cream on himself, jumping up and down a bit while wearing a monkey mask.

It was just so nice to have a weekend away from the norm. Maybe I said that at some point in one of my phone posts, I can't quite remember. I finished reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons, which was an interesting book but which left me a bit bemused at the end. Watched a lot of Stargate SG-1 at my friends' flat, went to church yesterday morning for the first time in a long time, and that was alright too.

This morning coming back I had just under an hour to spare and breakfast to get at Euston (by the way, in case you don't know, and despite what you might have heard about its services, the London Underground is amazing). Ended up getting some breakfast thing from Burger King - tasty, but bad idea, a bad, bad idea.

The salty, starchy, crisp hash browns which are no doubt incredibly bad for me kickstarted a need for junk food that I don't often get - and this lunch time when I went out to get some samosas I ended up coming back to the office with a caramel slice and a can of Coke!!!!!!!

For a long time my Coke habit has been once a year, if that... It's been twice in the last two months now... I think I might be getting addicted again. I don't even like the taste really, I just saw the red can and needed it...

Right, another half an hour in "work" and then home. Going to the library this evening, time to take my books back and find some other fun stuff to read: fingers crossed for a good popular science book and maybe a book on magic tricks!

Day 28 - Weekend in London

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:48:00 +0000

Ah, this is the stuff. Don't get me wrong, I think London is way too big, way too noisy and way too crowded for me to ever want to live here - although, you know, never say never - but if you're visiting there is always something to do.

It's the middle of Sunday afternoon, and we've just got back to the flat after church and lunch and a wander across and around London Bridge. Yesterday we had a lazy morning followed by a walk to the Tate Modern (there's a post coming, possibly tomorrow, on modern art) then came home, had a roast and watched TV while chatting away. Brilliant.

It's been really great just to get away and out of the regular routine for a couple of days - even though the routine lately has been highly irregular - and to have a break. It shocked me a few weeks ago when I realised that this was going to be my only holiday for the year; I've had days off, but none in a row, and I've not been away except for work-related stuff.

That said, my life is pretty exciting (and a little scary) lately with all of the changes that are going on. I'm glad to have this break but I don't want to be away for too long - there's so much great stuff going on in my irregular life!

Day 27 - Metropolis

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:49:00 +0000

This will be quite a disjointed post I think, seeing as how it is being written from my phone and my phone doesn't give me a great indication of sentence/paragraph length.

Another reason it will be quite disjointed is that what I'm going to say hasn't really been thought through properly; this is also a reason why the post might be on the short side, as my argument and points run out of steam.

In coming to London for the weekend, and having spent a good portion of the week thinking about lots of different things relating to futurism, society and open source concepts, I'm wondering whether humans are really meant to live in such massive social and physical constructions. We (in the UK at least, and to some degree I think in the US) see the same headlines rolling around all the time, at least it feels that way...

"Climate change" - "Obesity/Healthcare" - "Terrorism" - "Financial Crisis"

All of these are really complex issues, and we see on the TV and in the papers - well, on news sites - how people are trying to make a dent in them: renewable energy, reducing carbon footprints; education for the young on the importance of living healthily; preaching tolerance and reducing civil liberties; ... hmm, has anyone got an idea of how we approach the economic downturn?!

However it has occured to me that all of them have a root cause that I think is being completely overlooked: we did this to ourselves, not recently, but years and years ago when our ancestors started moving into cities... When we stopped buying food locally and instead bought preserved food shipped from halfway around the world, and later ready meals pumped with calories and chemicals but no nutrition... When we started on a path of exploiting "less developed" nations (for their own good, naturally), preaching "do as I say, not do as I do"... When we bought into the idea of centralised economies and currencies, piggybacking finances from one institution to another, and all the while spend-spend-spending because "hey, why not? And it keeps the economy going!"

We poisoned the well. We got too big for our britches.

Is the real root problem capitalism, and those sneaky, shady, omnipresent corporations? Is it governments running agendas, playing games above our heads? Is it just our own apathy, saying "it'll all work out, now move out the way, Big Brother is on"?

