This gallery contains 10 photos.
In the week after the engine came out, I was left with access to my bilges. These are usually hidden away behind an unmovable wooden wall, with access blocked by the engine. As far as I can tell these had … Continue reading
This gallery contains 29 photos.
I come from an engineering family. I know no-one who enjoys playing with engines more than my father. Within days of me buying a boat he had opened up the engine and taken the cylinders off to re-fit the piston … Continue reading
I’m developing a Facebook app at work and was stuck on an issue for a bit. This post is just a mental note, and to prevent this happening. Continue reading
Music in the bandstand in Brighton. Cold wind and rain by turns. We played and danced to keep warm.
I took a couple of audio recordings but this one just seemed perfectly to sum up the day.
Salters Steamers ran an all-night cruise up and down the Thames last year, all night, on the 31st of April. It kept me up and got my May Day, the highlight of the year, off to a very bad start. They’re doing it now and I hope they don’t repeat last year’s nuisance.
I’m not such a miserable old git as all that. In a way I’m annoyed that I’m annoyed because I’m otherwise in high spirits.
A video to show just how loud this is! I left the bit in at the end because they’re finding turning round a bit tricky in the stream and drifting downstream a lot! First time I saw it I thought they were in trouble (the boat drifted backward downstream about 30 metres)!
And one more thing… the Environment Agency has put the entire Thames was on Red warnings today. The official advice is:
We advise users of all boats not to navigate because the strong flows make it difficult and dangerous.
I hope everyone’s safe. They probably shouldn’t be out, however lucrative the passengers and experienced the skipper. These are not the right conditions for a crash or for a drunken student to go overboard.
~
I sent them a email, polite enough I hope.
Dear Salter’s Steamers,
Your phone number is closed, although you’re running trips. I have tried to find a mobile number for the company, but can’t.
The level of noise is unacceptable. I heard it as I was walking from Meadow Lane, and can hear it from my own home, around 350 metres away. There is absolutely no excuse for this level of noise.
Like your clients, I celebrate May Day (the 1st of May) and am all the more chipper for it from having had some sleep. Last year I was kept up for a large part of the night. I’m not a habitual letter-writer, but May Day comes once a year and I’d like to enjoy it. If I played loud music outside your home all night I’m sure you’d at least come and have a word.
I’ve contacted the Environment Agency, who were very helpful, but said this is a matter for the council. The council line is emergencies only (and I doubt that they could do anything at this point) so I’m going to wait until the morning before making a complaint about the noise.
I’m writing this at 1940 on Monday evening, hoping that someone may be monitoring the account and will turn down the music.
This is an open letter, as I know I’m not the only person affected by the nuisance. It’s online at http://blog.afandian.com/2012/04/open-letter-to-salters-steamers/
(You should also have a word with your skippers. They’re navigating in very dangerous conditions, and not very well!)
Yours hopefully,
Joe Wass
Remember being a child and having to run your finger under the line to read? No, I don’t either. But apparently it’s a thing.
I love playing around with text. Here’s an idea I had in a similar vein. You’ll almost certainly need to use your mouse to read this.
If you’re not perplexed, wait a couple of seconds for the calculations to run.
(This requires JavaScript and may result in slightly heavier CPU usage. Won’t work on a touchscreen)
If you enjoy this, take a look at worsethanterrible.co.uk
ALICE was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?'
So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over afterwards it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down ajar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE" but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
"Well!" thought Alice to herself "After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!" (which was very likely true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud. "I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think-" (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) "-- yes that's about the right distance -- but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)
The BBC love their esoteric, obscure electronic music. I think it all started with Sigur Rós in Planet Earth and proliferated from there. It’s even started creeping into BBC Radio 4 trailers now. The trailer for Will Self’s ‘A Point of View: In Defence of Obscure Words‘ had just such a music bed. I decided that I would very much like to know what that music was.
The music isn’t the only mystery, by the bye. I’m not entirely sure what the title of the programme is either. The BBC reports it to be ‘In Defence of Obscure Words‘, whereas Will Self, who I would assume to be the authority in this case, goes with ‘In Defense of Obscure Words‘. I assume that ‘defence’ follows the same rules as other words similar to it, namely that the ‘-ce’ ending is used for the noun and the ‘-se’ ending is used for the verb. But I’m not entirely sure what ‘in defence’ (or ‘in defence’ for that matter) actually means. Is it some obscure conjugation of the verb, or is the ‘in’ a preposition to ‘defence’ as a noun?
