unounoduetrecinqueottotredici

LS9 shortcuts

2011-03-18T08:58:00.002Z

Courtesy of Yamaha, LS9 shoutcut sheet, a must read.

I must admit I had missed one (namely the screen contrast adjustment).

Getting the college of law calendar

2011-03-15T10:10:00.002Z

For those who wish to get the CoL timetable on Google calendar/Outlook etc without having to type it all in manually: it can be done from the Groupwise application. It is is locked down, but there is a workaround.

1. Type mailto:// in Internet Explorer, this runs grpwise.exe
2. Right click on the calendar and select export
3. Edit Calendar.ics to remove the UIDs (they are not Unique, so they confuse Google Calendar). Quick way: sed '/UID:.*/d' Calendar.ics > newcal.ics
4. Upload to Google Calendar, profit

Price for content

2011-02-16T08:09:00.002Z

This is exactly the right kind of report on piracy. The price I am willing, (not just "willing": I want to, please!) to pay is around $3 per film and $1 per TV episode. In GBP I would make it £3 per film and 50p per TV episode. So I normally only buy DVDs when they reach that kind of price.

The other big factor is "Who actually needs a DVD anyway"? With space in London costing £10,000 per square meter, why would you fill it up with plastic discs? Hard disks are cheap, networks fast enough, why the heck would anybody want a DVD.

Living without content farms

2011-02-14T08:46:00.002Z

I've started a little experiment with a google custom search engine which excludes a list of useless websites (about.com/ehow/dict etc etc) and promotes good websites (bbc, guardian, instructables etc etc)

I'll try to use it as default search engine for a few days and update the index and see how it goes. The only problem is that google automatically puts loads of advertising.

Here it is

Dear Anna

2011-02-03T10:11:00.005Z

Hello My Friend!
Hi

I write to you the letter, and I hope to receive the answer from you.
Thank you for writing me the letter

My name is Anna.
How do you do

I the young woman, average years.
Hello again, the young woman. I assume you mean median, that would make you 28.4.

I have brown hair.
Brown is indeed a beautiful colour.

I the beautiful woman :)
I not

And live in Russia, city Zelenodolsk. My city is in 920 km from Moscow.
Cool

And if you wish to get acquainted with me, I shall be very happy to answer your letter.
I am afraid I have no such wish

And I would like to tell why I write to you.
Go ahead

The matter is that in 2 weeks I shall visit the UK or other country in the Europe. Now I have the plan to visit UK.
I am glad to hear you are considering the Europe as a destination

But I have no friends or relatives in the UK or other country in the Europe.
That's a shame. Perhaps acquaintances?

And while I at all do not know what country better to visit.
While I wouldn't know what to say to that

In WHAT CITY OR ANOTHER COUNTRY YOU LIVE NOW? We could have our meeting? Tell to me more about your country or city? What interesting?
It is LONDON, I expect one could write a book. TripAdvisor?

I shall have the tourist visa, and I can visit any country in the Europe. And can travel in USA.
Perhaps you meant "the" USA

But main my purpose, it to find the good friend for me.
I am afraid the good friends are hard to come by

The man for serious attitudes and if you are now alone?
Serious attitudes?

You have not the wife or children I ask you to write to me the letter. And we
could learn better each other.
I have no desire

I have not boyfriend, and I have not children.
Given your average age and the beautiful woman, no doubt this is because of conscious choice

To write to you the letter, I have addressed in agency of acquaintances, and to me give yours e-mail.
This agency of acquaintances of yours, they seem fun

It not a spam or other bad things. So, please, answer me!!!
It not ham either, and certainly not a good thing

My letter, this offer to acquaintance and to learn better each other.
Please stop saying acquaintance

In my next letter I will send you my photo!!! I hope you will be like see me. :)
No, I will not be like to see you

And I would like to receive your photo too.
Good luck

Please, answer only my personal e-mail: _______@rambler.ru
Thanks for letting me know, I was going to answer you at work

The best regards,
The fervent wishes,

Yours Anna.
You're not mine.

Emulate PS3 controllers

2010-11-19T10:07:00.005Z

I had a play around in the past few days on how to emulate the ps3 controller from a PC with a bluetooth dongle. There are a few things one might want to emulate:

1. Six-axis
2. BD remote control
3. HID Keyboard & Mouse (for faster typing)

All the keys from the six-axis can be used from either the BD remote or the keyboard. The HID protocol doesn't seem to be able to transmit the stick movements, so it is useless for playing. There is a work around (as in, a properly reversed engineered six-axis protocol implementation) at diy-machine, which supports up to 7 controllers and it's being developed actively.

I was mainly interested to emulate the remote/keyboards in order to be able to play/pause etc a DVD from my iPod/phone through a web page. I will not post the details of the web server (yet) as it is too messy, but if google picks this up it might useful to other people to know where the resources are.

Useful python code can be found in bluemaemo (for Nokia phones) and remoko for the openmoko phone. At the heart of the implementation there is a HID server that pretends to be a HID device. There are quite a few lying around, for example hidserv.c (in bluemaemo), hidclient.c, xkbdbthid. This server opens a Bluetooth (L2CAP) socket and writes to it according to the HID protocol .

To establish a connection with Bluez4 one needs to load the SDP record of the device (specifications of the SDP protocol can be found on the Bluetooth v3 specifications (volume 3 part C)). One such service record can be found in bluemaemo (for a keyboard + mouse HID device). The record will contain the HID descriptor (according to the HID specifications, on the USB website).

The HID descriptor for the PS3 BD remote can be found here and here. On these websites there is also a SDP service record of the remote, that can easily be converted to xml.

That's all for now, I might post the code at some point if it turns out to be readable.

Clipping and tweeters

2010-10-26T13:27:00.001+01:00

A fairly definitive article from Rane on what blows tweeters (read: volume) and what doesn't (read: clipping).

From father to son

2010-10-20T11:56:00.005+01:00

Young Italians often complain that one of the reasons why graduate jobs are hard to come by is that hiring is often based on family relationships rather than merit. It's like an unwritten precedence rule. I was taken by surprise by the fact the rule actually is written.

In its negotiations with the trade unions Unicredit (one of largest European banks) agreed on Monday to hire first the sons of the employees that take voluntary redundancies. I could not believe it. This article on Il Mattino suggests that the practice is widespread in industrial agreements in the italian financial services, citing also Intesa San Paolo and BCC di Roma.

These other articles from major Italian newspapers report on the same news. But it seems so unreal that I wanted to find the primary source for the agreement. The news broke at 8:05 on 18/10/2010, but there is no mention of the father-son agreement. It is also not mentioned in the Fisac/CGIL (Union) statements, they only say "fostering youth employment" or something like that.

