Dom Davis (The Blog)

You know those days where you’re just flat? Today is one of those days, or at least this afternoon is. I blame it entirely on the fact that this morning was a bit of a shock to me, I’ve had two massive anti-climaxes at work over the past two days, I’m going away in just over a week and, frankly, I can’t be arsed with being in work at the moment. Not the worlds best attitudes, I know, but we all have days like that.

It didn’t help that someone has dicked about with the network at work which means I’ve had to take my iPhone off it and leave it on the mobile network for it to work¹. That said it has helped with one of the solutions used to lift me from my funk. I was sat flicking through my music collection in that ‘nothing really hits the spot’ frame of mind which results in about 4 seconds of a song getting played before you hit next… next… next… next…

Sod it.

My phone wasn’t on the office WiFi so getting and downloading some new music wasn’t going to hurt anyone, and I’ve been thinking it was time for new tunes for a while now. Time to investigate Solitary Experiments in a ‘buy and download a couple of the highest rated albums and see what we think’ type way. A mixed bag thus far, although the good tracks are fitting my mood nicely and helping lift it a little. I’ll give it all a good listen over the next few days and sort the wheat from the chaff.

Anyway, all this will be a moot point shortly as my future wife² and I are going out for dinner tonight which is guaranteed to lift the mood. Just need to get home first.

¹ And by ‘work’ I really mean download my email because the same network change means it’s not working on my laptop.
² 9 days baby, we’re into single digits!

Among other things there were two things which, now I come to think of it, I distinctly remember discussing with The Zozo last night.

The first discussion was about the bin. Our normal and recycling bins are emptied on alternate Tuesdays. Today is the normal bin and will be the last collection before the honeymoon. Realising this The Zozo made a point of reminding me last night. I agreed that, yes, I must remember to put the bin out, especially this week.

As I walked out of Norwich station this morning I sent my usual text to The Zozo wishing her a good day and she replied wishing me a good day and saying she’d put the bins out for me. D’oh!

At that point the conversation flew back into my mind and my 20:20 hindsight went: you should have put the bin out on your way out of the house. Hey well, The Zozo had my back (not for the first time) and it turned out ok.

The other conversation was one I actually initiated. The Zozo, you see, is out all of today and not home until late. I must, therefore, remember my key, something that I’ve get quite bad at remembering of late. You can guess what’s coming next

Yup, as I neared the house I thrust my hand into an empty pocket and thought to myself: bugger. All is not lost though. My step Dad lives in the Zoo just down the road and has a spare key. A quick call confirmed he was in so I headed on the not unpleasant walk there. A chat and catchup later and I’m on
My way home, armed with key.

Had that option not panned out I was lucky that The Zozo was on the train behind me and would be passing through Cromer on her way out tonight. Plan B would be to meet her at the doors of the train and grab her keys. Given the trains are once an hour that plan would have had me in at roughly the same time as going to the Zoo but would have involved an hours wait and no chat and catchup.

Anyway, now my brain remembers the “must remember key” discussion. Lets hope there were no other things I was meant to remember.

Given I tend to listen to fairly alternative stuff it can make finding new music a bit challenging. I can’t get recommendations off my friends, the radio doesn’t play anything remotely close to the genres I like and I no longer go clubbing very often (which was a great source of new bands).

As with most things in life my problem is one that can be solved by the Internet, in this case with last.fm. Bung in an artist or genre you like and it creates your own personalised radio station with similar tracks for your listening pleasure. Links through to iTunes let you purchase any tracks you like and sample other music by the same artist.

One particular track that took my fancy was only to be found on a pretty obscure compilation. Figuring there might be some hidden gems on the rest of the album I bought the whole thing. A wise purchase as it turned out.

One of the tracks that I rated highly on this new album claimed to be Bring Me Violence by Tactical Sekt. Now I’m a bit anal with music and like to have it rated, correctly tagged and resplendent with lyrics so I decide to grab the track lyrics off the web and then investigate Tactical Sekt in more depth.

