Stuff.
Stuff that has happened since last posting:
Recently had flu and time off work, very woozy and tired for about three days. Slept most of time. During this time (on the 2yr anniversary day of my mother's death) I was told that the company I work for would be dropping all staff because our main contract was not being renewed. This came as quite unexpected and disappointing news. The contract will run out in a month's time exactly on my birthday too, so full marks for timing :)
With only a few weeks of work left we're not straining ourselves, using a lot of the time to hunt for jobs on the 'net etc. Today we've got US election coverage projected on the office wall (above my head). Not much appears to be happening, and it's taking a very long time -- I don't quite get why the US system relies so much on traditional state divisions, and how the Republican / Democrat split is so close, and why none of the other candidates get a chance. It makes me wonder whether there is any real difference between the main candidates, and/or whether the voters have much of an idea of what they vote for.
I can just hope the outcome either way doesn't affect me, and the US doesn't decide to invade any other countries for looking-at-it-funny, and either way, I don't feel the result will solve any of the world's problems. The rest of world needs to sort its (our) own shit out and stop letting the US think it's the centre of the universe.
Tedious, self-absorbed, oil-guzzling people and their election coverage... I think the endless inane commentary has dissolved my brain.
In between CV writing and job searching I have:
..finished reading "Roanoke: Solving The Mystery Of The Lost Colony", an Elizabethan conspiracy-theory book on the disappearance of the first English colonists in the American continent. Walsingham is a bastard. Started reading this because the colonists' message 'gone to Croat(o)an' was mentioned in an Hakim Bey essay..
..started reading the Qu'ran.
..watched the movie 'Elizabeth' to round off my recent Elizabethan kick. Walsingham appears a necessary bastard. I may also re-read John Dee's biography too sometime soon, just to put that into context with the rest.
..was somewhat disheartened to read that Peter Christopherson (of Coil) no longer sees any 'good side' to England despite its past inspiration. (thanks Cnawan for posting the interview link..) Maybe he is right, but I still want to visit the country and at least spend time exploring the Britain of my head as an outsider. For some reason I have always thought of Coil as Elizabethan (probably the J.Dee, and Shakespearean / D.Jarman / Judi Dench associations, which probably have more to do with my tinted experience of Coil than Coil itself)... Anyway, I still have my Hieroglyphic Monad t-shirt, inscribed to the original proportions and method of construction...
..watched the 1966 film adaption of Alice in Wonderland which suffered from pretty much exactly the same flaws as a recent play version I saw: too much focus on the 'strangeness' of it all, and not enough on Alice's experience of it, which acts as the continuum. The motivation for the flood of tears in both the film and play was not convincing and seemed to rely solely on knowledge of the book for the understanding that Alice was upset and her crying had caused the flood. Strangely enough, both the film and play focused a lot on the tea party, which worked well and came across as a very entertaining scene in both. Makes me think the play was strongly based on this particular film adaption. The dvd had a bonus feature of a 1903 British short film adaption which was nice to watch too.
..went on a hill walk with my father up to the 'Sign of the Packhorse' (a kind of way-point / traveler's hut on the hills between Lyttelton harbour, and Akaroa on the peninsula) which I'd never been on before. We planned to go with my mother shortly before she passed away, but the walk was closed due to lambing, so it didn't happen. This was definitely a memorial walk. Excellent weather, bittersweet day.
.. finally assembled my Jaycar theremin kit which I bought in Sydney -- it actually works! I am quite pleased about his since most of what I have heard/read from others have been reports of problems. Tuning it to begin with was tricky, I can't seem to get the volume plate to operate the way the guide suggests: hand close = quiet, distant = loud. Fortunately I think the reverse relationship makes more sense (if you walk away from the theremin it won't be screeching at full volume), so I'm happy using that. It sounds quite good and after a bit of practice (and more tuning) there is quite a decent range and amount of control for both pitch and volume. The volume cut off is quite precise as well, which surprised me. Sharp distinct notes can be played by cutting the volume completely and changing pitch before bringing the left hand back close to the plate. The tone is too pure a sine wave though, there is a sound mod (here at this informative theremin page) to make it more 'violin-like' which I am going to try, but presently playing it through my old amp with just a hint of its old spring reverb makes it sounds really nice, and lets it reach the extreme low end of its range. It removes all of the distortion from the kit's crappy 8ohm built in speaker, which I had initially attributed to some interaction of the oscillator chips. I definitely recommend the power supply mod -- it works well and uses less capacitors, making the pcb neater and involves less soldering :)
Recently had flu and time off work, very woozy and tired for about three days. Slept most of time. During this time (on the 2yr anniversary day of my mother's death) I was told that the company I work for would be dropping all staff because our main contract was not being renewed. This came as quite unexpected and disappointing news. The contract will run out in a month's time exactly on my birthday too, so full marks for timing :)
With only a few weeks of work left we're not straining ourselves, using a lot of the time to hunt for jobs on the 'net etc. Today we've got US election coverage projected on the office wall (above my head). Not much appears to be happening, and it's taking a very long time -- I don't quite get why the US system relies so much on traditional state divisions, and how the Republican / Democrat split is so close, and why none of the other candidates get a chance. It makes me wonder whether there is any real difference between the main candidates, and/or whether the voters have much of an idea of what they vote for.
