handee

Saturday morning watchmen

2009-04-06T22:26:48Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w

ping hooloovoo42

2009-02-26T08:41:00Z

someone's done the maths on your drinking story - turns out it's journalists exaggerating again. who'da thunk it?

http://pyjamasinbananas.blogspot.com/2009/02/million-women-drinking.html

via popbitch, every location mentioned in a half man half biscuit song as a google map.

2009-02-20T11:04:19Z

http://tinyurl.com/d4yov3

that is all.

Ada Lovelace Day

2009-01-07T08:47:29Z

On March 24, post an entry in your blog about an inspiring woman in computing:

http://findingada.com/2009/01/05/ada-lovelace-day/

City bonuses will be hard to rein in

2008-10-10T07:19:43Z

Apparently, the highly paid stockbrokers will sod off to countries where the bonuses still happen - Mumbai, Shanghai - so the city has to keep paying bonuses.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/10/executivesalaries-creditcrunch

Well fucking let them go! It's not like they're doing a decent job here!!!!

Everything that happens happened yesterday

2008-08-19T11:33:19Z

David Byrne (my hero) and Bryan Eno (who is also, like, über cool) released a new album yesterday, available through download from http://www.everythingthathappens.com/

This website has been designed almost entirely using the latest version of flash. I've now tried to buy this using three browsers on linux (Firefox, Opera, Konqueror - yes I knew that last one was a long shot). I've rdesktopped into two windows machines, neither of which have a sufficiently up-to-date version of flash installed. And now I think I give up and go for a bootleg copy and wait till it hits a shop which can actually do e-commerce. Communications with the technical support of the company (one "topspin media") tells me they have "no alternative to a flash purchase flow". Disregarding the accessibility issues associated with using flash (screen-readers can't cope, so the partially sighted won't be able to buy this disk), it's a bit crap having a web only release which is implemented almost entirely on closed, proprietary systems.

This is particularly galling given David Byrne's political stance vis-a-vis issues like DRM (e.g. http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/01/drm.html). Given that there are open and accessible technologies which can do the job perfectly, why on earth use a system which closes out a sizeable minority of potential listeners?

handee20001 @ 2008-06-30T10:40:00

2008-06-30T09:44:41Z

Three peaks have been conquered. 11 hours 15, photos to follow. My camera died half way up peak # 1 so I'm having to wait for my cousin's photos to make it onto facebook:) The photos will be funny though, 'cause there was 5 metres visibilty on peak#1, 20 metres on peak #2, and about 40 miles on peak #3.

Anyone fancies chucking in some last minute sponsorship, go ahead: http://www.justgiving.com/hannah3peaks

And if anyone wants to chuck in a recommendation for a good point and click digital with reasonable optical zoom and decent ergonomics please do. Things that don't feel like they're made of plastic FTW, and it's got to use SD cards for storage 'cause that's what I've got built into my laptop.

handee20001 @ 2008-06-25T11:05:00

2008-06-25T10:05:22Z

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BletchleyPark/

handee20001 @ 2008-05-01T14:22:00

2008-05-01T13:29:59Z

Book meme....

Bold for read, italics for didn't finish, underline for read in school... no we didn't do much in school. However I'm fairly well read I think, must be having 2 english teachers as parents:-)

1984
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir (I saw the film, does that count?)
Anna Karenina
Beloved
Brave New World disappointing
Crime and Punishment
Dracula
Emma
Frankenstein
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
Jane Eyre
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
Northanger Abbey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Persuasion
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Blind Assassin
The Canterbury Tales
The Catcher in the Rye
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The God of Small Things
The Hobbit
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel great book
The Prince
The Silmarillion
The Tale of Two Cities
The Unbearable Lightness of Being didn't understand what the fuss was about..
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
War and Peace
Watership Down
Wuthering Heights
Catch-22
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Life of Pi : a novel
The Brothers Karamazov
The Iliad
Ulysses
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
A Clockwork Orange
A Confederacy of Dunces
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Short History of Nearly Everything
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angels & Demons
Atlas Shrugged
Cloud Atlas * I love david mitchell but haven't read this one yet
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cryptonomicon
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves * no intention of reading this!!! YAWN
Foucault’s Pendulum
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Gravity’s Rainbow
Inferno
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Les Misérables
Madame Bovary
Middlesex
Neverwhere
Oryx and Crake
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Slaughterhouse-five
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Confusion
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Fountainhead
The Grapes of Wrath
The Historian : a novel
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Kite Runner
The Mists of Avalon
The Name of the Rose
The Odyssey
The Once and Future King
The Satanic Verses * i own this and fully intend to read it, as I actually rather like rushdie
The Scarlet Letter
The Sound and the Fury
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Vanity Fair
White Teeth
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

