Ian Robinson’s Soapbox

I like to set goals. I’m not that keen on keeping to them, but I like setting them as targets and frameworks to work with. I’ve got a set of personal and work related goals that want to work to over the next few years. Sort of my own personal Soviet style 5-year plan.

Work Stuff

Become the go-to guy for VMware VI3 questions and also for Mac OS X integration into Windows environments. Also be the person people search out when they have technology questions. AS part of this I’ll do the VMware VCP certification and the Apple Mac OS X certifications.

Personal Stuff

Learn mathematics. Using this selection of self study books:

Click picture for larger view

I want to be able to read Penrose’s The Road to Reality and understand the mathematics in it.

Do the new Open University 3rd level chemistry courses:

S345 Chemical Change and the environment

S346 Drug design and synthesis

S347 Metals and life

Do the Open University MSc Science and Society. As long as they let me in. I’ve pulled out a few courses recently and they have a rule that stops you registering for new courses. Which is fair enough. They don’t get paid by the government if people don’t complete the courses. In any event I’ll be doing something in the science communication field (including many more posts here on the Soapbox) as we need to fight the hoards of superstitious nut jobs. We can’t cede any of the ground won in the last 400 years with rationality and the scientific method.

Continue to work on some science fiction stories I’m writing. One is set in a space opera scale universe and the other is set in the Frank Herbert Hellstrom’s Hive universe.

Music - I’ve got about dozen songs in various stages of work (all have full lyrics). I want to continue to work on them and maybe package them together as an actual album. That’d be cool

Write a cricket match scoring system for Macintosh and iPhone using Cocoa. Unless someone else develops on that meets my needs first. I’d be happy if they did. Programming projects always bore the tits of me after the initial requirements specification and design are done!

We’ll see how I get on…

Tags: Cocoa, iPhone, Science

I’ve started using my exercise bike again. I don’t think I’ve used it for about 10 months. Recently I’ve been feeling overweight and just generally not as fit as I usually do. I’ve also had a more or less continuous pain in my side (near the incision scar from my TC operation) since last January. I think I did a mischief to myself last year between Christmas and New Year when I went to Ikea Belfast to get some new drawer units. The ones I bought had warnings all over the flat packaging that they should be handled by 2 people. I picked them from the warehouse on my own and also loaded them into my car and house by myself. I was in a hurry. It may have been a mistake. In the 2nd week on January I was at the BETT show helping set-up and staff the stand for the company I work for. I had to take it very easy when helping move stuff onto the stand. The next week 3 of us flew to Macworld in San Francisco. I had to get a colleague to lift my case from the carousel for me in SFO. I thought it was just a pulled muscle and it would heal up after a few weeks. But it didn’t. I started thinking it was a mild hernia of some description. I went to see my GP in June and he gave me ibuprofen gel to use on the area. I did this for a month but it didn’t make any difference. If anything it’s been worse recently as I’ve been lugging servers about in work as part of a new VMware based system I’m deploying. I went back to my GP but the upshot of that was to continue with the gel and either get my yearly TC check-up brought forward or wait until November and get them to do a scan. I decided to wait. I also decided to do some exercise and eat more healthy food to boost my general fitness. So I bought a pair of scales to see how much I weigh. I know from when I played cricket that 80kg (12.5 stone) is the weight that I feel healthiest at (I’m 6′2′ ish in height). Rather worryingly the new scales give a different reading depending on where they are. In the place where I will always use them they are reporting that I’m currently about 86.6kg (13.6 stone). So about about 6.6kg (1 stone) above my optimal weight.

I’ve been exercising on the bike for a hour a day for the last 3 days. Unsurprisingly it does give you a lift. I think I’m inherently fit. I always have been generally fit so I get an instant payoff from exercise. In the 24 hours after the 1st day using the bike I noticed that the pain in my side was a lot less than it had been. In the 3 days since it has remained a lot less painful. It’s still tight and tender to the touch but it’s not the constant pain that it was before. Could it have been an internal hernia of some description that popped back to where it should be during the 1st hour on the bike? Here’s hoping, but time will tell. I’m putting a pile of Dell, HP and Apple servers into a rack tomorrow in work. Lots up lifting (carefully!) and crouching, bending during that. Be interesting to see how it reacts.

UPDATE on 30th August: The pain in my side is definitely better. It’s still tight and tender to a vigourous poke, but it’s not the pain I’ve had for the last 8 months. I’m so happy. That was starting to worry me a bit.

Tags: Drums, Food

I think planning a project is ultimately a little like throwing a donut at the moon. You can never actually hit the target, plus you’ll be lucky if you aren’t hit in the face on the way down.

From Task Times, The Planning Fallacy, and a Magical 20% on 43 Folders.

The BBC is showing a new series called Britain from Above. The first programme had a section showing some new skyscrapers that are proposed for central London. I like the look of them all, with the possible exception of the pyramid shaped one. All are shown in the video below.

Tags: Architecture

It’s been 5 years since I posted this about my last zapping session for TC. Happy days.

Tags: Hybrid engines, Politics

Wow. Just Wow! Stunning pics of The Large Hadron Collider.

Tags: Science

I’ve wittered on about the fabulous Hellstrom’s Hive before. If you’ve read it and want to know what happened next then you’re not alone. I’ve got a few ideas for where to take the story that I may or may not develop. I have done a bit of work on a continuation. A potential opening for such a sequel is pasted below. Would you want to know more?

