jjprobert

So, it's a new year (or, it was just earlier this week). That means lots of people making new years resolutions. It also means that in a few weeks, there will be lots of people feeling bad about failing to keep their aforementioned resolutions. And a few weeks later, they'll probably have forgotten that they made them.

I guess we'll see whether I'm one of them or not. My resolution this year, is very, very simple:

I'm going to write something substantial on this blog every week.

That's it. New content coming to

jjprobert every week. It doesn't matter whether it's a ramble about a film I've seen, something I did, something I'm planning to do, or random abstract musings on the meaning of life. Here and now, anything goes. The definition of substantial that I'm aiming for, is five hundred to a thousand words.

I'll be honest here, I'm not a writer. I agonise over every word, and if it doesn't need to be put down to make the point, I generally cut it. I despised anything with a word count requirement at school/university, I used every trick in the book to boost word counts when I needed to. But the only way I'll get better at this is to write more. So, I'm going to try just writing stream of consciousness flows until I get more confident with what I'm putting out. I'll probably hate most of these early entries because they're almost certainly going to read horribly, but I'm determined that I'll leave them up, as a record of just how bad I was, and consequentially, how much better I can be/hopefully will be in the future.

One of the major reasons for doing this kind of stuff, is that I'm finding that less and less of my time at work is spent actually developing software, and more is being spent on writing documentation and specifications. I've also come to a realisation that written communication is definitely one of the areas where I am weakest. So, I want to remedy that, and the best way to get better at something is to do it a lot, as far as I can tell.

Maybe two thousand words is going to prove to be an unreachable bar. I'd like to think it's not going to be, by the end of the year, but I can tell, just from the way that writing this entry is dragging out, that at the beginning, getting out to two thousand is going to be painful, and I can't see why anyone would read this nonsense of me torturing myself out to the self imposed word target. In fact, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about a two thousand word target. That's because that was my target. Then I started writing, and I realised how unrealistic that would be, at least in the start. As the point is more about actually writing things and forming a habit of it, rather than hitting unrealistic targets, I decided to temper my targets by allowing myself a lesser word count, and edited my definition of substantial to reflect that. Because reflection and saving documents lets you do that.

Edit for a tl;dr: So, whatever, here's the rub. I'm writing stuff. I'm aiming to write stuff every week. It'll be about this length hopefully.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/5810.html

Rocking out the bike rides this week.

Did another 19.4 miles yesterday evening, and a further 14.4 today. I managed to find a really nice couple of hills, that I will probably keep going back to for the time being, until I get sufficiently bored that I head for a couple of others I identified on these rides as 'I want to climb that' type hills.

The total of 33.8 miles goes onto my 203.9 already achieved and takes it to 237.7 miles. The road is deteriorating, and Weathertop has been left far behind...

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/5411.html

Oh gosh it's hot.

And thus has my first week at my new (graduate!) job been spent in a hot room with lots of windows for sunlight to stream in and computers to warm it up, and not enough ventilation (or rather, a general lack of a breeze full stop) to cool the room down.

It's been good so far though. Interesting enough, though mostly stuff I've covered before in various C++ sessions at university.

The week before I started, I managed two more rides in the sun, putting on another 19.6 miles, and 26.1 miles in the two rides respectively. This takes my personal total on the route to rivendell, from 138.6 miles to 184.3 miles. This placed me past the marshes, and about 15 miles from Weathertop.

Then, today, I did a total of 19.6 miles in several slightly shorter rides, despite the heat of the day. This takes my total mileage to 203.9 miles, and sees me leave weathertop behind, having just passed the half-way mark on the route.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/5159.html

Rocked out three more bike rides last week, slowly pushing the distance up.

First was 17.8 miles, the second was 20.1, and the third was 21.5 miles.

Combined with what I had done previously, by the weekend, I had reached 118.5 miles, which is now well past the Prancing Pony at Bree, and on towards the Midgewater Marshes.

