I’m always wary of politicians, and political speeches, and yet Obama’s inauguration speech left me feeling hopeful … I guess only time will tell though.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Wolverines Archers, first shoot of 2009
Last weekend waf fairly tumultuous it began with me discovering that my kitchen had been completely flooded, and ended with me winning my first ever archery medal. I’ll be honest I was pretty upset when I discovered my kitchen was under four inches of water, fortunately my younger brother was on hand to help sort it out, as was the rest of my family, even Richard rushed over to help out when he heard what had happened. Thankfully the damage wasn’t too bad after a week or so of drying out and removing the flooring it looks like all that needs doing is to re-floor the kitchen and it should be right as rain 😉
The following morning Richard picked me up pretty earlier for out first official archery shoot of 2009. It was a special invitation only shoot hosted by our friends at Wolverines Archers near Stoke. Im guessing there were at least a hundred or so archers there, all the pegs were pretty much full. I ended up shooting in a group comprising of three compound archers and me with my HT recurve and wooden arrows. I don’t have anything against compound archers, in fact I quite enjoy shooting with them it tends to make me more competitive and consequently I concentrate more. An archer shooting with a recurve and wooden arrows is never going to keep up with a compound with carbon arrows, but the fun is actually in trying to keep up with them. Richard always says the same, that trying to keep up with them makes you focus more.
That certainly worked for me, at the end of the day I came third in my category and was awarded a bronze medal! I know a lot of the other archers in my category, you get to know everyone since its often the same crowd of people at the same events. Many of them are far more experienced than I am, so I was pretty proud – still am 😉 Everyone in the team cheered me on which was a great feeling!
Looks my next shoot is on the 8th of Feb, lets hope I do as well. As always pictures from the day are on my flickr account here.
Great design is serious ( not solemn )
Paula Scher looks back at a life in design (she’s done album covers, books, the Citibank logo …) and pinpoints the moment when she started really having fun. Look for gorgeous designs and images from her legendary career. It’s a wonderful talk, inspiring in many ways
Changing China one loan at a time
As financial institutions melt down, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about credit–who gets it, from whom, and what it means for the global economy. There are very few bright spots in today’s economic environment, but the good news is that in many parts of the world, loans of just a few hundred dollars still have the capacity to change people’s lives. Join Casey Wilson, nonprofit startup entrepreneur, to talk about her work with Wokai, the first foreign-funded microfinance organization in China. Casey will share her experiences building an organization that gives the poorest of China’s poor the financing to build businesses that lift them from poverty.
Moller’s SkyCar
This is an old TED talk but always an inspiring one. Paul Moller talks about the future of personal air travel — the marriage of autos and flight that will give us true freedom to travel off-road. He shows two things he’s working on: the Moller Skycar (a jet + car) and a passenger-friendly hovering disc.
Jerusalem – James Fenton
Alan and Fiona gave me a copy of Being Alive for Christmas. It’s an anthology of poems dealing with many themes and written by many many different authors. It is a wonderful gift and one that I’m really enjoying 🙂
Within the covers of this book I found a poem entitled Jerusalem by James Fenton. It seemed apt to share this poem given the current crisis in Gaza.
It’s hard to watch such scenes and remain dispassionate. It’s a conflict, and indeed a place, that polarizes opinion. Yet it disturbs me that Israel as a nation seems to have forgotten that no nation in history has succeeded, through force of arms, to subjugate an entire population forever. During the second world war Hitler came to the same realization and devised his ‘Final solution to the problem of the Jews’ which culminated in one of the most barbaric and evil acts in human history – the Holocaust. Yet sixty years on we now hear of Israeli ministers talking about a their own final solution or Holocaust in Gaza. It strikes me as paradoxical that people are often doomed to become the very thing they loathe the most, we are doomed to become what we behold. I recall vividly the moment when a Jewish friend of mine told me that in her opinion
the only the thing the leaders in Israel learn’t from the holocaust was how to become Nazi’s themselves.
I recall how shocked I was at that statement, it felt wrong. It felt especially wrong that a Jewish person could make such a comparison. As I watch the news reports though, and as I listen to the rhetoric coming out of Tel Aviv – I wonder if history will prove her right?
