Zach Beauvais

sleepstorm

// July 29th, 2008 // Comments // Uncategorized

CC: flickr, "Lightning and Stars" By Bill Liao http://flickr.com/photos/liao/

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with sleep. I can remember being so upset I couldn’t sleep because I had to go to bed. Maybe this has bled into the present.

The funny part of it all, is I’d much rather not be asleep most of the time. My wife has always confused me with her desire, pretty continuously, to be unconscious. There is so much to think about, to read, to play, to discuss—why sleep?

So, now, it’s 2:15. I know that tomorrow I will feel wretched, and that can’t help. It started by me so very nearly falling asleep around 11:00. It’s been boiling, and I don’t really get on well with hot weather—especially when it’s so humid. I thought I had it tonight, though, with a nice cool bath, then In bed at a reasonable time to watch My Family with Wendy on iPlayer. That ended, so I switched on “Just a Minute” and turned down the screen until it was dark. I dozed off towards the end, only to be woken by something beeping somewhere. It stopped, but the damage had been done.

Next I switched on “Quote, Unquote” and walked downstairs for a glass of water, and had a bottle of lager instead, hoping the little alcohol might help a bit. It’s so much cooler down stairs, so I decided to remove myself to the sofa, still with “Quote, Unquote”. I had just settled when my phone dinged. It had finally delivered a message to Wendy, I’d sent before dinner. Then, after settling in again, Wendy’s phone received the text message. Her phone, a new one, now beeps every few minutes until the message’s been read… another trip across the room.

That’s when it started raining: by now I’m 15-minutes deep in Gardener’s Question Time. At last, it’s cooling off. Then it starts with the Thunder—which I have always hated. This rain literally poured down, and the thunder went through the house with a shuddering thud.

Gardeners’ Question Time gave way to “Word of Mouth”, which I can’t remember. By then I was feeling anxious, about literally nothing.

It’s the oddest feeling: beginning like discomfort, then a physical sensation in my arms. Finally, I can’t be horizontal any longer, and it’s another walk across to the smaller settee. I can’t actually put a thought to this ridiculous anxiety. I’m not scared about anything, really. My job’s brilliant, my mates are fantastic, and my Wife’s amazing. Sure, not everything’s perfect, but I’m not even thinking about my painful back or where I’m at with God or any of the other possible panic producers.

I decided to share, and it seems to help. The thunder’s past, my arms don’t feel funny, and I’m not worried at nothing. It’s just this strange, almost twilight of the night: 2:32. I ache a bit, which isn’t good, and I feel like moaning online is a bit sad.

I’d hate to meet me in the morning.

Unfavourable rail network numbers

// April 29th, 2008 // Comments // travel

I have come to the conclusion, after being without a car for five years, that travel by rail in the UK is just about the most infuriating process you can undertake on a regular basis. Every day, one of my 6 train journeys to or from work will fail in some way or other. Either there will be a delay, a last-minute platform change, a cancellation… something goes wrong.

Looking at the complexity of the rail network, it’s not surprising that it doesn’t always run exactly right. However, since I can pretty much guarantee that my train journey to work or back will be compromised in some way, I’m starting to wonder. There is no ‘normal’ service, you see. It’s a myth that the trains usually make it on time. Perhaps it is more than 50% of each leg of any given journey… maybe. But at some stage in every multi-sectioned journey I’ve had, some aspect of the trip fails.

II’m beginning to wonder what could possibly fix this situation. I’m told daily by an electronic voice: “I’m extremely sorry for the severe delay to this service.” I wonder what rail executives hope to achieve by creating an automated apology system? It’s not exactly like it’s a good value for money trade-off either. Train travel is bloody expensive, and it doesn’t work the majority of the time.

Maybe executive heads need to roll, maybe a huge infusion of public money needs injecting into the system, maybe… they need a change of perspective. If they measure every individual step in a day, they might come to the conclusion that they’ve failed n number of times. n=number of delayed, cancelled or otherwise compromised phases of transit between any two given points on the network. However, if X represents the full journey of an individual in a sampled population, and X is made up of a number of phases, I wonder how many X’s would end up compromised in some way?

Sample 100 complete journeys across the entire network. Each journey is an individual X (complete from point A to B with each stop and change included). Each completed leg of any given X could be designated y, and any compromised legs (including additionally-accrued attrition from one failed leg compromising another) could be w’s.

There are two numbers I’d be interested in seeing:

• The ratio of y’s to w’s across the sampled population’s collective X’s
• The number of X’s which contain at least one w

I reckon and predict, that these numbers would reflect very unfavorably on the network’s ability to run itself.

What’s the fix?

No idea… though I do worry no one in the rail network has any clue either.

Back from travels

// April 29th, 2008 // Comments // travel

Well, I and the wife traveled to Limoges in France to Amsterdam over the last two weeks. In France, I had the misfortune of being almost completely without the ability to smell or taste anything thanks to a lingering cold which also incapacitated me on the final Friday of the trip. Our French hosts cooked us a wonderful (looking) local meal complete with regional wines, and every mouthful tasted exactly the same. According to Wendy, this stood me in good stead for Amsterdam, however, since I wasn’t as bothered by all the smoldering plant material hovering in the air.