It’s here I hit a brick wall. It’s not that I couldn’t find the lyrics, it’s that they were completely different. A quick visit to YouTube confirmed that this wasn’t so much a remix but a completely different song. I left it at that and went in search of other artists on the album who were less problematic.

Yesterday during lunch the song popped onto my iPod and I decided to go all out and pin down this track once and for all. Armed with Google I plugged in a quoted search using great chunks of the lyrics. Google returned a result, but for a different band and song entirely: Existence by Solitary Experiments.

Off to iTunes again, turns out that this track is also on the compilation. My search stalled here. I only had part of the album on my phone so I couldn’t tell if it was on the version I’d downloaded.

Fast forward to last night where I was able to sit down in front of the desktop with my master music library and continue the investigation.

First things first, Existence was on the album I had and it was the track before Bring Me Violence. Next I asked Shezam to identify the tracks for me. No luck, too obscure. My next trick was to find Bring me violence on YouTube and compare it against both tracks in iTunes. Bingo! What claimed to be Existence was in fact Bring Me Violence. The track names had been transposed by whoever put the album on iTunes. A further check confirmed the song I like was indeed a heavily remixes version of Existence. Meta data updated I could now rest easy and can now go and instigate Solitary Experiments to see if they have any other ditties I might enjoy.

Shame I hadn’t worked this out before my stag do. The music was such that it would have fitted in nicely if I’d been able to request it. Next time maybe

Twitter is something that I’ve been playing with on and off since it started. My first foray into Twitter was somewhat curtailed by the fact that it was constantly being swamped and the servers were forever down, or unable to cope with the load. Recently I’ve rejoined Twitter more as a consumer than a producer. I’m read @stephenfry among others and post the odd comment. For me Twitter occupies an odd space. Unlike many I don’t put my Facebook statuses on twitter, mainly because Twitter is much less private. What vaguely interesting stuff I have to say tends to go up here so Twitter gets forgotten about with the odd sarcastic comment punted out towards it.

In a bid to increase my Twitter usage (and possibly the number of followers I have) I’ve included my Twitter feed on the right hand side (assuming you’re viewing the full fat version of the site, if you’re reading this via RSS or on an iPhone you’ll be missing out, if you still can’t see it then look lower, it’s under the tag cloud ). I’ve also installed an app on my iPhone that allows me to tweet the current track I’m listening too. Given I’m not going to tweet every track (as that would get old for everyone rather fast) it will make a good barometer for what sort of mood I’m in.

Anyway, feel free to read… or not

I’ve always been an avid computer gamer, from Elite and Repton on old 8bit home computers (BBC Micro in my case) to X3 and Starcraft 2 on modern 64bit multi core behemoths. It was actually gaming that got me into programming. Back in the days of yore games would often come as printed listings you entered by hand. In those days the game descriptions were works of art that would raise expectations far beyond what a few hours entering code could achieve. One particular listing which was supposed to be for a lunar lander type game took me a week to enter and when I’d finished it didn’t work. 2 years later I finally fixed it and taught myself to program while I was at it.

Fast forward 15 years and I was at the peak of my gaming. I had a rabid World of Warcraft addiction (that stuff is digital crack!) and would think nothing of dropping 5 grand a year on hardware to keep ahead of the curve. Thankfully the fact I could program had landed me a job that could fund that level of expenditure. During that time there was never any doubt if a game would run on my computer. It was a given that I’d get a rock solid 60fps with all the settings to maximum. I even had the hole in my wallet to prove it.

These days I’m slightly less cutting edge with my gaming. My iPhone gets used as a gaming platform more than my big computer, laptop, ps3 and wii combined. I just lack the time (and, in part the inclination) to play as many computer games as I used to and lack the cash to throw at staying on the bleeding edge. That said I still enjoy a few hours a week on my big games machine at weekends when Zo is at work (and many hours on the iPhone when she’s not :S ) and I’m beginning to find myself in a quandary.