With a bit of Googling I found a scan of the original union agreement, the declaration is on page 28. The Italian wording is:

Su espressa richiesta delle OO.SS., Unicredit (...), ferma restando l'ineludibile esigenza di pieno rispetto delle caratteristiche meritocratiche che stanno alla base delle politiche di recruiting del Gruppo, conferma che non sara' posta in essere alcuna limitazione connessa al vincolo parentale nei confronti dei figli di dipendenti cessati per pensionamento volontario in possesso dei requisiti richiesti per la selezione (laurea triennale e conoscenza delle lingua inglese), determinando, a parita' di valutazione in sede di selezione, una priorita' nell'assunzione.

This is a single long sentence of the finest Italian legal prose meaning:

On request of the Unions, Unicredit, while following its overarching aim of meritocracy in hiring decisions, will favour the sons of employees who have taken voluntary redundancy over other candidates with the same qualifications, as long as they have a degree and can speak English

It is normal practice to encourage employees to put forward people they think valuable (sometimes offering money on top as a reward). There is nothing wrong in using staff as head hunters, but it is not quite the same thing as trading voluntary redundancies of senior employees in exchange of hiring their family.

I expect the next step is to rank second cousins just below sons in law but above nephews, with grandsons somewhere between third cousins and godchildren.

256 colours in screen

2010-10-10T21:29:00.002+01:00

Sometimes screen does not inherit the right terminfo from the terminal. This fixes the 256 colour problem:

terminfo rxvt* 'Co#256:AB=\E[48;5;%dm:AF=\E[38;5;%dm'

Current Cost CC128, part 2

2010-10-09T23:28:00.003+01:00

The CC128 rj45 pinout is like this, i.e.

1 = +v Unregulated (Same as the PSU input)
2 = PIC chip pin 52 (PGC)
3 = +V Regulated
4 = GND
5 = PIC chip pin 47 (PGD)
6 = PIC chip pin 9 (Program Voltage (nMCLR))
7 = Unit RX
8 = Unit TX

The stock RJ45-USB cable uses pins 1,4,7,8. I suspect you don't need 7 to just read the output of the meter, but you definitely need both 1 and 4.

Note to self: current setup

Input:
1 = 1 CC128
2 = 4 CC128
3 = n/a
4 = Phone
5 = Phone
6 = n/a
7 = 7 CC128
8 = 8 CC128

Orange database

2010-10-08T11:37:00.002+01:00

After nearly two years of being with O2 I still get texts from Orange every month or so, informing me that my point balance is 0.

LS9 tips: recall safe

2010-10-04T10:20:00.004+01:00

I've decided to share a few tips about not so obvious things on the Yamaha LS9, with the hope that they will be useful.

Recall safe is probably the only good thing about the scene recall on the LS9, because otherwise recalling a scene would recall the whole desk, which you very rarely want (I can think of only one occasion: the beginning of a show to reset the desk).

However there are a few things that cannot be "recall safed", and they will bite you. The only way to find out what is actually safe or not is to look at page 256 of the manual, "Mixing parameters operation applicability". You will discover that:

1. Pan cannot be safed unless ALL is selected.
2. To Stereo, To Mono, to MIX pre-post, and many other things such as Mute Assign also cannot be safed unless ALL is selected.
3. You cannot safe Mix to stereo for a MIX unless ALL is selected.

This means that if half way through plotting you decide to send a channel (that you wish to recall) to the mono channel you will have to turn it on for each scene you have already plotted.

Most importantly, and really not obviously:

1. You cannot safe channel link
2. You cannot safe MIX/MATRIX bus settings in the System Setup screen

These two are the most annoying things. It means that you cannot simply create an extra stereo bus on the second night of the show to record, because that setting "stereo bus" will have to be saved in every single scene.

I guess the conclusion is that it is wise to the plotting as late as possible and be careful when designing the signal path to allow for modification that do not require you to replot the whole show.

Current Cost CC128

2010-10-01T10:36:00.004+01:00

Also known as Envi, given out for free by E.ON (got it for £12 on ebay, as I'm not on E.ON). The device transmits every 6 seconds a neat xml file with the power usage (and temperature) through a serial interface (an Rj45 socket so it can be run through cat5 quite easily), it comes with a serial-rj45 to USB converter.

Useful websites:
Perl script to submit data to Google Power Meter
Perl script to read serial port (and submit data to Google Power Meter, but the code above is easier to adapt)
Ruby app by IBM
Access the UART

CDDA, pre-gap, post-gap

2010-09-29T14:17:00.003+01:00

Notes on CD mastering to avoid tracks cutting off last few seconds.

This is how a CD is made:

Digital Audio, or CD-DA, was the initial compact disc format. The Red Book standard of 1980 was followed in 1987 by IEC 908. Sound is recorded in frames, each containing 24 bytes of digitized audio. A continuous, spiral track consists of lead-in followed by pre-gap, then a single physical track of audio frames, then post-gap, and finally lead-out. Multiple songs are accessed by dividing the physical track into as many as 99 logical tracks, and by subdividing logical tracks using indexing. All compact disc drives must be capable of playing this CD-DA format. [*]

The specifications are contained in the Red Book (costs $100 and you have to sign a NDA), but there are alternative specifications (close enough) free from ECMA.

The interesting fact is that by default the post-gap on each track is 2 seconds. The non-so-obvious fact is that this post-gap is not an additional 2 seconds, but is the last 2 seconds of the track. The gap is simply an index to the last two second, that a player playing in gapless mode will automatically skip (sometimes switching the display to a countdown).

Batch normalization

2010-09-24T17:11:00.002+01:00

Make all the tracks in one folder the same volume (peak -3dB)

for i in *.wav; do sox "$i" "norm/$i" norm -3; done

Facebook event ical fix

2010-09-04T12:30:00.001+01:00

http://eventbusyfix.info/feventurlgen.php

LS9 firmware 1.17

2010-08-06T07:31:00.002+01:00

Fixed a problem in which the LS9 would occasionally function excessively slowly or freeze when the Ethernet connection was unexpectedly disconnected due to the application crashing or font changes made in Windows Vista when the LS9 Editor was online.

(emphasis mine)

Java 4-ever

2010-06-30T18:31:00.001+01:00

From the directors of javatar, excellent trailer!

Weird Cases 4

2010-06-17T13:43:00.000+01:00

Nice case on product liability and the effect of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. Richardson v Lrc Products Ltd [2000] P.I.Q.R. P164.

The claimant claimed damages for personal injuries which she suffered when, on May 20, 1995, a condom manufactured by the defendant being used by the claimant's husband failed as he was having sexual intercourse with the claimant. The claimant became pregnant as a result.

