Glorious May Bank Holiday

Well, it all seemed so nice on Friday when we arrived. BBQ on the go, beer and wine flowing, happy kids. Saturday was even nice enough for the kids to enjoy the forrest play area (see Giant Squirrel below). But, then that good old British institution known as the May Bank Holiday, played its usual tricks. The weather turned from 25degrees on Thursday to 6degrees on Sunday with persistent heavy rain and wind. Absolutely horrid. The low point was getting a phone call while we were in the pub telling us that our tent had collapsed in the wind. Not fun. On the plus side, the bedroom compartments and all our clothes and food stayed dry.

Among the highlights were the BBQ (total success, no one killed) and the poker evening (finished joint 1st - well, OK second).

Kaspar makes BBC news

Once again Kaspar the robot built by our team at Herts makes the national news.
Nice video of Kaspar and Ben, but what I like particularly about it is that the robot is wearing my son Yousef's clothes!!

Lets go kick some african animal ass

Midfielding ... it was a true story.
OK, so it is not a giant shrew lined with Kit-Kat wrappers like a glossy bitch, but it is a huge Squirrel of Troy filled with marauding children.

robot bondage

You know, like whatever turns you on. Man.

Technomonist

Technomonist.
A new word made up by me ;)

I'd like it to mean:
"One who leverages technical know-how for monetary gain."

Not to be confused with Technomancer which is derived from Technomancy (meaning magical powers from using technology), which, it appears, is a real word

EDIT:
An alternative meaning which would fit with it being a contraction of "Technology" and "Economist" would be:
"Analyst of tech-related markets."

but that is altogether too boring and predictable ...

WTF?

Web acronyms - necessary evil. I always thought that WTF? was a disbelieving exclamation (What The F**k?), but oh no, now Technorati want to reclaim it as meaning Where's The Fire? Damn them and their all invasive tech tentacles.

Midfielding

Midfielding
Noel Fielding (The Mighty Boosh) in a touch of small-furry-animals-in-trojan-adventure type hilarity. Heard it on Friday (Thanks Aris!), had me laughing most of the weekend!! (Listen out for the old Russian Lady!)

The lyrics by themselves are funny enough::

I love animals, I am always talkin’ about animals I love ‘em. But the thing is, you know whenever you see animals on telly it’s always the show off animals yeah. It is always the leopards and panthers and crocodiles Lions millin’ about going “Oh I’m very good I’m on everything!”

And, it really makes me annoyed you know, I mean what about the English animals, the British mammals yeah? Ooh, what about the muskrat or the tiny northern root vole with his little banjo and hat made out of elastic bands? Who’s representing him? No-one, that’s who!

I was furious, so I went round all the heavily wooded regions in England and I just went out with this small pamphlet recruiting like a huge slave rebellion. I was like Spartacus, I was there goin’ “Ok we’re gonna go to Africa we’re gonna kick their arses!”

And I’d got a huge sort of tiny little mammal slave rebellion they were all wearing tunics. We were there rummaging about Greece, well Kent! And I said COME ON! We’re gonna go over there we’re gonna show 'em I’m sick of the lions I’m sick of the crocodiles you must be too come on now!

So I got ‘em all in a big rusty bomber and we flew over to Africa But we needed a strategy! We couldn’t’ just go over there, you know and go COME ON! Giving them agro, we needed a strategy!

So what we did is, erm, we built a huge wooden shrew, like the wooden horse of troy but just a little bit more stoaty with tiny little stoats arms holding a spear and what we did was we lined it – to make it double dangerous we lined it all with Kit Kat wrappers oh it was fantastic, it was like a glossy bitch it was so bright! It was a metallic wonder!

Small boys would rather eat a pair of scissors than go near the glossy bitch
“Don’t make me go near it, I’ll eat another pair of scissors. I can’t look at it it’s doin’ me pupils in” Ooh it was fantastic it was very warlike.

