Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

That census meme seems to have expanded since I did it yesterday, so I figure I should fill out more details...

Fire up the time machine!

2011 I'm married to marypcb and we're living in a three floor flat in Putney with two cats. I'm working as a freelance journalist, specialising in technology. I don't blog as I used to, but that's OK, as I've found other social media tools to use as an outlet. Also I get paid to do it in other places. My job means I get to travel a lot, and on Census Day I'm going to be in California. Amusingly that's where I was on the US Census Day last year. I'm reading lots of SF, but Jupiter is still there. I've just watched one of the last space shuttle launches from the side of a road in Florida. I still drive the black Ford Puma.

2001 I'm living with marypcb in the same flat in Putney, with one less floor and one more cat. I'm working as a consultant, building large scale IT systems for people. It's the peak of the dot com boom, and I'm working for an American consulting company that's less than three years old and has less than two years to survive. It's a job that takes me lots of places, and I'm pretty sure I was in Lisbon on Census Day. I'm reading lots of SF, but there's no monolith on the Moon. A space shuttle has just returned from the international space station. I recently bought my first new car, a black Ford Puma.

1991 I'm living in a rented room in Bath.I'm working at the University, doing research into electro thermal finite element analysis of transient electromagnetic events. It's the period of my life I describe as "designing exotic weapons for the military". I'm dating Cathy, volunteering on Welsh narrow gauge railways, and reading lots of SF. There's a space shuttle launch in a couple of weeks, but they're kind of routine now. I drive a second hand white Ford Escort estate car.

1981 I'm living in my parent's semi-detached house in St Lawrence, Jersey with my mother, my father, my brother and one cat. I'm at secondary school, studying for the first of my O-levels. I've just been allowed into the adult library in town, and am reading lots of SF as a result. The first space shuttle launches soon, and I'm looking forward to watching it on TV. I'm too young to drive.

1971 I'm living in the same house, with the same people, though we'd only just moved in. I'm in my first years of primary school, and having been reading long enough to know what SF is. I do covet a friend's Dinky toy Thunderbird 2 though, so I assume the die has been cast. They're still flying to the moon, and are starting to design a space shuttle.

Using memes to extend the exercise of radical transparency,

A) Four jobs I have had in my life (other than current job):
Research scientist, radio engineer, gentlemen's outfitter, and e-commerce consultant.

B.) Four movies I would watch over and over:
LA Story, Lord of the Rings, Oceans (11, 12 and 13), and The City Of Lost Children.

C.) Four places I have lived
Jersey, Bath, Chelmsford, and Borehamwood.

D.) Four TV shows that I watch
Shark, Psych, Boston Legal, and Las Vegas.

E.) Four places I have been:
New Zealand, Hong Kong, Newfoundland, and Herm.

F.) People who e-mail me (regularly):
Mary, my editors, my server, and PR folk.

G.) Four of my favourite foods:
Battered plaice, good sushi, a nice breakfast scramble with chicken apple sausage, and bacon.

H. ) Four places I would rather be right now:
Browsing a Frys in San Jose, exploring the zoo in San Diego, walking through the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, and having a latte at the Park Cafe in Marahau.

J.) Four things I am looking forward to this year:
FiRE, MIX08, driving from Las Vegas to San Jose, and visiting the Getty Villa

K.) Four favourite authors:
Tim Powers, Walter Jon Williams, Jennifer Crusie, and Sean Williams

We're back in London for a few days to catch up on things before swinging over the pond for CES.

So it's a chance for a quick round up of 2006...

Travels

Four continents and four months away from home, taking us to all four corners of the USA (and some stops in the middle), to the beauties of New Zealand, to the bustling streets of Hong Kong, and the depths underneath Switzerland. Cities visited included Hong Kong, Seattle, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, San Jose, Campbell, San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Wellington, Christchurch, Geneva, and Munich.

We drove the whale-watching twists and turns of Highway One from San Francisco to LA, went to Death Valley in the rain, sat in our own hot springs on Hot Water Beach, and watched dolphins swim up the coast of the Coramandel Peninsula. It is a wonderful world.

Books

Best read of the year was by far Sean Williams' "Books of the Cataclysm" series, which wrapped his earlier "Books of the Change" YA series in a set of adult novels that expanded on the earlier themes, to unfold one of the more innovative fantasies of the last twenty years. If fantasy is inherently conservative, the final volume The Devoured Earth turned that meme soundly on its head, with characters who not only thought about the choices they were making, but used the time carefully to find a true alternative path that offered progress and growth. Wonderful stuff that needs a wider audience beyond the southern Australian landscapes that inspired so much of the story. Yes, Pyr is publishing the series in the US, but their version will miss the crucial three "Books of the Change" - which I luckily found on our first trip to the side of the world.

Other good reads included finishing Elizabeth Bear's Jenny Casey trilogy, being encouraged by marypcb to try Kerry Greenwood's detective fiction, Chris Roberson's post-modern planetary-romance Paragea, and the final part of Nancy Kress' Quaker military space opera duology Crucible.