While I can't quite articulate my reasons on the subject yet, I'm beginning to wonder if the problem isn't just something as simple as this: as the size of a society grows the chances of that society failing increases exponentially...

These are all just thoughts, no conclusions, observations without solutions, tapped out on a small object of metal and plastic that wouldn't be possible without modern society.

More soon.

Day 26b - Sleepwalking to Dystopia

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:57:00 +0000

I saw this shocking post on the rollout of biometric radio chip embedded ID cards for migrant workers in the UK - with the added thing that this was a pilot scheme that would eventually widen its arms and embrace the whole population - and literally sat with dropped jaw and stopped heart.

Have you ever read a story or seen a film about a dystopian future? 1984, V For Vendetta - heck, even Equilibrium - we read or watch these and shudder, and think "Well at least that couldn't happen to me, to us, at least we're safe in our world." And we think, what must have happened for that world to come into being? How could a society let that happen? How could we allow the authorities to take our rights away from us, how could we let them spy on us all the time and make us feel guilty just for walking down the street, worried that we would be stopped for no reason?

We are living in the back story. This - the world today - is the prequel to that society.

Day 26 - Off To London

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:55:00 +0000

The last time I was in London was about six months ago, and I was there for only about six hours all in all (I was invited to give a talk in Essex, and didn't have time to stay over, literally there for the afternoon). I've never actually stayed in London more than one night, and although I've been there for a day's sightseeing before I've never been for a weekend or a short break.

Quite looking forward to it; have no big plans, other than trying to see if I can persuade my friends who I'm staying with to go and see Avenue Q - I don't really know if it is there sort of thing or not, but I've wanted to see it for quite some time now, and I've never seen a West End show.

If the weather's nice then we might go for a bit of a wander. I like the area around the Embankment, and Hyde Park is quite nice on a sunny day. Taking my camera and going to force myself to take lots of photos, it's quite difficult for me. I like taking pictures so that I can have something to look back on, but at the same time it always seems like something I forget to do because I'm so busy trying to enjoy myself in the here and now.

(my two weeks in Japan was an exception - I had to fight to stop myself from taking pictures there, and also struggled with the number of pictures I could take. Am thinking that for my road trip next summer I'll be figuring out some kind of external hard drive arrangement so I won't be limited on the number of pics I can take)

Sunday will be interesting, as am going to church with Chris and Charlotte; it's the first time I will have been to church in over a year (save for my nan's funeral in April). I've not been mainly because I don't know where I would worship. My previous church just didn't feel like home any more, and the other churches in the area similarly don't feel like they have much to offer in terms of worship or people of my own age. My mum's started going to a new church, so I might try that with her one Sunday. Anyway, this Sunday will be interesting I think, possibly challenging.

Alright then, back to work. I will keep the blogging up over the weekend, but probably from my phone, so posts might be a touch short, or possibly expressed strangely (I find that the small screen effects sentence and paragraph length when I've written on it in the past).

Have fun, see you next week - four more posts to go before I finish my goal!!!

Day 25 - DO NOT WANT

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:29:00 +0000

Admittedly some of my blog posts over the course of the month have been a little light on content, but today was the first day when I've woke up and really struggled to think about what I might write. Not to worry, I thought, something's bound to strike me at some point over the morning.

Well, it did. It struck me and knocked me down.

Now, before we go any further (and because I hate spoilers myself) let it be known that I am going to be talking about the book I Am Legend and the recent film starring Will Smith. I might even find myself talking about The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price or The Omega Man. Let's see what happens.

Once again, SPOILERS!!!

Empire posted today about plans to make a prequel to I Am Legend. The title of the article was enough to make me sigh deeply, and then look heavenward and ask God, "Why? Why??? WHY?!?!?!"

I've wrestled with my thoughts on I Am Legend since I saw it for my birthday in January. It's one of my favourite books ever, a book that I read at least once a year and have done so since I was 17. It's amazing, it's just fantastic. The protagonist isn't a superman or exceptional in any way other than the fact that he is the last man alive in a world of vampires. He is an ordinary man surviving in extraordinary times. That he then goes on, and motivates himself to try and understand why the world has turned out the way it has gives us a brilliant story, one of the best in science-fiction and certainly the best vampire story (as many have claimed) since Dracula.