Then, today, I went for another 20.1 miles, so now I'm on 138.6 miles, and the road is now continuing along the southern edge of the Marshes. This is also about 1/3 of the way to Rivendell.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/5082.html

So, I know I haven't posted here for some time.

Consequentially, I know I owe some people posts about various topics...

This is not that post. Instead, this is a post (and a tag) for the beginning of a challenge I'm setting myself.

The Eowyn Challenge is a walking (or running, or riding, or however you feel up to the journey) challenge, to walk the distances described in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

I am going to be counting only distance rode on my bicycle, and those run, as I do a large amount of walking, and counting all that would probably get me there far quicker than I would expect to. Also, counting the distance for all my walking would get boring.

So, by the time we get to the release of The Hobbit part 2, I want to have completed the Bag End to Rivendell section of the journey described in The Hobbit.

On Wednesday last week, I went for a ride out to Harewood house (a local stately home) then round and back again, totalling 17.8 miles. This places me somewhere along the road, travelling at a leisurely pace towards Frogmorton.

I repeated the ride on Thursday, to bring my total to 35.6 miles, Sweeping through day 3 of their travels, passing their camp that night, and moving onwards slightly.

Then, on Monday, I went for a ride to a local town and back, for a total of 23.5 miles, bringing my total to 59.1 miles. I have swept through what remained of day 4, and all of day five, and on day 6, find myself approaching the Old Forest, east of Buckland, though safely on the road.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/4717.html

So, it's the 1st of March. Here in the UK, particularly in Wales, that means St David's Day.

Okay, so I had this epic discussion of the etymology of the name David, it's use through the centuries, and stuff like that.

Then I went and pressed 'shutdown' on my computer, rather than 'switch user'...

So, you get this instead.

St David is the patron saint of Wales. He was a 6th century bishop. He was canonized (formally recognized by the Vatican) in 1120.

I can recreate the other stuff from memory if there's sufficient demand. Or you can just go look most of it up on places like Wikipedia.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/4360.html

Today, in about twenty minutes (as I write this), the current Pope, will formally and fully have retired from his post. Now, the initial question that comes to my head, at least, is 'so what?'

I'm a christian, but I'm not a Roman Catholic. The Pope is not formally recognized by either Church I would consider myself to be a member of. Yet, I sat and watched yesterday as he gave his last address in a language I couldn't understand and I wanted to know what he said. Consequently, I was grateful for the translation that BBC news were providing.

So, why did it matter to me? Well, whether people like it or not, the Pope remains one of the most well known, openly christian figures in the world. When he speaks on a topic, secular society generally understands that to mean 'this is what christians think of this topic'. It's not an ideal situation, from any point of view, but it can certainly get conversations started.

The fact that this was a resignation from office, as opposed to seeing the Pope die in office, also made it significant, because it was known in advance, that this would be his final public audience. Consequently, large crowds had gathered in St Peter's Square to hear him speak, along with broadcast media from around the world (I presume, the BBC were there, it makes sense to me that others would be too). As the first Pope to resign in nearly 600 years, this marks a remarkable end to the Pope's time in office.

Another factor, for me, was that while I remember the death of Pope John Paul II, and the resultant election of Pope Benedict XVI that followed, this is the first time I've seen a full papal cycle of election and departure, Pope John Paul II having already been in office for 13 years when I was born.

So, why does the Pope resigning matter? Because it's something that hasn't happened for nearly 600 years, because it's a change in leadership for 1.16 billion people, because the Pope, as leader of those 1.16 billion, is in charge of more people than any other government in the world, save only China and India.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this when the conclave to elect a new pope is convened (and/or a new pope elected).

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/4291.html

Today, I went to hear the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra do a performance of Mozart's 38th Symphony, a selection of aria's, again composed by Mozart, and then Gustav Mahler's 4th Symphony.

I'm not going to talk about the concert itself (wonderful though it was, and well worth going to hear, if you have tomorrow evening free).

