Free lunch

The Luas and Dublin

It's a view of Dublin from the footbridge outside the Red Cow hotel. The occasion - a free seminar on Cypress Bluetooth semiconductor products hosted by EBV. Not only a free lunch but also the freebies shown below including two hardware development kits (each worth $49). Although the seminar only scratched the surface it was a good introduction to these products and about the best kind of advertising a semiconductor house can engage in IMHO.

And the sun shining all day when I could have been mending the roof back at home...

Cypress freebies

For those of more technical bent, the main product was the "PSoC 4 BLE" chip that integrates a Bluetooth radio, touch-sensitive switch module, programmable general purpose analog and digital modules and a 48MHz ARM® Cortex™-M0 CPU. The development environment (also free) top level is schematic capture in which you drag and drop icons representing the various internal modules, configure them and then hit a key to automatically generate corresponding C-code which you can then optionally fine tune before compiling and programming the target device. Neat.

Taste

We humans are remarkably similar - especially in our baser respects many of which can be summed up as one or another expression of self-gratification. And so it can come as a bit of a surprise when our tastes differ so much.

Mowgli: You eat ants?
Baloo: You better believe it. And you're gonna love the way they tickle. 

Or olives, lettuce, avocado, prawns (I call them bugs), black (blood) pudding... not that I won't eat those things but they wouldn't exactly be my favourite. Snails and frogs legs I haven't even tried, nor do I intend to.

I may have mentioned that I live in a community - there are about 35 of us. There can be some interesting clashes of taste especially with décor and household goods. Having said that we have largely learnt to push through such differences, otherwise we wouldn't still be living together. But I still ponder how one person can specifically choose an item that is distasteful, even abhorrent, to another.

Music can be defined as "vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion" but Wikipedia adds that defining music turns out to be more difficult than might first be imagined. Because here the range of tastes is so wide that any one person might not, even with the best will, be able to squeeze all that is labelled music into his or her personal understanding of the word. Even within the community here, which is relatively conservative, the range of tastes is wide enough to include (not wishing to offend) sound that, to me, is just jangling noise.

We (not me) bake our own bread so that, at lunch time, the bread served is often fresh out of the oven. This alone is a compelling reason for remaining part of the community. Furthermore, folk ahead of me in the queue often leave the crusts and thus I get to have the very best part of the loaf! So I find that differing tastes can actually work in one's favour. The key here is to decide to like something that few others do.

I was reminded of such things when I read this review of Bruckner's music (my emphasis):

His music doesn’t titillate, it doesn’t go in for surface excitement, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single whistleable tune in his entire output. His orchestration isn’t glamorous, he doesn’t employ seductive harmonies and, what’s more, his symphonies last up to an hour-and-a-quarter in length.

Thankfully a David Singerman of Birmingham City University adds the following comment to the web-site which so admirably sums up my own response:

You made the absurd statement that you can't find a single whistleable tune in his entire output. Bruckner, in fact wrote some of the most beautiful melodies in the 19th century. Just listen to the opening of the 7th symphony, or the numerous beautiful themes in the second movement. The moderato theme in that movement is in my opinion the most beautiful melody ever written. The second theme of the slow movement of the 5th symphony was called by Robert Simpson in "The Essence of Bruckner" as one of the world's great melodies. Or listen to the Benedictus of the F minor mass. Throughout his music, Bruckner wrote one beautiful melody after another.

Or in another damning review:

Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, who visit London's Barbican... to perform three Bruckner symphonies, will unleash sounds of orchestral ugliness and visions of existential disturbance that will - that should - have you quaking in your seats.

Granted you are unlikely to hear Bruckner on Lyric-fm or in any performance in the National Concert Hall but there are plenty of recordings available to make up for this sad omission. I am happy enough that so few have any taste for Bruckner, or fresh crusts, or evaporated milk, because it helps to keep these things sacrosanct for those of us that really appreciate them.

Maps

Along with evaporated milk and Bruckner music I love maps. My first conscious memory of maps was at primary school where hung a black-and-white wall chart of Europe covering much the same area as the one below. The legend "Caspian Sea" in particular intrigued me.

Map: a representation, usually on a flat surface, as of the features of an area of the earth or a portion of the heavens, showing them in their respective forms, sizes, and relationships according to some convention of representation.

I would add that a map should also be pleasing to the eye and, above all, be optimised for its intended use. To achieve this features may be omitted, distorted or exaggerated to aid clarity. A good example being the London Underground map.

Central portion of the Tube map

Back in my youth, whilst my father drove, I liked to navigate using his brightly coloured Bartholomew half inch to the mile maps. I prided myself on not having to turn the map to face the direction of travel as my mother had to do.

example Bartholomew half inch map

One of the first things I do when or before I go to a new locality is to acquire and study a decent map and then to stake out the territory. But I know folk who, having lived in our house many years, still do not know how to find local places. Some have not even explored our own few acres of land.

GPS became operational in 1995. Several years before that I had contacted the OSI (Irish Ordnance Survey) with a proposal to engineer an in-car navigation system that supplemented dead reckoning from odometer data and a compass with digital mapping. When I visited the OSI they were then only in the process of digitising previous printed mapping so my proposal allowed for an interim solution that entailed me driving every road in Ireland whilst my dead reckoning sensors would be storing data that, after a bit of processing, would become a digital road map. My proposal never got off the ground, of course, and then GPS took over and made it all look a bit silly.