Why is it then that every film adaptation of it has somehow got it wrong? Strangely, the first, The Last Man on Earth, gets it most right, keeping 90% of the story and putting Vincent Price in the title role - only the slightly ropey direction and lifeless supporting cast (even for vampires) undermines it. One has a sneaking suspicion watching it now that the same script made with a bigger budget would be really interesting to watch.

The Omega Man just made me laugh for the most part: jettison the vampires, throw in some crazy Luddites and a group of young and groovy kids who've somehow survived while Charlton Heston lives it up in an apartment fortress... Where would I begin? Where would I stop?!

And then there's I Am Legend... I was quite hopeful about this. The trailers promised quite a lot, and one can't deny that there is an unsettling beauty in all post-apocalyptic films of a similar bent (28 Days Later springs to mind) where one sees the cities that we all know, not in ruins, just unpopulated, or overgrown. You can't really fault Will Smith either, who really gives it his all. There are two big failures in the film: the first is the script, which throws out the vampires again in favour of people "infected" and all but rejects the notion of these different humans forming their own societal structures (there are faint traces of it, but they're totally unexplored, and lead to the audience having to make some pretty big leaps to jump the plot holes); the second is the use of CGI to create superhuman monsters which nearly all look the same and hardly ever look convincing.

I appreciate the different narrative structures in novels and films, and that some times in adapting works of fiction from one medium to another (or even one time setting to another) changes must be made. But why do we have to change the plot so much? The ending of the film just didn't fit with the book at all, and the "legend" was the final insult, taking away all the dark poetry of the final page of the book and turning it into something mealy-mouthed and wishy-washy.

(I have to confess that I didn't say this at the time when I saw it; I went out for my birthday with a friend who I was hoping to form a relationship with. Afterwards, over dinner, I was a bit non-committal about the film - I praised the look of it a lot I think - and tried to impress on her that the book was much, much better)

And now, now a prequel is in the works? Just... Why??? Is the box office the only thing that matters any more? Wait, am I kidding myself, was there anything other than the box office that ever mattered? What would a prequel add to the story?

We know how the world got to the way it is: the film showed us that in flashbacks. We know that Robert Neville will survive, because he's in I Am Legend. We know what happens to his family. So what does that leave us with? An action film of set-pieces, showing the last days as the population of New York are whittled down and Robert Neville plays scientist in his basement?

Sigh. Rant over. Hollywood, if you're listening, when it comes to adapting works of fiction in to films think about the following: you're adapting something because you think there is a fan base for it. You're adapting it because you think that there is something good about it (however we want to define "good"). Novels are not films, I accept that, but keep this in mind: change of pace, not change of plot.

Day 24 - Wordless Wednesday: Yummy!

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:54:00 +0000

Day 23 - Worst Case Scenarios

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:37:00 +0000

I've been reading Open The Future for a while now; in some of the things that I think about in connection with science and science fiction it has certainly helped make me aware of things that futurists think about, the level of complexity that they go to in working on their predictions.

In my work that I've been doing with the graduate school I've been thinking about themes for workshops that are going to be run over the next nine months for first year graduate students. Some of these are on things like the future of energy production, meeting the water needs of a growing global population and something that I think is really exciting: "mind and the future of humanity".

Whilst doing some browsing on Open The Future I came across an eschatological taxonomy, that is a classification of end of the world scenarios. While the results get more and more unsettling as you read down, they're also really interesting to read just what it would take for these situations.

Case X is supposed to be the kind of ultimate direction we're headed according to some writers: humanity evolves into hyper-intelligences living alongside artificial intelligences running on computing platforms of smart matter, orbiting in shells surrounding the sun, planets dismantled to make more smart matter, every piece of matter in the solar system just soaking up sunlight and thinking, thinking, thinking...

(Case X+X in the comments of the taxonomy made me laugh out loud. Luckily no-one was around)

How optimistic/pessimistic are you about the future of the world/human race? Where do you see us heading?

