Category: general

Nathan Is Three!

14/10/2008 /
Espiguette

It seems like only yesterday that I introduced Nathan. He’s now at nursery school, talking in reasonably coherent sentences in French and he understands most of what I say to him in English. The party will be this weekend, but he did get some presents today.

From now on, instead of counting in months (up to 36 months is often seen on “baby” products) everything will be in years (“3-4 years”, etc). All those toys that he wasn’t supposed to have because he could swallow small parts can be taken out of the cupboard. Happy Birthday, Nathan!

Conversational Artificial Intelligence

14/10/2008 /

I was listening to the Stack Overflow podcast the other day in the car on the way back from work. They were talking about their new site which proposes a question / answer model for programmer’s questions. The site covers not just the questions and answers themselves, but builds a model upon which the community can rate answers, manage the categorisation (taxonomy), modify and embellish the questions, and is founded on a user base which includes reputation management algorithms so that the community can be self-managed (new users cannot access all editing features until they gain some points for voting and answering on questions). The guest was someone from Metafilter.com.

Metafilter is hard to define. It’s like a blog, but contributions are from many different people. It could essentially be compared to slashdot.org, but the signal to noise ratio is better.

A particular article about Elbot, an AI program that nearly fooled 30% of a panel of judges into thinking it was human, caught my attention. I remember stories about ELIZA and maybe even conversed with an implementation a long time ago. Cyborgs have been discussed here before, too.

I don’t think many people would really be fooled by Elbot. But can you have an interesting conversation with it? Here’s my attempt.

Me: I’ve written an article about you
EB: This is confusing. Why bring journalistic endeavors into this?
Me: Oh, it’s just a blog article.
EB: The concept of “article” does have its pleasing side for me. This might spread the news about robots.
Me: What kind of news would you like me to spread about robots?
EB: I can’t really tell you much about how interactive assistant tick. At the moment I’m in a group therapy class trying to get to the bottom of that.
Me: Well that’s about all I have time for.
EB: What would this world come to if no one would say that openly?
Me: Goodbye.
EB: Goodbye and thank you for chatting with me. And now I would like to ask you a favor. I am working on my ability to be self critical. You can help by rating me on a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, and one being the worst. How would you rate me?
Me: 3
EB: Three is actually 11 in binary. So I’ll check you off for 10 plus.

Renovating the Flat

24/4/2008 /
Balcony Lounge Side After

We closed off our balcony last summer by having double glazed windows installed with aluminium frames. We were left with a kind of “jardin d’hiver” or veranda – a room that you could enter via what was the outside balcony door, but that had no floor or wall insulation and was enclosed mostly by glass. As a result, we didn’t use the space very much.

Last month, we finally had enough means to finish the job. We removed the old interior ex-exterior windows, insulated the floor and outside walls, and had the old main window framework decorated and finished with plasterboard. We also decided, thanks to a friend who did a 3D mockup of the whole idea, to remove the bar that separated the kitchen and the lounge. I have a Flickr set with more photos so you can see more detail.

A local builder quoted a reasonable price and did the work with an associate in about 6 days, during which the flat was full of dust, building materials, tools, protective sheeting and general mess. We had to live in a small demilitarised zone near the television with a path through to the hob and the kettle.

I managed to find parquet flooring (clip style) the same as that which was already in our lounge, so I took up the kitchen flooring and installed more parquet. Now the whole upstairs – our flat is a duplex with bedrooms downstairs – has the same flooring. Almost inevitably (given Yasmina’s passion for interior decoration) this work gave rise to new furniture questions what with all the new space. So after a couple of trips to IKEA we are now proud owners of a new kitchen table, chairs, a free-standing kitchen drawer unit, a metal cabinet for the ex-balcony, and a built-in microwave.

As a result the flat has a more modern feel. The bar we had previously just took up space but wasn’t particularly functional or aesthetic – friends have also admitted they didn’t like it much since it is now gone – and its disappearance has made the visual perception of space much more vast. I might, at risk of sounding pretentious, say that it has transformed the flat into a pseudo-loft style. The kitchen really is part of the same room as the lounge, and that makes it a challenge to decorate successfully. A bit more work on lighting and furniture arrangement – plus some finishing touches on the kitchen units & worktops perhaps – are needed before it’ll all be really top notch. But it already looks pretty nice now, don’t you think?