Amsterdam, as previously mentioned, is a lovely city. It is very accessible and its scale lends itself to walking. It’s easy to find somewhere pleasant to drink coffee or eat from a huge variety of restaurants. It is slightly unhelpful, however, that nearly every place at which you can eat or drink is called a ‘cafe’. This includes bars, coffee houses, sandwitch shops, pubs… literally everything that doesn’t sell cannabis is a cafe. Many ‘cafes’ also sell an astonishing selection of lagers, which I could only imagine drinking on the continent.

The streets meander pleasantly, and it’s not too well-planned; so it’s possible to stumble across a brilliant cafe (of whatever description) nearly anywhere. The streets seem to be used almost like common land, however, by the walkers, cyclists and motorists in town. Cars seem to give way most of the time, and trams could appear just about everywhere, from any direction. Bicycles literally litter every available upright in Amsterdam, and if you don’t move sharpish at the sound of a bell you’re likely to adorn a lamppost or bollard yourself. I spent much of my time waiting for the imagined ‘zzhhrip’ sound of bicycle-tyre on raincoat which I’m pretty certain would almost immediately proceed a rear-end collision.

Nevertheless, I’m glad to be back in Britain. Something about seeing the hills and green of near-home yesterday was incredibly comforting.

Semantic Metaphors

// April 29th, 2008 // Comments // Semantic Web, blogging

I tend to live in a world of metaphor. It’s not my fault, according to Lakoff and Johnson. We all use metaphor all the time: to construct our thoughts and work out abstract concepts.

I’ve been exploring this a bit in the context of the Semantic Web over on Nodalities. Please feel free to have a look and send me some feedback on what you think about this set of ideas.

Beer for Breakfast | bier voor het ontbijt

// April 23rd, 2008 // Comments // interesting, travel

It’s the transition which hits you. From begging your interlocutor to understand you—to even bend a little in your direction—to being understood so effortlessly but still being in an unfamiliar place. This is traveling from France to Amsterdam.

In France, making an effort to speak French is mandatory; yet still everyone looks at you as if you’re asking them to donate a kidney when you ask a question in broken French. I freely admit, the extent of my French used to end not much farther than correcting cold-callers’ pronunciation of my surname. Now, after three days in France, I can say all sorts: but still can’t get a point across or ask for a baguette without goose-gizzard on.

I will, however, never pick up any Dutch by being in Amsterdam. As soon as you say ‘Halo’, in your best-imitation of Dutch pronunciation, the person behind the counter/hovering over your table/behind the glass will immediately ask you how you are doing in English. This is true 100% of the time—unless your accent was bad enough to give them the impression you’re French or Spanish, in which case, they’ll usually answer your question in that supposed language. Of course, I’ve always heard that the Dutch can all speak flawlessly in multiple languages even while being full of cannabis; but I’m still incredibly impressed.

Touching on that last point, I can’t help but feel it’s a horrible, international misconception about the Dutch. The overwhelming impression I have got while passing coffeeshops here, is that the vast majority of the ‘customers’ are anything but Dutch. I seem to remember reading somewhere (a pitiful excuse for not remembering a source or making it up altogether) that the Nederlands has lower per-capita cannabis consumption than the UK. If this is true, I would not be surprised in the least. I am not inclined in the least to explore this hypothesis further by sampling, as it were, the population: I’ve seen too many mates act like toddlers to be tempted with such herbalism. I will say that coffeeshops are everywhere in Amsterdam, and that I’m impressed (if that’s the right term) by the diversity of ‘clients’ I’ve seen. (Most cafes, bars and coffeeshops have a beer-garden or patio on the pavement.) Anyone from middle-aged, chubby americans to rasta-looking folks with dreads and hemp-clothes. Anyone from middle-class, dirt-poor, whatever: but very few speaking Dutch.

I get the impression from Amsterdam that most of it is set up for the non-Dutch. There can’t be enough Hollanders who want phallus salt-cellars to demand the supply I’ve seen. That’s something not confined to the red-light district, either. I’ve seen so many different penis-shaped items in the past two days, I’m starting to wonder what can’t be phallisised.

But, it kind of feels like all that stuff’s only there because it’s supposed to be.

“Amsterdam for penises.” “Amsterdam for spliffs.” Actually, it’s impossible to miss, but easy to ignore. This is largely because the city is wonderful. Not because of it’s ‘known-for’ features like prostitutes, coffee-shops and seks-shows, but because it’s laid-back culture that makes it possible for all of these things to be. I’m not drawn to these things, and I see them more as a side-effect of some relaxation that’s deeper.

Anyway, I’m off for a lager and lunch. The beer’s good, but I can’t actually drink it for breakfast, I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ve been too British/American to drink before the yardarm’s past the whatsit… but it’s 12:30 now, so that should be good!

I’m a researcher…

// April 10th, 2008 // Comments // Semantic Web, Uncategorized, blogging, tech

Well, since blogging about Talis several times, I’ve taken the plunge and accepted their gracious offer to become a researcher for their Semantic Web Platform. That means I’ll be blogging a lot about the Semantic Web and it’s cool features etc. over on one of Talis’ blogs, especially ‘Nodalities’ where you can see my first post: Hello World–really original title, that.

Hopefully all my blogging here will put me in good stead to encourage discussion and facilitate dialogue (fancy words!) over there, and I hope everyone likes what I write… we’ll see.