Day 22 - Another Way to Die

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:15:00 +0000

Recently I asked people about their favourite Bond themes, and I wasn't quite sure why I did. I know that I was listening to the "Best Of Bond" at the time, but I've been doing that a lot recently.

Why? Could it be because Quantum of Solace is coming out soon? Very possibly.

Forget the film for now though, what's the Bond song like? People said it was going to be Amy Winehouse, then they said it would be Duffy - finally Alicia Keys and Jack White were announced as the lucky/unlucky two (delete as applicable, Bond songs are a double-edged sword for the performers I think).

And now the song is out there for people to listen to, and you can listen to it here. I quite like it - it doesn't grab me in the same way that "You Know My Name" did, but there's something new there in that it's the first Bond theme duet. It's quite funky, and I wonder how that'll work... I think for me, I can't quite picture the title credits with this music, but I'm sure that far smarter people than me are at work on it.

What do you think?

Day 21 - Iron Chef

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:32:00 +0000

My youngest sister moved out to go to music college last Sunday. The house has been a little bit quieter since then, but I think we're still trying to find our "family dynamic" now that there is one less person living here.

One thing that we're doing is to take it in turns to cook; previously the cooking was shared by my mum and youngest sister since they were usually the ones who were first home from work. My first turn to cook is coming up on Tuesday. I think I'm making something with pasta: when I started to tell my family about what I was thinking of doing (minced beef, onions, garlic, grated carrot, peas, tomatoes and a little tomato puree with pasta) my sister screwed her face up and said, "Ergh, I'm not eating that."

It's the same whenever I cook - I'm not a really experimental chef or anything, I always look for recipes and/or try to emulate things that I've seen elsewhere (at least when I cook for others; I have been known to make some truly awful things for myself after wondering What will that taste like?) but my family always moan. They moan before I cook, they moan when I come to them and ask a question... They usually have no choice but to agree afterwards that the end result wasn't half bad, but still I have a reputation as being the worst cook in the house.

Yes, I did recently serve my mum sausages that were raw in the middle (I took them back and finished them!).

Yes, I have cooked lemon and lime chicken that my sister christened Chicken a la Fairy Liquid (and then admitted that it was pretty tasty).

Yes, I burned a croque monsieur the first time I made them (it was one of the first times I ever cooked, and I ate the burnt one - they have never, ever let me forget that I burned it).

My family don't seem to understand that I want to be a better cook, and that a bit of encouragement rather than putting my cooking down would probably help, as would not moaning if I ask them a question. Anyone want to volunteer to tell them?

If I think on I'll take a picture of the resulting meal and divulge my secret recipe on Wednesday!

Day 20 - Fun and Games

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:39:00 +0000

Was so nice to have a lie-in first thing this morning. My goodness, I think I really needed it.

Today is going to be pretty good I think; a group of friends from uni are going to go around to our friend Freddie's house for the afternoon, the plan being to watch some Asian cinema and play some computer/video games. Later in the afternoon we're going to make some pizza as well. One of the people coming is going shopping at a Kurdish/Turkish market this morning and so we're going to try our pizza with some Turkish sausage that she's picking up.

Am I boasting about my cool Saturday plans?

Possibly.

What are you up to this weekend?

I think tomorrow I'm going to start planning some of the things I need to do this weekend. I need to get the ball rolling on registering as self-employed. I need to order myself some business cards. I need to start writing addresses down for the network of contacts I need to build in order to get as much out of this year as possible.

And I'll try and update Racing Entropy as well! Have let that go by the wayside a little bit since I've been writing here every day. Blogging every day has been good in that I've rediscovered what I really like about blogging - but I don't have enough hours in the day to cover two blogs! From the start of October I'm still going to continue to blog every day, but will probably have to split it between the two.

In November things will inevitably slow down as NaNoWriMo arrives...

DUN DUN DUN!!!

Day 19 - Curious Symmetry

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:26:00 +0000

It was recently the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool, and of course the maths department was involved. One of our prominent researchers, Lasse Rempe, was involved in organising a big seminar on chaos and fractals. Shortly afterwards he was asked by the BBC to produce an audio slideshow talking about why this is a really interesting area, and I think that the finished three minute piece is really interesting - and even if you don't really get any of the maths involved it produces some stunning looking images.

