Sunday 30 August 2009

falling into place

After being focussed on getting a promotion, for what seems like forever, I have finally cracked it. I had an interview on Tuesday morning, before I went in I picked up a message on my Blackberry saying that I had been unsuccessful at interview for a post the previous week. This week's interview seemed to go okay, but there were vast areas where I did not have relevant experience, balanced with other areas where I was possibly overqualified or exceedingly impressive. Later that evening a message popped up on my Blackberry offering me the post.

So now I have moved from thinking long term strategic thoughts about my current post, to trying to figure out how to get it tidied up before I move on in a few weeks.

Similarly a lot of my emotional energy has been tied up in applying for posts, and moving over to not filling in endless application forms and heading along to regular interviews seems so odd all of a sudden.

This weekend I have been,
walking the dog - still waiting for my pedometer from Amazon, so the walking seems a bit pointless if I am not amassing some enormous stepcount

one afternoon tidying the garden - to the extent that the brown bin the council take away is full, and my compost bin is full

ordered the new Mac Box Set, with iLife 09, iWork 09 and Snow Leopard - I'll upgrade the whole housefull of computers at the same time so they are all on the same OS etc.

reading a Chris Hoy biography that I borrowed from a colleague/friend, so that I can give it back to him before I finish up.

starting to worry if I really have got the post, I don't suppose I will quite believe it until I sit down at my new desk.

morning out gathering brambles with the family, so that my wife can do a batch of bramble jam. I like to get at least one batch of bramble jam made each year.

So, I am waiting for my pedometer, snow leopard, new post, the council to empty my bins so I can fill them up again, ....

and I am happy, after an awful lot of hard work things are all falling into place.

Sunday 23 August 2009

gardens, red onions, job hunting and thinking of China

This weekend seems to have flown by, most pleasantly by and large.

Decent weather yesterday, a little warm for walking my dog, he was pecht getting back, I was too. Then worked on my garden in the afternoon, with number two daughter assisting.

Part of the joy of gardening is that it is all a bit of a playground. It really doesn't matter all that much what you do, it will all pretty much grow back anyway. So I just play about with what I think might be interesting or fun. In that spirit, I just gave number two daughter a quick tour of the garden, explaining what I thought needed done, and asked her to choose what to do. For some reason they always seem to want to trim the hedge, until they actually start wielding the shears and realise that it is hard work.

She concentrated on weeding out a little flower bed, and then transfered in a couple of box plants that I would like to shape into something geometric when they get big enough. I also got her to trim a box plant that I'm just trimming into a globe shape, it is surprisingly difficult trimming something to be round in three dimensions. I weeded the veg patch and lifted the red onions that I have been growing, they are now sitting in the cold frame to dry off. There is a certain quiet glory in harvested food. My damson tree, which clearly suffers vertigo as it is striving to avoid any great height, tying itself in bushy knots, has maybe a dozen gorgeous purple damsons growing. Not enough for jam, but good to see.

Otherwise, I've been playing around with a pedometer. There was a free pedometer in the house, so I gave that a go. And found out that :
I actually do more than 10,000 steps most days, without any particular effort.
I do less steps at the weekend, because I don't have to walk to catch public transport and everything in my house is closer to hand, obviously.
the most annoying thing about a cheap pedometer is when it resets itself, losing my awesome daily stepcount!!!

I've ordered one on Amazon, and once it arrives, I will try and develop some sort of exercise regime based on tracking my steps. Also ordered Cousin Basilio (book), which I seem to remember was good, and Coup de Torchon, the Bertrand Tavernier film, which I remember enjoying.

I'll try and build up a little stock of arty filmhouse type films that I remember being good. I've recently got State of Things (Wim Wenders) and the Saragossa Manuscript (Jan Potocki book, Wojciech Has film) and enjoyed watching them both.

I have been patiently adding the odd book or DVD onto my Amazon wishlist, but last time I looked half of them were unavailable, so clearly I need to go that extra step and actually buy some of these things, rather than leaving them skulking on my wishlist.

Otherwise, being playing about with Kuler, got a couple of awesome teeshirts from RedBubble. All is relatively quiet at work, so finding productive and sensible things to do with this largesse of time.

Autumn is here, keen to get out and get brambles, went out a few weeks ago and they were not yet ripe, but the back road where I usually do my brambling should be about ready now, so I'll need to get out.

Watched Benefits Busters, then chatted about it when getting my hair cut. All amazed at how much single mums can get in benefits and how well they seem to do without doing any work whatsoever. I suppose for society it makes more sense for a single mum with four children to bring her children up full time, rather than going out to earn the minimum wage. However being detached from the job market while the children grow up is not a great long term option. It is incredible just how unscientific getting jobs is. You can study all you like, getting a job still seems to be pot luck at the end of the day. In China the state decides what you are going to do before you even go to university, a system that does have something to recommend it!

There is a bit of a difference in how people think about work.

There is the view that work is basically unpleasant, and you only do it if you really have to, and get paid. And even then you are duty bound to do as little as you can possibly get away with. Doing more than that is breaking solidarity with other workers and is encouraging employers to take liberties, or raise the bar unacceptably on the level of effort they deem sufficient and appropriate.