In his judgement Justice Kennedy sets out the facts:

The relevant act of sexual intercourse took place on a Saturday afternoon. Mr Richardson opened the foil and put on the condom. Mrs Richardson watched him. The act of sexual intercourse was unremarkable to her. It lasted, she thought, perhaps about four minutes but nobody attaches too much importance to that estimate.

They kept the broken condom (except for some bits that were "never found")

the claimant says that he put it on a piece of kitchen paper and then into a painted wooden cupboard in their bathroom. [...] The condom remained there for about two days until Mr Richardson wrote his letter of complaint which is dated May 23. At about that time the claimant put it in a brown glass screw-top jar. There it remained until it was about to go to the solicitors when she went out and purchased a more appropriate container.

After that they went to court, and after hearing a lot of expert evidence about the fragility of rubber and ozone damage they decided that there was no breach from the defendants. This is because there is enough scientific evidence that condoms "did burst on occasion for no readily discernible reason" that consumers are not entitled to have an "actual expectation" of safety against unwanted pregnancies.

Well, it came in handy in today's exam.

Welcome to the eighties

2010-06-17T13:16:00.000+01:00

Tort exam announcement: please turn off your mobile phones, PDAs, and pagers. Pagers? I should remember to put away my filofax as well...

announcement overflow

2010-06-14T10:03:00.002+01:00

For (unsigned int i=0; i < -1; i++) { play(announcement[i],"loud"); }

This is what happened on the london Overground the other day, according to the going undeground blog.

Video follows:

Weird cases 3

2010-05-28T09:13:00.007+01:00

Taken from this blog, a rather funny SEC complaint filing about to wannabes Disney inside traders:

The defendants are Hoxie, an administrative assistant to a high-level executive at The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”), and her boyfriend, Sebbag. Beginning in March 2010, the defendants sent numerous hedge funds anonymous letters offering to provide the funds with inside information about Disney’s quarterly earnings in exchange for a fee.

At least twenty hedge funds received these letters:

Hi, I have access to Disney’s (DIS) quarterly earnings report before its release on 05/03/10 [sic]. I am willing to share this information for a fee that we can determine later. I am sorry but I can’t disclose my identity for confidentiality reasons but we can correspond by email if you would like to discuss it. My email is eilatcap@gmail.com. I count on your discretion as you can count on mine. Thank you and I look forward to talking to you.

These are some of the emails the girl or her boyfriend sent to an undercover FBI agent

First of all, i am not a fed, I have no way to prove it at this point but i am not asking you to disclose your identity not i will disclose mine. It is up to you to determine if this is worth the risk as i did. I work for Disney, that is all i can tell you.

I can deliver 3 to 4 days before release. I will email you the report as soon as i have it and you will wire transfer the money to my account after you get ahold of it. I am asking you to make me an offer based on the capital gains from the trade and the risk i am taking delivering this information to you? Also, i am looking to build a strong business relationship with you for future quarters and information.

And a very smart one:

I dont think we will get caught if we stay discret and careful. You can count on my discretion as i am counting on yours...They wanted 15k/20k or "how about doing a 50-50 profit sharing from your trades? Does that sound fair to you?"

The best bit is when they start stressing out on the day beacause Hoxie cannot get her hands on the report

Hoxie e-mailed Sebbag: “I told you that you were going to be waiting...” Sebbag responded “Just hurry up,” to which Hoxie replied “I have no control over this. Patience is a virtue.” Still waiting for the information later that day, Sebbag urged Hoxie to “Get things moving with all the powers you have.” Hoxie replied “3 hours have come and gone what is another hour at this point. Chill.”

“What would you suggest I do. If I could wave my magic wand and give you what you want – I would. However, since that is not going to happen I suggest you call on you inner Buddhist – and CHILL the f’ out.”

But why did they want to do this in the first place? Well, a handbag.

Hoxie stated “here is the bag that you are going to get for me – thank [sic],” and attached a link to a picture of an expensive Stella McCartney designer handbag available for $700 at Neiman Marcus [...] Sebbag stated “I may be able to [buy] u 2 of them, lol.” Hoxie responded via email, “In that case, i also love love these shoes” and attached a link to a picture of expensive Stella McCartney shoes also sold at Neiman Marcus.

They then met the undercover FBI agents and asked how they could go about opening an offshore account to transfer the money. Oh dear.

The end of an era

2010-05-27T18:38:00.002+01:00

Dear Colleague,

According to our records we believe that as of 26/06/2010 you will no longer be a member of Imperial College and therefore your Imperial College account pf305 and mailbox will therefore expire on 26/06/2010 at 00.01 am

(the email is still redirected and working though, no worries!)

Google birthday calendar

2010-05-27T18:33:00.003+01:00

Just found out that there is a Public Google Calendar for creating a calendar of the birthdays of gmail contacts. Nice.

Facebook privacy

2010-05-24T12:58:00.005+01:00

From a letter to the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg (Founder and CEO of Facebook) says that there are five "principles under which Facebook operates". I think he chose the wrong ones, with the wrong words and the wrong message.

You have control over how your information is shared.

If you don't use Facebook at all then you have control. But if you do use Facebook then some information is shared by default, fact. And year after year this has become more and more. It is of little use to have "control" if it is shared by default. And you can't control everything anyway.

We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want.

This is the wrong way round. It should be: we only share information with people or services you want. It is no use to have to black list more and more services every month.

We do not give advertisers access to your personal information.

This is false, they have being doing it all along. And Ads do come up with our faces/names on it (unless you opt-out, clearly), which is personal information. (And it could also be illegal, Tolley v J.S. Fry and Sons Ltd anyone?)

We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone.

This is also false, because the only reason people are on Facebook is because there is personal information. Advertisers can leverage the personal information to provide more targeted ads. Facebook might not be selling directly the personal information, but the whole point of advertising on Facebook is to be able to reach millions of people that you know have a particular interest/connection etc, just have a look at the advertisers' page. This is personal information, and they are selling it.

We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.

So what?

The case against fixed term parliament

2010-05-14T17:43:00.010+01:00

Until yesterday there seemed to be wide cross-party agreement on fixed term parliaments. And yet, as soon as the details started to emerge everybody is now a bit worried. And when one wakes up too early there is the risk of a very long blog post.

There is a good document from the House of commons that sums up the main arguments and the history of the proposal, and a good FAQ from the BBC. Recommended reading. As always in these matters there is a lot of confusion by what it is actually meant by "fixed term parliament".

One point is that the UK already has a fixed term parliament. The Septennial Act 1715 states (as amended) that

… this present Parliament, and all Parliaments that shall at any time hereafter be called, assembled, or held, shall and may respectively have continuance for [five years,] and no longer, to be accounted from the day on which by writ of summons this present Parliament hath been, or any future Parliaments shall be, appointed to meet, unless this present or any such Parliament hereafter to be summoned shall be sooner dissolved by his Majesty, his heirs of successors.

