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Although you probably want to read a post about this weblog less than you want to read a post on this weblog, I wanted to mark the fact that Aurlog has now moved host for the first time since it started and seems to be working. Hooray!
I would like to thank Stuart for hosting it for so long, helping me with lots of technical things over the years, and for his help in moving the content to the new server, especially the evening spent as IM technical support in updating Wordpress. The new host, eUKHost, have also been very helpful and remarkably patient as I asked them lots of idiotic questions to make sure this blog worked before I made it live on their server. I will be moving another site to their server soon, so that should test their customer care skillz again.
I have finally been playing with the site to move it off the generic Wordpress theme (although, again, I suspect you don’t care, especially if you read this through a feed reader). I always planned to do a new theme of my own as I had done with Blosxom but I fear this is a larger undertaking than I realised and I couldn’t be arsed, so I went for Atahuelpa which looked vaguely similar to what I wanted anyway (something like this) and seems customisable to the nth degree, some of which I have done. I would recommend installing it just to see the size of the Save changes button. I really should update the About page as well.
I would like to start posting a bit more. One reason I don’t is that I discovered online correspondence chess, which I play at the excellent SchemingMind.com. Hopefully I’ll post something about that.
Before the GPSOE’s recent expedition to Brussels, Stuart very kindly gave me, Tim, Andy, and himself £10 Amazon vouchers each to buy what we thought were the best songs of the rock and roll era. I shall infringe Stuart’s intellectual property and reproduce his explanation of the idea:
Here’s the plan. You need the following things.
- Some friends
- An apartment in Brussels
- Beer
- A £10 voucher for each friend and yourself to buy MP3s
Then each of you takes their £10 voucher and buys what they consider to be the best songs of the rock and roll era as mp3s, and also buys what they consider to be the worst song of the rock and roll era.
“The rock and roll era” is sort of vaguely defined to be everything since about 1956 or so. Note that the songs you choose do not have to be rock and roll!
The game then is, you show up to your Brussels holiday flat (or wherever you decide to play this, e.g., your own living room), each of you with your songs in tow, and then each of you plays through each of your songs and attempts to justify why they’re the best songs of the last fifty(ish) years.
You can read Stuart’s method of choosing his songs on his website. My method was to create a large, loose list of artists and obvious good songs. For each artist, I picked their best song, although one artist ended up with two songs. I have to say this is actually incredibly difficult. One of the hardest things is deciding whether to distinguish between the best songs according to some objective criteria or one’s favourite songs according to one’s subjective judgement. I went for a kind of fudge, leaning more to the latter.
Anyway, my songs, in alphabetical order by artist, are:
- Abba: Gimme gimme gimme
- Bowie, David: The man who sold the world
- Guns and Roses: Paradise city
- Guns and Roses: Sweet child of mine
- Oasis: Supersonic
- Portishead: Wandering star
- Presley, Elvis: How the web was woven
- Queen: Somebody to love
- Radiohead: Bishop’s robes
- Rolling Stones: Shine a light
- Simon, Carly: Nobody does it better
- Springfield, Dusty: Son of a preacher man
- Who: Won’t get fooled again
The worst song was:
- Queen: I’m in love with my car
Feel free to make inferior lists of your own. The other three lists were (links to be added if/when available): Stuart, Tim, Andy.
BTW, the bit in brackets in the title is an AACR2-formatted (strictly speaking, an ISBD-formatted) series entry as I intend to regale you in time with a series of further observations on Belgium based on a whole week’s rich experience.
The BBC mentions that Network Rail are finally looking at putting in a flyover across the East Coast Main Line at Hitchin so trains to Cambridge will no longer have to cross three tracks, including the express lines. Cool beans. The Network Rail site has pictures, track plans, lots more detail, and a video.
Aside from the practical benefits of fewer delays, alternative routes, and so on, it looks quite impressive too. It is due in 2014 if all goes to plan, including planning applications in 2009.
