Nik's Saga

It has been one of those rare days - a totally relaxed Saturday.

No need to go into town to work or for an SCA meeting, no need to go anywhere else for any other reason. No need to do anything but lounge on the sofa watching the rugby and reading Honor Harrington novels.

Last night was one of the occasional DATA (the computing student society) events; ten-pin bowling. We've recently (about six months ago) had a bowling alley open up here in Akureyri and this was the first time I'd visited it. I don't always make it to DATA events but I managed this one... and proved that ten-pin bowling is not one of my strengths.

Oh no. In fact as far as ten-pin bowling is concerned, I suck like a pulsar. Yes, most of the time I'm just this great sucking gravitational mass, but occasionally I produce jet-like bursts of brilliance (technically known as 'strikes' in this case). Never mind, it was a fun evening. And, as I pointed out to one of my students, I might be crap at bowling, but give me a sword and I could slice him like salami. Well, maybe I was exaggerating a little, but my students know of my strange SCA-related passtimes. :)
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1st International Symposium on Clanger Studies
Call for papers

We invite the submission of abstracts on research in any field of Clanger Studies to the 1st International Symposium on Clanger Studies, ISCS 2010, which will be held at Odyssey 2010 at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Heathrow, UK.

The International Symposium on Clanger Studies brings together academics, fringe researchers. interstellar explorers and hopeful galactic overlords from across time and space to exchange information on the knotty problems concerning the study of the physical, biological and social sciences pertaining to Selenemus lanodiffertus postgaterii.

Topic areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Astrophysics
  
• Astronautics
  
• Astro-acoustic propulsion
  
• Knotted loop string theory and chromotopology
  
• Gastronomy
  
• Interspecies relations
  
• Animal husbandry
  
• Acousto-anhydroponics
  
• Weather control and climatology
  
• Ferropoultry engineering
  
• Minor planetology
  
• Ecological catastrophe amelioration

Abstracts for both oral and poster presentations are invited. Abstracts should not exceed a sensible length and should be emailed to iscs2010@beeblebear.net Accepted All submitted abstracts will be published in the symposium proceedings.

ICSC 2010 Committee
Dr. Nik Whitehead (chair)
Mr. Simon Bradshaw (technical committee)
Mr. Mark Sinclair (technical committee)
Mr. Richard Proctor (keynote speaker)

This symposium is held in memory of the late and greatly lamented pioneer in this field, Mr. Oliver Postgate.

Labels: redemption

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I haz Internetz! W00t!

(I believe that these are the appropriately celebratory exclamations under the circumstances. )

It took an early morning phone call to my ISP and a discussion with Ryan, their technical chap from Virginia, to sort out the problem with my DSL line and the matter of adding a password to my system. It seems that they don't bother putting passwords on accounts for people in remote farmhouses because they're remote and not normally as paranoid about security as I am. When I returned home tonight the DSL light was on and unblinking and I finally had internet connectivity. Hurrah!

Getting back home to try this out was a bit of an experience though. M had warned me that the bottom of the road just off the main road sometimes gets a bit deep in blown snow, but as I'd got out this morning I wasn't expecting any problems on returning tonight.

I was wrong.

There were about eight inches of blown snow across a section about 10m long (yay mixed units!), into which I drove at just the wrong speed and ended up sliding sideways partly into the rough. After about ten minutes of rocking the car backwards and forwards to no avail, a nice chap in a pick-up travelling along the main road stopped, reversed up into the side road and pulled me back onto the main track. Even after that I couldn't actually go forwards, but instead had to back up a bit in order to build up enough momentum to get through the snow going forwards.

I think that I'll take the Yeti tomorrow.
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It's relatively warm in Reykjavík but the snow is back here in Akureyri.

It's the sort of snow that blows along the road and tries to blow through you rather than around you. Still, it wasn't so bad that I couldn't get the car out of the car park at the airport. I'd arranged my flight to come in late morning (allowing me to meet up with M for coffee) and moved my morning lecture into the afternoon. I'd originally planned to shop, lecture and go home in time to try to sort out my internet connection but, naturally enough, that plan didn't survive contact with the enemy. Eventually I got home not long after six and collapsed in a snoozing heap onto the sofa.

