When did I last post to my LJ account?

Amazingly, I can still log into it.

I was thinking of unfriending (defriending?) everyone I knew, on the grounds that I don't know them any more. Maybe I still will. I only created this account for Nano writing friends anyway... I am told I should now have a Facebook account. (Everybody should, especially teenagers.) But I can't afford 104 billion dollars. Or even the reduced price of 67 billion (or whatever).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, here is the first thing I've felt like posting since... whenever.

Today, for the first time, I was bossed around by a computer.

I'm not talking about an obstreperous word processor, nor any other interaction instigated by me.

I was sitting, typing an e-mail, when the phone rang. I picked up the phone, and what was obviously a recorded message (by a euphonious female voice) told me that I had not paid my electricity bill, and that I must phone 0800 blah to discuss a payment schedule, or words to that effect, and then hung up. It wasn't recorded (on my ansaphone), so I don't have the exact wording.

I'm quite certain, without proof, that the entire thing was entirely computer driven in response to some human, upper management decision, to harass late payers. Ok, perhaps that is unfair. After all, I did forget to pay my bill. But I bet not a single human being knows that I was phoned, nor that I have now paid the bill (rather than phone the 0800 number - you didn't expect me to meekly obey instructions from a computer did you, however attractive the recorded voice?)

I suppose I ought to set up a direct debit, then one computer can contact another computer, and they can agree between them to suck money out of my bank account without even disturbing my sleep... and with no human aware of it at all.

Just finished nanowrimo. Not one of my best years: the hardest so far, in fact. So I haven't been reading LJ.

Interesting(?) fact of the month (this shows what a month/year/life I've been having):

When people talk about averages, they usually mean what a mathematician would call a mean. But there are lots of different means. Which one is best depends what you want it for. There are about four different common ones... the arithmetic, the geometric, the harmonic and the root mean square (RMS, good name, eh?). And yes, it *does* matter. The RMS of the current is what your electricity meter measures.

The arithmetic mean is the one people usually think of as an "average". The a.m. of 20 and 80 is 50, because (20 + 80)/2 = 50. The geometric mean of 20 and 80 is 40 (because 40*40 = 20*80). The harmonic mean is 32.

Eyes glazed over yet? Anyway, if anyone is still reading (which I doubt), the a.m and h.m of two numbers are two new numbers, but closer together. If you take the arithmetic mean and harmonic mean of the new numbers, they get even closer (quite rapidly). If you keep doing it, you get closer and closer to some number which turns out to be: ta-daaa! the geometric mean.

Now isn't that weird? No? Well, let me just say that if some people didn't find that kind of thing interesting, we'd still be hitting women over the head with our clubs, and dragging them back to our caves by their hair, there to do unmentionable things to them...

Hmmm. I think I see your point.

One of my reasons for finally having a LJ, or blog, or something, was to post about amazing coincidences. I seem to get more than my fair share. (By an amazing coincidence, everyone I tell this too also seems to get more than their fair share.)

The latest coincidence: I was born in Brighton, and lived in Peacehaven, just along the coast for about ten years (age 3 to 13) before we moved away. Nowadays, I only know two people in Peacehaven, neither from my childhood, both from my writing circle. I was cc-ed on an e-mail from one of them last night. It had his address on it. Yes, you are ahead of me. He lives in the house I grew up in. (Bought it last July, apparently.)

[And don't ask about my Nanowrimo novel... I'm on 10K words, I should be on 17K by now.]

Brighton kick-off party for nanowrimo tomorrow... so far, I haven't got any further than deciding I will post my word count to LJ every day. Well, maybe not every day, but frequently. Fairly frequently, at least. More than once.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I came across an interesting thought. First, I've always thought the best computer games are the ones where you can draw conclusions that also apply to Real Life. And a couple of days ago, I came across the following quote about one of my favourite games. And it's true. So what lessons can I draw from it, for Real Life?

I'm not saying that running isn't cowardly, but I'll say this: Running means you don't die. The key to winning [the game] is to learn not to die. Running is a valuable method of achieving just that, and you'll do yourself a big favour if you remember this.

Hmmm.

I dunno, really. I've just been out for a beer (or three) with Roger and Jeff. I've known Roger since some time in the 1980s... I don't think of him as my oldest friend, although I can't think of anyone I'm still in touch with that I've known longer.

But it depends. I doubt I spoke to him more than twice in the whole of the 1990s... it depends where you are/who you are with. Maybe I'll get back in touch with someone I knew even longer ago, and then /he/ will be my "oldest friend". Even if we've not communicated for thirty years.

Does the question come loaded with presuppositions about who counts as a friend?

The Powers That Be have it in for me this year.

Not exactly life-threatening, but now my fridge light has gone. My fridge is cold and dark. Cold is good; dark is less good. How many people have to worry about a f-f-fridgeing fridge light failing?

Which deity have I pissed off? I'm sorry, ok?

Actually, I'm not sorry. But I'm getting tired of all my appliances failing, in one way or another, so I'd like it to stop. You have been warned. :-/

Ever wanted to know what the real difference was between fantasy and SF?
The following picture shows it:



Looks like fantasy, huh? But note the small rocket in the background. That's to show it's SF, not fantasy. The picture is on the cover of "There will be Dragons" by John Ringo. I'm up to chapter 14, where the illustrated character first appears, complete with mis-matched legwear and green leather(!) bikini. No rockets yet though - they use (sci-fi) teleportation.

But how would readers know it's SF without a rocket?

I ordered a new computer (on my plastic) on July 20th. I didn't read the small print carefully enough until after they debited my card: delivery can take up to 30 days!! Yikes! "Up to 30 days" means, of course, "don't expect to see it before 30 days, or two months if you are unlucky."

On the web-site, it is possible to track the progress of my order. For the last n years (it feels like) it has been saying, "Production pending, allocating components." How long does it take to "allocate components"?? Loosely paraphrased, I translate this as "Now we've got your money, we can order in the components from China."

But yesterday, a big YAY! It finally says, "Production pending, allocated components." A small, but significant difference. Does that mean they've now placed the order for components? Or that they are now actually thinking about building the d**n thing?

I guess, if they've actually got the components, they can probably put it together in about an hour (if they're slow), so perhaps I've only got a few more weeks to wait... and maybe not a big YAY only a small YAY.

Akshully, I think that once they've built the thing, they leave it switched on for a day or two to "burn in" the components, i.e. see if it's going to explode or catch fire, before shipping it.

But definitely some kind of YAY.

Meanwhile, I promised to download some Youtube vids for a friend... busy, busy.

I bought three fresh peppers a while back. Y'know, the traffic light sort: one each of red, yellow and green.

Naturally, being me, I didn't get around to using them. They started to decay. So I've just been looking to see if any parts are salvageable.

As a result of this uncontrolled experiment, I am happy to report that the yellow one seems to keep best, and the two red ones (you did know the green one will turn red?) both were pretty much too far gone. So, in future, if I buy a single pepper, it will be a yellow one. They all taste the same anyway.

Always check pockets when transferring dirty laundry from basket to washing machine, even if you know they are empty. I honestly have no idea how half a ritz cracker found its way into a shirt pocket, but there it was!