I can just hope the outcome either way doesn't affect me, and the US doesn't decide to invade any other countries for looking-at-it-funny, and either way, I don't feel the result will solve any of the world's problems. The rest of world needs to sort its (our) own shit out and stop letting the US think it's the centre of the universe.
Tedious, self-absorbed, oil-guzzling people and their election coverage... I think the endless inane commentary has dissolved my brain.
In between CV writing and job searching I have:
..finished reading "Roanoke: Solving The Mystery Of The Lost Colony", an Elizabethan conspiracy-theory book on the disappearance of the first English colonists in the American continent. Walsingham is a bastard. Started reading this because the colonists' message 'gone to Croat(o)an' was mentioned in an Hakim Bey essay..
..started reading the Qu'ran.
..watched the movie 'Elizabeth' to round off my recent Elizabethan kick. Walsingham appears a necessary bastard. I may also re-read John Dee's biography too sometime soon, just to put that into context with the rest.
..was somewhat disheartened to read that Peter Christopherson (of Coil) no longer sees any 'good side' to England despite its past inspiration. (thanks Cnawan for posting the interview link..) Maybe he is right, but I still want to visit the country and at least spend time exploring the Britain of my head as an outsider. For some reason I have always thought of Coil as Elizabethan (probably the J.Dee, and Shakespearean / D.Jarman / Judi Dench associations, which probably have more to do with my tinted experience of Coil than Coil itself)... Anyway, I still have my Hieroglyphic Monad t-shirt, inscribed to the original proportions and method of construction...
..watched the 1966 film adaption of Alice in Wonderland which suffered from pretty much exactly the same flaws as a recent play version I saw: too much focus on the 'strangeness' of it all, and not enough on Alice's experience of it, which acts as the continuum. The motivation for the flood of tears in both the film and play was not convincing and seemed to rely solely on knowledge of the book for the understanding that Alice was upset and her crying had caused the flood. Strangely enough, both the film and play focused a lot on the tea party, which worked well and came across as a very entertaining scene in both. Makes me think the play was strongly based on this particular film adaption. The dvd had a bonus feature of a 1903 British short film adaption which was nice to watch too.
..went on a hill walk with my father up to the 'Sign of the Packhorse' (a kind of way-point / traveler's hut on the hills between Lyttelton harbour, and Akaroa on the peninsula) which I'd never been on before. We planned to go with my mother shortly before she passed away, but the walk was closed due to lambing, so it didn't happen. This was definitely a memorial walk. Excellent weather, bittersweet day.
.. finally assembled my Jaycar theremin kit which I bought in Sydney -- it actually works! I am quite pleased about his since most of what I have heard/read from others have been reports of problems. Tuning it to begin with was tricky, I can't seem to get the volume plate to operate the way the guide suggests: hand close = quiet, distant = loud. Fortunately I think the reverse relationship makes more sense (if you walk away from the theremin it won't be screeching at full volume), so I'm happy using that. It sounds quite good and after a bit of practice (and more tuning) there is quite a decent range and amount of control for both pitch and volume. The volume cut off is quite precise as well, which surprised me. Sharp distinct notes can be played by cutting the volume completely and changing pitch before bringing the left hand back close to the plate. The tone is too pure a sine wave though, there is a sound mod (here at this informative theremin page) to make it more 'violin-like' which I am going to try, but presently playing it through my old amp with just a hint of its old spring reverb makes it sounds really nice, and lets it reach the extreme low end of its range. It removes all of the distortion from the kit's crappy 8ohm built in speaker, which I had initially attributed to some interaction of the oscillator chips. I definitely recommend the power supply mod -- it works well and uses less capacitors, making the pcb neater and involves less soldering :)