Aidan's First Bike Ride

Happy Chap!

We went out on the bikes this afternoon. In my case, it was pretty much the first time this year, which is shocking when I look back to how much I was out with Nathan last year. Once I’d done the maintenance on Jill’s and my bikes (tyres, brakes, oiling the gearing) we reattached the baby seat and tried Aidan in it. He fitted well, and wasn’t bouncing around. Nathan was taking his bike out too, stabilisers and all.

Pausing for breath, Nathan looks back for his mum.

We set off, and ended up on the Harland Way, the old ‘Beeching-ed’ rail line from Wetherby to Harrogate. Aidan was happy as Larry, but Nathan was moaning a little about his legs needing a rest. Nathan was also pretty hard to distract from blackberries in the hedges.

Jill arrives, having had to shove Nathan up the hill!

Nathan decided that we needed to turn right onto the bridleway heading east, which Jill and I agreed to as we’d never gone that way before. Nathan struggled with the drag from the stabilisers in the grass on the slope up, and Jill bore the brunt of giving him a shove when needed. We got to see the housing estate from a completely different angle, which really showed how it nestled between woods and farmer’s fields on three sides.

Both the boys were shattered when they got home – Aidan actually head-butted me as he fell asleep – as the mile and a half were a quite a distance. Certainly, it’s the furthest Nathan has been under his own steam on the bike.

Spofforth Castle

It’s fair to say that this was the second ‘thing that we haven’t done in the last 9 years’. On Friday, after I dropped Aidan at the nursery I headed home with Nathan, but we took a detour and stopped at the Swings and then at the Castle (really the ruin of a fortified manor house) in Spofforth. Nathan loved exploring it, and then got really excited when a whole string of tractors went past.

It was Nathan’s last chance for a special day without Aidan around before Nathan went to school, so he had a fantastic afternoon with Jill who took him out to a farm and café near Bolton Abbey, plus an ice cream place while I stayed home, did work and picked up Aidan from his first proper day at nursery. He’s doing one day a week now to get him used to it for when Jill goes back to work.

In case you were wondering...

Wikileaks just lost its link from this site because of this.

WikiLeaks has published its full archive of 251,000 secret US diplomatic cables, without redactions, potentially exposing thousands of individuals named in the documents to detention, harm or putting their lives in danger. 

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Although I believe that there is definitely a space for putting things in the open, this steps over the principle of not causing harm where unnecessary. The original releases were redacted to protect individuals who could have been at risk; this release is more like the kind of stunt that Lulzsec or Anonymous pull. Hence no more linkage to the IP address.

Review: 'The Departure' by Neal Asher

The Departure is the latest book from Neal Asher and the start of a new series, 'The Owner novels', which sees him move away from the Agent Cormac / Polity universe that will be familiar to his past readers.

Asher is one of the strongest and most prolific voices in SF at the moment. Along with Reynolds, Stross and MacLeod he has put a new vigour in the genre. His ability to write fast-paced, twisting and interesting stories reminds me of the late David Gemmell's novels in fantasy: maybe not the absolute best, but you can guarantee an enjoyable, well written story that will have you wanting more at the end.

The Departure opens with the protagonist, Alan Saul, waking up on a conveyor into the Calais Incinerator without any clear memories of who he was and why he was there, only knowledge of the fact that he had been tortured in an Inspectorate Cell and the memory of the face of his tormentor. He is accompanied by an voice in his head called Janus, that claims it is an artificial intelligence and that it was created at the same time that he wore up. Naturally, Saul sets off to find out who he is, why he was dumped at the incinerator and how he can have revenge on his torturer.

It's a bleak future, completely different to that shown in the Polity novels. Earth is controlled by the Committee, a bureaucratic totalitarian regime trying unsuccessfully to manage the limited resources of a hugely over-populated world. Life has lost its value and brutality and starvation are common. A resource crash is coming and the only likely way to prevent it is the same as the results that it would engender; the deaths of billions of people. The extrapolation is scary, as it could easily been seen as a logical extension of the ways that population, politics and technology have been going since the 9/11 attacks.

The story ranges from the slums of Earth to the orbital majesty of the Argus station and out as far as the small human colony on Mars. The pace rapidly picks up, and the back story is filled in nicely as the plot races on. It resolves well, but leaves the hooks hanging and the stage set for a sequel.

All in all, a enjoyable, above average read that leaves you wanting to find out what happens next, having set the scene for the further books. Truly the David Gemmell of SF.

PS Shout out to Neil Ford for the chance to read this. Thanks!

Newby Hall Pictures

Some pictures from Newby Hall yesterday:

Aidan & I.

Nathan & Jill

Growing up so fast

Big Little Boy - climbing earlier this weekend

Jill, Nathan, Aidan and I had a lovely day out today at Newby Hall. We pottered about the grounds, enjoyed the model ride-on railway, had ice-creams, munched scones, had a picnic and a good explore without ever entering the house. Jill & Nathan even went on a boat ride on the River Ure whilst I enjoyed a quiet thirty minutes on the bank-side reading while Aidan napped. It was a wonderful afternoon; nothing earth-shattering, but great family stuff.

Shattered after a long walk on Sunday

It was on the way home that it hit home that everything is about to change again, and so soon after the adjustment that Aidan's arrival brought this year. My big little boy is going to start school in a fortnight and leave the nursery where he has had 3 delightful years. It makes me feel nervous and excited at the same time. He's ready for it, but am I? It certainly makes you more aware of your own mortality.