My plan was more to think about Mozart and the concept of genius.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born 1756, died 1791 at the age of 35. In his life, it is estimated that he composed over 600 separate pieces, starting at age 5. So, for 30 years, he averaged an output of 20 pieces a year, including well over 40 full orchestral symphonies. Many of these both broke new ground for the format of music, while others are held as masterpieces of the art of composition. This astonishing output rate, along with the widely acknowledged quality and range of his works is, in my opinion the mark of genius that sets Mozart apart from the other composers of his era.

But, genius. It's a word that gets used a lot these days, to describe a vast range of people and skills.

Personally, I think it gets overused. Originally a Latin word describing a guiding or teaching spirit, the related verb (gigno, genui or genitus) held the meaning of bringing something into being, creation or production, and is undoubtedly etymologically related to the word genesis, which receives most of it's use these days as the name of the first book of the bible, but, in Latin and Greek, was used to talk of origin. Anyway, genius. As I said, I think it gets overused. Often, I'll hear sports commentators talk about 'moments of genius' and, occasionally, they're right. Usually, in my experience, though, they mean 'that was an incredibly low percentage thing to attempt, but it came off', or 'that was the obvious thing to do, well done lad'. Rarely are they actually describing what I would call genius, something of unique creativity. Then again, so little these days is truly original, and, for sports people, at the least, the predominance of work performed in training sessions means we rarely see someone do something for the first time. Maybe it's the first time they've done that in front of a fee-paying (or not, as the case may be) audience, but probably they've done it before.

Now, this is not to deny the creative spark and wrist power of M.S. Dhoni's 'Helicopter shot', or the wonder of a perfectly timed drive back down the ground (to take two cricket examples), and certainly, there were moments of genius in the development of the new range of cricket shots, but to describe their inventors as 'genii', I would assert, is overstating it.

I would hold that a genius is someone who produces a breadth of work that transforms a field. Mozart did do that. Albert Einstein's Annus mirabilis, in 1905 marked him out as another. In the publication of the four papers of that year, Einstein transformed the direction 20th Century science would take. No longer was there 'nothing left to discover, simply more precise measurements', instead there was a whole new field of work to explore, and foundations to be re-dug.

This is highly rambly, but, inspired by the performance I went to see today, I felt it an appropriate enough topic to talk about.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/3975.html

Hrm, I wish I had something more interesting to say here, but today has been jolly boring.

Plenty of project work done, analyzing data for my project, which is worth a third of this year. So, that was good, but I don't want to say more until it's actually handed in and stuff.

I picked up a copy of what's on at the symphony hall in the next few months, a couple of weeks back, and when I had a look at the pricing structures, I noticed that if I went to the box office, on the day of performances, because I'm a student, I might well be able to get tickets for a mere fiver (£5). And on Wednesday (and Thursday), there's a performance that I thought might be quite good to go to. So that's on my to do list.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/3646.html

So, I said there would be a sunday post to make up for the post I missed earlier in the week. Apparently, that didn't happen, as it's now gone midnight here.

Anyways, Sunday, for me that means church in the morning.

Today, that was followed by the joy of watching Scotland beat Ireland in the Six Nations, despite the Irish winning on pretty much every statistic except the scoreline.

Then, this evening was a thoroughly enjoyable seminar on apologetics and some aspects of Christianity more generally. The range and level of discussion was enjoyable, even if we did end up descending into semantics towards the end.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/3469.html

This is my first post from my new computer.

I said I would do a post on building a computer, so here it is.

At the bottom line, I found the process of actually putting together the parts, relatively simple. The components all came with instructions telling you how to put the various bits together, following these was a relatively easy process. I did have an issue with the RAM, which requires a surprisingly large amount of force to seat in place, or it won't be recognized by the system as being there.

The harder part (for me) was remembering to order all the details that make a computer usable, rather than just operating, such as a DVD drive, and a case to contain all the parts. Well, some of those aren't necessarily small, but they are less performance significant. (That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!)

