I guess it won't come as any surprise if I say that my life is busy right now. The secret project moves on apace and is looking good. Watch this space as they say. I've started another blog on my pagefall website. The pagefall blog is more about day to day stuff in the world of development rather than my life and I actually find I am posting to it more often.
I watch the recent Huygens decent onto Titan with great excitement. I've said it before (and I have no doubt I'll say it again) but this kind of engineering just blows me away. To have two devices travel for seven years and billions of miles and then work together to bring us the kind of images and data they have returned is just incredible. The web helps bring it all alive too and I was thrilled to come across this website. Increasingly the web is breeding a collection of people who don't wait for others to do things for them but just get on with it themselves.
I can see this trend increasing. The mechanisms of government and even big organizations often leaves a great deal to be desired. From projects like the Open Tsunami warning project to analysis of science data to the likes of groklaw people are doing things for themselves. I wonder how long it will be before big organizations in the public sector are either sidelined or forced to work much more cooperatively with the world at large.
All good things come to an end as they say. Back to commuting tomorrow. I've been working from home this week and over the last two or three weeks life has settled into a very pleasant rhythm with my family around me. Everyones sleep patterns have shifted slightly, going to be later and getting up slightly later. This suits me much better. Despite three years of children and getting up very early I suspect that given half a chance my natural sleep patterns would quickly revert to going to be very late and getting up latish as well. I am just not a morning person. These days by bed time my brain feels like its up to speed and I can think quickly and clearly. By contrast in the mornings I am on Autopilot - the only reason I don't forget things like phone, security pass etc. is because I am learning strategies to stop me having to walk back from the station to get them.
At the start of this month the Freedom of Information Act came in to effect. This is actually a really good thing but it does have a real downside for those of us that it applies to. One of the big implications is that things like email are effectively public even though your tendency is to treat them as private. Today I have been running scripts to purge all of my library email of everything except on going business. The meetings spreading the information about the act in the library have been very informative and its going to be interesting to see how the act impacts day to day business. One thing is for sure the cost implication is enormous and absolutely at odds with the governments desire to cut costs in the civil service.
An open letter to Christian Voice the group attacking the BBC for their recent broadcast. These recent moves by religious groups to try and censor free speech are scarily reminiscent of the actions of the religions right in America. Something I have no wish to see here. Note clearly that this is nothing to do with the fact the group wishing to impose this censorship is religious but rather their desire to censor the freedoms of our society.
I would be interested to know by what right you seek to dictate
what I as a non-christian choose to watch (or not) on my television.
The broadcast in question (the Jerry Springer opera) was broadcast
with considerable warning as to its content and I do not believe that
a single christian has been *made* to watch it. You are right in that
you should have the freedom in our society not to be insulted and offended.
You are going out of your way to be offended by this broadcast.
There is a general acceptance in society of religion and race. The laws
devised by our lawmakers in our name certainly enshrine these principles.
Recent incidents - the censorship of a recent play in Birmingham by a Sikh
mob and your own activities about the BBC's broadcast - seem to show that
this tolerance is not reciprocated.
I do not want to live in a society where free speech is prevented by the vocal
minority. You seek not to be offended by something no one has made
you watch. I would like the freedom of my society to remain intact - including
those to select my own beliefs and think my own thoughts. It seems to
me that your own belief system relies heavily on these freedoms as well
and if you look back at early christian history the church itself did much to
fight the kind of oppression you are now seeking to impose on the rest
of us.
yours sincerely
mark williamson
I guess I'd better check in and say Happy New Year and all that. One of the reasons for my recent absence from this blog is the shear quantity of stuff going on that I can't talk about right now. Mostly work stuff and mostly good (in fact some of it is very exciting indeed) but there is a little bad stuff as well (also work). Lets just say I'm having one or two difficulties coping with the public sector and the different value it places on actually achieving stuff compared say to the private sector. Hopefully I will be able to write about all of this stuff sooner or later.
Year end (or year start as I have let it become) has traditionally been a time for review so I guess I can manage a quick review as well. Standout new things last year: Gabriel (my son obviously) arrived in July, moving down south has worked out pretty well and has been a welcome change of scene, flickr has provided (and continues to provide) lots of fun, my new powerbook and for the most part working at the library.
Music wise: Jandek, Will Oldham, Nurse with Wound, Coil despite the sad death of Jhonn Balance are all standouts and have received a lot of play on my mp3 player. Reading is harder: I have read so many books its hard to remember what I read this year and what I read some other time. I do have to mention Mr Norell and Jonathan Strange though. This is one of the most pleasurable reads I have had for some time. More Jane Austen than Lord of the Rings; it immerses you in an alternative England where magic exists filled with details characters and an eminently readable story.
This has been my favourite Christmas and New year for quite some time. Primarily because it has been very relaxing and I did very little except hang out with my family. Milo was big enough to appreciate it this year too and had an absolute whale of a time as well.