There it is, right there, fixed term. It basically says parliament will last five years but it can be shorter if the Monarch dissolves it before. Which seems pretty reasonable. In fact, all democracies that have a fixed term parliament have pretty much the same law in place. The only difference here is that the mechanism for dissolution is a Royal power, exercised by the PM.

Therefore what is actually meant by "fixed term parliament" is not a mechanism by which parliament would have to last five years no matter what. No one so far is arguing that UK general elections are too close together and Parliament duration is too irregular. They simply want to remove the Royal powers from the Prime Minister. Why?

I really don't know. If you can be bothered to read the arguments in favour or against (summed up below) they all have this underlining idea that elections would actually be when they are meant to be. Which is wrong, because things change and governments fall and it is not what this proposal is about. This is just about removing power from the PM and give it to somebody else. To actually have elections every five years one would need to have a rule where parliament could not be dissolved at all (scary), or could only be dissolved after a specific "dissolution vote" with a high threshold (like 66% in Scotland). Is this desirable? Do we need it?

Quick recap of the arguments, for the benefit of bored people.

Argument in favour

It gives the PM an unfair advantage to call elections when most favourable to him/her. Gordon Brown toyed with the idea of calling an election in 2007 when the Labour party was in front in the polls.
The uncertainty as to the election date is bad for a) politics b) economy c) government planning and d) party campaigning.
Most other Parliaments in the world work like this (inc Scotland), why should Westminster be different?

Rebuttal

This certainly would be also a good moment for the whole country to change the government, rather than in especially unstable times. Imagine a change of government at the hight of the credit crunch crisis. Isn't it better a bit of surprise effect for the opposition in exchange of a better time to have elections?
a) politics: it is probably good for the PM to be under pressure from the opposition to call elections if he is loosing support.

b) economy: there is no evidence that markets/economy cares about this uncertainty, in fact it might also discourage people rushing to do things before parliament changes.

c) government planning: same, it might actually be good for government to not know exactly when they would loose their seats, less time to fix things up before leaving.

d)party campaigning: it might actually be beneficial that there is always a little bit of campaign but never a long full fledged run-up to the election. 30 days intense campaigning is more than enough to bore us all.
Who cares what other countries do. There is no evidence that Scotland or the US or Germany have better governments or better politics. In fact, they probably don't.

Arguments against

It it ain't broken don't fix it. Come on, this has worked for ages why mess around with it.
In the same way the PM can take advantage of a favourable situation he can make sure in the last year he tries to engineer a favourable situation, which is way worse
This system is flexible, and it allows a PM with a small majority to call for an election in order get rid of all coalitions/minority governments etc. These really do generate uncertainty.
If the PM cannot just call for dissolution, a mechanism is needed for somebody else to do it. 55% rule anyone? The only party that would benefit from this is the weaker party in a coalition government.
Would this proposal actually make any difference at all? Surely if the PM want to call an election he could whip his MPs into voting for one (like they did in Germany in 2005).

Conclusion
Leave it as it is and go worry about important things.

Rebuilding rebuilding rebuilding

2010-05-13T16:52:00.003+01:00

I hear a lot of politicians say they want to "rebuild society", "rebuild Britain", "rebuild politics", rebuild this, rebuild that. David Cameron the other day was going on about rebuilding family, rebuilding community, above all rebuilding responsibility.

I am not sure all this "rebuilding" is necessary, or desirable. Although these are certainly challenging times, it's not like everything is broken beyond repair. All right, we shouldn't take it literally. But with so many good things around, the rhetoric could be a bit more inspiring.

On Proportional Representation 2

2010-05-12T16:04:00.004+01:00

Is proportional representation (PR) just as straightforward as the John Cleese video makes it look? I was tempted to write some sort of essay on this, but three reasons stopped me: 1. I should be revising 2. I am no expert or even mildly competent on politics 3. I have far too much respect for the few readers of this blog to even think they would actually waste their time reading such an essay. 600 words?

Let me just say this: elections elect two things, government and legislature. We all agree that government (the executive) needs to be broadly aligned on one position. There might be coalitions, but for the executive to work effectively cabinet needs to be all on the same side with the president or prime minister or whatever. A leader needs to be leading in some sort of coherent way, and most agree on this.

But what about parliament? This is rather different, as they make the laws. Laws are made better when there is input, review and consultation with consumer groups, trade unions, industry groups, etc. Parliament gives legitimacy to the legislative process. Is this legitimacy which is central in PR.

Advocates of PR say true legitimacy can only be achieved when the party overall national popularity is reflected by the number of seats they have in parliament. This is based on the assumption that parties represent people, and I believe this is a fundamentally flawed way of looking at democracy.

Democracy in the early stages was direct. This means anyone in Athens (well, back then you had to be male and free) could turn up in the assembly and vote. As we normally do not want to get too involved with the day to day legislative process we are quite happy to elect a representative who goes in parliament (MP) for us. In fact we pay him/her just to do that. And yet this MP is not merely a proxy, we entrust him with the power to vote freely on our behalf.

This can only work if the MP is accountable to whom he represents, including the people who did not vote for him. This is why it is so good that in the UK there is this system where you can write to your MP, go to the local surgery, complain, ask, lobby directly to your representative. And not just for local issues, but also for wider party policies. This is democracy.

As soon as you have more than one MP for a constituency (imagine having 600 for one big fat one!) this direct accountability is lost. In Italy we have a sad electoral system were there is no way not to elect someone if the party wants them elected, no matter if the party wins or loose, no matter who you vote. They don't even need to campaign or care. Or be sensible. As long as they are high enough on the party list, they are in.

Look at how people perceive democracy in countries with true PR systems. I think it is totally incompatible to the way the British people are used to run the country, but hey, I might be wrong. And I can continue to put random words in bold.

EDIT: article along similar lines here, but stretching it way too far IMHO.

On proportional representation

2010-05-12T07:54:00.002+01:00

There is a good video of John Cleese explaining PR, more actual than ever now.

Is it really just as simple and fair? I think not.

