Month: November 2007

Categories
books

Autobiographically speaking

I’m currently reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles – volume 1. I’ve been an avid consumer of all things Dylan for many years now, since my early teens. I guess I’ve always empathised with his astute awkwardness, if that isn’t too obtuse. Chronicles has that rare quality in an modern autobiography, authenticity. He’s frank and effusive about the moments he wants to discuss and consigns others to god knows where, possible vols 2 and 3? Following on, the style is stacatto but pleasingly earnest. It’s free of the modern 15 minute celebrity peccadillo, the embellishment and forgery of past trauma in order to justify the sins of the present. Dylan doesn’t seem compelled, perhaps he’s at peace, whatever that means. Either way there are some hilarious passages as he descibes his many attempts to cast off the “voice of generation” moniker that burdened him for so long.
As the respected English literature critic and humanities professor Christopher Ricks points out “I don’t think there’s anybody that uses words better than he does…”. So perhaps it’s time after many years of nominations that Dylan is finally given the Nobel Prize for literature in recognition of the profound effects his words have had on several generations. While he’s uncertain about blurrring the boundaries of the award by recognising the dual media of the song writer, Rick’s own Dylan’s Vision’s of Sin makes a cogent argument for Dylan’s celebration as one of the great figures in literature. Does “Sad eyed Lady of the Lowlands” transcend the format of popular song? And then some…

Categories
technology

tethereal and diameter

Here’s a useful tethereal filter that’s helped me out while debugging the Sh diameter interface of Fokus’ OpenIMSCore.

# tethereal -i lo -f "port 3868" -V -R "diameter"

I appreciate it’s a bit random but tethereal is one of my favourite tools and in Verbose mode it nicely format’s all diameter AVP information.

Categories
horology

WIS? WTF?

I was talking to Richard Rodger recently about my chronological cravings recently and I realised that it may actually not be an illness but an innate psychological condition, a bit like autism. The leading horological website TimeZone has coined the term WIS or Watch Idiot Savant to describe many of its posters. Here’s my own version of the top signs that you’re a complete WIS

  1. The event in 2. is your own wedding
  2. You’re extremely late or miss an important social event because you get caught up setting (or worse regulating) the time on your watch based on the atomic clock.
  3. You know what a helium escape valve is but can’t swim.
  4. You think someone actually cares whether your expensive new watch has an ETA movement or not? Extra points if you tell an uncaring person that the movement has been “extensively modified and improved”
  5. Your girlfriend/wife wishes you’d flirt with the attractive girl in the jewellers as a sign of life 🙂
  6. You refuse to wear your 1200 m water resistant Rolex Seadweller on a wet day as you’re afraid it could be damaged.
  7. You have seriously considered not eating in order to afford a new watch
  8. You spend more on servicing your watch than your car
  9. You keep staring at the expensive swiss watch on the arm on a pretty girl – extra points if you can’t remember a single thing about the girl but can describe the watch in detail.
  10. You know what a hair-spring balance is!?
  11. You have ever looked at the “dial work” on your watch using a magnifying glass.
  12. You’re so excited while buying a new watch you’re asked to sit down by the jewellery store attendant.

I’m guilty of at least 5 of these. Uh oh!

Categories
technology

Categorically speaking

Ontologies are great. Everyone should have one.
Unfortunately for many semantic web researchers they do.