So, in summary, if you're thinking of building your own PC, I'd say go for it! It's not as hard as people seem to assume, and if you properly ground yourself, there's very little to no chance that you will actually break something, unless you willfully refuse to follow the instructions. Plus, it's probably cheaper than buying an equivalent spec machine!

And, it's coming slightly late because I've been playing DOTA with my housemates.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/3209.html

$jjprobert: (fractal)$

Okay, so somewhere in the last couple of days I missed a post. I'll possibly post this Sunday instead.

Anyway, continuing on from my last post, yesterday I took the opportunity to watch another pair of Firefly episodes. I was about to watch a third, when the postman arrived (well, Amazon courier, who's checking?) with a package containing the last bits I needed for my new computer. So, what did I do? I did what any sensible person would have done. I spent all evening putting it together!

So, there's the main reason for me not putting a post up.

Right now, I'm typing this on my laptop, which has been my main computer for the past three and a half years. For the first two of those, it was my only computer. But, it's been showing it's age for a little while now, and while cleaning out the inside of the case does do some good, it's doesn't change the fact that it's been three years since this machine was on the market, computing technology has come a long way in those years.

So, there's been that. And then tonight was the Rugby League World Club Challenge. Leeds Rhinos vs Melbourne Storm. At Headingley. I couldn't not, really, given Leeds was the nearest large city to where I was raised, so Leeds clubs are generally where I turn to for national level competition. In the end, the better side won, but it was a great game to watch, and probably one of the best showcases for Rugby League I've seen in a fair while.

So, that's what I've been up to since I last posted.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/2816.html

Okay, so some time ago, I was in HMV (before they sadly went into administration, I will add) and I picked up the Firefly series, as well as Serenity. But, until now, I haven't had the time to sit down and watch them.

This afternoon, I watched the first disc (of four).

Wow.

The initial set up was reasonably simple and perfectly understandable, while the 'job an episode' style of plots keeps things nice and compact (at least, so far).

The costumes and set design are very obviously based on westerns, but then, when the show's genre is classified as 'Space Western', what do you expect? Also, there were at least a couple of moments where I was expecting a solid gunshot, and got an sound more like something out of Star Wars.

The centre piece, however, for me, was the dialogue. The interactions between everybody on board Serenity, the implicit depth between those who had known each other for longer, and the way the new passengers were building relations with the crew, was wonderful to see.

I shall be watching more tomorrow, assuming the parts for my PC don't come.

Yes, I know this is technically now late. Well, yeah. It's late. I'll deal.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/2747.html

Once again, a post about science!

So, you might have seen recently that there was a meteor that fell to earth in Russia on Friday. The link goes to a compilation video of the meteor falling, recorded by video cameras on car dashboards.

Today, we have had more information released about the meteor.

The meteor is estimated to have been approximately 17 metres in diameter. That's equivalent to enough water to fill 8 Olympic sized swimming pools! To me, this does seem remarkably large. However, the Tunguska event in 1908, which flattened a vast swathe of Siberian forest, was, it is believed, caused by a meteor over twice the diameter of this one.

The estimated blast strength of this particular meteor is that it was equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, or about 30 of the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. However, as this occurred 15-20 Km above the surface of the earth, far less damage was caused than at Hiroshima. The other comparison is with the Tunguska event, that is estimated to have been equivalent to 10-15 Megatons of TNT at about 5-10Km.

More information about the impact can be found here for those of you who are interested.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/2426.html

So, as I expected, there was no post yesterday.

Today's post is inspired by a small piece of news I saw over the weekend, though I can't now remember the source.

Basically, the idea was to use a space telescope to look at a star known to have a planet orbiting it, and then utilise an occulting disk to very precisely block the light of the star from reaching the imaging optics. This would enable direct imaging of the planet's atmosphere. Now, for gas giants, this wouldn't be of much use, as we can never set foot there, but for rocky planets of about Earth's mass (of which there are an increasing number that we are finding), the ability to observe which of these planets has an atmosphere that would potentially be a place where life could evolve (or indeed, if markers of life could be found directly), then the possibility that we are not alone in the universe, would become a very real likelihood.