@ostephens on Twitter asked an interesting question:
How do you know the correct form for changing a place name to an indicator of it’s denziens? Eg London -> Londoner, Bolton -> Boltonian
I did manage to find some helpful-looking articles on Wikipedia:
- An article on demonyms (”name for a resident of a locality which is derived from the name of the particular locality”)
- A list of adjectivals and demonyms for cities. Sadly Bolton isn’t included in the list or any others I could find.
However, the first article on demonyms has, if not rules, then patterns of demonym formation for English names. The examples of Washington and Wellington (although not British place names) would suggest Boltonian (although the example of London>Londoner does not). A Google search would seem to suggest this is being widely used, and this is confirmed beyond doubt by an Urban Dictionary entry for Boltonian.
What, though, is the demonym for Sandy? What are people from Sandy, Bedfordshire called? @ostephens suggested Sandian, Sandite, and Sandpeople. I have been thinking about this and compiled a list of candidates, some of them based on the suffixes in the Wikipedia article:
- Sand
- Sandian
- Sandyan
- Sandeian
- Sandyean
- Sandine
- Sandyine
- Sandite
- Sandyite
- Sander
- Sandyer
- Sandish
- Sandyish
- Sandene
- Sandyene
- Sandard
- Sandyard
- Sandese
- Sandyese
- Sandi
- Sandic
- Sandyic
- Sandivian
- Sandinavian
- Sandwegian
- Sand People
- Tusken Raider
- Harenosian
Notes: Sand is formed after the pattern of Germany>German, Turkey>Turk. Sandeian is based on the form of the name used in the Domesday Book: Sandeia. Sandyean is based on the old name of Sandy before the railways changed the spelling: Sandye. Sandwegian would probably better suit someone from Sandwich. I am not sure what the singular of Sand People would be: Sand Person? For Tusken Raiders, see Wikipedia again. Harenosian is from the Latin for a Sandy place: I have probably completely misunderstood the translation of this word.
Interestingly, a Google search for the word Sandyite shows it to be used quite a bit for Sandy, Oregon. A similar search on Bedfordshire doesn’t do anything. Neither do any of the other plausible ones (that I could be bothered to look up). However, I do have three favourites:
- Sandyite. Sensible favourite. It seems weirdly natural and is also being used in another Sandy. However, sounds a little like ready-made mortar.
- Sandeian. Elegant/historical favourite. It suggests a nicer pronunciation: San-day-un rather than San-dee-un. It is also pleasantly hard to spell. Plausible alternatives I like are Sandyean (also pleasantly hard to spell and with some historical overtones), and Sandian.
- Sandinavian. Say no more.
Any suggestions, comments, or actual knowledge?
I am considering submitting the following entry to the Urban Dictionary:
1. Had their authority record updated by the Library of Congress.
Euphemism. Died.
Hey, where’s Michael?
Dude! Didn’t you hear? He’s had his authority record updated by the Library of Congress.
As the linked article explains: “Remember the REVISED LCRI 22.17 contains a new option for cataloguers to add death dates to personal name headings with open dates. “
While spending the day setting up and playing Lego with my son, I had a go at trying to make an electric-powered train that tilts round corners. My first attempt was this:
 Lego tilting train, first attempt The right-hand bogie is the motor and is at the back.
The left-hand bogie leads and swivels the vertical axle. The first two cogs transfer this turn to the horizontal. The next set of cogs reverse the direction of rotation so it tilts into the corner, and the set of three axles transfer this rotation to the two bits of Lego which form the base of the carriage. The big blue brick is a weight to keep the front bogie on the track against the resistance of the mechanism so that it transfers the turn of the corner instead of going straight on and derailing.
It kind of works. It certainly tilts rounds corners correctly, even with a heavy coach on top of the moving base. However, it doesn’t balance on straights, probably because a) it is top heavy so doesn’t naturally want to level out, and b) the first set of cogs are probably not fine enough.