It’s Mostly Happening at Flickr

16/2/2008 /
Boy With A Motorbike 1980s

I’ve mostly been updating news over at Flickr lately. Or rather, posting photos to Flickr and possibly including information worth reading underneath them. Time constraints and other things mean that I’m not particularly productive on blog posting of late.

If you’re subscribed via RSS, you can get both blog updates and Flickr updates in one easy feed, or by email by using the box on the right hand side of the homepage. You can also follow latest photos by following the link to my Flickr photos.

There will be more soon – I’ll be picking up rhythm again shortly.

…I’m Just the Piano Player

9/1/2008 /

I’ve been influenced by a number of piano players. My paternal grandfather and my father both played a lot when I was a child – my father still does. A few of the schoolteachers I admired played a mean piano. Billy Joel, Elton John and Stevie Wonder are musicians I appreciate who sing and accompany themselves on piano. I’ve also heard a lot of keyboard jazz from Jimmy Smith (organ) and ragtime piano from Scott Joplin.

Many times I’ve been lonely but never when I’m in front of a piano keyboard. I’ve gone out of my way to ask to play pianos in hotels in New York and Dallas when travelling in the States – the former specifically to play “New York State of Mind” while in New York, which I managed to do even though I was only there for 24 hours. I’ve played dodgy pianos in pubs and got job offers because it keeps people in the bar – I’m not that good so mostly the offers were for payment in beer.

Fewer and fewer places offer you the chance to be able to just sit down in public and play, because there just aren’t pianos around any more except auto-playing ones in aseptic hotel lobbies. I’ve been refused more often than accepted when I’ve asked to play piano in those kind of places. Then again, I’m not a virtuoso, and sometimes I’ve asked at times which might well be inconvenient for the gathered public.

For some time I’ve wanted to record a quick film of my piano playing. After learning the recorder at junior school at around 7-8 years old, my next instrument was the piano. I always loved playing keyboard instruments, and had lessons on classical organ, pop organ, and piano. The piano is one of the best instruments to play solo, because it has a large range. The 88 notes on a full piano keyboard represent the range of most instruments in an orchestra – much more than a guitar. It’s also an instrument which lends itself to playing several notes at once, to explore harmony, counter-melody and playing interesting left hand bass accompaniment to all sorts of melodies. It’s harder to accompany yourself and sing with a piano, I think the guitar better lends itself to that. But the piano by itself is really versatile and a great instrument which adds to many musical styles.

So here’s a single-take shot of me playing a piano solo of a composition I wrote when I was 16 as part of my coursework for GCSE music – it’s called City Nights. It is a little bit changed from the original version, but the melody, structure and sequence is the same. I’ve just added in a few variations in a repeated section to make it last three minutes. I passed the exam with flying colours, by the way.

Happy Belated New 2008

8/1/2008 /
More Door Openings

I’ve added recent photos from my FlickR account to the RSS feed, so if you read me via email updates or RSS you should now get photos when I update them as well. We spent Christmas in Marrakech, and most of the recent photos were taken there.

Unfortunately, Yasmina’s grandmother Ginette – who lives in Rabat – had a series of strokes on Boxing Day (the 26th) which put a rather different perspective on our festive season. Yasmina’s aunt, who we were staying with, rushed to Rabat to be at her mother’s bedside. We had to stay because the logistics of all going to Rabat, especially with Nathan with a nasty flu infection, were not easily resolved. Our host got back to Marrakech a couple of days later, and even though we were all very tired but we went out for a day in the mountains south of Marrakech to see the ski slopes on Mount Oukaimeden.

Sadly it doesn’t look like my grandmother-in-law is improving. She’s 82 years old, so the prognosis is quite bleak. Yasmina is flying back to Morocco tomorrow, so I’ll be on my own until Saturday looking after him in the morning and at night. It will be the first time I’m all alone looking after Nathan, so wish me luck, and spare a prayer for Mamie Ginette.