the return of the mix tape

2008-03-03T10:40:46Z

i'm thinking of getting a lot of these: http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=5306
if we get 20 they're 1.65 inc p&p; 40 they're 1.56. about the cost of a blank tape.
anyone interested in a handful?
(or know a supplier who can do cheaper?)

handee20001 @ 2008-01-29T08:47:00

2008-01-29T08:48:22Z

As someone who's religious views are much more Dawkins than Dubya my heart sank when I discovered which book Penguin had randomly allocated for me to review. Looking through the available titles, I'd hoped for an Orwell, or something old and Greek, or something new and challenging. Or even some poetry. But what did I get? "The Imitation of Christ". Thomas A Kempis lived a long and cloistered life although there seems to be a bit of doubt about the authorship. The introduction states this doesn't really matter because "...no other book [...] has ever exercised such unbroken and world-wide influence for good as the Imitation". Maybe this book will be interesting and informative after all?

Page one contains 17 instances of words which mean "God", and is the start of several chapters emphasising the importance of leading a good, humble life. This means not learning ("Restrain an inordinate desire for knowledge, in which is found much anxiety and deception"); not desiring, being too friendly, familiar, vain, or talkative ("Avoid public gatherings as much as possible"); being obedient ("It is an excellent thing to live under obedience to a superior, and not to be one's own master"); and on more familiar christian preoccupations such as the avoidance of temptation; the devotion of one's heart and mind to worship and spiritual matters, and avoiding those difficult Women people.

I expect if one were a member of the ruling classes in the 15th century it would be great to have underlings who swallowed all of this and were happy to lead a monastic and ignorant life in the belief that it took them closer to God. However I suspect that the main audience for this book today will be divinity students, members of the clergy and their more devout flock -- not hard nosed scientists sent random copies through the post. I shall be dropping my copy in Oxfam in the hope that one of these classes of reader comes across it.</lj>

I wonder if they'll post it?

handee20001 @ 2007-12-19T12:11:00

2007-12-19T12:12:49Z

Full English breakfast, xmas lunch, crisps and cake at the departmental xmas party, and bier und wurst in the Deutsche Markt tonight. Yup, it's me birthday:-)

handee20001 @ 2007-12-18T15:07:00

2007-12-18T15:08:29Z

What's going on here?

I've had loads of completely pointless anonymous spam on one old LJ post.
W.T.F?

http://handee20001.livejournal.com/66627.html

OU

2007-12-17T11:10:15Z

I've just signed up for another 30 crediter, meaning that next year I'll be doing 60 (Exploring mathematics and Practical Modern Statistics). I've been planning to do exploring maths since I finished Using mathematics over the summer, and on a whim I signed up to the stats course too. It's more relevant to my work, and it doesn't look too daunting, but... now I'm a little concerned about the 60 credits thing. What do you seasoned OUers think? I'm guessing that two related 30 crediters are going to be slightly more work than one 60 crediter, as they'll not be coherent. Have I done something stupid?

handee20001 @ 2007-10-11T13:22:00

2007-10-11T12:34:42Z

There are over 1.5 million people of Japanese origin in Brazil. In Brazil, as you may have noticed from my previous entries, food is abundant and cheap. So what does this mean? It means SUSHI. I really really like sushi, but don't eat it often in England for various reasons (not least of which is the cost - I have never had sushi in England and not finished the meal slightly hungry). Here, mixed sushi and sashimi for two people means about 60 pieces. So it is abundant. Last time I went to a restaurant for sushi it came to 40 quid at the fanciest restaurant I have been in (for 2 person sushi, 2x miso soup, green tea, 4x water, the biggest glass of sake i have ever seen, another fish dish and 2x ice cream tempura in hot chocolate sauce (Oh. My. God.)). At a nice but not quite so amazingly flash place it was 20 quid for 2 person sushi and lots of beers. So yes, it fits the Brazilian model: abundant and cheap. And I have never been able to finish it.