When I say big machine I mean big. My budget when buying it was astronomical, not least because of the monitors. These beasties are both a blessing and a curse. They were bought for photo and video editing and, for that, they’re fantastic. Unfortunately in the machines secondary role as a games platform they’re a pain. It all boils down to frame rates. A nice 1080P widescreen 19″ monitor runs at 1920×1080 so at 60 frames per second you’re moving roughly 124.5 million pixels about per second. On my monitors it’s closer to 246 million. I need double the processing power just to match the smaller screen. Add a graphics card that, despite being the best Apple offered at the time, was a generation out of date compared to what I’d be putting in a custom PC gaming rig and you end up with a machine that struggles with modern games unless I turn the settings down.

Recently Apple announced the new shiny i7 MacPros which came with, among other things, current generation graphics cards. Even better these cards will run in my machine. For £300 I could breath another couple of years of quality gaming life into the machine, and when you consider In the past I’ve paid over double that for a single card, and put two of them in a machine, its quite a reasonable price. Once again, though, my monitors are being a pain.

With the number of pixels that need to be driven I need a special type of output on the card. Two in fact, one for each monitor. Driving two monitors is quite hard work for the card, very few people actually need two of these outputs and newer outputs are being pushed by Apple so, for whatever reason, Apple and/or the card manufacturers have stopped putting two of the outputs I need on the cards, replacing the second with something that is useless to me. Now, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to buy a shiny new card and plug one monitor into it and leave the second monitor plugged into the old card. But this might not work. And I may need to by 2 cards. All of a sudden my £300 cost, which I could probably sell stuff to raise, might become £600. Not so easy to cover.

I guess I’d better start ebaying stuff

On my incredibly long¹ wedding to-do list was ‘get haircut’. Seeing as how Larry, my barber, had said I should get my hair cut two weeks before the wedding to allow the hair to settle and, seeing as how it is two weeks until the wedding, I decided I should toddle into town and get said task completed. There were a few other things I needed to do in town too so it seemed the sensible thing to do.

Getting my hair done these days is a quick and cheap affair. It’s your traditional barbers insofar as you pitch up, wait your turn, have a quick chat while your hair is trimmed, pay, leave. Job done. Hair done I needed to tick another item off my list³ so I ventured further into town, only to remember that Cromer during the off season doesn’t really open until 10 (or 11 in some cases) meaning I needed to kill a bit of time until the shops I wanted opened.

Whilst wondering about I passed, on a couple of occasions, a man who has some form of physical disability which required him to walk with a stick. The disability was such that he has to walk slightly sideways and with a swagger which was reminiscent of the type of walk effected by African American pimps in the 1970′s. All he needed was a white suit, platforms and an ivory cane and no one would know it wasn’t being put on.

Another errand to run was the posting of something for one of my many many step mothers. Said something was in a padded A4 envelope and contained a slimline CD jewel case as well as some A4 bits of paper which, under the Post Offices new simplified pricing system, was obviously going to require me to get it weighed and measured to work out the postage. The Post Office clerk applied the measuring tool to ensure it fit within the dimensions of a Large Letter, weighed the item, checked it’s destination and added these and countless other factors into a pricing algorithm that determined how much I was going to pay. After payment was made a new king size type of stamp was then put into the printer, the information printed onto it and the stamp applied to the letter. It makes you wonder how we used to cope when we had to find and fish out a first class stamp and apply it to the letter at home and then take it to a post box.

Errands done it was time to head home. The weather was such by this point that I could simply relax and have the wind blow me home. There were a couple of occasions where sudden gusts caught me unawares and my bags nearly felled other pedestrians or swiped cars. I think I managed to get everything home in one piece.