But back to the identification of the background music.
I intended to use Shazam to try to and identify the track. I was able to find a white paper on Shazam (back when I was researching my dissertation) and, at least at the time of the paper, the fingerprinting is based on amplitude patterns rather than pitch content. As there was talking all over the track, I knew that wouldn’t work.
It didn’t stop me trying, however. I needn’t have bothered, it found nothing.
Radio is an interesting medium in that it’s designed to be mono with stereo enhancements. The story of stereo in the FM format is a whole fascinating story in itself. The net result is that things tend to be mono, with excursions into stereo for effect. The broadcast itself kept to this pattern: the voices were in mono (i.e. the signal was identical on both left and right channels) and the music was stereo (slightly different signals on each track).
Of course, if you subtract a value from itself, you end up with zero. If you subtract a number from a slightly different number, you don’t get zero. This is a recognised technique for removing vocals (which tend to be panned to the centre of the track) from background tracks. I decided to try this for myself.
First I found a broadcast on iPlayer which included the trailer. I used the brilliant Soundflower to direct output to an Audacity session. The result was this recording:
I then split the tracks into the two components and inverted one half. Inverting means multiplying the value by -1, so +10 becomes -10. This is interesting to listen to. If the signals were coherent, the voices would cancel out. If you’re listening through speakers try moving your head around in the field for a strange effect.
I then added the two tracks together, letting the identical components (speech), cancel each other out. The result is almost perfect removal of vocals (except where compression artefacts muddied things a bit and made the identical signals not-entirely-identical). It’s a bit of a hatchet job on the music (of course, some parts of it are in phase) but it’s still recognisable, and certainly still has the same amplitude profile.
BBC Trailer, inverted and summed
Quite interesting! The music is still audible.
So, track identified? Problem solved? Well no, not quite. Shazam still has no idea.
Perhaps you do?
This gallery contains 15 photos.
I’ve had an allotment since November, but I came into possession of it just in time to wind up the year’s efforts and withdraw indoors. I spent some time before Christmas digging over a patch (what turned out to be a small … Continue reading
A friend asked on Facebook why there were no documents penned by animals. He claimed that “not a single one was to my knowledge written by an animal other than a human”. I disagree. Here are some notable quotes I have collected on the subject.
“A cat could no more write a thesis on the plight of man than a man could on the condition of being a cat”
On the Nature of Existence, Jeramiah Bullock, 1808
”Show me an elephant who can record in a book his thoughts. I warrant he will run out of thoughts before he runs out of paper.”
The Natural Order of the World, Rutherford Mirams, 1899
“The Kangaroo, upon seeing this treatise, kicked up quite tearing it in two. This fact notwithstanding, he was declared by the court to have made his mark upon it and in doing so, accepting its terms.”
Triumph over the Savage, Kip McKinnon, 1800
”Five times round the table flew the bird, each time stopping to dip his beak into the ink. He would then drag it over the surface of the blotting paper in a quite comical manner. In doing this he made parralel lines upon it. He would not stop until a rifle was fetched and the bird dispatched.”
The History of the Charachuse Family, Count Charachuse VII, 1929
“…one chapter of which, it is reported, was penned by a monkey, being kept for amusement by the Earl of Bath…”
Western Almanack, 1766
“And so, by deception, the member for Rutland introduced the entire bill, complete with it the clause authored by his snake. By the ‘ayes’ of the house, the clerk was duly obliged to sign into law and copy out, onto vellum, the act in its entirity. It was remarked that the inscription of the ‘snake clause’ followed the pattern of the snake’s marks even if we could not say whether or not the meaning had been conveyed”
A History of Tyrrany in the Houses at Westminster, 1856
”Around that time T. S. Elliot was said to keep a crow in his bathroom, to be his muse, and to tap out the metre to which the poet twisted his words”
Poetry?, Christabelle Cussins, 1966
The bird marketh upon paper with his mouth, with ink: by the very point of his nose writeth he. Works of writing of high accomplishment proceedeth from him and princes and men may read it alike as though it had been the work of a scholar.
Unknown document fragment, 1669
I think that proves conclusively that animals can write, and have written documents.
Some bizarre ancient ritual that takes place in the last week of March?
No, it’s Mano Panforreteiro playing his Gaita bagpipes in Oxford. With help from some pipes of another kind.