Literary Pilgrimages

Slip F8 at the Baia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale. Travis is long gone, and there are no Rolls Royce pickup truck or house boat to be seen...

Music

The highlight here was finally seeing Thomas Dolby live, at one of the warm up gigs for his tour in San Francisco, and at an enthusiastic homecoming at the Scala here in London. With more tours to come, and new music, I suspect I'll be seeing him playing again somewhere soon. Other gigs included seeing regular favourite Billy Bragg and a blast from the past with the original line up of prog rock supergroup Asia.

Sport

Two baseball games - watching the Cubs shut out Barry Bonds as he tried for Babe Ruth's record, and seeing the Mariners run in a grand slam against the Orioles.

One football match - the opening of the World Cup in Munich. The massed oompah bad was most peculiar...

Technology

CERN took us to the largest physics experiment we've seen, and to the first web server. Closer to home we've been writing for more magazines and web sites, including our regular tech blog at IT Pro, where you'll find my tech round-up of 2006.

I came across this neologism today (from Human Being Curious via Creating Passionate Users and marypcb).

The human brain has a function built into it that’s helped us survive for many thousands of years, and unfortunately, it’s also a function that tends to resist trying new things as well. Your brain tends to make up, and live out worst case scenarios before trying something new, to see what might happen if you were to try this new thing. It’s what’s known as awfulizing. When faced with something that’s different from what we’re used to, our brain awfulizes all of the terrible things that may become of this new situation, and in many cases, believes what it makes up to be true, then responds to what it makes up, as opposed to what is known as objective reality. Let me give you two examples. These examples are quite different, and at the same time, the brain tends to come to the same conclusion for both of these situations.

It made a lot of sense. It's something I do a lot, rolling scenarios over and over and trying to work out what the worst possible thing that could happen would be. When faced with a decision, and something new, I'm still back on those long ago African plains, trying to avoid the hungry leopards.

Now I have a name for it, it could be easier to deal with.

And of course, I should still be able to avoid my metaphorical night-time leopards.

And of course, Human Being Curious becomes another candidate for the ever-growing blogroll

Just over a month into the new regime, and I'm already doing a mile or so a day on the home cross-training machine.

What's most pleasing is that I'm starting to see the effects. I was able to get the really heavy boxes up the ladder and into the loft while helping tamaranth move house. There's also definitely less of me round the waist and the thighs - in fact I'm already two notches into a belt I'd had to stop wearing.

Go me!

And I'm now seriously considering getting some running shoes so I can at least get a little jogging in while we're away round the world...

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE:
1. Gents Outfitter
2. Designer of Exotic Weapons
3. BOFH-in-chief of a national ISP
4. Technology Strategy Consultant

4 MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
1. LA Story
2. Oscar
3. Ghost In The Shell
4. Spirited Away

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. London
2. Bath
3. Hong Kong
4. Chelmsford

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
1. The West Wing
2. E.R.
3. House
4. Sports Night

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. Bermuda
2. The Massif Centrale
3. Seattle
4. Guernsey

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. www.livejournal.com
2. www.flickr.com
3. www.evil-comic.com
4. www.scarygoround.com

FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS:
1. Picasso, Las Vegas
2. Scoma, Sausalito
3. Enoteca Turi, Putney
4. unknown Brazilian rodizio, Lisbon

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
1. Rodizio
2. Cassoulet
3. Pad Thai
4. Pizza Express American Pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni

FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED
1. Val Plaisant School, Jersey
2. Victoria College Preparatory School, Jersey
3. Victoria College Jersey
4. University of Bath

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. A beach in Bermuda
2. Lantau Island, Hong Kong
3. Estes Park, Colorado
4. Any big bookshop...

Honest. Would I lie, or use a meme generator?

( Facts are good. These, however... )

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Gacked from pogodragon

Simple one, this: List the towns or cities where you spent at least a night away from home during 2005. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays.

Stuttgart, Germany
Jersey *
Lille, France
Bologna, Italy
Orlando, FL *
Sarasota, FL *
Las Vegas, NV
Boston, MA
Amsterdam, Holland
Glasgow, Scotland
Eskdalemuir, Scotland *
San Francisco, CA *
San Jose, CA
Campbell, CA *
Los Angeles, CA
Kirkland, WA

An addendum to an earlier post, and taken from etriganuk.

Tagged by the one person I can't resist, marypcb...

Name 5 of life's simple pleasures that you like most. Try to be original and creative and not to use things that someone else has already used. Tag 5 people on your list.

1 A nice cup of tea and a good book
2 Hot toasted crumpets with butter melting through on to the plate
3 Sitting on a beach, watching the waves roll in
4 An intriguing problem to solve
5 Something interesting to photograph

I'm not one for tagging people, so feel free to propagate the meme if you want...