It certainly needs more work, which it might possibly get over the summer. This will involve either i) moving the mechanism to the top of the carriage so the walls hang off it and so straighten automatically, or ii) making the main walls and roof free-hanging and set the mechanism up to push the body without being attached to it. I fear i will not be robust enough and won’t work anyway without some complicated counter-weight system, and ii will be jerky at the least. Perhaps some system of springs…
I should probably point out this is old-style 12V Lego railway with the third rail, about 95% of which is at least 20 years old.
Out of the Eurovision semi-finalists, I liked (three from each semi-final):
- Montengro: Boney M’s Rasputin in Eurovision form, although not as good as that should sound.
- Iceland: a proper song and a rare naturally attractive singer.
- Bosnia: interesting song. Hard to say much more, which is unusual.
- Greece: just for the enteratinment value of the box thing with flag and the travellator and some good leaning by the backing group and the song wasn’t bad.
- Moldova: very catchy folky song with a man with some bizarre pole thing.
- Estonia. Atmospheric song and show.
Of these, only Montenegro didn’t go through, which is perhaps not unreasonable. It was the first one I scored, so I perhaps overrated it in my enthusiasm.
Conversely, some utter rubbish did make it through. Romania’s was appalling, as was Finland’s senseless attempt to re-create Daz Simpson (although it wasn’t so bad when he stopped his monotonous pretence at rapping during the chorus). Thursday’s semi-final was worse generally and maybe this explains why Lithuania and Albania made it through. Looking at my notes, there wasn’t actually too much that was better that didn’t make it through: Cyprus possibly.
Worth particular mention are the two Irish entries:
- Ireland. Luckily Carol Voordeman’s lame efforts came to naught, etc.
- Denmark. Sadly Ronan Keating with a mask on did make it through. It sounds like a Mr Keating song, the man sort of looked like Mr Keating, and his voice sounded like Mr Keating. None of these are good.
I haven’t really had a good enough listen to any of the Big Four’s songs, or that of Russia, although the French one looked intriguing. The UK entry is disappointing to say the least. I’m not his greatest fan, but I did think Mr Lloyd-Webber could come up with something better than the repetitive My Time:
It’s my time, my time, my time, my time, myyyyyyy time, my moment, this is my perfect moment…
I can see why he got Mr Rice to write the lyrics. Jade seems to be able to belt out a tune, however, although I still think we should have gone with the twins. I do have my doubts about putting Andrew Lloyd Webber on stage. Unless Europe is positively star-struck by his eminence, I wonder what his presence will add compared to Ukraine’s take on pole dancing (ladder-dancing inside large metal wheels) or the fire which probably got Finland through.
One more thing: there were a couple of strange trends. First, key changes are well down this year, which is very sad. Very sad, indeed. Second, the second semi-final had a weird glut of people playing cellos standing up with the cello off the floor with the big metal spiking waving everywhere (lots of violins and such like generally this year too). Maybe the Russians have less stringent Health and Safety rules. Very odd.
Prediction: Sweden. Although I am probably underestimating Norway. Both at least are from Scandinavia, which has been bloc voting since the before Eastern bloc emerged from behind the Iron Curtain. Greece might be in with a chance but I don’t think they are in a politically useful area. A few hundred miles north might have made all the difference. I’d be happy with Sweden (for the song) or Greece (for the show).
According to the Daily Mash,
QUIET, bespectacled female librarians really do go like a bloody train, it was confirmed last night.
I expect CILIP are, as ever, behind this contribution to the image of the librarian.
I don’t think the Bedfordshire on Sunday quite meant what they wrote when they published the following paragraph about the upcoming Central Bedfordshire local elections (my emphasis):
The runners and riders for June 4 Central Bedfordshire Council elections have been announced and all potential councillors are being offered the opportunity to sell themsleves [sic] to voters on the internet.
I wonder if it would be an eBay-style format. That would indeed be a scandal to put the expenses controversy to shame.
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