It was a big surprise then when I saw that io9, a science-fiction and science blog that I recently started reading, had linked to the same thing today! I forwarded it on to Lasse and also some of my friends from the department, who were all surprised at it being picked up by another site on the internet.

Other than that, I have nothing else to report today: I am absolutely shattered from a day spent running around for a conference at the university... 11 more days of daily blogging to go! Hopefully some of them will be interesting posts too!

Day 18 - Tired!

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:37:00 +0000

This working for a living is tiring! Why can't I just continue to get paid for surfing the internet and doing the odd bit of research?

I'm kidding, I'm really loving what I've been doing this week so far; has been really interesting, have had lots of great conversations with people that have really given me some thoughts and insight into this area I'm trying to get into. Was also great to sit in on sessions between tutors and their groups and get a feel for the dynamic needed to facilitate personal development effectively.

Have also been given some encouragement to develop things that have been discussed in the office, so am hoping that I'll be able to write notes for some case studies down in the next few days and present them to the director of training, see what he says. Might even be developing some podcasting/multimedia resources with the graduate school, so that's pretty exciting.

Spent the morning today looking into registering myself as self-employed (question: should I trade just under my name or should I come up with a company name, and if so what should it be?), and then some time this afternoon helping with setting up for a one day conference tomorrow.

It's all great, it's been a great week - but I am knackered! I got too used to getting up after 7, pottering around and taking it easy before going in... Another early start tomorrow, but then the weekend is here...

Day 17 - Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:37:00 +0000

Day 16 - Changing Traditions

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:15:00 +0000

Day two of my employment with the graduate school, and interesting things feel like they are developing! It's nice to know that others think you are a valuable person to have around: the director of training for the grad school came around before and said that he was glad I was here and if he could he would have me around all the time in a glass box ready to smash open in case of emergency.

Which I think was a compliment...

Also been picking one of the tutor's brains this morning on being self-employed in Britain today and how one goes about doing that and making sure all legal requirements are satisfied. For a long time, even though I've been going down a route kind of in academia, I have had a feeling that I would like to be self-employed. I'm not blind to the hard work and possible instability involved in that - my father was self-employed for many years while I was growing up, and I remember that life wasn't always easy for us financially when I was little (although I didn't recognise it at the time). His father was self-employed for his whole life, and his father before him.

I think that while I was growing up I romanticised "being your own boss" a little, but never knew where I could apply that in my own life, or where I might be able to apply it when it finally came time for me to leave education (as a student) and find work. My dad worked as a market trader and also in fairgrounds, my grandad did a lot in his life and knew about fairgrounds, mechanics, general DIY, everything really. I don't know much about my great-grandad (Josiah), but I do know that he started his own business with a handcart, buying bags of sawdust and wood chippings from a lumberyard and carting them somewhere else where he could sell them at a profit. He saved and expanded, got a horse and cart and was able to do more, and eventually moved into fairgrounds and amusements I think.

(I remember being told, although I have nothing to back this up except my memory, that at some point my family had the first portable kinoscope in England, and would show early film demonstrations at fairgrounds; like I said, I have only a relative's word on this, but it would be amazing to find out if that was true)

Times have changed. Fairgrounds are for the big boys now, the established ride owners, and the markets were on their way out over ten years ago. So maybe I won't keep the "family tradition" of self-employment alive in that respect, but perhaps I will be reinventing it for myself, taking the skills and knowledge I have out there and being self-employed my way.

Day 15 - Halfway There

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:57:00 +0000

Britain - indeed the world - is heading for a recession. We're told every day on the BBC that this is a certainty. Food prices are on the increase, petrol prices have only just started to come down after the price of oil dropped and we're warned about the worst winter fuel prices in ages. Banks collapsing, banks being bought by governments in order to prevent further economic downturns, it's all doom and gloom.

So why did I receive a random letter today offering me a credit card? Why would any financial group offer me a credit card if we're in such desperate times? And - unbelievably - I would get £100 (nearly $200) just for signing up. Then I saw that the typical interest rate was 39.9% APR.