#Bigotgate, funniest tweets

2010-04-28T16:22:00.003+01:00

ethernat Say what you like about Nick Griffin, but he would never have called her bigotted #bigotgate

sjrw @AIannucci He's burying her in the back yard as we speak!

simonwbaker Gillian Duffy: "all these eastern Europeans coming in, where are they flocking from?" - I think the answer is in your question. #bigotgate

nhudgell RT @jamesgraham: Has Duffy not left the house yet? Did Gordo do her in? #bigotgate

richrandall Stupid "-gate" suffix. If Watergate scandal had happened today, we'd have to call it Watergate-gate. #bigotgate

sciggles I'm sure labour people are trying to think up a way to make all of #bigotgate out to be #nickcleggsfault you know

canvasGB RT @PaulWaugh In attacking Gillian Duffy, Brown has insulted his entire core vote. Has he ruined Labour's election? #BigotGate #ge2010

richcowley Someone's getting their head kicked in tonight by GB. My money is on Sue. #bigotgate

bigotedwoman Cheeky bastard's having a shit in my toilet now. #ge2010 #election2010 #bigotedwoman #bigotgate

jimbotfu I would've liked to have seen him emerge from her house still clutching her broken and bloodied dentures screaming "WHO'S NEXT?" #bigotgate

markstallard Could be worse! could have called her "an opinionated cunt sponge & and there's some voters we don't need" rather than a bigot. #bigotgate

Farkough "Gordon Brown called me a bigot, and all I got was this lousy apology"#bigotgate

BTW, Spain has been downgraded, maybe that's kind of important...

Policy is useless

2010-04-15T08:48:00.009+01:00

I happened to hear on TV a passage from Sir Alec Douglas-Home, in which he was saying he did not want to have a TV debate with Harold Wilson in the 1964 general elections. His point was that the electorate would not benefit from a clash of personalities on TV and that voters needed to judge candidates only for their policies. And indeed all parties are now coming out with written manifestos and carefully worded pledges to do this or that.

Policy is useless. This is why: I might have an opinion on whether a new night club should open opposite my flat (and I am glad they ask before opening one, thanks) but I frankly have no clue whether it is better for the economy to raise VAT or National Insurance payments. Or both. Or neither. If you're very eloquent and spell out all your reasons in a pretty leaflet I might even come to agree with you on your proposed measure. But then some Nobel-prize-winning-professor of applied-omni-science at Oxford will go on TV and say that they are all porkies and should such an abominable policy be implemented we'll recover from the damage in 2030, if ever.

So thank you very much for the manifesto, but I don't care. Actually, nobody should care. We should not judge candidates based on the policy of their party, because it is useless. Nobody can be sure they are right, not even them. In fact I suspect that if during the night lepracorns swapped the various manifestos around, the parties would look confused for about five minutes, then justify the new policies somehow and just carry on.

Seriously, do we expect our leaders to be chosen on the basis of being able to convince us that we'd get £150 or £700 or £6 billion tax back in our pockets and that, incidentally, by doing so they would also fix all our troubles? Is that what you call "judge a party on their policies"? Promising tax breaks or generic other likeable measures is just making policy by survey. And as much as everyone's voice should be heard, design by survey sucks big time. In fact, "a camel is a horse designed by a committee". And it is not democracy.

Democracy is the power to choose someone that I like to represent me. And not because they have a policy to send every children chocolate truffles for Christmas, but because I have a gut feeling that they would be good leaders. And most people are much better at choosing leaders than rationally deciding if the Post Office should be sold to Russian investors or if German doctors should pass a UK driving test before being allowed on a night shift. But what if my gut feeling is wrong, and my vote goes to someone who turns out to be a total git?

Then we'd need the only thing that actually matters in a democracy: accountability and transparency. Scrap promises. Scrap policy, you'll make that up as you go along anyway. Just tell us that you're a good person, have great experience or a vision or whatever and, this is the important bit, you'll be transparent and accountable for whatever you do in our name. That's it, you just got my vote.

Lighting advice (from a sound guy)

2010-04-08T09:41:00.006+01:00

I would advise against backlighting people with white hair in purple

(it was even more evident on TV but I didn't want to photoshop it!)

BA humour

2010-03-31T12:08:00.001+01:00

After arriving slightly late to the airport, I was greeted at the gate by a BA stewart with these words:

You can't be late to your own funeral

Two systems

2010-03-25T11:03:00.003Z

It's funny that when John Lewis doesn't have something in store they kindly offer to order it in from another shop (takes about 5 days they say). However if you go online you can have next day in store delivery of pretty much anything.

Weird Cases 2

2010-03-01T09:39:00.004Z

The (not-so-)old-retired-barrister-professor looked at the watch. He figured with 15 minutes left he could raise the spirits of the class by reading some case law. He opened the dusty law reports from 1972 and flicked to R v Collins [1972] EWCA Crim 1, from the Court of Appeal. This is such a landmark case it has its own wikipedia page. Everyone gets told to read the case, few actually do. The professor started reading the judgement of Lord Justice Davies:

This is about as extraordinary a case as my brethren and I have ever heard either on the Bench or while at the Bar. Stephen William George Collins was convicted of burglary with intent to commit rape [...] he was sentenced to twenty one months' imprisonment. He is a 19-year old youth, and [...] the learned Judge was clearly troubled about the case and the conviction.

Let me relate the facts. Were they put into a novel or portrayed on the stage, they would be regarded as being so improbable as to be unworthy of serious consideration and verging at times on farce. At about 2 o'clock in the early morning of Saturday 24th July of last year, a young lady of 18 went to bed at her mother's home in Colchester. She had spent the evening with her boyfriend. She had taken a certain amount of drink, and it may be that this fact affords some explanation of her inability to answer satisfactorily certain crucial questions put to her. [The professor here noted that she would be 56 by now, and that he hoped she wasn't anyone's mum.]

She has the habit of sleeping without wearing night apparel in a bed which is very near the lattice-type window of her room. At one stage on her evidence she seemed to be saying that the bed was close up against the window which, in accordance with her practice, was wide open. [...]

At about 3.30 or 4 o'clock she awoke and she then saw in the moonlight a vague form crouched in the open window. [...]

The young lady then realised several things: first of all that the form in the window was that of a male; secondly that he was a naked male; and thirdly that he was a naked male with an erect penis. She also saw in the moonlight that his hair was blond. She thereupon leapt to the conclusion that her boyfriend with whom for some time she had been on terms of regular and frequent sexual intimacy, was paying her an ardent nocturnal visit. She promptly sat up in bed, and the man descended from the sill and joined her in bed and they had full sexual intercourse. But there was something about him which made her think that things were not as they usually were between her and her boyfriend. The length of his hair, his voice as they had exchanged what was described as 'love talk', and other features led her to the conclusion that somehow there was something different. So she turned on the bed-side light, saw that her companion was not her boyfriend. So she slapped the face of the intruder, who was none other than the Appellant. He said to her, "Give me a good time tonight", and got hold of her arm, but she bit him and told him to go. She then went into the bathroom and he promptly vanished.

The [girl] said that she would not have agreed to intercourse if she had known that the person entering her room was not her boyfriend. But there was no suggestion of any force having been used upon her, and the intercourse which took place was undoubtedly effected with no resistance on her part.