Getting back to the poem, I think it is extremely poignant and made so by the conflicting claims the city inspires which are expressed in the poem as alternating, mutually exclusive statements – this structure is a striking metaphor in itself.
I
Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone,
And the interrogation will not die
For there is no eternal city
And there is no pity
And there is nothing underneath the sky
No rainbow and no guarantee –
There is no covenant between your God and me.
II
It is superb in the air.
Suffering is everywhere
And each man wears his suffering like a skin.
My history is proud.
Mine is not allowed.
This is the cistern where all wars begin,
The laughter from the armoured car.
This is the man who won’t believe you’re what you are.
III
This is your fault.
This is a crusader vault.
The Brook of Kidron flows from Mea She’arim.
I will pray for you.
I will tell you what to do.
I’ll stone you. I shall break your every limb.
Oh, I am not afraid of you,
But maybe I should fear the things you make me do.
IV
This is not Golgotha.
This is the Holy Sepulchre,
The Emperor Hadrian’s temple to a love
Which he did not much share.
Golgotha could be anywhere.
Jerusalem itself is on the move.
It leaps and leaps from hill to hill
And as it makes its way it also makes its will.
V
The city was sacked.
Jordan was driven back.
The pious Christians burned the Jews alive.
This is a minaret.
I’m not finished yet.
We’re waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
What was your mother’s real name?
Would it be safe today to go to Bethlehem?
VI
This is the Garden Tomb.
No, this is the Garden Tomb.
I’m an Armenian. I am a Copt.
This is Utopia.
I came here from Ethiopia.
This hole is where the flying carpet dropped
The Prophet off to pray one night
And from here one hour later he resumed his flight.
VII
Who packed your bag?
I packed my bag.
Where was your uncle’s mother’s sister born?
Have you ever met an Arab?
Yes, I am a scarab.
I am a worm. I am a thing of scorn.
I cry Impure from street to street
And see my degradation in the eyes I meet.
VIII
I am your enemy.
This is Gethsemane.
The broken graves look to the Temple Mount.
Tell me now, tell me when
When shall we all rise again?
Shall I be first in that great body count?
When shall the tribes be gathered in?
When, tell me, when shall the Last Things begin?
IX
You are in error.
This is terror.
This is your banishment. This land is mine.
This is what you earn.
This is the Law of No Return.
This is the sour dough, this the sweet wine.
This is my history, this my race
And this unhappy man threw acid in my face.
X
Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone.
These are the warrior archaeologists.
This is us and that is them.
This is Jerusalem.
These are dying men with tattooed wrists.
Do this and I’ll destroy your home.
I have destroyed your home. You have destroyed my home.
by James Fenton
Presenting the Orb
Working with his father, Ron Sears, Nick Sears is designing and building the Orb, a rotating LED display that uses persistence of vision to produce moving images in 3D space.
Chicken Pilau Rice with Peas
As a follow up to the Mutton curry recipe I posted last week I promised a few friends I’d post up a recipe for making Chicken Pilau Rice with Peas which is often served with Mutton Curry in Pakistani/Kashmiri households. Many of my friends who have been round to my place or mom’s will have eaten this and im hoping they will be able to follow this recipe for themselves ( yes Alan, I mean you! :p ).
Chicken Pilau Rice with Peas
Ingredients
- 2lb Boneless Chicken Leg cut into 1 inch pieces
- Basmati Rice, approx 4 large cups
- 1 Cinnamon Sick
- 4 Large Cardomen pods
- A couple Small green chillies
- 1 large red tomato
- Tablespoon of grated ginger
- tablespoon of finely chopped garlic
- 6 small sized onions
- 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 4 bay leaves
- butter
- sunflower oil
Method
Pour sunflower oil into a large cooking pot, pour enough oil to cover the base of the pot. Add butter to this, I normally use about a quarter of a small block of unsalted butter. Put the heat on relatively low and melt the butter into the oil.- Add the cardomen, cinnamon, bay leaves and cumin to the pot and stir into the oil. Turn the heat up a little but not too high. You want stir these aromatics into the mixture for a couple of minutes.