Ah well, given the inevitable lack of sleep over the weekend I don't think I'm going to worry too much about that.
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Strictly speaking, this isn't a convention day at all. But as it started in the convention hotel I'm going to include it.

Quite a few people were still around for breakfast, and as my flight wasn't until the evening I had time to hang around for coffee with P, M and J once A had left on his long journey north. We sat around brainstorming ideas for guests for 2011 and generally relaxing before our rather shorter journeys.

Eventually, though, it was time to head south. I'd originally planned to meet up with my friend K and then visit Bletchley Park, but it turned out that time was not on our side so we just sat and had a natter and a light lunch. I shall just have to do Bletchley in 2011 instead.

Finally it was back down the M1/M25 to Heathrow and a spot-on check-in: my luggage weighed exactly 20.0kg (much to the amusement of the staff). Even with the flight on time I had plenty of time to pick up a large mature Cheddar and a box of jelly babies - what other sweets could I possibly bring back from an SF convention? :)

When I arrived in Iceland I found myself standing in the queue waiting to have my passport checked by what looked suspiciously like a grumpy old man. Nevertheless, I wished him a good evening in Icelandic and, although I have absolutely no idea what he asked me in return, replied with Icelandic Stock Phrase #9 Ég vinna á Akureyri (I work in Akureyri). His face suddenly broke into a beaming smile and he wished me a welcome home and a good evening. I was rather surprised but quite happy; it managed to lift my spirits from the normal post-return blues... which was also helped by the welcome from the night manager at my usual hotel. He just smiled, welcomed me and handed me a key, no paperwork or anything. Customer loyalty is clearly a good thing. :)

Labels: redemption

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Another late night, another early morning.

This morning started with an Ops shift, during which I diligently entered into the spirit of the elections for Ruler of the Universe by locating a) the yellow paper used for the ballot papers, b) the computer file containing the ballot form, and c) the necessary hardware and software to mate the two together. The results of this chicanery were delivered into the hands of Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart's minions. I was, naturally, delighted to discover later that the Brigade Leader had won the election by a landslide (approximately 150% of the 'vote') and that I had had a small part to play in that victory.

Yes, the one commandment for the elections for Ruler of the Universe is Thou Shalt Cheat.

Post-Ops I had a chance to wander over to Primark in search of some polo shirts. One of the dealers had brought her sewing machine with her, with the result that I am now the proud owner of PsiCorps, Torchwood and Stargate polo shirts. Once back in the hotel I happened to wander past one of the smaller rooms to discover (wearing grey shirt and dog-collar) starting a class on origami. Naturally I had to join that one - a convention with added crafts? That's my sort of weekend!

Then it was off to the second of my A for Andromeda talks. I'd been a bit worried about this as I hadn't had time to write a proper talk on the subject, but as it turned out it was in the video room so I wouldn't have been able to project a powerpoint presentation anyway. In the end we watched some of the extra material and the one remaining complete episode, then discussed the influence that A for Andromeda and Quatermass had on Dr. Who, and the methods used for restoring these re-released classics.

This finished just in time for the closing ceremony, followed by a trip to the bar before dinner. Dinner involved seven of us heading off in search of a restaurant in the centre of Coventry, wandering through empty shopping centres and open plazas in a manner that I can only compare to that of an SG team arriving on an alien planet. Yes, we did the spreading out, rotating point and rear positions, the lot. Oh, except for when we accidentally managed the Team Banzai line abreast, that is. Eventually we found an extremely good little Chinese restaurant, the Noodle Bar. You know it's likely to be a good place when it's full of Chinese patrons and the menu is in English on one side and Chinese on the other. We were not disappointed.

I had planned to do the quarterstaff workshop, but the problems I've had with my shoulder recently put paid to that (even after had pummelled my shoulder into submission in Ops this morning). Ah well, there's always next time. I've signed up for Redemption 2011 already.

We returned once more to the bar, where P introduced us to Flock!, which is officially Very Silly. I look forward to a Mac version (although that may take a little time, he tells me). It was, naturally enough, another late night, punctuated by cider and a cumberland sausage bap.

Labels: redemption

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Saturday is always the big day for conventions, and today was no different.