Collins was seen by the police at about 10.30 later that same morning. According to the police, the conversation which took place then elicited these points: He was very lustful the previous night. He had taken a lot of drink, and we may here note that drink (which to him is a very real problem) had brought this young man into trouble several times before, but never for an offence of this kind. He went on to say that he knew the complainant because he had worked around the house. On this occasion, desiring sexual intercourse - and according to the police evidence he had added that he was determined to have a girl, by force if necessary, although that part of the police evidence he challenged - he went on to say that he walked around the house, saw a light in an upstairs bedroom, and he knew that this was the girl's bedroom. He found a step ladder, leaned it against the wall and climbed up and looked into the bedroom.

What he could see inside through the wide open window was a girl who was naked and asleep. So he descended the ladder and stripped off all his clothes, with the exception of his socks, because apparently he took the view if the girl's mother entered the bedroom it would be easier to effect a rapid escape if he had his socks on than if he was in his bare feet. That is a matter about which we are not called upon to express any view, and would in any event find ourselves unable to express one.

At this point there was so much debate on the effectiveness of socks in descending a ladder that the professor thought it was a good time to call it a day. I was not able to abstain from thinking this should be up on my blog.

Weird Cases

2010-02-24T09:32:00.000Z

In 2008 in Scotland, 30 police officers raided The Arches nightclub in Glasgow. They discovered a “mass orgy”. Inside the club, all 30 of the officers stormed over to an area behind a partition where they found many men engaged as a group in gay sex. The officers attempted to make arrests but when the orgy participants saw the men in police uniforms waving truncheons and handcuffs, they assumed it was all part of the orgy and enthusiastically tried to incorporate the officers into the recreational mêlée. It took a while for the officers effectively to communicate their true purpose.

Via the Times.

The wolf & jury

2010-02-18T08:54:00.001Z

My pub name from the English pub name generator.

Rj45

2010-02-04T11:08:00.002Z

Owning an RJ45 crimp tool makes you a better man.

kdeglobals

2010-02-02T16:35:00.000Z

Reminder to self: these are the font settings.

[General]
StandardFont=Bistream Vera Sans,7,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0
activeFont=Bitstream Vera Sans,7,-1,5,75,0,0,0,0,0
fixed=Bitstream Vera Sans Mono,7,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0
font=Bitstream Vera Sans,7,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0
menuFont=Bitstream Vera Sans,7,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0
taskbarFont=Bitstream Vera Sans,7,-1,5,50,1,0,0,0,0
toolBarFont=Bitstream Vera Sans,7,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0

Verified by VISA

2010-02-01T16:33:00.002Z

This papers explains extensively what I always thought when using the stupid extra authentication for debit cards online. I think it is ridiculous such a system was ever allowed to be put in place.

$3000 premium on bluray player.

2010-01-18T18:21:00.001Z

Found this very amusing.

If in debt.

2009-11-30T22:16:00.001Z

If you need some help to repay $60bn dollars for an air conditioned golf course, just short the banks that lent you the $60bn, then walk up to a microphone and say "we are not paying you back the $60bn". Job done.

Print A5 booklet from pdf

2009-11-23T10:24:00.002Z

I went kind of crazy with psbook and pdf2ps and all the rest of it, when it is actually a lot simpler. Just open acrobat, do print->page scaling->booklet. Select print on both sides and there you are, no Makefile involved.

Vim spellcheck two languages

2009-11-23T10:20:00.002Z

You can load more than one language in the builtin Vim 7 spellcheck. However it does not look like you can choose when to switch languages, it just uses both all the time, so the more you load the more the chance of some false negative.

set spell spelllang=en_gb,it

Remux

2009-09-26T20:40:00.001+01:00

Reminder to self, this will fix audio/video sync problems and streaming.

mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy -of avi -o output.avi input.avi

Ultimate LaTeX plotting solution

2009-06-16T09:28:00.003+01:00

After years of struggling with rubbish PNGs in pdf files (don't scale), the nightmares of running latex -> ps2pdf and the like just to get vector graphics, painful pstricks list of substitutions finally I found the ultimate plotting thing for LaTeX. It hasn't been around for too long, and it is pgfplots/TikZ.

There is even a matlab2tikz function that does a decent job at grabbing your current matlab figure, converting it to a pgfplots script and then you can go round and change things to make them pretty. It is king.

The Killers

2009-04-23T19:13:00.000+01:00

Some four years late I realised that the bass line in "Jenny Was A
Friend Of Mine" is probably worth getting the album.

Professional bias

2009-04-15T17:42:00.002+01:00

Look at that, watching the You Tube video of Britains Got Talent 2009 when Susan Boyle sings, I thought, before anything else: "look, they have the same Denon CD player as we do"!

Obama violates copyright laws?

2009-04-03T16:52:00.001+01:00

A really nice article on how giving an iPod full of music as a gift to a friend, or, say, the Queen is a real mess of copyright laws being maybe violated. Or maybe not.

Tate modern extension.

2009-04-03T16:10:00.003+01:00

Some interesting pictures of this thing, that although ugly at first might actually be quite nice. Or, although promising at first might turn out to be quite ugly.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=377117&page=17

Errata corrige.

2009-04-02T11:45:00.002+01:00

I would like to point out to the italian papers that this morning were headlining "Sir Goodwin gets a check of 630000 pounds per month", that the actual figure quoted is "per year". Still free (and possibly right) to be outraged, but by an order of magnitude less.

Ipse dixit.

2009-03-31T11:55:00.001+01:00

For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

Risk free suit

2009-03-23T21:48:00.001Z

You buy a suit, and if you lose your job, they give your money back!.

Facebook groups.

2009-02-03T22:58:00.002Z

I love some of these groups that promise something if you join (and invite friends) with the only (useless) aim to get thousands of people sign up. I seem to get more invitation from the italian ones, like this one, that promises you to give statistics on who is visiting your profile...and got 300000 subscriptions! Another popular one promises to reveal your family tree, and got 1,300,000 people...

Vacation

2009-02-02T09:29:00.000Z

Due to the extreme weather conditions and the difficulty staff and students are experiencing in getting into College, all lectures for today are cancelled. Hopefully, we can return to normal tomorrow, I will post notice on the Dept website if this is not the case.

I see.

XPSP2

2008-12-29T09:59:00.001Z

After installing Windows XP SP2 one spends about 12 hours downloading updates...:(

Not in my name

2008-11-11T09:07:00.001Z

This is quite pretentious...nice still.

Tanning

2008-11-07T19:03:00.001Z

Do read the italian newspapers, for added comedy value.

Bad designed forms.

2008-11-07T18:57:00.002Z

What is the "confirm email address" field for? For people that touch type with their eyes closed? I think they should leave it out as a preliminary filter...