Awareness returned gradually to Eddie Janvert. Movement in the bed caused him to snap fully awake. He was lying in a bed on a soft mattress with a light, cool sheet covering his naked body. Clovis Carr was sleeping in the bed to his right. The sheet had been pulled off her upper torso, revealing full breasts that faced towards him. Clovis was also naked. Janvert reached over and covered her with the sheet. As he did she stretched and rolled over onto her back revealing her extended pregnant abdomen.

Sunlight was streaming into the bedroom through net curtains that ripped in the early morning breeze. No bird sounds could be heard through the slightly open window. Janvet missed the dawn chorus. He sat upright in the bed and turned placing his bare feet on the warm wooden floor. A muffled noise was coming from the kitchen downstairs and Janvert thought he could smell coffee and bacon. After using the adjoining bathroom Janvert pulled on a pair of trousers and a t-shirt. He moved out into the hall, quietly closing the bedroom door behind him. No need for Clovis to get up yet. She had nothing to do today except ensure she ate the proper foods and did the prescribed exercises that the specialists in the hive breeding section had given her.

Janvert descended the stairs to the main hall and went through into the dinning room of the farmhouse of The Farm. The Farm. Janvert still thought of it in terms of The Farm. With capitals. He enjoyed the times that Clovis and he got to stay in the farmhouse. It was as if their long cherished wish to escape from the Agency and set up home together had come true. The circumstances were not what either of them had envisioned though. It had been seven months since Hellstrom had demonstrated to the world the power of the weapon that Janvert’s Agency had been investigating. A casual encounter between an Agency operative and one of Hellstrom’s associates had revealed the existence of Project 40 to the Agency as a potential lucrative commercial process. It was the mess of that investigation that had resulted in Janvert and Clovis’s current residence at Hellstrom’s farm. Some of the Agency’s scientists had speculated that the information they had obtained pointed towards a sonic weapon. The new island near Japan, that still had several active volcanoes, attested to their speculations being correct.

A buffet of bacon, scrambled eggs and toast had been placed on the sideboard beside the door to the kitchen. A pot of coffee was steaming on the dining table, alongside a pitcher of orange juice. Janvert helped himself to a glass of the juice. It was freshly squeezed and had a tangy, acidic taste that tingled on his tongue. Squeezed from hive grown oranges from one of the many underground gardens deep in the hive, Janvet thought. Hive oranges were grown to have extra vitamin c and were usually used in the vats. The juice squeezed from them for Janvert, Clovis, DT, and for serving when other Outsiders were at The Farm consequently had a more acidic taste than what Janvert remembered from before his time at the Hive.

Tags: Hellstroms, Hive

Since I started Twittering I’ve been posting things that used to appear here on the Soapbox, like Song of the Day, as tweets instead. I can see this increasing with Twitter been used for short posts and this site being used for longer screeds. My 3 latest tweets also appear in the sidebar on the right here. If you are not on Twitter then give it go.

Tags: Blogging, Twitter, web

When I was thinking of buying a drum kit, I searched for info on the web to show that it was a good way to get exercise. I was looking for justification to spend the cash. I couldn’t find any info to show that it was good exercise. A study showing that drummers are fit, because they drum, has been done. Hah! Retrospective vindication

Tags: Drums

I agree with what he said about what he said regarding this twaddle.

Tags: iPhone, Software

I used my new wok earlier. It was as quick to cook something myself than it would have been to jump in the car and drive to the take-away. Plus it tasted better, was healthier and probably cheaper as well. Only took 10 minutes to clear up afterwards. First use of the wok was as follows:

Sliced chicken breast quick fried in groundnut oil (with teaspoon of mixed Chinese spices in a some water to flavour)

Diced pineapple

Sliced fresh red, green and yellow peppers

About 9 mL of pineapple juice (for sweetness)

Tablespoon of Rice Vinegar (for sourness)

Served on rice (Uncle Ben’s Egg Fried Rice from Microwave this time) with fresh quartered tomatoes and a big glass of cider. It was really nice

View wok on Amazon UK

Tags: Food

I’ve discovered an interesting thing with audiobooks and real books (both paper and electronic). If I try to read a book via audiobook for the first time then I find it hard to sustain my interest. On the other hand if I use an audiobook edition as a way to reread a book I’ve actually read (i.e. the words on a page) then I like it a lot. I think that’s how I will use audiobooks. As a way of rereading books I’ve physically read before.

Tags: eInk

Was out at lunch today to get cash. Dandered into a Carphone Warehouse.

“Have you any iPhone’s left?“, I asked, “Or are you all sold out?“

“We’ve got some 8GB ones here, but they are reserved for people. If you come

back after 2 we’ll have released any that haven’t been collected yet.” said a

sales representative sporting an iPhone 3G t-shirt.

“You’ve no 16GB ones then?“

“We have about 1000 in the warehouse. We can order you one if you like.“

“Can you do upgrades for existing O2 iPhone customers?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Lets do that then!“

I pick it up from the store on Tuesday. It’s a holiday weekend in Northern

Ireland this weekend. £59 + £20 for a Griffin hard shell case. Painless.

Tags: iPhone

The new BBC TV show called Chinese Food Made Easy looks interesting. I love Chinese food. Probably be better, healthier and cheaper to cook my own. Don’t know if I have the time though. Looking forward to the new show.

Update: It was good show. Looked gorgeous on BBC HD. I’m going to do more cooking. Just ordered a Le Creuset wok

Tags: Food