Skip to main content

Look! Shiny!

A somewhat rambling entry this morning, as I'm still recovering from withdrawal symptoms. Circa 10pm Friday night our internet connection went down and it didn't return until Sunday morning.

I've been without before - but never for so long without any choice. It was horrendous. It's not that I'm addicted or anything. I don't necessarily do a lot online at the weekend. It was the inability to get information as and when I wanted. The knowledge that I can't just check things. The lack of control.

We were going to the Milton Keynes Snowdome on Saturday. Normally I'd just find where it was online about 5 minutes before leaving... but today I couldn't. (Luckily the GPS knew where it was.) I like to check my emails every couple of hours - it's not essential, but when I couldn't it was so painful.

I found myself wandering into the office and staring weakly at the router, hoping to see that fourth light labelled 'Internet' illuminated.

Sad indeed. But it's over now - and it's great to be back.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Clare Dudman5 January 2009 at 12:30

    Heck Brian, what a catastrophe! No internet! I think I'd need tranquilisers...by drip. Anyway, you seem to have coped very well, and yes, a very good idea to go out and pretend it's not happening:-)

    You check your email every two hours? I'm afraid mine is 'sampled' automatically every few minutes and I really can't go that much longer without getting twitchy. Not that I get much, you understand, it's just that I need to know someone is out there...apart from my loving family, that is (who also email me - they've found it's the best way to get my attention).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp
117 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor
25 comments
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense
6 comments
Read more