We are planning to go for sushi later, I think, so I may try to get a photo like a proper tourist.

handee20001 @ 2007-10-10T01:27:00

2007-10-10T00:40:02Z

There is one dish that any diary of Brazilian cuisine has to cover, and that is the national dish Feijoada. Feijoada is hearty peasant food at its most peasanty and most hearty: it involves black beans, salt beef, and all those chewy bits of pig that other countries throw away. It's a rich salty meaty beany stew (but not spicy), and it is possibly the heaviest dish you will ever come across. The lanchonettes here (and nearly all other restaurants) do feijoada on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It takes too long to cook to offer it every day but it is so popular everywhere does it at least twice a week. So I will be eating it for lunch tomorrow as the kilo restaurant at the uni serves it every Wednesday just like everywhere else. If you actually order feijoada you end up with so much food that you cannot move at all afterwards, but at a kilo restaurant you are in control of portion sizes.

Typically you serve feijoada with... white rice; kale sauteed in salty garlic; manioc flour (toasted, I think); fried pork rind (sort of like pork scratchings, but not so spicy); spicy tomato salsa stuff; and slices of orange. If you look at the google image search for feijoada you will realise how important the side dishes are - it is all part of the feijoada ritual. I particularly like the kale.

handee20001 @ 2007-10-08T20:51:00

2007-10-09T00:07:29Z

Açaí is a berry that comes from an amazonian palm. They harvest them in the amazon and freeze them right away (or juice them right away) as they don't travel or preserve well otherwise. So down here in the south you can only get the berries as frozen pulp. They contain LOADS of healthy vegetable fat though, and the texture is such that you would think you were eating a sorbet or an icecream rather than just frozen fruit pulp. You can get it in juice form too, but the frozen pulp is the best, typically served with pulped or sliced banana (I prefer sliced) and about a tablespoon of granola which gives it a nice crunchiness. It is great when it is hot - the coldness of the fruit really brings down your body temperature.

Obviously I am not entirely sure about the whole eating-the-amazon thing. My colleague tells me that rather than develop the amazon there is a move to exploit whilst preserving - so the berries are harvested in a sustainable way and the funds go to preserving the area and habitat. As a pseudo-greenie¹ I am skeptically in favour of such schemes and my Portuguese is really not good enough for reading up on the details. So I take his word for it and have another bowl of Açaí na Tigela with sliced bananas. I mean, they sell it in the lancheonette between my office and the university gym, how am I to say no?

¹ Everyone has their own hypocrisies: I am a cycle-riding lentil-eating public-transport-using recycle-everything buy-secondhand-stuff don't throw anything away composting cars-are-evil low-food-miles vegetable-growing INTERNATIONAL TRAVELLER WITH MORE AIR MILES THAN MADONNA. Or something.

handee20001 @ 2007-10-03T14:06:00

2007-10-03T13:08:01Z

An ad-hoc pineapple shop

photo post: churrascaria

2007-10-02T22:48:25Z

I mentioned a few posts back about the Brazilian obsession with meat... and the eat as much as you like (or eat as much as you can, depending on your mindset) barbecue joints.

Anyway, they let you tour the kitchen if you ask nicely.

This is the actual barbecue. This style of barbecue is very popular - many homes seem to have small versions.

Some lovely young hunks and some men with sharp sticks.

A joint ready to be taken out and passed around the tables by a bowtie wearing waiter with a very sharp knife.

And the front of the restaurant, just in case you want to visit - this is a small chain in Sao Paulo with a few branches and my hosts reckon it is the best. It is about 30 Reais per head for the food, and whilst there is a more expensive one (70 or 80/head) the quality differential isn't apparently worth it (there are bigger prawns in the salad bar, but the meat is the same).

handee20001 @ 2007-09-24T00:16:00

2007-09-23T23:22:46Z

On the street you can pick up all sorts of tasty food. There are VW vans converted with stoves in the back, selling barbecued meat and cheese (I have been a coward and not eaten any of this yet). There are people selling various corn (sweetcorn) products - a sort of jelly, and a sort of paste, as well as boiled corn. There are many many fruit sellers (pineapple, orange, papaya, melon seem to be the popular choices, peeled or not peeled as you please). And there are the coconut milkers. They just chop the top off the things and hand you it with a straw. You throw away the pulp (who'd wanna eat that?). At the markets, you can also get sugar cane juice (with lemon or pineapple) which is the biggest sugar rush you can imagine.