Current telescopes are, to my understanding, unable to do this, as they lack the occulting optics required. Consequently, the stars blind current telescopes to such low level light sources as orbiting planets, whereas the proposed satellite would be able to get a clear look at such planets, enabling proper characterisation of them for the first time.

It's one thing to be able to say that a star has a planet (or planets) in orbit around it, it is an entirely different, and (in my opinion) much more exciting thing to be able to say 'that planet could support life'.

Of course, given the vast distances involved in interstellar travel, I don't think that reaching another world will happen in my lifetime, although I would not object to being proven wrong by significant advances in propulsion technology, but given that the Voyager probes, launched in 1977, are only just reaching the outer boundaries of the solar system (and still making some interesting findings), I doubt I will be wrong.

All in all, though, we live in a fascinating period in history, where our ideas about ourselves, where we stand in the universe and how unique our home planet is are being challenged. I look forward to finding out what else is out there.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/2194.html

I made an initial post on this blog about Avengers Assemble way back when it first came out. Since then, I've seen a lot of films (mostly at the cinema), and there are lots of little things in some of them that I want to talk about at some point, yet I've never really had the time or inclination to put them into a post.

So, lacking something more immediate to talk about, I'm going to talk about them.

( Cut to protect reading pages )

I'm going to leave it there for today, and I won't necessarily be posting tomorrow, as Sundays are not part of lent, though they are in it. I may well though, simply because a habit easier to keep when you aren't breaking it once a week.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/1830.html

Okay, so, today has been a day lacking in, well, much productivity at all. Hence, I am writing this so late in the day and it's going to be a short post.

However, there has been one thing that I have managed to (finally) do. I now have all the parts I need for my new computer either sitting in my room, or on order! Building my own computer is something I have been aiming to do for a little while, and now it is going to become a reality.

I'm not going to talk about processes or anything like that. Not at the moment. I'll leave that for another day. Probably when I am actually posting from the new computer, rather than this three year old laptop.

In the mean time, I'll just enjoy the extra screen space the 23" monitor that came today affords me.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/1780.html

It's February 14th. If you haven't been living under a rock, then you will be aware that today is Valentine's day.

A day for romance, and love.

( A lengthy discussion on Saints, more specifically Valentine and commercialisation. )

I am a single member of the population. Hence why I'm sat here writing this blog. The statement that opens this paragraph is not, in my opinion, a bad thing, and not something I am looking to change at the moment. There are various reasons for this, which I have no doubt I will discuss in another post sometime in the future, but for now, I'll end this here with a hope people are finding these interesting.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/1394.html

Okay, so it's Lent. And, in the interest of actually doing something to mark this period, I thought I'd try actually using this blog thing, instead of it just sitting here not getting used.

My intentions are to simply write some words (no limit on how small, or how large), ideally on a single topic, every day during the period of lent.

So, given that it's the reason I'm doing this, it makes sense to examine what Lent actually is, for my first post.

( Thoughts about Lent, it's history and various related symbolic actions )

Personally, I'm choosing to take up a couple of things. The first of which is this blog. The second of which is a daily period of prayer before God. And, I'm choosing to place this here, such that I might be accountable to others.

Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/1224.html

Ok, so, I saw Avengers yesterday and have decided that I wanted to write up my thoughts on it. Well, attempt to find thoughts beyond "ZOMG, AWESOME".

First off, Joss Whedon directing/writing. A man who knows the original universe so well, such a good range of stuff already done. And he knows his audience. Oh, sure, anyone can get a lot of enjoyment from the film, but there are a large number of jokes that may only make sense to those that know Marvel comics canon.

So, the film itself. Spoilers from here on in.

( Read more... )

tl;dr: ZOMG AWESOME! Egos everywhere, Awesome nicely shared out.

Current Mood: hyper
Crossposts: http://jjprobert.livejournal.com/741.html

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