Alternatively there is the view that work is part of who you are, how you define yourself and how the world sees you. Therefore you strive to work to the best of your abilities and take a pride in your work.

I was initially tempted to say that this was a class difference, but I don't think that it is so much to do with the person doing the work, as the type of work. A craftsman would always take a pride in his craft, someone bashing out widgets probably won't. I suppose that a lot of people have been stuck with a bad experience of work where there is no merit in working hard, where the culture is to do as little as possible. That attitude does not transfer well into more modern jobs where the worker is expected to constantly innovate and challenge themselves.

There is a third catagory beyond these two. It is not so much what you do, as what you say you do. If you can say with conviction that your job is critical to your employer, then if your job is unique, and it is vaguely plausible then people will probably believe you. So in differentiated, skills based roles, the ability to sell yourself arguably becomes more important than ability. This is because it is difficult to put any useful metric on a unique job. So the outward perception becomes reality. Part of this mentality is that every job is a stepping stone to another job.

For an employer the risk is that people move shamelessly into the third catagory.

Finally some more musings. China and India seem to be pursuing very different economic models. India is going for a service based economy, whereas China is going for a manufacturing based economy. On this basis, I suspect that India has made the better choice for the long term. Just a thought.

Sunday 16 August 2009

Spore

I had posted a while back on why I would not be buying Spore.

My youngest daughter threw a mega huff when her tamagochi died, it was seventh generation or something, so I relented and got her Spore. I figured that anyone who got get that vexed about a tiny pixilated virtual something, would probably find Spore engaging.

I saw a copy in the AppleStore, but it looked awfully expensive, so checking out Amazon on the free internet that they provide I figured out I could certainly shave a tenner off the cost with some judicious shopping.

I've installed it onto my newest computer, running on an administrator account. All a bit odd, but the reviews seems to be that it really does not like having to scrape by on an older machine.

Feedback? Well the target audience, youngest daughter loves it. She has been happily lost in it for a few weeks now. Oldest daughter had a brief go or two, only to quickly find youngest daughter a bit over eager with the assisting when it got difficult.

I've not tried it myself, so I don't really know much about it. It does look to be relatively linear, but that probably is no bad thing, just exploring might get a bit dull. The final stage universes do seem absolutely vast. There was even a wormhole! The use of user created creatures looks to be a really neat touch, there is even one species that looks like giant bananas.

In a nutshell, if you are into this sort of thing, then it is a really amazing game, but it is not going to engage everyone. If you want to see how quickly you can get to the end of the game, then you missing the point.

Latest Headline from the Sun Newspaper

Attractive young woman has breasts, we have the photos

dystopia number 1

#1
This is a cold wet country. Too cold and wet for scratching a living from the soil to ever be terribly appealing. An orange or even some spices are unspeakably exotic. Of course there is always the surplus processed food from time to time, but I'm used to living on root vegetables and kale for half the year, so a chocolate bar would make me vomit.

We live in the corners that are too small, or steep or crooked to be farmed. We none of us really own our land, we have no money to pay lawyers or argue our case. We just rely on the fact that what we have is too trivial for anyone else to want. It is a system that works well enough. My family has been here for a couple of generations, as have most of our neighbours.

If anyone ever listened to us, they would hear that we have a myriad of ideas to expand our foodbase. If we could have some common land then we could each maintain some livestock, we might fish the streams, and create freshwater ponds if the water were allowed to run freely. But this landscape is not here for us. It is concreted over, bulldozed and scraped into whatever form suits the people with power.

We live in this country, but we are not of this country. We are the voteless nameless poor. But I am teaching my children to read, I hope that with an education they might find a better life.

#2
I speak five languages fluently, and have qualifications in three major work areas. I work a standard ten hour day, but have to travel for three hours daily, catching a variety of buses and trains to reach my place of work. I feel tired all the time. When I get home I just sit, sometimes I go straight to sleep. At work I seem to live on coffee, I always have to be courteous and professional. We are monitored constantly, any deviations from our set scripts or designated customer transit routes is punishable by pink ticket, more than three pink tickets in a three month period, or a running average of two for three consecutive periods or one for a year, means that you are automatically dismissed. On dismissal it is virtually impossible to find another job. Every year the universities produce a million new people looking for work, and employers only want the keenest and most enthusiastic of employees. Most of us work an hour or two of unpaid overtime each day. I have spent weekends helping my boss with housework. There is no loyalty here, I hope that my boss is dismissed and I will be a candidate for his job. He is hoping that his boss will be dismissed and he will be a candidate for his job. No one ever retires any more. We are all dismissed before we go grey. I hope to get my children educated and a little spare money saved up, so that when I am no longer quick enough for this work, I can find some lower paid work closer to home. It is not much of a life, you are treated in a vile manner. People that have never done anything better hate anyone that has been something once. Mostly people just commit suicide.

I am just so tired all the time, maybe my children will have a better life. They are learning their languages and programming skills, and not wasting their time in the virtual world or with any books and music. I am so proud of them, they have no personality to speak of at all, they are good citizens.