On top of this there are the water sellers ("agua agua-agua-agua-agua!") and ice creams, if you like that sort of thing.

handee20001 @ 2007-09-22T18:35:00

2007-09-22T17:42:19Z

All over Sao Paulo are markets - they move day to day and sell fruits and veggies from pretty much the whole of Brazil. You can grow nearly anything here - apparently their grape vines aren't much cop for wine (too sweet, as there's too much sun) and their olives aren't that good, but the fruit and the veg is fantastic. In the markets there are stalls selling just varieties of lettuce, stalls selling just oranges and limes, stalls selling general veg and also specific banana stalls (with 4 or 5 varieties). The stall holders will give you tastes of fruit if you want to try (and sometimes they'll try to get you to try even if you don't). You pretty much pick your own food so there is none of the Leeds City Market problem of perfect food on display but your bag getting filled from a bag at the back of the stall.

All Brazilians seem to own a wire shopping trolley, like the grannie-trolleys of the UK but just wire frame, and these have two levels so you can separate out the vegetables and they don't get quite so squashed.

handee20001 @ 2007-09-21T19:04:00

2007-09-21T18:10:19Z

The standard "caff" here in Brazil is the Lanchonette. These will do a set meal or two (usually changing daily) a handful of staples (chicken rice beans and chips, steak rice beans and chips, etc. etc) and sandwiches.

The sandwiches are the usual burger fare and listed as "X-burguer, X-frango, X-filet" etc. etc. I have recently found out what X- means as a prefix: it means "Cheese". The Brazilian pronunciation of the letter X is sort of "sheese" you see. Having found this out my standard lunch has become the X-frango-salada - a grilled chicken sandwich with a bit of cheese and a lot of lettuce.

Every Wednesday and Saturday most of the lanchonettes here do Feijoada. But more on that later.

handee20001 @ 2007-09-20T18:00:00

2007-09-20T21:04:37Z

In Brazil, many cafés (indeed, nearly all of them) do fresh juices of one sort or another. Orange is ubiquitous. Mango, papaya, lime (called, confusingly, limon), and pineapple are really very common. And some places do rarer stuff - apples, amazonian berries, and so on. They don´t really go in for mixtures, apart from one or two popular combinations. They do often put sugar in, as the Brazilian tooth is really very sweet indeed.

I´ve just had an orange, carrot and beetroot juice as my 5pm(ish) snack. It´s one of the combinations they do seem to like, and I took some persuading that it was worth a try. It was lovely.

handee20001 @ 2007-09-20T12:38:00

2007-09-20T15:43:31Z

Eat as much as you like? Or eat as much as you can?

Either way, Brazil has a lot of restaurants with unending salad bars and parades of well dressed men bearing barbecued meat. Churrascaria is the name, and meat is the game. A little picture of a cow is placed on the table infront of you with information about where on the beast each cut comes from, and a little piece of card with one side green (¨sim¨) and one red (¨não¨). If you want the geezers with the cow bits to stock up your place you turn it to yes (¨sim¨) and they´ll stop by your table on their perambulations. If you´ve had enough, then turn it to no and maybe they´ll stop or maybe they´ll offer it anyway. They do pork and lamb and chicken too. I asked Paulo what vegetarians do here, and apparently the churrascaria is a popular outlet for veggies as the salad bar is unlimited and there are cheese and beans and so on as well as the more obvious salad ingredients. It would be a little odd though, paying for unlimited meat just to eat unlimited lettuce.

handee20001 @ 2007-09-20T11:08:00

2007-09-20T14:13:51Z

In Brazil, there is a type of restaurant called a ¨Quilo¨. These are buffets where you choose what you want and are charged by weight - so you pay 13 Reais per quilo, for example. These typically have salads, rice, beans, and various meats to choose from (and maybe a pasta dish). So if you fancy pasta you just have the pasta dish, and if you fancy some of everything just go ahead. These seem to be everywhere, and really rather popular. The most I have paid for a plate of food at one of these was about 7.5 Reais (just under 2 quid). They make great university canteens (the one at USP I visited was a quilo and there is one here at FEI), as they cut down on the need for serving staff and so speed the whole processs up.