And that explained it. Obviously they hadn't done their research and noticed that I hardly ever use a credit card, have no debts (other than my student loan) and haven't got a mortgage or a car or any of the other things that would mark me as someone worth a gamble on for racking up debt.

Do people really go for these things? I was shocked when I checked the small print: "typical APR" might be 39.9% but could go as high as 59.9% APR depending on which "bracket" you fell into!!!

Despite recessions and economic downturns, has anyone else been offered dubious credit cards and loans lately?

First day on the job was alright; I think it will be better tomorrow, the participants have nearly no contact time with tutors tomorrow, so hoping to pick the brains of the tutors on the course and get some tips about putting together case studies and developing sessions. And if that doesn't really happen and my workload is as light as it was today then I'm going to try writing a piece of fiction that has been going through my mind.

(I promise this a lot, I should just put half an hour aside every day... I should, I should)

Day 14 - Robinson Crusoe

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:51:00 +0000

Just a short post today; I went to the cinema this afternoon (The Dark Knight called me back for a third viewing) and in my travelling I've come within twenty pages of the end of Robinson Crusoe, which I'm reading for the first time.

I've really enjoyed reading it, and I'll put a more full review up over on Racing Entropy at some point over the next few days (as time with my job allows); I've loved reading of Crusoe's resourcefulness, and also of how his faith develops over his years on the island. In the final quarter of the book a sentence really jumped out at me though, and I felt I just had to share it.

Crusoe looks within reach of leaving the island, having found some allies (after nearly thirty years of solitude) but the course that they are about to take is dangerous, confronting many armed men. Someone points out that they are in a terrible situation, and that they might be injured or killed in the attempt.

I smiled at him and told him that men in our circumstances were past the operation of fear.

Anyone else read Robinson Crusoe? I've really enjoyed it, and felt I had to read it since it is said to be the first novel in the English language.

More this week, nearly halfway through my month of daily writing! My how time flies.

Day 13 - Overclocked

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:45:00 +0000

It hit me about an hour ago that I'm in work on Monday! This is exactly what I wanted - to be working - but it's just dawned on me that I can't continue getting up at 7:30 and then commuting in about 10am after a leisurely breakfast (shall I have scrambled egg today? or weetabix?) and reading blogs. No sir, from Monday I'll be out of the house by 7:30 most days!

(well, for the next two/three weeks at least...)

I'm actually quite excited about it all, as I think I might have let on yesterday. It feels like there is a sea of possibility opening up in front of me and I just have to brave enough to paddle out from my island in my little canoe and see what I can find.

(excuse the oceanic imagery, I'm two-thirds of the way through Robinson Crusoe)

As with NaNoWriMo, I'm finding that once my brain gets itself turned on creatively with one thing all sorts of other things start opening up as well. That maths puzzle that has been giving me trouble? I thought of a new approach to it! Bit fed up with some of the games I've been playing? Heck, I'll download some game making software and make my own! Lost about where to start with the editing of my first novel? Totally open up the first act, double the length of that at least, take the imagery from the first chapter but place it in a different context, lose the twins from the bookshop and shorten the chapters, rough it up a bit. Just write!

This is my thesis: commit to one thing, get fired up about it and then all the rest will start coming too.

It works.

(irregular service resumes tomorrow, have a good Saturday night!)

Day 12 - Serendipity

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:05:00 +0000

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Today is my last day in Room 524, my working "home" for the last four years. Thinking about the future hasn't worried me per se but it has been something that has been on my mind of late, I have to admit. I had ideas for how to get to where I want to be (i.e., surviving financially for the next ten months while building up my experience in the area of postgraduate skills training) but didn't know what the route to accomplishing those goals.

So I arranged to meet someone more in the know, pick his brains a bit and try to get my foot in the door. I was hoping that I might be allowed to come in and observe a few workshops, see how things ran, that was what I was praying for I guess.

My prayers were more than answered.