#3
Friday nights are good. Last week I got some speccy kid from the loop on the ground and kicked his head like a football. He thought he could cut through our patch. The police were round pretty quick and we all legged it. We all save up our credits and get a skinfull on the Friday. The rest of the week is just crap. This place is a dump. They stuck in some stupid art things, but we had them all trashed in no time. Or they send in some poncy do gooders to speak to us. I really fancied one, she had skin smooth like plastic. She was all full of nice words, but you could tell that she couldn't wait to get out this place, back to her nice HabUnit. Not that I needed her, I've got dozens of kids, don't know all their names, but they are all over. Can't be so bothered with the shagging now. The girls just give you earache, and christ they get ugly as they get older. Young they are not bad, but after a few kids and years here they are dog ugly.

I don't care though, get munged all week, save up the credits for a Friday, tried all that book stuff, but it was just rubbish, who wants to spend years learning all that stuff. I don't need to be bossed around, I'm my own man. I've got respect and no one messes with me.

#4
This society is all wrong, if those lazy dogs in the government could just do their job then I would not have to put up with all their rubbish. The Louis Vuitton was caught up in traffic for an age this morning. I'm busy, RupMac (spelt Rupert Mackenzie-Smythe) was at the Pear Tree, had to catch up with him before he headed over to the Dubai TriCity, dreadful garish place, but everyone is there these days, and almost missed him. Saw EmVa, and SoEl, and their usual crowd. Talking about the latest schemes, might go for that derivative shorting carbon trades, that whole system is teetering and I could make a shed load shorting it. I think the organ business is on the way out, been good for a while, but those Chinese monkey boys only have so many kidneys and livers. If you have brains, the contacts and a little hard work, there is always money to be made. When the Louis Vuitton stopped there was some proles moaning on about things. One was crippled, that is just offensive, I should not have to look at that, it is only a few thousand credits to sort out that sort of thing, it is just vulgar going about in that state.

My great grandfather is now on the full battery of support systems. With any luck he might pop his clogs soon, and that will boost the old sadly depleted. Of course my useless grandfather will hog most of the money, but even he could not waste all of it on himself.

EmVa is hopeful that the genetic testing will give us a 99%, don't want any useless prole spas genes, just the best blue blood and LVMH CyberEnce. Get one in the gene tanks, and onto the wating list for EtoSEAD.

Sunday 9 August 2009

eyecandy works

Newton anglepoise lamp

My blogging has been much depleted of late. Of course this just means that I been off doing something more interesting.

There was the annual family holiday, which really was excellent. What with the tunnel vision to study for my paralegal qualification, everything else rather got shoved to one side, so there has also been catching up, with the garden and community work. At the same time work has shifted from mad deadlines, to a more measured pace, which is letting me get in about some of the more strategic thinking and longer term work.

I have also been ramping up the number of applications for promotion that I have been putting in. I suspect that my fate is forever to be a very creditable second choice, always getting pipped by someone who's experience is just a bit more relevant. Fortunately there is no danger of me ever running out of ideas for things to do, but it would be nice to rake in a bit more money doing it!

I have recently been enjoying MyTexts which is another bare bones word processor type thing, pretty much like WriteRoom, Voodoopad, Devonthink, all of which I have bought and use. I guess that having a whole stack of different word processors is like my vast pen collection. Not really about functionality. Anyway MyTexts is clean simple and elegant. Recommended.

Also been admiring the Kuler website which means you can tap into a zillion colour schemes, or create your own, and Mondrianum which allows these to be incorporated into the Mac colour picker.

There was an article recently about someone's house, an incedibly colourful house, mainly white, with splodges of fantastic bright colours. And the person said that colours gave them energy, and it made me think that I am sort of like that. Bright colours and attractive shapes, eye candy if you will, do give me energy. I like forming ideas into simple venn diagrams that explain how things are related to each other, I like using my lamy four colour pen to organise my notes into different types of stuff. I love the anglepoise lamp I recently got from Habitat because it is red and a nice shape.

Of course different things motivate different people, but if I like colour then I should use it to organise my world, and help me to engage with things. So for me, eye candy is tax deductible, eye candy works!!!

John Lautner

Lautner house


What I love most about the architecture of John Lautner is the way that he sets his buildings within their surroundings, sometimes a building is designed to blend in or stand out, from its environs, but Lautner designed his buildings so that when you were inside one, looking out, it was hard to tell where the inside ended and the outside began.

The curves of the Mar Brisas house mimic the curve of the bay beyond,



The Elrod Residence encapsulates the boulders that surround it


The Pearlman Cabin uses pine trunks to frame the windows, so the frames merge into the surrounding woods when viewed from inside


These look to be splendidly livable houses for people who like to look out at the world. Perhaps in a perfect world we could all live in John Lautner designed houses, or our houses could encapsulate some of the technical chutzpah and site specificity that make them so special.

As a child Lautner's parents brought him up with substantial and rich time in the great outdoors. It is inspiring to hear about parents making such a conscious effort to offer opportunities to their children that are thoughtful and unique, rather than the more generic aspirations that seem to come without thinking.