Or maybe that's my forthcoming Fortieth birthday?

Meanwhile, Aidan is now sitting up unassisted, rolling over and around the room, and getting ever-so close to crawling. More change.

Misdiagnosis & Treatment

(cc)2011 Laura Anne Chamberlain, on Flickr, some rights reserved

If you live in, or come from, the UK, the last week has been pretty harrowing with rioting and looting spreading from London out to other cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol. I found myself glued to the BBC News channel, Twitter and Facebook until after 2am in the morning on the worst night, unable to stop watching as the armies of disillusioned idiots trashed their communities in an orgy of disorder and destruction.

The Police were slow in responding and putting enough people on the street to contain and deal with the problem, but worked damn hard to resolve the issue. I've seen multiple messages from people who have relatives and loved ones who were pulling 20 hour shifts while they tried to get a grip. Generally, the provinces seemed to get control faster than the Met did in London, but perhaps that's because they were forewarned and had far less media focus.

The politicians made up for their failure to realise the significance of the events with their macho posturing when they returned from holiday, and tried to shift the blame away to the police. They also tried to claim that the successful shift in tactics was driven by them, rather than the police, a position that they have subsequently had to backtrack from. Now they've moved into a combination of moral pontification and hanging judge-like behaviour as they want to be seen to 'be doing something'. This is quite repellent, as many of the individuals preaching would have been to have considered as committing fraud had they handled their expenses in the way that they did in organisations outside Parliament.

I find the focus on increasing police powers to deal with such events disturbing, especially as the trouble was controlled using no additional powers but rather by providing the manpower and focus that was needed. Social media was being blamed, especially Twitter and Blackberry Messenger. Strange, as most of the traffic I was seeing was condemning the violence. It's a medium of communication, rather than a cause, and there are other routes that could be used such as SMS, email or private BBS if people wanted to bypass these methods. Interestingly, ordinary people using Twitter were very visible in coordinating the community in clean up operations.

We seem to be forgetting that 20% of under-24s[1] are unemployed and many others forced to stay in education – which has been made more expensive over the last few years – as there is no route into gainful employment in the current economic climate. We have a situation were we are creating a generation with little hope; perhaps even a generation who cannot see a way to equal, let alone match their parent's standards of living. It's a European-wide problem [2] which will no doubt haunt us.

None of this excuses the chaos we saw earlier in the week, not at all, but it does say that perhaps our political masters need to be thinking how they address the underlying disease at the same time as they deal with the symptoms. They may also want to reconsider the wisdom of the way that they are making cuts to some of the services that deal with these areas.

The courts are making examples of those caught, with magistrates regularly sending convicted individuals to the Crown Court for sentencing. This, I feel, is right. However, I'd rather be seeing a combination of custodial and community service in the punishment meted out, rather than just custodial. This gives a chance to the individuals to pay back the damage they have caused to the communities that suffered as a result of their actions.

It's an awful mess, and I worry that the temptation to deal with it in a knee-jerk manner will result in the underlying problem not being resolved and returning to haunt us again. Fundamentally, I don't think new powers are needed but rather a better resolution of underlying issues and flash points. Not a good week, for anyone.

[1] https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/22/youth-employment-rate-lowest
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8564500/Interactive-graphic-Youth-unemployment-in-Europe.html

Welcome to the Future...

 

I’ve just brought live the webpage for the RPG that I’ve been working on, called Singularities. Hopefully, it will be ready to go to print by the end of the year. Not much there yet, but it will develop.

Singularities RPG

It’s a hard SF veneered universe using the very playable Wordplay engine.

Which Shade of Green?

We were shopping in Sainsbury's when I saw the sign above the soft fruit section which declared how green their green credentials because of the 333 tonnes of plastic that they'd saved by replacing plastic with film lids. That change would also reduce the CO2 generated in transport, as the film is significantly lighter than the plastic lids. It may also have allowed more punnets to the transported in a single lorry.

However, the new film isn't recyclable, which the old lids were. Straight to landfill or incineration as there aren't any other options. If most of the people who bought the strawberries were recycling the lids, then the 333 tonne saving may have little overall effect.

It demonstrates how being 'green' is not easy, as the different challenges and principles are in a dynamic tension. There's no easy way to address everything at once, and it's so easy to accuse people of greenwash when they genuinely think they're trying to achieve something.

The Adjustment Bureau

Jill and I just managed to watch the DVD of The Adjustment Bureau, which is an adaptation of a Philip K Dick short story, The Adjustment Squad. Actually getting the time to watch it was no mean feat in itself, as we have a ninety minute window between the boys all falling asleep and Aidan waking up wanting a milk top-up. We ended up watching in two sittings over consecutive nights, but it didn't ruin the effect.

It's a romantic SF thriller which revolves around free will. The two protagonists, a politician (Matt Damon) and a Dancer (Emily Blunt) seem to be made for each other, but a shadowy organisation called The Adjustment Bureau is trying to make sure they are kept apart because it will upset their plan. Although that should probably be Plan with a capital P.

It's a quiet, thoughtful movie with doses of the sinister and action and good chemistry between the leads. We enjoyed it and I will watch it again. Four out of Five.