So. Let's tick these things off as they came through:
1). I'm going to be employed as a tutor on a career skills workshop in November ("enterprise skills") for four days. Good experience and a decent wage, very high hourly rate.
2). I asked if I could observe a workshop; I was told yes, and oh, there's one starting next week... Actually so-and-so is away and we're a bit short-handed... What are you doing for the next two/three weeks? Result: two/three weeks employment now (general temp wage but experience and more foot-in-the-doorness means I'm very happy indeed), starting first thing on Monday.
3). Since we're going to employ you in November and you've not done one before it would be good for you to get some more experience... Well, we'll employ you as a tutor on one of our first year skills workshops some time before then - and we'll pay you the normal tutor rate for that too. It was at this point that I was mentally doing my little happy dance.
4). As part of my observations in these various workshops I'll be looking at developing some resources too, sessions and case studies for groups to consider. There's potential that after they are trialed here they could become part of a much larger collection of resources that are available nationally!!!

Reality Check: It's early days for all this I know, and I don't want to get too carried away with all the excitement. However, I think I'm off to a good start and I'm so thankful that this has all come together. I had faith that it would; something similar happened as I was finishing my Masters and faced with the prospect of sudden unemployment and imminent financial hardship - not quite what I was facing this time, but it feels very good that things have lined up once more. I knew that they would, but had no idea just how well things would come together.

I'm going to throw it out there to the audience: what do you think of serendipity, when things just come together and give you a really great set of circumstances? When have you experienced it in your own life - or do you think it's just a load of rubbish?

In all this happiness I am still quite sad at leaving Room 524. There's still a few things to do, empty the recycling bin, steal some office supplies, pack away the electronic Cyberman that I got for one birthday... I'll miss this place, but things have been winding down for a few weeks now. It will be strange not being here, but I'll still be around. My place of work for the next few weeks is just two buildings over, so that might be even stranger, to be around but not be here.

"But then again, all good things must come to an end..."

Day 11 - Several Links

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:18:00 +0000

Well, following the LHC being turned on yesterday we all seem to be doing fine. Fortunately someone out there is keeping an eye on things for us!

I've just downloaded Cory Doctorow's latest book, Content, a collection of essays and talks on "technology, creativity, copyright and the future of the future." I've really enjoyed Cory's fiction, and I like his writing (usually found first over on Boing Boing) on things like copyright and civil liberties. It's downloadable for free under a Creative Commons license, so if you want something that is guaranteed to be interesting to read then go take a look.

You can go and watch someone demonstrate their homemade wrist-mounted flame cannons here. OK, so who really needs wrist-mounted flame cannons - but what a great piece of engineering!

Karl Pilkington has started a blog to help promote his next book (Karlology, what a brilliant title); there's only a few entries up at the moment, but this is sure to get interesting over the coming weeks...

It's my penultimate day in my office at uni; have moved nearly everything home, starting to feel a little wistful. Or at least I was until I had a meeting this morning which offered some very promising things for me to think about. Some quite exciting things actually. I should hear back about one of them this afternoon or possibly tomorrow morning - and if I do and it's all good then I will reveal all!

1:35pm and I'm starting to hear my stomach growl. Hopefully a friend is going to swing by soon and we'll grab some lunch!

Yours hungrily,
Nathan

Day 10 - Wordless Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Day 9 - Split

noreply@blogger.com (NathanRyder) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:31:00 +0000

My head is banging. I don't know why. It started just after I got from lunch with a friend who is visiting for the BA Festival of Science; we went to a place I knew of but had not visited in nine years of being at the university. The food was really tasty; all this time I've been getting samosas on the days I haven't brought sandwiches when I could have gone for salmon goujons, potato wedges and peas... Maybe it's just as well: my waistline would have increased and the contents of my wallet would have decreased in direct correlation.

Headaches. They're like colds, they're just so inconvenient...

Since coming back from lunch have spent my time setting up the address book on my new webmail account (which is, incidentally, with GMX). Then sent out the usual mass emails, "Hey everyone, this is my new address..." I think I'll be going home soon, have taken paracetamol, but it now feels like the headache -formerly contained on the right side of my head - wants to party all over the inside of my skull.

Just waiting for a break in the clouds and then am going to make a run for it I think.

What are you all up to this fine Tuesday?