Kate

ideapaint

2009-10-22T10:30:23Z

Transgender, bisexuality and the promotion of other rather than diversity.

2009-10-15T15:53:51Z

When pride changed its name back in the nineties to include bisexual and transgender it was on the basis that transgender people challenged 'traditional' assumptions about gender. It was with the assumption that transgender included drag kings, femme men, butch women, drag queens, androgynes, transvestites, m2F, f2M, MtM, FtF, transexuals, cross-dressers etc

The battle that has been fought since then has been about inclusion however a number of insecure transexuals have repeatedly over the years have transgender, trans, T*, anything with trans in the name re-assigned as referring just to them. The media have gone along with this, principally for the same reason that the media seeks to hide bisexuality or instead promote it as promiscuity. The media likes to see things as either/or male or female, man or woman, hetro or homo. The promotion of other rather than diversity.

processing quad HD

2009-10-04T06:10:07Z

gacked from steve leibsons blog
"I’ve just returned from Maastricht, Netherlands where I attended the 2008 edition of the MPSOC (Multi or Many Processor SOC). My next few blog entries summarize some of the most relevant MPSOC presentations. Professor Youn-Long Lin of National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan spoke about developing an H.264 video decoder for a quad-HD (7680x4320-pixel or 33.2Mpixel) flat-panel display. Now 33 Mpixels may seem like a lot considering that we’re just entering the HD age, but Professor Lin pointed out that Dalsa Semiconductor delivered a 4x4-inch, 111-Mpixel CCD image sensor to the US Naval Observatory way back in 2006. In fact, recent experiments suggest that the human eye has a resolution of approximately 144 Mpixels (although the eye is not a CCD sensor and I’ve seen estimates of more than 500 Mpixels, taking into account that the eye actually roves over a scene and is not static).

In any case, a 33-Mpixel display is not outrageous and Processor Lin’s research investigates the system requirements for a video decoder that can achieve such resolution at the desired frame rates. For real-time decoding of 30-fps, quad-HD video coded using H.264/AVC, Professor Lin’s team came up with a processing requirement of 200 cycles/macroblock. Professor Lin’s students mapped the various macroblock-processing tasks, scheduled them appropriately, and developed a hardware pipeline that can perform the needed work in the allotted number of cycles.

The task scheduling reduced the required operating frequency by 66%, proving that an intelligent approach to work scheduling in system design is well worth the effort. The resulting design operates at less than 150 MHz. No GHz processors need apply. The relatively low clock rate allowed the design team to prototype the design in an FPGA. In addition, careful simulation showed that careful memory-access restructuring could cut memory-access cycles by a factor of 10x. Both of these quantitative results prove that real system engineering requires an analytic look at the system design requirements and system operation. There’s no need to waste MHz or operating power.

are you watching qualifying on Japanease Grand Prix?

2009-10-03T06:27:18Z

There have been crashes in Q1, Q2 and Q3. It is highly questionable if Brauwn racing team have valid Q2 times since they did them under yellow flag. Glock is in hospital with a wound in his leg, and we have had people out all through the day. Got to go and watch!

vettel is on pole
trulli is 2nd
Hamiliton is 3nd
Sutill is 4th
Barrichello is 5th
Heidfeld is 6th
Button is 7th
Räikkönen 8th
Kovalainen (crashed) and 9th
Webber in the pit lane

Oxford is pretty north it seems..

2009-09-28T10:00:06Z

Just for reference also at 51 degrees 45 minutes (Oxford) are Nijmegen, South Warsaw, between Calgary and Edmonton, on the border of Quebec and Newfoundland. Meantime Edinburgh is on the same latitude as Malmo, Moscow, Novosbirisk, Southern islands of Alaska, Thompson Manitoba. Or in the north, Lerwick, Shetland isles are about the same latitude as Oslo, Upsala, Helsinki, St Petersberg or a degree south of Anchorage

cool video

2009-07-25T09:20:14Z

just caught a mouse

2009-07-24T00:33:20Z

it wasn't being agressive, it seemed a really friendly mouse it just seemed to be trying to eat/scratch it s way into people stuff so i thought I had better stop it

so i put a big contanire over it and assumed that it would die albeit happily due to lack of oxygen. i then eventually looked up what i was doing to it on the net. NOT a nice way to die at all. Very very nasty. So i found mosue cage trap and took it of the container and put it in that. The mouse by this time was breathing very very shallowly and twitching, it offered little attempt to get away.

the container btw was scrubed with mult-surface cleaner inside and out and the washed. i would have used demestos if i could find any.