- Slice the onions fairly coursely, and add to the pot along with the chillies, grated ginger and the garlic. Stir into the mixture until the onions are golden and crispy, this can take about 5 to 10 minutes, dont be tempted to turn the heat up if you do you’ll end up burning the onions, you want them golden and caramelised – as pictured.
Once the onions are done, add the diced chicken to the pot and stir into the mixture, try to make sure that you coat all the chicken evenly with the oil and onions. Also at this point add a tablespoon or so of salt, and stir in. You need to keep the chicken moving in the pot so it doesn’t stick to the bottom, but don’t stir it too aggresively, just work it gently until its golden brown. The chicken will also release its own natural liquids so you’ll end up with a lovely golden colored gravy coating the chicken. Again do not turn the heat up high, the trick is to be patient and just let it take as long as it takes. If you try to force it by turning the heat up, it will all go horribly wrong.
When the chicken takes on that lovely golden coating and the mixture looks like its reducing nicely, chop your tomato into quarters and add to the pot. As pictured. By the time the mixture reduces completely the tomato will have completed dissolved and disappeared.- Once it’s reduced add the frozen peas to pot. Because they are frozen they too will shed a some liquid, just stir them in for a couple of minutes. Then you need to add boiling water to the pot. You need to add enough to cover the chicken and peas completely. Allow this simmer gently for about five minutes.
Whilst thats simmering you need to wash your rice in cold water. Rice contains lots of starch and you need to wash it out basically until the water runs clear. I do it by placing the rise in a bowl of cold water then rinsing through a collinder, and repeating that until the water is clear. Once the rice is washed add it to the pot and stir in. You then want to cover the pot and place into a hot oven (220 deg C ) for about 45 minutes, and leave it alone. It’s not a bad idea to check on it at around the thirty minute mark if you’re nervous about burning it. Usually 45 minutes is enough.
After 45 minutes remove the pot from the oven. The rice should be cooked beautifully, and the aromatics you added early on will have infused the rice so it’ll have the wonderfully pungent spicy aroma. You can serve the rice with the mutton curry.
As with the last recipe I have uploaded detailed photos with instructions into a set on flickr. Enjoy!
BTW: for all those vegetarians out there, you can substitute the chicken for Chick Peas which also works really well.
Update: I’m tagging a couple of people so that they’ll hopefully post up some recipes:
Geppeto: Consumer’s Approach to Programming
ABSTRACT
Contemporary society is experiencing a steady stream of new electronic gadgets, software products, and web applications. In this flood of functionality, users have adapted to rely less on manuals (if they are present at all) and shift their learning to trial and error, common paradigms, and experimentation. To accommodate this style of use — or perhaps driving this behavior – developers have successfully abstracted much of the technological complexity and transformed it into intuitive user interfaces often avoiding the need for reading lengthy manuals and formal training. Is it possible to adopt the same trial-and-error experimentation habit not only for using gadgets, but also for application development? We claim that intuitive aggregation and combination of software gadgets makes this possible.
In this talk, we will show the use of current technology in building a consumer oriented development tool appropriate for individuals not formally trained in programming. We demonstrate that the complexity of existing system and scripting languages i.e.; syntax, semantics, control and data flow, data structures, data types, and programming components can be successfully replaced with analogies intuitively accessible to a much wider consumer population based exclusively on their use and understanding of user interfaces in popular web applications. We present a demo of Geppeto — a consumer tool for gadget-based application development. Composing gadgets with Geppeto does not require programming experience or reading of convoluted manuals. The presented research is sponsored by Google Inc. and the Croatian Ministry of Science.
Intelligence in Wikipedia – Bootstrapping the Semantic Web
ABSTRACT:
Berners-Lee’s vision of the Semantic Web is hindered by a chicken-and-egg problem, which can be best solved by a bootstrapping method: creating enough structured data to motivate the development of applications. We believe that autonomously `Semantifying Wikipedia’ is the best way to bootstrap. We choose Wikipedia as an initial data source, because it is comprehensive, high-quality, modestly sized, and contains enough manually-derived structure to bootstrap an autonomous, self-supervised process.