After writing yesterday's post I dashed off to give my talk on A for Andromeda (2006), the remake of the original 1961 series. There were only five of us, but we watched it and then had quite an interesting discussion about the portrayal of science and scientists within it. It finished just in time for me to get to the opening ceremony, which was a good thing, then I had to dash off once again for my panel on Is time travel possible?

This was quite amusing, as I'm certain that the same four of us did a late-night science panel at the last Redemption, possibly on is FTL travel possible?. I have a suspicion that we are the Redemption physics/astrophysics team. :) Not that I'm complaining - it was a very good panel discussion and I'd be happy to do something with the same team again in 2011.

Then there was the Torchwood Wobblevision. I'd never done a wobblevision before, but it had always sounded rather fun. For the uninitiated, a wobblevision involves getting a group of people together to create stills of scenes in an episode of Torchwood. I ended up playing Tosh, and look forward to seeing the eventual pictures.

It was well beyond 02:00 by the time I got to sleep, followed by a good breakfast and my first panel of the day, on the works of Lois McMaster Bujold. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with this one, as it turned into a rather general fan-girly discussion about how wonderful the books were as romances, while two of us on the panel were ready for a more serious discussion of themes and so forth. Still, the audience seemed to be happy with it so that was probably okay.

There was just enough time to have a wander around the dealers' rooms (multiple small rooms rather than one large one - I'm still undecided on whether that's good or bad) before my serious science talk on life support systems. Not entirely my normal field of expertise but it was certainly an interesting talk to research and present.

After that it was off to Ops for a stint before the Masquerade. I'd answered a last-minute appeal for a technical judge so my work was all done backstage before the event started. There were some gorgeous costumes, beautifully made, which received some very high marks for workmanship, but my personal favorite was one of the chaos costumes - Liberator, made from three cones of white cardboard and a large green balloon. Not a lot of workmanship marks, but the concept was brilliant!

By now it was 22:00 and I still had two items to attend. The first might have been a meeting of Roleplayers Anonymous; this was the Adapting TV shows into RPGs discussion. Given my, ahem, previous history of rewriting RPG rules in order to run TV-related games I thought it might be interesting... and it was. It even managed to rise above the 'reminiscing over prior campaigns' level for most of the time. Most enjoyable.

The final session was the Blake's Seven wobblevision - the very last B7 wobblevision to be filmed, of the final episode. I got to play the role of Kline, whose sole purpose is to be shot by Avon (and who, coincidentally, was played by Mrs. Darrow in the original episode). Then back to the bar for a sausage bap before retiring late.

Labels: redemption

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That's day 0 in the C sense of 0.

Nothing for a couple of days, I'm afraid, thanks to the lack of internet and overall overwork. Naturally a ton of things appeared from nowhere at work and had to be dealt with in the first half of the week, and the continuing lack of a DSL line at home didn't help.

Anyway, so I flew out here without any trouble (although it was interesting to watch them de-ice the wings at Keflavík) and, not only that but Hertz actually had my name of the board when I arrived so I didn't even have to go and wait to collect my key. Clearly using the same hire car company most of the time has its advantages. Then there was the drive up the M1 to Coventry and the task of finding the hotel.

Actually I didn't go staight to the hotel - it turns out that Coventry has a Hobbycraft and an Evans on the same retail park (making life so much simpler for me). The result is that I've not got an assortment of things and enough t-shirts to test the theory that four layers of t-shirt will pass the SCA fencing armour test. Oh yes, and a white blouse to wear on the 'well-dressed British superhero' panel (which went very well, I thought - I certainly enjoyed it).

I'm currently sitting in Ops, finishing today's 2-hour shift. I'm then off to give my first A for Andromeda talk, then it's the opening ceremony etc. and I'm on another panel (on time travel) afterwards. It may be a very busy con...

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I have completed my podcast for www.365daysofastronomy.org. Hurrah!

When I agreed to do this at the end of last year I thought that I'd have plenty of time before the end of February deadline. Of course I hadn't figured in the moving house or the lack of an internet.

Still, after a bit of faffing about learning how to run GarageBand on the Mac, I managed to create 7 minutes and 5 seconds of podcast complete with musical intro and outtro.