I feel guilty, i know i shouldn't but i do. if I was at home i would be tempted to buy it a plastic cage and a wheel and stuff and feed it till it dies of old age. here i don't know what to do.

let me explain one thing - i eat meat. i have no problem with killing animals for food. I belive in treating animals well as possible and then killing them so to reduce the distress as much as possible. i wouldn't have minded using a normal baited trap, they look exceedingly efficent at killing. the animal should feel little or no pain and then simply die. But i was making that mouse suffer and to be honest it seemed so tame it could have been a pet. i wish i could give it to the people i'm staying with as a pet but i suspect that's unlikely (i would buy the box etc)

anyhow last i saw the mouse looked somewhat better trying to naw through metal, it's nose looked so cute - but i know that it's vermin and carries disease etc

superleague formula????

2009-07-22T22:33:15Z

Football teams across Europe go racing???? gacked from wingrove on twitter

Ross Ching - really cool movie maker

2009-07-20T11:41:52Z

Ross Ching is part of a new wave of movie makers shooting rebel style on DSLR's such as the Canon 5D mark 2. But he started with a simple point and shoot based Canon Powershot/Rebel. Ross made these movies using an intervilometer.
Here his new video for Mexican band Jesse and Joy

Jesse & Joy "Electricidad" from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

He previously did a video for a death for cuties song - little bribes, that was liked by the band so much that they used it as their official video and it wa released on MTV

Death Cab for Cutie - Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

An HDnet interview with Ross Ching

HDNet Interview from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

Here he explains the background to his production technique in The Making of Eclectic 2.0

The Making of Eclectic 2.0 from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

I first heard about him via the 'redcentre 39 podcast' by Wingrove and Seymour. His website is here

PS Have a look at his 35mm short: Hunting

Swine flu stuff

2009-07-19T21:29:12Z

Swine flu: warning signs that someone is going sour

The same symptoms that would be shrugged off at any other time take on a different meaning during a flu outbreak, especially when everyone seems uncertain about what is happening or what might happen. There's nothing irrational about this. Infection with influenza virus is always potentially serious and when the young and healthy are in the cross-hairs even more so. Many other viruses can cause the same initial symptoms ("flu-like symptoms"), outside of flu outbreaks the likelihood those symptoms represent influenza infections is small. When flu is circulating in the community, however, the likelihood that the very same symptoms are from an influenza infection goes way up (the reasons can be found via an elementary application of Bayes Theorem in probability theory). So knowing when things are going sour is more important.

The question came up at one of CDC's press briefings last week, and CDC's answer seemed to me quite helpful, so I retrieved it from the transcript of the presser for posting here. The context is the extra risk from swine flu infection (or any flu, for that matter) for those with "underlying medical conditions." There are two questions here. The first related to what constituted an underlying medical condition. Some of the examples cited seemed quite common (asthma, COPD, pregnancy), so much so that a large proportion of the population might be considered to have an underlying condition. So CDC's Dr. Schuchat addressed the question of warning signs that indicate the person should seek immediate medical attention.

In children, signs that need urgent medical attention include fast breathing or trouble breathing; blueish or gray skin color; not drinking enough fluids; severe, persistent vomiting; not waking up or not interacting.; being so irritable that the child doesn't want to be held; and flu-like symptoms improve, but then return later with a fever and a worse cough. Those are warning signs we physicians think about all the time, with respiratory infections. And they're good to have in mind with this new influenza-like illness caused by the novel H1N1 strain. Just good things for parents to have in the back of their mind.

In adults, we look at another set of warning signs that suggest the need for urgent medical attention: difficulty breathing or shortness of breath; pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen; sudden dizziness, confusion, persistent or severe vomiting that doesn't go away; and flu-like symptoms that improve, but then come back again with a fever or worsening of cough. (Statement by Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC Press Briefing, May 28, 2009)

tv lies

2009-07-18T20:11:50Z

have a look at the vitual backlot!

Oh S***, - /. points at an article that links swine flu death to obesity

2009-07-13T13:17:55Z

I'm obese, bmi over 40, I recognise what it talks about: from the WHO via bloomberg

"Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that's emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development. 'It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks.' Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."

I was wondering about the line from the government about "underlying illness" it sounded like "his heart just stopped working" suggesting a heart attack when a double tap to the head has the same effect.

"Of the first 32 people who died from swine flu in New York City, three-quarters had one or more underlying medical conditions, most often diabetes and heart disease, said Isaac B. Weisfuse, deputy commissioner of disease control at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Of seven with no known medical condition, at least four were reported to be obese, Weisfuse said."