General merriment

2008-11-07T18:46:00.003Z

Although is understandable to be happy when your favourite candidate wins, I am a bit puzzled to see all the merriment as if the battle was won. I see a dangerous confusion between the significance of the recent elections and the expectations from the winning candidate. If you supported Obama and his ideas, then the victory should only mean to you that the majority of the Americans agree with you, they are moved by the same ideals. You could go as far as saying that you're happy because maybe there is hope for some of the other countries where these ideals don't have that much success.

But this is far from saying that your expectations have been fulfilled. You can just hope that they will, in the years to come. You can hope that the policies will be implemented, and you can hope that once implemented they will work. This victory is surely a step forward for the human kind, but is a bit early for all the merriment.

Good trailers

2008-09-19T22:41:00.003+01:00

The trailer of burn after reading is definitely one of the best trailers ever. The movies comes out quite late in the UK, but doesn't matter, I can watch the trailer more!

On a side note, all films with a scene of someone backlit that walks into light gradually should be banned. Uh, I said this already. Nevermind.

Recursion

2008-09-19T15:43:00.000+01:00

A child couldn't sleep, so her mother told her a story about a little frog,
who couldn't sleep, so the frog's mother told her a story about a little bear,
who couldn't sleep, so the bear's mother told her a story about a little weasel...
who fell asleep.
...and the little bear fell asleep;
...and the little frog fell asleep;
...and the child fell asleep.

(Via squonk + wharfinger)

Vouchers

2008-09-17T23:54:00.001+01:00

30% off at GAP
2x1 @ burger king (on their website)

Red somewhere.

2008-09-16T21:30:00.000+01:00

Props to JT for seeing this deal through. Selling ML at $50 billion on the same day GS is valued at 60 billion seems like a terrific deal to me.

Helpful mail 3

2008-09-15T20:40:00.001+01:00

Dear Application Developer,

A Facebook user requested that we forward an anonymous report that your application My movies (application ID #7005215677) is violating Facebook Terms of Use. The user selected "" as the violation category. Any text entered into the additional comments box appears here:

Begin User Text

I can't make it work

End User Text

To protect the privacy of our users, we cannot disclose any further information. Facebook is not taking any action against your application based on this particular report, but we are passing this along so you are made aware of potential problems and respond accordingly to ensure you are in compliance. Please note that failure to comply with the Terms may result in an enforcement action.

If you have any issues or questions, please don't hesitate to contact us by sending an email to developers-help@facebook.com.

Clueless user.

Helpful mail 2

2008-09-13T01:45:00.002+01:00

Dear Application Developer,

A Facebook user requested that we forward an anonymous report that your application My movies (application ID #7005215677) is violating Facebook Terms of Use. The user selected "" as the violation category. Any text entered into the additional comments box appears here:

Begin User Text

Please can you help m?
How can I upload my video at facebook

End User Text

WTF.

MSN spam

2008-09-12T11:23:00.003+01:00

Hey, I would like to chat with you but I can not get msn to stay online.
You you can send me a chat request here http://#####.blogspot.com
My name on the site it kellylove :P

I so much hate this stuff...

Vodafone passport

2008-09-09T21:00:00.002+01:00

Oggi in aeroporto c'erano milioni di cartelli che pubblicizzavano la tariffa passport. In pratica paghi 1 euro alla risposta e poi paghi la tariffa nazionale. In realta' e' una mezza maialata per come lo pubblicizzano: induce a pensare che siccome chiamare un cellulare italiano dall'estero (Europa) costa 0.55 eur/min con l'euro alla risposta inizia a convenire dopo 2 minuti di chiamata.

In realta' cio' sarebbe verso solo se la tariffa nazionale fosse zero, mentre, a seconda dei piani, puo' essere tipo 0.30 eur/min, che sposta cioe' la soglia del risparmio (con la tariffa passport invece di quella normale) a circa 4 minuti. Sotto i 4 minuti e' invece piu' costosa, fino al doppio se la chiamata e' sotto il minuto.

Screws

2008-09-08T08:36:00.002+01:00

I had a weird problem with the wireless led blinking at something like 10Hz, with the card turning on and off at the same rate (resulting in very very very bad connection and sometimes CPU 100% to process ACPI events).

It took 30min to take the whole laptop apart (list of sony service manuals) and then it turned out to be a loose screw that was causing the hardware switch to "bounce". Tightened it and it's all good.

There is also now 1 less screw inside my laptop.

I can see this coming

2008-09-08T08:09:00.003+01:00

If I was at plaza...I would have a look at this.

Falsi d'autore.

2008-08-30T23:09:00.003+01:00

Si scopre che la foto in prima pagina della Stampa di oggi (Sarah Palin sulla copertina di Vogue) e' falsa. E' un lavoro di photoshop fatto su internet da qualcuno nel 2007, che di colpo e' stato pensato vero da quelli della Stampa (e del Corriere, nelle pagine internet).

Googlando per vogue cover si vede abbastanza chiaramente nella lista quali sono vere e quali sono false...mi chiedo come entrambi i piu' autorevoli quotidiani italiani non abbiamo fatto la stessa ricerca, o chiamato Vogue, o controllato in qualsiasi altro modo prima di titolare.

Helpful mail

2008-08-27T21:14:00.003+01:00

Dear Application Developer,

A Facebook user requested that we forward an anonymous report that your application My movies (application ID #7005215677) is violating Facebook Terms of Use. The user selected "" as the violation category. Any text entered into the additional comments box appears here:

Begin User Text

How do you remove it?

End User Text

To protect the privacy of our users, we cannot disclose any further information. Facebook is not taking any action against your application based on this particular report, but we are passing this along so you are made aware of potential problems and respond accordingly to ensure you are in compliance. Please note that failure to comply with the Terms may result in an enforcement action.

If you have any issues or questions, please don't hesitate to contact us by sending an email to developers-help@facebook.com.

Thanks,

Facebook

Reply:

Hi Facebook,

It looks to me that the report is not about the my app violating the Terms of Use, but is actually about a user that

1) can't find how to remove the app.
2) can't find how to ask for help through the right channels.

I will be happy to assist the user, otherwise could you kindly point him/her towards the x button?

Kind regards,

PF

Customer Service

2008-08-26T17:44:00.002+01:00

There is something evil in the way sometimes people in call centers answer saying "I am really sorry to hear that you ... I will do my best to..": no you are not, and no, you won't.

Silhouette

2008-07-28T20:33:00.003+01:00

Stanno diventando un po' banali (forse anche i miei post).

Raccomandazioni

2008-07-28T18:08:00.002+01:00

Oggi in ufficio ho visto un cartello che offriva soldi (e pure parecchi) per chi raccomandava un amico o un parente per qualche posizione, e poi quel qualcuno poi veniva assunto.

La fiducia nel processo di assunzione e nell'onesta' della gente?

Little venice

2008-07-26T22:29:00.000+01:00

I think it should be renominated little smelly pond.