The final product does sound a little like a 1970s Open University radio pprogramme. It's my voice - it has that OU RP sound. Hmm... Still, it's complete and I can upload it to the website tomorrow. If you fancy having a chuckle at my OU voice talking about the cosmology of Ptolemy and Aristotle the it'll be available for download on March 26th. I'll post the link on the day.
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I have a modem. It came with no manuals or instructions and the wrong cables. I had to ask the woman who had been dealing with it about a username and password, and after a few seconds thought she indicated the modem serial number.

It was either going to be very easy or it would be the last straw that made me yearn for an asteroid strike on the Rock.

It was not the former.

Once I'd found an appropriate phone cable (they've given me two network cables) I plugged it in (not to my original choice of power socket as several don't work) to discover that it's not picking up a DSL signal. Oh yes, and although they claim that the phone lines are open until 20:00, no-one is answering the phone.
Rearrange the following words into a well-known phrase or saying: Organise. Couldn't. A. Brothel. An. Orgy. In.


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The weekend is over and I can relax again. It's been pretty busy but very good to see some of my friends from down south - especially E, whom I wasn't expecting.

I have almost certainly drunk too much coffee though, so I suspect it may be a long night. Hopefully I'll be more coherent tomorrow - and will have Internet access once more (assuming all goes according to plan...)


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Guest bed made, towels placed, pillow chocolated.

Avi movies converting to mp4 in order to transfer to iPod.

Potato cakes made.

Talk on spacecraft life support system well underway.

Next week's lecture on deadlocks in operating systems completed and printed.

Hormones cursed.

Contingency planning for next year's teaching planned (post-apocalypse version).

Dishwasher filled and activated.

Extra shopping for the weekend acquired.

Bed and e-reader located and utilised. Good night all.


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I'm really hoping that I'll get a phone call tomorrow to tell me that the new modem is ready to be collected. I've been without Internet for over three weeks now and I'm beginning to feel quite isolated as a result. Not isolated in so far as I live in the middle of nowhere, far more that I miss the online community.

For now, though, I'm trying to get through all the things I have to do before next weekend and feeling a little stressed by it all. Aaaargh!
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I've spent the evening wielding both.

Fencing practice only had five of us but we managed to do some good work on calibration. I rather like these smaller classes because I can spend a useful amount of time with everyone. No post-fencing chocolate cake tonight, given the small numbers and that people had to dash away but this meant that I was home before 20:30 for once.

This was useful as it meant that I not only got the calligraphy done on scroll 5 of the curent set of 10, but I also started work on the script for my forthcoming astronomy podcast. It's quite strange as I started writing and then read it aloud... And almost completely rewrote it as a result. My technical writing style does not make for easy reading aloud or listening. It's the standard scientific writing problem of long sentences with complex structures used to provide precise meanings. Very much a different beast to popular science podcasting.

It's A&S night tomorrow night so I'm not going to get it recorded and edited until Friday, leaving me odd bits of the weekend to do a couple of talks for Redemption (amongst other things). Hmm.. I can see myself working on the flights. Ah well, I can live with that.
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For dinner tonight I continued to work my way through the beef stew I made yesterday.

Today, though, I wasn't quite as decadent as yesterday in that I added a little milk rather than yesterday's cream. I do like mashed potatoes with gravy. I could happily just have mashed potatoes and gravy, forget about the meat, although it has to be good gravy.

The gravy in this case was courtesy of an Oxo gravy for beef with a hint of winter berries. I have several of these specual packet mixes, and I think I may have to write myself an Asda shopping list of such things to pick up on my Redemption trip. Packet sauces are my friend.


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It's been a terribly productive day.

I started off by making safe the TV aerial cable that runs from the satellite receiver to the main TV in the living room. This involved a second cable and a roll of elecrical tape, with the result that instead of running in a wriggly line across the dining room it now runs flat along the edge of the skirting board and safely across the doorway. If the cable had been another five metres I'd have taken it up and around the doorway but this is an acceptable, if not particularly elegant alternative.

Next I changed the lightbulb in the upstairs bathroom. This was rather tricky as I first had to work out how to open it to get at the bulb. It was not an intuitive mechanism, requiring me to remove what looked like it should be a fixed wall fitting and then undo a screw to release the glass cover. This was compounded by the fact that I was having to stand on tiptoes on the top step of my small stepladder.