Uncle Sam

Not surprisingly I have welcomed the digital mapping revolution and the advent of GPS for which we have to thank Uncle Sam. I continue to be awed by the ability to utilise data from multiple satellites on my hand-held smart device to pin-point my location on a high definition map. Google Earth and Street View are likewise amazing achievements, and all these services are free for personal use! I am similarly awed by cell-phone technology, and so on. When I consider, for example, a daffodil, I think "you are going to die in a number of days and how can I enjoy your beauty as much as it deserves in that time?". Because there is beauty in good design. Youngsters today take all this technology for granted with no respect for the man-years of blood, sweat and tears implied. As a design engineer I figure I at least have some comprehension.

Bestal's Nutwood

When flying or in other public transport I like a window seat so that I can gorge myself on the passing landscape, maybe picking out would-be dream places to live, like Nutwood of Rupert Bear fame. And often I will be following my course on a map.

Journeys often start and end in the same place. I have adopted a sort of loose principle of life that such a route can be graded according to how much area it encloses. On this basis the worst thing is to come back the same way as you went. Similarly, when going from A to B, I like to explore different routes. If I have time on my hands I will choose a scenic route over a more direct motorway route. I differ radically from Ali in this respect: she likes to get from A to B as quickly and as smoothly as is possible.

In their spare time some sew, many spend vast amounts of time playing computer games, and others natter. For me, I can spend hours poring over maps. Even my doodles are usually some sort of map, often involving railways the surveying of which is made interesting by gradient and rate-of-turn constraint limitations.

Does Job fear God for nothing?

I find this accusation made by Satan in the ancient story of Job very poignant. Later in the story Job answers this taunt with "Though he (God) slay me, yet will I trust in him". Sunday School theology teaches us that if you give your heart to the Lord you will be saved. Further analysis of the Bible, and indeed bitter experience, tells me that I cannot necessarily expect anything in return for my supposed allegiance to God.

But this leaves me with a problem. If my faith in God never has any result then how do I know that it is valid or is doing any good? It would be like habitually doing exercise but it never having any effect on one's body. At some point one is likely to throw in the towel and try a different course.

In the parable of the talents the Lord goes away to a "far country" for a "long time" during which his servants are expected to "trade" i.e. make profitable use of what he has given them. When eventually the Lord returns the servant who threw in the towel is "cast into outer darkness" a state which I gather is not to be recommended. Of course anyone who takes this parable seriously will want the commendation "well done, good and faithful servant" - but just how long am I prepared to wait for this?

Perhaps Jesus pre-empted my dichotomy when, talking about the end times, he remarked that only those that endure to the end will be saved and saying of Thomas the doubter (with whom I can identify): Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

First

The latest craze here is running, albeit not barefoot yet. Did I start this craze? Before that it was growing a beard for which thankfully I cannot be held responsible. But what about...

I was the first in the community here to own a computer (PC-AT-286 running MSDOS with Hercules graphics) and a "high quality" printer (Epson LQ500 24-pin dot-matrix). I was the first here to write computer programs (in GWBASIC). First to run Windows (version 2). First to obtain and use an internet connection (dial-up back then). One of the first to own a mobile phone. First to buy a printed OS map of the locality. First to own a GPS navigation device (off-line). First (and only) to run barefoot, or to cycle to the coast and back. First to weed the vegetable plots barefoot (but this is now catching on). First to own a digital camera (I think) - they are now so ubiquitous that I hardly ever bother to get mine out.

With all those firsts one might think I was someone but, no, others here have caught up and overtaken me. They mostly have expensive Apple Mac's, large flat screen TV's, play graphics-intensive games that would fry my computer (and my brain), they have iPods and iPads and tablets and Kindles. Some have reflex digital cameras and most have cameras with specs that exceed mine. They own the latest smart-phones and download zillions of apps and pay for data-plans that permit on-line navigation. They (some) do crazy runs and work-outs (admittedly not barefoot). One person writes object oriented multi-threaded computer programs and others use their computers to do clever video editing or 3D computed aided designing.

Such is growing up.

Corbally Canal

Corbally branch of Grand canal

With an hour to spend whilst Ali is having acupuncture in Naas I ran to investigate the Corbally canal. As the canal was a couple of miles from where I had parked, I didn't have much time on the tow-path but enough make me want to go back another time. I joined the canal at the dotted line marked "Map 22" on the map and ran south for about half a mile. The tow-path here is grass and lovely to run barefoot on, though further south it becomes a track and who knows what the surface will be like. One day I intend to run the entire length.

Looking south

Reflections

Looking north

Dead as a Dodo

My proverbial namesake

Deaf? Actually, not that bad, thankyou. I am not extinct (yet). And yet I struggle to hear when the noise level is high. Like when we eat together, 35 of us including three infants who can be LOUD. Often it is actually uncomfortable and I find myself withdrawing from conversation, not even trying, and occasionally even leaving the room. And I note that Meg's hearing is getting worse. I habitually run (barefoot of course) first thing Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Simply opening the latch on the back door used to be enough to wake Meg, some 30 yards away in her kennel, but now she doesn't hear and I have therefore given up taking her with me on my morning runs. I do not want to call out loudly for fear of waking the more sensible of our folk who stay in bed.

It is not so much sheer volume that causes my hearing difficulty as cacophony. I am very pleased with most of Celibidache's Bruckner because I can generally make out the individual instruments: the recordings I have have clarity in this respect. But with some music, especially home-grown such as our praise services, all the sounds can muddle together and become, for me, harsh and verging on painful. And why does music now-a-days have to have constant drum beat?