£100 for apple.

2008-07-02T18:21:00.001+01:00

Say you have £100 to spend at the apple store...what would you buy, say, now or max in a month time?

Busy life 2

2008-06-27T18:59:00.000+01:00

Thursday:
7:00 alarm
8:00 catch the tube to work
6:00 come back from work
7:15-late dinner with work people

Childern wear.

2008-06-26T18:25:00.002+01:00

Size 8 stuff available at reduced VAT...just got some boots for a tenner!

Lucky Day

2008-06-25T20:11:00.000+01:00

Congratulations - You recently completed the [] Candidate Assessment Centre Questionnaire and have been selected from the prize draw to win £100 Apple Store Voucher.

Busy life

2008-06-24T18:23:00.004+01:00

Saturday:
10-17 working on the project,
17 run home and get changed, dinner
19-03am summer ball

Sunday
11:45 wake up
12-13 Mass
13-14 lunch
14-18 work on project
18 grand father pickpocked (all documents needed to flight on mon)
18-19 various phone calls with relatives and embassy (while working on project)
19-22:45 dinner with relatives + move sisters bags to hotel + work on project presentation

Monday:
6:45 wake up, shower breakfast etc
8am catch tube, say goodbye to sister (leaving)
9am start 1st day of work
17:30 finish work, run to the tube
18:30 meeting with Dramsoc to decide next term plays
19:30 quick dinner
20-23 work on presentation
23-01am hair dressing (I love straighteners)

Tuesday:
7:10 wake up too late, breakfast run to the tube
8:45 start financial training
17:30 finish financial training run home
18:30 run to college to finish presentation
23:30 back home

Wednesday
6:30 alarm
8:00 setup for presentation
9:00-13:00 presentation + demonstration
13:00 run to work
17:00 tube back to college
17-18 principal officer training
18-19 financial officer training (otherwise they freeze the budget)
21-23 dramsoc's play, Much Ado About Nothing

Not so live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-23T00:13:00.002+01:00

I've now update the pictures for your viewing pleasure. Just as a comparison, these are the pictures from summer ball 2002.

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-22T01:10:00.001+01:00

The Marqee in the quad has a d&b Q-series array, stacked on the floor. The DJ is within a trilite cube, 3x5x3 or something like that.

There are 30 of that sort of pixel lines (I'll find out what they are), 6 studio beam rigged, 4 strobes rigghed on the front uprights, 2 of which rotating. In additon 4 projectors project some video loops on the 4 sides of the marquee (in diffenrent size)

(Picture to follow)

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-22T00:59:00.001+01:00

After finding out that 101 in the union is 2.50£ and elsewhere 3£ I feel sad.

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-22T00:53:00.002+01:00

Dbs is setup as Dbs us usual, + some d&b M4 as monitors and a M7CL. Lighting as usual. The bands are pretty good but unfortunately nobody cares about them. At all.

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-21T22:57:00.002+01:00

Most of the light in the great hall is provided by the two house lights left on on the rake.

On stage, 2 wind up stands hold a trilite bar above the DJ with 4 MAC 2000 (2 wash 2 profile) and 8 half pixlelines sort of thing. On the floow 2 Mac 2000 profile and 4 mac 500 move around. All is controlled by a Vista. The DJ is lit by the in-house profiles on the side bars.

Behind the DJ the screen is back projected with some nice video.

Sound is provided by Nexo array (5 elements + subs) stacked on stage. (Nothing is flown). Subs under the stage.

(photos to follow)

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-21T22:11:00.002+01:00

The MDH setup is the following:

2 trilite cubes (2x2x3) which 4 profiles each (open white pointing at the ~~ceilig~~ mirror balls). 1 Mac 500 each and 2 roboscans each. One of the scans has a broken mirror.

On the ceiling there are 15 mirror balls (I think 12" or 15"), the ones with the little battery powered motor. 3 of them aren't spinning

(photos to come later)

Update:

the band is lit by 2 profiles, and some (4?) led bars on the floor. They have 2 monitors + one comms headset for the drummer. The PA are two W-audio speakers (15" + tweeters by the looks of it), controlled by a Yamaha desk (either the 02R96, or the DM1000, they are quite difficult to distinguish in the dark) Over all they sound pretty good I have to say.

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-21T22:09:00.002+01:00

The rides are very good! The going round spinning thing is really fun, looking forward to go on it again a bit more drunk!

There is also the merrygoround, bumper cars and another very scary spinning thing.

Much better than last year!

Live from ICSB 2008

2008-06-21T21:19:00.003+01:00

Greeted by the 7 LED parcans on the queens't tower, flashing on demo mode all the colours of the rainbow, I am ready fom the first pint of the wide selection of beers, from the set of all beers

X = {x | x = carsberg (2£) V x = 101 (3£)}.

Does this include leathermans?

2008-06-06T08:33:00.003+01:00

Saw this bcc gordon brown thing:

We are not out to criminalise people who have a good reason for being in possession of a knife, but frankly what good reasons would a youngster have for even carrying a penknife?

Cutting tangles of electric tape? Removing cable ties? Slicing salami?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour to fighting violence and crime and the likes, but hey, I've got good reasons for carrying a penknife.

Respect.

2008-06-06T01:32:00.002+01:00

I think one of the key traits of Tony Soprano is that when he receives an apology he just goes away. Like that, without saying "it's ok". And is not he doesn't care, he does, he really wanted it. But not, he goes away. Like that.

Badger.

2008-06-05T08:54:00.002+01:00

Nella pessima traduzione di quest'intervista, il corriere ci fa scappare pure il, per così dire, refuso.

Tra l'altro, il badget era molto basso...

Need for speed.

2008-06-04T20:23:00.000+01:00

The new wireless goes 1300Kb/s, yuppy!

NaN

2008-06-03T19:44:00.003+01:00

The price currently displayed for some water in Sainsburys's is:
80p for 2l, NaN for 100ml.

screen 6

2008-05-29T23:21:00.001+01:00

Screen 6 is definitely the best one at cineworld fulham rd. It's rather small and usually movies that have been around for a while end up down there, but sometimes might be worth to wait.

Are belong to us

2008-05-29T20:07:00.001+01:00

Today in a piece of code we found this wonderful error message:

if(hComPort == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
printf("COM port can not being opened\n");
return FALSE;
}

Attrici.

2008-05-20T07:45:00.001+01:00

Emily Mortimer dovrebbe vincere un Oscar un giorno.

V-day.

2008-05-20T06:19:00.001+01:00

V-day.

Ipse Dixit.

2008-05-16T00:21:00.002+01:00

Even if God is dead, you're still gonna kiss his ass.

(Tony Soprano)

Cartografi

2008-05-14T20:14:00.000+01:00

Leggo e ripropongo qui, lol.