The body was very warlike but the eyes, they were telling a different story, body warlike but the eyes, like the eyes of an old Russian lady who’d seen to much, an old Russian lady with her arm caught in a loom. And big sailors would walk past and go “Hello.” and she’d go “No, not hello, my arm it is in a loom.” And they’d go “Yes, hello.” and she’d go “No not hello, it’s gone maroon, my arm it is in a loom.” and they’d go “Yes, hello” and she’d go “No, not hello-“ And in the end she’d have to pick up the two ton loom and walk and follow them home and knock on their front windows. And they’d go “Oh you’re scaring me a little bit now”.

That’s what the eyes were like. Dangerous, but beautiful at the same time.

And what we did, was we cut two circles out of the base of the shrew, so that martin the pine marten could put his little stoaty, weasely legs through and wheel us around. It was fantastic, but we had no windows, so we were crashing into antique shops, knocking over stationary yachts, really having a nightmare. .

And eventually we found the planes and we waited till dusk, waited till it got little bit dark and we looked out of a crack in the shrew and there all out there, lions millin’ about and we thought we’re gonna get you you freak nuts! .

So what we did was, we waited till it was dark and then we went out and we went CHARGE! and we ran at them and when we got out there we couldn’t believe it! They were HUGE! Lions the size of transit vans! We couldn’t- we didn’t know what was happeni- Leopards like marquees!
“ Oh he’s like a Victorian tennis house, look at the size of him!” .

Martin the Pine Marten was in a right state!
“Flippin’ hell I’m not going out there again thy were bloody huge you didn’t tell me they were going to be that huge!”
What’s happening to your voice?
“I don’t know but I’m a bit scared!” .

So, we all ran back onto the shrew and we were like
“Oh no what are we going to do?” We had to come up with a plan B. Luckily Maurice the er, wood pigeon went
“I’ve got an idea” and er, he’d brought some Japanese tourist costumes along, so we popped them on and went out there and we took photos of them all. .

We used them cameras to fire water at them oh yeah! Some of the zebras were soaked! Cheetahs wringin’ out their gussets! .

We went over there and we kicked their arses! Best weekend I’ve ever had! .

RoboGeek

Website for the comic ... here (still only 2 entries though)

Artificial Intelligence in a robot - easy! ...

... if I could just get around to doing some research ...

(C) Kirk Valladares 2007

PS - my next task, which I shall probably put off till another day, which is itself a procrastination vehicle for my real task of getting this PhD done, is:

• Create a website for these cartoons.

Brain Entropy

My head is completely fried after having spent 2 hours describing:

• Information Theory
• Entropy of Random Variables
• Joint and Condtitional probability
• Information Distance
• Dimensionality (and calculation of)
• Grouping and Clustering
• Adaptive Binning and Entropy Maximization

and more ... to a PhD student in our lab.

I have to go lie down now.

Song list

You may or may not know, but I will be playing only my second ever live gig in my entire life this summer. My first was with a guitar and a close friend of mine in Manchester. We played to a packed bar at Hardy Farm in Chorlton. I came on with dark glasses and couldn't find my guitar (even though it was hanging around my neck). This could have had something to do with what I had drunk before taking the stage. Needless to say, we were pretty crap, but the audience seemed to enjoy it.

The second coming will be at a friend of mine's 50th birthday party do. I will be playing bass with a bunch of real professionals, and I am going to have to go some to keep up.

This is our (latest) song list:

Beatles - Back in the USSR
Kinks - Sunny Afternoon
Hendrix - Hey Joe
Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar

we did have ZZ-Top (Gimme all you lovin) Van Morrison (Moondance) and Stones (Gimme Shelter) on that list previously, but they have been dropped for now.

EDIT: We have added Thin Lizzy's version of "Whiskey in the Jar" to the list ... first rehearsal of that tomorrow!

Procrastination ... again

(C) Kirk Valladares 2007

well, says it all ...