LaraLoola

Benford’s Law

I’m having to admit defeat and get my hair trimmed tomorrow. There’s a point at which attempting  to look enigmatic through a fringe turns into looking like Dougal. Currently it reaches my nose. The end of my nose if we’re being particular about such things. I’m hoping the trim will also rid me of the layers that the previous hairdresser cut at such an angle, that if I go out with my hair wet I look like I have escaped from Bergerac, or The Rock Follies. Given that the last time I dried my hair properly (with a hairdryer as opposed to an impersonation of a labrador arising from a pond) was in 1999 the layers thing worries my vanity more than the inability to see where I’m going. I do own a hairdryer though, but it doesn’t work. I don’t know why, it probably gave up and killed itself.

I’m hoping that Royal Mail’s first class really is as fast as Amazon supposes, because I gave in to my enjoyment of great drama (and a whole barrel of lust) and bought series 2 of The Wire. Ah the joys of being paid in Amazon vouchers*. This despite the fact that I have 4 Peep Show series, and 3 of The X-Files sat waiting on the shelf.

Also I’m hoping that a) my delivery of clothes won’t be put by the Parcelnet bloke into the recycling bin like last-time, b)the extruded plastic dingus that I ordered a week and so ago turns up; and c) that Experian actually answer their phone so I can cancel the Credit Expert thingumy. Which told me that my credit isn’t a poo as it once was,but it still isn’t worth pinching my ID for. Seriously, I’m telling you blog reading would be ID thieves pinch the ID of someone who does actually qualify for something banks sell, rather than the only thing I seem to qualify for which is a downward head tilt and “Ah, I’m sorry”.

My cats may do a pretty startling impression of the slow class most of the time, but one mention of Schrödinger whilst in the area of the frozen food box and suddenly they’re off. Ack no support for my interest in science.

*I’m wholly serious. I got paid for something last month in M&S vouchers. I live in an alternate economy.

* Oh, and no the title isn’t the name of an American cop show.

Varied are the ideas of what constitutes “success” *

This is Sutton Scarsdale Hall. Or rather this is what’s left of it.

Number of photos on this page reduced because my server was crying… So these are on Flickr as are the rest of the set, all 79 of ‘em, here in my Flickr set.

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Monologophobia and other things I have learned since I was allowed into the world by myself (sort of)

*There is no such thing as too much garlic in food.
*It does though, scent bodily fluids.
*There isn’t going to be a point when I feel like I have too many books.
*I will never be a tidy person.
*And sod the “tidy life means tidy mind” aphorism. My mind rocks thank you very much.
*Although the memory part, and the not walking into stationary objects part, could do with some overhauling.
*Talking to people who aren’t here is entirely fine.
*As is speaking out loud what you’re going to write before you write it.
*That the Popular and Bitchy Girls at school, were popular for pretty much one reason.
*And that it’s normal, if not very nice, for me to have looked up their Facebook accounts and laughed. A lot.
*That the Cool Girls are all a bit responsible and establishment now, except for one (and I’m basing that wholly on her job since I’ve not seen her since I was at school).
*That by are large the instructions on the back of food packets are to be ignored. Unless they say “poisonous if eaten cold”.
*That microwaves are annoying. (This is why mine went to the recycling)
*That no one has properly “cool” music taste, and if you should happen to meet someone with no records of dubious nature in their collection then they’re probably inhuman. Or lying. Or both.
*That laptop batteries, even on the most power savery setting, just aren’t long lasting enough for my thinking time.
*I am occasionally guilty of monologophobia, which I am holding my English teachers responsible for having taught us that you COULD NOT use the same word in subsequent sentences. It was uncreative, apparently. Though I don’t at least suffer from dopplerparagraphs like The Independent online edition rather annoyingly does.

Further Adventures of MCCCXCIV

We bought a new card, and cable. With some effort it was fitted into the computer; it seems that Dell don’t envisage anyone ever wanting to add stuff, which suggests that they don’t really hang out much with proper IT geeks for whom no electronic device is entirely finished until everything inside has been swapped and overclocked to within an inch of its life. It surprises me that as yet our washing machine doesn’t do the clothes in about ten seconds and produce a read out of everything washed.
So the card (which came from Germany, because in eBay world only Germany and China seem to exist) is installed. Well actually it’s not at the moment. It’s sat there, but unplugged from the board, because it keeps restarting the computer every time it gets turned off.
Which is amusing the first five or six times, but less so after that point. After that point comes the sensible approach, which is followed by cursing the card in half remembered GCSE German (just incase the malevolent little bugger happens to have tiny pcb ears). Which itself is not a lot of cursing, apart from the only two swearwords my, very remiss, German teacher taught me (Schweinehund and Scheiße). Though given that my French teacher tried to convince me that the worst swear word available in France was Zut, at least that’s two actual expletives.

In the meantime, until we either solve it the sensible way and find out why, or find out how to say “I’ll bring you as much radiator fluid and as many whorish graphics cards as you like if you work” in such a way that the card understands, I am 1394-less.