Next I collected and reviewed the week's post from the mailbox. I quite like the private mailbox concept - handling mail once a week has a lot of appeal. Get it all over at once.

After that it was on to some craft stuff that I'm hoping to get done by next weekend. All the design work is done, the templates are taped into position and everything is ready to go. I'd have started with the next bit but it turns out that my Dremmel-oid doesn't have quite the right bit. The folks in Byko are going to wonder if I'm planning to just move in there when I go in again on Monday to get some more lightbulbs and the necessary bits.

So instead of working on stage three I've ended up unpacking the DVD collection and the games. All are now easily identifiable and accessable (which is a big improvement on the games sitting on top of a tall bookcase).

Now I think I'm going to reward myself with a chicken and salami pizza for dinner. Mnom.


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Three victories and an excellent draw in the next round. That's what I'm going to record on today's scoresheet.

To start with I managed to finish writing Monday's operating systems lecture (I/O) AND print out the notes before the main doors to the building closed.

Then I went up to Byko and managed to ask for a plug-in night-light. I need one to show the location of the step half-way down the hall between the bedroom and the bathroom - it's either that or leave the outside light on all night. And thinking of outside lights I also remembered to buy a bulb for the other light so I've changed that too.

After that I came home, at which point I worked out how to get sound on the other satellite channels.

Yes! Three victories, as I count them. The favourable draw came in the shape of a phone call from B, who had the solution to my connectivity problems: the name of the company who provide sensible phoneline-based broadband here in the valley. I shall be paying them a visit on Monday.

Now I'm going to sit down and calm down. I have another lecture to write and I could do without a manic attack right now.


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Earlier today I had one of those flashbacks to childhood that occasionally hit you out of the blue.

I was sitting there un my office having a final year project suoervision meeting with A, whose project is an autonomous firefighting robot (originally with the hope of entering a competition in the US in April - a hope dashed by the kreppa). She'd brought in a potential design source model, which happened to be (originally) a fire engine the word 'elevate' entered the conversation and suddenly I was 4 again and the phrase 'Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, and Grubb' - naturally spoken by the dulcet tones of Brian Cant - ran through my mind. Quite surreal.

It's now just over a month before Troll Hunt so we've gone into weekly A&S meeting mode. Tonight I managed not to end up overseeing the dressmaking but instead manage to get started once more on the scroll backlog. Hurrah! I've got the calligraphy done for an AoA from AS 33 so I'm feeling quite pleased with myself about that.

Now, though, I think it's time for bed.


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I've spent the day being plagued by nigglesome things. Work-related niggles, house-related niggles and other-related niggles. By the time I got to 17:00 I was ready to take an axe to something (or someone - I had a list of candidates).

Fortunately fencing practice managed to distract me.

I've now contacted the suggested ISP. It's not ADSL but rather some sort of wireless package. I'm not yet convinced that that's what used to be here. If it's what I have to go for in the end it'll take at least another week. If I'd known how much hassle moving out here was going to be I'd have had second (and qiute possibly third) thoughts about it. Yes it's great for Shire meetings but right now I'm very frustrated by the assorted connectivity issues. I'll probably feel better once it's all sorted out but right now I'm feeling rather stressed by it all.

Stressed and hungry! I suspect it's a desire to comfort eat, and I'm managing to control it but by mid afternoon I'm often craving something stodgy, like sponge pudding and custard or rice pudding. I might try porrige for breakfast tomorrow and see if that helps.


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Can I see anything? Yes, but probably not the wonderful things you're thinking of.

If I turn off the light in the living room and look out of the window right now I can see Orion standing high above the mountains, with Sirius just peeking over the ridge. There's better seeing here through glass than I ever had in the open air in Akureyri. And considering that the through-glass seeing in Akureyri is better than the outdoors seeing in Fife, you can imagine that if I actually go outdoors here it's quite stunning.

Admittedly, I don't really fancy braving the sub-zero (Farenheit) temperatures to go and investigate further, so the through-glass viewing will have to do for tonight. It has definitely persuaded me that I'm going to have to throw a star party out here at some point.

Not, however, until I have internet again so I can do the necessary star charts. Being cut off like this is definitely wearisome, as I just don't have the time at work to keep up with the news. Very frustrating. Hopefully I'll know more tomorrow.


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