Prius - Harmony + and how they they did it on Red

2009-06-24T04:00:22Z

what they don't say was that it was shot on red. comped in flame on set and hacked up in final cut pro

JJ abrams being intrested in a redrock rig for his 5d2

2009-06-21T14:26:49Z

gacked from 5tu (twitter)
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/freshdv/story/jj_abrams_5d_fan/

please read - as words fail me

2009-06-20T04:08:18Z

http://community.livejournal.com/transnews/1151211.html?style=mine

gacked from a twit by 5tu

2009-06-07T14:24:58Z

13 Tips For Actually Getting Some Writing Done

Gretchen Rubin Posted: May 28, 2009 08:00 AM

One of the challenges of writing is...writing. Here are some tips that I've found most useful for myself, for actually getting words onto the page:

1. Write something every work-day, and preferably, every day; don't wait for inspiration to strike. Staying inside a project keeps you engaged, keeps your mind working, and keeps ideas flowing. Also, perhaps surprisingly, it's often easier to do something almost every day than to do it three times a week. (This may be related to the abstainer/moderator split.)

2. Remember that if you have even just fifteen minutes, you can get something done. Don't mislead yourself, as I did for several years, with thoughts like, "If I don't have three or four hours clear, there's no point in starting."

3. Don't binge on writing. Staying up all night, not leaving your house for days, abandoning all other priorities in your life -- these habits lead to burn-out.

4. If you have trouble re-entering a project, stop working in mid-thought -- even mid-sentence -- so it's easy to dive back in later.

5. Don't get distracted by how much you are or aren't getting done. I put myself in jail.

6. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that creativity descends on you at random. Creative thinking comes most easily when you're writing regularly and frequently, when you're constantly thinking about your project.

7. Remember that lots of good ideas and great writing come during the revision stage. I've found, for myself, that I need to get a beginning, middle, and an end in place, and then the more creative and complex ideas begin to form. So I try not to be discouraged by first drafts.

8. Develop a method of keeping track of thoughts, ideas, articles, or anything that catches your attention. That keeps you from forgetting ideas that might turn out to be important, and also, combing through these materials helps stimulate your creativity. My catch-all document, where I store everything related to happiness that I don't have another place for, is more than five hundred pages long. Some people use inspiration boards; others keep scrapbooks. Whatever works for you.

9. Pay attention to your physical comfort. Do you have a decent desk and chair? Are you cramped? Is the light too dim or too bright? Make a salute--if you feel relief when your hand is shading your eyes, your desk is too brightly lit. Check your body, too: lower your shoulders, make sure your tongue isn't pressed against the top of your mouth, don't sit in a contorted way. Being physically uncomfortable tires you out and makes work seem harder.

10. Try to eliminate interruptions -- by other people, email, your phone, or poking around the Internet -- but don't tell yourself that you can only work with complete peace and quiet.

11. Over his writing desk, Franz Kafka had one word: "Wait." My brilliantly creative friend Tad Low, however, keeps a different word on his desk: "Now." Both pieces of advice are good.

12. If you're stuck, try going for a walk and reading a really good book. Virginia Woolf noted to herself: "The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw."

13. At least in my experience, the most important tip for getting writing done? Have something to say! This sounds obvious, but it's a lot easier to write when you're trying to tell a story, explain an idea, convey an impression, give a review, or whatever. If you're having trouble writing, forget about the writing and focus on what you want to communicate. For example, I remember flailing desperately as I tried to write my college and law-school application essays. It was horrible -- until in both cases I realized I had something I really wanted to say. Then the writing came easily, and those two essays are among my favorites of things I've ever written.

The Happiness Project book is due out in January. In the book, I describe my experience writing a novel in a month, inspired by Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! Yes, you can write a real novel in one month. It was a lot of fun.

* I always find something great on Dumb Little Man.

* If you're starting your own happiness project, please join the Page on Facebook to swap ideas. It's easy; it's free.

wave looks seriously seriously cool

2009-06-05T20:44:15Z

Warning this is an 80 minutes intro from the google IO conference

1. Wave is an open source comms protocol and API library built on our collective knowledge of wiki's, BBS, SMS, IM, blogging, e-mail, content management, source control, etc. The google team will also be open sourcing the lions share of the code they have developed.

2. The wave is a based on a tree structure, that allows replication of any part of the tree or a complete tree. The tree is a set of objects e.g. data objects (whatever their source) and the wave itself can be embedded along with its functionality. Thus wave/tree can be embedded (by drag'n'drop) in other wave/trees. There are all the usual management tools such as folders themselves built on/in wave.

3. There are server side apps associated with the web site/host and browser side apps that run on HTML 5 or extensions written in gears. It doesn't matter which wave server you belong to, you can have access to waves anywhere. If you have been added into a particular branch of a tree, the wave propagates to your server. Equally if you don't have access to other parts of the wave/tree you won't know, nor will they propagate to your server, staying only on their host.

4. the integration of e-mail and IM with whiteboard and thread management is great

5. the replay conversation from start is both obvious and I want it now!

6. Copying data objects to and from waves is seamless (albeit requires gears). Data objects such as characters, pictures, sound, code, meta etc. Also copying waves into other formats such as blogs is also seamless yet retains all the functionality of the wave.