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You Are What You Wear Part 3: It’s all about you…

So we’ve done, what I wear. Now it’s your turn. All two of you so far, but anyone can join in this one at anytime….

The two joinees so far are both male, which does seem to make a difference, in that there isn’t a great deal of difference. I don’t think this is because men are less interested in what they wear per se, just that the choice of men’s clothing is frankly limited. Especially in the West. Yes you can have a wardrobe of forty odd different t-shirt designs, ten completely dissimilar shirts and trousers in every fabric going. Basically though it’s the same three items of clothing. I imagine that a large part of this is down to socially acceptable, it being the case that even on avant garde catwalks the sight of men in a frock is still considered daring. And not just in the Daily Mail.
A while ago I was half watching something on television and someone commented that the human world is different to animals and birds, as in the animal kingdom it is the males that make the effort, whereas for humans it is opposite. It hasn’t always been the case, and certainly in some non-Western cultures male dress continues to be highly impressive. In Western Europe male extravagance in dress was common and regarded a symbol of status. Continue Reading…

You Are What You Wear Part 2: The Me Edition

So as promised (or threatened depending on your perspective) this is what I wear.
A couple of comments to begin.
Firstly my head isn’t in any of them, the photographer of the first two (my mother) just about blinded me with the flash and I looked as though I had spent all night at Rock City. In the last photo it is because B appears to be more interested in my shoes. They’re good shoes though, so fair play.
Secondly I realised afterwards that three typical outfits is nigh on impossible for me. Ain’t hindsight a wonderful thing? They’re photos from three days this week, and I tend to be from the variety is the spice of life camp. There are some commonalities though, mentioned below, so they’re not totally non cohesive.
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You are What you Wear

I’d like to invite you all (and yes that means you there hiding at the back as well, and anyone else too) to join me in a little experiment. I want to know how far your clothes express your personality, or don’t perhaps. So I’d like for you to do either on your own blog, or you can send me photos for popping on here, is show me three outfits that are typical of your style. You don’t have to be actually wearing them, and if you are you can miss your head off if anonymity bothers you. They don’t have to be what you wear everyday for work if you don’t feel that expresses who you are, this is particularly true if  you’re forced into some hideous uniform, they just have to be the outfits that say who you are. Or what you feel says the most about you. I’d also be interested to know if you identify yourself with a particular ‘tribe’, either currently, or in the past.

[photo removed before my server is so full I have to start paying a fortune]

And if anyone is feeling a little shy I’d like you to bare in mind what I’m wearing today. And no I’m not pregnant, I’m going for what happened when Sienna Miller ate Vanessa Feltz.

I’d really like you to join in, I’ll post mine later on this week and I don’t want to be all alone, please let me know when you’ve blogged
Edited to add: My email address if you want to send me photos laraloola”AT”googlemail.com, AT being @.

You wouldn’t understand…

[non essential photo removed ]

Before I was a parent if there was one thing that annoyed me about other parents it was the phrase, “you wouldn’t understand you’re not a parent”. Or varients of. I’m now a parent, and still it makes my hackles (whatever they might be) rise. It’s one of those phrases almost certainly guaranteed to start a fight on an internet forum, and I imagine if the participants were drunk enough, it would do so in real life also.

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For want of a 1394

This spot should contain a video. The house blog warming, except you’ll notice that it doesn’t. If ever I meet any of the eejits who fill instruction books with phrases like “cross-platform”, or “use with any PC or laptop”, I will hurt them. And I mean really hurt them. Of the eight certainly working photographic devices* in the house, four have video capabilities. One films in a format no software will have anything to do with, one films in a format only Premiere Pro* will edit and has less than great sound, one will only film about a minute at a time, and the last one has both USB and firewire ports but nothing-not MovieMaker, not Premiere Pro, not After Effects, not Encore-will recognise the bloody thing with USB.

After discovering a forum filled with similarly grumpy Panasonic purchasers I’ve discovered it will only recognise it with firewire. Does my PC have firewire? No, of course it doesn’t. I wouldn’t be quite so whingy if it did. Fortunately the server does have firewire ports, less fortunately it’s a) a server, and b) in the loft-which is friking freezing. And I now have to find an ebay seller who is selling a cable with the right number of pins on both ends and not, as all the ones I found so far are, 1394 to a hundred other bloody things.

So in lieu, temporarily, of the video. Happy new year.

*The camera count consists of working absolutely-2 digital semi slrs, 1 dv, 1 120, 1 digital snapshot thingy, 1 35mm slr, my phone, his phone.
The don’t yet know-1 120, 1 127, 3 8mm.
The they don’t make film anymore-Polaroid Land Swinger, 1 110, 1 126.

*Which would be fine had I a computer that was as powerful as possible, and then I wouldn’t have sound and pictures running at different rates, and wouldn’t have to guess where to cut.