¹ and by incredibly long we, of course mean short, and by short I mean now has 3 items² on it
² and one of those items is ‘turn up’
³ I can’t tell you what this item is as it’s a surprise for The Zozo which will no doubt drive her nuts as it’s sitting (wrapped and concealed) in the bedroom ready to taunt her for 2 weeks until she can open it

My commute these days has started including a quick visit to the pub, which, at 8:20 in the morning, is not what you’d call normal. You’ll be pleased to know that this frequenting of a hostelry twice a day is not the beginning of alcoholism, or even by choice.

As you may recall I take the river route into work. I’ve no idea if it’s the fastest, but it’s the most pleasant. Entry (or egress if I’m going home) to the river walk is by way of a gate into the beer garden of the Compleat Angler and then down some steps. Throughout the week there has been work on the outside of the Compleat Angler which is now blocking that gate. Since blocking entry to a public right of way is generally frowned on and alternative method of getting to the beer garden and down the steps (or up the steps and out of the beer garden depending on direction) has been provided. This involves going through the front door of the pub, into the bar, hanging a left at the fruit machine and going out the side door.

It’s a minor detour, but a bit of and odd one which leaves me a little discombobulated each time I have to make it. I’m hoping that, by Monday, it’ll all be sorted and I can go back to my normal route and just have to worry about dodging cyclists, free range dogs, insects and the odd falling branch.

People keep asking me if I’m nervous/scared/worried/otherwise concerned about my impending so called removal of freedom.

The answer is a steadfast no. It’s nearly two years after we started dating and I still rush to get the train home in the vain hope that it will somehow get me home to The Zozo faster. Besides, we both gave up this so called ‘freedom’ two years ago when we started dating. I’m not giving up anything, I’m making it legally more difficult for the current state if affairs to change. Something I’m all for.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have a station to rush to and a Zozo to get home to; something I’m very excited about

The first iPhone was, to my mind, a marvel of technology in all areas except one. The camera was a joke. And I’m not talking about its tiny, high density sensor with a bit if plastic on the front compared to several grands worth of SLR and glass. No, it was a joke compared to other high density sensors with bits of plastic on the front.

The fact is that, in a time when mobile phone cameras were actually becoming good for what they were iPhone users were lumbered with something from the previous generation. Mine rarely got used.

The situation was little better on the iPhone 3G. If anything it was worse because now even low end phones had better cameras.

The iPhone 4 finally put a half decent (for a phone) camera on the back which, coupled with some software tweaks from the iPhone 3GS and various apps means I now use it as a point and shoot camera for when I can’t be arsed to lug my big SLR about, or for when I simply don’t have it.

Recently Apple included HDR (High Dynamic Range) with it’s camera app. HDR works by taking a number of shots in quick succession at different exposures and then tone mapping them so you can see details in both the highlights and the shadows. The effect can be seen on the two images below. The one without HDR has a white sky because it was exposed for the tree. The HDR version has a much nicer sky.

The jury is out on whether HDR produces good, vibrant images or if it’s a travesty against photography. Personally I think a good HDR image can look stunning and while it doesn’t work in all situations its a great tool to have.

What really impresses me though is that I now have in my pocket something that will do what used to take a lot of time, preparation and post processing with software that is not inexpensive. Not bad for a phone.

The Met Office have, via the medium of their televised weather forecasts, been banging on about what a fantastic day today is going to be. Numbers like ’25′ were bandied about in association with this area and phrases like “glorious sunshine” have been uttered. To my knowledge this prediction of great weather started yesterday evening and persisted to this mornings weather report.

Since The Zozo is currently ill and has a day off (the two events are unrelated) I didn’t open the curtains this morning allowing her to remain in bed and have a well deserved lie in. Also, having been so conclusively told about the nice weather today I never bothered checking my phone. My first experience of the actual weather was, therefore, when I stepped out of the front door resplendent in tshirt and sunglasses and encountered… mist.

1 hour later and slightly further inland and there is still mist. Fearing the Met Office had furnished me with untruths I checked my weather app on the phone. It’s suggesting that 18 might be a more realistic temperature for today.

I just hope the sun comes out otherwise it’s going to be a bit chilly today.