7. obviously it works seamless across any device with a browser

8. Being a whiteboard type app obviously data objects can be edited on and modified by anybody in the wave (and changes are recorded so that new people can follow who did what when and why). The wave is edit locked on a per data object basis, so for example N people can be interactively editing a wave simultaneously.

9. As a wave is a set of objects, the recording/playback tool can be used on individual objects or groups of objects.

10. Data objects can be searched upon.

11. Form handling is built in, allowing forms to be handled collaboratively be they human or "robots" (server side gadget objects)

12. The api lets anybody create open server side gadget objects that can be embeded in web pages in a firefox manner. These gadget objects can be robots that automate certain functions for example find links in text. Or allow you to publish the wave into a blog etc. Or search on objects be they data or people and group those objects any way you want. Or live interactive maps. Or even games be they collaborative such as suduko or competitive such as chess. However a couple of very cool robots stand out

One example given was a context sensitive spellchecker that correctly flags when I type that "its bean a long time since i had been soup" that I have spelt bean/been wrong. it can do this in line automatically.

Another example that built on the spellchecker to provide inline translation, for example writing I'm playing D&D with people in France, Germany and the Netherlands, were all typing and reading in our respective languages no matter what language they were originally typed in.

The control is via the client browser, the capability is added server side on the website/wave server.

13. Equally applications that mediate between waves and applications (such as twitter) can be added. So for example replying to a twitter wave extension posts that reply in twitter in reply to the original post. it all so updates the wave with tweets alerting (and obviously you to changes. Another example is bug/issue/version tracking.

14. Any "extension" can be added simply by clicking on it.

i'm going to sort this out and shorten this in a bit

why I'm not buying blu-ray

2009-06-05T19:59:42Z

why I'm an agnostic solipsist

2009-05-17T09:01:41Z

i'm realy really sorry

wan this - yellow robot!

2009-05-17T08:36:37Z

star trek is bloody brilliant

2009-05-07T04:12:01Z

just went to see it. to say anything would be a spoiler, all i can say is go see it!!!!

oh and I'm going back to see it again as soon as possible

I will be buying this on DVD as soon as its out!!!!

antigravity??

2009-05-06T13:39:02Z

http://www.ufo-science.com/uk/downloads/video/russian_helicopter.html

helicopter blade rotation linked to shutter speed!!!

over estimating the value of current gain vs future gain

2009-05-02T18:02:12Z

dan gilbert lecture at oxford in 2005

Wyntons 12 ways to practice (life)

2009-04-18T11:57:41Z

I have this up on a poster in my room but i thought I should put it up here as well

1. Seek out a private teacher.
2. Write out a schedule to organize your practice time and follow it every day.
3. Set goals to chart your development.
4. Concentrate when practicing.
5. Relax and practice slowly.
6. Practice hard parts longer.
7. Play (with expression).
8. Learn from your mistakes, but don't be too hard on yourself.
9. Don't show off.
10. Think for yourself. Use common sense
11. Be optimistic.
12. Look for connections to other types of music or art and life.

http://www.trumpetlessons.net/pract/wyntons12ways.html

Pirate bay is a search engine

2009-04-17T21:48:16Z

Search engines are critical systems in the internet age. Lose access to the search engines and effectively you lose the net. lose the net and you have a virtual impenetrable trade barriers. Please explain how a court can tell difference between indexing different sorts of data, when data can be transposed into any format and when all search engine constantly use other people copyrighted data on their own sites?
from a discussion in the economist

perhaps nothere might like to learn how bit torrent works now. yes once it required a tracker but not any more, tracker is now handled by the people who use the torrent equally the torrent it self can go through tools that hide where the IP is coming from. And bit torrent is relatively open there are many other tools that people could use and they are getting easier all the time.

either way the underlying tech is not important

pirate bay does not have trackers on its site, nor does it supply programs that allow you to use torrents. It explains what to do and provides links but so do many other websites

there is no functional difference between pirate bay and google. If pirate bay is guilty of assisting in copyright theft then an search engine or directory is. That doesn't just mean google or altavista or yahoo, it can equally apply to DNS servers.

Google is breaking copyright far more than pirate bay it after all steals text from sites and displays it on its own site. I came here btw from googles news aggregation site that blatantly steals copyrighted information. What if Google offered trailers for films of shows that automatically took the key points of the film and produced a 10 minute trailer? That's what they currently do with newsprint.

So google is now actionable in Sweden, how many court cases can google stand before it does the sensible thing and simply bars anyone from sweden accessing its services. how long before all search engines do. Try to imagine a net without search engines. Swedish DNS may be safe but I didn't give it permission to index me so I should be able to sue them for damages. if that happens the internet becomes lots of numbers and you had better pray those numbers aren't IPV6.

How long will the Swedish government be willing to live with a virtual impenetrable trade barrier? How long can it and Swedish haemorrhage trade and cash?